1. CHAPTER I.
Of the serious in writing, and for what purpose it is introduced
Peradventure there may be no parts in this prodigious work which
will give the reader less pleasure in the perusing, than those which
have given the author the greatest pains in composing. Among these
probably may be reckoned those initial essays which we have prefixed
to the historical matter contained in every book; and which we have
determined to be essentially necessary to this kind of writing, of
which we have set ourselves at the head.
For this our determination we do not hold ourselves strictly bound
to assign any reason; it, being abundantly sufficient that we have
laid it down as a rule necessary to be observed in all
prosai-comi-epic writing. Who ever demanded the reasons of that nice
unity of time or place which is now established to be so essential
to dramatic poetry? What critic hath been ever asked, why a play may
not contain two days as well as one? Or why the audience (provided
they travel, like electors, without any expense) may not be wafted
fifty miles as well as five? Hath any commentator well accounted for
the limitation which an antient critic hath set to the drama, which he
will have contain neither more nor less than five acts? Or hath any
one living attempted to explain what the modern judges of our theatres
mean by that word low; by which they have happily succeeded in
banishing all humour from the stage, and have made the theatre as dull
as a drawing-room! Upon all these occasions the world seems to have
embraced a maxim of our law, viz. cuicunque in arte sua perito
credendum est: for it seems perhaps difficult to conceive that any
one should have had enough of impudence to lay down dogmatical rules
in any art or science without the least foundation. In such cases,
therefore, we are apt to conclude there are sound and good reasons
at the bottom, though we are unfortunately not able to see so far.
Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to
critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than
they really are. From this complacence, the critics have been
emboldened to assume a dictatorial power, and have so far succeeded,
that they are now become the masters, and have the assurance to give
laws to those authors from whose predecessors they originally received
them.
The critic, rightly considered, is no more than the clerk, whose
office it is to transcribe the rules and laws laid down by those great
judges whose vast strength of genius hath placed them in the light
of legislators, in the several sciences over which they presided. This
office was all which the critics of old aspired to; nor did they
ever dare to advance a sentence, without supporting it by the
authority of the judge from whence it was borrowed.
But in process of time, and in ages of ignorance, the clerk began to
invade the power and assume the dignity of his master. The laws of
writing were no longer founded on the practice of the author, but on
the dictates of the critic. The clerk became the legislator, and those
very peremptorily gave laws whose business it was, at first, only to
transcribe them.
Hence arose an obvious, and perhaps an unavoidable error; for
these critics being men of shallow capacities, very easily mistook
mere form for substance. They acted as a judge would, who should
adhere to the lifeless letter of law, and reject the spirit. Little
circumstances, which were perhaps accidental in a great author, were
by these critics considered to constitute his chief merit, and
transmitted as essentials to be observed by his successors. To these
encroachments, time and ignorance, the two great supporters of
imposture, gave authority; and thus many rules for good writing have
been established, which have not the least foundation in truth or
nature; and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb and
restrain genius, in the same manner as it would have restrained the
dancing-master, had the many excellent treatises on that art laid it
down as an essential rule that every man must dance in chains.
To avoid, therefore, all imputation of laying down a rule for
posterity, founded only on the authority of ipse dixit- for which,
to say the truth, we have not the profoundest veneration- we shall
here waive the privilege above contended for, and proceed to lay
before the reader the reasons which have induced us to intersperse
these several digressive essays in the course of this work.
And here we shall of necessity be led to open a new vein of
knowledge, which if it hath been discovered, hath not, to our
remembrance, been wrought on by any antient or modern writer. This
vein is no other than that of contrast, which runs through all the
works of the creation, and may probably have a large share in
constituting in us the idea of all beauty, as well natural as
artificial: for what demonstrates the beauty and excellence of
anything but its reverse? Thus the beauty of day, and that of
summer, is set off by the horrors of night and winter. And, I believe,
if it was possible for a man to have seen only the two former, he
would have a very imperfect idea of their beauty.
But to avoid too serious an air; can it be doubted, but that the
finest woman in the world would lose all benefit of her charms in
the eye of a man who had never seen one of another cast? The ladies
themselves seem so sensible of this, that they are all industrious
to procure foils: nay, they will become foils to themselves; for I
have observed (at Bath particularly) that they endeavour to appear
as ugly as possible in the morning, in order to set off that beauty
which they intend to show you in the evening.
Most artists have this secret in practice, though some, perhaps,
have not much studied the theory. The jeweller knows that the finest
brilliant requires a foil; and the painter, by the contrast of his
figures, often acquires great applause.
A great genius among us will illustrate this matter fully. I cannot,
indeed, range him under any general head of common artists, as he hath
a title to be placed among those
Inventas qui vitam excoluere per artes.
Who by invented arts have life improved.
I mean here the inventor of that most exquisite entertainment,
called the English Pantomime.
This entertainment consisted of two parts, which the inventor
distinguished by the names of the serious and the comic. The serious
exhibited a certain number of heathen gods and heroes, who were
certainly the worst and dullest company into which an audience was
ever introduced; and (which was a secret known to few) were actually
intended so to be, in order to contrast the comic part of the
entertainment, and to display the tricks of harlequin to the better
advantage.
This was, perhaps, no very civil use of such personages: but the
contrivance was, nevertheless, ingenious enough, and had its effect.
And this will now plainly appear, if, instead of serious and comic, we
supply the words duller and dullest; for the comic was certainly
duller than anything before shown on the stage, and could be set off
only by that superlative degree of dulness which composed the serious.
So intolerably serious, indeed, were these gods and heroes, that
harlequin (though the English gentleman of that name is not at all
related to the French family, for he is of a much more serious
disposition) was always welcome on the stage, as he relieved the
audience from worse company.
Judicious writers have always practised this art of contrast with
great success. I have been surprized that Horace should cavil at
this art in Homer; but indeed he contradicts himself in the very
next line:
Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus;
Verum opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum.
I grieve if e'er great Homer chance to sleep,
Yet slumbers on long works have right to creep.
For we are not here to understand, as perhaps some have, that an
author actually falls asleep while he is writing. It is true, that
readers are too apt to be so overtaken; but if the work was as long as
any of Oldmixon, the author himself is too well entertained to be
subject to the least drowsiness. He is, as Mr. Pope observes,
Sleepless himself to give his readers sleep.
To say the truth, these soporific parts are so many scenes of
serious artfully interwoven, in order to contrast and set off the
rest; and this is the true meaning of a late facetious writer, who
told the public that whenever he was dull they might be assured
there was a design in it.
In this light, then, or rather in this darkness, I would have the
reader to consider these initial essays. And after this warning, if he
shall be of opinion that he can find enough of serious in other
parts of this history, he may pass over these, in which we profess
to be laboriously dull, and begin the following books at the second
chapter.