Print Controversy Chiefly Regarding the Ode

David Garrick had no shortage of enemies. The sheer excess of the following anonymous repudiation of Garrick’s Ode gives some sense of the vitriol. The attack concludes be reprinting a host of negative accounts of the Jubilee in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Anti-Midas: A Jubilee Preservative from Unclassical, Ignorant, False, and Invidious Criticism. (London, 1769).

“Pastores heredâ crescentem ornate petam
Arcades, invidiâ rumpantur ut ilia Codro. Virgil.”

“Imitated,
Candour must crown this true poetic page,
Tho’ each dull envious critic burst with rage.”

London: Printed in the Year MDCCLXIX

Anti-Midas

Strange, yet true it is, that from the infirmity of human nature, or rather the contemptible malignancy of some disappointed and splenetic individuals, no undertaking, however laudable in the intent, and happy in the execution, can escape from being leveled at by the gall-freighted shafts of Envy; which, however, are frequently made to recoil with public infamy on the heads of all such invidious, dark-dealing, and malevolent dischargers.

No literary culprits have at any period of time more eminently deserved to undergo condign punishment, than certain late asthmatic and intermittent nibblers at Mr. Garrick’s Ode, and its admirers, in some of our morning-papers; which to point out, the dictates of Humanity forbid; in hopes that they will amend their conduct for the future, feel a thorough compunction for their impotently-mischievous design, and learn henceforwards, with a becoming humility, to

“Revere superior sense, and doubt their own.”

Their style is so illiberal, that I shall not pollute my text by making any quotations from such a series of Billingsgate penmanship. The uncomplimentary terms of Blockhead, Dunce, Ass, &c. I shall leave where I found them, as the undoubted and unalienable property of such writers.

The reason, why in the foregoing paragraph, to these things of the quill are applied the epithets asthmatic and intermittent, arises from the their not having had breath sufficient to go through with their dirty expedition in one continued attempt; but were under a necessity of resuming it, at certain intervals, when they had recruited spirits: or rather, at the return of their calumniating fits. Four several entrances did one would-be-deemed classical man (if we may take his own word for it) make on the stage of pseudo-criticism, and shamefully disappeared at last without completing his task. He has now, indeed, an ample opportunity of receiving comfort from Horace’s words:

“Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo.”

“‘The public hisses me—’ but what of that, when one has been long used to it—‘I civilly applaud myself, and thence feel sufficient happiness.’”

Now to this chieftain, as well as to other transitory and minor assailants, in squibbing paragraphs, short news-paper letters, &c. I reply, dubbing them collectively with the most notorious denomination of Midas;

“Which title has a meaning; and, no doubt,
They all have sense enough to find it out.”

In the following manner, and one, most probably, new to them, do I mean to proceed—1°. I shall specify and ascertain to what class of ode-writing this lyric performance belongs. 2°. Of the place chosen for the votive solemnity; 3°. Of the person who is the grateful tribute-payer.

These necessary articles being premised, I mean to defend the Ode wherever attacked; yet neither with peremptory petulance, nor unwarranted assertion; but by dint of candid argument and classical authority. Let us now turn our attention to the discussion proposed.

There are four classes of Ode-writing: 1°. The sacred; 2°. The heroic; 3°. The moral, or philosophic; 4°. The anacreontic, implying all joyous, convivial, amours subjects, &c.

The first class is for singing the praise of the only God, in the Christian meaning; and of the deities of the first rank, in the Pagan system.

The second class is for celebrating the merit of demi-gods, heros, legislators, princes, poets, and the foremost in all those arts that tend to civilize and polish the human kind: such was Orpheus among musicians, and Musæus among the poets. For our classical authority, Midas is referred to Virgil’s Æneid, Book VI from verse 638 to 678, where celebrated musicians, poets, heroes, &c. enjoy an undistinguished state of happiness—and the Sybil accompanying Æneas, in quest of his father Anchises, addresses herself for information, through a respectful preference, to the poet Musæus, an object of universal admiration there; and of whom Virgil says,

“Atque huic responsum paucis ita reddidit heros.”

“And thus the hero briefly answer’d to her question—”

Proof sufficient for great poets ranking as heros; as heros frequently ranked as demi-gods, because their actions were above those of common mortals; owing either to a mixed generation of a deity with a mortal, or to the supposed immediate inspiration of superior beings to the chosen among mankind.

This poem of Mr. Garrick being proved to come within the definition of Heroic Odes,—my next transition is to consider the propriety of the composition, as derivable from the object, the place, and the poetic speaker.

The object is the greatest Dramatic Genius perhaps ever appeared, and therefore worthy of every honour that can be paid to his memory.
No place could surely be so fitting for the institution of a commemorative Jubilee as that which can boast the honour of having cradled Shakespeare’s infancy, his native Stratford upon Avon.
What person could Gratitude so powerfully call upon and instigate to pay such a tribute to the immortal bard, as that matchless performer, who has done the most energetic justice to his greatest characters, and thereby established his own fame and fortune?

We are now able to suppose ourselves at Stratford, that we behold Mr. Garrick, arising from his seat, and looking respectfully around at the spending assembly met on that occasion.

From all the above-mentioned concurring circumstances, could the Ode be more happily begun.

“To what blest genius of the isle
Shall Gratitude her tribute pay,
Degree the festive day,
Erect the statue, and devote the pile?”

The isle, England by preference to all others, this wou’d be flat: besides, to every lover of Horace, it calls to mind the beginning of a celebrated Ode, which makes triumphantly against the purblind and floundering Midas.

“Quem virum, aut heroa, lyrâ, vel acri
Tibiâ sumes celebrare Clio
Quem Deum?”

“Say, Clio, to what illustrious personage, to what hero, or deity, will you inspire me with a festive lay to be accompanied on the lyre or the flute?
Do not your sympathetic hearts accord
To own the ‘bosom’s lord?”

“Who claims that title? The greatest sovereign of the human passions.
’Tis he! ’tis he!—that demi-god—
(His demi-godship is undeniable in the classical sense.)”
“Who Avon’s flow’ry margin trod;
While sportive Fancy round him flew,
Where Nature led him by the hand,
Instructed him in all she knew,
And gave him absolute command.”

All the imagery here is just, elegant, and truly lyric; can be hesitated against by none, by people on very slow and dull intellects; while all truly ingenious minds acknowledge the absolute command given to him by Nature; the irradiating power of Fancy superadding at the same time new beauties to all her works; which no eyes were so intuitively keen in discovering, and no pencil so exquisite in painting, as Shakespeare’s: wherefore what breast so phlegmatic as to dissent from,

“’Tis he! ’tis he!
The god of our idolatry!”

Besides Pindar and Horace frequently make a rapturous transfiguration of distinguished Mortals, and laudably triumphant, into Deities.—The former compares the conquerors at the Olympic games to the very gods—and the latter sings, in his first ode, to the same purpose:

“Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
Collegrisse juvat, metaque servidis
Evitata rotis, palmaque nobilis
Terrarum Dominos evehit ad Deos.”

Which verses literally mean,

“There are, who with their chariots’ speedy flight,
To raise olympic dust take chief delight;
To whom, when with chaf’d wheels the goals declin’d,
For conquest’s meed, the rank of God’s assign’d.”

Is there not at least as much deification-virtue in applauding England for superiortalents of the mind, as in applauding Greece for meer postilion-excellence?—The disparity is striking!

The Poetical Godship of Shakespeare being thus established, it must be that of our idolatry, in preference to the aspiring pretensions of every other bard however eminent, and therefore

“To him the song, the edifice, we raise.—”

Why, snarlingly asks Midas?—Candour replies,—because

“He merits all our wonder, all our praise.”

And lest, in consequence of such well-founding enthusiasm, his auditors should break out into instantaneous and irregular emotions of rapture, the poet judiciously admonishes a silence; favete linguis.

“Yet ere impatient joy break forth, &c.”

The check here has a very fine effect, inasmuch as suspensions of this nature, properly introduced, may, without straining matters, be looked upon as the shading of harmony. In the subsequent poetic numbers for several lines Midas can find nothing to look of with an evil eye, till he come to

“And Fame expanding all her wings—“

Here he chuckling queries how many wings hath she?—Why two, at least, and more if he please to grant them. However, his date of triumph here is short.—An intensity of feeling, on many occurrences, makes the human mind earnestly desire for an encrease of organs, or a multiplying of faculties, for the more quick dispatch of that which it wishes to be speedily done; and hence arose the well known, approved of, and classically Latin expressions from one to another, omnibus currito pedibus, run with all your feet; omnibus minibus huic opera te accingito, work with all your hands.

So much for prose; now let us betake ourselves to poetic and painting authorities.

1°. To Virgil’s description of Fame, where the Ubiquity of this monstrous composition is made to result from a multiplicity of ears, eyes, tongues, wings, and legs, some particularized, others to be understood; for can we suppose that Virgil, who gives Mercury, in the same fourth book of his Æneid, four wings, &c. who acts but as an occasional cabinet messenger to Jupiter, would confine the incessantly and rapidly exploring universality of Fame to two wings?—The

“Cui quot corpore pluma
Tot vigils Oculi subter”

Strictly means a watchful eye under every feather; yet is understood by others under ever Wing, which when expanded leaves it free to see; and hath given rise to a perplexing debate among the real liberati, and too prolix for us to enter upon here.

2°. The learned and eminent painter Albert Durer gives more wings than two to his fame.

3°. But there is yet an unexpected and stinging evidence to be brought against Midas, from that very poet, Pope, whom he makes as it were the invoked deity to preside over his criticism; but from what part of his works, gentle reader, do you imagine? Why, from his Temple of Fame, verse 266.—unlucky sure—

“Such was her form, as antient bards have told:
Wings raise her arms, and wings her feet infold.”

It is by no means foreign from the present replication, to cite two passages from the last paragraph but one in the fourth letter of The centaur not fabulous, the one strongly apologetic for Mr. Garrick, “If there is a God, all our affections are too feeble, all the Wings of our soul are too few, to be put forth in pursuit of his favour.”—And the other allusively apposite to the Midas-fraternity, “How great a part of the scripture will these men’s kind of criticism explode? Poor David must be forced to break up his harp lest it give them offence.”

After the grand chorus

“Swell the choral song, &c.”

The author changes to a milder key, in that soothing air

“Sweetest bard that ever sung;”

Which to all persons of sensibility, taste, and delicacy, is unexceptional; yet Midas boggles at

“Come each Muse, and sister Grace.”

There is a classical sisterhood established among the Muses, Graces, Nymphs, &c.—What ridiculous cavilling? What idle word-caping?—

“Tho’ Philip’s fam’d all-conquering son, &c.”

The contrasted comparison of Alexander to Shakespeare is masterly; it militates for Humanity, before whose candid tribunal the preference would be certainly adjudged to the poet. Midas makes very sad work of, and miserably attacks

“He fir’d his wonder-teeming mind,
Rais’d other worlds, and beings of his own!”

It may from his words be concluded, that the more than Lapland frigidity of his dwarfed understanding has never felt the thawing influence of any such operation. But a true genius doe FIRE his wonder-teeming mind, as he kindles it up to all the glowing ardour of his subject. Most certainly Shakespeare

“Raised other worlds, and beings of his own”

In the fairy system, &c.—Notwithstanding the prior scenic exhibitions of Thespis, yet Sophocles, by his improvements, additions, and heightenings, can, with the strictest propriety, be asserted to have, in the dramatic sense,

“Rais’d other worlds, and beings of his own.”

And a like application may be made to the eminent reformers in all arts.

Midas squints, in a very absurd manner, at

“The frenzy-rolling eye;”

for let him look at it in what light he may, it is both grammatical and poetical; but his alteration to Frenzy-rolled eye is neither.—

“O, from his muse of fire”,

and all that follows, is in the true spirit of Ode-writing; however, Midas wants to stick his nail in it.

“The subject passions round him wait;
Who, tho’ unchain’d and raging there,
He checks.”

It should be whom, according to him—Perhaps, in dull strictness of grammar; but, according to the poetically-allowed licence of suppression, and especially in lyric poems, not: for what reader so dull of apprehension, as not to immediately supply his mind.

“Who tho’ (they are) unchain’d and raging there—“

Yet, as Mr. Garrick reads whom, it is to be looked upon but as a slip of the press.

Another attack is made towards the bottom of the said page, and alike unhappy;

“So realiz’d are all his golden dreams—“

where an abortion of waggery is attempted on the epithet golden, which means perfect, charming, exquisite, all-beautiful, enchanting, &c. as shall be proved from three different Horatian authorities; the one of gallantry, to the famous courtezan Pyrrha, Ode V. Book i.

“Qui nunc te fruitur credulous aureâ.”

He who now too credulous enjoys thee (not literally golden, but) enchanting as thou art.—

Another of Morality, in the second Ode of the fourth book:

“—& vires amimumque moresque
Aureos educit in astra, nigroque
Invidet Orco;”

alluding to a deceased worthy’s personal bravery, mental fortitude, and such excellent, such irreproachable morals, as merited the skies, and which Hell must repair of possessing.—The third of instrumental excellence, in the next Ode of the said Book.

“O Testudinis aureæ
Dulcem que strepitum Pieri temporas.”

O kind muse, thou attunes the well-according notes of my exquisite lyre.—

Gold being the most perfect of metals, the epithet golden was applied to the most perfect age of man.

But it is over what follows that Midas thinks he has a complete victory; yet never was child of Error more mistaken:

“Ingratitude would drop the tear,
Cold-blooded age take fire,
To see the thankless children of old Lear
Spurn at their king and fire.”

The critic pertly says, “Not it, indeed;” forgetting that extraordinary instances of any particular vices countenance such expressions; as when a person has been guilty of a most meanly covetous act, is it improper to say, “Even Avarice itself would be ashamed of such sordid niggardliness?” And a still more striking inference is ought not even Dulness herself to be ashamed of such ridiculous remarks as those of Midas?

“With his, our reason too grows wild;
What Nature had disjoin’d
The poet’s pow’r combin’d,
Madness and Age, Ingratitude and Child.”

More shame for Nature, cries the word-catching antagonist. Smartly said! But many folks are apt to make false assertions, relative to persons or things they are totally unacquainted with; as, by his thinking, writing, and perhaps speaking too, this critic seems to be with Nature. Madness seldom happens to aged people, except from some very uncommon and heart-rending disaster; they having long passed over the time of being agitated with those tumultuous passions, such as love deceived, ambition foiled, &c. that occasion madness in those of younger years, and even to the mid period of human life: but that effect can be caused in old age by nothing more immediately than Ingratitude and Child, which Nature, in her general plan, meant should be disjoined; and the association of them is a monstrous exception, which the poet’s power has combined, to inspire us with a just horror for such execrable enormities against filial duty, as well as the tenderest commiseration for so injured a parent.—

What immediately follows the above quotation,

“Ye guilty lawless tribe, &c.
When our magician, more inspir’d &c.”

Midas finding unassailable, passes by unnoticed; but even in this stanza, some of his brethren, have objected to

“The thunder growls;”

that exactly renders the Latin expression

“Tonitru obmurmurat,”

and the French,

“Le tonnerre gronde.”

The storm of Fancy is now gone by, to make room for the sunshine of the poet’s mind:

“But soon these horrors pass away,
Thro’ storms and night breaks forth the day:
He smiles,—they vanish into air!
The buskin’d warriors disappear!
Mute the trumpets, mute the drums,
The scene is chang’d—Thalia comes,
Leading the nymph Euphrosyne,
Goddess of joy and liberty!
She and her sisters, hand in hand,
Link’d to a num’rous frolic band,
With roles and with myrtles crown’d,
O’er the green velvet lightly bound,
Circling the monarch of th’inchanted land!”

Midas inveighs against Euphrosyne being called a nymph and a goddess, as words no way synonymous, and therefore incompatible. Here, for a number of evidences I could quote to maintain the affirmative, I shall confine myself to a few. The first testimony is that of Æneas; who, as the son of a hero and a goddess, must doubtless have been well acquainted with the court-etiquette of Heaven in his time. He thus accosts his mother Venus in the first book of the Æneid, Vers 327:

“O, (quam te memorem?) Virgo, namque haud tibi vultus
Mortalis, nee vox hominen sonat, O Dea certe
An Phæbi soror, an Nympharum sanguinis una.”

“O Virgin, what shall I call thee, since both thy looks and speech denote thee to be more than mortal: a goddess! Say, art thou a sister of Phœbus, or one of the nymphs?”

Another proof is in the celebrated comparison of the said book, Verse 498:

“Qualis in Eurota ripis, aut per juga Cynthi
Exercet Diana choros, quam mille secutæ
Hine atque hine glomeantur Oreades; illa pharetram
Fert humero, gradiensque Deas super eminct omnes.”

“Thus on the bands of Eurotas, or on Cynthus pleasing summit, Diana exercises her fav’rite train, consisting of a thousand Mountain-nymphs; she carries a quiver on her shoulder, and as she moves, o’ertops all the attending Goddesses by whom she is environed.”

A third proof from Horace, in the forth Ode of the first book, will, I believe, suffice for the present,

“Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente Lunâ
Junctæque Nymphis Gratiæ decentes
Altero terram quatiunt pede.”

“Now to the Moon’s mild lustre Cytherean Venus, with the Nymphs and Graces, form a joyful dance.”

All as lady peeresses in goddess-ship, without any distinction or præeminence.—To Hebe is frequently applied either the title of Nymph or Goddess; as also to Egeria, who was said to instruct Numa; and so on to others, ad infinitum.

The three Graces, according to mythological report, were the daughters of Bacchus and Venus, namely Aglae, Euphrosyne, and Thalia.—Their business was to preside over all acts of Beneficence and Gratitude, over Learning and Eloquence, over pleasing Deportment, over a Gaity of Disposition, a winning address, and every other qualification that render the members of civilized society mutually agreeable. Here then Thalia, not the Grace, but the Comic Muse, it is that leads the Nymph or Goddess Euphrosyne, the inspiring Grace of joy and liberty in all ingenious assemblies and productions (political liberty is by no means alluded to) she then, and her sister Graces Aglae and Thalia,

“hand in hand,
Link’d to a num’rous frolic band,
With roses and with myrtle crown’d,
O’er the green velvet lightly bound,
Circling the monarch of th’inchanted land!”

Dramatic Genius enthroned in the mind of Shakespeare!

It is very obliging of Midas, however to inform us that the air following,

“Wild, frantic with pleasure, &c.”

Is an imitation of Dryden; to which I add, a judicious and an elegant one; as it affords at the same time an admirable occasion of shewing how much rapid measures (a most difficult task) are to be spoken.—Can Midas do it as well as Mr. Garrick? But perhaps his modesty will not permit him to answer in the positive!

From—“With kindling cheeks and sparkling eyes,
to—“A comic world in one,”
the whole is written in a true Horatian vein, and what Augustus Cæsar would have read with pleasure from the pen of his favourite lyric bard.

“The little Loves, like bees,
Clustring, and climbing up his knees,
His brows with roses bind.”

All bee-like appearances hovering about or lighting upon individuals, in the antient classical meaning, were hooked upon as declaratory of the person so visited having been endowed by the heavenly powers with most extraordinary talents, and are authenticated by such incidents befalling Plato, the most gracefully eloquent of Philosophers, and Pindar, the most sublime of Lyric poets.

Horace, in a modest allusion to this tradition, feared it would be too presumptuous in him to employ the intervening poetical machinery of Bees in his behalf; and therefore says, in Ode IV of the third book,

“Me fabulosæ vulture in Apulo,
Altricis extra limen Apuliæ,
Ludo, fatigatumque somno,
Frone novâ puerum palumbes
Textêre.”

“When in my younger days I strayed to the famed mount Vultur, that borders our Apulia, and there, being tired with play, I fell asleep, Venus’ turtle-doves (emblematic of little loves) covered me with a verdant foliage.—“

Mr. Garrick, in his image, unites the Pindarico-Platonic Bees with the Horatian Doves, ingeniously implying the ever-youthful and immortal vigour of Shakespeare’s genius.—To corroborate this opinion, in the fragment of a poetical account of Virgil’s life, published at Rome by the learned and ingenious Phocas, a grammarian of distinguished name, we read,

“Præterea si vera fides? sed vera probatur.
Lata cohors Apium subito per rura, jacentis
Labra favis texit, dulces fusura loquelas.”

“A not improbable report prevailed, that a swarm of bees from the neigb’ring meads pour’d their treasur’d sweets upon his lips, a certain presage of the melodious numbers that were thence in future times to flow.”

To those cold uninspired beings, who have never been lapt in the Elysium of poetic transport, it were needless to attempt unfolding the many and still heightening beauties of this stanza, and superfluous to Apollo’s truly adopted votaries.

Midas and his adherents have made a strange pother about

“And the world too is wicked and round.”

In Falstaff’s time it is to be supposed that he was called by all railers at him, among other reproachful epithets, the wicked, the round knight; and that he might answer, “Well, a plague on’t, be it so; I am not worse than the world, which is both wicked and round—round by its form, and wicked by me its contents.”

In Falstaff’s time the form of our terraqueous world being round was the received opinion, tho’ not so now, the oblate spheroidic being established; wherefore, on that account, jointly with such dull criticisms as those of Midas, might not in a laughable strain be hazarded,

“The world is now spheroidic and dull?—”

The best comment on that part of the ode ralating to Falstaff, is to hear Mr. Garrick’s manner of speaking it; and they who unhappily are so ungifted by nature, as not to relish, but not to be highly transported therewith, let them renounce all pretensions to taste, or true comic humour, and betake themselves forthwith to gloomy studies, or drudging professions; for the laughing Graces will not hear of them.—It is surprizing how in a few lines he displays the whole spirit of so singular a character.

From this tempest of jollity, there is a calmly subsiding and agreeable transition thro’ the rainbow’s melting and evanescent colours, to this elegant apostrophe.

“Sweet swan of Avon, ever may thy stream.”

At all which Midas dares not venture to strike; but makes his conclusive and indeed as ineffectual a blow at the following stanza, as was that of feeble Priam’s arrow on the repelling buckler of Pyrrus,

“—Teylumque imbelle sine ictu
Conjecit. Virg.”

“O had those Bards who charm the list’ning shore
Of Cam and Isis tun’d their classic lays, &c.”

Here is the cause of Midas’ anger.—Did Mr. Garrick publish an advertisement, inviting all men of genius to write an Ode on the occasion?—No; it had been absurd if he had: because, in all likelihood, productive of much discontent, in the point of preference.—Aye, but Midas would have written one, and spoken it too! notwithstanding an expuitious, desultory, harsh, discordant, stridulous, and creaking laceration of words, abominated by all ears of delicacy; for having, with more than barbarian utterance, assassinated Dryden’s ode—What volumes of criticism have been written against it:—but the ode triumphs, and the censures are forgotten.

It would be idle to enter into any farther defensive detail of Mr. Garrick’s Poem, for the remainder; since from the admired and discouraging air of

“Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream, &c.”

defeated malice was obliged to retreat.—Who forc’d it to begin?—The short allusions, as marked by the notes at the bottom of page 12 and 15, arising naturally from the subject, are warranted by Horatian and Pindaric precedents.—

Must not the scorn of every candid observer be excited by a conduct so unfair and sinister as this critic’s persevering in obstinate silence, concerning the chief intention of the author, which was to shew the superior energy of the human speech, when proceeding from a happy organization, whether in the invoking, the insinuating, the tender, the terrible, the pathetic, and other styles, accompanied with action so just, eyes so marking, and features so emphatic.

Mr. Garrick has now given an instance of its being able to make even good musick, vocal as well as instrumental, appear flat in comparison therewith, and justify the amazing accounts of its effects transmitted to us from the antients: wherefore the best school now of elocution is to hear him frequently speak his ode, and which to be pleased with is already to have made some progress; for, agreeable to the sense, with strictest propriety, may be applied the words of Quintilian and Boileau:

“Is se multum profecisse sciat, cui—valdè placebit.
C’est avoir profité que de sçavoir s’y plaire.”

This new epoch in the dramatic world is triumphantly honoured with the publick’s universal suffrage; and hence, as is said by himself of Shakespeare, we emulously declare,

“He merits all our wonder, all our praise.”

So much for the Ode:—And now a few words about the Jubilee and Pageant, will put a period to the task I have undertaken.

The two principal objects to be shewn, were, 1° The intended Procession from the town-house of Stratford to the booth; and, 2° The Ceremony of Crowning Shakespeare, grouped around by the deities of Poetry, Musick, &c. as well as with the pleasing variety of his own celebrated characters.—But the business of the stage required a proper introductory matter for the former, as well as a necessarily interlusive action, to afford the required preparation-time for the latter.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the merit of the Prologue now, the public feels it. The former article glanced at is very well made out by the morning-anxiety of the two old women, raised to the highest pitch by that excellent comic actor Mr. King’s affrighted Naiveté at the guns being fired, which sets these droll conjectures a scampering. The masque Serenade scene has a good effect; and we should lose sight of it with regret, if from the window of the post-chaise genuine and unaffected humour did not bolt out on us in the look, accents, and gesture of Mr. Moody. No part could be better imagined for such a situation, nor in my opinion, better acted. In short Capt. O Shoulder is the well contrived fiddle of the dialogue part, during the well planned hurry and bustle, till he is in good time sent to sleep, and let the Procession pass by unseen.

The mulberry song and chorus are applauded by all ranks.

This multitudinous moving picture is of excellent design and execution. The several constituent parts are judiciously diversified, and all marshaled to the nicest discipline. Nor is there any possibility for frequenters of the theatre to doubt the respective plays these processionary characters belong to; since, by a well-marked dumb shew, they allude to some capital scene in each.—The ring of bells is far from displeasing.

The dialogue and singing of the two country girls, the one all affectation, and the other all simplicity, in relation to the procession, figures in here very apropos; as the Irish aukward gentleman’s coming on to them, &c. to give a sufficient time for preparing the last scene, which is perhaps the most rational grand spectacle ever exhibited.—Other exhibitions indeed may provoke a more instantaneous and extensive stare; but being unsupported by any interest business, soon pall upon the eye.

To a British audience what can be more interesting than to see, with all the aid of painting, by excellent artists, each in his department, with music composed by our first acknowledged master, with the attendant graces of minstrelsy, dancing, and singing, as well as with the picturesque variety of celestial and earthly beings, all critically connected with the subject; to see, I say, so just an homage paid to the first dramatic poet, by his best interpreter, the long favourite actor, and foremost ornament of the British stage, his features expressive of the filial veneration glowing in his bosom.

The End.

Appendix. By the Publisher.

Atho’ the author of the foregoing pamphlet did not chuse to mention the news-paper in which are contained the four invective batteries against Mr. Garrick’s Ode, I have been advised, for the farther entertainment of the publick, to add them here; that so no room may be left for the usual subterfuge of pleading false inference, or misrepresentation of the writer’s meaning; and therefore shall only hint the considerable time taken up before their appearing.

The Ode was published on Thursday the 7th of September. Where must we imagine Midas to be till the 30th of October? Why behold were

“With pallid cheeks, and haggard eyes,
Closely embrac’d in Envy’s arms he lies.
No little Loves, like bees,
Clust’ring and climbing up his knees,
His brows with roses bind:
From him Wit, Fancy, Humour fled,
Owls spred their wings around his head,
Impregnating his mind,
Which, teeming long, at length brought forth
A four-fold spurious birth:
But out no mountain came,
No mountain of delight.
Learning roar’d to see the sight—
Longinus too his name!!!
With pen and ink why puffing stride?
His witling revel-rout
Applaud him with a shout;
But modest Nature turns aside.”

This proceeding may be looked upon as the literary gibbering of an abusive coxcomical, and impudent scribler, to deter all such from maliciously and impudently attacking subjects, the nature and art of which they are so grossly unacquainted with.—Be it known to the Midas-crew, that Mr. Garrick was born in Hereford, and that the calling him a Staffordshire Wag is a topographical error; but in what article or charge is this idle many-headed monster right!

The Public Ledger. Monday, Oct. 30, 1769.

My indignation is at length raised to such a pitch, at the highest insult I have ever known offered to the public taste, that I can contain it no longer. What! does he still persevere in this wretched exhibition of his consummate vanity, and gross ignorance, and will no one expose him to the deluded multitude? What? shall a man, after having reached the pinnacle of Fame in his own profession, step out of his way to demand the admiration of the world in another sphere, for which he is neither fitted by Nature or Art, and shall Satire and Ridicule neglect their office of exposing the absurd creature? O Pope! wert thou now alive, what a glorious alteration might’st thou make in thy Dunciad! What an oportunity would’st thou have of making full atonement for the injustice thou did’st to Cibber, in transferring the crown of dulness from Theobald to him, by placing it on the brows of one, who had proved an indisputable right to it by his Ode on Shakespear. To have written such an ode, which in so small a compass, contains almost every thing that is false in writing, and more than can be collected out of whole volumes of our worst poets, would alone have entitled him to the regal ornament; but, to repeat this Ode often in the face of the world, to repeat it with that enthusiastic delight, which shews him enraptured with his own wretched composition, is what the unblushing front of Cibber himself would not have ventured, and was reserved for this rightful Monarch of Duncenia. His title to the throne has been already proved by the stupid admiration seen in the faces, and the thundering applauses heard from the hands, of many thousand natives of that country, and there only wants, to confirm him in it, some laughs and groans from the enemies to Duncia, which it is to be hoped the following exposition of his Ode will procure for him, whenever an abatement of his cold will permit him to exhibit himself once more, in all his glory to his new subjects.—But now to the Ode.—

“To what blest Genius of the Isle—”

The poets have assigned a guardian genius to each country; thus, in the old song beginning

“—Genius of England!”

but, there is but one Genius of the Isle. As this word is employed here in another sense, viz. men of genius, had he known English, he would have writ.

“To what blest Genius of this Isle.
’Tis he; ’tis he! that Demi-God—”

Had the author been a little more conversant with the Pagan Mythology, he would have known that the title a Demi-God was never conferred but on heroes. This is the first time it was ever applied to a poet. But, he seems to think, that even the rank of a Half-God was far too low for Shakespeare; and therefore, in a few lines after, he makes him a whole god—

“’Tis he! ’tis he!
The God of our Idolatry!”

Well said Christian! But it is no wonder that he should endeavour to make a God of Shakespear, since he has usurped the office of his high-priest; and has already gained money enough by it, to make a golden calf, to be an object of that idolatry which he recommends. In this, as in several other instances throughout the Ode, he thinks it sufficient that it is a line of Shakespear’s, to justify his lugging it in, without regard to propriety, as absurd Divines do texts of Scripture. This extravagant expression, which is pardonable from the mouth of a young girl distracted with love, and applied to her lover, he uses as his own serious sentiment, and that all of the good people of this realm, with regard to Shakespear.

“Yet ere impatient joy breaks forth
In sounds that lift the soul from earth.”

Admirable rhime! I am afraid it will not do, even with his own provincial pronunciation of the latter word, which he calls Urth.

“And Fame expanding all her wings—“

Where got she them? I never heard of more than two in the description her by any poet, or in her figure by any painter. Oh! But she had a hundred tongues, and who not as many wings? Without supposing this, he could not have introduced the beautiful repetition of the word all in the two successive lines,

“And Fame expanding all her wings,
With all her trumpet-tongues, &c.
Prepare, prepare, prepare—”

and where do you think we are to find rhyme to this? Why seven lines lower,

“Shakespear! Shakespear! Shakespear!”

He was indeed in the right to place it at a good distance, in hopes that people might not easily find out, that any rhyme was intended.

“Come each Muse and Sister Grace,
Tho’ Phillip’s fam’d unconquer’d won,
He sigh’d that his creative word,
(Like that which rules the skies)
Cou’d not bid other Nations rise
To glut his yet unsated sword:
But when our Shakespear’s matchless pen
Like Alexander’s sword had done with men,
He heav’d no sigh, he made no moan,
Nor limited to human kind,
He fired his wonder-teeming mind,
Rais’d other worlds and beings of his own.”

I sure heard some one say, that there is nothing often more unlike than a simile, and surely this is a strong instance of it. As thro’ the whole absurdities of this ode, I could always recollect some passage or other of different writers, which our mock-bard had in view, and endeavoured to imitate, I was a long time at a loss, where he had taken the hint of this wonderful comparison between Alexander and Shakespeare; ’till at last I recollected a passage in Shakespeare himself, to which it is the exact parallel. It is in the play of Henry V. where Fluellin draws a comparison between the same Alexander and that monarch, in the following manner.

fluel. If you mark Alexander’s life well, Harry of Monmouth’s life is come after indifferent well; for there is figures in all things. Alexander, Got knows, and you know, in his rages, and his furies, and his wraths, and his colers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his indignations; and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did in his ales, and his angers, look ye, kill his pest friend Clytus.

gow. Our King is not like him in that, he never killed any of his friends.

fluel. It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak but in figures and comparisons of it. As Alexander killed his friend Clytus, being in is ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth being in his right wits, and his good judgements turned away the fat knight with the great pelly-doublet; he was full of jests, and gypes, and mocks, &c.

So far for the comparison; now let us examine a little the writing of this admirable passage.

“But when our Shakespeare’s matchless pen
Like Alexander’s sword had—”

What? not conquered—not slain—these tho’ applicable to Alexander’s sword, were by no means so to Shakespeare’s pen. Here was the pinch: here the dissimilitude of the simile began to strike upon his pericranium; what was to be done? Was so brilliant a thought to be given up? no the word, done, happily comes to his aid—

“Had done with men—”

This may agree with Shakespeare’s pen, but what a wretched figure does it make when applied to Alexander’s sword—

“Like Alexander’s sword had done with men”

But the bard had done with Alexander, and left him to take care of himself; his business now was with Shakespeare only, whom he was to raise far above the Macedonian hero, and how? Why because like him having done with men,

“He heav’d no sigh, he made no moan.
(O hone! O hone!)”

Oh the amazing fortitude of Shakespeare! Who having done with men (and why he should have done with men, God knows, as there were still thousands and thousands of characters untouched by him) did on that account sigh and moan, because he found a resource in imagination of creating other worlds and beings of his own. But let us have it in the bard’s own words.

“He heav’d no sigh, he made no moan,
Not limited to human kind,
He fired his wonder-teeming mind?
Rais’d other worlds, and beings of his own!”

That is, he set fire to his mind, and out of that fire sprung other worlds and other beings. I never heard of the creative, or procreative power of fire, except in the fabulous accounts of the Phœnix and Salamander: nor did I ever hear before of a poet’s firing his own mind. This has hitherto been supposed to be the office of some muse. Shakespeare himself says,

“O for a muse of fire, &c.”

But our bard has made Shakespeare a God, and therefore he might fire or inspire his own mind,

“Unaided and alone—”

As he afterwards expresses it.

“Rais’d other worlds and beings of his own.”

Now the point for which this strange simile seems to have been labored is utterly false, and void of all foundation. What does he mean by Shakespeare’s raising new worlds? Can he shew a single scene of his supposed to pass in any other world but this? Can he shew the most distant hint throughout his writings of any other world but this and the world to come; neither of which surely of his raising? The fact is equally false with regard to his raising beings of his own, tho’ it has been swallowed by his credulous idolaters. The Ghosts, Fairies, Witches, &c. were beings produced long before the days of Shakespeare, in the dark times of ignorance and superstition. They were to be found in the earliest book of romance, and were in the mouths of all people. Nay, even in his time, they were strongly rooted in the belief of mankind; and it was on that account that Shakespeare thought himself privileged to make use of them. He was too good a dramatic writer, and too great a judge of Nature, to think that any preternatural beings of his own invention, though they might excite the wonder, could work upon the passions of mankind; to effect which credibility is essentially necessary. It is well observed by the author of an Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare, “that he never carries his preternatural beings beyond the limits of the popular tradition. In the bold attempt to give to airy nothing a local habitation and a person, regard must be paid to fix it in such scenes, and to display it in such actions as are agreeable to the popular opinion. Witches holding their sabbath; and saluting passengers on the blasted heath; Ghosts, at the midnight hour visiting the glimpse of the moon, and whispering a bloody secret, from propriety of place and character, derive a credibility very propitious to the Poet.” The truth is, all these beings were ready made to his hands, and his whole business was to give them sentiments, manners, and employment, suited to their several natures, as in human characters. Whether the self-appointed high-priest of Shakespeare did not know this, and is himself an ignorant zealot; or whether he chose to indulge a popular error, in order, like other priests, to excite a blind veneration for his idol, he can best determine.

I see that this strange passage has run me into a greater length than I was aware of; but if you can find room for these in your paper, you shall have farther strictures from me upon this inimitable Ode.

LONGINUS.

Wednesday, Nov. 1, 1769.

In my last, I promised some farther strictures on the inimitable Ode on Shakespeare; and here they are for you.

“Tho’ conscious that the Vision only seems,
What Nature had disjoined.
The Poet’s pow’r combin’d, &c.”

More shame for the Poet of Nature, to fly in the face of Nature, and act against her orders. This is the heaviest charge that ever was brought against Shakespeare, and that too by the posessed adorer of Shakespeare. But, let us see, how he has made it out.

“What Nature had disjoin’d,
The Poet’s pow’r combin’d
Madness and Age, Ingratitude and Child.”

So that it is not in nature, that an old man should be mad, or a child ungrateful. And yet such is the magic power of Shakespeare, that when he represents these events, which never did, nor could happen, our reason grows so wild, as to believe they really could and did exist. But we must not pass by the excellent Grammarian in the last line, where

“The Poet’s power combin’d
What Grammar had disjoin’d
Ingratitude and Child.”

And where he has opposed what Grammar says can not be opposed, Age and Child. Oh, the glorious passage! This alone would entitle him to the leaden crown, had he never writ another.

“The whirlwind’s wing to sweep the sky,
“The frenzy-rolling eye—”

This last line is marked as a quotation from Shakespeare; but Shakespeare did not write such nonsense. His expression is

“The Poet’s eye is a fine frenzy rolling—”

It is not the eye that rolls frenzy, it is frenzy that rolls the eye. To have given Shakespeare’s meaning, he should have writ

“The frenzy rolled eye,”

not rolling; the passive not the active participle. Whether this blunder was owing to his ignorance of grammar, or a confusion of ideas, it is hard to determine.

“The subject passions round him wait;
Who tho’ unchain’d, and raging there,
He checks, inflames, or turns their mad career.
Who he checks.—Well said, Grammarian!
And they all foaming, trembling own him for their Lord.”

What are these foaming passions, which he here describes?—Why he afterwards enumerates four of them,

“Terror, Pity, Love and Grief.”

Golden dreams of terror! Good Heaven! I fancy the author has often in his dreams been in terror about his Gold, and thence came his confusion of ideas, in calling them golden dreams of terror.

So far with regard to the serious and sublime of his Ode, thro’ which the unfortunate bard seems to have labored as hard as Satan is described by Milton to have done, in his passage thro’ the dominions of Chaos and Old Night.

“So he with difficulty and labour hard,
Mov’d on, with difficulty and labour he.”

I am heartily tired of following him in this track, of which I see no end, and where there is

“No light, but rather darkness visible.”

I will therefore strike across to meet him in that part of his passage where he, like Satan,

“—With less toil, and now with ease,
Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light”

I cannot help figuring to myself the situation of this poor bard, labouring against Nature thro’ the former part of his Ode, to be exactly the same as that of his predecessor in the leaden crown, thus described by Pope.

“Then gnaw’d his pen, than dash’d it to the ground,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound;
Plung’d for his sense, but found no bottom there;
Yet wrote, and shoulder’d on in mere despair.
Round him much embryo, much abortion lay,
Nonsense precipitate, like running lead,
That flipp’d thro’ cracks and zig-zags of the head;
All that on Folly, Frenzy could beget.
Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit.
Next o’er his books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole;
How here he sipped, how there he plunder’d snug,
And suck’d all o’er like an industrious bug.”

But when he comes to the lively, the comic part of his ode, methinks I see him striking about with all the antick gestures, grimaces and chattering of a monkey that had just broke his chain. But his own words will best describe his raptures on this occasion.

“Wild, frantic with pleasure,
He trips it in measure,
Enjoying the treasure,
The treasure of joy.
How gay is the measure!
How sweet is the pleasure!
How great is the treasure!
The treasure of joy!”

In this situation,

“Dulness with transport eyes the lively dunce,
Rememb’ring she herself was pertness once.”

And in this situation will I leave the Goddess and him for the present, that the public may have leisure to contemplate this fine portrait of Pope’s, and wonder at the strong resemblance to which it bears to our Hero, tho’ drawn for another.

LONGINUS

Thursday, Nov. 2, 1769.

“Dulness herself with transport eyes the lively dunce,
Rememb’ring she herself was pertness once.”

In this situation I left the Goddess and our bard; now let us see whether she had not reason to be delighted with her darling son. He has quitted the great pasteboard body, the huge mask, and buskin’d stilts, which he put on by way of making himself appear big, like the actors of old, and in which he moved about with such aukward state; the little Harlequin leaps forth from the case, and strikes about upon his own legs, dancing a jig with his Columbine, Thalia.

“Leading the Nymph Euphrosyne,
Goddess of Joy and Liberty!”

My dear little Harlequin, when you had stolen your purple patches to adorn your party coloured coat, why did you learn to set them on with a little more art? We do not expect, that you should be conversant with ancient lore, but why would you not take instruction from Milton, when you borrowed this passage from him? Common sense might have told you that Euphrosyne could not be at the same time both a Nymph and a Goddess; and Milton expressly tells you she was a Goddess every inch of her, names her parents a God and Goddess, without any mixture of earthly mold.

“But come thou Goddess fair and free,
In Heav’n ’yclep’d Euphrosyne;
And by men heart-eating Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two Sister-Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore.”

Well, tho’ you degraded her into a Nymph in the first line, you restore her in the next to the rank of Goddess, and resolved to make her amends by conferring on her a new title, not to be found in any books of celestial heraldry, either ancient or modern, I mean that of “Goddess of Liberty.” Had you been a little more attentive to Milton, you would have found that he makes Liberty a Nymph, and that he calls upon Euphrosyne to bring her along with her.

“And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty.”

But it seems the words Liberty, Goddess, Nymph, and Euphrosyne, were jumbled together in your head from a faint recollection of this passage, and so came forth, as is very usual with you, at random.

“Wild, frantic with pleasure,
They trip it in measure,
To bring him their treasure,
The treasure of joy.
How gay is the measure!
How sweet is the pleasure!
How great is the treasure,
The treasure of joy!”

Here we trace the plundering, industrious Bug, sucking from Dryden’s Ode.

“Bacchus, blessings are a treasure;
Drinking is the Soldier’s pleasure:
Rich the treasure;
Sweet the pleasure;
Sweet is pleasure after pain.”

The third stanza, which is purely his own, is admirable.

“Like roses fresh blowing,
Their dimpled cheeks glowing,
His mind is o’erflowing,
A treasure of joy?”

How is it possible to reconcile this to sense or grammer? Let us reduce it to plain prose, and see what can be made of it. Their dimpled glowing cheeks, like fresh blowing roses, his mind overflows, a treasure of joy. If any one can make either sense or grammer of this, I own he has more skill than I have. Well, but what is all this joy about? Oh! there is an amour going on. Shakespeare is to be ravished, he is to conceive, and bring forth an extraordinary offspring. The progress of this amour is most lusciously described by our bard.

“His rapture perceiving,
They smile while they’re giving,
He smiles at receiving,
A treasure of joy.
With kindling cheeks, and sparkling eyes,
Surrounded thus the bard in transport dies.”

Here let us observe by the way, how well perceiving and receiving, rhime to each other, and how admirably, giving rhimes to both. Well, but from this amour, the loves should not be absent. No surely, here they are for you.

“The little loves like bees,
Clust’ring and climbing up his knees,”

(Who by a little of Wildman’s art were rendered so tame, that they did not leave one sting by the way)

“His brows with roses bind.”

What, had the poor little things their wings cut off, that they were thus obliged to crawl up his knees, in order to come at his head? Would they have made a worse figure in the air, fluttering round him, and crowning him with chaplets? Oh! but that place was pre-occupied as you will find by the lines, which immediately follow.

“While fancy, wit, and humour spread
Their wings, and hover round his head,
Impregnating his mind.
Which teeming soon, as soon brought forth,
Not a tiny spurious birth,”

(Fine rhime again, forth and burth as he pronounces it)

“But out a mountain came.”

Goddess of dulness wert though not in transport at this allusion to the mountain in labour! That, brought forth a mouse, a tiny birth as it is most poetically expressed. But Shakespeare in labour, brought forth a mountain, a prodigious birth! Which gives the Poet as great advantage over the mountain, as he before had over Alexander, and with as little straining of the simile. The mountain’s too was a spurious birth, a poor little mouse; we might at least have expected from it a small hill. But Shakespeare’s mind could teem with worlds, and a fortiori, much more easily could it be delivered of a mountain. And our bard seems upon recollection, to think a mountain too tiny an offspring from the brain of this world creating poet; for a little after it proves to be no mountain, but a world, and a comic world.

“A world where all pleasures abound,”

And a world exactly resembling our world,

“For the world too is wicked and round.”

This last passage, and particularly the last line quoted, which I will not pay so ill a compliment to my reader’s taste, as to comment upon, would alone entitle him to the appellation before given him from Pope, that of the lively dunce.

I am heartily weary of wading through all this trash, but if I recover my spirits, I shall in a day or two close my observations on this immitable Ode.

LONGINUS.

Monday, Nov. 6, 1769

I never was so tired of any tasks as that of labouring through this wretched Ode. I passed over already many passages equally faulty with those which I commented upon; and when I look forward I see such numbers before me, that there will be no end of my labour, should I take notice of them all. I shall therefore only curiously touch upon a few of them at random.

I left Shakespeare just delivered of a mountain, and this mountain was soon changed into a world.

“A world where all pleasures abound,
So fruitful the earth,
So quick to bring forth,
And the world too is wicked and round.”

Oh the wag! The wag! No longer be it sung

“That the wag of all wags was a Warwickshire Wag,”

But,

“The wag of all wags was a Staffordshire wag.”

Swift says that he never yet knew a wag who was not a dunce, a lively dunce. No one will dispute the pre-eminence of the Staffordshire over the Warwickshire bard in this respect. Here we have for rhime earth and forth, which is so fond of, that he repeats it in the lines immediately succeeding,

“As the well-teeming earth,
With rivers and showers,
Will smiling bring forth
Her fruits and her flowers.”

By his frequent use of his rhime, he seems proud of being a Staffordshire man, and of shewing it by his dialect; urth, burth, &c.

Here let us observe his usual accuracy of expression. Does he mean, that the earth teems well with rivers and showers; or, that the well-teeming earth brings forth fruit and flowers, with rivers and showers? Either way it is nonsense. Well, but mark how the spirit of prophecy breaks out, here always supposed to be an attendant on the bard! He does not say, that the earth actually does bring forth fruits and flowers, but that it will

“Will smiling bring forth—“

O wonderful prediction! Now to the simile. As the earth will bring forth fruits and flowers, so Falstaff will—bring forth, what? Why nothing. No, this mountain will not even bring forth a mouse.

“‘So, Falstaff will never decline,’
Still fruitful and gay,
He moistens his clay,
And his rain and his rivers are wine.”

Here we find the true use of the rivers and showers, introduced in the former part of the stanza, only for the sake of this happy allusion. But such a stanza as this in an ode! In a Pinkarick Ode! Oh, fie! Fie! Away to the catch club with it, to be joyously roar’d out by midnight bacchanals. With what shouts of applause would these, and the lines that follow, be sung in such an assembly!

“Of the world he has all but its care,
No load but of flesh will he bear,
He laughs off his pack,
Takes a cup of old sack,
And away with all sorrow and care.”

The sudden transition from this catch to the sublime and new simile of the rainbow; and his pathetic apostrophe to the poet afterwards—

“Sweet swan of Avon, &c.”

Are evidently imitations of Swift’s love-son in the modern taste, beginning thus—

“Fluttering spread they purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, &c.
O had those bards, who charm the list’ning shore,
Of Cam and isis, tun’d their classic lays;
And from their full and precious store,
Vouchsafed to fairy haunted Avon praise.”

Suppose it was necessary for the rhyme’s sake that rivers should have a shore. But Dullness herself must have had a hand in hammering out that uncouth line. If praise be a verb here, as it ought to be to express the meaning properly, “had those bards vouchsafed to praise fairy-haunted Avon,” the disjunction of the infinitive from its sign is unpardonable. If it be meant for a noun, see what miserable poverty there is in the expression; “had they vouchsafed praise to fairy haunted Avon,”

“Like that kind bounteous hand,
Which lately gave the ravish’d eyes,
Of Stratford Swains,
A rich command
Of widen’d rivers, &c.”

That is in plain prose, had the bards of Cam and Isis vouchsafed to praise Avon, in the same manner as that bounteous hand did, which cut down a few trees to make an open to the river (happy bard in the aptness of thy similes and allusions!) why then, no Greek or Roman streams would be more celebrated.

“Nor thus a Shepherd’s feeble notes reveal
At once the weakest numbers, and the warmest zeal,
Oh! the simple swain
Of Drury-Lane!
As artless as the nimphs that stroll that plain.
Where rest at night thy fleecy care?
Gentle Shepherd, tell me where.”

Who is not struck with the downcast look, and rising blush of this bashful swain, when he repeats these lines? Who does not admire the artless simplicity of his numbers, when he hears him, like his own Shakespeare,

“Warbling his native wood-notes wild.”

But let this modest apologist tell us what application was made to the bards of Cam and Isis. Let him say what reward was offered to any others, out of the immense sums which he gained by Shakespeare, for the best Ode that should be produced on the occasion of this Jubilee. Had this been done without success, he, might have had some excuse for undertaking it himself. But he well knows he did not mean to share with any one, any part of the expected glory which was to arise from this memorable project. He would share nothing but the loss upon the ill-judged expence attending the execution of it, which he liberally allowed some of the unfortunate artisans, concerned in the undertaking, to divide amongst them.

Upon looking over the remainder of the Ode, I find so many other passages equally obnoxious to Criticism, that, being heartily tired of the task, I give it up, in utter despair of being able to finish it. I shall therefore take leave of the Ode, with observing that it is throughout defective in the small articles of genius, taste, sentiment, language, composition, numbers, (except in the many stolen lines) rhime, grammar, common sense, and common English. So that we may close with an application of the same line to it, that he uses in the close of Shakespeare’s character,

We ne’er shall look upon it’s like again.

LONGINUS

Conclusion

After all this time and repeated trouble, the confederate-magazine of malice being exhausted, Midas leaves more than a fourth part of the Ode unimpeached; and, no doubt, thro’ the powerful avocations of penning this curious advertisement, faithfully copied from the Public of Friday, Nov. 10.

Mr. Sheridan, having procured proper assistants, gives notice, that he is very ready to receive the commands of such gentlemen as are desirous of attaining themselves, or of having their children taught in Classics the whole art of Elocution, whether in reading or writing in poetry or prose.—A few noblemen or gentlemen of fortune may be instructed singly, with the utmost secrecy observed, if required.—He will be ready to receive their commands for some time to come, at his house in Frith-Street, Soho, near Queen-Street.

N.B. Any young ladies of rank and fortune, desirous of attaining this must useful as well as ornamental accomplishment may be attended by one of their own sex, properly qualified to instruct them.

How are men to attain themselves, since, like dogs, they have not tails to run round after, and catch?
What is meant by the whole art of Elocution?
How can a few persons be taught singly?
Is there any thing infectious in the Classics, to debate them thus to News-paper promised secrecy in a certain [dis]order?
Most young ladies of rank and fortune are desirous of attaining something else; however, more than a few noblemen or gentlemen would have no objection to be attended by a classical lady.—
Did ever man publish so extraordinary an advertisement concerning himself.—In the beginning of it he is a procurer; in the middle, a promiser of venereal quack-secrecy; and concludes, by proclaiming, his having the disposal of a female qualified for public service!

BRAVO LONGINUS!