enrich its imaginations for ever. Yet have we, in the youngest of the Kemble line, at once an artist of antique grace in comedy, and a tragedian of look the most chivalrous and heroic-of "form and moving most express and admirable"-of enthusiasm to give vivid expression to the highest and the most honourable of human emotions.-Still, in Macready, can we boast of one, whose rich and noble voice is adapted to all the most exquisite varieties of tenderness and passion-one, whose genius leads him to imbody characters the most imaginative and romantic-and who throws over his grandest pictures tints so mellow and so nicely blended, that, with all their inimitable variety, they sink in perfect harmony into the soul. Still, in Kean, have we a performer of intensity never equalled-of pathos the sweetest and most profound - whose bursts of passion almost transport us into another order of being, and whose flashes of genius cast a new light on the darkest caverns of the soul. If we have few names to boast in elegant comedy, we enjoy a crowd of the richest and most original humourists, with Munden-that actor of a myriad unforgotten faces-at their head. But our theme has enticed us beyond our proper domain of the past; and we must retire. Let us hope for some Cibber, to catch the graces of our living actors before they perish, that our successors may fix on them their retrospective eyes unblamed, and enrich with a review of their merits some number of our work, which will appear, in due course, in the twenty-second century! REVIEW OF JOHN DENNIS'S WORKS. as the success of a rival's tragedy. His political treatises, though not very elegantly finished, are made of sturdy materials. He appears, from some passages in his letters, to have cherished a genuine love of nature, and to have turned, with eager delight, to deep and quiet solitudes, for refreshment from the feverish excitements, the vexatious defeats, and the barren triumphs of his critical career. He admired Shakspeare, after the fashion of his age, as a wild, irregular genius, who would have been inconceivably greater, had he known and copied the ancients. The following is a part of his general criticism on this subject, and a fair specimen of his best style: JOHN DENNIS, the terror or the scorn of ciples of the revolution, detesting the French, that age, which is sometimes honoured with the abominating the Italian opera, and deprecattitle of Augustan, has attained a lasting noto-ing as heartily the triumph of the Pretender, riety, to which the reviewers of our times can scarcely aspire. His name is immortalized in the Dunciad; his best essay is preserved in Johnson's Lives of the Poets; and his works yet keep their state in two substantial volumes, which are now before us. But the interest of the most poignant abuse and the severest criticism quickly perishes. We contemplate the sarcasms and the invectives which once stung into rage the irritable generation of poets, with as cold a curiosity as we look on the rusty javelins or stuffed reptiles in the glass cases of the curious. The works of Dennis will, however, assist us in forming a judgment of the criticism of his age, as compared with that of our own, and will afford us an opportunity of investigating the influences of that popular art on literature and on manners. But we must not forget, that Mr. Dennis laid claims to public esteem, not only as a critic, but as a wit, a politician, and a poet. In the first and the last of these characters, he can receive but little praise. His attempts at gayety and humour are weighty and awkward, almost without example. His poetry can only be described by negatives; it is not inharmonious, nor irregular, nor often turgid-for the author, too nice to sink into the mean, and too timid to rise into the bombastic, dwells in elaborate "decencies for ever." The climax of his admiration for Queen Mary-"Mankind extols the king-the king admires the queen" -will give a fair specimen of his architectural eulogies. He is entitled to more respect as an honest patriot. He was, indeed, a true-hearted Englishman-with the legititmate prejudices of his country-warmly attached to the prin "Shakspeare was one of the greatest geniuses that the world ever saw, for the tragic stage. Though he lay under greater disad vantages than any of his successors, yet had he greater and more genuine beauties than the best and greatest of them. And what makes the brightest glory of his character, those beauties were entirely his own, and owing to the force of his own nature; whereas, his faults were owing to his education, and to the age he lived in. One may say of him, as they did of Homer, that he had none to imitate, and is himself inimitable. His imaginations were often as just as they were bold and strong. He had a natural discretion which never could have been taught him, and his judgment was strong and penetrating. He seems to have wanted nothing but time and leisure for thought, to have found out those rules of which he appears so ignorant. His characters are always drawn justly, exactly, graphically, except where he failed by not knowing history or the poetical art. He had, for the most part, more fairly distinguished them than any of his successors have done, who have falsified them, or confounded them, by making love the predominant quality in all. He had so fine a talent for touching the passions, and they are so lively in him, and so truly in nature, that they often touch us more, without their due preparations, than those of other tragic poets, who have all the beauty of design and all the advantage of incidents. His master passion was terror, which he has often moved so powerfully and so wonderfully, that we may justly conclude, that if he had had the advantage of art and learning, he would have surpassed the very best and strongest of the ancients. His paintings are often so beautiful and so lively, so graceful and so powerful, especially where he uses them in order to move terror, that there is nothing, perhaps, more accomplished in our English poetry. His sentiments for the most part, in his best tragedies, are noble, generous, easy, and natural, and adapted to the persons who use them. His expression is, in many places, good and pure, after a hundred years; simple though elevated, graceful though bold, easy though strong. He seems to have been the very original of our English tragical harmony; that is, the harmony of blank verse, diversified often by dissyllable and trissyllable terminations. For that diversity distinguishes it from heroic harmony, and, bringing it nearer to common use, makes it more proper to gain attention, and more fit for action and dialogue. Such verse we make when we are writing prose; we make such verse in common conversation. "If Shakspeare had these great qualities by nature, what would he not have been, if he had joined to so happy a genius learning and the poetical art. For want of the latter, our author has sometimes made gross mistakes in the characters which he has drawn from history, against the equality and conveniency of manners of his dramatical persons. Witness Menenius in the following tragedy, whom he has made an arrant buffoon, which is a great absurdity. For he might as well have imagined a grave majestic Jack Pudding as a buffoon in a Roman senator. Aufidius, the general of the Volscians, is shown a base and a profligate villain. He has offended against the equality of the manners even in the hero himself. For Coriolanus, who in the first part of the tragedy is shown so open, so frank, so violent, and so magnanimous, is represented in the latter part by Aufidius, which is contradicted by no one, a flattering, fawning, cringing, insinuating traitor." Mr. Dennis proceeds very generously to apologize for Shakspeare's faults, by observing that he had neither friends to consult, nor time to make corrections. He, also, attributes his lines "utterly void of celestial fire," and passages "harsh and unmusical," to the want of leisure to wait for felicitous hours and moments of choicest inspiration. To remedy these defects to mend the harmony and to put life into the dulness of Shakspeare-Mr. Dennis has assayed, and brought his own genius to the alteration of Coriolanus for the stage, under the lofty title of the "Invader of his Country, or the Fatal Resentment." In the catastrophe, Coriolanus kills Aufidius, and is himself afterwards slain, to satisfy the requisitions of poetical justice; which, to Mr. Dennis's great distress, Shakspeare so often violates. It is quite amusing to observe, with how perverted an ingenuity all the gaps in Shakspeare's verses are filled up, the irregularities smoothed away, and the colloquial expressions changed for stately phrases. Thus, for example, the noble wish of Coriolanus on entering the forum "The honoured gods Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice Supplied with worthy men! plant love among us! Throng our large temples with the shows of peace, And not our streets with war" is thus elegantly translated into classical language: "The great and tutelary gods of Rome Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice Supplied with worthy men: plant love among you: Adorn our temples with the pomp of peace, And, from our streets drive horrid war away." The conclusion of the hero's last speech on leaving Rome "Thus I turn my back: there is a world elsewhere." is elevated into the following heroic lines: "For me, thus, thus, I turn my back upon you, And make a better world where'er I go." His fond expression of constancy to his wife I carried from my love, and my true lip The icicle which was wont to hang on Dian's temple," here more gracefully "hangs upon the temple of Diana." The burst of mingled pride, and triumph of Coriolanus, when to tragic dignity. Our readers have, doubtless, taunted with the word "boy," is here exalted ignorantly admired the original. Boy! False hound! The following is the improved version: Who does not now appreciate the sad lot of Shakspeare-so feelingly bewailed by Mr. Dennis-that he had not a critic, of the age of King William, by his side, to refine his style and elevate his conceptions! It is edifying to observe, how the canons of Mr. Dennis's criticism, which he regarded as the imperishable laws of genius, are now either exploded, or considered as matters of subordinate importance, wholly unaffecting the inward soul of poetry. No one now regards the merits of an Epic poem, as decided by the subservience of the fable and the action to the moral-by the presence or the ab sence of an allegory-by the fortunate or unfortunate fate of the hero-or by any other rules of artificial decorum, which the critics of former times thought fit to inculcate. We learn from their essays, whether the works which they examine are constructed, in externals, according to certain fantastic rules; but, whether they are frigid or impassioned, harmonious or prosaic, filled with glorious imaginations, or replete with low common-places: whether, in short, they are works of genius or of mere toil-are questions entirely beneath their concern. The critic on the tragedy of Cato, ingenious and just as it is, omits one material objection to that celebrated piece-that it is good for nothing, and would be so if all the faults selected for censure could be, in an instant, corrected. There is a French essay on Telemachus, framed on the same superficial principles of criticism, which, after a minute examination of the moral, fable, characters, allegory, and other like requisites of excellence, triumphantly proves its claim to be ranked with, if not above, the great poems of Homer and of Virgil. Mr. Dennis seems, in general, to have applied the rules of criticism, extant in his day, to the compositions on which he passed judgment; but there was one position respecting which his contemporaries were not agreed, and on which he combated with the spirit of a martyr. This disputed point, the necessity of observing poetical justice in works of fiction, we shall briefly examine, because we think that it involves one of those mistakes in humanity, which it is always desirable to expose. But first we must, in fairness, lay one of our author's many arguments, on this subject, before our readers. "The principal character of an epic poem must be either morally good or morally vicious; if he is morally good, the making him end unfortunately will destroy all poetical justice, and, consequently, all instruction: such a poem can have no moral, and, consequently, no fable, no just and regular poetical action, but must be a vain fiction and an empty amusement. Oh, but there is a retribution in futurity! But I thought that the reader of an epic poem was to owe his instruction to the poet, and not to himself: well then, the poet may tell him so at the latter end of his poem: ay, would to God I could see such a latter end of an epic poem, where the poet should tell the reader, that he has cut an honest man's throat, only that he may have an opportunity to send him to heaven: and that, though this would be but an indifferent plea upon an indictment for murder at the Old Bailey, yet that he hopes the good-natured reader will have compassion on him, as the gods have on his hero. But raillery apart, sir, what occasion is there for having recourse to an epic poet to tell ourselves by the bye, and by the occasional reflection, that there will be a retribution in futurity, when the Christian has this in his heart constantly and directly, and the Atheist and Freethinker will make no such reflection? Tell me truly, sir, would not such a poet appear to you or me, not to have sufficiently considered what a poetical moral is? And should not you or I, sir, be obliged, in order to make him compre hend the nature of it, to lay before him that universal moral, which is the foundation of all morals, both epic and dramatic, and is inclusive of them all, and that is, That he who does good, and perseveres in it, shall always be rewarded; and he who does ill, and perseveres in it, shall always be punished! Should we not desire him to observe, that the foresaid reward must always attend and crown good actions, not sometimes only, for then it would follow, that sometimes a perseverance in good actions has no reward, which would take away all poetical instruction, and, indeed, every sort of moral instruction, resolving Providence into chance or fate. Should we not, sir, farther put him in mind, that since whoever perseveres in good actions, is sure to be rewarded at the last, it follows, that a poet does not assert by his moral, that he is always sure to be rewarded in this world, because that would be false, as you have very justly observed, p. 60; and, therefore, never can be the moral of an epic poem, because what is false may delude, but only truth can instruct. Should we not let him know, sir, that this universal moral only teaches us, that whoever perseveres in good actions, shall be always sure to be rewarded either here or hereafter; and that the truth of this moral is proved by the poet, by making the principal character of his poem, like all the rest of his characters, and like the poetical action, at the bottom, universal and allegorical, even after distinguishing it by a particular name, by making this principal character, at the bottom, a mere political phantom of a very short duration, through the whole extent of which duration we can see at once, which continues no longer than the reading of the poem, and that being over, the phantom is to us nothing, so that unless our sense is satisfied of the reward that is given to this poetical phantom, whose whole duration we see through from the very beginning to the end; instead of a wholesome moral, there would be a pernicious instruction, viz: That a man may persevere in good actions, and not be rewarded for it through the whole extent of his duration, that is, neither in this world nor in the world to come." It may be sufficient to answer to all thisand to much more of the same kind which our author has adduced-that little good can be attained by representations which are perpetually at variance with our ordinary perceptions. The poet may represent humanity as mightier and fairer than it appears to a common observer. In the mirror which he "holds up to nature," the forms of might and of beauty may look more august, more lovely, or more harmonious, than they appear, in the "light of common day," to eyes which are ungifted with poetic vision. But if the world of imagination is directly opposed to that of reality, it will become a cold abstraction, a baseless dream, a splendid mockery. We shall strive in vain to make men sympathize with beings of a sphere purely ideal, where might shall be always right, and virtue its own present as well as exceeding great reward. Happily, the exhibition is as needless for any moral purposes, as it would be inadequate to attain D them. Though the poet cannot make us wit- | time, and their living successors. The men nesses of the future recompense of that virtue, who first exercised the art of criticism, imbued which here struggles and suffers, he can cause us to feel, in the midst of its very struggles and sufferings, that it is eternal. He makes the principle of immortality manifest in the meek submission, in the deadly wrestle with fate, and even in the mortal agonies of his noblest characters. What, in true dignity, does virtue lose by the pangs which its clay tenement endures, if we are made conscious of its high prerogatives, though we do not actually behold the immunities which shall ultimately be its portion? Hereafter it may be rewarded; but now it is triumphant. We require no dull epilogue to tell us, that it shall be crowned in another and happier state of being; for our souls gush with admiration and sympathy with it, amidst its sorrows. We love it, and burn to imitate it, for its own loveliness, not for its gains. Surely it is a higher aim of the poet to awaken this emotion-to inspire us with the awe of goodness, amidst its deepest external debasements, and to make us almost desire to share in them, than to invite us to partake in her rewards, and to win us by a calculating sympathy. The hovel or the dungeon does not, in the pictures of a genuine poet, give the colouring to the soul which inhabits it, but receives from its majesty a consecration beyond that of temples, and a dignity statelier than that of palaces. For it is his high prerogative to exhibit the spiritual part of man triumphant over that about him, which is mortal-to show, in his far-reaching hope, his moveless constancy, his deep and disinterested affections, that there is a spirit within him, which death cannot destroy. Low, indeed, is the morality which aspires to affect men by nothing beyond the poor and childish lesson, that to be virtuous is to be happy. Virtue is no dependant on earthly expediencies for its excellence. It has a beauty to be loved, as vice has a deformity to be abhorred, which are unaffected by the consequences experienced by their votaries. Do we admire the triumph of vice, and scoff at goodness, when we think on the divine Clarissa, violated, imprisoned, heart-broken, dying? Must Parson Adams receive a mitre, to assure us that we should love him? Our best feelings and highest aspirations are not yet of so mercantile a cast as those who contend for "poetical justice" would imagine. The mere result, in respect of our sympathies, is as nothing. The only real violation of poetical justice is in the violation of nature in the clothing. When, for example, a wretch, whose trade is murder, is represented as cherishing the purest and the deepest love for an innocent being-when chivalrous delicacy or sentiment is conferred on a pirate, tainted with a thousand crimes-the effect is immoral, whatever doom may, at last, await him. If the barriers of virtue and of evil are melted down by the current of spurious sympathy, there is no catastrophe which can remove the mischief; and while these are preserved in our feelings, there is none which can truly harm us. The critics of the age of Dennis held a middle course between their predecessors of old with personal veneration for the loftiest works of genius, sought to deduce rules from them, which future poets should observe. They did not assume the right of passing individual judgments on their contemporaries-nor did they aim at deciding even abstract questions of taste on their own personal authority-but attempted, by fixing the laws of composition, to mark out the legitimate channels in which the streams of thought, passion, and sentiment, should be bounded through all ages. Their dogmas, therefore, whether they contained more or less of truth, carried with them no extrinsic weight, were influenced by no personal feelings, excited no personal animosities, but simply appealed, like poetry itself, to those minds which alone could give them sanction. In the first critical days of England-those of the Rymers and the Dennises-the professors of the art began to regard themselves as judges, not merely of the principles of poetry, but of their application by living authors. Then commenced the arrogance on the side of the supervisors, and the impatience and resentment on that of their subjects, which contemporary criticism necessarily inspires. The worst passions of man are brought into exercise in reference to those pure and ennobling themes, which should be sacred from all low contentions of "the ignorant present time." But the battle was, at least, fair and open. The critic still appealed to principles, however fallacious or imperfect, which all the world might examine. His decrees had no weight, independent of his reasons, nor was his name, or his want of one, esteemed of magical virtue. He attacked the poets on equal terms-sometimes, indeed, with derision and personal slander-but always as a foe to subdue, not as a judge to pass sentence on them. Criticism, in our own times, has first assumed the air of "sovereign sway and masterdom" over the regions of fantasy. Its professors enforce, not established laws, contend no longer for principles, attack poets no more with chivalrous zeal, as violating the cause of poetic morals, or sinning against the regularities of their art. They pronounce the works, of which they take cognisance, to be good or bad-often without professing to give any reason for their decision-or referring to any standard, more fixed or definite than their own taste, partiality, or prejudice. And the public, without any knowledge of their fitness for their officewithout even knowing their names-receive them as the censors of literature, the privileged inspectors of genius! This strange supremacy of criticism, in our own age, gives interest to the investigation of the claims which the art itself possesses to the respect and gratitude of the people. If it is, on the whole, beneficial to the world, it must either be essential to the awakening of genius-or necessary to direct its exertions or useful in repressing abortive and mistaken efforts-or conducive to the keeping alive and fitly guiding admiration to the good and great. On each of these grounds, we shall now very briefly examine its value. As criticism had no share in producing the Homeric poems, so also did it contribute nothing to the perfection of the Greek tragedies. For those works-the most complete and highly finished, if not the most profound, of all human creations-there was no more previous warrant, than for the wildest dream of fantasy. No critic fashioned the moulds in which those exquisite groups were cast, or inspired them with Promethean life. They were struck off in the heat of inspiration-the offspring of moments teeming for immortality-though the slightest limb of each of the figures is finished as though it had been the labour of a life. These eternal works were complete the spirit which inspired their authors was extinctwhen Aristotle began to criticise. The development of the art of poetry, by that great philosopher, wholly failed to inspire any bard, whose productions might break the descent from the mighty relics of the preceding years. After him, his disciples amused themselves in refining on his laws-in cold disputations and profitless scrutinies. The soil, late so fertile with the stateliest productions of nature, was overgrown with a low and creeping underwood, which, if any delicate flower struggled into day, oppressed and concealed it from view beneath its briary and tangled thickets. 1. It is evident, that the art of criticism is not requisite to the development of genius, because, in the golden ages of poetry it has had no portion. Its professors have never even constructed the scaffolding to aid the erection of the cloud-capped towers and solemn temples of the bard. By his facile magic he has called them into existence, like the palace of Aladdin, as complete in the minutest graces of finishing as noble in design. Long before the art of criticism was known in Greece, her rhapsodists had attained the highest excellencies of poetry. No fear of a critic's scorn, no desire of a critic's praise, influenced these consecrated wanderers. Nature alone was their model, their inspirer, and their guide. From her did they drink in the feeling, not only of permanence and of grandeur, but of aërial grace and roseate beauty. The rocks and hills gave them the visible images of lasting might-the golden clouds of even, "sailing on the bosom of the air," sent a feeling of evanescent loveliness into their souls-and the delicate branchings of the grove, reflected in the calm waters, imbued them with a perception of elegance beyond the reach of art. No pampered audiences thought themselves entiiled to judge them to analyze their powers; to descant on their imperfections; to lament their failures; or to eulogize their sublimities, 2. The instances already given refute not as those who had authority to praise. Their only the notion that criticism is requisite to hearers dwelt on their accents with rapturous prepare the way for genius, but also the opiwonder, as nature's living oracles. They nion that it is necessary to give it a right diwandered through the everywhere commu-rection and a perfect form. True imagination nicating joy, and everywhere receiving reverence-exciting in youth its first tearful ecstasy, and kindling fresh enthusiasm amidst the withered affections of age. They were revered as the inspired chroniclers of heroic deedsthe inspirers of national glory and virtue-the depositories of the mysteries and the philosophic wisdom of times which even then were old. They trusted not to paper or the press for the preservation of their fame. They were contented, that each tree beneath which they had poured forth their effusions, should be loved for their sake-that the forked promontory should bear witness of them-and the "brave o'erhanging firmament, fretted with golden fire," tell of those who had first awakened within the soul a sense of its glories. Their works were treasured up nowhere but in the soul-spread abroad only by the enthusiasm of kindred reciters-and transmitted to the children of other generations, while they listened with serious faces to the wondrous tales of their fathers. Yet these poems, so produced, so received, so preserved, were not only instinct with heavenly fire, but regular as the elaborate efforts of the most polished ages. In these products of an era of barbarism, have future bards not only found an exhaustless treasury of golden imaginations, but critics have discovered all those principles of order which they would establish as unalterable laws. The very instances of error and haste in their authors have been converted into figures of rhetoric, by those men, who represent nature herself as irregular and feeble, and a minute attention to rules as essential to the perfection of genius. is in itself "all compact." The term irregu lar, as absolutely applied to genius, is absurd, and applied relatively, it means nothing but that it is original in its career. There is properly no such thing as irregular genius. A man endowed with "the vision and the faculty divine," may choose modes of composition unsuited to the most appropriate display of his powers;-his images may not be disposed in the happiest arrangement, or may be clustered around subjects, in themselves, dreary or mean, but these fantasies must be in themselves harmonious, or they would not be beauteous, would not be imaginations. Genius is a law unto itself. Its germs have, within them, not only the principles of beauty, but the very form which the flower in its maturity must expand. As a wavy gleam of fire rises from the spark, in its own exquisite shape, so does imagination send forth its glories, perfect by the felicitous necessity of their nature, exquisite in form by the same impulse which gives them brightness and fervour. But how can the critic, in reality, acquire any jurisdiction over the genuine poet? Where are the lines by which he can fathom the depths of the soul; where the instrument by which he can take the altitude of "the highest heaven of invention ?" How can he judge of thoughts which penetrate the mysteries of humanity, of fancies which "in the colours of the rainbow live, and play in the plighted clouds," of anticipations and foretastes by which the bard already" breathes in worlds, to which the heaven of heavens is but a veil ?" Can he measure a sunbeam, or constrain a cloud, or count the steps of the bounding stag of the forest, to judge whether they are grace |