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 willgive the reader less pleasure in the perusing, than those which havegiven the author the greatest pains in composing. Among these probablymay be reckoned those initial essays which we have prefixed to thehistorical matter contained in every book; and which we havedetermined to be essentially necessary to this kind of writing, ofwhich we have set ourselves at the head.
For this our determination we do not hold ourselves strictly bound toassign any reason; it being abundantly sufficient that we have laid itdown as a rule necessary to be observed in all prosai-comi-epicwriting. Who ever demanded the reasons of that nice unity of time orplace which is now established to be so essential to dramatic poetry?What critic hath been ever asked, why a play may not contain two daysas well as one? Or why the audience (provided they travel, likeelectors, without any expense) may not be wafted fifty miles as wellas five? Hath any commentator well accounted for the limitation whichan antient critic hath set to the drama, which he will have containneither more nor less than five acts? Or hath any one living attemptedto explain what the modern judges of our theatres mean by that word_low_; by which they have happily succeeded in banishing all humourfrom 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 ofour law, viz., _cuicunque in arte sua perito credendum est:_ for itseems perhaps difficult to conceive that any one should have hadenough of impudence to lay down dogmatical rules in any art or sciencewithout the least foundation. In such cases, therefore, we are apt toconclude there are sound and good reasons at the bottom, though we areunfortunately not able to see so far.
Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment tocritics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity thanthey really are. From this complacence, the critics have beenemboldened to assume a dictatorial power, and have so far succeeded,that they are now become the masters, and have the assurance to givelaws to those authors from whose predecessors they originally receivedthem.
The critic, rightly considered, is no more than the clerk, whoseoffice it is to transcribe the rules and laws laid down by those greatjudges whose vast strength of genius hath placed them in the light oflegislators, in the several sciences over which they presided. Thisoffice was all which the critics of old aspired to; nor did they everdare to advance a sentence, without supporting it by the authority ofthe judge from whence it was borrowed.
But in process of time, and in ages of ignorance, the clerk began toinvade the power and assume the dignity of his master. The laws ofwriting were no longer founded on the practice of the author, but onthe dictates of the critic. The clerk became the legislator, and thosevery peremptorily gave laws whose business it was, at first, only totranscribe them.
Hence arose an obvious, and perhaps an unavoidable error; for thesecritics being men of shallow capacities, very easily mistook mere formfor substance. They acted as a judge would, who should adhere to thelifeless letter of law, and reject the spirit. Little circumstances,which were perhaps accidental in a great author, were by these criticsconsidered to constitute his chief merit, and transmitted asessentials to be observed by all his successors. To theseencroachments, time and ignorance, the two great supporters ofimposture, gave authority; and thus many rules for good writing havebeen established, which have not the least foundation in truth ornature; and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb andrestrain genius, in the same manner as it would have restrained thedancing-master, had the many excellent treatises on that art laid itdown as an essential rule that every man must dance in chains.
To avoid, therefore, all imputation of laying down a rule forposterity, founded only on the authority of _ipse dixit_--for which,to say the truth, we have not the profoundest veneration--we shallhere waive the privilege above contended for, and proceed to laybefore the reader the reasons which have induced us to interspersethese 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, beenwrought on by any antient or modern writer. This vein is no other thanthat of contrast, which runs through all the works of the creation,and may probably have a large share in constituting in us the idea ofall beauty, as well natural as artificial: for what demonstrates thebeauty and excellence of anything but its reverse? Thus the beauty ofday, and that of summer, is set off by the horrors of night andwinter. And, I believe, if it was possible for a man to have seen onlythe 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 thefinest woman in the world would lose all benefit of her charms in theeye of a man who had never seen one of another cast? The ladiesthemselves seem so sensible of this, that they are all industrious toprocure foils: nay, they will become foils to themselves; for I haveobserved (at Bath particularly) that they endeavour to appear as uglyas possible in the morning, in order to set off that beauty which theyintend to show you in the evening.
Most artists have this secret in practice, though some, perhaps, havenot much studied the theory. The jeweller knows that the finestbrilliant requires a foil; and the painter, by the contrast of hisfigures, 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 hatha 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, calledthe English Pantomime.
This entertainment consisted of two parts, which the inventordistinguished by the names of the serious and the comic. The seriousexhibited a certain number of heathen gods and heroes, who werecertainly the worst and dullest company into which an audience wasever introduced; and (which was a secret known to few) were actuallyintended so to be, in order to contrast the comic part of theentertainment, and to display the tricks of harlequin to the betteradvantage.
This was, perhaps, no very civil use of such personages: but thecontrivance was, nevertheless, ingenious enough, and had its effect.And this will now plainly appear, if, instead of serious and comic, wesupply the words duller and dullest; for the comic was certainlyduller than anything before shown on the stage, and could be set offonly by that superlative degree of dulness which composed the serious.So intolerably serious, indeed, were these gods and heroes, thatharlequin (though the English gentleman of that name is not at allrelated to the French family, for he is of a much more seriousdisposition) was always welcome on the stage, as he relieved theaudience from worse company.
Judicious writers have always practised this art of contrast withgreat success. I have been surprized that Horace should cavil at thisart 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 anauthor actually falls asleep while he is writing. It is true, thatreaders are too apt to be so overtaken; but if the work was as long asany of Oldmixon, the author himself is too well entertained to besubject 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 seriousartfully interwoven, in order to contrast and set off the rest; andthis is the true meaning of a late facetious writer, who told thepublic that whenever he was dull they might be assured there was adesign in it.
In this light, then, or rather in this darkness, I would have thereader to consider these initial essays. And af
ter this warning, if heshall be of opinion that he can find enough of serious in other partsof this history, he may pass over these, in which we profess to belaboriously dull, and begin the following books at the second chapter.