Universal Poetry, and the Provinces of the Drama. In the former, on the ground that the end of poetry is pleasure, to which use itself must submit, as in all other kinds of literary composition, pleasure is subordinate to use, he infers the necessity of an ornamented, figurative, and numerous style; - of fiction, to represent the fairest objects only, and in the fairest lights; — and of verse, to charm the ear; for the want of which latter requisite, apparently, he blazes out into an outrageous fury against novels and romances. The principle he takes up, it is obvious, is much too general and vague to support the specific conclusions he deduces from it; and the whole disquisition has more the air of a mere trial of skill, than a serious exercise of critical sagacity. On the Provinces of the Drama he makes the object of Tragedy to be the excitation of the passions of pity and terror; of Comedy, the gratification arising from a just exhibition of the human character, with its specific shades of difference; and of Farce, the mere provocation of laughter. Tragedy, he infers, requires for its subject actions rather than manners,

tutional; but it is said that he made considerable alterations in the subsequent editions." The writer then cites the anecdote from Boswell's Life of Johnson. He may, or may not have had independent authority for the remark in question.

In this state of the case, however, an impartial enquirer will be disposed to say that the weight of testimony, considering the great, habitual accuracy of Porson, Burney, and Parr in respect to various readings for critical purposes, is on their side; but that, as the testimony is conflicting, no satisfactory and final decision can be given by the reader till the exact and complete collations of the five editions are placed before him. E. H. B.]

important actions, and the actions of important personages; Comedy, manners rather than actions, these not

too interesting, and of private persons. Both demand a plot, an unity and even simplicity of fable; and that the characters exhibited, should neither be perfectly good or (nor) bad, but differ in this, that a good plot is most essential to Comedy; that Tragedy succeeds best, when the subject is real, Comedy when it is feigned; Tragedy requires more particular characters, Comedy more general so that a sameness of character is tolerable in the former, but not in the latter; and that Comedy is most successful, when the scene is laid at home; Tragedy, when abroad. The genius of Comedy he considers to be humour, or the just expression of character without design-a happy definition! This expression may, or may not be enlivened with ridicule; and the drama, in consequence, may take the complexion of serious or pleasant, or it may unite both; but, when the qualities common to human nature at large, are overcharged in the exhibition, or when, instead of the peculiarities of particular characters and times, some real individual is personated, the representation degenerates into the lower province of Farce. Hurd's qualifications as a critic, are obviously subtlety and acumen, rather than sensibility and taste; but we must allow that he makes the most of the powers, with which he has been gifted." P. 215.

"At the close of Gildon's Remarks on Shakespeare's Plays, he observes that verisimilitude in the Drama is more essential than truth, because fact itself is sometimes so barely possible, that it is almost incredible.' Hurd has caught this idea; and it is not the only instance, in which I fancy I have detected him poaching on this antient and neglected manor." P. 219.

VOL. II.

K

"July 23, 1797. Read Hurd's Discourse on Poetical Imitation; a critical disquisition of considerable depth and skill, but debased by a superfluous intricacy and frequent affectation of quaintness. I cannot think that he satisfactorily exculpates Virgil from the charge of borrowing from Homer. Read afterwards his Marks of Imitation, of which the canons are just, but the examples not always convincing. The first Dissertation perhaps would render us too credulous of originality; and the latter, too suspicious of imitation." P. 38.

"Sept. 29. Began the second volume of Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works. I was disappointed with his remarks on Hurd's Horace, which, though certainly ingenious, possess little interest, and give no satisfaction. His final sentence on Hurd's Essay on Poetical Imitation, Mr. Hurd thinks these circumstances, all or some, necessary to form a suspicion; I allow they are very useful to 'confirm one,' is pointed and just." P. 47. "April 27, 1800. Read again, and with more attention, Hurd's Discourse on Poetical Imitation. He considers what is cailed invention, in criticism, as being in philosophical language, simply an imitation of natural objects; — that these objects, from which it is the office of genius to select its sentiments and images, fall under the heads, either of 1. the material world; 2. the internal workings or movements of our minds; or 3. those internal operations, that are made objective to sense, by gesture, attitude, or action; and that, being hy the constitution of our common nature, 1. sensible to the same beauties in external objects, 2. subject to the same passions, affections, and sentiments; and 3. expressing our internal feelings by the same outward signs,-mere resemblance in subject-matter

between two single images or sentiments, is no sufficient proof that one was copied from the other. This respects the matter of poetical composition; and with regard to the manner, he thinks that common principles may determine us to adopt, not only the same general form of expression, but even similar constituent members as episodes, descriptions, and similes; and that peculiarities of expression are the surest tests of imitation. Having thus reduced the criteria for detecting plagiarism, within as narrow a range as possible, he proceeds to vindicate imitation itself by maintaining that we are naturally led to regard the copies rather than the originals; and that the two great faculties, of judgment and invention, are exercised in the highest degree, in selecting from, and improving upon, these. Nothing can equal the exquisite subtlety, which Hurd displays in spinning the texture of his theory: an awkward assailant would find himself entangled in a web, from which extrication would be rendered hopeless, by the multitude and tenuity and involution of the filmy threads, that compose it. The comparison (1, 1.) of the influence of certain sentiments on the human form, to the gentle breathings of the air on the face of nature, is wonderfully fine, and highly wrought up. Parr's vivid description of the effect of these isolated passages, of bright and unsullied lustre, on his feelings, flashed instantly, and forcibly upon my mind, on the occasion."* P. 217.

[*" The language of Warburton is, I believe, generally allowed to be abrupt, inartificial, and undisciplined; irregular as the mind of the writer, and tinged with many diversified hues, from the rapid and uncertain course of his extensive and miscellaneous reading. As to your Lordship, whatever likeness some prying and morose observers may have traced between

"Oct. 3. 1799. Read the first volume of Hurd's Sermons at Lincoln's Inn.* In the 3d he not only maintains that we have a natural sense of right and wrong, independent of all revelation, but insists that without it we could never ascertain whether any revelation were true; and then vindicates Christianity, not simply as useful, from

you and Vertumnus in the versatility of your principles, the comparison must not be extended to the features of your style, concerning which, if we should grant the mille ornatus to belong to it, we cannot add, without the grossest hyprocrisy, or the most vitiated taste, mille decenter habet. Let me, however, commend both you and the Bishop of Gloucester, where commendation is due; and let me bestow it, not with the thrifty and penurious measure of a critic by profession, nor yet with the coldness and languor of an envious antagonist, but with the ardent gratitude of a man, whom, after many a painful feeling of weariness and disgust, you have refreshed unexpectedly, and whom, as if by some secret touch of magic, you have charmed and overpowered with the most exquisite sense of delight. Yes, my Lord, in a few lucky and lucid intervals between the paroxysms of your polemical frenzy, all the laughable and all the loathsome singularities, which floated upon the surface of your diction, have in a moment vanished; while, in their stead, beauties equally striking from their suddenness, their originality, and their splendour, have burst in a flood of glory' upon the astonished and enraptured reader. Often has my mind hung with fondness and with admiration over the crowded, yet clear

*[In the Bibl. Parr. 58. the Sermons are mentioned as the production of "the celebrated Bishop," and in p. 685, they are characterised as wary and temperate."

In p. 596, the Sermon preached before the House of Lords, Dec. 17, 1776. is also characterised as temperate and wary."