winter criticks. The old ballad of "George Barnwell" (on which the story was founded) was on this occasion reprinted, and many thousands sold in one day. Many gaily-disposed spirits brought the ballad with them to the play, intending to make their pleasant remarks (as some afterwards owned) and ludicrous comparisons between the antient ditty and the modern drama. But the play was very carefully got up, and universally allowed to be well performed. The piece was thought to be well conducted, and the subject well managed, and the diction proper and natural; never low, and very rarely swelling above the characters that spoke. Mr. Pope, among other persons distinguished by their rank, or particular publick merit, had the curiosity to attend the performance, and commended the actors, and the author; and remarked, if the latter had erred through the whole play, it was only in a few places, where he had unawares led himself into a poetical luxuriancy, affecting to be too elevated for the simplicity of the subject. But the play, in general, spoke so much to the heart, that the gay persons before mentioned confessed, they were drawn in to drop their ballads, and pull out their handkerchiefs. It met with uncommon success; for it was acted above twenty times in the summer season to great audiences; was frequently bespoke by some eminent merchants and citizens, who much approved its moral tendency: and, in the winter following, was acted often to crowded houses: And all the royal family, at several different times, honoured it with their appearance. It gained reputation, and brought money to the poet, the managers, and the performers.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. v, p. 339. An admirable piece of work, with a moral which goes more straight to the point than that of any French play I am acquainted with.-ROUSSEAU, JEANJACQUES, 1781, Lettre sur les spectacles, note. On the first night of representation, the greatest part of the audience assembled to laugh, and brought with them the old. ballad on the subject, as a token of ridicule; but, as the play proceeded, they became attentive, then interested, and, at length, threw down the ancient ditty, and drew forth their handkerchiefs.INCHBALD, MRS. ELIZABETH, 1806-9, The British Theatre, vol. v. "The Merchant of London" is remarkable from having been praised by Diderot and Lessing, as a model deserving of imitation. This error could only have escaped from Lessing, in the keenness of his hostility to the French conventional tone. For in reality, we must perpetually bear in mind the honest views of Lillo, to prevent us from finding "The Merchant of London" as laughable as it is certainly trival. Whoever possesses SO little knowledge of the world and of men ought not to set up for a public lecturer on morals. We might draw a very different conclusion from this piece, from that which the author had in view, namely, that we ought to make young people early acquainted with prostitutes, to prevent them from entertaining a violent passion, and being at last led to steal and murder, for the first wretch who spreads her snares for them, (which they cannot possibly avoid). Besides, I cannot approve of making gallows first visible in the last scene; such a piece ought always to be acted with a place of execution in the background. With respect to the edification to be drawn from a drama of this kind, I should prefer the histories of malefactors, which are usually printed in England at executions; they contain, at least, real facts, instead of awkward fictions.-SCHLEGEL, AUGUSTUS WILLIAM, 1809, Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, tr. Black, Lecture xiii. Lillo's domestic tragedies were what she most admired; for "My lady used to declare," said the old servant so often quoted, "that whoever did not cry at George Barnwell must deserve to be hanged."-STUART, LADY LOUISA, 1837, The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ed. Lord Wharncliffe, Introductory Anecdotes, vol, I, p. 110. It marks in the history of the stage the same change which Richardson introduced into the novel. Yet the comparison must not be carried too far; they agree in the most devoted respect for morality, but in art poor Lillo is the merest bungler, and by the side of Richardson he makes but a poor show. -PERRY, THOMAS SERGEANT, 1883, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, p. 327. (At the Theatre Royal, Manchester, "George Barnwell" used within a recent date to be annually performed on Shrove Tuesday). "George Barnwell" retained possession of the English stage for more than a century, and experienced some notable "revivals." Among these need only be mentioned that at Covent Garden on 28 Sept. 1796, when for the sake of her brother Charles Kemble, who appeared as the hero, Mrs. Siddons took the part of Millwood, and induced Miss Pope to act Lucy (Genest, vii. 287-8). Its popularity is further attested by various treatments of the same theme in novel and burlesque, Thackeray's "George de Barnwell" being conspicuous among the latter. WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1893, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXXIII, p. 253. Read again to-day, the "master-piece" of this remarkable character seems less sublime. It is a melodrama of a decidedly sombre type, highly moral, and in parts, but in parts only, full of pathos. "Manon" was as yet unwritten, and who shall say that Lillo's play, which Prévost saw performed in London, and spoke of with such enthusiasm, did not count for something in the creation of his romance? However this may be, there is a touch of the rogue about Des Grieux, and Manon is too lovable; the lesson conveyed is less direct and less tragic. The manner in which the humble dissenter George Lillo determined to produce was very different. He aimed at producing a more forcible impression, and wrote, not a dramatic work, but a sermon in the form of a play. Nevertheless, crude as it is from an artistic point of view, this drama contains a presage of something great. "George Barnwell," which in England was regarded as a common and rather vulgar drama of some merit, produced on the continent the impression of a work of genius, and gave the theater a new lease of life. The Germans became as enthusiastic over Lillo as over Shakespeare; Gottsched and Lessing extolled him to the skies, and the latter imitated him in "Sara Sampson." He became one of the classics of the modern drama. Yet, strange as it may seem, even to the Germans he to the Germans he appeared too brutal, and Sébastien Mercier's "Jenneval," a modified but inferior adaption, was played in preference. TEXTE, JOSEPH, 1895-99, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan Spirit in Literature, tr. Matthews, pp. 134, 135, 138. FATAL CURIOSITY 1736 Long since, beneath this humble roof, this Play, Wrought by true English Genius saw the day. Forth from this humble roof it scarce has stray'd; In prouder Theatres 'twas never play'd. There you have gap'd, and doz'd o'er many a piece, Patch'd up from France, or stol'n from Rome or Greece, Or made of shreds from Shakespeare's Golden Fleece. There Scholars, simple nature cast aside, Have trick'd their heroes out in Classick pride; No Scenes, where genuine Passion runs to waste, But all hedg'd in by shrubs of Modern Taste. Each Tragedy laid out like garden grounds, One circling gravel marks its narrow bounds. Lillo's plantations were of Forest growth-Shakespeare's the same - Great Nature's hand in both! Give me a tale the passions to control, "Whose slightest word may harrow up the soul!" A magick potion, of charm'd drugs commixt, Where Pleasure courts, and Horror comes betwixt! COLMAN, GEORGE, 1782, Prologue to Lillo's Fatal Curiosity, Works, vol. III, p. 233. Lillo had many requisites for a tragedian; he understood, either from innate taste, or critical study, the advantage to be derived from a consistent fable; and, in the tragedy of the "Fatal Curiosity, he has left the model of a plot, in which, without the help of any exterior circumstances, a train of events operating upon the characters of the dramatic persons, produce a conclusion at once the most dramatic and the most horrible that the imagination can conceive.-SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 1814-23, Essay on the Drama. On the 10th of February, Lillo's most horrible tragedy of the "Fatal Curiosity" was brought out augmented by Mr. Mackenzie in a style sufficiently similar. Henderson and Mrs. Stephen Kemble rendered the audience completely miserable.-BOADEN, JAMES, 1825, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, vol. 1, p. 147. That the play is distinguished by a homely, genuine pathos, rarely, if ever met with, in the dramatic efforts of the age, will be admitted by every reader. In fact, Lillo was to dramatic, what Crabbe, half a century later, was to narrative poetry. If not a genuis of the highest order, he had strong and healthful sympathies; and at a period when profligacy, fustain, and affectation, held possession of the stage, it is refreshing to turn to his simple humanity and unexceptionable morality. LAWRENCE, FREDERICK, 1855, The Life of Henry Fielding, p. 131. GENERAL Nothwithstanding the power of Lillo's works, we entirely miss in them that romantic attraction which invites to repeated perusal of them. They give us life in a close and dreadful semblance of reality, but not arrayed in the magic illusion of poetry. His strength lies in conception of situations, not in beauty of dialogue, or in the eloquence of the passions. Yet the effect of his plain and homely subjects was so strikingly superior to that of the vapid and heroic productions of the day, as to induce some of his contemporary admirers to pronounce that he had reached the acmè of dramatic excellence, and struck into the best and most genuine path of tragedy. It is one question whether Lillo has given to his subjects from private life the degree of beauty of which they are susceptible. He is a master of terrific, but not of tender impressions. We feel a harshness and gloom in his genius even while we are compelled to admire its force and originality. CAMPBELL, THOMAS, 1819, Specimens of the British Poets. There was more of moral purpose than of genius in his tragedies. MORLEY, HENRY, 1873, A First Sketch of English Literature, p. 838. Amused the town with some perfectly unreadable plays, principally "George Barnwell" and "The Fatal Curiosity, which are interesting as the first specimens of "tragedie bourgeoise," or modern melodrama. These artless dramas were composed in the interest of morality and virtue, and are the parents of a long line of didactic plays of crime and its punishment. -GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 393. One of the prominent offenders who followed in Steele's wake was George Lillo whose highly moral tragedies, written for the edification of playgoers, have the kind of tragic interest which is called forth by any commonplace tale of crime and misery. In Lillo's two most important dramas, "George Barnwell," a play founded on the old ballad, and "The Fatal Curiosity, there is a total absence of the elevation in character and language which gives dignity to tragedy. His plays are like tales of guilt arranged and amplified from the Newgate Calendar. The author wrote with a good purpose, and the public appreciated his work, but it is not dramatic art, and has no pretension to the name of literature.-DENNIS, JOHN, 1894, The Age of Pope, p. 138. Daniel Waterland 1683-1740 Born at Wasely, Lincolnshire, England, Feb. 14, 1683; died in London, Dec. 23, 1740. He became a fellow of Magdalen College, Cambridge, 1704, and its master, 1713; Chaplain to George I, 1714; rector of Ellingham, 1713, and of St. Austin and St. Faith, London, 1720; Chancellor of York, 1723; canon of Windsor, 1727; vicar of Twickenham and archdeacon of Middlesex, 1730. He is eminent as a patristic scholar, a champion of orthodoxy, and a fair-minded and unembittered controversialist. Besides much against Dr. Samuel Clarke, Whitby, Middleton, Tindal, and others, he wrote a "Critical History of the Athanasian Creed," Cambridge, 1724, n. e. Oxford, 1870, and a "Review of the Doctrine of Eucharist," 1737, n. e. Oxford, 1868. His works, with a memoir by Bishop Van Mildert, were collected in 11 vols., Oxford, 1823-28, and in 6 vols., 1843 and 1856.-BIRD, FREDERIC MAYER, 1889-91, Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge and Gazetteer, ed. Jackson, p. 955. GENERAL The Stile is simple and unadorned, but clear and nervous; and such an unusual plainness runs through the whole, that perhaps it is a kind of Stile which never yet appeared; but which wants only to appear, in order to be admired and imitated.-CLARKE, JOSEPH, 1742, Sermons on Several Important Subjects of Religion and Morality. This great man is the Archimedes of the Christian Church. His Demonstrations, like engines and battering-rams, drive all before them. Neither Dr. Clarke, nor Jackson, nor even Emlyn, could stand before him.-RYLAND, JOHN, 1781, ed., The Student and Preacher, by Cotton Mather, Supplement. Few names, recorded in the annals of the Church of England, stand so high in the estimation of its most sound and intelligent members, as that of Dr. Waterland. During a period remarkable for literary and theological research, and fruitful in controversies upon subjects of primary importance, this distinguished writer acquired, by his labours in the cause of religious truth, an extensive and solid reputation. Nor did the reputation thus acquired die away with those controversies in which he bore so large a share. It has survived the occasions which gave them birth, and still preserves its lustre unimpaired. His writings continue to be referred to by divines of the highest character, and carry with them a weight of authority never attached but to names of acknowledged preeminence in the learned world.-VAN MILDERT, WILLIAM, 1823, ed., The Works of Daniel Waterland, With Life. A learned and able defender of some important points; but little, as far as the author has seen, of evangelical and devout divinity, or the main principle of the gospel, salvation by grace.-BICKERSTETH, EDWARD, 1844, The Christian Student. Waterland, the most learned of contemporary divines.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, The Starting Point of Deism, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. 1, p. 86. Then arose a Christian champion who annihilated those anti-Trinitarians who held a middle ground between the Catholic faith and Humanitarianism pure and simple, as completely as Butler and others annihilated Deism. This was Dr. Waterland, who first appeared in the arena in 1719, and routed Dr. Clarke and his friends from one position after another until he left them no ground to stand upon, except that of admitting the full Divinity of Christ, or regarding Him as a Dr. Waterland took a comprehensive view of the whole question, and left to posterity not only an effective answer to Dr. Clarke, but a masterly and luminous exposition of a fundamental doctrine of the faith, the equal to which it would be difficult to find in any other author, ancient or modern.--OVERTON, JOHN HENRY, 1897, The Church in England, vol. II, pp. 226, 227. mere man. Waterland did more than any other divine of his generation to check the advance of latitudinarian ideas within the church of England. His deep and accurate learning and his command of nervous and perspicuous English rendered him unusually formidable as a controversialist. Of mysticism and philosophy he was suspicious, and was therefore reduced to rest the defence of Christianity entirely on external evidence.-RIGG, J. M., 1899, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LIX, p. 447. Thomas Tickell 1686-1740 Born, at Bridekirk, Cumberland, 1686. Matric., Queen's College, Oxford, 16 May 1701; B. A., 1705; M. A., 22 Feb. 1709. Friendship with Addison. Appointed by him Under-Secretary of State, 1717. Married, 1726. Secretary to Lords Justices of Ireland, 1724-40. Died, at Bath, 21 April 1740. Works: "A Poem to the Lord Privy Seal on the Prospect of Peace," 1713; Translation of Homer's "Iliad,' Bk. I. (pubd. under Tickell's name, but possibly by Addison), 1715; "An Epistle from a Lady in England to a Gentleman at Avignon" (anon.), 1717; "An Ode occasioned by Earl Stanhope's Voyage to France," 1718; "An Ode to the Earl of Sutherland" (anon), 1720; "Kensington Gardens" (anon), 1722; "To Sir G. Kneller" (anon.), 1722; "On Her Majesty's rebuilding the Lodgings of the Black Prince and Henry V. at Queen's College, Oxford," 1733. He edited: Addison's Works, 1722, etc. Collected Works: ed. by T. Park, 1807.—SHARP, R. FARQUHARSON, 1897, A Dictionary of English Authors, p. 281. PERSONAL Tickell was not one of those scholars who wear away their lives in a closet. With respect to his personal character, he is said to have been a man of gay conversation, at least a temperate lover of wine and company, and in his domestick relations without censure. JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Tickell, Lives of the English Poets. Tickell was in his person and manners amiable and pleasing. His habits were rather of a convivial cast; he loved the gay circle and the enlivening glass, but seldom, if ever, passed beyond the limits of temperate indulgence. His conversation was spirited and attractive, and in his family he was regular, affectionate, and kind. DRAKE, NATHAN, 1804-14, Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator and Guardian, vol. III, p. 130. HOMER'S ILIAD, BOOK I 1715 I must inform the reader that when I begun this first book I had some thoughts of translating the whole "Iliad," but had the pleasure of being diverted from that design by finding that the work was fallen into a much abler hand. I would not, therefore, be thought to have any other view in publishing this small specimen of Homer's "Iliad," than to bespeak, if possible, the favour of the public to a translation of Homer's Odyssey," wherein I have already made some progress.-TICKELL, THOMAS, 1715, tr., First Book of the Iliad, To the Reader. 66 They tell me, the busy part of the nation are not more divided about Whig and Tory, than these idle fellows of the feather, about Mr. Tickell's and my translation. I (like the Tories) have the town in general, that is, the mob on my side; but it is usual with the smaller party to make up in industry, what they want in number, and that is the case with the little senate of Cato. However, if our principles be well considered, I must appear a brave Whig, and Mr. Tickell a rank Tory. I translated Homer for the public in general, he to gratify the inordinate desires of one man only. We have, it seems, a great Turk in poetry, who can never bear a brother on the throne; and has his mutes too, a set of nodders winkers, and whisperers, whose business 'tis to strangle all other offsprings of wit in their birth. The new translator of Homer, is the humblest slave he has, that is to say, his first minister; let him receive the honours he gives me, but receive them with fear and trembling; let him be proud of the approbation of his absolute Lord, I appeal to the people, as my rightful judges and masters; and if they are not inclined to condemn me, I fear no arbitrary high-flying proceeding, from the small court-faction at Button's. But after all I have said of this great man, there is no rupture between us. We are each of us so civil and obliging, that neither thinks he's obliged: and I for my part treat with him, as we do with the Grand Monarch; who has too many great qualities not to be respected, though we know he watches any occasion to oppress us.-POPE, ALEXANDER, 1715, Letter to the Hon. James Craggs, July 15. It does not indeed want its merit; but I was strangely disappointed in my expectation of a translation nicely true to the original; whereas in those parts where the greatest exactness seems to be demanded, he has been the least careful; I mean the history of ancient ceremonies and rites, &c., in which you have with great judgment been exact.-ARBUTHNOT, JOHN, 1715, Letter to Pope. Be assured I want no new inducement to behave myself like your friend. To be very plain, the University almost in general gives the preference to Pope's Translation; they say his is written with more Spirit, Ornament and Freedom, and has more the air of an original. I inclined some; Hanton &c, to compare the Translation with the Greek; which was done, and it made some small alteration in their opinions, but still Pope was their man. The bottom of the case is this, they were strongly prepossest in Pope's favour, from a wrong notion of your design before the Poem came down; and the sight of yours has not force enough upon them to make them willing to contradict themselves, and own they were in the wrong; but they go far for prejudiced persons, and own yours an excellent translation, nor do I hear any violently affirm it to be worse than Pope's, but those who look on Pope as a miracle, and among those to your comfort Evans is the first, and even these zealots allow that you have outdone |