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Untitled Article
the look profound , the tone rqoral and seriously respectable , the instances apt , the reasons still more apt than the instances—the theory minute to a hair , and of the game breadth—the major proposition contemptuous—the minor caustic- —the conclusion denunciatory ana damnatory
downright—a ' foolish gentleman / who has been admitted into the London Review , inarches forward to prove that the age is becoming too refined to tolerate the vulgarity of genuine dramatic representation ! This is indeed an exception to the principle , purpose , and otherwise unanimous voice of the time . It might have been
passed over as a hasty individuality ; but , in some connections , such individualities assume disproportionate importance . We might have inferred , had v \ v , not known better , that it had been the resolute and admitted purpose of the London Review to drive back the tide of things , in morals as well as in poetry ; but the London Review is a great reformer ! Howbeit the attempt
is made . Alone , and sharp in furtive glances , conscious of temerity , yet inflated with its vain purpose , —the form sal tan t —the small paws ardent— the whiskers splenetic to a hairthe tail restless and elaborately narrow—the nose dissentient , and the tone a squeak—from this mountain issues a mouse !
Now , we are , of course , well aware that " instances have heen known , " when an individual being perfectly right , and persisting in advocating his cause , has been violently opposed by the vast majority of his time , sneered at , -hunted , hooted after , and knocked down ; reviled , spit upon , tormented , and sent to heaven . We are of opinion that such facts—and rejoice , as far as the immunity from physical martyrdom is concerned—
are by no means applicable to the anti-dramatic critic or critics of * the London Review . Rut as the thing goes on , " from inch to inch ascendant , " and may eventually rise for a time so as to become rather mischievous by perseverance , and on tli £ authority of this otherwise powerfully written work , it beeQmea a duty to throw one ' s mite into the opposite scale . It will be the business , therefore , of the present p&per , to show soul * reasons for thinking that the anti-dramatic critics of this
Review , know nothing at all about the matter ; that they have not read the authors they fret over—that they have not understood , w , W they have ventured to quote from them—that they liavq * o , feeling for unpolished power , but only for elaborate littlftttesa ; that they are circumscribed in imagination ,
thereibrp . fri sympathy , therefore in judgment—that they have no abstr ^ t . qjfijiity with the deepest emotions of human natureno spul for twe * rt , and finally , that instead of " beating down Satan . ujidgr tfieir fe fft , " they are doing their utmost to maintain conventional hypocrisy in morals , weakness in practical conduct , Wid mechanical vulgarity in taste ; all of which directly con *
Untitled Article
230 The London Review v . The British Drama .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 230, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/38/
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