On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
and exclusive field ? " Do not the two combine nearly all-ihe best that has hitherto existed in this round world , and for much of which we must always go back to them until we can create it for ourselves ? After the foregoing " axiom" the reviewer adds ,- — -
" This is the inevitable lot of such partial amateurs in literature as Mr Lamb . " A lot , we are venturesome enough to declare , highly preferable to that of the professional practitioners of general literature—not a few among whom , having a " feeling beyond , " but would gladly make the exchange .
" That he possessed a quick sensibility , a vivid imagination , and powers of expression of no ordinary description , will be evident to any tolerably good judge of these qualities , even upon a cursory examination of his essays and criticisms . His style is cast in the mould of Addison ' s , modernised to that of our best magazines . ' '
It seems rather difficult to understand how even such an intolerably bad judge of sensibility and imagination , even upon a cursory examination , could have uttered such an absurdity as the last sentence . Either his reading of Addison must have been as cursory as of Lamb , or he must be uniquely deficient
in the faculty of comparison . Perhaps the remark , like many others of this reviewer , originated in a deficiency both of nature and of acquired knowledge . Lamb is altogether as Unlike Addison , as Montaigne is to Racine , or an illuminated vellum to a finished line engraving .
We agree with the remarks about Lamb ' s " nationality , " meaning thereby that " he was a thorough Englishman of three hundred years ago , doomed to live in an age with which he appears to have had little in common /*— " He was in fact , " { query , imagination ?) says the reviewer , " a professed playgoer of the time of Shakspoare and lleywood . '— ct The prose and poetry of his life were exactly of the same antiquity . " Exactly so ; and by no means in the mould of Addison , Pope , and the best modern magazines .
" We me about to rouse tlie indignation of Mr . Lamb's brethren in taste ; but we hope , wlieij the first ebullition is over , they will listen to our reasons /* Men of" that ilk" are not the creatures of " first ebullitions , "
they are men of continuity , and despise the mere coup dc thSdtre which is the * vulgar mania of the guasi-ndmirers of the Drama . That they will listen to the reviewer ' s reasons , he need not doubt . They will also give theirs , to which it is hoped the conductors of the Review will listen .
The reviewer " opens" in fulfilment of his promise , by informing us that " otiakspeure proceeded upon an essentially wrong plan .
Untitled Article
&S 2 The London Remetto v . The British Drama *
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 232, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/40/
-