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
at an cxid , and that it is of no use to call for help , as her maid Cariola \ rould do , she says : — "To whom—to our neighbours ? they are mad folk . Farewell , Cariola !—
I pray thee , look thou giv ' st my little boy Some syrup for his cold , and let the girl Say her prayers ere she sleep . Now , what you please ! ' This feeling , as far beyond hope and despair as the extreme law of nature permits—this transference of all her solicitude to her children , as though she herself had nought more to care for on
her own account—yet with the solemn identification , etherial and unconscious , save in the subtlety of sensation , of herself and her futurity with her child , who is to offer up prayers ere she sleep ; this indeed is the work of a master , and should be ap * proached , for the purposes of study and deep contemplation , with- becoming reverence by all men . What is the remark made on this passage by the writer in
the London Review ? lie flaps his wings and says : — " The ludicrous rises here to sublimity !" What is to be done with this roan ? Here is an individual installed in the post of critic on the drama and " what not , *' in one of the first reviews of the time ( one professing by its
superior philosophy to be far in advance of the age ) an expo * sitor of the nothingness of the old English dramatists , —who in the most impassioned scenes , invariably sees the facts either without the passion , or as fatal antitheses to it , and " fixes upon " minor details iu order to elucidate or destroy ( the same thing with him ) general principles ! He sees a little boy sitting up
in bed with his night-gown and night-cap on , a strip of flannel round his throat , and a silver spoon in his hand . This he finds < c the ludicrous . " We fancy we have some sense of the ludicrous , but really we do not discover any grounds for it here , except in the Reviewer ' s mind . Perhaps our stupidity is the mere natural ignorance of a non-elect batchelor condition , while fathers and mothers would be forcibly struck with the
jest immediately ? But since allusion is made to the circumstance by the mother , as a last instance of affectionate solicitude for one she will never press to her bosom agaiij in this world , he finds it sublimely ludicrous ! He sees a little g irl whose night-gown and night-cap make nature perfectly ri < Jiculoufi , or " out of the question , " kneeling down to say her prayers ere she sleep . This he considers in itself " the
ludicrous ; " but as the child is to pray to God , at the request of her mother , beneath whose feet the earth is reduced to $ , few falli ng sands , the last grain of which sinks with her iqto eternity , he considers the idea proportionate ^ rises to the ublime of * the ludicrous !"
Untitled Article
8 * 2 . The London Review r . The British Drama .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 242, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/50/
-