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    bed ; and painted devils , being believed for the moment to be realities of some kind or other , ( as is the case with children ) there might be enough in the scene to appal the stoutest of us . But this gentleman sees nothing but the outside of things . He is never present at the doing and suffering . He is always . " in

    the cool of the afternoon . " Thus he sits as part and parcel of an unconcerned arm-chair , like a mere critic , instead of mixing himself up with the impassioned scene like a natural man so circumstanced , and afterwards retiring to meditate calmly on liis own imaginary experience , comparing it with his practical experience , and testing it by his best powers ? Such then is the perception and judgment of this graceless diction-writer—principal mock-critic in a review founded on

    patriotic and philosophical principles ; a review which professes to be , and in so many respects is , in advance of the time ; in the pages of which we continually meet with such expressions as " men of cultivated understanding "— " refined mind "— " regular culture "— " close observation "— " educated men "— "

    critical spirit of persons of refinement "— " blessings of a confirmed literary taste ; " &c , and in which—bound up with the very same number—we find the most ignorant scholasticism of mind , inducing narrowness in all things , mechanical minuteness of taste , and pragmatical incorrectness of style and diction , —side by side with the most masterly and instructive articles , such as those on Law Reform , De Tocqueville , Chile , Sec . &c .

    That the tragedy of the Duchess of Malfy has , like all other works , its faults , we of course , admit ; but they are not such as the reviewer points out . The faults are not in the fundamental principles of the tragedy , but in some parts of the details . We allude chiefly to the scene which the reviewer gives

    such bad and blundering arguments for disliking . The quality as well as quantity of substantial horrors being actually brought on the stage , instead of the horrors being suggested only or partially and indistinctly represented , was quite in the bad taste of the lime ; j ? ist as the gross-minded processions of ornate dresses , and other less innocent sensualities , are the

    aristocratic taste of our own times . The terrors of the Duchess of Malfy are brought into the foreground amidst a painfully strong light , when they should have been fearfully undefined among the remote shadows . Mr . Hazlitt . objects , it , is true , even to the mental presentation of such horrors—for lie is far from

    considering them as " the ingenuities of a bonne" who wishes "to produce a striking effect in the nursery / ' But let us observe the tone in which a real critic , well understanding the depth of the question he is sounding , offers his objection . " The merit /' says lie , " is of » kind which , however ^ reat , we wish to be rare . A scries of such exhibitions obtruded upon the senses

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    844 The London Review v . The British Drama *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 244, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/52/