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Untitled Article
Of this fine tragedy , lite all the rest , the reviewer speaks in His usual style of arrogant ignorance , dull flippancy , and refined grossness . His whole article is one of the most extraordinary instances of perfection in non-comprehension that is , or ever will be , on record . He libels his subject at every inch of his
progress . All his nouns , adjectives , and verbs , are actionable . . B y every work on which he comments , or to which he onl y alludes , in every sentence and in every important word each sentence contains , he adds another sour tinct , false harmony ,
and characteristic touch to the antithetical portrait which he continually strives to hang up in opposition to the noble passions , principles , and powerful imaginations , the profound truths , and vigorous nature of Master Shakspeare , Master Webster , Master Decker , Master Chapman , and the rest of the old English Dramatists . Should space permit , a few words
will presently be offered as to why and how all this happens . This champion of style and diction , who would famjprove genius to be a mere sequence of words , concludes his silly remarks on the "Revenger ' s Tragedy , " by tautologicall y saying * , " We could multiply similar instances of impropriety , '( by dissimilar logarithms of ignorance ?) " false notions of morals , " ( by false views of true morality ?) " and absurdly-conceived situations , which the authors imagined to be theatrical . "
" In short / says Hazlitt in his Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth , " the great characteristic of the elder dramatic writers is , that there is nothing theatrical about them . In reading them , you only think iow the persons , into whose mouths certain sentiments are put , would
have spoken or looked : in reading Dryden and others of this school , you only think , as the authors themselves seem to have done , how they would be ranted on the stage . " This rank overgrowth striving to choak up Lamb ' s Specimens , and all the " men and things" involved in the question , is in itself a melanchol y inversion of humanity which would make creation u ^ ly . The article is one crowded field of essential
blunders and semi-vital forms , which outrage or burlesque , turn where you will , every great and integral principle of Nature , with a systematic propagation of luxuriant abortion . Mildew and blight are upon the face of it , and the spirit of the human heart pants for its true Atmosphere and cannot continue human . The imago of God is changed into a mandrake , and there is no more hope of progression . Thus , at least , the solemn bugbear of the field would have it . But that
we mean to break down all his fences , and put the wholesome plough through it , he may rest assured . r fear of fatiguing and irritating the reader by the inultitude of this reviewer ' s specimens , compels ut > , unwillingly , to pass over many tempting sentences— " the least , a death to
Untitled Article
250 The London Review v . The London Drama .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 250, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/58/
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