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the ludicrous extent of selecting the finest passages as marks of the absurdity of the work . It is p lain enough how this happens . Such an individual is naturally struck—back to his mother earth sometimes—by those things which are in strongest opposition to himself . He denounces nil those feelings , ideas ,
and combinations of which he understands least , and perhaps , nothing whatever , because his self-love is the most pained and confounded by them . His attack is the unconscious impulse of self-defence . If such things be valuable , he himself must be worthless so far as they are concerned ? Simply , therefore , he inverts the conclusion . The attack is made chiefly from self-love , partly in spite of himself . The article on " Lamb ' s
Specimens" is a choice instance of the working of these principles . It is manifestly written by one whose natural constitution of mind and body , whose habitual course of thought and reading , and the character of whose train of circumstances and experience , from childhood upwards , ( be it here acknowledged that we do not know who the writer is , except from his articles in the London Iteview ) have rendered him exquisitely unfit for the task he lias undertaken . He seems to have been
made on purpose not to understand the subject . Now this is just wh y he has undertaken it . We may hear him saying to himselr— "The British Drama , both as regards writers and stasres , is at a low ebb ; but a love for certain old writers still exists in the breasts of nuinv . Here are a class of men who feel a deep sympathy with what they find in the old dramatists , and experience a corresponding delight . I find nothing in such
writings that claims my sympathy , nothing that occasions my delight ! On the contrary ; antipathv and pain are excited in me by everything they admire ! This is very surprising ;—I must look into it ! Surely there must be a great mistake somewhere ? 1 see it plainly ; there is a i ^ reut mistake somewhere ! The mistake is in the old dramatists and their admirers , poor men ! I will set this matter in : i proper light , and the world shall see how wrony ; thev have been . I will do this in my best style and diction ; and if they fail , the London Review will be none the wiser for it . "
To say that the article partly originated in a degree of resentment at the pleasure certain people derive from the old dramatists , might l > e fair enough ; but to add that there was for that reason a conscious wish to destroy it , would perhaps be too harsh . Such things , however , have been known ; though we are all very apt to give a " tastful translation " of our sins . There has been a strong shade of the " evil eye" in man ever since his ill-advised a Hair with the apple . " Discourteous power !" But we are willing to believe , in the present instance , that mere natural inaptitude was the chief cause of the mass of discrepancies that have been noticed , and no malevolent
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No , 113 S
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The London Review v . The British Drama . 257
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 257, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/65/
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