II. But convenience is not the only consideration. The NOVELTY of the thing, itself, may well recommend it to us.
For, when every other species of composition has been tried, and men are grown so fastidious as to receive with indifference the best modern productions, on account of the too common form, into which they are cast, it may seem an attempt of some merit to revive the only one, almost, of the ancient models, which hath not yet been made cheap by vulgar imitation.
I can imagine the reader will conceive some surprise, and, if he be not a candid one, will perhaps express some disdain, at this pretence to Novelty, in cultivating the Dialogue-form. For what, he will say, has been more frequently aimed at in our own, and every modern language? Has not every art, nay, every science, been taught in this way? And, if the vulgar use of any mode of writing be enough to discredit it, can there be room even for wit and genius to retrieve the honour of this trite and hackneyed form?
This, no doubt, may be said; but by those who know little of the ancient Dialogue, or who have not attended to the true manner in which the rules of good writing require it to be composed.
We have what are called Dialogues in abundance; and the authors, for any thing I know, might please themselves with imagining, they had copied Plato or Cicero. But in our language at least (and, if I extended the observation to the other modern ones of most estimation, I should perhaps do them no wrong) I know of nothing in the way of Dialogue that deserves to be considered by us with such regard.
There are in English Three Dialogues, and but Three, that are fit to be mentioned on this occasion: all of them excellently well composed in their way, and, it must be owned, by the very best and politest of our writers. And had that way been a true one, I mean that which antiquity and good criticism recommend to us, the Public had never been troubled with this attempt from me, to introduce another.
The Dialogues I mean are, The Moralists of Lord Shaftesbury; Mr. Addison’s Treatise on Medals; and the Minute Philosopher of Bishop Berkeley: and, where is the modesty, it will be said, to attempt the Dialogue-form, if it has not succeeded in such hands?
The answer is short, and, I hope, not arrogant. These applauded persons suffered themselves to be misled by modern practice; and with every ability to excel in this nice and difficult composition, have written beneath themselves, only because they did not keep up to the ancient standard.
An essential defect runs through them all. They have taken for their speakers, not real, but fictitious characters; contrary to the practice of the old writers; and to the infinite disadvantage of this mode of writing in every respect.
The love of truth, they say, is so natural to the human mind, that we expect to find the appearance of it, even in our amusements. In some indeed, the slenderest shadow of it will suffice: in others, we require to have the substance presented to us. In all cases, the degree of probability is to be estimated from the nature of the work. Thus, for instance, when a writer undertakes to instruct or entertain us in the way of Dialogue, he obliges himself to keep up to the idea, at least, of what he professes. The conversation may not have really been such as is represented; but we expect it to have all the forms of reality. We bring with us a disposition to be deceived (for we know his purpose is not to recite historically, but to feign probably); but it looks like too great an insult on our understandings, when the writer stands upon no ceremony with us, and refuses to be at the expence of a little art or management to deceive us.