One fool lolls his tongue out at another,
And shakes his empty noddle at his brother.
The citation of this couplet Mr. Dennis imagined, was rather meant to affront him, than pay a compliment to his genius, as he could discover nothing excellent in the lines, and if there was, they being only a translation, in some measure abated the merit of them. Being fired with resentment at this affront, he immediately, in a spirit of fury, wrote a letter to the Spectator, in which he treated him with very little ceremony, and informed him, that if he had been sincere in paying a compliment to him, he should have chosen a quotation from his poem on the Battle of Ramellies; he then points out a particular passage, of which he himself had a very high opinion, and which we shall here insert as a specimen of that performance.
A coelestial spirit visits the duke of Marlborough the night before the battle, and after he has said several other things to him, goes on thus,
A wondrous victory attends thy arms,
Great in itself, and in its sequel vast;
Whose ecchoing sound thro' all the West shall run,
Transporting the glad nations all around,
Who oft shall doubt, and oft suspend their joy,
And oft imagine all an empty dream;
The conqueror himself shall cry amaz'd,
'Tis not our work, alas we did it not;
The hand of God, the hand of God is here!
For thee, so great shall be thy high renown,
That same shall think no music like thy name,
Around the circling globe it shall be spread,
And to the world's last ages shall endure;
And the most lofty, most aspiring man,
Shall want th' assurance in his secret prayers
To ask such high felicity and fame,
As Heav'n has freely granted thee; yet this
That seems so great, so glorious to thee now,
Would look how low, how vile to thy great mind,
If I could set before th' astonished eyes,
Th' excess of glory, and th' excess of bliss
That is prepar'd for thy expiring soul,
When thou arriv'st at everlasting day.
The quotation by Mr. Dennis is longer, but we are persuaded the reader will not be displeased that we do not take the trouble to transcribe the whole, as it does not improve, but rather grows more languid. How strangely are people deceived in their own productions! In the language of sincerity we cannot discover a poetical conception, one striking image, or one animated line in the above, and yet Mr. Dennis observes to Sir Richard Steele, that these are the lines, by quoting which, he would really have done him honour.
But Mr. Dennis's resentment did not terminate here; he attempted to expose a paper in the Spectator upon dramatic conduct, in which the author endeavours to shew that a poet is not always obliged to distribute poetical justice on this very reasonable account, that good and evil happen alike to all men on this side the grave. To this proposition our critic objects, 'that it is not only a very false, but a dangerous assertion, that we neither know what men really are, nor what they suffer. Besides, says he, let it be considered, that a man is a creature, who is created immortal, and a creature consequently that will find a compensation in futurity, for any seeming inequality in his destiny here; but the creatures of a poetical creator, are imaginary, and transitory; they have no longer duration than the representation of their respective fables, and consequently if they offend, they must be punished during that representation, and therefore we are very far from pretending, that poetical justice is an equal representation of the justice of the Almighty.' In support of this opinion our critic produces the example of Euripides, and the best poets amongst the ancients, who practised it, and the authority of Aristole, who established the rule. But nature, or Shakespear, which is another word for nature, is by no means in favour of this equal distribution. No character can be represented in tragedy absolutely perfect, as no such character exists; but a character which possesses more virtues than vices, may be upon the whole amiable, and yet with the strictest propriety may be made the chief sufferer in the drama. If any passion strongly predominates in the heart of man, it will often expose him to such snares, entangle him in such difficulties, and oppress him with such wants, that in the very nature of things, he must sink under the complicated weight of misery. This may happen to a character extremely amiable, the passion which governs him may be termed unhappy, but not guilty, or if it should partake the nature of guilt, fallible creatures cannot always combat with success against guilty passions.
The drama being an imitation of nature, the poet causes a composition of characters formed in his imagination to be represented by players; these characters charm, or displease, not only for what they do; during the representation of the fable, but we love, or hate them for what they have done before their appearance; and we dread, or warmly expect the consequences of their resolutions after they depart the stage. The illusion would not be sufficiently strong, if we did not suppose the dramatic persons equally accountable to the powers above us, as we are ourselves. This Shakespear has taken care forcibly to impress upon his audience, in making the ghost of the murthered king of Denmark, charge his son not to touch his mother's life, but leave her to heaven; and the reflexions of her own conscience to goad and sting her.
Mr. Dennis's reasoning, upon the whole amounts to this, that no perfect character should suffer in the drama; to which it may be answered, that no perfect character ever did suffer in the drama; because no poet who draws from nature, ever introduced one, for this very good reason, that there are none in existence.
Mr. Dennis, who was restless in attacking those writers, who met with success, levelled some more criticisms against the Spectators; and amongst the rest endeavoured to expose Mr. Addison's Illustrations of the Old Ballad, called Chevy Chace; of which we shall only say, that he performed this talk more successfully than he executed his Animadversions upon Poetical Justice.
We have already taken notice of the warm attachment Mr. Dennis always had to the Whig-Interest, and his particular zeal for the Hanoverian succession. Ht wrote many letters and pamphlets, for the administration of the earl of Godolphin, and the duke of Marlborough, and never failed to lash the French with all the severity natural to him.