Let us hear another critic. Walpole says:[163] “As an author he is familiar to those who scarce know any other author ... from his book of horsemanship.... He was fitter to break Pegasus for a manage than to mount him on the steeps of Parnassus.... One does not know whether to admire the philosophy or smile at the triflingness of this[164] peer, who after sacrificing such a fortune for his Master and enduring such calamities for his country, could accommodate his mind to the utmost idleness of literature.”
[163] A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, 2nd ed., 1759, vol. II, p. 12 seq.
[164] The plural is used in the original, as Walpole wrote “of this and the last-mentioned Peer,” namely the Marquess of Winchester.
In this instance, the critic has been criticised. Newcastle’s “elegant and retired studies,” says Lodge,[165] “his adoption of which in truth denoted the greatness of his spirit, a late noble person has endeavoured to ridicule ... with less taste and justice than are commonly to be found in his censures, and with more than his usual spleen”. Lodge is probably right in saying that, although Newcastle “could not claim the higher attributes of a dramatic author ... he was a close observer, and a faithful delineator of the characters and manners of ordinary society”.
[165] Portraits of Illustrious Personages.
It would be impossible to give long extracts from Newcastle’s plays here; but one or two are offered from “The Humorous Lovers,” a comedy of which even Walpole says that it was “acted by his Royal Highnesses servants,” that it “was received with great applause, and esteemed one of the best plays at that time”.
The characters figuring in one scene were “Courtly, A gentleman in love with Emilia,” and “Emilia, a gentlewoman in love with Courtly”.
Act V. Scene I.
Enter Courtly and Emilia.
Court. May I not hope you will not always be so cruel, but that my love in time may have a kind return?