Quæ gravis Æsopus, quæ doctus Roscius egit.—Hor.
Whene'er he bellows, who but smiles at Quin,
And laughs when Garrick skips like harlequin?
'I have observed that the tragedians of the last age studied fine speaking, in consequence of which all their action consisted in little more than strutting with one leg before the other, and waving one or both arms in a continual see-saw. Our present actors have, perhaps, run into a contrary extreme; their gestures sometimes resemble those afflicted with St. Vitus's dance, their whole frame appears to be convulsed, and I have seen a player in the last act so miserably distressed that a deaf spectator would be apt to imagine he was complaining of the colic or the toothache. This has also given rise to that unnatural custom of throwing the body into various strange attitudes. There is not a passion necessary to be expressed but has produced dispositions of the limbs not to be found in any of the paintings or sculptures of the best masters. A graceful gesture and easy deportment is, indeed, worthy the care of every performer; but when I observe him writhing his body into more unnatural contortions than a tumbler at Sadler's Wells, I cannot help being disgusted to see him "imitate humanity so abominably." Our pantomime authors have already begun to reduce our comedies into grotesque scenes; and, if this taste for attitude should continue to be popular, I would recommend it to those ingenious gentlemen to adapt our best tragedians to the same use, and entertain us with the jealousy of Othello in dumb show or the tricks of Harlequin Hamlet.
CHAPTER XVI.
THACKERAY'S RESEARCHES AMONGST THE WRITINGS OF THE EARLY ESSAYISTS—Continued.
Characteristic Passages from the Works of the 'Humourists,' from Thackeray's Library; illustrated by the Author's hand with Marginal Sketches suggested by the Text—The 'Rambler,' 1749-50—Introduction—Its Author, Dr. Johnson—Paragraphs and Pencillings.
Preface to the 'Rambler.'
When, says Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Johnson undertook to write this justly celebrated paper, he had many difficulties to encounter. If lamenting that, during the long period which had elapsed since the conclusion of the writings of Addison, vice and folly had begun to recover from depressing contempt, he wished again to rectify public taste and manners—to 'give confidence to virtue and ardour to truth'—he knew that the popularity of these writings had constituted them a precedent which his genius was incapable of following, and from which it would be dangerous to depart. In the character of an essayist he was, hitherto, unknown to the public. He had written nothing by which a favourable judgment could be formed of his success in a species of composition which seemed to require the ease, the vivacity, and humour of polished life; and he had probably often heard it repeated that Addison and his colleagues had anticipated all the subjects fit for popular essays; that he might, indeed, aim at varying or improving what had been said before, but could stand no chance of being esteemed an original writer, or of striking the imagination by new and unexpected reflections and incidents. He was likewise, perhaps, aware that he might be reckoned what he about this time calls himself—'a retired and uncourtly scholar,' unfit to describe, because precluded from the observation of, refined society and manners.
But they who pride themselves on long and accurate knowledge of the world are not aware how little of that knowledge is necessary in order to expose vice or detect absurdity; nor can they believe that evidence far short of ocular demonstration is amply sufficient for the purposes of the wit and the novelist. Dr. Johnson appeared in the character of a moral teacher, with powers of mind beyond the common lot of man, and with a knowledge of the inmost recesses of the human heart such as never was displayed with more elegance or stronger conviction. Though in some respects a recluse, he had not been an inattentive observer of human life; and he was now of an age at which probably as much is known as can be known, and at which the full vigour of his faculties enabled him to divulge his experience and his observations with a certainty that they were neither immature nor fallacious. He had studied, and he had noted on the varieties of human character; and it is evident that the lesser improprieties of conduct and errors of domestic life had often been the subjects of his secret ridicule.