THE COVENT-GARDEN TRAGEDY. AS IT WAS ACTED AT THE THEATRE-ROYAL IN DRURY-LANE, IN 1732. -quæ amanti parcet, eadem sibi parcet parum. Quasi piscis, itidem est amator lenæ : nequam est nisi recens. s habet succum; is suavitatem; eum quovis pacto condias; Is dare volt, is se aliquid posci, nam ubi de pleno promitur, G2 PROLEGOMENA. Ir hath been customary with authors of extraordinary merit to prefix to their works certain commendatory epistles in verse and prose, written by a friend, or left with the printer by an unknown hand, which are of notable use to an injudicious reader, and often lead him to the discovery of beauties which might otherwise have escaped his eye. They stand like champions at the head of a volume, and bid defiance to an army of critics. As I have not been able to procure any such panegyrics on the following scenes from my friends, nor had leisure to write them myself, I have, in an unprecedented manner, collected such criticisms as I could meet with on this tragedy, and have placed them before it; but I must at the same time assure the reader, that he may shortly expect an answer to them. The first of these pieces, by its date, appears to be the production of some fine gentleman, who plays the critic for his diversion, though he has not spoiled his eyes with too much reading. The latter will be easily discovered to come from the hands of one of that club which hath determined to instruct the world in arts and sciences, without understanding any; who, With less learning than makes felons 'scape, 66 DEAR JACK, "SINCE you have left the town, and no rational creature except myself in it, I have applied myself pretty much to my books: I have, besides the CRAFTSMAN and GRUB-STREET JOURNALS, read a good deal in Mr. Pope's RAPE OF THE LOCK, and several pages in the HISTORY OF THE KING OF SWEDEN, which is translated into English; but fancy I should understand more of it if I had a better map: for I have not been able to find out Livonia in mine. ** "I believe you will be surprised to hear I have not been twice at the playhouse since your departure. But alas! what entertainment can a man of sense find there now? The MODERN HUSBAND, which we hissed the first night, had such success, that I began to think it a good play, till the GRUB-STREET JOURNAL assured me it was not. THE EARL OF ESSEX, which you know is my favourite of all Shakspeare's plays, was acted the other night; but I was kept from it by a damned farce which I abominate and detest so much that I have never either seen it or read it. "Last Monday came out a new tragedy called The COVENT-GARDEN TRAGEDY, which, I believe, I may affirm to be the worst that ever was written. I will not shock your good judgment by any quotations out of it. To tell you the truth I know not what to make of it: one would have guessed from the audience, it had been a comedy; for I saw more people laugh than cry at it. It adds a very strong confirmation to your opinion-that it is impossible any thing worth reading should be written in this age. St. James's Coffee-house." "I am, &c. A CRITICISM ON THE COVENT-GARDEN TRAGEDY, originally intended for The GRUB-STREET JOURNAL. I HAVE been long sensible that the days of poetry are no more, and that there is but one of the moderns (who shall be nameless) that can write either sense, or English, or grammar. For this reason I have passed by unremarked, generally unread, the little, quaint, shortlived productions of my cotemporaries: for it is a maxim with my bookseller, that no criticism on any work can sell, when the work itself does not. But when I observe an author growing into any reputation; when I see the same play which I had liberally hissed the first night, advertised for a considerable number of nights together, I then begin to look about me, and to think it worth criticising on. A play that runs twelve nights will support a temperate critic as many days. The success of the TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES, and The MODERN HUSBAND, did not only determine me to draw my pen against those two performances, but. hath likewise engaged my criticism on every thing which comes from the hands of that author, of whatever nature it be, Seu Græcum sive Latinum. The COVENT-GARDEN TRAGEDY bears so great an analogy to the TRAGEDY of Tом THUMв, that it needs not the author's name to assure us from what quarter it had its original. I shall beg leave, therefore, to examine this piece a little, even before I am assured what success it will meet with. Perhaps what I shall herein say may prevent its meeting with any. I shall not here trouble the reader with a laborious definition of Tragedy drawn from Aristotle or Horace; |