rate and blind reverence, but a true taste of antiquity: such a taste as both feeds and polishes the mind, and enriches it by enabling it to appropriate the wealth of foreigners, and to exert its natural fertility in exquisite productions; such a taste as gave the Racines, the Molieres, the Boileaus, the Fontaines, the Patrus, the Pelissons, and many other great geniuses of the last age, all that they were, and all that they will always be; such a taste as puts the seal of immortality to those works in which it is discovered; a taste so necessary, that without it we may be certain that the greatest powers of nature will long continue in a state below themselves; for no man ought to allow himself to be flattered or seduced by the example of some men of genius, who have rather appeared to despise this taste than to despise it in reality. It is true that excellent originals have given occasion, without any fault of their own, to very bad copies. No man ought severely to ape either the ancients, or the moderns: but if it was necessary to run into an extreme of one side or the other, which is never done by a judicious and well-directed mind, it would be better for a wit, as for a painter, to enrich himself by what he can take from the ancients, than to grow poor by taking all from his own stock; or openly to affect an imitation of those moderns whose more fertile genius has produced beauties peculiar to themselves, and which themselves only can display with grace: beauties of that peculiar kind, that they are not fit to be imitated by others; though in those who first invented them they may be justly esteemed, and in them only. DEDICATIONS. Dr. JAMES'S MEDICINAL DICTIONARY. SIR, TO DR. MEAD. THAT the Medicinal Dictionary is dedicated to you, is to be imputed only to your reputation for superior skill in those sciences which I have endeavoured to explain and facilitate; and you are, therefore, to consider this address, if it be agreeable to you, as one of the rewards of merit ; and if otherwise, as one of the inconveniencies of eminence. However you shall receive it, my design cannot be disappointed; because this publick appeal to your judgment will show that I do not found my hopes of approbation upon the ignorance of my readers, and that I fear his censure least, whose knowledge is most extensive. I am, Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant, R. JAMES. The FEMALE QUIXOTE. By Mrs. LENNOX. 1752. To the Rt. Hon. the Earl of MIDDLESEX. MY LORD, SUCH is the power of interest over almost every mind, that no one is long without arguments to prove any position which is ardently wished to be true, or to justify any measures which are dictated by inclination. By this subtil sophistry of desire, I have been persuaded to hope that this book may, without impropriety, be inscribed to your Lordship; but am not certain that my reasons will have the same force upon other understandings. The dread which a writer feels of the publick censure; the still greater dread of neglect; and the eager wish for support and protection, which is impressed by the consciousness of imbecility, are unknown to those who have never adventured into the world; and I am afraid, my lord, equally unknown to those who have always found the world ready to applaud them. 'Tis therefore not unlikely that the design of this address may be mistaken, and the effects of my fear imputed to my vanity. They who see your lordship's name prefixed to my performance will rather condemn my presumption than compassionate my anxiety. But, whatever be supposed my motive, the praise of judgment cannot be denied me: for, to whom can timidity so properly fly for shelter, as to him who has been so long distinguished for candour and humanity? How can vanity be so compleatly grati fied as by the allowed patronage of him, whose judgment has so long given a standard to the national taste? Or by what other means could I so powerfully suppress all opposition, but that of envy, as by declaring myself, My Lord, Your Lordship's obliged and THE AUTHOR. SHAKESPEAR Illustrated; or, The NoVELS and HISTORIES on which the Plays of SHAKESPEAR are founded; collected and translated from the original authors. With Critical Remarks. By the Author of the FEMALE QUIXOTE. 1753. To the Right Hon. John Earl of ORRERY. MY LORD, I HAVE no other pretence to the honour of a patronage so illustrious as that of your lordship, than the merit of attempting what has by some unaccountable neglect been hitherto omitted, though absolutely necessary to a perfect knowledge of the abilities of Shakespear. Among the powers that must conduce to constitute a poet, the first and most valuable is invention; the highest seems to be that which is able to produce a series of events. It is easy when the thread of a story is once drawn, to diversify it with variety of colours; and when a train of action is presented to the mind, a little acquaintance with life will supply circumstances and reflections, and a little knowledge of books furnish parallels and illustrations. Το tell over again a story that has been told already, and to tell it better than the first author, is no rare qualification; but to strike out the first hints of a new fable: hence to introduce a set of characters so diversified in their several passions and interests that from the clashing of this variety may result many necessary incidents to make these incidents surprizing, and yet natural, so as to delight the imagination without shocking the judgment of a reader; and finally to wind up the whole in a pleasing catastrophe, produced by those very means which seem most likely to oppose and prevent it, is the utmost effort of the human mind. To discover how few of those writers, who profess to recount imaginary adventures, have been able to produce any thing by their own imagination, would require too much of that time which your lordship employs in nobler studies. Of all the novels and romances that wit or idleness, vanity or indigence, have pushed into the world, there are very few of which the end cannot be conjectured from the beginning; or where the authors have done more than to transpose the incidents of other tales, or strip the circumstances from one event for the decoration of another. In the examination of a poet's character, it is therefore first to be enquired what degree of invention has been exerted by him. With this view I have very diligently read the works of Shakespear, and now presume to lay the result of my searches before your lordship, before that judge whom Pliny himself would have wished for his assessor to hear a literary cause. |