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ftrain than that frequently adopted on fuch
occafions. It contained the following lines
respecting the author:

"Be this at least his praise; be this his pride;
To force applause no modern arts are try'd.
Should partial cat-calls all his hopes confound
He bids no trumpet quell the fatal found.
Shou'd welcome fleep relieve the weary wit,
He rolls no thunders o'er the drowsy pit.
No fnares to captivate the judgment spreads;
Nor bribes your eyes to prejudice your heads.
Unmov'd, tho' witlings fneer, and rivals rail ;
Studious to please, yet not afham'd to fail.
He scorns the meek addrefs, the fuppliant ftrain,
With merit needlefs, and without it vain.”

IRENE is written with an exact regard to the unities, and the language of it is elegant and nervous. But it was not received with any great degree of applause. The author of it has obferved, in the preface to his edition of Shakespeare, that on our stage "inactive declamation is very

"coldly

"coldly heard, however mufical or elegant, σε paffionate or fublime." There may, poffibly, in Dr. Johnson's tragedy, be too much of this "inactive declamation." It is not in a high degree interefting, and perhaps we may fay of it, nearly in his own language, that " its hopes and fears " communicate little vibration to the "heart." Such, however, was the general merit of the piece, that it certainly deferved a better reception than it met with. But, perhaps, the reason that it had no greater fuccess in the representation was, that it was addreffed more to the head than to the heart; and abounded more in ftrong and juft fentiments, than in pathetic incidents, or interefting fituations. Though one profeffed defign of dramatic exhibitions is to inftruct, yet to procure a temporary entertainment is the chief object of those by whom they are most frequently

attended.

attended. As their aim is not the acquifition of wisdom, but the amusement of an hour, a very fuperficial piece may fometimes obtain the preference to one of much fuperior excellence. If ever the stage be really made in any confiderable degree the fchool of virtue, perhaps the exhibitions must be directed by those who are not pecuniarily interested in the conduct of it.

THE RAMBLER of Dr. Johnfon first began to be published, in periodical numbers, in the year 1750; and it is to this admirable performance that he owes much of his reputation. It was not, however, on its first publication, very popular, nor very generally read. He fays, in his last Rambler, “I am far from fuppofing, that

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the ceffation of my performances will raife any inquiry; for I have never been "much a favourite with the public; nor

can boast, that, in the progress of my

under

"undertaking, I have been animated by "the rewards of the liberal, the careffes " of the great, or the praises of the emi66 nent. But the great merit of this work was at length generally acknowledged. It has fince paffed through many editions, and been translated into foreign languages. In the RAMBLER, indeed, the fineft fentiments of morality and of piety are rendered delightful, by the harmony and splendour of the language. In his Lives of the Poets, as well as in fome of his other works, there are no inconfiderable number of exceptionable paffages; but his Ramblers are almost uniformly entitled to applaufe. The morality inculcated is pure, and the piety in general rational; and the criticisms, and obfervations on life and manners, are acute and inftructive. It is one of those works which may repeatedly

be read, and which will repeatedly delight. Hæc decies repetita placebit.

As the RAMBLERS are lefs calculated for general reading than the SPECTATORS, they have never been equally popular; but, perhaps, they are more interesting to literary men, as containing a greater variety of acute and original obfervations relative to the particular views, fentiments, and purfuits of men of letters.

AMONG the best papers in the RAmbler, are those on retirement, on the regulation of the thoughts, the frequent contemplation of death, the importance of the early choice of a profeffion, the neceffity of attending to the duties of common life, the history of Eubulus, on the inconveniencies of confidence and precipitation, the dif quisition on the value of fame, on the requifites to true friendship, on a man's happiness or mifery being chiefly to be found

at

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