John Dennis

“ His powerful intellect compels our admiration, if not our sympathy. His irony, his genius for satire and humour, his argumentative skill, his language, which is never wanting in strength, and is as clear as the most pellucid of mountain streams—these gifts are of so rare an order, that Swift's place in the literary history of his age must be always one of high eminence. Doubtless, as a master of style, he has been sometimes over-praised. If we regard the writer's end, it must be admitted that his language is admirably fitted for that end. ”

“ What must those Strangers say, when they see that we leave so reasonable and so instructive an Entertainment as Tragedy, for one so pernicious and so extremely absurd; for there is something in the Italian Opera, which is Barbarous and Gothick, and so contrary to a true Taste, that an Opera in any Country can be only advanc’d by the same Degrees that the Taste of Men is debauch’d for more generous Arts. Thus in Italy, where an Opera is most advanc’d, there is no one who can write either Verse or Prose, nor any one who can judge of them. ”

“ The kind, although perfect, may be a low kind, and Swift's style wants the 'sweetness and light,' to quote a phrase of his own, which distinguish our greatest prose writers. It lacks also the elevation which inspires, and the persuasiveness that convinces while it charms. With infinitely more vigour than Addison, Swift, apart from his Letters, has none of Addison's attractiveness. No style, perhaps, is better fitted to exhibit scorn and contempt; but its author cannot express, because he does not possess, the sense of beauty.
Unlike Pope, Swift was a man of affairs rather than of letters. ”

“ That what we call Life here is not properly the Hero’s Life, that almost half of it is pass’d in absolute Death, and the rest in Desire, in Grief, in Love, in Rage, in Pain. And that the bright and eternal Fame, to which great Minds aspire, is never fully attain’d to here; that the Names of the greatest Heroes are circumscrib’d by narrow bounds both of time and space ”

“ His income more than sufficed for all his wants. At Twickenham the great in intellect, and the great by birth, met around his table; he was welcomed by the highest society in the land, and although proud of his intimacy with the nobility, 'unplaced, unpensioned,' he was 'no man's heir or slave,' and jealously preserved his independence. 'Pope,' says Johnson, 'never set genius to sale, he never flattered those whom he did not love, or praised those whom he did not esteem,' and he was, we may add, in this respect a striking contrast to Dryden, who lavished his flatteries wholesale. ”

“ If a Poet is not admir’d, tho’ the Man may live, the Spirit of the Poet dies, but a People to admire those generous Sentiments which abound in Poetry, must at least have something in them that answers to them: If they once grow wholly immerst and sunk in Pleasures of sense, those elevated Notions appear as so many Libels upon them, and their sickly Souls either turn away from them, or very feebly answer to them. ”

“ Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!
See Mystery to Mathematics fly! [Pg 51]
In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
Nor public Flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal Darkness buries All.'
The publication of the Dunciad showed Pope where his main strength as a poet lay. ”

“ After what has been said, I appeal to any Lover of his Country, if Poetry which begets a publick Spirit, ought to be banish’d for Musick which destroys it, which as it corrupts Mankind has a natural tendency to the Inslaving them; and indeed where-ever Opera’s have been a constant Entertainment they have been attended with slavery. We are at present contending for Liberty, and hard is the Contention, and the event doubtful, and we can not so much as hope to succeed, but by the Virtue of that magnanimous Spirit, which Poetry exalts, and which effeminate Mufick debases. ”

“ The poets of the period are for the most part without enthusiasm, without passion, and without the 'fine madness' which, as Drayton says, should possess a poet's brain. Wit takes precedence of imagination, nature is concealed by artifice, and the delight afforded by these writers is not due to imaginative sensibility. Not even in the consummate genius of Pope is there aught of the magical charm which fascinates us in a Wordsworth and a Keats, in a Coleridge and a Shelley. The prose of the age, masterly though it be, stands also on a comparatively low level. ”

“ When I affirm that an Opera after the Italian Manner is monstrous, I cannot think that I deal too severely with it; no not tho’ I add, that it is so prodigiously unnatural, that it could take its beginning from no Country, but that which is renowned throughout the World, for preferring monstrous abominable Pleasures to those which are according to Nature. ”

“ But he is a careless writer, and for the most part lacks the exquisite precision, the subtle wit, the rhythmical felicity, which make the couplets of Pope so memorable. The Dunciad, the Moral Essays, and the Imitations are read by all lovers of literature, but The Universal Passion is forgotten. Of the six satires, the two on women are the most spirited, and may be compared with Pope's on the same subject. The different foibles, and faults worse than foibles of the women of that day are exhibited with a satirist's licence, and occasionally with a Pope-like terseness. ”

“ England may certainly with a little Encouragement produce the greatest Tragick Poets in Europe, but there is scarce one Nation in the Christian World, but is qualify’d to surpass us in Opera’s, since they are almost all scituated under a serener Sky.
If a private Man who mistakes his Talent, and applies himself to things, for which neither God nor Nature have qualify’d him, does by that very choice deface all his good Qualities, and render himself contemptible to the World, how much more dishonourable must it be for a whole Nation? ”

“ Happily Robinson Crusoe, on which the author's fame rests, is a thoroughly healthy book that still holds its place as the best, or one of the best, volumes ever written for boys. There is genius as well as extraordinary skill in the way this admirable story is told, but it is not among the fictions which are read with as much pleasure in old age as in youth. Defoe's amazing gift of invention does not compensate for the want of a creative and elevating imagination. ”

“ The Modern Italians have the very same Sun and Soil which the Antient Romans had, yet are their Manners directly opposite; their Men are neither Vertuous, nor Wise, nor Valiant, and they who have reason to know their Women, never trust them out of their sight. ’Tis impossible to give any reason of so great a Difference between the Ancient Romans, and the Modern Italians but only Luxury, and the Reigning Luxury of Modern Italy, is that soft and effeminate Musick which abounds in the Italian Opera. ”

“ He was a brilliant politician who affected to be a wise statesman, a traitor to his country while pretending to be a patriot, an orator whose lips distilled honied phrases which his actions belied, a man of insatiable ambition who masked as a philosopher, a profligate without shame, a faithless friend, and an unscrupulous opponent. Blessed with every charm of manner, features, and voice, with a taste for literature and a large faculty of acquisition, he was a slave to the meanest vices. ”

“ In short, where-ever there is either the Love of Liberty or the Love of Glory, a true Poet may well be admir’d, and in how wretched a condition must the Nation be where both those Qualities are wanting. From what has been said ’tis manifest that it behoves us to think, before we fully resolve upon banishing so useful an Entertainment as that of the Drama, for the pernicious Amusement of Opera’s. ”

“ To glance at the century as a whole does not fall within my province, but I may be permitted to observe that in the course of it science and invention made rapid strides; that under the inspiring sway of Handel the power of music was felt as it was never felt before; that in the latter half of the period the Novel, destined to be one of the noblest fruits of our imaginative literature, attained a robust life in the hands of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett ”

“ The military genius of England was displayed in Marlborough and in Clive, her mercy in John Howard, her spirit of enterprise in Cook, her self-sacrifice in Wesley and Whitefield, her statesmanship in Walpole, in Chatham, and in William Pitt. In oratory as everyone knows, the eighteenth century was surpassingly great, and never before or since has the country produced a political philosopher of the calibre of Burke. What England reaped in literature during the period of which Pope has been selected as the most striking figure, it will be my endeavour to show in the course of these pages. ”