Gerard Langbaine

“ There is a Force and a Fire in her Tragedy, that is the Soul that gives it Life, and for want of which, most of our Modern Tragedies are heavy, languid, unmoving, and dull. In her Comedy there is an easy Freedom of adding, which confesses a Conversation in the Authress no less genteel and entertaining. ”

“ There is scarce one Action perform'd in View of the Audience; but several Persons come in, and tell of Adventures perform'd by others or themselves, and which often have no more to do with the Business of the Play, than the Persons that speak, as in the First Scene of the Fifth Act of the Alexandrean Tragedy, Aristotle and Phoceon, who have no hand in the various Revolutions of that Play, spend a long Scene on the Uncertainty of Humane Grandeur, only to tell a few Lines of Business done by some of Alexander's Captains. ”

“ This Author has given us no Proof of his Talent in Flattery, for he has dedicated neither of those Plays he has appeared in; but he has that part of a Poet however, of flattering himself (as indeed every Man does more or less) in defending what the Town has once condemned, for tho’ a bad Play may take, yet we hear very few Instances that a good one miscarried; ’tis true, this is like other general Rules, not without its Exception. This particular Play met with pretty good Success, for the Season of the Year, considering it the first Essay of a young Writer, unacquainted with the Town. ”

“ Cibber took care to engage the Interest of a great many, by obliging their Vanity, in submitting his Play to their Perusal and Censure; for there is no Complement so prevailing with Mankind, as that which is made to their Wit.
Mr. Cibber has taken Care to avoid the Guilt of an unconfessed Theft, in avowing his Innocence, only so far as he could remember. The Plot indeed seems to be new, as it is surprising and admirable ”

“ That the Farce, call’d, Natural Magick, is an Imitation of Part of a French Comedy, of one Act, after the Italian Manner, as you may find many in the Theatre Italien. Hercules, the Masque, is his own, tho’ I have seen one on the same Subject by a French Author, and represented at Brussels. The Comedy is his own too, call’d, All without Money. ”

“ Then the Poet seems under another Mistake, in thinking, that because an Italian Lady would esteem you a dull, heavy, and Phlegmatick Lover, if you should waste time in idle Ceremony and Complement; it is Excuse enough for her yielding so soon in his Play: For if they are such, they are no fitter for a Tragedy, than one of our English Prostitutes, and can here merit no more Pity. And tho’ it is an extraordinary thing to make us pity the Guilty, (which I know none but Otway could do) yet the Audience must be very Compassionate, to pity so willing an Adultery as this ”

“ THis Lady has very happily distinguish'd her self from the rest of her Sex, and gives us a living Proof of what we might reasonably expect from Womankind, if they had the Benefit of those artificial Improvements of Learning the Men have, when by the meer Force of Nature they so much excel. Rules indeed are but the Leading-strings to support and carry the Weaker, and more unobserving Heads, and which those of a strong Genius and Penetration will have no need of, since a just Consideration of Nature will conduct them with more Ease and Success. ”

“ For by a sort of Poetick License, unknown to our great Master Horace, he perverts all those known Characters given us by Ovid; he has made the Chaste Favourite of Diana, (Daphne) both a Whore and a Jilt; and so sordid, as to contemn the God of Wit and Light, for a pitiful dull Country Lad: and fair Syrinx must loose her Reputation, in the unknown ignomy of an envious, jilting, mercenary, infamous Woman. ”

“ Thus much for the Mourning Bride, of which, if I may be allow'd to speak my impartial Sense, I must needs say, that in spite of its Excellence, it discovers Mr. Congreve's Genius more inclin'd and turn'd to Comedy, than Tragedy, tho' he has gain'd an uncommon Praise for both ”

“ The Incident of Sir Joseph Wittoll's Marrying Sylvia, and Captain Bluff, Lucy, in Masques, has been too often an Incident on the Stage, since I'm confident it was scarce ever done in reality. Some other Characters are not entirely new, but that is very excusable in a Young Poet, especially in a Play, which I have been assur'd was writ, when our Author was but Nineteen Years Old, and in nothing alter'd, but in the Length, which being consider'd, I believe few Men that have writ, can shew one half so good at so unripe an Age. ”

“ Acted at the Theatre in Lincolns-Inn-Fields, by his Majesty's Servants, and Dedicated to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Howard, &c., and is usher'd into the World by a Preface of his Father, who in it indeed shews the tenderness of a Parent, but I think not the Impartiality and Justice of a true Critick, when he excludes all from Poetry and Nature but his Friends, at least since the Revolution. The young Gentleman in his Epistle, has gone a little too far for a Beginner, as yet too uncertain of his own Success, to fall upon the other Writers of the Age. ”

“ THis Gentleman was of a good Family, and Estate, the last uncommon with so good a Poet: he was belov’d by all that knew him, for his personal Merit and Affability, as well as admir’d for his Poetry. He died about Eight Years since. ”

“ I can never think any reasonable Man shou’d suppose a Woman entirely divested of a sense of Humanity, or insensible either of the Power of an agreeable Temptation, or of the Pleasure it yields: and as most of our Vices are the surest Guard, if not source of our Virtues, I’m confident, when the Husbands ill Usage of his wife deprives himself of her Love, he dismisses the surest Guard of their common Honour ”

“ A Gentleman very famous in the Reign of King Charles the Second; his Country I am ignorant of; but his first Applications were to the Law; his Love in a Tub, and his Wit brought him into good Acquaintance, and general Esteem, till for Marrying a Fortune he was Knighted, and by King James the Second, he being in particular esteem with the late Queen his Consort, sent him Envoy to Hamburgh. After the Revolution he went for France to his Master, and dyed there, or very soon after his arrival in England from thence ”

“ This was our Author's First Play, in which there is a great deal that shews him a Poet, but not enough, it seems, to gain it that Success which he desired: He was very Young when it was writ, and therefore may be well excus'd for wanting that Correctness, which a more Mature Author, perhaps, wou'd have observ'd. The History of Pyrrhus is to be found in Livy Book, Plutarch, in the Life of that King, Lucius Florus, &c. ”

“ Langbain has always, a good Word for Quality, he can see no Blemish in that Person that has a Title, tho’ he be so sharp sighted in all those of a lower Station; and he is so transported on this worthy Nobleman, that he baulks the Curiosity of his Reader, for some Account of his Life, to vent a clumsey Flattery. ”

“ But not to wrong my Lord in the Judgment of the Readers, by these ridiculous Quotations; they are to consider, First, that this was the Vice of the Age, not the Poet; he having in that, as well as some other things, imitated the Vices of our admirable Shakespear, and next that these punning Fits come not very often upon him. To shew that he writes in another Strain sometimes, I must give you Three or Four Lines, (my Brevity denying more large Quotations) which will give you a Taste of his better Parts.
Love is a joy, which upon Pain depends ”

“ He has, for several Years, had the Patronage of the present Earl of Dorset, and has Merit to deserve more than he has met with from others: He is guilty of Modesty, of which few of his Profession know much; and it is the noisy pushing Man in Poetry, as well as other things, that prevails with Fame as well as Fortune. ”

“ John’s-College of Cambridge, and Christ-Church of Oxon finish’d, where he took his Master of Arts Degree; Necessity drove him thence, to follow his Father-in-Law’s Trade of a Bricklayer; working at Lincoln’s-Inn, with a Trowel in his Hand, and Horace in his Pocket, he found a Patron that set him free from that Slavish Employment. ”

“ If the Golden Age of Poetry carried him from that in the Luxurious Reign of Charles II. when more People run Mad after the Muses than even now; the Iron Age that soon ensu'd, recall'd him from so fruitless a Pursuit. ”

“ A Gentleman now living, who, as I have been inform’d, made his first Application to the Law; but quitted those rougher Studies for the more pleasing Entertainment of the Muses; and after the writing of two Plays, with no ill Success, at least with very good Judges, mov’d by his active Temper, he left, for some Years, the calmer retreat of Poetry for the War ”

“ And I believe, notwithstanding all that some Gentlemen have urg'd against the Language in Otway's Plays, it seldom wants any of those Qualities that are necessary to the Perfection of the Piece he has undertaken; he has seldom given us any Persons of Kings or Princes, and if his Stile swell not so much in the Mouths of those of a Lower Degree, whom he has chosen, it was because he had too much regard to the Nature of the Person he introduces. ”

“ So that in Paris almost e’ry one goes to the Theatre, here not the tenth part, for Hypocrisie and Business here, divide the greater part to their several and different Offices: Another Reason is, That the Governours of the House were unwilling to wear it out, and so balk’d the Run of it.
I am not ignorant of the several Objections made against this Play by the Criticks, viz. that the Scenes are loose, and not at all akin to the Plot, and may be cut out and alter’d in perpetuum, without the least Injury or Advantage to the thin and frail Design of the Play ”

“ If he has not followed the Model of the Ancients, he has yet borrowed very freely their Thoughts, translating whole Speeches from Seneca, Virgil, and others, as the First Act of Julius Cæsar from Juno's Speech in the First of the Æneids; and many of his Sentences, as well as the Defect of his Senteniousness, he owes to Seneca. The Two First Acts generally are wholly foreign to the Business of the Play, as indeed the greatest part of the other Acts are too. ”

“ A Gentleman of a good Family, and a celebrated Wit in the Reigns of the Two K. Charles's; he was Page of Honour to the First, and Groom of the Bed-Chamber to the Second: during the King's Exile, he saw France, Italy, and Spain ”

“ An Author that has been pleas'd to visit the Town with a Play in the Autumn of his Age, if I am rightly informed; 'tis therefore no great wonder if it wanted fire and force enough to preserve its Life above three Days. He is a Doctor of the Civil Law, and otherwise esteemed a Man of good Sense and Judgment ”

“ Brother to the Right Honourable Thomas Lord Fanshaw of Ware-Park in Hertfordshire; he was Educated at Cambridge, from thence removed to Court; he perfectly understood Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; was Secretary to the King in Holland, France, and Scotland, was after the Restauration sent Ambassador to Portugal, to Consummate the Match between the present Queen Dowager and Charles the Second. ”

“ Tho’ this Gentleman’s Modesty has hitherto hindred him from setting his Name to any of the Plays that he has Writ, yet they are so Universally known to be his, and own’d by him to the Stage by all other ways, that it cannot reasonably be taken amiss by him, to find his Name here, since it is not in the Power of Envy to mention it, without the highest Value and Esteem. ”

“ The Old Batchelor was usher'd into the world with several Copies of Verses of his Friends, and which the Merit of the Play abundantly jnstifies: For there's a genteel and sprightly Wit in the Dialogue, where it ought to be; and the humorous Characters are generally within the Compass of Nature, which can scarce be truly said of those of several Poets, who have met with Success enough on the Stage. ”

“ But the Moral is one of the most noble of any of our Modern Plays, it being to give us an Example in the Punishment of Martian, that no Consideration in the World, ought to make us delay the Service of our Country. ”

“ Congreve was of too delicate a Taste, had a Wit of too fine a turn, to be long pleas'd with that crabbed, unpalatable Study; in which the laborious dull plodding Fellow, generally excells the more sprightly and vivacious wit; for the Law is something like Preferment at Court, won by Assurance and Assiduity; this concurring with his Natural Inclinations to Poetry, diverted him from the Bar to the declining Stage, which then stood in need of such a Support ”

“ He is not to make Characters more deprav'd than Experience ever shew'd us; for I'm confident Callapeia never had her Fellow, on this side the Line at least, and for the Vices of those of the other, I know nothing that we have to do with them, (having Stock enough of our own) and 'tis with abundance of Reason, call'd, The Unnatural Mother; for sure there never was such an one in Nature. Bebbemeah's being put on the Couch with a Black Slave, and there found asleep, is borrowed from Mr. Settle's Incident of Cleomira, and Oirantes, in the Princess of Persia. ”

“ A Gentleman of an Ancient Family, and tho’ design’d for the Law, and once a Member of the Middle Temple, was pleased to quit the rugged Paths of Business for Poetry, in which he has performed with various Success. ”

“ Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards, Two Parts, a Tragi-Comedy, 4to. 1678. Acted at the Theatre Royal. Almanzor is very like Ponce de Leon, in Almahide, as Mr. Langbain observes; but in my Opinion, tho' there may be many Features like Ponce in the Draught, yet Almanzor seems rather to be a Copy of the Achilles of Homer, ill understood, for he does more alone, and without an Army to back him, than Achilles with his Myrmidons; Achilles was injur'd, and desisted from fighting, but Almanzor goes over to their Enemies ”

“ Congreve must be said to be as much oblig'd to her for his Success, as to Nature for his Wit, which truly deserv'd it, and of which all those that read his Plays, must allow him a more than ordinary Share. ”

“ A Gentleman yet living, whose Father having ventured most of his Estate (which was considerable) in a Foreign Plantation, that was afterwards taken by the French, and all King Charles's Reign neglected, he took, by the Encouragement of the late famous Lord Rochester, to Dramatick Writing, and has perform'd very well both in Tragedy and Comedy; tho', with Mr. Langbain, I look on Comedy to be his Talent; he has given us a Proof of his Ability in these following Plays:
Ambitious Statesman, or The Loyal Favourite, a Tragedy, 4to. ”