John Churton Collins

“ Against this, I can raise no argument, but my Lord of Orrery's writings. In whose Verse, the greatness of the Majesty seems unsullied with the cares, and his inimitable Phancy descends to us in such easy expressions, that they seem as if neither had ever been added to the other: but both together flowing from a height; like birds got so high that use no labouring wings, but only, with an easy care, preserve a steadiness in motion. But this particular happiness, among those multitudes which that excellent Person is owner of, does not convince my reason, but employ my wonder. ”

“ As for their New Way of mingling Mirth with serious Plot, I do not, with LISIDEIUS, condemn the thing; though I cannot approve their manner of doing it. He tells us, we cannot so speedily re-collect ourselves, after a Scene of great Passion and Concernment, as to pass to another of Mirth and Humour, and to enjoy it with any relish. But why should he imagine the Soul of Man more heavy than his Senses? Does not the eye pass from an unpleasant object, to a pleasant, in a much shorter time than is required to this? ”

“ No morning sun lasts a whole day,
as Poor RICHARD says.
Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but, ever while you live, Expense is constant and certain: and 'tis easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel, as Poor RICHARD says. So rather go to bed supperless, than rise in debt!
Get what you can! and what you get, hold! 'Tis the Stone that will turn all your lead into gold!
as Poor RICHARD says. And when you have got the Philosopher's Stone, sure, you will no longer complain of bad times, or the difficulty of paying taxes.
This doctrine, my friends! is Reason and Wisdom! ”

“ We shall find that a quotation out of Qui mihi, an Axiom out of Logic, a Saying of a Philosopher, or the like, though managed with some quickness and applied with some seeming ingenuity, will not, in our days, pass, or be accepted, for Wit.
For we must know that, as we are now in an Age of great Philosophers and Men of Reason, so of great quickness and fancy! and that Greek and Latin, which heretofore (though never so impertinently fetched in) was counted admirable, because it had a learned twang; yet, now, such stuff, being out of fashion, is esteemed but very bad company! ”

“ First, then, I am of opinion, that Rhyme is unnatural in a Play, because Dialogue, there, is presented as the effect of sudden thought. For a Play is the Imitation of Nature: and since no man, without premeditation, speaks in rhyme; neither ought he to do it on the Stage. This hinders not but the Fancy may be, there, elevated to a higher pitch of thought than it is in ordinary discourse; for there is a probability that men of excellent and quick parts, may speak noble things ex tempore: but those thoughts are never fettered with the numbers and sound of Verse, without study ”

“ To which I only answered coldly, that "the event will shew!" But it is the talent of our Age and nation to turn things of the greatest importance into ridicule. When the end of the year had verified all my Predictions; out cometh Mr. PARTRIDGE's Almanack! disputing the point of his death. So that I am employed, like the General who was forced to kill his enemies twice over, whom a necromancer had raised to life. If Mr. PARTRIDGE has practised the same experiment upon himself, and be again alive; long may he continue so! ”

“ SIR, That short discourse which we lately had concerning the Clergy, continues so fresh in your mind, that, I perceive by your last, you are more than a little troubled to observe that Disesteem that lies upon several of those holy men. Your good wishes for the Church, I know, are very strong and unfeigned; and your hopes of the World receiving much more advantage and better advice from some of the Clergy, than usually it is found by experience to do, are neither needless nor impossible. ”

“ He is the most calm, peaceable writer you ever read. He never disquiets your passions with the least concernment; but still leaves you in as even a temper as he found you. He is a very Leveller in poetry; he creeps along, with ten little words in every line, and helps out his numbers with For to, and Unto, and all the pretty expletives he can find, till he drags them to the end of another line: while the Sense is left, tired, halfway behind it. He doubly starves all his verses; first, for want of Thought, and then, of Expression, His poetry neither has wit in it, nor seems to have it ”

“ You rarely meet with anything in VIRGIL but Truth; which therefore leaves the strongest impression of Pleasure in the Soul. This I thought myself obliged to say in behalf of Poesy: and to declare (though it be against myself) that when poets do not argue well, the defect is in the Workmen, not in the Art.
And, now, I come to the boldest part of his Discourse, wherein he attacks not me, but all the Ancient and Moderns; and undermines, as he thinks, the very foundations on which Dramatic Poesy is built. ”

“ What would a Roman Catholic priest think (who is always helped first, and placed next the ladies) , should he see a Clergyman giving his company the slip at the first appearance of the tarts or sweetmeats? Would he not believe that he had the same antipathy to a candid orange or a piece of puff paste, as some have to a Cheshire cheese or a breast of mutton?
Yet to so ridiculous a height is this foolish custom grown, that even the Christmas Pie, which in its very nature is a kind of consecrated cake and a badge of distinction, is often forbidden to the Druid of the family. ”

“ I never heard of any other Foundation of Dramatic Poesy, than the
Imitation of Nature: neither was there ever pretended any other, by the
Ancients or Moderns, or me who endeavoured to follow them in that Rule.
This I have plainly said, in my Definition of a Play, that IT IS A JUST
AND LIVELY IMAGE OF HUMAN NATURE, &c.
Thus 'the Foundation, as it is generally stated,' will stand sure, if this Definition of a Play be true. If it be not, he ought to have made his exception against it; by proving that a Play is not an Imitation of Nature, but somewhat else, which he is pleased to think it. ”

“ And here I make bold to tell the World that I lay the whole credit of my Art upon the truth of these Predictions; and I will be content that PARTRIDGE and the rest of his clan may hoot me for a cheat and impostor, if I fail in any single particular of moment. I believe any man who reads this Paper [pamphlet] , will look upon me to be at least a person of as much honesty and understanding as the common maker of Almanacks. I do not lurk in the dark, I am not wholly unknown to the World. I have set my name at length, to be a mark of infamy to mankind, if they shall find I deceive them. ”

“ That can prescribe to the Reason, during the time of the representation, somewhat like a weak belief of what it sees and hears; and Reason suffers itself to be so hoodwinked, that it may better enjoy the pleasures of the fiction: but it is never so wholly made a captive as to be drawn headlong into a persuasion of those things which are most remote from probability. 'Tis, in that case, a free born subject, not a slave. ”

“ For my own part, I have often blushed to see a Gentleman, whom I knew to have more Wit and Learning than myself, and who was bred up with me at the University upon the same foot of a liberal education, treated in such an ignominious manner; and sunk beneath those of his own rank, by reason of that character which ought to bring him honour. ”

“ The words of a good writer, which describe it lively, will make a deeper impression of belief in us, than all the Actor can persuade us to, when he seems to fall dead before us: as the Poet, in the description of a beautiful garden, or meadow, will please our Imagination more than the place itself will please our sight. ”

“ It serves to shew that he thought the whole labour of such a Performance unworthy to be thrown away upon those Intrigues and Adventures, to which the romantic taste has confined Modern Tragedy: and, after the example of his predecessors in Greece, would have employed the Drama to wear out of our minds everything that is mean or little, to cherish and cultivate that Humanity which is the ornament of our nature, to soften Insolence, to soothe Affliction, and to subdue our minds to the dispensations of Providence. ”

“ Assuming that a drama should be 'a just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind,' it is shown that this end can only be attained in a drama founded on such a compromise; that the ancient and modern classical drama fails in nature; that the Shakespearian drama fails in art. ”

“ Neither can I see that men could have been brought by any other means to live together in fellowship of life, to maintain cities, to deal truly, and willingly to obey one another; if men, at the first, had not by art and eloquence persuaded that which they full oft found out by reason. For what man, I pray you, being better able to maintain himself by valiant courage than by living in base subjection, would not rather look to rule like a lord, than to live like an underling ”

“ This way of Writing in Verse, they have only left free to us. Our Age is arrived to a perfection in it, which they never knew: and which (if we may guess by what of theirs we have seen in Verse, as the Faithful Shepherdess and Sad Shepherd) 'tis probable they never could have reached. For the Genius of every Age is different: and though ours excel in this; I deny not but that to imitate Nature in that perfection which they did in Prose [i.e., Blank Verse] is a greater commendation than to write in Verse exactly. ”

“ For one may desire but to know this one thing: In what Profession shall that sort of Wit prove of advantage? As for Law, where nothing but the most reaching subtility and the closest arguing is allowed of; it is not to be imagined that blending now and then a piece of a dry verse, and wreathing here and there an odd Latin Saying into a dismal jingle, should give Title to an estate, or clear out an obscure evidence! And as little serviceable can it be to Physic, which is made up of severe Reason and well tried Experiments! ”

“ Nay, they account it the grace of their parts! and think themselves disparaged by the Poet, if they may not twice or thrice in a Play, entertain the audience, with a speech of a hundred or two hundred lines.
"I deny not but this may suit well enough with the French: for as we, who are a more sullen people, come to be diverted at our Plays; they, who are of an airy and gay temper, come thither to make themselves more serious. And this I conceive to be one reason why Comedy is more pleasing to us, and Tragedy to them. ”

“ One may easily imagine a reader of plain sense but without a fine taste, turning over these parts of the Volume which make more than half of it, and wondering how an Author who seems to have so solid an understanding when he treats of more weighty subjects in the other pages, should dwell upon such trifles, and give up so much room to matters of mere amusement. There are indeed but few men so fond of the Ancients, as to be transported with every little accident which introduces to their intimate acquaintance. ”

“ For the World is now, especially in discourse, for One Language! and he that has somewhat in his mind of Greek and Latin, is requested, now-a-days, "to be civil, and translate it into English, for the benefit of the company!" And he that has made it his whole business to accomplish himself for the applause of boys, schoolmasters, and the easiest of Country Divines; and has been shouldered out of the Cockpit for his Wit: when he comes into the World, is the most likely person to be kicked out of the company, for his pedantry and overweening opinion of himself. ”

“ When I take myself to be ill treated with regard to my behaviour to the merit of other men; my conduct towards you is an argument of my candour that way, as well as that your name and authority will be my protection in it. You will give me leave therefore, in a matter that concerns us in the Poetical World, to make you my judge whether I am not injured in the highest manner! for with men of your taste and delicacy, it is a high crime and misdemeanour to be guilty of anything that is disingenuous. ”

“ The first thing that contributes much to the Poverty of the Clergy is the great scarcity of Livings.
Churches and Chapels we have enough, it is to be confessed, if compared with the bigness of our nation: but, in respect of that infinite number that are in Holy Orders, it is a very plain case, that there is a very great want. And I am confident, that, in a very little time, I could procure hundreds that should ride both sun and moon down, and be everlastingly yours! if you could help them but to a Living of £25 or £30 a year. ”

“ I leave the words to work their effect upon your Lordship, in their own language; because no other can so well express the nobleness of the thought: and wish you may be soon called to bear a part in the affaires of the Nation, where I know the World expects you, and wonders why you have been so long forgotten; there being no person amongst our young nobility, on whom the eyes of all men are so much bent. ”

“ And suppose we do imagine, as it is necessary we should, that the number should be a little lessened; this surely will not abate the true splendour of a University in any man's opinion, but his who reckons the flourishing thereof, rather from the multitude of mere gowns than from the Ingenuity and Learning of those that wear them: no more than we have reason to count the flourishing of the Church from that vast number of people that crowd into Holy Orders, rather than from those learned and useful persons that defend her Truths, and manifest her Ways. ”

“ Yea, who would, for his King's pleasure, adventure and hazard his life, if wit had not so won men that they thought nothing more needful in this world nor anything whereunto they were more bounden than here to live in their duty and to train their whole life, according to their calling. Therefore whereas men are in many things weakly by nature, and subject to much infirmity; I think in this one point they pass all other creatures living, that they have the gift of speech and reason. ”