But, though prescription's force we difallow,
Nor to antiquity submissive bow;
Though we deny imaginary grace,

Founded on accidents of time and place;

Yet real worth of ev'ry growth shall bear

Due praife, nor muft we, Q-n, forget thee there.
His words bore sterling weight, nervous and strong;
In manly tides of fenfe they roll'd along.
Happy in art, he chiefly had pretence
To keep up numbers, yet not forfeit sense.
No actor ever greater heights could reach
In all the labour'd artifice of speech.

Speech! Is that all? And shall an actor found
An univerfal fame on partial ground?
Parrots themselves fpeak properly by rote,
And, in fix months, my dog fhall howl by note.
I laugh at those who, when the stage they tread,
Neglect the heart to compliment the head;
With strict propriety their care's confin'd
To weigh out words, while paffion halts behind,
To fyllable-diffectors they appeal,

---

may

Allow them accent, cadence fools feel;
But fpite of all the criticifing elves,

Thofe who would make us feel, muft feel themselves.
His eyes, in gloomy focket taught to roll,
Proclaim'd the fullen habit of his foul.
Heavy and phlegmatic he trod the stage,
Too proud for tenderness, too dull for rage.
When Hector's lovely window shines in tears,
Or Rowe's gay rake dependent virtue jeers;
With the fame caft of features he is feen
To chide the libertine and court the queen.

From the tame scene which without paffion flows,

With juft defert his reputation rofe.

Nor lefs he pleas'd, when, on fome furly plan,
He was, at once, the actor, and the man.
In Brute he fhone unequall'd; all agree
Garrick's not half fo great a brute as he.
When Cato's labour'd scenes are brought to view,
With equal praise the actor labour'd too,
For ftill you'll find, trace paffions to their root,
Small diff'rence 'twixt the Stoic and the Brute,
In fancied scenes, as in life's real plan,
He could not, for a moment, fink the man.
In whate'er caft his character was laid,
Self ftill, like oil, upon the furface play'd.
Nature, in fpite of all his skill, crept in:
Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff,ftill was Q-n.

Mr.

N

Mr. Sh-r-d-n, from the fame.

EXT follows Sh-r-d-n.. -A doubtful name,
As yet unfettled in the rank of fame.
This, fondly lavish in his praifes grown,

Gives him all merit; that allows him none.
Between them both, we'll fteer the middle course,
Nor, loving praife, rob judgment of her force.

Just his conceptions, natural and great:

His feelings ftrong, his words enforc'd with weight.
Was fpeech-fam'd Qn himself to hear him speak,
Envy would drive the colour from his cheek:
But ftep dame Nature, niggard of her grace,
Deny'd the focial pow'rs of voice and face.
Fix'd in one frame of feature, glare of eye,
Paffions like chaos, in confufion lie:
In vain the wonders of his skill are try'd
To form distinction nature hath deny'd.

His voice no touch of harmony admits,
Irregularly deep and fhrill by fits:

The two extremes appear, like man and wife,
Coupled together for the fake of ftrife.

His action's always ftrong, but fometimes fuch
That candour muft declare he acts too much.
Why muft impatience fall three paces back?
Why paces three return to the attack?
Why is the right leg too forbid to ftir,
Unless in motion femircircular?

Why muft the hero with the nailor vie,
And hurl the close-clench'd fift at nofe or eye?
In Royal John, with Philip angry grown,

I thought he would have knock'd poor D-v-s down,
Inhuman tyrant! was it not a fhame,
To fright a king fo harmless and fo tame?

But, fpite of all defects, his glories rife ;
And art, by judgment form'd, with nature vies.
Behold him found the depth of Hubert's foul,
Whilft in his own contending paffions roll.
View the whole scene, with critic judgment scan,
And then-deny him merit if you can.
Where he falls fhort, 'tis Nature's fault alone :
Where he fucceeds, the Merit's all his own.

Mr.

Mr. Garrick, from the fame.

AST Garrick came

-Behind him a throng train

Lof farling critics, ignorant as vain.

One finds out,

"He's of ftature somewhat low,

Your heroe always fhould be tall, you know.
True nat❜ral greatnefs all confifts in height."
Produce your voucher, critic."Serjeant Kite."
Another can't forgive the paltry arts

By which he makes his way to fhallow hearts;
Mere pieces of fineffe, traps for applause.
"Avant unnatʼral start, affected paufe.

For me, by nature form'd to judge with phlegm,
I can't acquit by wholesale, nor condemn.
The best things carried to excefs are wrong;
The start may be too frequent, pause too long.
But only us'd in proper time and place,
Severeft judgment must allow them grace.

If bunglers, form'd on imitation's plan,
Juft in the way that monkies mimic man;
Their copied fcene with mangled arts disgrace,
And pause and start with the fame vacant face;
We join the critic laugh; thofe tricks we scorn,
Which spoil the scenes they mean them to adorn.

But when, from nature's pure and genuine fource,
These ftrokes of acting flow with gen'rous force:
When in the features all the foul's pourtrayed,
And paffions, fuch as Garrick's, are displayed;
To me they seem from quickest feelings caught:
Each start is nature; and each pause is thought.

When reason yields to paffion's wild alarms,
And the whole state of man is up in arms;
What, but a critic, could condemn the play'r
For paufing here, when cool fenfe pauses there?
Whilft, working from the heart, the fire I trace,.
And mark it strongly flaming to the face;
Whilft, in each found, I hear the very man;
I can't catch words, and pity those who can.

Let wits, like fpiders, from the tortur'd brain
Fine-draw the critic-web with curious pain;
The gods, a kindness I with thanks must pay,
Have form'd me of a coarfer kind of clay;
Nor ftung with envy, nor with fpleen difeas'd,

A

poor dull creature, ftill with nature pleas'd; Hence to thy praises, Garrick, I agree,

And, pleas'd with nature, must be pleas'd with thee.

Now

Now might I tell how filence reign'd throughout,
And deep attention hush'd the rabble rout;
How ev'ry claimant, tortur'd with defire,
Was pale as afhes, or as red as fire :

But, loose to fame, the Mufe more fimply acts,
Rejects all flourish, and relates mere facts.
The judges, as the fev'ral parties came,

With temper heard, with judgment weigh'd each claim,
And in their fentence happily agreed,

In name of both, great Shakespear thus decreed:
"If manly fente; if nature link'd with art;
If thorough knowledge of the human heart;
If pow'rs of acting, vaft and unconfin'd;
If feweft faults with greatest beauties join'd;
If ftrong expreffion, and ftrange pow'rs, which lie
Within the magic circle of the eye:

If feelings which few hearts, like his, can know,
And which no face fo well as his can fhew;

Deferve the pref'rence ;- Garrick, take the chair;
Nor quit it 'till thou place an equal there.

The fongs of Selma. From the original of Offian the Son of Fingal.

Quis talia fando

Temperet a lacrimis?

VIRGIL.

FA

AIR light! that, breaking through the clouds of day,
Darteft along the weft thy filver ray;
Whofe radiant locks around their glory spread,
As o'er the hills thou rear'ft thy glittering head;
Bright evening ftar! what fees thy fparking eye
What fpirits glide their mouldering bodies nigh?
The ftorm is o'er; and now the murmuring found,
Of diftant torrents creeps along the ground;

?

This poem fixes the antiquity of a cuftom, which is well known to have prevailed afterwards, in the north of Scotland, and in Ireland. The bards, at an annual feaft, provided by king or chief, repeated their poems, and fuch of them as were thought, by him, worthy of being preserved, were carefully taught to their children, in order to have them tranfmitted to posterity.——It was one of those occafions that afforded the fubject of the prefent poem to Offian.It is called in the original, the song of Selma, which title it was thought proper to adopt in the translation.

The poem is entirely lyric, and has great variety of verfification. The addrefs to the evening ftar, with which it opens, has in the original all the harmony that numbers could give it; flowing down with all that tranquillity and foftnefs, which the fcene described naturally infpires.-Three of the fongs, which are introduced in this piece, were publifhed among the fragments of ancient poetry, printed laft year. See them in our laßt Volume.

Around

Around the rocks the lafhing billows cling;
And drowsy beetles rife on feeble wing:
Acrofs the plain I hear their humming flight;

But what, bright beam! is feen by thine all-piercing fight ?-------
Ha! thou dost haften fmiling to the weft;
In Ocean's wat❜ry bed to take thy rest.
With open arms its waves thy form embrace,
Bathe thy bright locks, and hide thy lovely face.
Farewel, thou filent harbinger of night!-
Thine aid's fupplied by Offian's mental fight.-

I fee, I fell, the light arife,
That opes the bard's all-feeing eyes. -
And now, on Lora's rifing ground,
My friends departed gather round;
As when they met in former days,
To hear and fing the fongs of praise.
Lo! Fingal like a watery cloud,
Around him fee! his warriors croud,
And bards, to whom did once belong
The ftrength and fweetness of the fong.
There Ullin's locks of filver gray,
And Ryno, comely as the day:
Alpin*, with tuneful voice; and there
The songstress sweet, Minona fair;
On whole fo-foftly plaintive tongue
Enraptur'd chiefs attentive hung.

Alas! my friends! if these my friends I fee,
How chang'd your faded forms appear to me!
How chang'd indeed! fince when, at Fingal's call,
Our fongs were heard in Selma's echoing hall;
When o'er the festive board and jovial shell,
Our harps were strung of mighty deeds to tell,
Of heroes flain, and tales of maiden's wrongs;
Our friendly contest whose the noblest songs.
"Twas there Minona †, then a beauteous maid,
Whose blushing cheeks her modeft fears betray'd.

Alpin is from the fame root with Albion, or rather Albin, the ancient name of Britain; Alp, bigb Inland, or country. The prefent name of our island has its original in the Celtic tongue; fo that those who derived it from any other, betrayed their igno rance of the ancient language of our country.. called from the face of the country, from the natives painting themselves, or from their Breac't in, variegated ifland, lo party-coloured cloaths.

+ Offian introduces Minona, not in the ideal scene of his own mind, which he had defibed; but at the annual feast of Selma, where the bards repeated their works before Fingal.

2