genius will throw off fometimes, when heated by devotion's flame in night and folitude: although Afide their harps ev'n feraphs flung To hear thy fweet complaints-Oh Young! It is indeed the concentrated fire of the laboratory which, as we know, produces what is most valuable in medicines for the mind: yet will not the loyal bonfire, blazing in open air, and sparkling in defiance of cold blasting winds, be fcorned at length by heaven's eternal King. Fuller fays prettily that as Ahab was wounded between the joints of his armour, fo has the Anglican church been ftruck between epifcopacy once put off; and calvinism, never fitting us, ill buckled on. But our religion found an unexpected and unfufpected patron too in Richardfon; who makes fiction the favoured conduit of truth, and brings the ftream of piety unfullied from its pure and far-diftant fountain to the capital, as Addison says sweetly of the Roman aqueducts, While rivers there forfake the fields below, And, wond'ring at their place, in airy channels flow. Mufick likewife, which about the end of the 16th century had in Italy fuffered herself to be feduced fo far as not to refuse affistance to the drama, although her chief employment was the church; fo that Le matin Catholique et le foir Idolatre, Elle dina de l'autel, et soupa du theatre. ⚫ came to us in her theatrick dress about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and before the portion of time now under revifal, from 1725 to 1750, was grown an established favourite among the great and gay; while those who had lefs money or less tafte exclaimed, and charged much of our acknowledged ill conduct in upper life to the enervating sweetness of Soprano fingers, then first heard among us, and the loofe style of that mufical tragedy known by the name of an Italian opera. Nicolini Nicolini di Napoli feems to have been well apprized of the danger, by his folicitude to engage friends among the popular writers of the day: and as he was the first to venture over in character of primo ferio, fo he appears to have taken many precautions for pacifying the rough inhabitants he was to encounter; learning our language, finging English fongs, and affecting admiration of the Spectators, Tatlers, &c. He introduced a fucceffor, Valentini I think, and retired; but did not cfcape at last without the famous lines, Begone! our nation's pleasure and reproach, which he used to divert his friends at home by repeating in an odd mock-heroick ftrain, particularly the third line, which, as he was a native of Naples, feemed a better jeft to him than to us. Meanwhile, the fancy for this new mode of amusement being once fixed, no exhortations could prevail on people to dismiss it, no ridicule could drive it out of fashion. Farinelli's arrival and performance threw London into convulfions of delight, which appeared quite contagious; and feveral grave refidents in counties then deemed remote, fent haftily for their attornies, made their last wills, and refolutely waded from Lewes in Suffex, or Creek in Northamptonshire, through roads nearly impaffable, hoping at the week's conclufion of peril and distress, to find their bright reward in a crowded opera. To stop this tide of infectious phrenzy, blown forward by affectation, Mr. Gay undertook to execute Swift's project of a Newgate paftoral: but if taste for Italian representation foftened the minds of an audience into a fort of voluptuous tenderness, not likely to do much real harm in latitude 52, the remedy was worse than the disease by far; as lefs difficulty would be found in hardening our native coarfenefs to brutality. This democratick plan of calling the low Londoners round to anplaud a remorfclefs highwayman's last fuppofed moments, was fo infolent infolent an attack upon morality and virtue, while it pretended only to correct empty foibles, that the king was prevailed on to fupprefs its fecond part, having already feen fufficient evil arife from the firft. Mufick alone could cure the ills fhe caufed. George Frederick Handel having had a quarrel with those who joined him to divert the publick, and a long illness following from vexation, received a somewhat like miraculous cure from the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle. Difpofed to exprefs his thankfulness and gratitude, inftinctive piety fent him to the organ of the great church there belonging to reclufes, who listening, foon began to think his compofition wonderful as his cure. From that day, dedicating thofe amazing talents to devotion, which had till then yielded to fofter claims; in the courfe of a year his oratorio called Meffiah was performed in Dublin, for benefit of the city prifon. England foon fighed to hear and join in the unparalleled chorus Hallelujah: but its charitable author, presenting to the Foundling Hospital the fums it firft brought in, united the well-wedded virtues of fublime praife to God, and charity towards his harmless creatures, in confecration of our pureft pleasures, to the fupport of infant innocence. 'Twas thus that the feducements to luxurious enjoyment first tendered to us by Hortenfia de Mazarin, niece to the cardinal, under the difcordant dress of mufical tragedy, began to lose their effect; and the fweet melodies of opera airs were half forgotten, in the full harmony and fwelling pomp of refounding excellence. But painting lent her help too; when Hogarth taught industry to the poor, and ridiculed prodigality in the rich, by a method untried till his day, unrivalled till day ends. From his prints, far furer than any Retrospect, may pofterity learn the fading of thofe manners, which we can catch only in fingle and decided maffes of colour; fo much neater is the pencil for fuch purpose than the pen. Nor did the stage forbear to lend affiftance. Too long had that VOL. H. 3 D place place been the fink of fin; and fuch profaneness had been added to obfcenity by Dryden, Congreve, and their imitators; that Collier, Law, and others of lefs genius, had tried in vain at reformation, while fcorn purfued their precepts, and the example even of fober people run directly counter to them. Taught by his greater friend the immortal Rambler, David Garrick began, as it appears, feriously to think, How glorious 'twere to raise Even then, when cuftom had wiped off the blush from nature's cheek, and vice was naturalized by the name of fashion; even then, he fwept away offenfive paffages from many plays, restored those which had good tendencies, gave no encouragement to vicious characters, and added to talents unfeen before, and unexpected to be ever feen again, fuch beneficence of heart and integrity of character, as gave even the most strict moralifts among us hope, that where the poison grew, there had we found the antidote. A literal proof of that axiom's truth, as well as this figurative one, graced the period under reviewal; and Lady Mary Wortley brought from Conftantinople, where the fmall-pox first began, its happy mitigant (if I may call it fo): the practice of inoculation. When those who had the regular care of human happiness and human goodness, flumbered at their posts, Providence feems to have provided affiftance where it was leaft expected. A woman of gaiety, and carriage lighter by far than was the mind which animated her motions, faved by the introduction of this happy art, numberlefs valuable members to fociety, and taught a power of pacifying the dreadful disease even when caught by infection. A Mahometan writer of the ninth century, Rhazes by name, first mentions this deftructive terror, which Heifter fays accompanied. the plague; and was of course distinguished by petechial spots, which were called purples in my younger days; though now, thank God, they they are almost unknown. German physicians earliest began the new treatment in Europe, I believe; and George the second, after having tried its favourable refult on criminals, and having been convinced of its fuccefs on many adventurers both in his British and Hanoverian dominions, inoculated his own royal family, proving that he excelled not only in field-bravery, but in domestick and determined courage. Nations caught the defired example, and the scythe of death was blunted. |