But that was an accident, whilst Addison had deliberately
and uniformly made his characters talk in verse. According to the common
and false meaning [which was his own meaning] of the word nature, he had
as undeniably violated the principle of the _natural_, by this metrical
dialogue, as the Italian opera by musical dialogue. If it is hard and
trying for men to sing their emotions, not less so it must be to deliver
them in verse.
But, if this were shocking, how much more shocking would it have seemed to
Addison, had he been introduced to parts which really exist in the Grecian
drama? Even Sophocles, who, of the three tragic poets surviving from the
wrecks of the Athenian stage, is reputed the supreme _artist_ [5] if
not the most impassioned poet, with what horror he would have overwhelmed
Addison, when read by the light of those principles which he had himself
so scornfully applied to the opera! In the very monsoon of his raving
misery, from calamities as sudden as they were irredeemable, a king is
introduced, not only conversing, but conversing in metre; not only in
metre, but in the most elaborate of choral metres; not only under the
torture of these lyric difficulties, but also chanting; not only chanting,
but also in all probability dancing. What do you think of _that_, Mr.
Addison?
There is, in fact, a scale of graduated ascents in these artifices for
unrealizing the effects of dramatic situations:
1.
Pages:
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179