Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 2).djvu/299

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and poetry in general. Would your Murphys or your Vanburghs, and your Steeles and your Congreves, your Homes, your Rowes, your Southerns, or your Otway, equal this work?" "I dare say," said Hamilton, "no production of theirs would ever resemble it; even Sheridan himself, if he were to try his hand, would not make it so pure; he certainly has astonishing genius, but I doubt if he were to try this German mode, with all his brilliancy of fancy, if he could make so unique a performance, and resolutely exclude from every scene and passage, nature, truth, and probability. This production, in it's beginning, middle, and end, is thoroughly consistent. The incidents are all of a credibility, so nearly equal, that if the fancy can stretch so far as to take in one, it may swallow all the rest. The single captor of a strongly fortified town