rather laid hold of as a gentle relaxation from the tedious round of pleasure."
He then proceeds to examine the prevailing taste in music, painting, and theatrical entertainments.
"No wonder, if these leading characters of false delicacy influence our other entertainments, and be attended with a low and unmanly taste in music. That divine art, capable of inspiring every thing that is great or excellent, of rouzing every nobler passion of the soul, is at length dwindled into a woman's or an eunuch's effeminate trill. The chaste and solemn airs of Corelli, of Geminiani, and their best disciples; the divine and lofty flights of Caldara and Marcello; the elegant simplicity of Bononcini; the manly, the pathetic, the astonishing strains of Handel, are neglected and despised: while instead of these, our concerts and operas are disgraced with the lowest insipidity of composition, and unmeaning sing-song. The question now concerns not the expression, the grace, the energy, or dignity of the music; we go not to admire the composition, but the tricks of the performer, who is then surest of our ignorant applause, when he runs thro' the compass of the throat, or traverses the finger board with the swiftest dexterity.
While music is thus debased into effeminacy, her sister art of painting cannot hope a better fate: for the same dignity of manners must support; the same indignity depress them. Connoisseurs there are, indeed, who have either taste or vanity: yet even by these, the art is considered as a matter of curiosity, not of influence; a circumstance which proves their taste to be spurious, undirected, or superficial. But with regard to the public eye; this is generally depraved. Neither the comic pencil, nor the serious pen of our ingenious countryman[1], have been able to keep alive the taste of nature, or of beauty. The fantastic and grotesque have banished both. Every house of fashion is now crowded with porcelain trees and birds, porcelain men and beasts, cross-legged Mandarins and Bramins, perpendicular lines and stiff right angles: every gaudy Chinese crudity, either in colour, form, attitude, or grouping, is adopted into fashionable use, and become the standard of taste and elegance.
Let us then search the theatre for the remains of manly taste: and here, apparently at least, it must be acknowledged we shall find it. A great genius hath arisen to dignify the stage; who, when it was sinking into the lowest insipidity, restored it to the fulness of its ancient splendor, and, with a variety of powers beyond example, established Nature, Shakespear, and Himself.
But as the attractions of the theatre arise from a complication of causes, beyond those of any other entertainment; so while the judicious critic admires his original excellencies, it may be well questioned whether the crowd be not drawn by certain secondary circumstances, rather than by a discernment of his real powers. Need we any other proofs of this than the conduct of his fashionable hearers? who fit with the same face of admiration at Lear, an Opera, or a Pantomime.
- ↑ Mr. Hogarth's treatise on the principles of beauty.
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