Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/231

Rh warmly expect the conſequences of their reſolutions after they depart the ſtage. The illuſion would not be ſufficiently ſtrong, if we did not ſuppoſe the dramatic perſons equally accountable to the powers above us, as we are ourſelves. This Shakeſpear has taken care forcibly to impreſs upon his audience, in making the ghoſt of the murthered king of Denmark, charge his ſon not to touch his mother’s life, but leave her to heaven; and the reflexions of her own conſcience to goad and ſting her.

Mr. Dennis’s reaſoning, upon the whole amounts to this, that no perfect character ſhould ſuffer in the drama; to which it may be anſwered, that no perfect character ever did ſuffer in the drama; becauſe no poet who draws from nature, ever introduced one, for this very good reaſon, that there are none in exiſtence.

Mr. Dennis, who was reſtleſs in attacking thoſe writers, who met with ſucceſs, levelled ſome more criticiſms againſt the Spectators; and amongſt the reſt endeavoured to expoſe Mr. Addiſon’s Illuſtrations of the Old Ballad, called Chevy Chace; of which we ſhall only ſay, that he performed this talk more ſucceſsfully than he executed his Animadverſions upon Poetical Juſtice.

We have already taken notice of the warm attachment Mr. Dennis always had to the Whig-Intereſt, and his particular zeal for the Hanoverian ſucceſſion. He wrote many letters and pamphlets, for the adminiſtration of the earl of Godolphin, and the duke of Marlborough, and never failed to laſh the French with all the ſeverity natural to him.

When the peace (which the Whigs reckoned the moſt inglorious that ever was made) was about to be ratified, Mr. Dennis, who certainly over-rated his importance, took it into his imagination, that when the