s inspired by a real Feeling of the Dulness of the
Composition itself, it would be unjust not to bestow the highest Applause
on the principal Performers, by the Energy of whose Action even Dulness
was sometimes rendered respectable. We were sorry to find such great
Talents so very ill employed. The melting Tones of a _Cibber_ should
make every Eye stream with Tears. _Pritchard_ should always elevate.
_Garrick_ give Strength and Majesty to the Scene. Let us soften at
the keen Distress of a _Belvidera_; let our Souls rise with the
Dignity of an _Elizabeth_; let us tremble at the wild Madness of a
_Lear_;[F] but let us not Yawn at the Stupidity of uninteresting
Characters.

_FINIS_

* * * * *

NOTES ON _CRITICAL STRICTURES_

[Footnote A: (P. 5) Advertisement. Johnson's dictum first appeared in
the abridgment of his dictionary, 1756, under _Alias_, which he defined
as "A Latin word signifying otherwise; as Mallet _alias_ Mallock; that
is, _otherwise_ Mallock." In four places in his _Memorials and Letters
Relating to the History of Britain in the Reign of James the First_
(1762) Dalrymple had given Mallet "his real name"; he had repented after
the sheets were printed and had inserted a corrigendum, "For Malloch, r.
Mallet," which only made matters worse. See _The Yale Edition of Horace
Walpole's Correspondence_, iv. 78 _n._ 17. Dalrymple chided the
authors of _Critical Strictures_ gently for using his name, and said
he was sorry for having thus yielded to a private pique (LJ, p. 190
_n._ 6). But the matter remained of interest to him, for as late as
1783 he sent Johnson a copy of one of Mallet's earliest productions, the
title-page of which bore the name in its original spelling (_Life_,
iv. 216-217; see also _Private Papers of James Boswell ... in the
Collection of ... R.H. Isham_, ed. Geoffrey Scott and F.A. Pottle, 18
vols., Privately Printed, 1928-1934, xv. 208).]

[Footnote B: (P. 15) "We heard it once asserted by _David Hume_, Esq." On
4 November 1762, in Hume's house in James's Court, Edinburgh. "Mr. Mallet
has written bad Tragedies because he is deficient in the pathetic, and
hence it is doubted if he is the Author of _William and Margaret_.
Mr. Hume said he knew people who had seen it before Mallet was born.
Erskine gave another proof, viz. that he has written _Edwin and
Emma_, a Ballad in the same stile, not near so good." See _Private
Papers_ (as in th