trian muse failed in the end to satisfy higher artistic demands
than those met in his most popular play, while in another[240] she was
less consciously guilty of an aberration towards that "tragedy of
destiny," which, in the modern drama at least, obscures the ethical
character of all tragic actions. "Classical" tragedy in the generation
of Dr Johnson pursued the even tenor of its way, the dictator himself
treading with solemn footfall in the accustomed path,[241] and W. Mason
making the futile attempt to produce a close imitation of Greek
models.[242] The best-remembered tragedy of the century, Home's
_Douglas_ (1757), was the production of an author whose famous kinsman,
David Hume (though no friend of the contemporary English stage), had
advised him "to read Shakespeare, but to get Racine and Voltaire by
heart." The indisputable merits of the play cannot blind us to the fact
that _Douglas_ is the offspring of _Merope_.

English opera.

While thus no high creative talent arose to revive the poetic genius of
English tragedy, comedy, which had to contend against the same rivals,
naturally met the demands of the conflict with greater buoyancy. The
history of the most formidable of those rivals, Music, forms no part of
this sketch; but the points of contact between its progress and the
history of dramatic literature cannot be altogether left out of sight.
H. Purcell's endeavours to unite English music to the words of English
poets were now a thing of the past; analogous attempts in the direction
of musical dialogue, which have been insufficiently noticed, had
likewise proved transitory; and the isolated efforts of Addison[243] and
others to recover the operatic stage for the native tongue had proved
powerless. Italian texts, which had first made their entrance piecemeal,
in the end asserted themselves in their entirety; and the marvellously
assimilative genius of Handel completed the triumphs of a form of art
which no longer had any connexion with the English drama, and which
reached the height of its fashionable popularity about the time when
Garrick began to adorn the national stage. In one form, however, the
English opera was preserved as a pleasing species of the popular drama.
The pastoral drama had (in 1725) produced an isolated aftergrowth in
Allan Ramsay's _Gentle Shepherd_, which, with genuine freshness and
humour, but without a trace of burlesque, transferred to the scenery of
the Pentland Hills the lovely