rlwind." The lines on Marlborough are just and noble,
but the simile gives almost the same images a second time. But
perhaps this thought, though hardly a simile, was remote from vulgar
conceptions, and required great labour and research, or dexterity of
application. Of this Dr. Madden, a name which Ireland ought to honour,
once gave me his opinion. "If I had set," said he, "ten schoolboys to
write on the battle of Blenheim, and eight had brought me the angel, I
should not have been surprised."
The opera of Rosamond, though it is seldom mentioned, is one of the
first of Addison's compositions. The subject is well chosen, the fiction
is pleasing, and the praise of Marlborough, for which the scene gives
an opportunity, is, what perhaps every human excellence must be, the
product of good luck improved by genius. The thoughts are sometimes
great, and sometimes tender; the versification is easy and gay. There is
doubtless some advantage in the shortness of the lines, which there is
little temptation to load with expletive epithets. The dialogue seems
commonly better than the songs. The two comic characters of Sir Trusty
and Grideline, though of no great value, are yet such as the poet
intended. Sir Trusty's account of the death of Rosamond is, I think,
too grossly absurd. The whole drama is airy and elegant; engaging in its
process, and pleasing in its conclusion. If Addison had cultivated the
lighter parts of poetry, he would probably have excelled.
The tragedy of Cato, which, contrary to the rule observed in selecting
the works of other poets, has by the weight of its character forced its
way into the late collection, is unquestionably the noblest production
of Addison's genius. Of a work so much read, it is difficult to say
anything new. About things on which the public thinks long, it commonly
attains to think right; and of Cato it has been not unjustly determined
that it is rather a poem in dialogue than a drama, rather a succession
of just sentiments in elegant language than a representation of natural
affections, or of any state probable or possible in human life. Nothing
here "excites or assuages emotion:" here is "no magical power of raising
phantastic terror or wild anxiety." The events are expected without
solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents
we have no care; we consider not what they are doing, or what they are
suffering; we wish only to know what they have to say. Cato is a being
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