Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1818-09-12
ALEXANDRIA:
SATURDAY,, SEPTEMBER IL, 1918

tlOD dust vi lilS SuyeS' vi VIZ
in composition, which interested me very
much, by recalling 10 my mind multitude
of ideas had collected in the course OF a
pretty long life and it pleased me the more,
because il occasioned the names OF some oil
! nv most favorite authors to be introduced
in attitudes which had long been accus-
toned 10 contemplate them in with de-
light. Some of the persons present, rea-
soning PRIOR, would insist upon it, that
the species OF composition OF which we
were speaking, including the mock-heroic
and The burlesque, in their various ella s.
must necessarily be practised with greater
success in the laier than in fine earlierperiod'
the history OF composition; for as the emo
ton of laughter was, in those cases, produ-
ced by associating incongruous ideas-oy
combining inadequate causes ana eflec's,
(such, for example, as the tailor in the island
OF Laputa taking GulliVer's measure Tor a
suit of clothes wit, quadrant) or by &C.
centric comparisons, and particularly by
the unexpected association of greatness and
meanness, they argued that in order to
excel in that kind of composition, it was
necessary to have an extensive acqualnt-
ance with the different parts Of nature, and
, the various qualities Of objects, which could
only be obtained when science was advan-
ced to lis highest stage, and must, in TACT
! be generally commensurate with the ad-
vancement in knowledge of the society in
which it was attempted. This presump-
ton was opposed, not so much by specula.
tive reasoning as by reference to m'iters OF
fact; il being maintained that the very best
specimens of the ludicrous in composition,
were TO be found in the works OF men OF
wit, who had been long mouldered into
dust. 1t was truly observed that the very
origin of the mock-heroic and ludicrous
composition, of the kind in question, was
! the ba,rachomyomachia Of Homer. the Sc
rious prototype Of which that great poet
found in bis own poem the Had that Shak-
speare was as much superior to all moderns
in that species Of composition, as he was in
any other department of poetry, there be-
ing nothing since his time to be put in COM
petition with many OF his comparisons, for
eccentricity-nothing with the whimsical
: incongruities uttered by several ofhis cha
racters ;-Dogberry for one, Grumio for
another, Lancelot, and many others, not to
mention Falstaf Though able works of
this kind have been so ingeniously siited
and so profoundly analysed, that no one
cause of the effects they produce, has been
left undiscovered, and literature has exert
ed its powers in laying down rules for con-
structing such works by art, yet nothing
has been, in our age, produced at all compa-
rable to someof the illusions OF the old wri-
ters.-What can be shewn fit to be put in
competition with Falstaff's description Of
Justice Shallow p
81 do remember him at Clements-inn,
like man made after supper q a cheese
pairing ;-cten he ,0as naked, he sous, for
oil the sorld, like a f5rked radish, orith a
head Enthusiastically cared upon IL 'sath
knife"
Orwith Grumio's description of his pain
full sensation from cold p
81, with blowing the fire, shall warm
myself for, considering the weather,
taller man than will take cold.
Curtis. Who is that calls so coldly!
Grum,o piece of ice If thou doubt
it, thou may'st slide from my shoulder to
my heel, with no greater run but my heaG
and my neck.
Curtis Is my master and his wife COM
isg, Grumio
Grumio. Oh ay, Curtis, and therefore,
fire fire Cast on 20 5vatsr"
CoevaI with Shakespeare was Cervantes,
who in his Don Quixotte has, in degree
superior to all since his time, shewn the
power of incongruity, in producing ludi-
crous emotions. The dignity Of Don Quix-
cites sentiments, and the sublimity OF his
mind, together with his tall, solemn, raw
boned person, contrasted with his misera-
BILE horse and equipsge, and with his fat
squire, form group OF ncongruities, OF the
Iudicrous kind, that sets all competition, in
late ages, at defiance.
As to Butler and Svif, they Aourished so
long ago that if the theory now SET up were
correct, we might, at this day, have been
greatly improved, since their time, in the
writing of burlesque but was that the
case $50 far from it, that nothing since
produced has ever been attempted to be
put in comparison with the eccentric COM