Note 8 — THE DRURIAD, &c.
Reading edition
The great and unrivalled talents of this lady in tragedy are such as would justly subject us to the imputation of vanity and folly, were we to attempt to enumerate them. With such a distinguished favourite of Melpomene before our eyes, it is painful to think that tragedy should be in this nation overlooked and neglected, as is evinced by the cold manner in which the productions of our best dramatic writers are received upon the stage, though aided by the magic powers of her, who carries us into whatever regions the fiction of the poet places in our view.
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, Ut magus; et modo me Thebis modo ponit Athenis.—Hor.
Let not poets any longer arrogate immortality to their works, when we see the productions of Dryden, Otway, Southern, and even Shakespear himself, placed upon the shelf: And for what? To please the taste of a public, vitiated by the unseemly trash, issuing from the pen of O’Keefe, Reynolds, Morton, &c. &c.
Whose happy arts attention can command When fancy flags, and sense is at a stand.—Pope.