Mrs. Deputy and Mrs. Mayoress. Mrs. Deputy was not in the least in liquor; and as for Mrs. Mayoress, one of the spectators assured me in the ear, that she was a very fine woman before she had the small-pox.' Mixing with the crowd, I was now conducted to the hall where the magistrates are chosen; but what tongue can describe the scene of confusion! the whole crowd seemed equally inspired with anger, jealousy, politics, patriotism, and punch; I remarked one figure that was carried up by two men upon this occasion. I at first began to pity his infirmities as natural; but soon found the fellow so drunk that he could not stand: another made his appearance to give his vote; but though he could stand, he actually lost the use of his tongue, and remained silent; a third, who, though excessively drunk, could both stand and speak, being asked the candidate's name for whom he voted, could be prevailed upon to make no answer but tobacco and brandy. In short, an election-hall seems to be a theatre where every passion is seen without disguise; a school where fools may readily become worse, and where philosophers may gather wisdom. Adieu. LETTER CXII. FROM THE SAME. A literary contest of great importance; in which both sides fight by epigram. THE disputes among the learned here are now carried on in a much more compendious manner than formerly. There was a time when folio was brought to oppose folio, and a champion was often listed for life under the banners of a single sorites. At present the controversy is decided in a summary way; an epigram or an acrostic finishes the debate, and the combatant, like the incursive Tartar, advances and retires with a single blow. An important literary debate at present engrosses the attention of the town. It is carried on with sharpness, and a proper share of this epigrammatical fury. An author, it seems, has taken an aversion to the faces of several players, and has written verses to prove his dislike; the players fall upon the author, and assure the town he must be dull, and their faces must be good, because he wants a dinner; a critic comes to the poet's assistance, asserting that the verses were perfectly original, and so smart, that he could never have written them without the assistance of friends; the friends upon this arraign the critic, and plainly prove the verses to be all the author's own. So at it they are all four together by the ears, the friends at the critic, the critic at the players, the players at the author, and the author at the players again. It is impossible to determine how this many-sided contest will end, or which party to adhere to. The town, without siding with any, views the combat in suspense, like the fabled hero of antiquity, who beheld the earth-born brothers give and receive mutual wounds, and fall by indiscriminate destruction. This is in some measure a state of the present dispute; but the combatants here differ in one respect from the champions of the fable. Every new wound only gives vigour for another blow; though they appear to strike, they are in fact mutually swelling themselves into consideration, and thus advertising each other away into fame. 'To-day,' says one, 'my name shall be in the Gazette, the next day my rival's ; people will naturally inquire about us; thus we shall at least make a noise in the streets, though we have got nothing to sell. I have read of a dispute of a similar nature, which was managed here about twenty years ago. Hildebrand Jacob, as I think he was called, and Charles Johnson were poets, both at that time possessed of great reputation, for Johnson had written eleven plays acted with great success, and Jacob, though he had written but five, had five times thanked the town for their unmerited applause. They soon became mutually enamoured of each other's talents; they wrote, they felt, they challenged the town for each other. Johnson assured the public that no poet alive had the easy simplicity of Jacob, and Jacob exhibited Johnson as a masterpiece in the pathetic. Their mutual praise was not without effect, the town saw their plays, were in raptures, read, and without censuring them forgot them. So formidable an union, however, was soon opposed by Tibbald. Tibbald asserted that the tragedies of one had faults, and the comedies of the other substituted wit for vivacity; the combined champions flew at him like tigers, arraigned the censurer's judgment, and impeached his sincerity. It was a long time a dispute among the learned, which was in fact the greatest man, Jacob, Johnson, or Tibbald; they had all written for the stage with great success, their names were seen in almost every paper, and their works in every coffee-house. However, in the hottest of the dispute, a fourth combatant made his appearance, and swept away the three combatants, tragedy, comedy, and all into undistinguished ruin., From this time they seemed consigned into the hands of criticism, scarcely a day passed VOL. II. A a in which they were not arraigned as detested writers. The critics, those enemies of Dryden and Pope were their enemies. So Jacob and Johnson, instead of mending by criticism, called it envy, and because Dryden and Pope were censured, they compared themselves to Dryden and Pope. But to return, the weapon chiefly used in the present controversy is epigram, and certainly never was a keener made use of. They have discovered surprising sharpness on both sides. The first that came out upon this occasion was a kind of new composition in this way, and might more properly be called an epigrammatic thesis than an epigram. It consists, first, of an argument in prose; next follows a motto from Roscommon; then comes the epigram; and, lastly, notes serving to explain the epigram. But you shall have it with all its decorations. AN EPIGRAM. ADDRESSED TO THE GENTLEMEN REFLECTED ON IN Worry'd with debts, and past all hopes of bail, 'Let not the hungry Bavius' angry stroke ROSCOM. + Settled at one shilling, the price of the poem, } |