Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch | Page 6

bestow the highest Applause on the principal Performers, by the Energy of whose Action even Dulness was sometimes rendered respectable. We were sorry to find such great Talents so very ill employed. The melting Tones of a Cibber should make every Eye stream with Tears. Pritchard should always elevate. Garrick give Strength and Majesty to the Scene. Let us soften at the keen Distress of a Belvidera; let our Souls rise with the Dignity of an Elizabeth; let us tremble at the wild Madness of a Lear;[F] but let us not Yawn at the Stupidity of uninteresting Characters.
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NOTES ON CRITICAL STRICTURES
[Footnote A: (P. 5) Advertisement. Johnson's dictum first appeared in the abridgment of his dictionary, 1756, under Alias, which he defined as "A Latin word signifying otherwise; as Mallet alias Mallock; that is, otherwise Mallock." In four places in his Memorials and Letters Relating to the History of Britain in the Reign of James the First (1762) Dalrymple had given Mallet "his real name"; he had repented after the sheets were printed and had inserted a corrigendum, "For Malloch, r. Mallet," which only made matters worse. See The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, iv. 78 n. 17. Dalrymple chided the authors of Critical Strictures gently for using his name, and said he was sorry for having thus yielded to a private pique (LJ, p. 190 n. 6). But the matter remained of interest to him, for as late as 1783 he sent Johnson a copy of one of Mallet's earliest productions, the title-page of which bore the name in its original spelling (Life, iv. 216-217; see also Private Papers of James Boswell ... in the Collection of ... R.H. Isham, ed. Geoffrey Scott and F.A. Pottle, 18 vols., Privately Printed, 1928-1934, xv. 208).]
[Footnote B: (P. 15) "We heard it once asserted by David Hume, Esq." On 4 November 1762, in Hume's house in James's Court, Edinburgh. "Mr. Mallet has written bad Tragedies because he is deficient in the pathetic, and hence it is doubted if he is the Author of William and Margaret. Mr. Hume said he knew people who had seen it before Mallet was born. Erskine gave another proof, viz. that he has written Edwin and Emma, a Ballad in the same stile, not near so good." See Private Papers (as in the note preceding this), i. 126-127, or the Limited Edition of Boswell's London Journal, 1762-1763, McGraw-Hill and Heinemann, 1951, p. 101. Hume protested vigorously, though with good humor, at this breach of confidence, and Boswell wrote a flippant reply (LJ, pp. 206-207, 208-209).]
[Footnote C: (P. 20) "... her Punishment was reserved for the Farce, which for that Purpose was, contrary to Custom, added to the Play." Stock plays were always followed by an afterpiece, but the afterpiece was in most cases omitted during the first run of a new play. For example, Mrs. Sheridan's Discovery opened 3 February 1763 and ran for ten nights before an afterpiece was added. The afterpieces presented with Elvira up to 27 January were as follows: 19 January, The Male Coquette (Garrick); 20 January, High Life Below Stairs (Townley); 21 January, Old Maid (Murphy); 22 January, Catharine and Petruchio (Garrick's adaptation of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew); 24 January, High Life Below Stairs; 26 January, Catharine and Petruchio; 27 January, Edgar and Emmeline (Hawkesworth). But Mrs. Pritchard, who played the Queen in Elvira, seems not to have appeared in any of these afterpieces, and no one of them contains a queen (Dougald MacMillan, Drury Lane Calendar, 1747-1776, Clarendon Press, 1938, pp. 94, 217, 239, 260, 282, 297). Furthermore, if the jest could be understood only with reference to a particular farce, that farce would surely have been named. This is no doubt a case where less is meant than meets the ear. The authors are merely saying that Mallet's play is badly constructed, and is so ridiculous generally that no one will know when the tragedy ends and the farce begins.]
[Footnote D: (P. 21) "Though in general this Tragedy is colder than the most extreme Parts of Nova Zembla ..." This is perhaps the only passage in Critical Strictures that can be attributed with certainty to one of the three authors. The remark is Dempster's, and had been made some time before Elvira was presented; in fact, he had applied it originally to Johnson's Irene. See LJ, pp. 69, 306.]
[Footnote E: (P. 22) "... a Simile of a Bundle of Twigs formed into a Rod ... Mr. Malloch's original Profession ..." Garrick's epilogue to Elvira contains the following lines:
A single critick will not frown, look big, Harmless and pliant as a single twig, But crouded here they change, and 'tis not odd, For twigs when bundled up, become a rod.
One of Mallet's duties, when he was