CHEVY-CHASE.
Interdum vulgus rectum videt.
HOR., Ep. ii. 1, 63.
Sometimes the vulgar see and judge aright. When I travelled I took
a particular delight in hearing the songs and fables that are come
from father to son, and are most in vogue among the common people of
the countries through which I passed; for it is impossible that
anything should be universally tasted and approved by a multitude,
though they are only the rabble of a nation, which hath not in it
some peculiar aptness to please and gratify the mind of man. Human
nature is the same in all reasonable creatures; and whatever falls
in with it will meet with admirers amongst readers of all qualities
and conditions. Moliere, as we are told by Monsieur Boileau, used
to read all his comedies to an old woman who was his housekeeper as
she sat with him at her work by the chimney-corner, and could
foretell the success of his play in the theatre from the reception
it met at his fireside; for he tells us the audience always followed
the old woman, and never failed to laugh in the same place.
I know nothing which more shows the essential and inherent
perfection of simplicity of thought, above that which I call the
Gothic manner in writing, than this, that the first pleases all
kinds of palates, and the latter only such as have formed to
themselves a wrong artificial taste upon little fanciful authors and
writers of epigram.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120