e genius. By the inventive genius I mean the
creator of agreeable facts and incidents; by the descriptive, the
delineator of characters, manners, and passions. Imitation calls us to
this; we are in some cases almost forced to it, and it is comparatively
easy. More observe the characters of men than the order of things: to
the one we are formed by Nature, and by that sympathy from which we are
so strongly led to take a part in the passions and manners of our
fellow-men; the other is, as it were, foreign and extrinsical. Neither,
indeed, can anything be done, even in this, without invention; but it is
obvious that this invention is of a kind altogether different from the
former. However, though the more sublime genius and the greatest art are
required for the former, yet the latter, as it is more common and more
easy, so it is more useful, and administers more directly to the great
business of life.

If the drama requires such a combination of talents, the most common of
which is very rarely to be found and difficult to be exerted, it is not
surprising, at a time when almost all kinds of poetry are cultivated
with little success, to find that we have done no great matters in this.
Many causes may be assigned for our present weakness in that oldest and
most excellent branch of philosophy, poetical learning, and particularly
in what regards the theatre. I shall here only consider what appears to
me to be one of these causes: I mean the wrong notion of the art itself,
which begins to grow fashionable, especially among people of an elegant
turn of mind with a weak understanding; and these are they that form the
great body of the idle part of every polite and civilized nation. The
prevailing system of that class of mankind is indolence. This gives them
an aversion to all strong movements. It infuses a delicacy of sentiment,
which, when it is real, and accompanied with a justness of thought, is
an amiable quality, and favorable to the fine arts; but when it comes
to make the whole of the character, it injures things more excellent
than those which it improves, and degenerates into a false refinement,
which diffuses a languor and breathes a frivolous air over everything
which it can influence....

Having differed in my opinion about dramatic composition, and
particularly in regard to comedy, with a gentleman for whose character
and talents I have a very high respect, I thought myself obliged, on
account of that difference, to a