Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/31

His "Earl Douglas," as we have mentioned, was only an evolution of his Dramatic Essay; his "Clyde" was only an expansion of his descriptive poem, the Nethan. The Dramatic Essay is evidently the work of an author unpractised in composition: The measure of the verse is languid and prosaic, the style flat and unpoetical, and the conduct of the drama unskilful and inartificial. In the advertisement prefixed, the author observes, that he is less unwilling to incur the censure of critics, than to strain historical facts. He is apprehensive that the moral reflections may be thought too numerous; but declares, that he considers it as a more pardonable error to exceed, than to be deficient in a decent regard to morality and religion. This regard for morality and religion has induced him to subjoin an after-scene to the catastrophe, for the express purpose of suggesting moral reflections; an amiable purpose, for the sake of which many authors have injured their compositions, without improving their readers. The proper moral of a drama is to excite vivid virtuous emotions in the heart, not to exhibit a demonstration of some abstract principle of morality. In the Dramatic Essay, the characters are neither sufficiently various nor sufficiently marked. Livingston and Crichton are similar in character and similar in conduct, unprincipled courtiers, twin-