MR CAXTON, dogmatically.--"It is the repose in the picture--Fielding calls it 'contrast '--(still more dogmatically) I say there can't be a doubt about it. Besides, (added my father after a pause,) besides, this usage gives you opportunities to explain what has gone before, or to prepare for what's coming; or, since Fielding contends with great truth, that some learning is necessary for this kind of historical composition, it allows you, naturally and easily, the introduction of light and pleasant ornaments of that nature. At each flight in the terrace, you may give the eye the relief of an urn or a statue. Moreover, when so inclined, you create proper pausing places for reflection; and complete, by a separate yet harmonious ethical department, the design of a work, which is but a mere Mother Goose's tale if it does not embrace a general view of the thoughts and actions of mankind."
PISISTRATUS.--"But then, in these initial chapters, the author thrusts himself forward; and just when you want to get on with the _dramatis personæ_, you find yourself face to face with the poet himself."
MR CAXTON.--"Pooh! you can contrive to prevent that! Imitate the chorus of the Greek stage, who fill up the intervals between the action by saying what the author would otherwise say in his own person."
PISISTRATUS, slily.--"That's a good idea, sir--and I have a chorus, and a chorægus too, already in my eye."
MR CAXTON, unsuspectingly.--"Aha! you are not so dull a fellow as you would make yourself out to be; and, even if an author did thrust himself forward, what objection is there to that? It is a mere affectation to suppose that a book can come into the world without an author. Every child has a father, one father at least, as the great Condé says very well in his poem."
PISISTRATUS.--"The great Condé a poet!--I never heard that before."
MR CAXTON.--"I don't say he was a poet, but he sent a poem to Madame de Montansier. Envious critics think that he must have paid somebody else to write it; but there is no reason why a great Captain should not write a poem--I don't say a good poem, but a poem. I wonder, Roland, if the Duke ever tried his hand at 'Stanzas to Mary,' or 'Lines to a sleeping babe.'"
