There can, we apprehend, be little difference of opinion as to the nature of her merit, whatever differences may exist as to its degree.She was emphatically what Johnson called her, a character-monger.It was in the exhibition of human passions and whims that her strength lay; and in this department of art she had, we think, very distinguished skill.
But, in order that we may, according to our duty as kings at arms, versed in the laws of literary precedence, marshal her to the exact scat to which she is entitled, we must carry our examination somewhat further.
There is, in one respect, a remarkable analogy between the faces and the minds of men.No two faces are alike; and yet very few faces deviate very widely from the common standard.Among the eighteen hundred thousand human beings who inhabit London, there is not one who could be taken by his acquaintance for another;yet we may walk from Paddington to Mile End without seeing one person in whom any feature is so overcharged that we turn round to stare at it.An infinite number of varieties lies between limits which are not very far asunder.The specimens which pass those limits on either side, form a very small minority.
It is the same with the characters of men.Here, too, the variety passes all enumeration.But the cases in which the deviation from the common standing is striking and grotesque, are very few.In one mind avarice predominates; in another, pride; in a third, love of pleasure; just as in one countenance the nose is the most marked feature, while in others the chief expression lies in the brow, or in the lines of the mouth.But there are very few countenances in which nose, brow, and mouth do not contribute, though in unequal degrees, to the general effect; and so there are very few characters in which one overgrown propensity makes all others utterly insignificant.
It is evident that a portrait painter, who was able only to represent faces and figures such as those which we pay money to see at fairs, would not, however spirited his execution might be, take rank among the highest artists.He must always be placed below those who have skill to seize peculiarities which do not amount to deformity.The slighter those peculiarities, the greater is the merit of the limner who can catch them and transfer them to his canvas.To paint Daniel Lambert or the living skeleton, the pig-faced lady or the Siamese twins, so that nobody can mistake them, is an exploit within the reach of a sign-painter.A third-rate artist might give us the squint of Wilkes, and the depressed nose and protuberant cheeks of Gibbon.
It would require a much higher degree of skill to paint two such men as Mr.Canning and Sir Thomas Lawrence, so that nobody who had ever seen them could for a moment hesitate to assign each picture to its original.Here the mere caricaturist would be quite at fault.He would find in neither face anything on which he could lay hold for the purpose of ****** a distinction.Two ample bald foreheads, two regular profiles, two full faces of the same oval form, would baffle his art; and he would be reduced to the miserable shift of writing their names at the foot of his picture.Yet there was a great difference; and a person who had seen them once would no more have mistaken one of them for the other than he would have mistaken Mr.Pitt for Mr.Fox.But the difference lay in delicate lineaments and shades, reserved for pencils of a rare order.
This distinction runs through all the imitative arts.Foote's mimicry was exquisitely ludicrous, but it was all caricature.He could take off only some strange peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr or an Irish brogue, a stoop or a shuffle."If a man," said Johnson, "hops on one leg, Foote can hop on one leg." Garrick, on the other hand, could seize those differences of manner and pronunciation, which, though highly characteristic, are yet too slight to be described.Foote, we have no doubt, could have made the Haymarket theatre shake with laughter by imitating a conversation between a Scotchman and a Somersetshireman.But Garrick could have imitated a conversation between two fashionable men, both models of the best breeding, Lord Chesterfield, for example, and Lord Albemarle, so that no person could doubt which was which, although no person could say that, in any point, either Lord Chesterfield or Lord Albemarle spoke or moved otherwise than in conformity with the usages of the best society.
The same distinction is found in the drama and in fictitious narrative.Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of dialogue, stands Shakspeare.His variety is like the variety of nature, endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity.
The characters of which he has given us an impression, as vivid as that which we receive from the characters of our own associates, are to be reckoned by scores.Yet in all these scores hardly one character is to be found which deviates widely from the common standard, and which we should call very eccentric if we met it in real life.The silly notion that every man has one ruling passion, and that this clue, once known, unravels all the mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in the plays of Shakspeare.There man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions, which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn.What is Hamlet's ruling passion? Or Othello's? Or Harry the Fifth's? Or Wolsey's? Or Lear's? Or Shylock's? Or Benedick's?