A Pindarick Ode on Painting: Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. — John Shaqi
A Pindarick Ode on Painting: Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq.Morrison, Thomas
General
A Pindarick Ode on Painting: Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq.
Morrison, Thomas
Painting -- Poetry
In these acts, as well as the two following, the conduct of the
fable is in general just: at least it is most wonderfully improved
since your first draught of the Tragedy: and yet the characters &
dialogue are so managed as to render the whole cold,
uninteresting, & totally destitute of that spirit essential to the
success of the Drama. The personages are all suffered to languish,
tho' in situations which require the utmost animation & force.
Clytemnestra & Iphigenia, though defective, are indeed better
sustained than the rest, but the consequence of the Atridae hardly
survives the first act, and Achilles never maintains any
consequence at all.
The same remark may in general be applied to the fifth act as to
the foregoing. The management of the catastrophe might perhaps
admit of alteration. The nature of the subject indeed renders it a
very nice point: tho' I think it would be very possible to give it
due warmth & interest, were the more arduous task accomplished of
perfecting the preceding parts of the Drama.
Believe me, Sir, that in this as well as in all my other Letters
to you, I have delivered my real sentiments, tho' it is not
without reluctance & regret on the present occasion. I had at
first some objections to the subject. These vanished; & in the
first draught there were here & there some touches which inclined
me to hope that the whole piece might be worked up by the same
hand. I am sorry to pronounce it has failed: but _Ponere Totum_ is
the great secret; and in our exhibitions a common Dauber, possest
of that happy knack, will often be attended with tolerable
success, and exult at the failure of a superior artist who has
only laboured particular parts.
I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
G. Colman.
This letter, which must have left its recipient without further hope for
the production of his tragedy, is the last that remains.
Thomas Morrison died on July 20, 1778, and was buried beside his third
wife in the churchyard at Great Torrington. The inscription on the
tablet placed to his memory in the church nearby says of him that his
diffusive charity and benevolence towards man, his amiable manners, the
goodness of his heart and his exemplary conduct deservedly endeared him
to all his acquaintance.
Hooper Morrison died in 1798; his only son, Thomas Hooper Morrison, in
1824; and his son's widow in 1861. The Yeo Vale property then passed to
his son's niece, Eleanora Elizabeth Hammett, who was the wife of John
Townsend Kirkwood, great-grandfather of the present writer, and the sole
surviving child of Hooper Morrison's youngest--but only
married--daughter.
J. T. Kirkwood
White's Club, London.
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A
PINDARICK
ODE
on
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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