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who understands raillery, but muft refolve to fin no more; nay, you may behold him fometimes in prayer for a proper delivery of the great truths he is to utter, humble himfelf with fo very well-turned phrafe, and mer.tion his own unworthinefs in a way fo very becoming, that the air of the pretty gentleman is preserved, under the lowlinefs of the preacher.

I fhall end this with a fhort letter I writ the other day to a witty man, over-run with the fault I am speaking of,

• Dear Sir,

I

SPENT fome time with you the other day, and must take the liberty of a friend to tell you of the unfufferable affectation you are guilty of in all you fay and do. When I gave you an hint of it, you afked me whether a man is to be cold to what his friends think of him? No: but praife is not to be the entertainment of every moment; he that hopes for it must be able to fufpend the poffeffion of it till proper periods of of life, or death itself. If you would not rather be commended than be praife-worthy, contemn little merits; and allow no man to be to free with you, as to praise you to your face. Your vanity by this means will want its food. At the fame time your paffion for efteem will be more fully gratified; men will praise you in their actions; where you now receive one compli❤ ment, you will then receive twenty civilities. Till then 2 you will never have of either, further than,

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• Sir,

Your humble fervant,'

No. XXXIX,

No. XXXIX. SATURDAY, APRIL 14.

Multa fero, ut placem genus irritabile vatum,
Cùm fcribo-

IMITATE D.

HOR.

Much do I fuffer, much, to keep in peace

This jealous, wafpish, wrong-head, rhiming race.

POPE.

AS a perfect tragedy is the nobleft production of human nature, fo it is capable of giving the mind one of the moft delightful and moft improving entertainments. A virtuous man, fays Seneca, ftruggling with misfortunes, is fuch a fpectacle as gods might look upon with pleasure; and fuch a pleasure it is which one meets with in the reprefentation of a well-written tragedy. Diverfions of this kind wear out of our thoughts every thing that is mean and little. They cherish and cultivate that humanity which is the ornament of our nature. They foften infolence, footh affliction, and fubdue the mind to the difpenfations of providence.

It is no wonder therefore that in all the polite nations of the world, this part of the Drama has met with public encouragement.

The modern tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome in the intricacy and difpofition of the fable; but, what a christian writer would be afhamed to own, falls infinitely fhort of it in the moral part of the performance.

This I may fhew more at large hereafter; and in the mean time, that I may contribute fomething towards the improvement of the English tragedy, I fhall take notice in this and in other following papers, of fome particular parts in it that feem liable to exception.

Ariftotle obferves, that the Iambic verfe in the Greek tongue was the most proper for tragedy; becaufe at the fame time that it lifted up the difcourfe from profe, it was that which approached nearer to it than any other kind of verfe. For, fays he, we may obferve that men in ordinary

ordinary difcourfe very often fpeak Iambics, without taking notice of it. We make the fame obfervation of our English blank verfe, which often enters into our common difcourfe, though we do not attend to it, and is such a due medium between rhime and profe, that it feems wonderfully adapted t tragedy. I am therefore very much offended when I fee a play in rhyme; which is as abfurd in English, as a tragedy of Hexameters would have been in Greck or Latin. The folœcifm is, I think, ftill greater in those plays that have fome fcenes in rhime and fome in blank verfe, which are to be looked upon as two feveral languages; or where we fee fome particular fimilities dignified with rhyme, at the fame time that every thing about them lies in blank verfe. I would not however debar the poet from concluding his tragedy, or, if he pleafes every act of it, with two or three couplets, which may have the fame effects as an air in the Italian opera after a long Recitativo, and give the actor a graceful Exit. Befides, that we fee a diversity of numbers in fome parts of the old tragedy, in order to hinder the ear from being tired with the fame continued modulation of voice. For the fame reafon I do not diflike the fpeeches in our English tragedy that clofe with an Hemiftic, or half verfe, notwithstanding the perfon who fpeaks after it begins a new verfe, without filling up the preceding one: nor with abrupt paufes and breakings-off in the middle of a verfe, when they humour any paffion that is expreffed by it.

Since I am upon this subject, I must observe that our English poets have fucceeded much better in the ftile, than in the fentiments of their tragedies. Their language is very often noble and fonorous, but the fenfe either very trifling or very common. On the contrary, in the ancient tragedies, and indeed in thofe of Corneille and Racine, though the exprefions are very great, it is the thought that bears them up and fwells them. For my own part, I prefer a noble fentiment that is depreffed with homely language, infinitely before a vulgar one that is blown up with all the found and energy of expreffion. Whether this defect in our tragedies may arife from

want

want of genius, knowledge, or experience in the writers, or from their compliance with the vicious taste of their readers, who are better judges of the language than of the fentiments, and confequently relish the one more than the other, I cannot determine. But I believe it might rectify the conduct both of the one and of the other, if the writer laid down the whole contexture of his dialogue in plain English, before he turned it into blank verfe; and if the reader, after the perusal of a scene, would confider the naked thought of every fpeech in it, when divested of all its tragic ornaments. By this means, without being impofed upon by words, we may judge impartially of the thought, and confider whether it be natural or great enough for the perfon that utters it, whether it deferves to thine in fuch a blaze of eloquence, or fhew itself in fuch a variety of lights as are generally made ufe of by the writers of our English tragedy.

I must in next place obferve, that when our thoughts are great and juft, they are often obfcured by the founding phrafes, hard metaphors, and forced expreffions in which they are clothed, Shakespear is often very faulty in this particular. There is a fine obfervation in Aristotle to this purpofe, which I have never feen quoted. The expreffion, fays he, ought to be very much laboured in the unactive parts of the fable, as in defcriptions, fimilitudes, narrations, and the like; in which the opinions, manners, and paffions of men are not reprefented; for thefe, namely the opinions, manners, and paffions, are apt to be obfcured by pompous phrafes and elaborate expreffions. Horace, who copied most of his criticifis after Ariftotle, feems to have had his eye on the foregoing rule, in the following verfes:

Et Tragicus plerumque dolet fermone pedeftri:
Telephus and Peleus, cùm pauper and exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas and fefquipedalia verba,

Si curat cor fpectantis tetigiffe querelâ.

Ars Poet. ver. 95.

Tragedians

Tragedians too lay by their ftate to grieve:
Peleus and Telephus, exil'd and poor,
Forget their fwelling and gigantic words.

ROSCOMMON.

Among our modern English poets, there is none who was better turned for tragedy than Lee; if, inftead of favouring the impetuofity of his genius he had restrained it, and kept it within its proper bounds. His thoughts are wonderfully fuited to tragedy, but frequently loft in C fuch a cloud of words, that it is hard to fee the beauty of them; there is an infinite fire in his works, but fo involved in fmoke, that it does not appear in half its luftre. He frequently fucceeds in the paffionate parts of the tragedy, but more particularly where he flackens his efforts, and cafes the ftile of thofe epithets and metaphors, in which he fo much abounds. What can be more natural, more foft, or more paffionate, than that line in Statira's fpeech, where the defcribes the charms of Alexander's conversation?

Then he would talk-Good Gods! how he would talk!

That unexpected break in the line, and turning the defcription of his manner of talking into an admiration of it, is inexpreffibly beautiful, and wonderfully fuited to the fond character of the perfon that speaks it. There is a fimplicity in the words that outshines the utmost pride of expreffion.

Otway has followed nature in the language of his tragedy, and therefore fhines in the paffionate parts more than any of our English poets. As there is fomething familiar and domeftic in the fable of his tragedy, more than in thofe of any other poet, he has little pomp, but great force in his expreffions. For which reason, though he has admirably fuccceeded in the tender and melting part of his tragedies, he sometimes falls into too great a familiarity of phrafe in thofe parts, which, by Ariftotle's rule, ought to have been raised and supported by the dignity of expreffion.

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