eyes are caught with the gawdy drefs of a Trojan; fhe eagerly perfues the glittering spoils, and lofes her life in the attempt. How conformable to their characters are the ambitious Macbeth, and the jealous Othello? Tho' Falstaff is a fardle of low vices, a lyar, a coward, a thief; yet his good-humour makes him a pleasant companion. If you laugh at the oddness of Fluellin, yet his bravery and honesty Sanxit uti faeminis femitâ ferved their country from fire and fword, and the resentment of that proud patrician. How could the fenate reward them proportionably to their defert? Why, as Valerius Maximus tells us, 1. 5. c. 2. viri cederent-permifit quoque his purpurea vefte et aureis uti fegmentis. Which we may translate, The Senate ordered that the men should give the women the upper-hand, and allowed them to wear fine cloaths, and ornaments of gold. However old Cato fome time after, affifted by the tribunes, was refolved to repeal this order, but the clamours, and uproars of the ladies were fo great, that he was forced to defift. Livy's account [L. 34.] of this female commotion is admirable. If we look into Milton, we shall there find this vanity in Eve, when in her innocent state; that Narciffus-like admiration of herself, which the poet paints, B. IV. y. 449, &c. far exceeds any thing in Ovid: and the glozing tempter at length catches her with flattery. B. IX, . 532. &c. What fhall we think after this of fuch unpoetical characters, as Marcia and Lucia in Addison's Cato? But the less that women appear on the ftage, ge nerally honefty claim a laugh of love, rather than of contempt. Thefe manners, and moft others which the poet has painted, are agreeable to the character, and fuitable to his defign. III. The poet fhould give his manners that resemblance which hiftory, or common report has published of them. This is to be underflood of known "characters. Shakespeare very ftrictly observes this rule, and if ever he varies from it, 'tis with great art; as in the character of Banquo, mention'd above. Of those characters, which he has taken from the English chronicles, as king John, Henry VIII, cardinal Wolfey, &c. the manners and qualities are like to what history reports of them. 12 Breval, in nerally the better is the story: and unmarried women are left entirely out in Shakespeare's best plays, as in Macbeth, Othello, Julius Cæfar; in Hamlet, Ophelia is necessary to carry on the plot of the pretended madness. After the Restoration women were fuffered to act on the stage, and ftories were formed for them, wherein they acted the principal parts. Hence the stage began to be corrupted; and at the fame time sprung up, love, honour, gallantry, and fuch like Gothic ornamental parts of poetry; and Shakefpeare, and Johnson in proportion were despised. 1 Ariftot. κεφ. ιε. τρίτον δὲ, τὸ ὅμοιον. i. e. this likenefs must be drawn from history, or common report. Aut famam fequere. Horat. art. poet. 119. 12 Breval's travels, p. 104. his account of Verona, introducing the story of Romeo and Juliet, has the following remark. "Shakespeare, as I have found upon a strict "fearch into the hiftories of Verona, has va"ried very little either in his names, characters, 66 or other circumftances from truth, and mat"ter of fact. He obferved this rule indeed in "most of his tragedies, which are so much the "more moving, as they are not only grounded 66 upon nature, and history, but likewife as he keeps closer to both than any dramatic writer "we ever had befides himself." 66 To confider in this view fome of the characters in Julius Caefar. M. Junius Brutus was a Stoic philofopher; the Stoics were of all fects the most humane and mild, and all profeffedly commonwealthsmen. They made every thing submit to honefty, but that they fubmitted to nothing. 'Twas therefore the tyrant Caefar, the subverter of his country and the conftitution, that Brutus killed, not the friendly Caefar. Can we stand by, and fee Our mother robb'd and bound and ravish'd be, Yet not to ber affistance ftir, Pleas'd with the ftrength and beauty of the ravisher? Or fhall we fear to kill him, if before Ingrateful Ingrateful Brutus do they call? C. Caffius was more of an Epicurean by name, than principle. He was of an impetuous temper, could not brook the thoughts of a master, and was befide of a fevere life, and manners. Seneca fays of him, Ep. 547. Caffius totâ vitâ aquam bibit. Cicero was by nature timorous, and "vainglorious. An improper perfon to be trusted with fo great an enterprize. He had befide been a flatterer of Caefar. The characters of the 14 confpirators were in after ages all abused, when hiftorians and poets turn'd court-flatterers. And even the profcriptions of those three fuccessful villains, the false and cruel Octavius, the wild and profligate An 13 This part of Cicero's character Brutus touches on. "O name him not; let us not break with him: "That other men begin. 14 Even Brutus they belied at his death; for he never was fo little of a philosopher as to call virtue an empty name, and no folid good, because he miffed his aim to restore the Roman liberty. Nunquam fucceffu crescit honeftum. tony, tony, the stupid Lepidus, were either palliated or excused. The cruelty of Octavius is particularly mention'd by Suetonius, Reftitit aliquandiu collegis, ne qua fieret profcriptio, fed inceptam utroque acerbius exercuit. But with these and other vices he still preserved great dignity, and, what we moderns call, good-breeding; a fort of mock-virtues of a very low clafs. And this character of Octavius Shakespeare has very justly preferved in his play. IV. The manners ought to be " uniform and confiftent: and, whenever a change of manners is made, care should be taken that there appear proper motives for fuch a change; and the audience are to be prepared before hand. There is a very fine inftance of this confiftent change in Terence. Demea begins to find that all his peevish severity avail'd nothing; no reformation 15 Τέταρον δὲ τὸ ὁμαλόν· καν γὰρ ἀνώμαλος τις ἢ ὁ τὴν μίμησιν παρέχων, καὶ τοῖς του ἦθα υποτιθείς, ὅμως ὁμαλῶς ἀνώμαλον δεῖ εἶναι. The fourth is that the manners be equal : and fhould the person, who is the subject of imitation, be unequal in his manners, yet we ought to make them equally unequal. Ομαλῶς ἀνώμαλον as the manners of Tigellius in Horace, conftans in levitate. Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit, et fibi conftet, Hor. art. poet. :26. was |