fomething of vigour beyond most of his other performances: his precepts are juft, and his cautions proper; they are indeed not new, but in a didactick poem novelty is to be expected only in the ornaments and illuftrations, His poetical precepts are accompanied with agrecable and inftructive notes, which ought not to have been omitted in this edition.

The Mafque of Peleus and Thetis has here and there a pretty line; but it is not always melodious, and the conclufion is wretched.

In his British Enchanters he has bidden defiance to all chronology, by confounding the inconfiftent manners of different ages; but the dialogue has often the air of Dryden's rhyming plays; and the B 4 fongs

fongs are lively, though not very correct. This is, I think, far the best of his works; for, if it has many faults, it has likewife paffages which are at least pretty, though they do not rife to any high degree of excellence.

PREFACE TO THE BRITISH ENCHANTERS.

OF all publick spectacles, that which should properly be called an Opera is calculated to give the highest delight. There is hardly any art but what is required to furnifh towards the entertainment; and there is fomething or other to be provided that may touch every fenfe, and please every palate.

The poet has a twofold task upon his hands in the dramatic and the lyric: the architect, the painter, the omposer, the actor, the finger, the dancer, &c. have each of them their several employments in the preparation, and in the

execution.

The fame materials indeed, in different hands, will have different fuccefs; all depends upon a skilful mixture of the various ingredients. A bad artist will make but a mere hodge-podge

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with

with the fame materials that one of a good taste fhall prepare an excellent olio.

The seasoning must be sense. Unless there is wherewithal to please the understanding, the eye and the ear will foon grow tired.

The French opera is perfect in the decorations, the dancing and magnificence; the Italian excels in the mufic and voices; but the drama falls fhort in both.

An English stomach requires fomething folid and fubftantial, and will rife hungry from a regale of nothing but fweemeats.

An opera is a kind of ambigu: the table is finely illuminated, adorned with flowers and fruits, and every thing that the feafen affords fragrant or delightful to the eye or the odour; but unless there is fomething too for the appetite, it is odds but the guests break up diffatisfied.

It is incumbent upon the poet alone to provide for that in the choice of his fable, the conduct of his plot, the harmony of his numbers, the elevation of his fentiments, and the juftness

of

of his characters. In this confifts the folid and the substantial.

The nature of this entertainment requires the plot to be formed upon some story in which Enchanters and Magicians have a principal part. In our modern heroic poems they supply the place of the gods with the Ancients, and make a much more natural appearance by being mortals, with the difference only of being endowed with fupernatural power.

The characters should be great and illuftrious; the figure the actor makes upon the stage is one part of the ornament; by confequence the fentiments must be fuitable to the characters in which love and honour will have the principal fhare.

The dialogue, which in the French and Ita. lian is fet to notes, and fung, I would have pronounced: if the numbers are of themselves harmonious, there will be no need of mufic to fet them off: a good verfe, well pronounced, is in itself mufical; and fpeech is certainly more natural for discourse than finging.

Can