Can any thing be more preposterous than to behold Cato, Julius Cæfar, and Alexander the Great, ftrutting upon the ftage in the figure of fongfters, perfonated by eunuchs ?

The finging, therefore, fhould be wholly applied to the lyrical part of the entertainment, which, by being freed from a tirefome, unnatu ral recitative, muft certainly adminifter more: reasonable pleafure..

The several parts of the entertainment should be fo fuited to relieve one another as to be tedious in none; and the connexion fhould be fuch, that not one fhould be able to fubfift with-out the other like embroidery, fo fixed and wrought into the substance, that no part of the ornament could be removed without tearing the: ftuff.

:

To introduce finging and dancing by head and shoulders, no way relative to the action, does not turn a play into an opera, though that title is now promifcuously given to every farce fprinkled here and there with a fong and a dance.

The

The richest lace, ridiculously fet on, will make but a fool's coat.

I will not take upon me to criticife what has appeared of this kind on the English ftage: we have feveral poems under the name of Dramatic Operas by the beft hands; but, in my opinion, the fubjects, for the most part, have been improperly chofen. Mr. Addison's Rofamond, and Mr. Congreve's Semele, though excellent in their kind, are rather masks than operas.

As I cannot help being concerned for the honour of my country, even in the minutest things, I am for endeavouring to outdo our neighbours in performances of all kinds.

Thus, if the fplendour of the French opera, and the harmony of the Italian, were so skilfully interwoven with the charms of poetry, upon a regular dramatic bottom, as to inftruct as well as delight, to improve the mind as well as ravifh the fenfe, there can be no doubt but fuch an addition would entitle our English opera to the preference of all others. The third part of the encouragement, of which we have been

fo

fo liberal to foreigners for a concert of mufie only, mifcalled an opera, would more than effect it.

In the conftruction of the following Poem the author has endeavoured to fet an example to his rules; precepts are best explained by examples ; an abler hand might have executed it better : however, it may serve for a model to be improved upon, when we grow weary of scenes of low life, and return to a taste of more generous pleasures.

We are reproached by foreigners with fuch unnatural irregularities in our dramatic pieces, as are fhocking to all other nations; even a Swifs. has played the critic upon us, without confidering they are as little approved by the judicious in our own. A ftranger who is ignorant of the language, and incapable of judging of. the fentiments, condemns by the eye, and concludes what he hears to be as extravagant as what he fees. When Oedipus breaks his neck out of a balcony, and Jocafta appears in her bed murdering herself and her children, inftead of

moving terror or compaffion, fuch spectacles only fill the fpectator with horror: no wonder if ftrangers are shocked at fuch fights, and conclude us a nation hardly yet civilized, that can feem to delight in them. To remove this reproach, it is much to be wished our scenes were less bloody, and the sword and dagger more out of fashion. To make fome amends for this exclufion, I would be lefs fevere as to the rigour of fome other laws enacted by the mafters, though it is always advisable to keep as clofe to them as poffible: but reformations are not to be brought about all at once.

It may happen that the nature of certain fubjects proper for moving the paffions may require a little more latitude, and then, without offence to the critics, fure there may be room for a faving in equity from the feverity of the common law of Parnaffus as well as of the King's Bench. To facrifice a principal beauty, upon which the fuccefs of the whole may depend, is being too strictly tied down; in fuch a cafe fummum jus may be fumma injuria.

Cor

.66

Corneille himfelf complains of finding his genius often cramped by his own rules: "There is ❝ infinite difference," fays he, "between specu"lation and practice: let the severest critic "make the trial, he will be convinced by his own experience, that upon certain occafions "too ftrict an adherence to the letter of the "law fhall exclude a bright opportunity of "fhining, or touching the paffions. Where the "breach is of little moment, or can be con"trived to be as it were imperceptible in the "representation, a gentle difpenfation might be "allowed." To thofe little freedoms he attributes the fuccefs of his Cyd: but the rigid legiflators of the Academy handled him fo roughly for it, that he never durft make the venture again, nor none who have followed him. Thus pinioned, the French Muse must always flutter like a bird with the wings cut, incapable of a lofty flight.

The dialogue of their tragedies is under the fame constraint as the conftruction: not a difcourfe, but an oration; not fpeaking, but declaiming;