fo liberal to foreigners for a concert of mufic 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 ferve for a model to be improved upon, when we grow weary of scenes of low life, and return to a tafte 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 judi cious 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 herfelf and her children, inftead of

moving terror or compaffion, fuch spectacles only fill the fpectator with horror: no wonder if strangers 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 lefs bloody, and the fword and dagger more out of fashion. To make fome amends for this exelufion, I would be lefs fevere as to the rigour. of fome other laws enacted by the matters,. though it is always advifable 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 severity 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 case summum jus may be fumma injuria.

Cor

Corneille himself complains of finding his genius often cramped by his own rules: "There is "infinite difference," fays he, " between fpecu"lation and practice: let the feverest critic "make the trial, he will be convinced by his

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own experience, that upon certain occafions "too ftrict an adherence to the letter of the

law hall 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 "reprefentation, a gentle dispensation 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 construction: not a difcourse, but an oration; not fpeaking, but de

claiming ;

claiming; not free, natural, and easy, as converfation fhould be, but precife, fet, formal argumenting, pro and con, like difputants in a fchool. In writing, like drefs, is it not poffible to be too exact, too ftarched, and too formal ? Pleafing negligence I have feen: who ever faw pleafing formality?

In a word, all extremes are to be avoided. To be a French Puritan in the drama, or an English Latitudinarian, is taking different paths to be both out of the road. If the British Mufe is too unruly, the French is too tame: one wants a curb, the other a spur.

By pleading for fome little relaxation froma the utmost severity of the rules, where the subjeft may feem to require it, I am not befpeaking any fuch indulgence for the present performance: though the Ancients have left us no pattern to follow of this species of tragedy, I perceive, upon examination, that I have been attentive to their strictest lessons.

The unities are religioufly obferved; the place is the fame, varied only into different profpects by the power of enchantment; all the incidents fall naturally within the very time of reprefentation; the plot is one principal action, and of that kind which introduces variety of turns and changes, all tending to the fame point; the ornaments and decorations are of a piece with it, fo that one could not well fubfift without the other; every act concludes with fome unexpected, revolution; and, in the end, vice is punished, virtue rewarded, and the moral is inftructive.

Rhyme, which I would by no means admit into the dialogue of graver tragedy, feems to me the most proper ftyle for representations of this heroic romantic kind, and beft adapted to accompany mufic, The folemn language of a haughty tyrant will by no means become a paffionate lover, and tender fentiments require the fofteft colouring.

The