paffion of love was in no eftimation amongst them, and had feldom any share in their dramatic pieces; though with us it is a received opinion, that they cannot be fupported without it.

It is worth our trouble to examine briefly in what manner this paffion, which has always been deemed a weakness and a blemish in the greatest characters, got fuch footing upon our ftage. Corneille, who was the first who brought the French tragedy to any perfection, and whom all the reft have followed, found the whole nation enamoured to madness of romances, and little difpofed to admire any thing not resembling them. From the defire of pleafing his audience, who were at the fame time his judges, he endeavoured to move them in the manner they had been accustomed to be affected; and by introducing love in his scenes, to bring them the nearer to the predominant taste of the age for romance. From the fame fource arofe that multiplicity of incidents, episodes, and adventures, with which our tragic pieces are crowded and obfcured; fo contrary to probability, which will not admit fuch a number of extraordinary and surprising events in the short space of fourand-twenty-hours; fo contrary to the fimplicity of ancient tragedy; and fo adapted to conceal, in the affemblage of fo many different objects, the fterility of the genius of a poet, more intent upon the marvellous than upon the probable and natural.

Both the Greeks and Romans have preferred the iambic to the heroic verfe in their tragedies; not only as at the first it has a kind of dignity better adapted to the stage, but whilft it approaches nearer to profe, retains fuffici ently the air of poetry to please the ear, and yet has too little of it to put the audience in mind of the poet, who ought not to appear at all in reprefentations, where other perfons are fuppofed to speak and act. Monfieur Dacier makes a very juft reflection in this refpect. He says, that it is the misfortune of our tragedy to have almost no other verfe than what it has in common with epic poetry, elegy, paftoral, fatire, and comedy; whereas the learned languages have a great variety of verfification.

This inconvenience is highly obvious in our tragedy; which cannot avoid being removed by it from the natural and probable, as it obliges heroes, princes, kings, and queens, to exprefs themfelves in a pompous ftrain in their familiar converfation, which it would be ridiculous to attempt in real life. The giving utterance to the most impetuous paffions in an uniform cadence, and by hemiftichs and rhimes, would undoubtedly be tedious and offenfive to the ear, if the charms of poetry, the elegance of expreffion, the spirit of the fentiments, and perhaps, more than all of them, the refiftlefs force of custom, had not in a manner subjected our reason, and illuded our judgment.

It was not chance, therefore, which fuggefted to the Greeks the use of iambics in their tragedy. Nature itself feems to have dictated that kind of verfe to them. Inftructed by the fame unerring guide, they made choice of a different verfification for the chorus, more capable of affecting, and of being fung; because it was neceffary for the poetry to fhine out in all its luftre, whilft the free conversation between the real actors was fufpended. The chorus was an embellishment of the reprefentation, and a relaxation of the audience, and therefore required more exalted poetry and numbers › to fupport it, when united with music and dancing.,‹

Of the ancient, middle, and new Comedy. ·

Whilft tragedy arofe in this manner at Athens, · comedy, the second fpecies of dramatic poetry, and which, till then, had been much neglected, began to bẹ cultivated with more attention. Nature was the com mon parent to both. We are fenfibly affected with the dangers, diftreffes, misfortunes, and, in a word, with whatever relates to the lives and conduct of illuftrious perfons; and this gave birth to tragedy. And we are as curious to know the adventures, conduct, and defects of our equals; which fupply us with occafions of laughing, and being merry at the expence of others. Hence come

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dy derives itfelf; which is properly an image of private life. Its defign is to expofe defects and vice upon the ftage, and by affixing ridicule to them, to make them contemptible; and confequently to instruct by diverting. Ridicule therefore (or, to express the fame word by another, Pleasantry) ought to prevail in comedy.

This poem took at different times three different forms at Athens, as well from the genius of the poets, as from the influence of the government; which occafioned various alterations in it.

The ancient comedy, fo called by Horace, and which he dates after the time of Æfchylus, retained fomething of its original rudeness, and the liberty it had been ufed to take of buffooning and reviling the fpectators from the cart of Thefpis. Though it was become regular in its plan, and worthy of a great theatre, it had not learnt to be more referved. It reprefented real tranfactions with the names, habits, geftures, and likenefs in mafks, of whomfoever it thought fit to facrifice to the public diverfion. In a ftate where it was held good policy to unmask whatever carried the air of ambition, fingularity, or knavery, comedy affumed the privilege to harangue, reform, and advife the people upon the most important occafions, and interefts. Nothing was fpared in a city of fo much liberty, or rather licence, as Athens was at that time. Generals, magiftrates, government, the very gods, were abandoned to the poet's fatyrical vein; and all as well received, providing the comedy was diverting and the Attic falt not wanting.

"In one of these comedies, not only the prieft of Ju piter determines to quit his fervice, becaufe more facri fices are not offered to the god; but Mercury himself comes in a starving condition,to feek his fortune among ft mankind, and offers to ferve as a porter, futtler, bailiff, guide, door-keeper; in fhort, in any capacity, rather than to return to heaven. In another the fame gods in extreme want and neceffity, from the birds having

*Succeffit vetus his comœdia non fina multa

Laude.

HOR. en Art, Poet.

built a city in the air, whereby their provifions are cut off, and the fmoke of incenfe and facrifices prevented from afcending to heaven, depute three amballadors in the name of Jupiter to conclude a treaty of accommodation with the birds, upon fuch conditions as they fhall approve. The chamber of audience, where the three famifhed gods are received, is a kitchen well-ftored with excellent game of all forts. Here Hercules, deeply fmitten with the smell of roaft meat, which he apprehends to be more exquifite and nutritious than that of incenfe, begs leave to make his abode, and to turn the fpit, and affift the cook upon occafion. The other pieces of Ariftophanes abound with ftrokes ftill more fatirical and severe upon the principal divinities.

I am not much furprized at the poet's infulting the gads, and treating them with the utmoft contempt, from whom he had nothing to fear: but I cannot help wom dering at his having brought the most illuftrious and powerful perfons of Athens upon the stage, and that he prefumed to attack the government itself without any manner of respect or referve.

Cleon, having returned triumphant, contrary to the general expectation, from the expedition against Sphacteria, was looked upon by the people as the greatest captain of that age. Ariftophanes, to fet that bad man in a true light, who was the fon of a currier, and a currier himself, and whofe rife was owing folely to his temerity and imprudence, was fo bold as to make him the fubject of a comedy, without being awed by his power and reputation: but he was obliged to play the part of Cleon himself, and appeared for the first time upon the ftage in that character; not one of the comedians daring to reprefent him, or to expose himself to the refentment of fo formidable an enemy. His face was fmeared over with wine-lees; because no workman could be found, that would venture to make a mask re, fembling Cleon, as was ufual when perfons were brought upon the ftage. In this piece he reproaches him with

embezzling the public treasures, with a violent paffion for bribes and prefents, with craft in feducing the people, and denies him the glory of the action at Sphacteria, which he attributes chiefly to the fhare his colleague had in it.

In the Acharnians, he accufes Lamachus of having been made general, rather by bribery than merit. He imputes to him his youth, inexperience, and idleness; at the fame time that he, and many others, convert to their own use the rewards due only to valour and real fervices. He reproaches the republic with their preference of the younger citizens to the elder in the government of the state, and the command of armies. He tells them plainly, that when the peace fhall be concluded, neither Cleonymus, Hyperbolus, nor many other fuch knaves, all mentioned by name, fhall have any share in the public affairs; they being always ready to accuse their fellow-citizens of crimes, and to enrich themselves by fuch informations.

In his comedy called the Wafps, imitated by Racine in his Plaideurs, he exposes the mad paffion of the people for profecutions and trials at law, and the enormous injuftice frequently committed in paffing sentence and giving judgment.

The poet, concerned to fee the republic obftinately bent upon the unhappy expedition of Sicily, endea vours to excite in the people a final difguft for fo ruinous a war, and to inspire them with the defire of a peace, as much the intereft of the victors as the van quifhed, after a war of several years duration, equally pernicious to each party, and capable of involving all Greece in ruin.

None of Ariftophanes's pieces explains better his boldness, in fpeaking upon the most delicate affairs of the state in the crowded theatre, than his comedy called Lyfiftrata. One of the principal magiftrates of Athens had a wife of that name, who is fupposed to have taken it into her head to compel Greece to conclude a peace,

The Peace.

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