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laboured in the unactive parts of the fable, as in descriptions, similitudes, narrations, and the like; in which the opinions, manners, and passions of men are not represented; for these (namely, the opinions, manners and passions) are apt to be obscured by pompous phrases and elaborate expressions. Horace, who copied most of his criticisms after Aristotle, seems to have had his eye on the foregoing rule, in the following verses: - 1

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"Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri :
Telephus et Peleus, cùm pauper et exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,
Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querelâ.”

Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 95.

Tragedians too lay by their state to grieve : - Peleus and Telephus, exil'd and poor, Forget their swelling and gigantic words.

Roscommon.

Among our modern English poets, there is none who has a better turn for tragedy than Lee; if instead of favouring the impetuosity of his genius he had restrained it, and kept it within its proper bounds. His thoughts are wonderfully suited to tragedy, but frequently lost in such a cloud of words, that it is hard to see the beauty of them. There is an infinite fire in his works, but so involved in smoke, that it does not appear in half its lustre. He frequently succeeds in the passionate parts of the tragedy, but more particularly where he slackens his efforts, and eases the style of those epithets and metaphors, in which he so

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much abounds. What can be more natural, mare soft, or more passionate, than that line in Statira's speech where she describes the charms of Alexander's conversation?

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"Then he would talk-Good gods! how he would talk!"

That unexpected break in the line, and turning the description of his manner of talking into an admiration of it, is inexpressibly beautiful, and wonderfully suited to the fond character of the person that speaks it. There is a simplicity in the words, that outshines the utmost pride of expression.

Otway has followed nature in the language of his tragedy, and therefore shines in the passionate parts, more than any of our English poets. As there is something familiar and domestic in the fable of his tragedy, more than in those of any other poet, he has little pomp, but great force in his expressions. For which reason, though he has admirably succeeded in the tender and melting part of his tragedies, he sometimes falls into too great familiarity of phrase in those parts, which by Aristotle's rule ought to have been raised and supported by the dignity of expression.

It has been observed by others, that this poet has founded his tragedy of Venice Preserved on so wrong a plot, that the greatest characters in it are those of rebels and traitors. Had the hero of this play discovered the same good qualities in the defence of his country that he showed for its

ruin and subversion, the audience could not enough pity and admire him: but as he is now representéd, we can only say of him what the Roman historian says of Catiline, that his fall would have been glorious (si pro patria sic concidisset) had he so fallen in the service of his country.

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Ac ne fortè putes, me, quæ facere ipse recusem,
Cùm rectè tractent alii, laudare malignè;
Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur
Ire poëta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet,

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Ut magus; et modò me Thebis, modò ponit Athenis.
Hor. Lib. ii. Ep. 1. 208.

IMITATED.

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Yet lest you think I rally more than teach,
Or praise, malignant, arts I cannot reach,
Let me for once presume t' instruct the times,
To know the poet from the man of rhymes;
'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains,
Can make me feel each passion that he feigns;
Enrage, compose, with more than magic art,
With pity, and with terror, tear my heart;
And snatch me o'er the earth, or through the air,
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.

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THE English writers of tragedy are possessed with. a notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent person in distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his trou

bles, or made him triumph over his enemies. This error they have been led into by a ridiculous doctrine in modern criticism, that they are obliged to an equal distribution of rewards and punishments, and an impartial execution of poetical justice. Who were the first that established this rule I know not; but I am sure it has no foundation in nature, in reason, or in the practice of the ancients. We find that good and evil happen alike to all men on this side the grave; and as the principal design of tragedy is to raise commiseration and terror in the minds of the audience, we shall defeat this great end, if we always make virtue and innocence happy and successful. Whatever crosses and disappointments a good man suffers in the body of the tragedy, they will make but a small impression on our minds, when we know that in the last act he is to arrive at the end of his wishes and desires. When we see him engaged in the depth of his afflictions, we are apt to comfort ourselves, because we are sure he will find his way out of them; and that his grief, how great soever it may be at present, will soon terminate in gladness. For this reason the ancient writers of tragedy treated men in their plays, as they are dealt with in the world, by making virtue sometimes happy and sometimes miserable, as they found it in the fable which they made choice of, or as it might affect their audience in the most agreeable manner. Aristotle considers the tragedies that were written in either of these kinds, and ob

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