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present and real transaction; he gives the chorus * and interest in the scenes, contrives habits of dignity and theatrical decorations. In a word, he gives both to tragedy; or, more properly, draws it from the bosom of the epic poem. She makes her appearance sparkling with graces, and displayed such majesty as gained every heart at the first view. Sophocles considers her more nearly with the eyes of a critic, and finds that she has something still about her rough and swelling; he divests her of her false ornaments, teaches her a more regular walk, and more familiar dignity. Euripides was of opinion, that she ought to receive still more softness and tenderness ; he teaches her the new art of pleasing by simplicity, and gives her the charms of graceful negligence; so that he makes her stand in suspense, whether she appears most to advantage in the dress of Sophocles sparkfing with gems, or in that of Euripides, which is more simple and modest. Both indeed are elegant; but the elegance is of different kinds, between which no judg ment as yet has decided the prize of superiority. We can now trace it no farther; its progress among the Greeks is out of sight. We must pass at once to the time of Augustus, where Apollo and the Muses quitted their ancient residence in Greece, to fix their abode in Italy. But it is vain to ask questions of Melpomene; she is obstinately silent, and we only know from strangers her power amongst the Romans. Seneca endeavours

*

Eschylus, in my opinion, as well as the other poets his contemporaries, retained the chorus, not merely because it was the fashion, but because examining tragedy to the bottom, they found it not rational to conceive, that an action great and splendid, like the revolution of a state, could pass without witnesses.

to make her speak; but the gaudy show with which he rather loads than adorns her, makes us think that he took some phantom of Melpomene for the Muse herself.

Another flight, equally rapid with that to Rome, must carry us through thousands of years, from Rome to France. There in the time of Lewis XIV. we see the mind of man giving birth to tragedy a second time, as if the Greek tragedy had been utterly forgot. In the place of Eschylus, we have our Rotrou. In Corneille we have another Sophocles, and in Racine a second Euripides. Thus is tragedy raised from her ashes, carried to the utmost point of greatness, and so dazzling that she prefers herself to herself. Surprised to see herself produced again in France in so short a time, and nearly in the same manner as before in Greece, she is disposed to believe that her fate is to make a short transition from her birth to her perfection, like the goddess that issued from the brain of Jupiter.

If we look back on the other side to the rise of comedy, we shall see it hatched by Margites from the Odyssey of Homer, in imitation of her eldest sister; but we see her under the conduct of Aristophanes become licentious and petulant, taking airs to herself which the magistrates were obliged to crush. Menander reduced her to bounds, taught her at once gaiety and politeness, and enabled her to correct vice, without shocking the offenders. Plautus, among the Romans, to whom we must now pass, united the earlier and the later comedy, and joined buffoonery with delicacy. Terence, who was better instructed, received comedy from Menander, and surpassed his original, as

he endeavoured to copy it. And lastly, Moliere produced a new species of comedy, which must be placed in a class by itself, in opposition to that of Aristophanes, whose manner is likewise peculiar to himself.

But such is the weakness of the human mind, that when we review the successions of the drama a third time, we find genius falling from its height, forgetting itself, and led astray by the love of novelty, and the desire of striking out new paths. Tragedy degenerated in Greece from the time of Aristotle, and in Rome after Augustus. At Rome and Athens comedy produced Mimi, pantomimes, burlettas, tricks, and farces, for the sake of variety; such is the character, and such the madness of the mind of man. It is satisfied with having made great conquests, and gives them up to attempt others, which are far from answering its expectation, and only enables it to discover its own folly, weakness, and deviations. But why should we be tired with standing still at the true point of perfection, when it is attained? If eloquence be wearied, and forgets herself a while, yet she soon returns to her former point; so will it happen to our theatres if the French Muses will keep the Greek models in their view, and not look with disdain upon a stage whose mother is nature, whose soul is passion, and whose art is simplicity; a stage, which, to speak the truth, does not perhaps equal ours in splendour and elevation, but which excels it in simplicity and propriety, and equals it at least in the conduct and direction of those passions which may properly affect an honest man and a christian.

For my part, I shall think myself well recompensed for my labour, and shall attain the end which I had in

view, if I shall in some little measure revive in the minds of those who purpose to run the round of polite literature, not an immoderate and blind reverence, but a true taste of antiquity; such a taste as both feeds and polishes the mind, and enriches it by enabling it to appropriate the wealth of foreigners, and to exert its natural fertility in exquisite productions! such a taste as gave the Racines, the Molieres, the Boileaus, the Fontaines, the Patrus, the Pelessons, and many other great geniuses of the last age, all that they were, and all that they will always be ; such a taste as puts the seal of immortality to those works in which it is discovered; a taste so necessary, that without it we may be certain that the greatest powers of nature will long continue in a state below themselves; for no man ought to allow himself to be flattered or seduced by the example of some men of genius, who have rather appeared to despise this taste than to despise it in reality. It is true that excellent originals have given accasion. without any fault of their own, to very bad

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copies. No man ought severely to ape either the ancients or the moderns; but if it was necessary to run into an extreme of one side or the other, which is never done by a judicious and well directed mind, it would be better for a wit, as for a painter, to enrich himself by what he can take from the ancients, than to grow poor by taking all from his own stock; or openly to affect an imitation of those moderns whose more fertile genius has produced beauties peculiar to themselves, and which themselves only can display with grace; beauties of that peculiar kind, that they are not fit to be imitated by others; though in those who first invented them they may be justly esteemed, and in them only.

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DEDIC

Complete System of ASTRO the Scriptures. By JOH Derbyshire. 4to. 1762.

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