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has more than once admired it in his book of poetry; Horace has mentioned it: Lucullus, Julius Cæsar, and other noble Romans, have written on the same subject, though their poems are wholly lost; but Seneca's is still preserved. In our own age, Corneille has attempted it, and it appears by his Preface, with great success; but a judicious reader will easily observe how much the copy is inferiour to the original. He tells you himself, that he owes a great part of his success to the happy Episode of Theseus and Dirce; which is the same thing as if we should acknowledge that we were indebted for our good fortune to the under-plot of Adrastus, Eurydice, and Creon.→→ The truth is, he miserably failed in the character of his hero; if he desired that Oedipus should be pitied, he should have made him a better man. He forgot that Sophocles had taken care to shew him in his first entrance, a just, a merciful, a successful, a religious prince, and in short a father of his country; instead of these, he has drawn him suspicious, designing, more anxious of keeping the Theban crown than solicitous for the safety of his people hectored by Theseus, contemned by Dirce, and scarce maintaining a second part in his own tragedy. This was an errour in the first concoction, and therefore never to be mended in

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5. See SUETON. in Jul. 56.-Tacitus, in his Dialogue on Oratory, ch. xxi, informs us, that the poetry of Julius was not better than that of Cicero.non sit ogran

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the second or the third. He introduced a greater hero than Oedipus himself; for when Theseus was once there, that companion of Hercules must yield to none. The poet was obliged to furnish him with business, to make him an equipage suitable to his dignity, and by following him too close, to lose his other King of Brentford in the crowd. Seneca, on the other side, as if there were no such thing as Nature to be minded in a play, is always running after pompous expressions, pointed sentences, and philosophical notions, more proper the study than the stage: the Frenchman followed a wrong scent, and the Roman was absolutely at cold hunting. All we could gather out of Corneille was, that an episode must be, but not his way; and Seneca supplied us with no new hint, but only a relation which he makes of his Tiresias raising the ghost of Laius; which is here performed in view of the audience, the rites and ceremonies so far his, as he agreed with antiquity and the religion of the Greeks; but he himself was beholding to Homer's Tiresias in the Odysses for some of them, and the rest have been collected from Heliodore's Ethiopicks, and Lucan's Erictho. Sophocles indeed is admirable every where, and therefore we have followed him as close as possibly we could. But the Athenian theatre (whether more perfect than ours is not now disputed) had a perfection differing from ours: you see there in every act a single scene, or two at most, which manage the business of the play; and after that

succeeds the Chorus, which commonly takes up more time in singing than there has been employed in speaking. The principal person appears almost constantly through the play, but the inferiour parts seldom above once in the whole tragedy. The conduct of our stage is much more difficult, where we are obliged never to lose any considerable character which we have once presented. Custom likewise has obtained, that we must form an under-plot of second persons, which must be depending on the first; and their bye-walks must be like those in a labyrinth, which all of them lead into the great parterre, or like so many several lodging chambers which have their outlets into the same gallery. Perhaps after all, if we could think so, the ancient method, as it is the easiest, is also the most natural and the best: for variety, as it is managed, is too often subject to breed distraction; and while we would please too many ways, for want of art in the conduct, we please in none.-But we have given you more already than was necessary for a Preface, and for aught we know, may gain no more by our instructions than that politick nation is like to do, who have taught their enemies to fight so long, that at last they are in a condition to invade them. "

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6 I suppose by the politick nation, England was meant, and the enemies whom they taught to fight were the Dutch.

DEDICATION

OF

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

ROBERT, EARL OF SUNDERLAND, PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY-COUNCIL, &c. 7

MY LORD,

SINCE I cannot promise you much of poetry in my play, it is but reasonable that I should secure you from any part of it in my Dedication; and indeed I cannot better distinguish the exactness of your taste from that of other men, than

7 Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, only son of Henry, Earl of Sunderland, (who fell in the battle of Newbury in 1643,) by Lady Dorothy Sydney, the celebrated SACHARISSA, was born in 1641, and died September 28, 1702. "He was a man (says Burnet) of a clear and ready apprehension, and a quick decision in business. He had too much heat, both of imagination and passion, and was apt to speak very freely both of persons and things. His own notions were always good; but he was a man of great expence, and in order to the supporting himself, he went into the prevailing counsels at court;

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by the plainness and sincerity of my address. I must keep my hyperboles in reserve for men of other understandings. An hungry appetite after praise, and a strong digestion of it, will bear the grossness of that diet; but one of so critical a judgment as your Lordship, who can set the bounds of just and proper in every subject, would give me small encouragement for so bold an undertaking. I more than suspect, my Lord, that you would not do common justice to yourself; and therefore, were I to give that character of you which I think you truly merit, I would make my appeal from your Lordship to the reader, and would justify myself from flattery by the publick voice, whatever protestation you might enter to the con

and he changed sides often, with little regard either to religion or the interest of his country. He made many enemies to himself by the contempt with which he treated those who differed from them. He had indeed a superior genius to all the men of business that I have ever known and he had the dexterity of insinuating himself so entirely into the greatest degree of confidence with three succeeding Princes, who set up on very different interests, that he came by this to lose himself so much, that even those who esteemed his parts, depended little on his firmness.” History of his own Time, i. 495. 8vo.

Lord Sunderland was made Secretary of State not many months before this play was addressed to him ;February 8th, 1678-9.

A sister of this nobleman was married to Mr. Thomas Howard, one of the brothers of Lady Elizabeth Dryden, our author's wife..........y

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