reading books of chivalry, which were the polite literature of the times, were accuftomed to bold adventures and atchievements. In our northern climates heroic adventures pleafed more than the gallant dialogue, where love and honour dispute with all the fophiftry of the schools, and one knows not when the conteft would end, if heraldry did not step in and decide the point, as in the foliloquy of the Infanta in the Cid. L'INFANTE. T'écouterai-je encor, refpect de ma naissance, T'écouterai-je, amour, dont la douce puiffance Contre ce fier tyran fait rebeller mes vœux? Dois-tu prêter obéissance? Rodrigue, ta valeur te rend digne de moi; Mais pour être vaillant tu n'es pas fils de roi. Le Cid, Acte 5me. Nor is this rule, that a princefs can love only the fon of a king, a mere Spanish punto; you shall hear two Spartan virgins, daugh ters the fame of Lyfander, speaking the ters of language, ELPINICE. Cotys eft roi, ma fœur ; & comme fa couronne Parle fuffifamment pour lui, Affuré de mon cœur que fon trône lui donne, De le trop demander il s'épargne l'ennui. This lady then proceeds to question her fifter concerning her inclination for her lover Spitridates, and urges in his favour; ELPINICE. Car enfin, Spitridate a l'entretien charmant, L'œil vif, l'efprit aifé, le cœur bon, l'ame belle; A tant de qualités s'il joignait un vrai zéle... To which the other answers, AGLATIDE. Ma fœur, il n'eft pas roi comme l'eft votre amant. The Queen of the Lufitcanians, in the famous play of Sertorius, fpeaks thus to that Roman general; * Agefilaus of Corneille. VIRITATE. VIRITATE.. Car enfin pour remplir l'honneur de ma naiffance, And upon the effect of this prudent decifion turns the great intereft of the play. By the laws of romance the men are to be amorous, and the ladies ambitious. Poor Sertorius in his old age is in love with this lady, for whom Perpenna is also dying; and Sertorius whom we had fuppofed facrificed to the ambition of his lieutenant, is the victim of his jealousy. Shakespear and Corneille are equally blamable, for having complied with the bad tafte of the age, and by doing so, they have both brought unmerited cenfures on their country. The French impute barbarity and cruelty, to a people that could delight in bloody skirmishes on the stage. The English, as unjustly, but as excufably, accuse of effeminacy and frivolousness, those who who could fit to hear the following address of a lover to his miftrefs's bodkin, with which he had juft put out one of his eyes: PY MANTE. O toi, qui fecondant fon courage inhumain, Tu devais pour le moins refpecter fon image: Devait être adoré de ta pointe rebelle. Clitandre de Corneille. The whole foliloquy includes feventy lines. I heartily wish for the honour of both nations, the lover and his bodkin, and the foldiers and their halberds, had always been hiffed off the stage. Our countryman was betrayed into his error by want of judgment, to difcern what part of his story was not fit for reprefentation. Corneille, for want of dramatic genius, was obliged to have recourse to points, conceits, cold and uninteresting declamations, to fill up his plays, and these heavily drag along his undramatical drama's to a fifth act. The ignorance of the times paffed over the defects of each author; and the bad taste then prevalent did more than endure, it even encouraged and approved what should have been cenfured. Mr. Voltaire has faid, that the plots of Shakespear's plays are as wild as that of the Clitandre just quoted; and it must be allowed they are often exceptionable, but at the fame time we muft observe, that though crouded too much, they are not fo perplexed as to be unintelligible, which Corneille confeffes his Clitandre might be to those who faw it but once. There is ftill another more effential difference perhaps, which is, that the wildest and most incorrect pieces of our poet contain fome incomparable fpeeches: whereas the worst plays of Corneille have not a good stanza. The tragedy of King Lear is very far from being a regular piece, yet there are speeches in |