for the autumnal charms of Jocafta.

One

may furely fay with her,

JOCASTA.

D'un lien charmant le foin tendre & timide

Ne dut point occuper le fucceffeur d'Alcide.

Tragedy thus converted into mere amorous ditty, drops all the ends of her inftitution, which were, fays Sir P. Sidney*, "to open the greatest wounds, and to fhew "forth the ulcers that are covered with "tiffue; to make kings fear to be tyrants,

tyrants to manifeft their tyrannical hu65 mours; that stirring the effects of admi"ration and commiferation, teacheth the "uncertainty of this world, and upon how "weak foundations gilded roofs are build"ed; that maketh us know, qui fceptra "fævus duro imperio regit, timet timentes, "metus in autorem redit." The example to the great; the warnings to the people; all high and public precepts are neglected; and by making the intereft of the play turn* Defence of Poefy.

upon

every

upon the paffion of Love, to which the man, the prince, the hero, is made to facrifice other confideration, even private morals are corrupted. Of this we shall be perfectly convinced, if we compare the conduct and fentiments of Thefeus, and of the unfortunate daughter of Jocásta, in Antigone, and Edipus Coloneus, with the Thefeus and Dirce of Corneille; where the enamoured pair difclaim all other regards and duties, human and divine, for the character of mere Lovers. In this play, great violence is done. to the character of the perfons, to which Horace, and all good critics, prescribe a most exact adherence. And though the Romans, who had conquered all other nations, had the best right to prefer their own manners, and despise those of other countries, yet their critics inculcated the neceffity of imitating those of the people represented.

The French Tragedians not only deviate from the character of the Individual represented, but even from the general character of the Age and Country. Thefeus and

Achilles

Achilles are not only unlike to Thefeus and Achilles, but they are not Greeks. Sophocles and Euripides never introduce a hero who had appeared in the Iliad or Odyffey, without a ftrict attention to make him act fuitably to the opinion conceived of him from those epic Poems. When Ulyffes, in the tragedy of Hecuba, comes to demand Polixena to be facrificed, how admirably is his conduct fuited to our conceptions of him! He is cold, prudent, deaf to pity, blind to beauty, and to be moved only by confideration of the public weal. See him in the Iphigenia of Racine, on a fimilar occafion, where he tells Agamemnon, he is ready to cry, Je fuis pret de pleurer;

and examine whether there appears any thing of Ulyffes upon the Stage, but his Name. Nor is there a greater resemblance between the French and Greek Achilles. Euripides paints him with a peculiar frankness and warmth of character, abhorrent of fraud, and highly provoked when he discovers his name has been used in a deceit. When he fees Iphigenia preferring the good of her country,

country, and an immortal fame, to the pleafures of life, he is then ftruck with fentiments so suitable to the greatness of his own mind; and, in the style of a hero and a Greek, expreffes how glad he fhould have been of fuch a bride. The Achilles of Racine is not diftinguished from any young lover of fpirit; yet this is one of the best French tragedies.

It is ufual to compliment Corneille with having added dignity to the Romans; and he has undoubtedly given them a certain strained elevation of fentiment and expreffion, which has perhaps a theatrical greatness: but this is not Roman dignity, nor fuitable to the character of republicans; for, as the excellent Bishop of Cambray obferves*, history represents the Romans great and high in Sentiment, but fimple, modeft, natural in Words, and very unlike the bombast, turgid heroes of romance. A greatman, fays he, does not declaim in the tone of the Theatre; his expreffions in converfation are just and strong; *Lettres fur l'Eloquence, &c.

heutters nothinglow, nor any thing pompous. Augustus Cæfar, represented to a barbarous audience, would command more respect, if feated on the Mogul's golden throne, sparkling with gems, than in the curule chair, to which power, not pomp, gave dignity. It is a degree of barbarifm to afcribe noblenefs of mind to arrogance of phrafe, or infolence of manners. There is a certain expreffion of style and behaviour which verges towards barbarifm; a ftate to which we may approach by roads that rife, as well as by those that fall. An European monarch would think it as unbecoming him to be styled light of the world, glory of nations, and by the swelling titles affumed by the Afiatic princes, as to be called the tamer of horses, or the fwift-footed, like the heroes of Homer.

Pere Brumoy feems to be very sensible of Corneille's mifreprefentation of the Roman character, though he speaks of it in all the ambiguity of language which prudence could fuggeft, to one who was thwarting a natio

nal