⚫ he ceases to be an imitator;' seeming even to contradict what he had before allowed in the third chapter, ' that the poet might imitate, either like Homer, fometimes by fimple narration, and sometimes by affuming a different character; or entirely by narration, without affuming any ' character.' It may perhaps be impoffible strictly to reconcile this difference of opinion, but it obviously shews the great preference he gave personal imitation to any other, from which arose his strong predilection for tragedy; and I think we may fairly deduce from it, that even the poet whose imitation is folely narrative, must paint in strong colours the effects of action, paffions and manners, and not merely relate a fable though fictitious, like an hiftorian, for the purpose of drawing moral reflections from it. Those passages, nevertheless, of an epic poem, where the poet speaks in his own person, have great beauty from their contrast with the impaffioned parts, and the relief they give the mind, provided they are neither too frequent nor too long, and the rule laid down by Ariftotle, in his twenty-fourth chapter, concerning the elegance of the versification be carefully observed. Mr. Twining quotes a beautiful example from the first Æneid. ، ، • Urbs antiqua fuit, (Tyrii tenuêre coloni,) Carthago, Italiam contra Tiberinaque longe Oftia-.' Innumerable instances may be produced from Milton; as the description of evening and of paradise, in the fourth book of Paradise Loft; in this he is superior to any poet ancient or modern, though there are many striking passages of the fame kind in the Odyssey. The

on a passage in the fixth chapter. But it is impossible to observe the great earnestness with which Dacier and Metastasio support their oppofite opinions, the one zealous for the honor of (B) Telemachus, and the other partial to the beautiful poems of Ariosto and Tasso, without being convinced of the neceffity of fober criticism, divesting itself of all national and personal partiality. And yet after all it can be of little consequence what Aristotle says on this subject, since in his time the (c) epopee, or the drama, unadorned by verse, if known at all, so far from having attained that degree of perfection to which they have been carried by the moderns, were confidered as an irregular and spurious kind of composition. [B] A fellow-countryman of Dacier's, Bossu, has settled this difference of opinion by the following accommodating hypothefis. • But if an epopee should be written in prose, would * it be an epic poem ? I think not, because a poem is a compofition in verse, but neverthe- * less that does not hinder it from being an epopee; so a tragedy in profe is not a tragic ' poem, but it is still a tragedy. Those who have been in doubt whether the Roman ' comedy was a poem have never doubted its being comedy.' Boffu, 1. 1. chap. v. See also Beattie on Poetry and Music, page 295, and on Fable and Romance, page 518. [c] The Cyropædia of Xenophon, though I believe generally allowed to be not wholly founded on truth, still takes its most prominent features from history, and perhaps does not deviate much more from fact than the account of Cyrus given by Herodotus, though it has more of a poetical form, as there is a manifest design in the arrangement of the circumstances. It seems to bear fome resemblance to the historical novels of the present day.. Strabo, it is true, mentions other writers of poetical profe. Λύσαντες τὸ μέτρον, τ᾽ ἄλλα δὲ φυλάξαντες, τὰ ποιητικὰ συνέγραψαν ὁι περὶ Κάδμον κὶ Φερεκύδην κὶὴ Ἑκατᾶιον, Ι. Ι. • For Cadmus and Pherecydes and Hecatæus wrote poetry, not confining themselves to verse, < but retaining its other requifites. Perhaps, however, by ποιητικά, in this place, compofition in general is meant, fince Suidas says of Hecatæus, Πρῶτος ἰσορίαν πεζῶς ἐξήνεγκεν. • He first wrote history in profe.' From

ΙΟΙ POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. are at the time. Such characters as Grandison and Lovelace, though possessing virtues and vices beyond common life, and let me add, out of nature, are yet not drawn with manners different from those of the present day, which cannot be faid of Macbeth and of Pofthumus, of Hudibras, and of Pierrot. It must be observed, that many of our afterpieces, though called farces, are in reality short comedies. As a further illustration of this, it may be observed that there are few tragic fables, (taking tragic in its usual sense,) which may not be rendered comic or burlesque, by altering the station and manners of the persons. For to use the words of Dr. Beattie, ' in most human cha- ⚫racters there are blemishes moral, intellectual, or corporeal, by augmenting which to a certain degree you may form a comic character, or by • raifing the virtues, abilities, or external advantages of an individual, you • form epic, and tragic characters [c].' This subject is alluded to with some humour in Lloyd's Prologue to the Jealous Wife. Quarrels, upbraidings, jealoufies and spleen, • Grow too familiar in the comic scene; Curiosity of Lillo falls under the same circumstance, though given as a perfect mode of Tragedy, equal to the Edipus, by a most elegant Critic, whom Mr. Winstanley justly calls * vir fi quis alius ἀρισοζελικώταλος,' ، see Philological Enquiries. For a refutation of this eulogium on the Fatal Curiosity, see note III. chap. xiii, [c] Eflay on Poetry and Music, part i. chap. v. page 120. See also the Effay on the Dramatic Character of Falstaff, page 158, and Phil. Enquiries, page 159. Tinge !

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ' and with certain modifications, they are delightful, as we every day experience [A]. It must, however, be confessed, that the following remark of the fame judicious critic, is strongly in favor of Mr. Twining and Vittorio. When the object represented in painting or poetry is such as we should • have no defire of seeing in reality, then I may be sure that its power * in poetry or painting is owing to the power of imitation, and to no 'cause operating in the thing itself. So it is with most of the pieces ' which the painters call still life. In these a cottage or a dunghill, the • meanest and most ordinary furniture of the kitchen are capable of giving us pleasure. But when the object of the painting or poem is • such as we should run to see if real, let it affect us with what odd fort ' of sense it will, we may rely upon it that the power of the poem or ، ، picture is more owing to the nature of the thing itself than to the mere effect of the imitation, or to a confideration of the skill of the imitator, however excellent [B].' In the letters of Mr. Jackson of Exeter, we find an observation something fimilar as to painting. ' A deep road, a puddle of water, a bank ' covered with docks and briars, and an old tree or two, are all the cir- ، * cumstances in many a fine landscape. As clowns and half-ftarved cattle are the figures a landscape-painter chuses for his pictures; fo rough-looking fellows, wrapped up in sheets and blankets, are chofen by the history painter to express the greatest personages, and in the ، [A] Part i, sect. vii. See also part iv. sect. vii. [B] Part i. sect. xvi. P ' most

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. 。 ، fing, and play on the harpsichord, and smatter French, and take a hand ' at whift, or ombre, but even these accomplishments she knew by halves, ' and excelled in nothing.* It must be remarked, that though Aristotle says the Margites was in iambics, all the fragments we have are hexameters. But Hephæstion and M. Victorinus, quoted by Mr. Winstanley in a note, both observe that the iambics were mixed with hexameters.

master, it being derived from those parodies or mock humours of which ' he had given the specimen (c) in a concealed fort of raillery, inter- ' mixed with the fublime.' ADVICE TO AN AUTHOR, Part 1. Sect. 111.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. which the opening of the Fair Penitent is a good example. In this, as in every other province of the drama, Shakespear is unrivalled. Mr. Mason, in his Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Whitehead, (fee page 59, et seq.) has given a good criticism on the excellence of dramatic language; and in his poems of Elfrida and Caractacus, a compleat model for imitation. R CHAP.

• Mimics draw humour out of nature's fault, • With perfonal defects their mirth adorn, • And hang misfortunes out to public fcorn.' This humane qualification, as to the objects of personal ridicule, is strictly observed by Shakespear. A very ingenious critic observes, • He has given him (Falstaff) every infirmity of body that is not likely to • awaken our compaffion, and which is most proper to render both his • better qualities and his vices ridiculous.' ESSAY ON THE DRAMA- TIC CHARACTER OF FALSTAFF, Page 149 [A]. The rule of not sporting with serious misfortunes should be equally observed in comic narration. Indeed it is pointed out by nature; for he must have a heart little sensible of the feelings of humanity, who can find any thing ludicrous in the real distresses and fufferings of others, with whatever ridiculous circumstances they may be related. It is wonderful, that a people who boast so much of their refinement as the French, and whose delicacy cannot bear the exhibition of spectacles of suffering on the tragic scene for the purpose of exciting pity and terror, should approve the narration of such facts, when introduced to occafion mirth. And yet not only Scarron and Rabelais, the last of whom has defcribed very minutely, a monk kicked to death by a vicious horse, as a laughable accident; but even the works of Le Sage, abound with instances of this kind. Savage as we have often been called by our politer neighbours, our comic writers are seldom guilty of this impropriety. We have, however, one flagrant instance of it in the works of an author of [A] See alfo Beattie on Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, Ch. iii. p. 431. R2 undoubted

" humour of one confifts in gross expressions, but that of the other arifes " rather from ambiguous language [D]." It might indeed be objected, ⚫ that the middle comedy is here defigned under the name of the new comedy [E]; for before the new comedy arose the middle comedy ⚫ would neceffarily have that appellation. It might farther be added, ⚫ that Aristotle died in the fame olympiad in which Menander produced ' his first piece, and even in the year before. (Eufebius in Chronico ad • Olymp. C. XIV. 4.) But we are wrong in dating the new comedy ' from Menander only; he was the first poet of that age of comedy as ' to poetical excellence, but not as to time. Philemon, who belonged ' to it, wrote some time before, and the tranfition from the middle to the new comedy, was so imperceptible, that it is impoffible Ariftotle could * have wanted models.' DRAMATURGIE, VOL. II, PAGE 173 NOTE. Mr. Cumberland in his account of the Greek comic theatre, for which the republic of letters is much indebted to him, obferves of Philemon, * that he was fome, years elder than Menander, and no unworthy rival of 'that poet.' (Observer, No. 138.) From the fragments of the middle comedy, frequently quoted in the fame work, it appears, that fo far from being devoted to indecency and buffoonry, that species of the drama abounded in passages inculcating the noblest precepts of morality. But the deduction of Mr. Cumberland from this (F), that Aristotle has not given a just character of comedy as it stood in his time, by saying it is ، [D] Ἰδοι δ᾽ ἂν τις κὰι ἐκ τῶν κωμωδιῶν τῶν παλαιών και τῶν καινῶν. Τοῖς μὲν γὰρ ἐν γελοῖον ἡ ἀισχρολογία, τοις δὲ μᾶλλον ἡ ὑπόνοια. ΕTHIC. L. IV. CAP. XIV. [E] The name appears of little consequence as the difference is so strongly marked in the quotation. [F] OBSERVER, No. 72. • a picture

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ! the rule laid down by Aristotle, or even the nature of the thing itself will justify.

The words of Dacier, on the supposed invariable adherence of the ancients to this strict unity of time, are these. They have made it fo • indispensible a law, that to avoid violating it they have fometimes done violence to the incidents.' Which Mr. Twining observes is in fact saying, that they have so scrupulously adhered to the rule, that ' sometimes, for the fake of observing it, they have been obliged to • break it.' But they have done much more, there is a unity of time marked by nature, the breach of which destroys the probability of every fictitious tale whatever, either narrative or dramatic. I may conceive days, and months, and years, to have passed during an interval in a representation, which I know to be a representation, and not a reality; but every shadow of probability vanishes, and we are instantly disgusted, either, when without any interruption of the action during a dialogue of fix minutes, fix hours are supposed to have elapsed, or, (which is nearly the fame thing,) when the space of time occupied by the drama is exactly defined, and then incidents are crouded into it which could not poflibly have happened in that space [Q]. [Q] This absurdity is well described by M. Lessing. < Do not you admire the conduct of • the piece? it is in general fo complicated that it would be a miracle if so many things had • happened in so short a time. The ruin or preservation of an empire, the marriage of a prin- * cess, the deftruction of a prince, all this is executed in the twinkling of an eye. The affair ⚫ is opened in the first act, it is connected and strengthened in the second, every measure is ▲ taken, every obstacle removed, and the conspirators arranged in the third, then follows a re- ⚫ volt, a fight, perhaps a pitched battle, and this you call conduct, intereft, fire, and probability.' DRAMATURGIE, Vol. i. p. 139. S2 In

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Any obscurity in an author, especially if it relates to his particular judgment on any general subject [A], will be most likely to receive light from comparifon with his other works, of which our critic has left us an ample store. Indeed, these have been so long, and so univerfally, the objects of scholaftic disquisition, that one should have imagined every correfpondent, and every discordant passage, would have long fince been collated and examined. But as M. Leffing (who strongly [в] recommends this method of illustration,) observes, their pursuits were very different from the investigation of elegant literature. Those writings of the Stagirite which, at the present time, are the principal subjects of enquiry, and especially the Poetic, had little to engage the attention of men devoted to the study of logic and metaphyfics: and, perhaps, there are few of those whose turn of mind induces them to make the treatise before us the particular object of their attention, who would have the patience and perfeverance, to go through the various and voluminous works of Aristotle, which treat of matters so foreign to their taste. There is one treatife, however, on a congenial fubject, (the Rhetoric) which throws light on the imperfect and mutilated state of the Poetic in a hundred instances. But the present subject of our enquiry receives most elucidation from a work where we should less expect to find it. The philofopher [c], in his treatise on government, speaking of the power of music to foften and alleviate the passions, says; • Whatever paffions have a strong effect [A] In regard to verbal obfcurity, this will often be fallacious. Ariftotle has frequently employed the same word in different senses, even in this short sketch. SEE NOTE III. ch. 1. [B] DRAMATURGIE, Vol II. p. 11. [C] POLITIC, 1. vii. chap. vii. T2 ، on

The ancient theatres (2) were of such a vast extent, besides being open at the top, that it was impoffible for the human voice to fill them in its natural pitch; in consequence of which, it was absolutely necessary to employ artificial means to encrease its force, and the dramatic [R] mask was invented, which, in some measure, acted as a speaking trumpet: but as this must destroy all natural modulation of the voice, it was found necessary to supply this defect by an [s] artificial notation of found, and to render this more distinct and loud, it was very probably attended by fome flight inftrumental accompaniment, but folely for the purpose of encreasing and regulating the found of the voice, and not to produce any musical effect; and this was equally applicable to the [T] quick repartee of the dialogue, as to the longer monologue. It must be observed, that Ariftotle does not fimply say, that tragedy EM- PLOYS music and verse separately, but that it ATTAINS ITS END by [Q] See Note VII. chap. XIII. [R] The mask had fomething very fingular. The immenfe aperture of the mouth was ' so contrived as to augment the found of the voice; it was in effect a real speaking trumpet, (porte voix) necessary to fill the wide extent of the place, as well as the brazen vases which ▲ were placed in the intervals of the theatre.' BRUMOY. [s] For a curious obfervation of Dr. Francklin on this practice of the ancients, fee note I. [T] ' If, as Ariftotle seems plainly to say, fome part of the Greek tragedy was spoken like ⚫ our tragic declamation, without any musical accompaniment, it was, most probably, that part of the dialogue which is in every tragedy easily diftinguished from the rest, by its being ' carried on in a fort of quick repartee of verse to verse.' TWINING, note 46, page 245- Whether the monologues, or long speeches, the μακραὶ ῥήσεις, as Plato calls them, were ' performed in the fame way as the rest of the dialogue, or, as has been imagined, were ' diftinguished by being more measured, or musical, is a point not easily cleared up.' IBID. page 247. them

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. natural; and we can never be greatly interested in the distress, or profperity, of a person, into whose situation it is impossible for us to [o] put ourselves. Addison, who was determined to find every possible excellence in the Paradife Loft, though he could not help [P] seeing this defect in the fable, nevertheless makes the following remark. After observing that the Iliad and Æneid, from [Q] their national subjects, must have been respectively very interesting to the Greeks and Romans, he proceeds, • Milton's poem is admirable in this respect, since it is impossible for any of its readers, whatever nation, country, or people he may belong to, not to be related to the persons who are the principal actors in it.' Spectator, No. 273. Now, befides the mistake Addison appears to have made as to the effect of national fable, which seems to be rather the foothing the vanity of the reader, than the encrease of his interest in the action, one should hardly have supposed, that Addison could have been ignorant of the obvious truth, that every affection is exactly weakened in proportion to its becoming general. There is no distinction so great in civil life as that between a man and any other animal, and yet I never knew a perfon proud of this last distinction, though there is no elevation of rank so inconfiderable, as not to have awakened pride in some bofoms. [ο] Θόβος δὲ περὶ τὸν ὅμοιον. Poet. Ch. xiii. [P] Spectator, No. 357. [Q] It seems a national hero, in Addison's opinion, was a fine qua non, in the epopee; for he says, in his critique on Chevy Chace, Virgil's hero was the founder of Rome,' (was he?) › Homer's a prince of Greece, and for this reason Valerius Flaccus, and Statius, who were * both Romans, might be justly derided for having chosen the expedition of the golden fleece, ← and the wars of Thebes, for the subjects of their epic writings. SPECT. No. 70. Y 2 The

ners [T]. Now it is true, Aristotle does characterise the Iliad as being simple and pathetic, the Odyssey as complicated and defcriptive of manners. (Poetic, Chap. XXIV.) But he obviously uses pathetic, as applied to the Iliad in the same sense with his definition of tragic pathos in the eleventh chapter; 'the exhibition of deaths, tortures, and wounds;' and not of that pathos which Longinus confiders as a species of the füblime. And to confider the two poems with regard to the passage before us, furely the Odyssey strictly fulfils the idea of Aristotle, in painting the manners through the fable. And though the Iliad, to use the language of the drama, may be fuller of bustle, [u] I cannot think the fable either so well constructed, or so interesting, as that of the Odyssey; and surely if there is only equal excellence in the first requifite, it can, at least, be no fault, to have superior excellence in that which is allowed to hold the second place.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. the observation of Servius on it, in support of the contrary opinion, is certainly ill founded. [x] ' Or as the turning scene its aspect shifts.'- The note of Servius explains how this was done, either by the turning of a machine, for a representation of which the reader is referred to Dr. Warton's Virgil; or by drawing up and letting down curtains. But it appears from Vitruvius, L. v. that this change of scene was according to the different kind of drama, to each of which a particular scene was appropriated, that continued through the whole performance, and was always the fame in every performance of the same kind. The scenery of tragedy represented palaces, whose fronts were ornamented with columns and statues; comedy had the common houses and streets of a city; and the satyric scene was adorned by trees, cottages, rocks, and caves. As tragedy, therefore, was always confined to an area before a palace, and comedy to a street, those actions only could be represented with propriety, which might happen in the open air: this, however, was little additional restraint to tragedy, confined, as it was, by the continual prefence of the chorus; and comedy often broke through it, as may be shewn from many scenes of Ariftophanes. Indeed, I am inclined to think the decoration of the theatre was rather meant to imitate the scene of representation, than of action; and that the area before a palace, or public building, was confidered as a proper place for the exhibition of tragedy, authorised by the magiftrate, while a common ftreet was a likely place for the assembly of the voluntary [Y] performers of comedy; and [x] ' Vel scena ut versis difcedat frontibus.'- [Y] See what Ariftotle says, of the origin and progress of these two species of the drama, in chapters Iv and v. the

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. deed I hardly know of any circumstance in which dramatic writers are so generally blameable. The (c) mode usually adopted by the ancients was very little better than the scheme of Bayes, to infinuate his plot into the boxes. The modern fashion is, either for the hero or heroine, to tell a long story to a confidential friend, which we can only be furprized was never done before, or else a company of statesmen, or officers, are difcovered as astonished at some particular event, or unusual order, which they are utterly unable to account for, till one of them, better informed and more communicative than the rest, discloses the whole fecret for the common edification of his friends and the audience. The advantage tragedy is supposed to have, and, indeed, certainly had among the ancients, over comedy, in this respect, is humorously defcribed in a fragment, either of Ariftophanes or Ariphanes, preserved by Athenæus, and quoted both by Mr. Twining and Mr. Winstanley, of which the following paraphraftic translation is attempted : [D] Happy the tragic bard, whose graver muse, Cautious, some tale of ancient fame pursues; Whofe < what it is the people would be at; and one, who is better informed than I, explains the af- < fair from the beginning, or, perhaps, I make this out for myself from the words and actions ' of the perfons concerned. This is a fort of picture of poetical arrangement both in epic and • dramatic compofition.' BEATTIE ON POETRY AND MUSIC, Part 1. Chap. v. [C] See note L. chapter XII. [D] -Μακάριον ἐσιν ἡ τραγωδιά Πόιημα καλὰ πανί. ἔιγε πρῶτον δι λόγοι Ὑπὸ τῶν θεαζῶν ἐίσιν ἐγνωρισμένοι Πρὶν καὶ τιν᾿ ἐιπῖιν, ὡς ὑπομνῆσαι μόνον Z2

informs us, that not only a just proportion of parts, but fize also, sufficient to give the eye a power of readily observing that proportion, is essential to beauty: and, as an illustration of this, he mentions a very small animal, (such, I suppose, as an infect,) where the parts are too minute to be observed. After this, left the hypothefis should be carried too far, and beauty should be fuppofsed to encrease always according to fize, he shews, that the fame defect will also arife from extreme magnitude, and the proportion of the parts will equally escape our observation. He then proceeds to apply this to dramatic action, which, he says, will encrease in beauty, according to its magnitude, provided it is not so large, but that the whole may easily be comprehended by the memory; that is, I conceive, that the connexion of the beginning, the middle, and the end, with each other, may be readily perceived and retained. And, left he should be misunderstood, and supposed to be speaking of the actual bulk of the tragedy, he says, in direct terms, that it is nothing to the purpose; for if from the practice of the theatre, the time of reprefentation, and, consequently, the bulk of the piece, should be exactly limited, it has nothing to do with the length of the dramatic fable, whose excellence encreases in proportion to its magnitude, provided it is not too large to be perfpicuous. After this explicit distinction between the time of representation, and the extent of the fable, and which seems to have been made, from a notion that they might be confounded, shall we still be told that Ariftotle directs they ought to be exactly regulated by each other? The general fondness of the Greeks for magnitude in their objects of beauty, is very striking in the examples here brought by Aristotle to illustrate his position. He can find in nature objects too small, but none too large; and he is obliged to have recourse

to

modern, fuch as the (c) Cyropædia of Xenophon, the Achilleid of Statius, and Gil Blas [D]. Metastasio is of opinion, that Aristotle has carried the unity of poetic fable too far, when he says nothing can be esteemed a part of it, which cannot be taken away without deranging the whole. But he is obvioufly speaking here of the fimple tragic, and epic action, divested of all their epifodic and ornamental parts; just like the specimen he gives of the Iphigenia in Tauris, and the Odyssey, in the seventeenth chapter. One of the incidents of the Life of Ulyffes, which he mentions as omitted by Homer, ([E] except the reading proposed by Harles is adopted,) is introduced in detail, in the ninth book of the Odyssey; but it is only introduced, to use the words of Mr. Twining, digressively and incidentally, it makes ، no essential part of his general plan.' Aristotle, in another instance, has not [F] been accurate in marking the distinction between the plain fable, and the fable adorned with episodes. If this rule is applied to the inimitable comic epopees of Fielding, and especially to Tom Jones, how many of the essential parts will be found fo wonderfully connected, that even circumftances, apparently the most trifling, have consequences so interwoven with the plot, and fo conducive to the solution of it, that they cannot be taken away, or [c] The principal part, even of this work, is confined to the transactions of one campaign; and it is a doubt if it is fictitious. The facts are certainly altered and embellished; but this is too often the cafe with the ancient hiftorians. [D] See Beattie on Fable and Romance. [E] See Note [B] Chap. VIII. on the tranflation. [F] See Note [1] Chap. xxvI. on the tranflation. altered,

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. advanced, that poetry was, in any sense, incompatible with prose, and yet finding it impossible to avoid feeing the contrary doctrine was in some measure supported by Aristotle's assertion that it is the conftruction of the fable, and not of the verse, that diftinguishes the poet from the hiftorian, he runs into an unjustifiable refinement on the words and sense of the critic, and says he only means, that a person who writes on unpoetical subjects in verse, is not a good poet: just as we call a man that is awkward, dirty, and cowardly, no foldier, though enlisted, and receiving pay, and really a foldier in the legal and political sense of the word. The fallacy of this argument must strike every one in a variety of instances; and it is, befides, in direct oppofition to the doctrine of Ariftotle, since, on this supposition, verse is the essential requifite of poetry, and imitation only a quality. The sum of Ariftotle's reasoning on the subject, which is directly contrary to the idea of Metaftafio, seems to be this; • Whoever forms a fable, imitative of human ، actions, is a poet, a maker, an inventor. If his fable is ill conducted, ⚫ he is a bad poet. If he writes it in prose, he errs as to the proper material, or means of imitation. But if he forms no imitative fable, ' he is no poet.'

[c] • The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow ' of fatisfaction to the mind of man in those points, wherein the nature ' of things doth deny it; the world being, in proportion, inferior to ' the foul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, " a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which • satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater, and ، more heroical: because true history propoundeth the successes and • issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, there- • fore poefy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to • revealed providence: because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary, and less interchanged; therefore poesy endueth • them with more rareness, and more unexpected and alternative varia- ' tions: so as it appeareth that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And, therefore, it was ever ، thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise ' and erect the mind, by fubmitting the shews of things to the defires ' of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things.' [c] It must be owned, that an eminent writer of the present day, professes to be of the contrary opinion. The Cyropædia is vague and languid, the Anabasis circumstantial and animated; such is the eternal difference between fiction and truth.' DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, Chap. xxiv. Note 115. Some persons will, possibly, be inclined to doubt the infallibility as well as the eternity of this doctrine, and even the comparison that occafioned it; and may doubt whether this eternal distinction between truth and fiction would be easily difcoverable in a comparifon between Homer and Thucydides. We may, however, readily excuse Mr. Gibbon, for his partiality to a species of literature, in which he has shewn fo much excellence. NOTE

، long thought no better a device than of underwriting the name of an • animal on a poft, which the painter conceived too delicately drawn to • be known by common eyes, or by his delineation of the limbs.' It is remarkable, than in this identical paper, an old bachelor is called Wildgoose; and, in the next, the supposed author of the work, the Lover, is named Marmaduke Myrtle. Indeed, the mixture of characteristic names with common ones, though very abfurd, is not unusual. In the Jealous Wife we meet with Mr. and Mrs. Oakly, Sir Harry Beagle, and Terence Ocutter: and, in its archetype Tom Jones, Allworthy stands alone among an hoft of common names. Another impropriety often attends characteriftic names in modern comedy, from the husband and wife having the fame name; in confequence of this a very quiet nobleman, in one of Congreve's comedies, is called Lord Touchwood; and this impropriety is still greater when the characters of the husband and wife are particularly contrafted as to their conduct to each other. Where is the propriety of Mrs. Bruin, and Mrs. Sneak, in the Mayor of Garrat? In Mr. Cumberland's Observer, there is a very well conducted and interesting fable, where the principal person, from his indolence of disposition, is called Ned Drowsy. This gentleman, like Cymon, is entirely altered by falling in love, and he becomes a very spirited and active young man. His name, therefore, ceafing to be expressive of his character, the poet is obliged to change it by an application to parliament. The introducing a kind of pun on the characteristic name given by the author, one should conceive the lowest effort of dulness to excite a laugh, and yet it is practised by respectable writers; as for example: in the Provoked Husband, Manly says to Sir Francis, O thou head of the wrong- ' heads.' Of all writers, Mr. Anstey has made the most happy use of characteristic names in the Bath Guide. They really contribute greatly to

• of empires, should be absolutely unknown. If then, the poet invents • all his subject, even as far as the names, the mind of the spectators ' will revolt, all will appear incredible, and the piece will fail in its • effect for want of probability.

whole calculated to excite. And real situations, the most congenial with tragic effect, are often capable of being heightened by additional touches of art; and the different parts may frequently be made more closely and naturally dependent on each other than they in fact are. To fupply these deficiencies, and to arrange all the incidents, so as to produce their fullest effect, is the office of the poet, and which, if well performed, fully entitles the author to that appellation [F]. The tragedy of Oroonoko is faid to be formed on a real fact. Nevertheless, as Southern has encreased the interest strongly, by heightening the circumstances, inventing pathetic situations, elevating the characters, and making Imoinda an European, he certainly is justly entitled to the character of poet. Many dramas are founded on fictitious narration, where one should imagine invention would have still less to add: but who will refuse the name of poet to the author of King Lear? [F] The connexion of events often escapes our observation in nature, for want of ◄ knowing the whole combination of the circumstances; in real facts we only fee an acci- ، ' dental concurrence of things; but the poet wishes to shew, in the texture of his work, an apparent and sensible connexion; so that if though he is really less true, he has more the • appearance of truth than the historian.' DIDEROT. NOTE

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. i i conclufion of the first act. Indeed, if inftead of deriving the catastrophe from manners and paffion, and cutting the gordian knot at last by the fword of the dying Ofmond; the distress had turned entirely on the forgery of Tancred's confent to fulfil the king's will, and that circumftance had been the hinge on which the catastrophe had turned, instead of a fubordinate circumftance in the second act: the tragedy of Tancred and Sigifmunda would have furnished a complete instance of this species of peripetía. Another reason for the want of peripetía in our tragedies that end with distress, is affigned in the last note. Probability is not violated by the most extraordinary revolution of events, but a fudden change of paffions and manners is utterly improbable. Of the unexpected reverse of fortune, from evil to good, we have innumerable instances: the most striking I recollect, is in the fourth act of the Merchant of Venice. The deliverance of Antonio arifes from Portia, just in the moment he is expected to fuffer from her confirmation of the claim of Shylock.

catastrophe and comedy, was a great favorite with our earlier writers, but is seldom used by modern poets; probably from the difficulty of continuing the disguise with probability as to the other persons of the drama; or in regard to the audience, without keeping a principal character, (for of such only can an interesting discovery confift,) too long in obscurity, and facrificing too much to a single surprising situation, which will lofe much of its effect after the first representation. Can any thing be more absolutely improbable than that a daughter should be disguised from her father, and a woman from her lover, by being in men's cloaths? [B] and yet this is the case of Rofalind in As You Like It, where, from Orlando's fictitious courtship of Rofalind, though in difguise, and from the likeness being observed, both by him [c] and the duke, the improbability is still rendered more striking. As to the disguising the principal character from the audience, it appears a useless refinement, and was seldom practised by the ancients. In Shakespear also, Rosalind, Imogen, Viola, Julia, the Duke in [B] There must have been a peculiar improbability attending this kind of disguise, on which fo many of the plays of Shakespear, and Beaumont and Fletcher turn, from all the female characters being performed by men, an offence against probability when in a female habit; but for a man, in his own cloaths, to act a beautiful princess (Imogen, for instance) is perfectly inconsistent with the least shadow of it. See note Iv.. chap. XIII. [C] DUKE SEN. ' I do remember in this shepherd boy • Some lively touches of my daughter's favour. ORLA. • My lord, the first time that I ever saw him, ، Methought he was a brother to your daughter.. • But, my good lord, this boy is foreft born.' Meafure

، very, or both; and he here says, that is preferable which is effected by the union of both; where the catastrophe arifes from the peripetía, caused by a discovery. In the Merope of Massei and Voltaire, the discovery is not accompanied by the peripetía. On the contrary, the distress is confiderably encreased by it: I doubt much if such was the arrangement of the Crefphontes of Euripides.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. I do not conceive 'coram populo' to allude to the spectators, but the chorus. This will be illustrated by comparing the management of Euripides with that of Seneca in this identical instance. In Euripides, Medea kills her children behind the scenes, and the chief person of the chorus naturally exclaims, [G] The house I'll enter, and attempt to save • The children from destruction.' In [H] Seneca, Medea kills one of her children in the prefence of the chorus, without their making any observations on it; and on the entry of Jason she snatches the other up into her chariot, and deliberately [1] [G] Παρέλθω δόμους, αρῆξαι φόνον Δοκει μὸι τέχνοις. murders [H] As Seneca was subsequent to Horace, it could not be his play that Horace means to censure: but, probably, Seneca borrowed his arrangement of the catastrophe from fome other Greek tragedy, or from the Medea of Ennius. [1] Perhaps from the perpetration of this shocking crime, the strongest possible proof may be drawn of the force of custom over the most powerful feelings of nature. The deftruction of children, by their parents was so common at Athens, that, if we may judge of Menander, by Terence, even on the comic stage, the question, whether a child shall be reared or expofed, was treated as a common domestic confideration. An author, well acquainted with human life, though not inclinable to fee it on the faireft fide, has fome just observations on the commiffion of this crime in modern times, which he imputes to the fear of shame and disgrace, and their inevitable attendant, ruin and want, overcoming natural affection. (Fable of the Bees, Remark C.) How far, in a state of civil fociety, it is justifiable to place a person in the cruel alternative, of chusing either a shameful death or a life of infamy, I shall not attempt to determine. But of this cruel alternative, the makers of law can have no idea. The father and mother, whose happiness depends on a favourite child, and who watch over its fafety with an anxiety hardly to be conceived, cannot enter into the fenfations of a wretch, who knows her new-born infant is her greatest enemy, the destroyer Dd of

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Difficult as the task is to open a drama well, like other difficulties the greater glory attends its being overcome, as it has often been by our good dramatic writers. Milton has opened both his dramatic poems in the ancient manner, and among the subjects suited to the drama of which he has left short sketches, he proposes that the tragedy of Macbeth should be opened by Duncan's ghost. Milton did not prefer this mode from any deficiency, or, at least, any distrust in his powers, but from his ftrong partiality to the ancients. How he would have fucceeded, had he chosen the more natural, though difficult mode of the moderns it is impoffible to say; we can only observe, that the fame person has never yet excelled in the drama and the epopee, congenial as they appear to be [D]. It is certainly lucky for his poetical character that he did not enter the lifts with Shakespear in Macbeth, according to the method he has proposed. That Milton, great as his poetical merit is, could have ever fucceeded in competition with that prodigy of human genius in any thing except learning and correctness I can hardly believe; but I am fure the claffic ghost of Duncan would have started, like a guilty thing,' amid the gothic machinery of Shakespear. It is something curious to trace the progreffion of the fame attending this father of our drama. In his own time he appears to have been a univerfal favorite. Indeed he could not have been otherwise. His faults were all committed to comply with the taste of the age when he wrote, and his beauties are such as must delight every age, and every taste for whom the beauties of truth and nature, unadorned by meretricious ornament, have charms. Both his merits and his defects therefore were popular, though probably the last most. He did not however escape [D] See the concluding note of this work. Ee the

number of acts, depend on the number of these odes, which is different in different tragedies, and varies from three to seven. It is impoffible to read a Greek tragedy, without seeing the abfurdity of those critics who have tried to reduce all those dramas to five acts in obedience to the EX POST FACTO law of Horace. • Neve minor, neu fit quinto productior actu 'Fabula.'

• Let not your play have fewer acts than five, Nor more.' COLMAN. Metastafio observes on this subject that ' in Horace's time the • Romans were accustomed to five acts, and to four rests or intervals. • And Horace very reasonably supposed that a poet would hazard the • success of his drama, however perfect, if he tried to bring the audience ، ، to a custom different from that which prevailed in the public theatres at the time when he wrote. If Horace had written his Art of Poetry forty years before, he would probably have recommended the divi- • fion of the drama into three acts, for the fame reason that forty years • after he advised it to be made in five. For in an epistle of Cicero to his brother Quintus it appears evident that the public dramas were ⚫ then commonly divided into three, and not five acts. [1] " Before I con- [1] Illud te ad extremum et oro et hortor ut tanquam poetæ boni et actores industrii < folent, fic tu in extremâ parte et conclusione muneris ac negotii tui, diligentiffimus fis; ut ' hic tertius annus imperii tui, tanquam tertius actus, perfectissimus & ornatiffimus videatur.' CIC. EP. AD QUINT. FRUT. L. I. EP. I. IN FINE. Perhaps, however it may not be difficult to reconcile this passage of Tully with the rule of Horace if we look to the Latin tragedies. Those of Seneca have each four choral odes, dividing the piece into five acts. And yet, according to the pofition of Aristotle, as those only

DITE. It was the custom of the Roman comic theatre for one of the characters to address the audience, and folicit their favor by saying PLAU- This was partly followed by our elder comic writers who would frequently bring one of the characters forward to address the audience, in what was then called an epilogue. As for example in the epilogues to All's Well that Ends Well, and As You Like It. From this arose the modern epilogue which is now considered as an essential appendage to every new drama. This is sometimes spoken in the character that has been performed, as in the celebrated epilogue to the Distressed Mother which is still always called for whenever the play is acted. Sometimes in the person of the particular actor that speaks it, as in the epilogue to Dryden's Tyrannic Love spoken by Nell Gwin which begins, ، Hold, are you mad, you damn'd confounded dog! • I am to rife and speak the epilogue [s].' And fometimes, indeed most commonly, as an indifferent perfon. Many of our epilogues abound with wit and humour. That to the Clandestine Marriage is a kind of after-piece [r]. Much has been faid both for and against these kind of ludicrous epilogues to tragedy. Thomson passes a severe sentence on them in the [s] It is now universally the practice for the curtain to drop and the player to go out, and return again, even if the epilogue is spoken in character. Such a conduct as this of Dryden's is a direct avowal of the theatrical deception. [T] For an instance of an epilogue supplemental to the tragedy, see Note II. Chap. XIII. epilogue

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ' want of, upon our stage; a want which nothing but such an expedi- ⚫ent as the chorus can possibly supply.' In this passage probability of action is evidently confounded with probability of representation. If the fable is well formed, the situations affecting, the language adapted to the paffion, and these assisted by the natural expression and powers of the actor [A], without doubt the allufion is compleat. We are hurried away by our feelings, and we yield to the impression of the scene. But in this case we never enquire where we are, or how it is poffible fuch a scene should pass before fuch a number of spectators as furround us; at such a question the whole delusion vanishes, and instead of being in. the castle of Macbeth, or the tent of King John, we instantly find ourselves in the Theatre Royal. It is impossible for any notion to be more unfounded on truth than that which supposes that no dramatic action can have the requifite probability for public representation that may not be supposed to pass before spectators, and that consequently a dramatic audience before whom the real action is supposed to pass is necessary both to encrease the probability of the scene, and confine the poet to such events as may naturally happen in public. It is proved beyond a doubt that when we reflect for an instant, a momentary suspension of the delirium in which we [A] It may tend to some elucidation of this subject to enquire how the force of dramatic illusion is effected by the being acquainted with the voice and person of the actors, or by being in habits of intimacy with them. I think there is no doubt that the different effects of the itinerant preacher, and the regular clergyman on the lower part of the congregation, arifes in great measure, though not entirely, from this. But then in this case the difference arises from the opinion entertained as to their being really in earnest, and the little opportunity there is of feeing in one how his doctrine may be contradicted by his life; while an actor, however strange to us, is always known to be an actor. Gg 2 are

A COMMENTARY ON THE CHAP. XIII.

way of a dramatic paradox) has chofen to compare with the Edipus, falls exactly under the censure of this passage. The misery arifes from no sudden start of paffion, or involuntary error, but from the cruel and deliberate murder of an innocent youth for the fake of his property. Would Mr. Harris (to anticipate a definition in the subsequent part of this chapter) allow this hoary ruffian, and his wife, who murder their fleeping guest with the same purpose and from the fame motive as the midnight housebreaker, to be persons of high reputation and profperity, whose misfortunes arise from some error of human frailty, and whose general characters and conduct in life are rather better and of higher dignity than the illustrious names produced from the annals of Greece; for so the critic says they ought to be if the circumstances allow it. This opinion of Mr. Harris seems to have in great measure arifen from the explanation he gives to the term [D] GOOD, (χρηςός) as applied by Ariftotle to manners. It is to be remarked, that there is another arrangement which Aristotle has omitted; that of a virtuous character raised from distress to profperity, which would at least on his own principles come under the fame class with that which is the object of the present note, being agreeable to our feelings but not productive, according to his hypothesis, of tragic effect, though in reality it is capable of producing it in the highest degree. Since while the principal character, in whose favor the spectators must be most strongly interested appears involved in deep distress, and his destruction appears inevitable, the passions of pity and terror will be violently excited; and, if the tragedy possesses the most perfect form, [D] Philological Enquiries, p. 170. For a different explanation of this term, see note 1, unit-

، [N] in his criticism on a German tragedy formed on the same story. • I may be told, perhaps we must give up Richard: the piece indeed • bears his name, but he is not for that reason the hero of it, nor the ، ⚫ character by which the proper effect of tragedy is attained: he can only be confidered as the cause of exciting our pity for others. Are not the queen and the princes objects of our pity?" The objection he starts to this, and it appears a just one, is that these characters are as improper from their innocence as Richard is from his guilt. The King Richard of Shakespear however has so many strokes of courage and dignity in his character, that his vices are sometimes hidden by them, and Cibber has even made his rival Richmond bear teftimony to his bravery when on the point of engaging him [o]. But no such circumstance attended the Richard of the German poet, who according to M. Lessing, ' is [P] so horrible a wretch, a devil incarnate so wicked, in whom it is so impoffible for us to find the smallest • trait of resemblance with ourselves, that I think we could fee him • fuffer all the torments of hell before our eyes without being affected by ، it, without having the least fear, that if such punishment is the consequence of fuch crimes only, it can ever fall upon ourselves.' DRA- MATURGIE, Part 11. p. 35. [N] Dramaturgie, Part 11. p. 36. [o] Nor should thy prowess Richard want my praise, But that thy cruel deeds have stampt thee tyrant.' [P] Un drôle fi horrible.' If the French tranflator has done justice to his original in this expreffion, the German Richard must have been totally deficient in poetical goodness, taken in the sense in which I conceive it used by Aristotle in chapter xv. See note 1, on that chapter. Modern

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. • which he was threatened. Admonished as he was by the oracle, • should he have thought it sufficient to fly from Corinth? Should not ⚫ he have respected the age of every man who was of a time in life to • be his father? Should not he have been afraid of marrying any woman ' of an age to be his mother? So far from taking this precaution, he no fooner leaves Delphi than he kills the first man he meets, which • happens to be his father Laius; he arrives at Thebes; he triumphs over the Sphynx; elated with his victory, and the offer of a crown, • he marries a woman who evidently might be his mother, fince the ، actually was so. His unhappiness therefore, was obviously the fruit • of his imprudence and his paffions, and might serve for an example to • all the Greeks.' To this it may be added, that the cause of Edipus consulting the oracle was a doubt concerning his being the offspring of his supposed parents Polybius and Merope. Besides, we are to take the manners of Edipus from the picture of him drawn by Sophocles, and he has evidently drawn him as a most violent and inconfiftent character. In a scene between him and Jocasta, where she describes the manner of the death of Laius, he is instantly struck by the circumstance, and precipitately condemns himself, though Jocasta tries to console him; but in a subsequent scene, when Jocasta herself is convinced, and endeavours to dissuade him from further enquiry, he is obftinately refolved to fee the shepherd, and instead of dreading the fatal discovery is in a rage from the fufpicion of a design to represent him as a man of obfcure birth. The last speech of Edipus before the entrance of Phorbas has a ftrong tendency to leffen our concern for his own horrid fituation, and to encrease it for that of Jocasta. The chorus having expressed a dread of the effects

، ' but he, (Boffu) who had the advantage of seeing it, might have em- 'ployed it to shew the possibility of compofing poems that would possess more incident, more striking situations, more manners, more pictures ' of human actions; in fine, more examples of every kind than can be • found in the ancient poets.' TERRASSON ON THE ILIAD. Perhaps there is something a little invidious in this observation; for the chief object of Terrasson seems to be the depreciation of Homer. That Homer from the scanty materials he possessed should have been able to form works containing such vast variety of incident and manners, as the Iliad and the Odyssey, and that Ariftotle from his writings, and their copiers the tragic poets, should have been able to deduce rules so generally applicable to the nature of imitative composition even at the present day, must excite at once our wonder and veneration. Nevertheless though the general precepts are so perfectly just, as being founded on truth and nature, it is impoffible they can strictly apply to all the variety of subjects which have enlarged the sphere of epic and dramatic fable in the course of fucceeding ages. We may trace in the institutions of Alfred the great outline of the British constitution, and find those striking canons of polity and freedom which the accumulated wisdom of centuries has never attempted, and I trust never will attempt to alter or amend; for in politics as well as poetics, all alteration of excellence is corruption. But at the fame time that we allow this, we cannot expect to find in a code of laws framed for a rude people, and comparatively a circumfcribed dominion, every regulation necessary for the government of a powerful and commercial empire, and its refined and luxurious inhabitants. NOTE

were in oppofition to the opinion of the Stagirite; and from a former part of the chapter it is equally clear that Euripides had been censured by his countrymen for forming his tragedies on the plan afterwards approved by Ariftotle, though many of his tragedies, especially his Alcestes, his [v] Iphigenia in Tauris, and his Ion, befides the Cresphontes, which will be particularly noticed in a note on the next chapter, are written in the popular form. Whatever might be Aristotle's motive for oppofing the general taste of Athens in this particular, it still less applies to the modern drama. However elegant the taste of the ancients may have been, it is I think sufficiently obvious from all the classical writers that they were not so much alive to the feelings of sensibility as the moderns. We find few of those nice touches which mark the delicacy of the sensations, and which intereft more than the strongest pictures of distress. The only striking instances I recollect of this kind, are the account of the behaviour and words of Alcestes when she supposes herself dying, in Euripides; and the elegant compliment of the wife of Tigranes to her husband, and the pathetic tale of Abradatas and Panthea in Xenophon's Cyropædia. Neither did the Greek tragedy possess the power which the modern stage does of exciting pity and terror during the course of the action from nice and pathetic touches of paffion and manners. Their theatre was not calculated for affecting situation; and therefore if the incidents themselves were not strikingly dreadful, little interest could be excited. Aristotle himself in the beginning of the next chapter, mentions the (Y) In the Iphigenia in Aulis, after the death of Iphigenia appears inevitable, she is faved by a machine, contrary to all probability as well as in opposition to the received fable. See the eleventh Pythian Ode of Pindar, and the Agamemnon of Æschylus. repre-

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. From the mention of Orestes and Ægisthus, one might be tempted to think that comedy sometimes interfered, as to her subjects, with the province of tragedy. But I conceive it is only meant as a strong example to illustrate the predilection of comedy for the universal happiness of the catastrophe. The reconciliation of enemies is seldom a subject of the drama, but that of friends who have quarrelled has been a favorite scene, which succeeding poets have copied from each other. The archetype of this was given by Euripides, in the scene between Agamemnon and Menelaus, in the Iphigenia in Aulis. Our Shakespear exhibited a masterly trait of the same kind in the interview between Brutus and Caffius. Beaumont and Fletcher copied him in the dialogue between Melanthus. and Amyntor in the Maid's Tragedy; and Dryden imitated the fame fituation twice, viz. in the scenes between Troilus and Hector, and Dorax and Sebastian. To these may be added the scene between Horatio and Altamont, in the Fair Penitent; and the reconciliation of Lord and Lady Townly in the Provoked Husband. Defects are not so generally imitated. At least we may be sure that what is so often found in the compofitions of those whose chief business it is to please the public, must be found capable of producing that end. Of the dramatic effect. of all but the two last I cannot judge, but in reading they affect my own feelings in a higher degree than any other dramatic circumstance whatever; and the last scene of the Provoked Husband always draws as many tears from the eyes of the audience as the strongest efforts of the tragic muse, though assisted by the powers of Mrs. Siddons. CHAP..

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. spectacle. But he now proceeds to shew, that the very small share the poet could claim of this effect is entirely lost, when the monstrous is exhibited, merely as such, and unconnected with the terrible, since the trifling powers he does possess in this method of exciting the paffions, viz. the pointing out to the perfon who regulates the apparatus, the objects on which he is to exercise his art, are applied to a purpose not at all connected with the proposed end of tragic imitation [c]. What was the power of the ancient theatrical apparatus to produce terror, we can only learn from history. We are told indeed, though perhaps from no very good authority, that in the Eumenides of Æschylus so many furies in horrid forms were brought on the stage, that children were thrown into fits, and pregnant women miscarried. Whatever may be the authority from which we receive this anecdote, it seems by no means improbable. We know the effect that scenes of this kind have over weak minds at the present hour. No one has I believe ever cenfured the behaviour of Partridge at the theatre, as contrary to nature; and a person who will really feel themselves ill by the supposed influence of animal magnetism, may certainly be strongly affected by theatrical horror. We may also allow, that the decoration of the Athenian stage with its masks and its buskins, was as superior to our own in representing these wonderful and supernatural appearances, as I must think it was inferior in imitating the truth and nature of real life. ! ! barous exhibition than the drama; this being afterwards adopted by the emperors on a larger and more expensive scale, had no small share in reconciling the people to the lofs of their influence in the administration of the government.

[c] The reader who wishes to fee an application of this to the modern pantomime, and a very humourous examination of that species of the drama by the rules of Aristotle, is referred to Mr. Twining, note cr. Nn The

allowable for the poet to alter the essential circumstances of known stories, he ought to feek out for such historical events as furnish those tragical incidents; and having found them, to employ and arrange the circumstances in such a manner, as to give them the greatest force on the feelings of the audience. There are three opinions on the meaning of the phrafe in the original, Αυθὸν δὲ ἑυρίσκειν δεῖ. καὶ τοις παραδεδομένοις χρῆσθαι καλῶς. The most general is, that it directs the poet to invent new fables himself, like the [L] Anthos of Agathon, and arrange the circumstances of traditional stories properly; another is, that the poet should find out new historical subjects; and the third, that he should find out new stories, making a proper use of fables already received, which is that adopted by Dacier, but seems to me wrong as to the last part of the fentence. In my former edition I had followed the first interpretation. But the [M] arguments of Mr. Twining, to which I refer the critical reader, are so convincing in favor of the second, though he has admitted the first into the text of his tranflation, that I have followed him without hefitation. This argument seems confirmed also by what Aristotle says in the last chapter, and repeats again in this, of the scarcity of proper dramatic fubjects. On which account, it may justly be confidered as the duty of the poet to feek diligently for fables which afford fuch incidents.. I cannot however agree with Mr. Twining, in thinking that ἑυρίσκειν is obviously opposed to τοις παραδεδομένοις χρῆσθαι. If that were the cafe, I should be still inclined to adhere to the first tranflation.; but I think it [L] See chap. Ix.. [M] See his note civ.. cannot.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. !

Fourthly, for a character, in the fame circumstance with the last, to discover the consequence and the relation before the purpose is executed. Of this Merope will ferve both for an ancient and modern example. Dryden's Conquest of Granada furnishes another. Discovery of persons is not so often the hinge on which the modern drama turns, as discovery of innocence or other circumstances. In which cafe the first and last species will be often blended. (P) Othello will be removed from the second to the third class, which will also comprehend Zara [2]. Having stated these different forms, it remains to examine how far Aristotle appears right as to the respective rank in which he classes them according to their comparative excellence, and particularly to enquire how far he is justified in the fevere sentence he passes on the first; and how the preference he appears to give the last can be reconciled with the opinion he delivers as to tragedy, in the preceding chapter. In doing this, I shall endeavour as much as I am able, to keep the observations on the respective forms separate. Though from the neceffity of comparing them with each other, it will be impoffible sometimes to avoid blending them. In regard to the first arrangement; its only difference from the second arifes from the want of the pathos, the actual suffering of fome person, [P] For want of a circumstance of this fort the fable of Medea is infinitely more shocking, and less interesting than that of Othello. The discovery of Iago's villainy, and Desdemona's innocence, are affecting in the highest degree. [Q] When the first and second species have no discovery whatever, they will of course remain as classed by Ariftotle. which

، ، ، ، from those drawn by other writers. The characters of every drama must indeed be grouped; but in the groups of other poets, the parts ' which are not seen do not in fact exist. But there is a certain round- • ness and integrity in the forms of Shakespear, which give them an independence as well as a relation, infomuch that we often meet with passages which, though perfectly felt, cannot be sufficiently explained in words, without unfolding the whole character of the speaker.' See NOTE ON THE ESSAY, page 58, of which I have only quoted a small part, the whole note is well worth the perusal of every admirer of Shakespear, as placing his superiority in the delineation of manners in the clearest light. Indeed, to recommend that original and convincing piece of criticism partially is doing it injustice, since every part of it is replete with elegance of taste and accurate and impartial judgement. In regard to the [A] Analysis of the character of Falstaff; though I first took the book up on the recommendation of a friend, it was with the strongest prejudice against what I thought an indefenfible paradox; yet every word led to conviction; and I laid it down with the firmest assurance, that the author was perfectly in the right. I have fince recommended the perusal of it to several of my friends, who have all opened it with the fame prejudice, and shut it with the fame conviction. That the perusal of the book will not be equally convincing to all I can eafily believe. For, to use the words of the author (page 108), 'How many - forts of men are there whom no evidence can perfuade! How many, • who ignorant of Shakespear, or forgetful of the text, may as well read • heathen Greek or the laws of the land as this unfortunate commentary! • How many who, proud and pedantic, hate all novelty and damn it [A] See Note 1. Chap. VII. • without

My hypothefis it is true, will not afford this excuse for the Stagirite's want of gallantry. But whoever reflects on the fituation of the Grecian women, must know they could not poffefs that goodness of character which I imagine Ariftotle to mean, in an equal degree with men. For they were very little better than in a state of domestic fervitude, and therefore could feldom have opportunities of exerting dignity of character. This is by no means the cafe with the modern female character. Their manners, indeed, are not so strongly marked as those of men, nor afford so much variety, but they are equally capable of this poetical goodness, as far as they are marked, with those of men. I do not mean such characters as Lady Macbeth and Medea, who do not properly pofsess female manners, but such as Juliet, as Constance, as Desdemona, and as Belvidera. As for a flave, our tragic drama knows no such character as existed under that name in the FREE republic of Athens. Zanga and Oroonoko are captive heroes. I would not be understood however, either as wishing to palliate or apologize, for the opinion of Arifstotle in this or any other place where I think him abfolutely in the wrong. Of the unfavourable idea he entertained of the fair sex there can be no doubt. This is proved beyond contradiction, from a passage in his natural history (R) of animals, which Mr. Twining has quoted, and I shall venture to tranflate, as a compleat specimen of the purest absurdity. • Woman is more apt to pity and • fall into tears than man. She is more given to envy, more ready to • find fault, fonder of scandal, and more apt to give blows. She is • also more addicted to anxiety and despondency, more impudent, more * false, more easily deceived and less apt to forget, also more wakeful, [R] Book IX. Chap. I. • and

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. dice we are apt to be rather unfavorable in our representation of French characters; and had Parolles been the only Frenchman in ' All's Well ' that Ends Well, we should not scruple to confider him as an example of fuch prejudice; but as the scene lies in France chiefly, no such idea is ever entertained [D]. As to the propriety of character, the ghosts, witches, and fairies of Shakespear, are deservedly allowed superior excellence, as they certainly act in conformity with the manners, we impute to such imaginary beings did they really exist. Yet Shakespear had here some archetype to follow; for popular opinion had already marked the outline of their habits, which was as advantageous to him in giving them characteristic manners as it was difadvantageous to (E) Milton in giving Satan poetical excellence of manners. But how Shakespear (F) has contrived in such characters as Caliban, the pure creation of his own imagination, to give to what never did, and never was supposed to exist, such manners as we are irresistibly impelled by our feelings to pronounce truly characteristic, is a power of art that criticism is as inadequate to investigate, as genius to imitate. [D] See Bishop Warburton's Defence of Shakespear in this instance against the hypercriticism of Rhymer. [E] See Note I. on this chapter. [F] See Effay on the Dramatic Character of Falstaff, page 75, note. NOTE

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Mr. Mason, as he has drawn his Elfrida, whose historical character is one of the worst in the annals of human kind, has preferred general propriety of character to individual resemblance. This subject is discussed at large by M. Leffing, in a criticism on a comedy called SOLYMAN THE SECOND [G], taken from one of Marmontel's tales, from which I shall make a confiderable extract, as it in many places applies strongly to the Elfrida of Mr. Mason, and without design, and confequently without partiality, urges what may be faid on both fides as to such a delineation of an historical character. M. Leffing first quotes the following extract from the JOURNAL ENCYCLOPEDIQUE for January, 1762, page 79. “ “ Solyman," say they,' was one of the greatest princes of his age. His victories, his talents, his virtues, rendered him an object " of veneration even to the enemies he triumphed over. But this hero " so sensible to glory was not insensible to love; though delicate in his " “ pleasures, he felt amid the corruption of a seraglio, that pleasure unaccompanied by sentiment is contemptible. He imagined he had " found this in Roxelana, a young Italian captive, not perhaps inca- “ pable of tenderness but nevertheless artful and ambitious, and skilled " in the means of making her pleasures the fource of her elevation. “ By feigning sensibility herself, she induced Solyman who really felt it, to violate a law of the empire which forbad the sultan to marry. [G] Dramaturgie, Part II. page 70, & feq. We have a very pleasing after-piece on the same subject, in which the character of Roxelana has received additional interest from the powers of Mrs. Abingdon and Mrs. Jordan. " She

more tempted to take liberties with what he esteems particularly his property, as being the creature of his own invention. He also will efteem himself to be, and indeed actually will be, less liable to detection. The example that Ariftotle gives of failure in this point is the character of Iphigenia in the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides, of which more will be faid in the next note. Modern instances of the breach of this rule will be amply furnished by our best poets, serious and comic, epic and dramatic. [N] The character of Hamlet cannot certainly be allowed to be uniform throughout. Befides the neglect or forgetfulness of the poet in making Hamlet, who is only supposed to affect madness, appear often really mad, (an error carefully and effectually guarded against in [o] Edgar,) there are many improprieties which I shall not enlarge upon as they are fufficiently obvious. [N] I have been informed that by order of Mrs. Garrick the tragedy of Hamlet was thrown into Garrick's grave. I think though he was undoubtedly great in that character he was equally fo in many of Shakespear's characters, and superior in Lear. The comic characters I presume were thought too light for so solemn an occafion. If by burying that tragedy with Garrick it was meant to infer that it was loft to the stage with him, a complete edition of Shakespear might, with the utmost propriety, have been interred with that inimitable actor: for what Cardinal Bembó has said of Nature on the tomb of Raffael, may be faid of Shakefpear on the tomb of Garrick. one. [o] When one of the persons assumes a character different from his own it is the business of the actor to mark the distinction, and make the real character appear through the feigned Johnfon has observed, that Garrick did not play Archer in the Beaux Stratagem ' well. The gentleman should break out through the footman, which was not the cafe as ' he did it.' BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON, Vol. 11. p. 62. Romeo

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. that such characters may be found in the higher and more serious ranks of life, the consequences of whose inconsistency may be as productive of tragic distress as that of Tigellius is of comic ridicule [x]. Bishop Hurd is at great pains to prove, that by ὁμαλῶς ἀνόμαλον he means that a person in some things inconsistent, may yet be so managed by the poet'as to be made consistent with the basis of his character. And as an example of this, he brings Electra, and strange to tell, Iphigenia, the very character marked out by Aristotle to exemplify blameable inconsistency of manners. The Bishop says, that Iphigenia is more easily vindicated from this charge of inconfiftency, than even Electra, notwithstanding this charge of Aristotle against her. It may be so; but if it is so, if Aristotle knew what he meant, or had any meaning at all, he could not intend to praise in Electra what he censures in Iphigenia. If the character of Iphigenia is an inconsistency confiftent with the basis of the character, it is proof pofitive that such is not the meaning of Ariftotle's ὁμαλῶς ἀνόμαλον, which must be some quality that the manners of Iphigenia did not possess. To bring the very character quoted by Ariftotle as an instance of the breach of a dramatic rule, for an example of the exception to such rule on his own supposed principles, and that by changing the received and obvious meaning of the words defining such exception, can hardly be justified by the canons of fober criticifm. The idea of Mr. Markland, mentioned by Mr. Twining, that the inconfistency of Iphigenia 'was intended by the poet as a moral lesson, [x] See Mr. Twining, Note III, whose observations on this passage, and on the Bishop of Worcester's criticism, are as usual, accurate and convincing. Xx. 2 ' a strik-

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. breach of three of the essential qualities of manners, goodness as in the character of Menelaus, propriety as in Ulysses and Menalippe, and consistency as in Iphigenia. We may now suppose him to recollect his omiffion of the other, of which probably the Achilles in the same tragedy may have been generally quoted as an example, where, in order to give him the requifite poetical goodness of character, the poet has deviated from his traditional manners, and even the manners, according to Plato [v], given him by Homer. In answer to this the critic points out the mode by which the faults of a traditional character may be so represented as not to lose their resemblance, and yet retain the neceffary poetical goodness; and this he not only gives such directions how to perform as must appear to every person perfectly confonant with reason, but he illustrates it by the example of the usual practice of another imitative art. And having done this, he observes that even Homer, who has been supposed to have followed a different plan, has really given the requisite poetical goodness of character to Achilles. The contrary opinion however seems to have been generally adopted, even by the moderns; and many are ready to join in opinion with Dr. Jortin, as quoted by Mr. Twining; ' that Achilles is a boisterous, rapa- ، cious, mercenary, cruel and unrelenting brute; and the reader pities none of his calamities, and is pleased with none of his successes.' This is rather a summary mode of deciding a question by a sentence, which if just, is a compleat condemnation of the father of poetry, and all his admirers. For if Homer has so drawn Achilles as to make him not only [Y] See the passage quoted from Plato's Republic, by Mr. Twining, where the Achilles of Homer is accused of possessing together the two opposite vices of mean rapaciousness, and infolent contempt both of gods and men. compleatly

from every day's experience, that very plain women are capable of exciting very violent attachment; and if we look among our acquaintance for those who have formed imprudent connections with the sex, we shall not always find the objects remarkable for their personal charms. But a person who does not feel this particular attachment, or if he does, contemplates it in another person, can only conceive beauty as the natural object of love. [G] A Romeo therefore fighing to an ugly Juliet, and apparently turned of forty, will not only excite ridicule but disgust. The theatre is much more delicate in this refpect than it was formerly. I have seen Mr. Havard and Mrs. Pritchard perform Constant and Lady Brute, when the progress of age and decay was marked not only by their figure but by the tremulous modulation of their voice. This however never appeared in Garrick; he acted even young Hamlet and Archer with propriety till he quitted the stage. One of the most beautiful and elegant women living either on or off the stage will, I hope, forgive me for citing her as an example of an impropriety exactly of an opposite nature; I mean in the character of Mrs. Oakley. I will not pretend to determine how far a most lovely and accomplished woman might, in real life, contrive to render herself disagreeable and troublesome to a husband, by conftant and unreasonable jealousy; but every general spectator will be rather inclined to think the man, whom Miss Farren, from suspicious fondness, cannot bear to have out of her company a moment, an object of envy rather than pity or ridicule. The requifite of goodness alfo on the modern theatre applies to the scenery, as in chambers and cottages; indeed this is also sometimes defective [G] See Hill's Actor, paffim. from

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Honeywood in the Good-natured Man, is adventitious and shewn on purpose. I confefs I do not fee the difference as to merit, between the accidental and intentional discovery which Aristotle insists on, and upon which his general scale of excellence feems so much to depend. This circumstance feems to me to be entirely regulated by the fituation of the character. If he even knows himself his own situation and wishes to conceal it, as in the case of Ulyffes and Euryclea in the nineteenth book of the Odyffey, it must be accidental, as it certainly must if he is ignorant of his own situation as in Douglas. But if conscious himself who he is, though concealed from others, he chuses to discover himself as in the cafe of Ulysses to Eumæus and Philætius in the twenty-second book of the Odyssey; or if unconscious himself, a person who knows his fituation like the old man in Merope and Belarius in Cymbeline discovers him, I must think the intentional discovery infinitely preferable. The intentional discovery even by merely throwing off a disguise, as in the Countess of Salisbury, and the Duke in Measure for Meafure, has a fine theatrical effect. Perhaps there is no instance more striking than Æneas's discovery of himself in the second Æneid. [B]Coram quem quæritis adfum • Troius Æneas Libicis ereptus ab undis.' [B] The spirit of this is lost in the translations. For me to attempt the restoration of it after such names as Dryden and Warton, would be at once folly and prefumption. Shakespear however has caught it not indeed from Virgil, but from nature. ،

This is I Hamlet the Dane -

NOTE

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. express [E] a story represented in embroidery, it seems to be the most reasonable interpretation that can be given of it: and its resemblance with the embroidery of Electra is very obvious. Neither do I think the objection started by Mr. Twining, that a traditional circumstance like this, could not be said to be an invention of the poet has much weight. For though the story is now very common from being related in so popular a work as Ovid's Metamorphofes, it does not follow it was so in the time of Sophocles, or that he might not have invented it in the tragedy now mentioned. That such a thing is very possible appears from the tale of Achilles being invulnerable [F]; which, though imputed to Homer, seems to have originated with Statius.

own adventures. The discovery of Lady Randolph to the old Shepherd in Douglas, and that of Julia in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, where she faints on hearing Valentine offer Sylvia to his rival, are exactly in the same predicament. Perhaps the most whimsical discovery in any drama, and which is also caused by a fudden exclamation, is in the original French opera of Richard Cœur de Lion, where the old Knight is discovered to be an Englishman by saying GODDAM.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. This mode seems to border strongly on the worst possible discovery that of over-hearing a foliloquy, as in the discovery of King Henry to the Foresters in Hen. VI. Part III.

which he is disguised as a messenger instead of a beggar; a change certainly very consonant with the dignity of tragic representation when compared with epic description. And he proposes, that instead of τόξον we should read τοιχον [κ]. This conceded, the whole answers my notion of the sense of the passage. Penelope who is neither satisfied of the identity of Ulyffes, by the testimony of Telemachus and Euryclea, nor by a miracle wrought in favour of her husband by his restoration to the youth and figure he possessed on his leaving her twenty years before, is at last convinced by his description of her nuptial bed, which he had framed himself, and which no one else had seen but a faithful flave named Actoris. < The fecrets of the bridal bed are known To thee, to me, to Actoris alone, (My father's present in the spousal hour, • The fole attendant on our genial bower,). • Since what no eye has seen thy tongue reveal'd, • Hard and distrustful as I am, I yield.'... POPE'S Odyssey, L. XXIII. v. 241. Original, v. 225. [K] The words are so alike as to be easily confounded by a careless or a conceited transcriber, who recollecting how much depends on a bow at the conclusion of the Odyssey, might be tempted to change them on purpose, as the article τὸ which marks the gender, Mr. Win- The word τοιχος seems particularly applied to a bridal stanley observes is omitted in one Ms. chamber in Canticles, Chap. 11. ver. 9. Ἰδοὺ ἦτος ἔςηκεν ὁπίσω τῷ τοίχε ἡμῶν Παρακύπλων διὰ τῶν θυρίδων. I know the interpreters render this WALL, but it does not seem to agree with the context; and the Hebrew word כתל which occurs only in this place, seems derived from the fame word in Arabic, which as a verb signifies, to unite, COEGIT IN UNUM, and as a substantive, union, ADUNATIO, CUM QUID SIMUL COGITUR. This

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. To form a proper discovery of this kind is of all the arts of the poet by far the most difficult. (P) We have already mentioned how hard a task it is to keep a principal character concealed both from the audience and other persons of the drama during the course of the play, by whatever mode the discovery is made; but when the discovery at last is to arise, and be confirmed by the preceding incidents only, the difficulty is increased to such a degree as to be only furmountable by the efforts of superior genius. What can put both the invention and judgment of the poet to so great an exertion as to contrive his incidents in such a manner that the audience, or the reader should never once conceive the real situation of his principal character, and yet when his real situation is revealed, it should be confirmed by a retrofspect examinate of those incidents. My most diligent recollection will furnish me with no example ancient or modern of a composition in which this arduous task is strictly and perfectly executed, except that wonderful effort of judgment and imagination the comic epopee of Tom Jones. No reader I believe ever guessed that the hero of the piece would turn out to be the nephew of Allworthy and the son of Mrs. Bridget, till the moment before the discovery takes place, and yet how natural is the behaviour of those who know the circumstance, when the incidents are examined afterwards. With what nice touches is the conduct of the mother expressed, and especially her partiality to Jones; and Dowling, when he accidentally meets Jones on the road, actually calls Allworthy his uncle without giving the reader the least suspicion of the truth; so inimitable is the art of the poet. [P] See Note II. Chap. XI. and Note IV. Chap. xiv. The

racter, after being supposed to go into a confined place in the fight of the spectators could be conceived to come out again unseen by them, without violating, not the arbitrary rules of the drama, but the natural probability of the representation. And on the other hand, from the frequent change of scene and intervals of action this may happen on the modern, or at least on the English stage, without the least absurdity. But nevertheless though this is generally true of both, it is not univerfally true. When a change of scene is plainly implied by the language and incidents of the Grecian drama, such an event may take place there WITHOUT improbability; and if the identity of place and continuation of action is marked in an English drama, such an event cannot take place WITH propriety. In the Eumenides of Æschylus, where, after Apollo has perfuaded Orestes to quit his temple at Delphos and repair to that of Minerva at Athens, his perfecutors follow him, and afterwards he goes out himself; they may without impropriety all enter again at the fame door, because that door, though according to the apparatus of the ancient theatre exactly the fame, is now supposed to be changed from the temple of Apollo to that of Minerva; fince between the verses 234 and 235 the scene is obviously changed from Delphos to Athens, and as Orestes and the chorus immediately appear, there must be a break in the action comprehending a considerable interval of time. And in an English play represented even without scenery in a private house, if a character were to go into a door, we will suppose as into a closet to be concealed, (a common incident in comedy,) and during the obvious continuation of the scene appear at another door, should not we laugh at the striking impropriety? Or to take a contrary instance from a particular play; if in the last scene of the Clandestine Marriage, Sir John Melville were to come out of the very door from which Lord Ogleby is summoning

But Aristotle is not contented with saying what ought to be the final effect on the spectator or reader, he is telling us how to produce the cause of that effect, which is the natural expression of the passion by the poet, and which can only be done by his entering himself into the feelings of those he represents. By doing this, he says, he will certainly find the proper means of expreffing those feelings; for who can fo well utter the language of any paffion as he who is at the time under the actual influence of it; having said this he pursues it no further, it being obvious that the best and most natural expression of paffion will awake the strongest sympathy in the mind of the spectator. It is very apparent that the fame precept is applicable to the actor. In vain may the poet paint the passions naturally, if the player does not exhibit the picture to advantage in the representation; and to do this well, his imagination should be as fufceptible as that of the poet. I have: already mentioned a fingular anecdote from Hill's Actor in confirmation of this [G]. The ancient actors could not have the fame powers of enforcing the sentiments of the poet from their theatrical dress, or rather disguise. Yet even their natural feelings were of great effect in assisting the truth of their representation. There is a remarkable instance of this kind related by Aulus Gellius. There was a celebrated Grecian actor who • excelled all others in his action and the elegance and clearness of his voice. His name was Polus. He performed the tragedies of the * best poets with propriety and confidence. This Polus lost an only fon ← whom he greatly loved. However when his grief was abated he re- [G] See Note Iv. Chap. XIII. turned,

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. only have an eye to the dramatic effect in his writings as to the representation, but should also while he is composing, put himself as much as poffible into the situation of the character he is drawing; for by feeling the internal sensation of the paffion he will be best able to express by language the external figns of it; for though no art can come up to the real effufions of nature, yet those who can most easily put themselves from the ductility of their imagination into fimilar fituations, will imitate them with most exactness; this is obvious from what we may observe in madmen, they really fancy themselves from the disorder of their reasoning powers in situations totally foreign to the truth, and the im-- pression is so strong that they act and speak entirely as if they were the identical persons, and in the precise situations which their distracted fancy suggests to them. Now a poet of a lively and plastic imagination, and who is capable of entering into the true spirit of the character and paffion he is going to draw, should in some measure partake of this feature of madness, feeling and acting, almost as strongly in the fituation. of this imaginary character from the ductility of his fancy, as the mad-- man does from the derangement of his intellects.. In the celebrated passage in the Midsummer Night's Dream, Shake-- spear has made exactly the same comparison; undoubtedly from his own reflection, for I believe none of his most sanguine admirers will suppose him trying purposely to illustrate a precept of the Stagirite; though no man who ever lived seems so capable of shooting his own foul into the bosom of the character he wished to draw. His example seems to be particularly directed to the imitation, if I may use the word, of fupernatural and imaginary beings, in which he so much excelled. The

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. These instances seem sufficiently to prove that Aristotle does not confine himself here to fuch fables as are entirely the invention of the poet, as Mr. Twining imagines, (Note 142), for the Odyssey must be at leaft a traditional if not an historical subject. Perhaps the construction of epic and dramatic fable may in this respect be distinguished by three general classes, though each capable of receiving innumerable inferior distinctions and modifications. First, those which are purely historical, such as the Iliad and Odyssey, the Edipus, the hiftorical plays of Shakespear, and the earl of Effex. Here the names are all historical, and the poet must on no pretence deviate from the known story in essential circumstances; all he can do is to find out such a fable, which though founded in fact has like the Odyssey, the proper requifites of general truth, or may be made to have them by some additional touches. [K] As for instance in the tragedy of the earl of Essex, Voltaire is very severe on Corneille, (and the same reasoning will apply to our tragedies on the same subject) for making Elizabeth young when she was really a very old woman, as she certainly was at the death of Effex. M. Lessing in his Dramaturgie [L], though he carries, I think, his notion of general fable rather too far, adopting in some measure the opinions of Bossu, anfwers Voltaire on these principles, that if the queen, though at the age of fixty-eight, was amorous and jealous, in consequence of which an event very proper for a fable took place, there could be no impropriety in supposing her age to be more congenial with her paffions [M]. Were Elizabeth on the stage to appear an old woman, [K] See Note Iv. Chap. xv. [1] Part 1. page 57. the [M] It is impoffible for a drama to come nearer history than the Antony and Cleopatra of Shakespear, and yet much of the effect would suffer were one to be represented as between 3 B fifty

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. in the Paradise Lost the fall; in King Lear, as written by Shakespear, the death of Cordelia and Lear; in Tate's and Colman's alteration their deliverance; in Much Ado about Nothing the vindication of Hero's innocence; and in Tom Jones the discovery of his relation to Allworthy.

plot naturally unravels itself without any violent change. Venice Preserved is an instance of this kind.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Vestigia Græca ' Ausi deferere & celebrare domeftica facta [c].' On which lines there are some very judicious observations in Bishop Hurd's notes on the Epistle to the Pifos. I think the Odyssey as proper a fable for the drama as any I am acquainted with. But nothing would be so great an advantage as to follow the example of the [D] author of the Countess of Salisbury, and give the incidents an old English garb, which is so well fitted to them. How easily is the Trojan war changed to a crufade, Ulyffes made a feudal chief, ([E) which by the way he much more resembles than the pompous sovereign Pope has made him,) and concealed as a pilgrim instead of a beggar. [F] The happiest instance I know of a tranfition like this, is the Edward and Eleonora of Thomson, taken from the Alcestes of Euripides. [c] And boldly quitting Grecia's beaten ways, ' They twine for native chiefs, dramatic bays.' According to Le Pere Brumoy the French entirely differ from us in this respect. See DISCOURS SUR LE PARALLELE DES THEATRES. [D] I only speak as to the design; the execution of it is below mediocrity. Besides I believe the author never thought immediately of the Odyssey, but only copied it through the medium of the novel called Longsword, Earl of Salisbury. [E] See Note 1. Chap. xxiv. [F] This was attended with peculiar difficulty as the English poet was obliged to produce the solution by nature, which the Greek poet had effected by a machine. On this account an improbability is incurred in the English drama. We may allow Hercules, after the good office he has done, to play a little with the feelings of Admetus. But to suppose such characters as Selim, as Glocester, as Theald, and even as Eleonora herself, would keep Edward a moment

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. There is an excellent observation of Marmontel on this subject. He says, A capital defect, of which the ancients set the example, and ' which the moderns have but too much imitated, is the languor of the 'solution. This defect arises from a faulty distribution of the fable in ' five acts; of which the first is devoted to the opening the subject to ' the spectators, the three that follow to the [K] complication of the intrigue, and the last to the solution. According to this division the greatest danger lies in the fourth act, and to fill the fifth act it becomes neceffary to [L] unravel the intrigue flowly and by degrees, which cannot fail to render the catastrophe tedious and cold. But the fuddenness • of the solution ought never to lessen its probability, nor its probability to lessen its uncertainty. Conditions eafily fulfilled separately, but very difficult to reconcile with each other. It happens very rarely at present, that one or other of these two • censures is not incurred: the solution either is deficient in point of preparation, or of suspense. We carry with us to our pathetic plays two principles directly opposite; feelings which wish to be interested, • and an understanding which dislikes to be deceived. Our pretenfions to judge of every thing cause us to enjoy nothing. (M) We wish at ⚫ the same time to foresee the situations and be affected by them; to • contrive with the author and feel with the people; to have our fenfes • deluded and not deluded. New pieces have particularly this disadvantage that we go to them less as spectators than as critics. There every • connoiffeur is as it were double, and his heart finds a very troublesome [K] ' Au nœud de l'intrigue.' [L] DENOUER. [M] The critic, as described here, is just in the situation of a man who wishes at the fame time to be deceived by the tricks of a juggler, and find out how they are done. 3 C neigh-

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. means being wonderful, (P) I would grasp at the flightest shadow that could justify the meaning I have ventured to give it, after Goulstone, Riccoboni, and Mr. Winstanley. Surprize, wonder, even improbability, are clearly the attendants of the kind of arrangement Aristotle is speaking of; and that they so appeared to him is equally clear from the apology he immediately makes for Agatho, by a quotation from his works. As to his confining these kind of folutions to the tragedies depending on peripetía, and those of a fingle construction, I do not fee the leaft propriety as to the last. Απλόος is in Chap. XIII. used twice by Ariftotle, and each time in a different sense, once as opposed to complicated and once as opposed to double. (See Notes (A) and (c), on the tranflation of Chap. x111.) If it is taken in the first sense as oppofed to complicated, the two examples must take in every species of tragedy, for in the tenth chapter he mentions the distinction between the fimple and complicated tragedy to depend on the one's having peripetía and difcovery, and the other not having them. But every tragedy must either have or not have the peripetía and discovery. Neither does the other meaning of ἀπλόος (which of the two evils I have chofen) agree much better; fince the overthrow of vice, though supported by wisdom and strength, manifestly must produce a different catastrophe for the good [P] That θαυμαςῶς cannot have the sense of per admirabile, is obvious. Mr. Twining fays, ' it feems all the Mss. give θαυμασῷς.' The sense of the context appears to call so loudly for the other meaning, that if all the printed copies and translators agreed, I should be tempted, MEO PERICULO, not to fuffer one figma to stand in my way, but read θαυμασῷ. But besides the authority of the tranflators I have quoted, it appears from the Spanish edition of Flores, that θαυμασῷ was the most popular reading. Since, he says, ' SOME editors (Algunas editores,) read θαυμαςῶς instead of θαυμασῷ. 3 C2 and

But the events of the action, and the behaviour of the character as exhibited in the course of the drama, must follow according to the rules of general probability. To illustrate this by an example, there is a contingent though not a general probability, that an armed leader attended by foldiers, may fall by the hand of a woman; therefore the catastrophe of the Grecian Daughter is no improper dramatic incident. Such an event supposed, the general probability is that it must be performed on a fudden, and unperceived, yet there is a contingent probability that a woman may vanquish a man in fair combat; but such an event would not follow naturally, either from the incidents of the fable or the character of Euphrafia, who is represented as a delicate woman and not as an Amazon. The tragedy of the Fatal Marriage affords a stronger proof of the defect of this contingent probability. Nothing could be more probable than for fuch a villain as Carlos to seal his crimes by the murder of his brother, but that such an act should take effect exactly at the time it did when the characters are in the highest possible distress, is purely accidental, and is not the probable or even incidental consequence of the most truly tragic situation the characters are in. The escape of Iphigenia from the altar (incidentally probable according to the popular belief of Greece) was a very good incident on which to found a tragedy, but a very inartificial solution of plot [u]. [u] As in the Iphigenia in Aulis, and the Iphigenia in Tauris. NOTE

A COMMENTARY ON THE CHAP. XVIII.

... POETIC OF ARISTOTLE.

I have known the theatre, I can answer for a British audience being to the full as virtuous as the citizens of Rome in this respect. This is fo well known, both by poets and players, that our comedies abounded. with these moral fentences to an excess, which became perfectly ridiculous: a very little exaggeration of which, by the masterly pen of Mr. Sheridan, has now in a great measure delivered the stage from their redundancy at leaft.

Shakespear apparently annexes some such idea to sweet, when he makes Jeffica say, I am never merry when I hear sweet music.'

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. plays of Shakespear are at the present hour. I question much even if the modern players would be quite so civil to a living poet in this respect as they are to Bayes in the rehearsal, or as the French players were to Voltaire [D]. I was present at the rehearsal of the Jealous Wife, and every circumstance relating to the elocution and the action of every character was directed by Mr. Garrick without one remonftrance from Mr. Colman who was present; though Mrs. Pritchard made several, but which were all over-ruled by the manager. I do not think Mr. Twining has treated this part of the subject with his usual clearness. That by σχήμαζα λέξεως Ariftotle must mean figures or forms of speech, I most perfectly agree with him. But when he says this belongs to the art of the player, and that no blame worthy of notice can be imputed to the poet on this account; it is clearly implied, that it is not only the duty of the player to understand how the poet uses these figures of speech, but to give them their due effect in the performance, by employing the proper gestures and tones of voice. Yet though Aristotle says the blame incurred by the poet on this occafion is not of a serious essential kind, that very expression implies that some blame is incurred. And this is perfectly just. For certainly the poet ought to take care that these forms should be so marked by the sense as to leave no doubt in the mind of the actor or reader. Of this fault Shakespear has been sometimes guilty. For instance, in the celebrated line of Othello, the proper delivery of which has been fo much controverted.. [D] See Mr. Twining's Note 163. Put

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ters to express all our vowel founds. For example, the short found of A, which when long is pronounced, as in BACON, MAJOR, is marked by e as in BEND, MEN. The short A as in MAN, has feldom I believe [B] a congenial long found in our language but when it is followed by two confonants, as in MASTER, TASK, BARGE. However A, as in the first instance, may be confidered beyond comparison as the most ufual long found of the vowel, either when lengthened by an E mute, as in BANE and DARE, or when independent of a succeeding confonant, (which case always makes the vowel long in English) as in BASON and MASON. Our long vowel found of 1 has no correspondent short found; but we use I to reprefent the short found of E, as DEAN, DIN. Even if we should wish to express the short colloquial found of BEEN to the eye, we must not write BEN, but BIN [C]. That our characters paint words and not founds is obvious from the directions for pronouncing the vowels prefixed to the vocabulary printed at the end of Cook's Second Voyage to the South Seas. Or if that is not at hand, the hearing a child taught to spell, (the word DIVINATION for inftance,) will be equally conclusive. The Greek diftinguished two of their long and short vowel founds E and o by different characters, while the orientals contented themselves with only three characters, A, O, and 1, to exprefs all their vowel sounds; the two last of which were also used to express one an afpiration, and [B] There are however exceptions, as FATHER, where the TH can be confidered only as one confonant. [c] This subject is treated more at large in Mitford's Essay on the Harmony of Language, Sect. III. page 32. 3 E the

drama of Crononhotonthologus, there is a character of the name of Äldiberòntephöfcophórnia, which is a complete verse in itself, containing one principal accent, to which I have given the acute mark; one inferior to this, but more emphatic than the rest, which has the grave mark; and three others fufficiently diftinguished from the others for the purposes of verfification, which are noticed by a double dot. This fubject has led me unawares into an investigation in which I am much interested. I mean the distinction between accent and quantity. My Greek quotations will shew my opinion on this matter to the learned reader. To him therefore I owe some reason for adopting this fide of the question, but to the mere English reader I am likewise bound not to employ too much of these notes on a subject which must be totally uninteresting to him. I shall confine myself therefore to two points only, and dispatch them both with as much brevity as possible. The arguments I use shall be drawn also from circumstances obvious to the fenfes, and appealing to them for support. The authority of antiquity, produced by Dr. Foster in his Essay on Greek Accent, and enforced and illustrated by Mr. Mitford in his Effay on the Harmony of Language, are and always must remain unanswered, because they are unanswerable. First then, the authenticity of the Greek accentual marks have been proved beyond controversy by the abovementioned treatises; but the pronunciation of them, as it is managed by modern voices, destroys that cadence to which modern ears are accustomed (F). In confequence of this [F] Some persons I know talk of marking both accent and quantity in Greek verse.. I pretend to no such power, but I am far from faying fuch a power did not exift among the Greeks. they

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. of ten, when the article is prefixed, it is because the whole sentence, and not the gerund only, is the substantive. For instance, in the example in Lilly's Grammar of a fentence being the nominative case to a verb.

Ingenuas didiciffe fideliter artes • Emollit mores, nec finit esse feros.' If we translate as we may [L], • The having learned the liberal arts,' furely were we to alter the tense of the infinitive from the preterite to the present, we should retain the same general sense and say, 'The learning ' the liberal arts,' not • The learning of the liberal arts.' The gerund seems never to be properly a substantive but when the noun that it governs would be its nominative case if it continued a verb. To explain myself more clearly, were I to say, suppose speaking of a court of justice, such a thing happened before the swearing the evidence, meaning previous to the clerk of the court's adminiftering the oath, SWEARING is a gerund governing EVIDENCE, and THE makes a fubstantive of the whole sentence. But were I to say, before the swearing of the evidence,' I should conceive EVIDENCE as the governing cafe of the verb, which would not then be transative but neuter, and express the act of the evidence and not of the officer of the court, and in this case it would indeed be a substantive. In such expreffions as • the crowing of a cock,'' the neighing of a • horse,' the gerunds are compleatly changed into substantives, and as such will admit a plural. [L] There is no doubt but in this as in several other of the instances, the article may be more elegantly omitted, but it is equally clear that it may also be prefixed, and in some cafes - must be prefixed, which is quite sufficient for the purpose. • Steed

The two auxiliary verbs, ' shall' and 'will, which constitute the future tense in English, are perpetually confounded not only by foreigners, but by the Scotch and Irish. The proper fimple future is this, ' I shall,' 'Thou wilt,' or 'You will,' 'He will,' 'We shall,' 'You, or Ye ' will,'' They will.' Were I to say ' I will go,' or • You shall go,' it is no longer the simple future, but speaks determination in one instance, and command or compulfion in the other. What a difference between these expreffions, • I shall not succeed in this but you will,' and I will not fucceed in this but you shall.' The last part is nonsense, fince the verb 'fucceed' being accidental requires only the simple future; but for 'fucceed,' substitute ' attempt,' which is in the power of the agent, the fimple future will be the fame; but change the signs, say ' I will not attempt this, you shall ; and determination on one part, and command on the other are clearly expressed. On this principle it is that our neighbours often raise a laugh at their own expence, by telling us they will break their necks, and that their friends shall win a rubber at whift. It feems very wonderful that two languages so very different, and in all apparent circumstances fo entirely unconnected as the English and modern Greek, should unite in the fingular circumstance of using the verb ' I will' for a fign of the future tenfe, the latter ufing θέλω for this purpose. A fanciful writer might perhaps be tempted to impute this corruption of the Greek tongue to the conversation of the Barangi, a body of English guards, to whom the particular defence of the Grecian Emperor's person was entrusted, and who preferved the use of their native language to the last age of the empire [o]. [o] See a quotation from Codinus in Note 48, on Chap. LV. of Mr. Gibbon's History. Πολυχρονιζᾶσι ὁι Βάραγγοι καλὰ τῶν παλρίον γλῶσσαν ἀνθῶν, ἡτὸι Ιγκληνισὶ. There

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. The use of Metaphors is so frequent in common conversation as hardly to require explanation; such expreffions as a cool reasoner,' ' a warm debater,' are examples. Sometimes even a word is more common in its metaphorical than its proper sense, as for instance, to RUMINATE. By a fingular chance this word, though of no dignity in its figurative sense, acquires dignity in its proper sense, and is a perfect instance of the use of foreign words in elevating the style of poetry; as in Milton,

• Others fill'd with pasture gazing fat • Or bedward RUMINATING.' The example taken from Homer, of a ship to illustrate the transfer of a word from genus to species is sufficiently plain. We say commonly a ship lies at anchor from the quiet situation she is in when at anchor, which may be termed a species of lying still compared to the agitation of a voyage. The example of the change from species to genus (fee the tranflation) is equally clear and still in common use, though we usually employ the modefter term of a thousand; the Romans still more moderate, contented themselves with fix hundred. On the same principle the abfent lover counts his hours by centuries. As for the transfer from species to species, however comfortably obscure the Greek examples are, I think the sense of the precept is sufficiently clear; it means, I conceive, the transfer of a figurative expression usually connected with one word, to another word to which it is not usually applied, though the meaning of it is the fame. I esteem Castlevetro's example perfectly just; and agree with Mr. Twining in thinking any man who chuses MAY speak so, though I do not think it would be often advisable for him to avail himself of this liberty. I do not quote the Italian critic as our own learned countryman Martinus Scriblerius

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. • sesses also a poetical language. In ours even trivial and domeftic • circumstances may be mentioned with dignity and poetically, but turn ⚫ them into prose and they instantly become common. Your verse has • exactly the same force as if I faid in Italian, "The queen has a fever," ⚫ and a verse that began so would certainly occafion much laughter; but • when the sense is expressed as in the Italian, the transposition of the ⚫ words and the metaphor create poetry, and render the language noble to our ears, because it is very remote from vulgar speech and yet not extravagant; and by these means we are able to give ornament to every thing.' Our Shakespear has been criticized with exactly the same candour that Maffei complains of.

CHAP. XXIT. would fay, Old Brutus? Were we to express the father of the Horatii by the name of Old Horace, we should immediately think of the Roman poet. We know the French, from the partiality they have for their own language, mutilate all the harmonious names of antiquity, a practice which we at first adopted but have now totally laid aside. In consequence however of its having been once adopted by us, the most familiar of the Roman names, and some few of the Greek names, have among us this pronunciation. But these are confined to the perfons themselves, and not given to others of a fimilar name. We call none of the Horatii Horace but the poet, and none of the Tullii Tully except the orator. Aristotle and Euclid are two of the most early familiar Greek names, and in consequence of it retain this disgraceful distinction; and when we meet them thus mutilated we expect to find the fathers of logic and the mathematics. As all affectation is ridiculous, I should think it pedantic to call this work a translation of the Poetic of Ariftoteles; but in a tranflation of Pindar's fifth Pythian Ode, I would not translate the Αρισοζέλης mentioned there, by the Anglo-Greek name of Aristotle. There is something so completely merry-andrewish in the appellation we give to the celebrated triumvir, especially when mixed with Roman names, that were I writing history I should be induced to reftore him to the name of Marcus Antonius. In this work I have been obliged to retain those CHRISTIAN NAMES by which Shakespear and Dryden have mentioned him. NOTE

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. To know whether a word is proper for an elevated style, I believe verfification the best criterion, and Aristotle seems to think so from the experiment he proposes. The expression quoted by [F] Dr. Beattie from our tranflation of the Bible, 'Sweeping with the besom of destruction,' would hardly bear this teft. It must be observed that in some cases, especially in scenes of horror, the effect is often heightened by chusing a common instead of an unusual word. In the following lines from Macbeth : • Who should against his murderer shut the door, ' Not bear the knife myself.' The effect, contrary to the rule of Aristotle, would I think be much inferior if afsassin could be substituted for murderer, and dagger for knife [G]. [F] Illustrations on Sublimity, p. 638. NOTE [G] Mr. Stevens, on the occasion of Shakespear's use of the words BARE BODKIN, is at some trouble to shew us that bodkin was an old word for dagger. It may be fo. But I think Shakespear did not use it here in this sense. His context seems to imply, Why should a man suffer misery here, when the most inconfiderable, and generally, harmless instrument, will set him free. What Shakespear observes here of misery he applies to guilt in K. John. 'Do but despair, • And if thou want'st a cord the smallest thread < That ever spider twisted from her womb • Will serve to strangle thee, a rush will be A beam to hang thee on; or would'st thou drown thyself, • Put but a little water in a spoon And it shall be as all the ocean Enough to stifle such a villain up.' And

depends so much on juxta-position and where there is no distinction of case except in the pronouns, will often unavoidably create obscurity. Mr. Jackson of Exeter [K] objects to such transpositions as 'thunders 'the sky,' ' shakes the ground;' for 'the sky thunders,' ' the ground Thakes;' in these cases he says, ' we are inclined to refer to some antecedent nominative.' I think for this reason the impropriety or propriety of fuch expreffion is clearly marked by the examples produced. When, as in the first instance, the verb is strictly neuter the deviation can occafion no ambiguity and is therefore allowable; but in the second instance where the verb has also a transitive sense, the inconvenience and ambiguity mentioned by Mr. Jackson will certainly arife. In the use of this license, narrative poetry has a greater latitude than dramatic; but even there obfcurity and doubt should be avoided. The effect of this arrangement of words in a verfe may be seen in a line of Prior's Henry and Emma, where, without altering the essential cadence, the words may be placed in three different ways, two of which will have different meanings, and the third, which Prior has chosen, may be applied to either, and depends folely on the context and the stops [L] for precifion. The line in question is, ، For feldom, archers say, thy arrows err; remove the first comma and it may mean, • For archers seldom say, thy arrows err;' and may be applied rather to the partiality of his companions than his skill. But the following arrangement puts the meaning of the poet beyond the reach of doubt, [K] Letter III. [L] See Note Ix. Chap. xxv. For

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. ، Befides this obvious fault there are many other improprieties that may follow from an injudicious use of this figure. The image may be ridiculous by being unfit for the subject. As in Addison's Essay on the Georgics, where while he is very justly praising the art of the poet in elevating his subject, he attempts, perhaps in imitation of Longinus, to copy the figurative style he is criticising, and fays • he breaks the clods, and tosses the dung about, with an air of gracefulness.' Now one of the most ridiculous of all poffible objects would be a man's really doing this. A metaphor pursued too far has also a very ridiculous effect; indeed this almost falls under the article of allegory, a species of writing which some people are very fond of, but which appears to me only a more laborious kind of riddle. Such is the allegorical description of the human body in the Timæus of Plato, drawn out to a length that is both tedious and disgusting: the hyperbolical praise of which by Longinus, and the imitation of it by Spenser, does no honor to the taste either of the [N] critic or the poet. Sometimes a metaphor is perfectly incongruous and absurd, as in Cowley's Davideis, L. 111. Goliah is described as large as the hill he is coming down. • Vast as the hill down which he march'd he appear'd.' This reminds one of the story in the Connoiffeur, of the citizen, who shewing a map of London to a stranger, to enhance the grandeur of the [N] See Longinus, Sect. xxxII. Fairy Queen, Book II. Canto IX.. metropolis,

It would be endless to cite examples which every page of any good dramatic writer will afford us, as well as the natural language either of forrow or rage, especially among the common people, who are most likely to speak the genuine language of nature. What are such words as my little jewel,' ' you beaft, &c. but metaphors? Aristotle, in Chap. xxiv. objects to an ornamented style as injuring the effect of the empaffioned parts even of the epopee [R]; but in the less interesting parts he recommends a splendid language. In this the dramatic poet is more confined. In the uninteresting parts he may indeed polish his versification, but he must not give his diction too much ornament, for such parts are only the common discourse of the characters, but in the epopee they are confidered as the language of the poet, or if you will, of the muse. But though fimplicity of style, and precision of meaning, are peculiarly requifite to the dramatic muse, they are by no means to be neglected by her fisters. It is impossible that there can be any merit in writing or speaking so as not to be understood [s]. I do not make an exception even in favor of the lyric poet. The words of Pindar [T], [R] See Note VIII. Chap. xxiv. [9] 'To write obscurely requires no other talent or skill than to express one's meaning • imperfectly; or if that is not enough to write without any meaning at all.' ARMSTRONG. [1] Φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν, ἐς Δὲ τὸ πᾶν ἐρμηνέων Χατίζει. • Whose meaning to the wife alone reveal'd • Lie from the vulgar herd in mystic words conceal'd.' adopted

The mode used by the orientals to give a species of unity to their complicated fables is very fingular. Of this the Arabian Nights exhibit a curious specimen. A general story, or ground-work for the whole, is first formed. This is the bloody vow of the sultan in consequence of the sultana's infidelity, the generous resolution of the vizir's daughter, and her final triumph. Into this the other stories are woven, but the introductory tale is continually brought to our recollection by the conversation that precedes the narrative of every night. Every story is befides branched out into a number of others, to each of which it ferves as a common bond of union, as the original one is to the whole. By this strange contrivance an appearance of general unity is kept up though without the least of that effect which is proposed as the consequence of unity; as the mind is disagreeably perplexed by the broken chain of the narrative, expectation is suspended till all interest in the fable is lost, and instead of perfpicuity confusion is produced. This arrangement is preserved in the first half of Mr. Galland's tranflation. In the latter part he has given such separate stories as struck him, without dividing the nights, or preserving any connexion between them, except the catastrophe of the leading fable. Mr. Andrews in his Anecdotes [B], gives a humorous reason for M. Galland's change of conduct. But I believe the principal cause of it was the length of the original work, which he has greatly abridged, as will be apparent on comparing the number of nights in that part of his tranflation where they are according to the author's own calculation, just forty-two days intervene, and yet this is five days more than the compleat action of the Iliad occupies. [B] Appendix. Article AUTHOR. noticed,

the fame disadvantage. In producing unity here, Col. Mitford has fucceeded wonderfully, as I augur he will when he comes to the increasing difficulties attending the divided interests of the successors of Alexander, where he will have no points of union like the superior states of Athens and Sparta to afsist him. The Roman historian from Romulus to Conftantine, has the double advantage of unity of story and concluding eras, arifing, if I may use the poetical expreffion, both from action and manners. But the task Mr. Gibbon has executed is the most difficult one that ever employed the pen of an historian, and nothing but the voice of hypercriticism can cenfure him for not giving a unity to events of which they were utterly incapable. The history of Greece, however diversified in its course, has a great and striking catastrophe in becoming a Roman province; and the preceding events have a strong bond of union in treating of a people, however divided, still resembling each other in origin, in country, and in manners. But from the time of Constantine, the Roman history diverges from its common channel. The Grecian name appears again, mixes with, and almost overpowers it, till mingling with a thoufand various and unconnected streams, it gradually loses itself in the vaft ocean of modern history, in which that event, (the taking of Conftantinople,) which is generally confidered as the final period of the Roman empire, fo far from being a decisive boundary, is a mere point that hardly attracts our obfervation. Dr. Robertson saw the neceffity of this historical unity so strongly, that he did not chuse to interweave the affairs of America with his History of Charles the Fifth, but reserved them for a feparate work; a work, for the completion of which the public impatience is strongly excited, as the obstacle mentioned is entirely removed; and the history of British

Medicean library. But admitting this part as genuine, (which I think we ought from the authority of fo many Mss. and editions, against this single one,) the example so exactly in point with the observation seems introduced merely for the purpose of bringing in a sentence which is diametrically in opposition to it, and which it appears to me can be only reconciled with the context by supposing something prior to the quotation intervening in the original between ἄλληλα and ὥσπερ, perhaps to this effect. That even successive and connected events may not always be sufficient for the purpose of the poet. And then all that follows is perfectly natural and explains the reason, which is afterwards compleatly illustrated by the examples from the lesser Iliad at the conclusion of the chapter, which though happening in successive time and connected with each other, had not yet that degree of unity which was requisite for an epic poem. Mr. Twining has not translated this passage with his usual accuracy. • So also in successive events we fometimes fee one thing follow another * without being CONNECTED TO IT BY SUCH RELATION.' However we may differ in opinion as to the reading of θάτερον μεθὰ θαζέρα, whether we conceive the preposition μεθὰ as governing the genitive or [1] the accufative, still ἐξ ὧν ἓν ἐδὲν γίνεθαι τέλος can never fignify any relation between the successive events, but must mean some common consequence to arife from both. The sentence seems to imply, that if the events should be even so connected as to be proper for the beginning and middle of a poetic fable, they may yet be incapable of producing a proper end, a catastrophe conducive to the [K] purpose of epic or tragic imitation. [1] See note on the tranflation. [K] See Chapter VII. It is observable that Aristotle, at the beginning of this chapter, uses τέλος exactly in the same sense he does τελευτή in that. NOTE

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. its greater extent, to which variety was more necessary, and from its interest being less compressed, and in which so powerful an effect was not requifite, was indulged with a freer use of episodes, in themselves interesting, provided they were connected at all with the main fubject; even so interesting as to form a proper basis for a tragedy. This however he does not propose so much as an addition to the excellencies of the epopee, as an indulgence allowed to its defects. The Paradife Loft abounds with episodes, all of which are connected with the fable. The modern comic epopee affords examples of all forts. The worst are those like the novels introduced in Don Quixote, such as [o] the 'Ill-timed Curiosity,' which Fielding has imitated in the story of, The Man of the Hill' in Tom Jones, and Paul and Leonard' in Joseph Andrews. These episodes exactly resemble the eastern arrangement of fable. The story of Cardenio and Lucinda' in Don Quixote, and still more • Nightingale and Mrs. Miller's Daughter' in Tom Jones, are episodes connected with the fable. Perhaps the true criterion of the propriety of an epic episode is the possibility of the reader's passing it over without breaking, in the least degree, the chain of the narrative. [O] IL CURIOSO IMPERTINENTE, which has been wisely rendered in English, THE CU- RIOUS IMPERTINENT, CHAP.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. tions. Therefore though the delineation of character is strongly marked in the Iliad, and though in fact the anger of Achilles, which forms the ground-work of the poem, is rather a quality than an action; yet from the variety of scenes, nations and ranks of men defcribed in the Odyssey, the manners themselves may be introduced oftener, and must be more diverfified than in a work, whose scene of action is confined to a camp and a befieged city. Homer himself mentions variety as characteristic of the manners of the Odyssey. But if the Odyssey (Q) does not appear to me so strongly distinguished from the Iliad in point of manners, as to make them a character of contradistinction; on the other hand I must again repeat what I have before observed [R], that I can by no means accede to the opinion of Longinus, as to the decided superiority of the Iliad over the Odyssey in general: though perhaps the Iliad may have fome passages more strikingly fublime than any thing to be found in the Odyfssey; and the Odyssey may in some places have carried the marvellous into the extreme. Yet surely in the conduct and interest of the fable, the Odyssey has infinitely the advantage; and, for this reason probably, it appears to have [Q] It appears to have been at some time a doubt among the critics, whether the lliad and Odyssey were the work of the same perfon; for in the edition of Homer by Villoifon, which I have already mentioned in Note VII. on Chap. xv. near the conclufion, in one of the Scholia the mark called διπλῆ καθαρὰ, besides the use there mentioned as assigned to it, is said to point out passages (probably in confutation) to those who ascribe the Iliad and Odyssey to different poets. Πρὸς τὰς λέγοντας μὴ εἶναι τὸ ἀυτὲ ποιητᾶ Ιλίαδα καὶ Οδυσσείαν. So long ago as the year 1769, the late Dr. Hunter informed me, a friend of his was writing a treatise on this subject. I do not believe it has ever been made public. [R] See Note IV. Chap. VI. 3 M been

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. sentation of a drama, would I believe, however interesting, never be performed for pleasure only [R], and yet this continued attention must be the point of coincidence to which Aristotle would bring the drama and the epopee [s]. Mr. Twining has also confuted me on my own principles. I have supposed it improbable that Aristotle, who has been in this chapter so lavish of his praises of that poet in express terms, should here censure a part of his conduct by a kind of indirect implication. But Mr. Twining very properly asks, ' Had Aristotle meant to except Homer, why not expressly name him? Gladly as he appears to seize every opportunity of giving the poet his just praise, would he not here also ⚫ have opposed his conduct to that of other poets as he has done in so many other instances? Or why indeed refer us to the number of tragedies successively performed in one day, when he might as well have ' referred at once to the Iliad or the Odyffey.' ، ، This fame reasoning may be applied to all works of narrative imitation. Richardson's Grandifon and Clarissa are much too long. Perhaps Tom Jones falls a little under this predicament. What shall we fay then of the Clelias and Parthenissas, those voluminous romances of the last age, whose perusal would furnish fix months employment to the application of the reader? The epopee from the nature of its mode of imitation, as is well shewn by the Stagirite in this chapter, independent of any rules of art, has a [R] Dacier says, that fometimes fixteen tragedies were performed in fucceffion, which would have taken up thirty-two hours, allowing only two hours for each tragedy. He fays alfo the Iliad might be read through in a day. So it might for a wager. See Mr. Twining's note. [s] See Note III. Chap. xxvi. 3 N 2 much

Though Athenæus calls the Hippocentaur, which is obviously alluded to in both places, a drama, (δρᾶμα πολύμετρον,) I must prefer the authority of Aristotle. From what he says, and the manner he has introduced it, there can be no doubt of its being a narrative poem. It is true in those points where the conduct of the drama and the epopee coincide, he takes his examples promiscuously from either, and he frequently illustrates an epic rule from Sophocles, and a dramatic one from Homer. But both these passages relate solely to the epopee, not as it resembles, but as it essentially differs from the drama. It is not impossible however but this poem might be a dialogue, though not intended for representation. On which account, though Aristotle classes it with the epopee, on the fame principle (F) that he does the Socratic dialogues and the mimes of Sophron (G) and Xenarchus, Athenæus might naturally enough call it a drama.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. by the epic and tragic writers of Greece and Rome. Indeed the affertion of Ariftotle, that this distinction is founded on nature seems perfectly just. Iambic verse would have been too colloquial to have kept up a tone sufficiently elevated for the epopee, when unassisted by the powers of representation, the empassioned sentiments, and more affecting incidents of the drama: while the natural elevation of heroic verse, according to the concluding sentence of this chapter, would have been too splendid for the interesting scenes of tragedy. As for any of the lyric measures, though adapted to the musical parts of the drama, they would have been still less suited to the dialogue than hexameter verse, from their being still more remote from common speech. So much fo, from the violent license taken with the ufual arrangement of the words, and the consequent dificulty of ready construction, as to want the clearness necessary even for epic imitation. But in those modern languages, in which the drama and the epopee have been chiefly cultivated, I mean the Italian, the French, and the English, no criterion of this fort seems to have been unalterably fettled: and perhaps the supposed propriety of one species of verse for one fpecies of compofition, is frequently determined more by custom than Metastafio, (See his Estratto della Poetica, page 343,) afferts the fuperiority of the OTTAVA RIMA for the epopee. And is so partial to rhyme in general, that he doubts if the reason why the ancients did not use it, was not occafioned by the scarcity of fimilar terminations [1]; nature. and [1] It is curious that a directly contrary reason is given by Dr. Beattie. He says, ' It is ⚫ true the Greeks and Romans did not admit in their poetry those similar endings of lines • which we call rhyme. The reason probably was, that in the classical tongues, on account • of their regular structure, like terminations were so frequent, that it required more dexte- • rity, and occasioned a more pleasing suspense to the ear to keep them separate than to ' bring

I cannot possibly conceive, as is suggested by Mr. Twining, that the idea of stopping an army by the nod of a head, could be the absurdity meant here, as being more apparent in the representation than the recital; or that there could have been any thing more absurd in an army stopping at a nod of the head on the theatre, than by the single word, halt, in Hyde Park. The defect mentioned by Aristotle certainly lay deeper; for he in the next chapter mentions this identical circumstance as a general error against probability, excusable only as it renders the scene more interesting. [G] To us who are used to the point of honor in military affairs this improbability does not appear. But the ancients made war on a different plan. Besides from the fize of our armies, and our mode of carrying on war, one man can be of little consequence in the decifion of a national dispute: but the loss of Hector was like the capture of a fleet, or the deftruction of an army. A general, or an admiral, [G] The author of the Effay on the dramatic Character of Falstaff has related the following curious anecdote, to shew what little notion the American savages have of our point of honor. • In the laft war, (printed 1777) some Indians of America perceiving a line of Highlanders to • keep their station under every difadvantage, and under a fire which they could not effectually return, conjectured, from observation on the habit and stability of those troops, that they were • indeed the women of England who wanted courage to run away.' The Abbe Terrafson, with the true prejudice of his country-men, who can fee no manners natural that are not French, hypercriticizes the criticism of Aristotle, 'who,' he says, 'being always confufed ⚫ in his ideas, cites as an example of the abfurdly marvellous, the pursuit of Hector by Achilles, • who made figns to the Greeks not to throw their darts at the Trojan hero, that he might ⚫ have the fole glory of killing him; an act very fimple and very natural. It is fingular enough, that as the Greeks were no favourites with the feudal writers on the Trojan war, they have actually changed this very fact; and to depreciate the warlike character of Achilles, have made him do what Ariftole and Plutarch censure him for not having done. See Shakespear's Troilus and Creffida, and Mr. Stevens's note, mentioning the writers-from whom the story was principally taken. who

and too lavish in relating some wonderful tales current among the nations he visited (for a man could not in his time become acquainted with the history of foreign nations by reading in his study), yet his impartiality in relating the disgraces of his own country, as well as of her enemies, though it incurred the cenfure of the partial Plutarch, might I think have rescued him from the farcafm of the Roman poet, the earlier history of whose country contains an improbable series of almost continual success, [o] and puts one in mind of a bragging school-boy who can beat all the rest of the school however much they may be older and bigger than himself. The first check that Roman egotism received, was from a confciousness that their fables would be detected by a communication with the historians of this Græcia mendax,'' this nation of lyars,' and especially Polybius [P]. These men affirmed, that as they failed round the coast of Africa (from the Red Sea to the straits of Gibraltar) the fun was on their right hand, i. e. to the north of them. Now we know this must have been the fact, but it was too much for the faith of Herodotus, who says expressly this is incredible to me whatever it may be to others. This passage is particularly worthy of remark, as it proves that the Cape of Good Hope had been doubled at a very early period of the art of navigation. [o] Shenstone compares the Roman history to a romance, where we are always so sure of finding the hero of the piece victorious, that we lose the pleasure arifing from expectation. [P] There is a dissertation in Livy on what would have been the event had Alexander turned his arms against Rome. In his time the Romans had never looked out of Italy. When Hannibal invaded Italy they had engaged with foreign armies and were infinitely more powerful. But had Hannibal been an independent sovereign with the resources of Alexander, inftead of the general of a commercial and jealous republic, in all human probability the Roman hiftory would have ended with the second Punic war.. Voltaire

495. POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. their actions and effects seem so clearly the natural and probable consequences of them, that the hearer, finding them so confonant with general truth, while he yields to the delusion of the tale, (Y) can perceive no absurdity in the first fictitious caufe. This conduct of the poet is no where better exemplified than in the preternatural beings of Shakespear [z]. I do not any where remember a fabulous and marvellous invention kept up in all its relations and consequences with such minute and attentive accuracy as in Swift's Voyages to Lilliput and Brobdignag. The relative fize of the inhabitants being once mentioned, the comparative dimension of their furniture, plants, animals, &c. is adhered to with almost mathematical precision. In one of the poems prefixed to Gulliver's Travels, entitled the Tears of Glumdatditch, the reader may see this consistency as grossly violated, where in two lines Gulliver, who is said a little before to be of stature scarce a span, hunts a mite, fights a nut maggot, and carries a tea-cup on his head like a milk pail.. [Y] Of this pleasing delufion Plutarch speaks in the highest terms in his TREATISE ON THE MANNER IN WHICH YOUNG MEN OUGHT TO READ THE POETS.. " In this was every art and every charm "To win the wisest and the coldest warm." POPE'S ILIAD, L. XIV. v. 247; original 216. • The deceptions of this art cannot affect the stupid and the foolish; and therefore Simonides being asked why the Thessalians were the only people of Greece whom he could not deceive, • answered because they were too ignorant to be deceived. And Gorgias defined tragedy as a • delufion, wherein the person who deluded was juster than those who did not, and persons who, were deluded wiser than those who were not.' [z] See Chap. xv. Notes I and III.. As

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Ariftotle does not recommend the inflation of it by turgid expressions, bold figures, and studied inversion of phrafe, but the use of a style and verfification, at once elevated, fimple, smooth and melodious [D]. [D] For fome just observations on this subject, particularly as to tragedy, see Bp. Hurd's Note on ver. 94, of the Epiftle to the Pifos.. 3 S CHAP.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. actions and manners. Had the Winter's Tale of Shakespear been a history, or a treatise on geography, it would have been essentially defective from his supposing Bohemia to be a maritime country. But this has not the smallest effect on the interest, and confequently on the merit of the play. Had Shakespear chofen a mode of imitation to which his powers were unequal, (we may suppose any thing,) and consequently written a bad play, the fault would have been essential, but having undertaken an imitation to which his powers were perfectly equal, and which therefore he executed well, no fault can fall on the play, the action, manners and sentiments, because the poet did not know that Bohemia was an inland country. For it is not the office of the poet to instruct his hearers in particular subjects of art, but to awaken his paffions by general representations of nature. The author of the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful makes the following remark on this subject in his introduction to that elegant work. Why should a perfon be shocked at a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia who does not know but that Bohemia may be an island in the Atlantic Ocean? and after all, what reflection is this on the natural good taste of the perfon here supposed." It is true however that at present such an error would condemn the best play that could be possibly written. For there are so many more perfons now, who understand the first elements of geography than are capable of feeling, or judging of a tragedy. Besides, it is impoffible that a poet of the present day could have that general knowledge of human events, and propriety of conduct, fit to enable him to imitate human actions and manners, and be so grofsly ignorant as this must shew him to be. The mistake of Shakespear is a proof of the general igno- 3 S2 rance

، characters, naturally indeed and truly with regard to the objects in ⚫ view, but fometimes without that general and universally striking like- * ness which is demanded to the full exhibition of poetical truth. 66. • According to this interpretation, To this Mr. Twining answers. • which I am taking the liberty to examine, Sophocles is made to an- • swer the charge [D] by denying its truth: for the answer as here stated agreeable to truth" because they are • will be this. You say my representations are not true, and those of Euripides are true. I deny this. You use the term improperly. My • representations are " If you would have men " from wide observation, from human nature at large;" those of Euripides are not agreeable to truth because they are representations not of • the kind but of individuals. The answer, as I understand Ariftotle, • is very different. The charge is not denied, or explained away, but • admitted and justified. Sophocles says, “ " "collected represented as they are, διοι ἔισι, you must go to Euripides. I have not drawn them so. I never intended to draw them fo; I have done " better. I have delineated mankind not fuch as they really are, but " such as they ought to be." Euripides does not appear to have been charged by those objectors with what may be termed, individual impropriety of imitation, but with too close and portrait-like delineation • of general nature. In short, the difference which I understand to be here intended between the two poets cannot be better expressed than by the ingenious commentator himself in the beginning of the note to which I refer, where it is observed, (page 253) that “ truth may followed too closely in works of imitation, as is evident in two ، ، ، " ... it is respects. For, 1. the artist, when he would give a copy of nature, [D] For not defcribing things according to truth.. " may

fairies from the more gloomy tenants of the invisible world in these beautiful lines. Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, • And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger, At whose approach ghosts wandering here and there Troop home to church yards. -Damned spirits all • That in cross ways and floods have burial, ، Already to their wormy beds are gone.'

• But we are spirits of another fort:

• I with the morning's love have oft made sport, • And like a forefter the groves may tread • Even till the eastern gate all fiery red, ، Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams, • Turns into yellow gold his falt green streams.'

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. manship was arrived at a pitch of perfection capable of rivalling the exploits of Hughes and Astley. But though in his fifteenth Iliad, ν. 679, (ν. 822 of Pope's tranflation) when he speaks in his own person he does not fcruple to compare Ajax leaping from deck to deck of the Grecian vessels to a skilful horfeman, who manages [G] four horses at a time, leaping occafionally from the back of one to the other; yet in defcribing the different evolutions of the field he never puts his warriors on horfeback, but always represents them as fighting from chariots. But the excuse which Ariftotle means to make is from the poet's representing things as they were at the time while he was writing, which, as far as they differ only from the time of the criticism, is allowable; but if they differ from the practice of the time concerning which the poet is writing, they are excusable only on the fame principle with the objections mentioned in the first note on this chapter. Virgil has been guilty of this fault in the very circumstance just mentioned of the horfemanship of Homer's heroes. For Afcanius is represented as an expert horseman soon after he is at Carthage. Our Shakespear is too often guilty of this fault, and is apt to make the customs of all ages and countries congenial with those of his own. [G] Pope has entirely destroyed the difficulty of this manœuvre by saying they were Four fair coursers practised to obey." Here is an instance, it is true, of the sense and spirit of the original facrificed to rhyme; but could not Pope have done better when a very inferior rhymist might have written, • So when some man, the courser skill'd to rein, • Four steeds selecting from a num'rous train, • To the full city from th' extended mead, • Impels their flight, and urges on their speed.' When

، Dr. Beattie, who censures a fault of this kind in Cowley, and another in Dryden's tranflation of Virgil, makes this judicious distinction. 'But ، if instruction may be drawn from the speeches and behaviour of Milton's devils, of Shakespeare's Macbeth, and of Virgil's Mezentius, Why is Cowley blamed for a phrase which at worst implies only a • flight fally of momentary pride (K)? I answer, that to speak serioufly the language of intemperate paffion is one thing, to imitate or defcribe it another. By the former, one can never merit praise or esteem; by the latter, one may merit much praise and do much good. In the one • cafe we recommend intemperate passions by our example, in the other we may render them odious by displaying their absurdity and consequences. To the greater part of his readers an author cannot convey • either pleasure or instruction by delivering sentiments as his own, which contradict the general confcience of mankind.' ESSAY ON POETRY AND MUSIC, Part 1. Chap. 1. If impious and immoral sentiments are put into the mouth of a virtuous character, the same fault is incurred perhaps rather in a higher degree. Since what a man says or even writes himself may be supposed to proceed from paffion; but sentiments that he makes a good man pronounce he will be imagined to approve from principle. In the Tatler, No. 122, by Addison, the circumstance is mentioned of Socrates quitting the theatre when a tragedy of Euripides was performing, on account of the following line being spoken by Hippolytus, [K] The following are the exceptionable lines of Cowley that are alluded to. • What shall I do to be for ever known, ، And make the age to come my own? ، I shall like beafts or common people die, • Unless you write my elegy." • My

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. The examples in the text are fufficiently clear; especially that of Dolon. Had he been deformed in body he could not have poffibly been so active as he is represented. The same objection may be made to the deformity of Richard 111. as he is described by Shakespear and the historians friendly to the house of Tudor; and goes far to justify the historic doubts of Walpole and (R) Buck. A modern general may command an army, however deficient in bodily strength and activity, provided he has good health. And an adımiral may command a fleet in an armed chair on the quarter deck; but a warrior with a withered arm and a distorted body, was ill calculated to turn the tide of battle in the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster; or to make the personal exertions Richard is said to have made in Bosworth-field.

will have opposite meanings, according to the position of the stop, after ' immortal,' or construction. ، verse,' which last by the way is the most natural

5.19 POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. when a number of persons are spoken of, and which occafion the frequent, though necessary repetition of he the said A. B.' in our deeds and law proceedings. Sometimes however in our verse an alteration of the usual arrangement of the words, will create an ambiguity that punctuation cannot elucidate. An instance occurs in a translation I have feen of two lines of the fifth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. ، Now Actor's fon, whose hands a pole-ax wield, Without a fword the gallant Perfeus kill'd.' Taking these verses by themselves it would appear that the fon of Actor had killed Perfeus, both from the position of the words, and the circumstance of the pole-axe. From the advantage the Latin has of diftinguishing the governing and governed cafe by the termination, no such ambiguity appears in the original. • At non Actoriden Erithen, cui lata bipennis • Telum erat, admoto petit enfe.' There is a striking instance in Thomson's tragedy of Tancred and Sigifmunda, where the construction of the sentence and the sense are in opposition to each other. Sigifmunda says, • Retire! for tho' th' emotions of my HEART Can ne'er alarm my VIRTUE; yet, alas! • They tear IT so, they pierce IT with such anguish, Oh, 'tis too much! I cannot bear the conflict!' Here the conftruction points to VIRTUE, but the sense obviously to HEART as the antecedent of IT. NOTE

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. rich dress, as in Malone's quotation from Ben Jonfon. The word is capable of either sense in the passage before us. The very contradiction it appears to convey in the first sense, is not unlikely to be the intent of a man who is counterfeiting madness: and on the other hand, a dress made of the skins of the animal, would be a very proper habit for the climate of Denmark, especially at a season of the year when Hamlet, Horatio and the soldiers complain much of the severity of the cold. As to which meaning is the most probable here, • Who shall decide when doctors disagree?' But I am inclined to think with Mr. Farmer, that it is meant to be equivocal. [B] Hamlet though he affected to be mad was not really fo. Therefore he might with to speak sense, and at the fame time give it the appearance of nonsense. [B] It must be confefsed Shakespear has not been very careful in keeping up this distinction throughout the play. See Note v. Chap. xv. Since I wrote the above I have met with another passage in this play, which, if the word is not equivocal, appears to confirm the first sense. Hamlet enquiring of Horatio about the ghost; afks impatiently • His beard was grizzled? No?' Horatio answers, It was, as I have seen it in his life, 'A SABLE filver'd.' 3 X NOTE

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. First, It conduces to the main end of poetry, the production of interest, [D] for we must be more interested for the event of a single combat than the destruction of one person by superior numbers; and such a circumstance will afford greater variety and produce greater effect in the detail. Secondly, The character of Achilles, in point of courage at least, if not [E] of conduct, will be raised; and the valor and address of both combatants will be shewn in a more confpicuous light. It is impoffible for contempt of inevitable death to be more strongly expressed than in the two lines uttered by Achilles after the dying prophecy of Hector. • Die thou the first-when Jove and heav'n ordain, • I follow thee.' [F] And thirdly, As to its being agreeable to received opinion, it is very possible it might be fo; and we may safely give it credit on the authority of the Stagirite. Our modern novel writers are sometimes apt to carry the second excuse a little too far, and favor us with perfect monsters. Sir Charles Grandifon is a much more improbable character than Caliban. The. [D] 'Even in comic composition expreffions, though sometimes falling into the improbable, ← become probable from exciting laughter, as this, "he possessed an estate no bigger than a. " Lacedæmonian's letter;" laughter being a paffion though a pleasing one... LONGINUS,, Sect. XXXVIII.. [E] Note v. Chap. xxiv.. [F] Τέθναθι,-Κῆρα δ᾽ ἐγὼ τότε δέξομαι ὑππότε κεν δὴ Ζεὺς ἐθέλη τελέσαι, ἠδ'᾽ ἀθάναλοι θεὸι ἄλλοι. 3 X 2 manners

• Much boots the speaker's character to mark : . God, hero, grave old man, or hot young spark, • Matron, or busy nurse, who's used to roam • Trading abroad, or plows his field at home: • If Colchian or Affyrian fill the scene, • Theban or Argian note the shades between [H].' COLMAN.

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. in Tom Thumb, than occurs in one line. He has declared war with the gods, and being from custom betrayed into an oath immediately corrects himself. • Now by the gods!-By Maximin I mean.' The author of the Letters of Literature mentions [1] a new figure of rhetoric which he calls ἄνοια, or UTTER ABSURDITY, a figure which he shews by examples, many writers of high reputation have made a very free use of. (K) To the instances he gives may be added the conduct of Virgil in regard to Ascanius. In the second book of the Æneid he is a little boy accompanying his father. • Haud paffibus æquis.' • And with unequal paces tripp'd along.' DRYDEN. And in the third book Andromache, speaking of her own son, says to him, < O mihi fola mei super Astyanactis imago, Sic oculos, fic ille manus, fic ora ferebat • Et nunc æquali tecum pubefceret ævo.' • In thee my loft Astyanax I trace, • Such were his eyes, his form, his blooming face; } • Such now, had fate decreed, his manhood's ripening grace.' Again, Virgil in one part of his fourth book makes him a child in lap, and in another an active youth following the chace on a fiery courser, and wishing to encounter a wild boar or a lion. [1] Letter XXII. [K] See Curiosities of Literature, Article Virgil, printed for J. Murray, 1791. There

' which have any thing affecting in the expression are generally so overacted as to cease to be " the mirror of nature [в]." There is in fact always fomething wanting in the apparatus of the drama, I mean especially in tragedy[c], to keep up the delusion. Here the painter has the advantage; he has only, it is true, a point of time to imitate, but this point he can imitate accurately. He can paint the horse starting at the dead bodies in the field of Bofworth or Agincourt; he has no need of rofin for the artificial and almost ridiculous flash of lightning which precedes the thunder of the scene-shifter; his imitative corruscations seem really to divide the clouds and threaten the wretched head of the night-wandering monarch. He can also stain the bosom of Juliet with blood without exciting our disgust, and shew us the bleeding rings from which the eyes of Glofter have been torn without raising too violent and offenfive a sensation of horror. If fuch is the effect of the modern theatrical apparatus on the interest of the drama, what must have been that of the ancient with all its exaggerated and unnatural appendages? Increasing the improbability in the strongest degree, and robbing the representation of its chief effect, the natural expression of the paffions, by the display of their operation on the human form and countenance through the exertions of a good actor. If however there are few actors who are able to do justice to the characters of Shakespear, there are also few other dramatic characters who [B] Letter XIV. [c] This is not fo much the cafe with comedy. A handsome room, a street, or even a view of St. James's Park, may be represented accurately enough. If the apparatus fails in comedy, it is generally not from deficiency but the contrary. See Note VIII. Chap. xv. do

POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. of their whole powers, rhythm, melody and measure. Surely then, when he chose afterwards to thew what one of these species of imitative poetry could effect when shorn of half its rays,' when making itself equal to the epopee by laying afide the music and the scenery and appраratus of the theatre, which, as well here as in the fixth chapter he allows to be the most affecting part of the drama: surely if, in the first place, he employs χρῶνται to express the use these compositions Do make of all their powers: by what words could he so well express the power tragedy MIGHT have of attaining its end contrary to the general practice by ufing one only, aς ἔξεςι χρῆσθαι [F]? It is true Ariftotle does, in the first chapter, hypothetically put the cafe of an epopee in trimeter or elegiac verse, but with apparent disapprobation on the fame principle as he undoubtedly would a tragedy in hexameters had he taken occasion to suppose one, from nature herself having pointed out the metre congenial with each. If therefore the critic means to say, we will give up the advantage the more simple cadence of iambics affords us in affecting the passions, and attack the epopee in the more ornamented and less natural language of hexameters; surely the advocate for the epopee in return might say, we will lay aside what advantage we derive from the richer cadence of hexameter verse, and contend with tragedy in iambics. Let us revert to the context and examine the drift of Aristotle's whole reasoning on the subject taken together. He first says, if acting is a [F] If it had been the usual custom in Greece to recite tragedy as the French drama is now recited by Teffier, then, and then only would the word χρῆται (as suggested by Mr. Winstanley,) have been the proper word to express this sense of the paffage. disadvantage

any interruption, a thing impoffible in the epopee, by which the impression is made much stronger; and the connexion of the events, the dependence of the parts on each other, and the result of the catastrophe from the whole, is much more readily comprehended, and more eafily remembered. The shortest novel is feldom read but at intervals. haps it is to avoid, or at least lessen this disadvantage, that Aristotle proposes reducing the length of the epopee [P] to that of the number of tragedies usually performed without intermission. But I imagine it would not have effected the end. However an Athenian audience might have been fafcinated by the music, the acting, the scenery, and the company [2], to fit so many hours during the representation of a favorite spectacle, I much doubt if they would have listened so long to the recitation of an epic poem, or have perused it so long with attention. Per- [P] See Note II. Chap. xiv. [Q] The convenience of the ancient theatre for conversation, and the portico allotted for the purpose of walking and converfing (between the intervals of the different pieces I presume,) is explained at large by M. Boindin, in his Differtation on the Ancient Theatres, in les Memoires de l'Academi des Inscriptions, Tom. I. p. 136. In the modern theatre the spectators are nailed to their seats during the whole performance, if the house is full; and a single spectator, seated among strangers, is in this country at least, engaged in almost as folitary an amusement as reading in his closet. NOTE

، incenfed against Agamemnon, he would have fought himself, and not • have expofed his friend alone against Hector in his armour, which was ' the cause of the rashness and death of that friend; and further, to ، ⚫ blend the two parts better with each other, the second begins a long time before we fee what will be the end of the first. All the conditions of reconciliation are proposed on the part of Agamemnon, before • the death of Patroclus, and even before he thinks of engaging in the ، battle. The consent of Achilles is wanted alone, and his not giving • it till after the death of Patroclus connects it with that of Hector; and we may truly say, that the rage and vengeance of Achilles against Hector, which is the second part of the poem, is the only cause of the reconciliation which finishes the first part.' TREATISE ON THE EPIC POEM, Part 1. Book 11. Chap. VII. ، I own the force of this reasoning does not strike me. If any event connected even intimately with the catastrophe, which is the foundation of a new action, however congenial with the former, is sufficient to unite the two actions so as to produce the epic unity, with a very little management the Iliad and Odyssey might have been so united. And on this principle the Fairy Queen may be called a regular epopee. I cannot but think the reconciliation of Achilles and Agamemnon, however brought about, is the solution of the plot of the Iliad as the death of Turnus is of the Æneid. But we have before [s] observed, that every catastrophe must be defective which leaves us in doubt as to the fate of the principal characters, as far as it is connected, or arifes from the action; in which respect the catastrophe of the Eneid is [s] Note 1. Chap. vII. faulty.

A COMMENTARY ON THE CHAP. XXVI. ، ، the literary world, and especially if it has the sanction of antiquity, has chofen to attack the position laid down here by Aristotle, that the attaining a proposed end effectually, is any fource of beauty or excellence. " “

“ He says, • I was present one day with a philosopher at the performance of a tragedy. "How fine this is!" said he. I replied, " What strikes you as being so fine?" He answered, The author has attained his end." The next day he took phyfic, which did him good. Well," faid I, "it has attained its end. What a beautiful “ dose of phyfic!" He found from this that we could not call a dose of physic beautiful, and that to give the name of beautiful to a thing, it is necessary that it should excite admiration and pleasure. He agreed that the tragedy had infpired him with both those sensations, and that in this confifted τὸ καλὸν, THE BEAUTIFUL. “Ο • We took a voyage to England. We there saw the same piece performed, perfectly translated. It fet all the spectators a yawning. ho," said he, “ I see the τὸ καλὸν is not the same for the English as for the French." After many reflections, he concluded that THE BEAUTIFUL is sometimes very relative, as what is decent at Japan may be indecent at Rome, and what is fashionable at Paris may be un-- fashionable at Pekin. And he saved himself the trouble of writing a long treatise on THE BEAUTIFUL. QUESTIONS SUR L'ENCYCLO- PEDIE, Art. BEAU.. Voltaire then proceeds, that actions and sentiments in themselves apparently virtuous, will meet with universal approbation, but that the beautiful and the excellent, in matters of taste, are merely arbitrary, depending entirely on local manners, habits, and prejudices. Le