detached from the body, and almost independent of it; what soul, though sent into the world with great advantages of nature, cultivated with the liberal arts and sciences, conversant with histories of the dead, and enriched with observations on the living, can be sufficient to inform the whole body of so great a work? I touch here but transiently, without any strict method, on some few of those many rules of imitating nature, which Aristotle drew from Homer's Iliads and Odysseys, and which he fitted to the drama; furnishing himself also with observa. tions from the practice of the theatre, when it flourished under Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles: for the original of the stage was from the epic poem. Narration, doubtless, preceded acting and gave laws to it: what at first was told artfully, was, in process of time, represented gracefully to the sight and hearing. Those episodes of Homer, which were proper for the stage, the poets amplified each into an action: out of his limbs they formed their bodies: what he had contracted, they enlarged: out of one Hercules, were made infinity of pigmies, yet all endued with human souls: for from him, their great creator, they have each of them the divine particulam aura. They flowed from him at first, and are at last resolved into him. Nor were they only animated by him, but their measure and symmetry was owing to him. His one, entire, and great action, was copied by them according to the proportions of the drama. If he finished his orb within the year, it sufficed to teach them, that, their actiou being less, and being also less diversified with incidents, their orb, of consequence, must be circumscribed in a less compass, which they reduced within the limits either of a natural or an artificial day: so that, as he taught them to amplify what he had shortened-by the same rule, applied the contrary way, he taught them to shorten what he had amplified. Tragedy is the miniature of human life; and epic poem is the draught at length.

Here, my lord, I must contract also; for, before I was aware, I was almost running into a long digression, to prove that there is no such absolute necessity that the time of a stage action should so strictly be confined to twenty-four hours, as never to exceed them; for which

Aristotle contends, and the Grecian stage has practised. Some longer space, on some occasions, I think, may be allowed; especially for the English theatre, which requires more variety of incidents than the French. Corneille himself, after long practice, was inclined to think that the time allotted by the ancients was too short to raise and finish a great action: and better a mechanic rule were stretched or broken, than a great beauty were omitted. To raise, and afterwards to calm, the passionsto purge the soul from pride, by the examples of human miseries which befall the greatest-in few words, to expel arrogance, and introduce compassion, are the great ef fects of tragedy; great, I must confess, if they were altogether as true as they are pompous. But are habits to be introduced at three hours' warning? are radical diseases so suddenly removed? A mountebank may promise such a cure; but a skilful physician will not undertake it. An epic poem is not so much in haste: it works leisurely; the changes which it makes are slow; but the cure is likely to be more perfect. The effects of tragedy, as I said, are too violent to be lasting. If it be answered, that for this reason, tragedies are often to be seen, and the dose to be repeated; this is tacitly to confess that there is more virtue in one heroic poem, than in many tragedies. A man is humbled one day; and his pride returns the

next.

Chemical medicines are observed to relieve oftener than to cure; for it is the nature of spirits to make swift impressions, but not deep. Galenical decoctions, to which I may properly compare an epic poem, have more of body in them; they work by their substance and their weight. It is one reason of Aristotle's to prove that tragedy is the more noble, because it turns in a shorter compass; the whole action being circumscribed within the space of four-and-twenty hours. He might prove as well that a mushroom is to be preferred before a peach, because it shoots up in the compass of a night. A chariot may be driven round a pillar in less space than a large machine, because the bulk is not so great. Is the Moon a more noble planet thau Saturn, because she makes her revolution in less than thirty days, and he in little less

than thirty years? Both their orbs are in proportion to their several magnitudes; and, consequently, the quickness or slowness of their motion, and the time of their circumvolutions, is no argument of the greater or less perfection. And besides, what virtue is there in a tragedy, which is not contained in an epic poem, where pride is humbled, virtue rewarded, and vice punished; and those more amply treated, than the narrowness of the drama can admit? The shining quality of an epic hero, his magnanimity, his constancy, his patience, his piety, or whatever characteristical virtue his poet gives him, raises our first admiration. We are naturally prone to imitate what we admire; and frequent acts produce a habit. If the hero's chief quality be vicious; as, for example, the choler and obstinate desire of vengeance in Achilles, yet the moral is instructive: and, besides, we are informed in the very proposition of the Iliads, that this anger was pernicious: that it brought a thousand ills on the Grecian camp. The courage of Achilles is proposed to imitation, not his pride and disobedience to his general, nor his brutal cruelty to his dead enemy, nor the selling his body to his father. We abhor these actions while we read them; and what we abhor, we never imitate. The poet only shows them, like rocks or quicksands, to be shunned.

By this example, the critics have concluded, that it is not necessary the manners of the hero should be virtuous. They are poetically good, if they are of a piece: though, where a character of perfect virtue is set before us, it is more lovely; for there the whole hero is to be imitated. This is the Æneas of our Author: this is that idea of perfection in an epic poem, which painters and statuaries have only in their minds, and which no hands are able to express. These are the beauties of a God in a human body. When the picture of Achilles is drawn in tragedy, he is taken with those warts, and moles, and hard features, by those who represent him on the stage, or he is no more Achilles; for his creator Homer has so described him. Yet even thus he appears a perfect hero, though an imperfect character of virtue. Horace paints him after Homer, and delivers him to be copied on the stage with all those imperfections. Therefore they are either not

faults in a heroic poem, or faults common to the drama. After all, on the whole merits of the cause it must be acknowledged that the epic poem is more for the manners, and tragedy for the passions. The passions, as I have said, are violent: and acute distempers require medicines of a strong and speedy operation. Ill habits of the mind are, like chronical diseases, to be corrected by degrees, and cured by alteratives: wherein, though purges are sometimes necessary, yet diet, good air, and moderate exercise, have the greatest part. The matter being thus stated, it will appear that both sorts of poetry are of use for their proper ends. The stage is more active: the epic poem works at greater leisure, yet is active too, when need requires: for dialogue is imitated by the drama, from the more active parts of it. One puts off a fit, like the quinquina, and relieves us only for a time; the other roots out the distemper, and gives a healthful habit. The sun enlightens and cheers us, dispels fogs, and warms the ground, with his daily beams; but the corn is sowed, increases, is ripened, and is reaped for use in process of time, and in its proper season. I proceed, from the greatness of the action, to the dignity of the actors; I mean the persons employed in both poems. There, likewise, tragedy will be seen to borrow from the epopee; and that which borrows is always of less dignity, because it has not of its own. A subject, it is true, may lend to his sovereign: but the act of borrowing makes the king inferior; because he wants, and the subject supplies. And suppose the persons of the drama wholly fabulous, or the poet's invention, yet heroic poetry gave him the examples of that invention, because it was first, and Homer the common father of the stage. I know not of any one advantage which tragedy can boast above heroic poetry, but that it is represented to the view, as well as read, and instructs in the closet, as well as on the theatre. This is an uncontended excellence, and a chief branch of its prerogative; yet I may be allowed to say, without partiality, that herein the actors share the poet's praise. Your lordship knows some modern tragedies which are beautiful on the stage, and yet I am confident you would not read them. Tryphon the

stationer2 complains, they are seldom asked for in his shop. The poet, who flourished in the scene, is damned in the ruelle; nay more, he is not esteemed a good poet by those who see and hear his extravagancies with delight. They are a sort of stately fustian, and lofty childishness. Nothing but nature can give a sincere pleasure: where that is not imitated, it is grotesque painting; 'the fine woman ends in a fish's tail 3.

I might also add that many things, which not only please, but are real beauties, in the reading, would appear absurd upon the stage; and those not only the speciosa miracula, as Horace calls them, of transformations, of Scylla, Antiphates, and the Læstrigons, which cannot be represented even in operas; but the prowess of Achilles or Æneas would appear ridiculous in our dwarf heroes of the theatre. We can believe they routed armies, in Homer or in Virgil; but ne Hercules contra duos in the drama. I forbear to instance in many things, which the stage cannot or ought not to represent; for I have said already more than I intended on this subject, and should fear it might be turned against me, that I plead for the preeminence of epic poetry, because I have taken some pains in translating Virgil, if this were the first time that I had delivered my opinion in this dispute. But I have more than once already maintained the rights of my two masters against their rivals of the scene, even while I wrote tragedies myself, and had no thoughts of this present undertaking. I submit my opinion to your judgment, who are better qualified than any man I know to decide this controversy. You come, my lord, instructed in the cause, and needed not that I should open it. Your " Essay of Poetry 4,' which was published without a name, and of which I was not honoured with the confidence, I read over and over with much delight, and as much instruction, and without flattering you, or making myself more moral than I am-not without some envy. I was loath to be informed how an epic poem should be written, or how a tragedy should be contrived and managed, in

2 An allusion to Martial, but apparently pointed at Tonson.

3 See the Exordium to Horace's Art of Poetry.

4 Printed in 1682.

VOL. I.

I