procured him the name of inventor of them; and the honour of being imitated by the dictator Sylla. 3. Soon after, and before Horace wrote, the Oscan characters, now become absurd, had disappeared, and made way for the Greek satyrs. 4. Horace finding this entertainment established, and even necessary for the populace of Rome, undertook to regulate it, and to substitute to the gross ribaldry of the attellanes, the poignant wit of the Greek satyrs. 5. If it is asked, in what that wit consisted, it may be answered, principally in the double character of the satyrs themselves, who, though rustic and grotesque personages, were supposed in ancient mythology to be great masters of civil and moral wisdom: but should Horace be censured, as he has been, for preferring these attellanes to the elegant mimes of Laberius, it may be replied, that we rate too high the merit of these mimes. Cicero despised them, and the best ancients represent them as a confused medley of comic drollery, on a variety of subjects, without any order or design; delivered by one actor, and heightened with all the licence of obscene gesticulation.

-184.

This inelegancy (to pass to another remark of Vol.i. p. 165 Mr. Hurd) was the general character of ancient wit, which consisted rather in a rude illiberal satire, than in a just and temperate ridicule, restrained within the bounds of decency and good manners: Cicero and Horace themselves, though masters of every other part of elegant composition, joke with a very ill-grace. A favourite topic of ancient raillery was corporal defects; a decisive proof of

tor. L. xi.

the coarseness of their humour; and this practice was recommended by rule, and enforced by the Cic. de Ora- authority of their greatest masters. After this we C.59 and 66. must not be surprised if they preferred those authors whose wit was like their own, rough and coarse: Plautus to Terence, Aristophanes to Menander. We must follow Mr. Hurd for a few moments into his inquiry into the causes of this defect. 1. The free and popular governments of antiquity. These, by setting all the citizens on a level, took off those restraints of civility which arise from a fear of displeasing; and which can alone curb the licentiousness of ridicule. The only court to be paid was from the orators to the people. These were to be entertained with the coarse banter proper to please them; and, design passing into habit, these orators, and after them the nation, accustomed themselves to it at all times. The old comedy was therefore an excellent school for an orator, and always recommended as such: but when arbitrary power had moulded the Roman manners to more obsequiousness and decency, Terence and Menander began to receive a deserved applause; though even then, ancient wit was never thoroughly refined; for, 2. The old festal entertainments still subsisted, the Panathenæa and Dionysiæ of the Greeks, the Bacchanalia and Saturnalia of the Romans; and preserved always an image, as well of the frank libertine wit of their old stage, as of the original equality and independency of their old times. Upon this subject I agree with Mr. Hurd; but I think this influence of govern–

ment

ment upon the manners and literature of a nation, might be the subject of a very original inquiry. I have a good many ideas myself, though, as the Abbé Trublet calls it, "Je n'ai pas achevé de les penser."

Upon v. 404, Mr. Hurd explains his author differently from his predecessors. They extended that encomium to all poetry, which Horace meant only for the lyric. In fact it is only adequate to that species which is besides so particularly pointed out by "Musa lyræ solers, et cantor Apollo." This is a delicate stroke of Horace, after his panegyric upon dramatic poetry, to shew the lyric had also its merit, and to prevent the Pisos from despising the choice he had made.

These are the principal notes upon the Art of Poetry. On the Epistle to Augustus, I find but two worthy much notice.

Vol. i. p. 234-237.

The first is the explanation of a magnificent allegory, which opens the third Georgic. Virgil, after apologizing for the meanness of his subject, breaks away, with a poetical enthusiasm, to foretel his successes in the future great work of the Æneid. He shadows it under the idea of a triumph, in which he is to lead captive all the Grecian muses: the monument of the triumph is to be the usual one, a temple consecrated by games and sacrifices, and every ornament of which alluded to the tutelary divinity Augustus. Thus, under the popular authorized veil of the apotheosis of that prince, he lets us at once into the whole secret of his plan. This explanation is exquisitely fine; Vol. ii.

p. 30-50.

but if my memory is good, the P. Catrou had started it before Mr. Hurd.

2dly, The other remark is to explode a practice, familiar to Ovid, and not unknown to more correct writers; that of coupling two substantives to a verb which does not strictly govern both, or which at least must be taken in two different significations. He proves very copiously, against the Professor d'Orville, that such a practice breaks the natural connexion of our ideas, and turns the attention of the reader from the subject, to a discovery and admiration of the art of the writer. He therefore pronounces it unworthy of serious P. 61-73. poetry.

Vol. ii.

Vol. i. p. 2.17-308.

As yet I have only spoken of Mr. Hurd's notes. His discourse upon the several provinces of the drama is a truly critical performance; I may even say, a truly philosophical one. From simple definitions of each species, he deduces a very extensive theory. To touch the heart by an interesting story, is the end of tragedy; to please our curiosity, and perhaps our malignity, by a faithful representation of manners, is the purpose of comedy. To excite laughter is the sole, and contemptible aim of farce.

These inquiries are delicate; sometimes we think we are reasoning upon things, when in fact we are only cavilling about words. It is more especially so with regard to those ideas which do not represent substances, but only modes of thinking, and moral combinations. There we can be only guided by practice and experience. They are out of the province

province of reason.

If Plautus and Aristophanes have given the name of comedy to a species of entertainment of which the essence was ridicule, they had a right to do it. If their successors Terence and Menander have given the same name to their more serious drama, we must either prove these definitions not incompatible, or give some other appellation to the object of the last. All that reason can do upon this head is, dropping names, to investigate the sources of our pleasures, to class them, and to see how far they agree, or interfere, with each other.

It is very natural that the contemplation of human life should be the favourite amusement of man. It is his easiest, and yet least mortifying, method of studying himself. This contemplation can be only considered in two different lights, manners and actions. We must allow, though we cannot explain it, that our humanity makes us hurt and yet pleased with the misfortunes of our fellow creatures; and that the recital of a story, terrible or pathetic, rouses every faculty in the human heart. On the other hand, daily experience convinces us that our reflections and conversations never turn upon any subject so often, and with so much pleasure, as the various characters of mankind, It is to give us these pleasures, less strongly perhaps, but through the means of fiction, more completely, that two entertainments have been invented, to the first of which we may hypothetically give the name of tragedy; and to the second, that of comedy. The laws of each species are to be deduced

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