1 is a fable exhibited to the view, and rendered palpable to the fenses; and every decoration of the Stage is contrived to impofe the delufion on the spectator, by confpiring with the imitation. It is addreffed to the imagination, through which it opens to itself a communication with the heart, where it is to excite certain paffions and affections; each character being perfonated, and each event exhibited, the attention of the audience is greatly captivated, and the imagination fo far affifts in the delufion, as to fympathize in the reprefentation. To the Mufe of Tragedy, therefore, Mr. Pope has affigned the noble task, To wake the foul by tender strokes of art, To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold. He afcribes fuch power to a well-wrought fcene, as to afk, When Cato groans who does not wish to bleed? He He would not have fuppofed the death of Hector, or Sarpedon, could have produced an equal effect on any reader of the Iliad; fuch enthusiasm is to be caught only from the Stage, and is the effect alone of strongworking fympathy, and paffions agitated by the peculiar force and activity of the dramatic manner. Writers of feeble genius, in their compofitions for the Stage, frequently deviate into the narrative and descriptive style; a fault for which nothing can atone; for the Drama is a species of poetry, as diftinct from the epic, as Statuary from Painting; and can no more claim that merit which specifically belongs to it, and constitutes its perfection, from fine verfification, or any other poetical ornaments, than a ftatue can be rendered a fine specimen of sculpture, from being beautifully coloured, or highly polished. It is frivolous and idle, therefore, to infift on any little incidental and acceffory beauties, where the main part, the very conftitution of the thing, is defective. Yet on fuch trivial beauties do the French found all their pre tenfions tenfions to fuperiority and excellence in the Drama. According to Aristotle, there can be no Tragedy without Action *. Mr. Voltaire confeffes, that fome of the most admired Tragedies in France, are rather converfations, than representations of an action. It will hardly be allowed to those who fail in the most effential part of an art, to fet up their performances as models. Can they who have robbed the Tragic Mufe of all her virtue, and divefted her of whatsoever gives her a real interest in the human heart, require, we should adore her for the glitter of a few falfe brilliants, or the nice arrangement of frippery ornaments? If fhe wears any thing of intrinfic value, it has been borrowed from the ancients; but by these artists it is so fantastically fashioned to modern modes, as to lofe all its original graces, and even that neceffary qualification of all Ornaments, Fitness and Propriety. A * Arift. Chap. vi. French French Tragedy is a tiffue of declamations, and laboured recitals of the catastrophe, by which the spirit of the Drama is greatly weakened and enervated, and the theatrical piece is deprived of that peculiar influence over the mind, which it derives from the vivid force of Representation. Segnius irritant animos demiffa per aurem, The bufinefs of the Drama is to excite fympathy; and its effect on the spectator depends on such a justness of imitation, as fhall cause, to a certain degree, the fame paffions and affections, as if what was exhibited were real. We have obferved narra tive imitation to be too faint and feeble a means to excite paffion: declamation, still worse, plays idly on the surface of the fubject, and makes the Poet, who should be concealed in the action, vifible to the fpectator. In many works of art, our pleasure arifes from a reflection on the art itself; 7 itself; and in a comparison, drawn by the mind, between the original and the copy before us. But here the Art and the Artist muft not appear; for, as often as we recur to the Poet, so often our sympathy with the Action on the Stage is fufpended. The pompous declamations of the French Theatre are mere rhetorical flourishes, fuch as an uninterested person might make on the state of the perfons in the drama. They affume the office of the Spectator by expreffing his feelings, instead of conveying to us the strong emotions and fenfations of the perfons under the preffure of diftrefs. Experience informs us, that even the inarticulate groans and involuntary convulfions of a creature in agonies, affect us much more, than any eloquent and elaborate description of its fituation, delivered in the propereft words, and moft fignificant geftures. Our pity is then attendant on the paffion of the unhappy person, and on his own fenfe of his misfortunes. From description, from the report of a Spectator, we may make fome conjecture of his internal |