13.1.
mvp-aristotle-comment-38
13.1
THOSE WHO ARE REPRESENTED AS FALLING FROM HAPPINESS TO MISERY, SHOULD NOT BE PERSONS OF EXTRAORDINARY VIRTUE, AS THAT WOULD EXCITE DISGUST, RATHER THAN PITY, OR TERROR.
THIS rule is so just, and so confonant with our feelings, that I believe the modern drama will hardly furnish us with an instance of a person of exemplary virtue suffering distress unless it is brought about by some irregular passion of his own. Perhaps in the prose epopee Clarissa may fall under this error: fince, she is a character drawn as nearly perfect as possible; for furely the fingle imprudent step she took is not fufficient to obviate the objection. I do not, therefore, scruple to declare my opinion that this much-admired work is faulty in this respect. The fame objection also lies against the sufferings of Clementina in Grandifon. Whom, by the way, Richardfon has really, though undesignedly, made the heroine of his piece; a confirmation of the opinion advanced in the preceding note, that we judge of, and are affected by the characters from their actions and manners, and not from what the poet chuses to tell us, either in his own person or in that of a fictitious agent. NOTE
A COMMENTARY ON THE CHAP. XIII.
13.2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-39
13.2
NEITHER SHOULD VICIOUS CHARACTERS BE SHEWN AS RISING FROM MISERY TO HAPPINESS.
THE justness of this remark is also confirmed by our own feelings, and the uniform practice of all the imitative poets. Dr. Young in his tragedy of the Brothers being obliged from the circumstances and length of his fable to end his drama at a juncture when the villainy and artifice of Perseus appear to be completely successful, has thought it necessary to anticipate his future misfortunes and disgrace in a fupplementary epilogue, which begins thus : • An epilogue, thro' custom, is your right; • But ne'er, perhaps, was needful till to-night. To-night the virtuous falls, the guilty flies, • Guilt's dreadful close our narrow scene denies.' [A] [A] See note III, chap. xII. NOTE
13.3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-40
13.3
NEITHER SHOULD A VERY BAD MAN BE REPRESENTED AS FAL- LING FROM HAPPINESS TO MISERY; FOR THOUGH SUCH AN ARRANGEMENT MIGHT BE AGREEABLE TO OUR FEELINGS, IT WOULD EXCITE NEITHER PITY NOR TERROR. FOR ONE OF THESE PASSIONS IS EXCITED BY THE MISFORTUNES OF AN INNOCENT PERSON; THE OTHER BY THE MISFORTUNES OF A PERSON IN THE SAME SITUATION WITH OURSELVES; --SUCH AN EVENT, THEREFORE, WOULD BE NEITHER DISTRESSFUL NOR ALARMING.
IT is very obvious that Ariftotle [B], though he blames this mode of arranging the fable, at least prefers it to that which he has last mentioned, as not incurring the double defect of being disagreeable to our feelings, and at the same time not calculated to excite either pity or terror, and therefore totally repugnant to the nature and end of tragedy. What were the sentiments of the critic with regard to the comparative demerits of this, and the first mode, we can only conjecture, as he is himself filent on the subject; but from the general doctrine he advances, (at least in this chapter,) we must suppose his sentence would be most in favor of the first, as having tragic effect, though difagreeable to our feelings. The Fatal Curiosity of Lillo, which [c] Mr. Harris (I suppose by [B] See note VI. chap. XVIII. [c] See Philological Enquiries, p. 154. Mr. Harris seems to have mistaken the circumtance from which this play takes its name; he supposes the opening the casket to be the FATAL CURIOSITY, but I should rather conceive it to be the defire of the young man to fee the effect of his unexpected return on his parents. Ii way
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-
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. [E] uniting the discovery, and peripetía with the catastrophe, this will continue through the greatest part of the piece. Aristotle himself says in this passage, that pity is excited by the sufferings of innocence, and there is no reason why the character should not also possess that equality of fituation which he requires as calculated to raise terror. Perhaps on confidering this subject very attentively, weighing all the reasoning of Aristotle on the subject, recollecting how capable fuch an arrangement is of producing pity and terror, and with what thin shades such a character may be diftinguished from that which he afterwards points out as proper for tragedy, we may be the less surprised at his not being perfectly fatisfied with his own hypothesis as to the tragic catastrophe. For to some such wavering of opinion I think, we must impute part of what he says on this fubject in the next chapter [F]. When Aristotle speaks of similitude of character as essential to excite terror, it is obvious he does not mean as to rank in life, but as to difposition, virtue, and domeftic connections; for high rank in life was necessary, both from the practice of the Greek theatre, and the doctrine of Ariftotle, to the principal persons of tragedy. A private citizen of Athens, or of London, might be exactly in the same situation with Edipus, though a monarch, as to every circumstance on which the diftress of the tragedy turns. But though the tale of domestic forrow in private life was not admitted, either into the drama or epopee in the time of Ariftotle, he nevertheless could fee, that the effects of pity and terror must increase in proportion to the resemblance of character in every [E] See chap. xΙ. [F] See note IV, chap. xiv. where there is an attempt to account for this seeming inconsistency on other principles. Ii 2 respect.
respect. For he says in another place [G], 'We pity those who are our equals in age, in manners, in habits, in rank, and in family, fince in • all these circumstances of likeness, the fame things are most likely to ، ، happen to ourselves; and we may conclude in general, that those events which we fear should happen to ourselves, excite our pity when they happen to others.' As a farther illustration of this, and of what I have [H] before advanced, concerning the private life tragedy, especially in prose, I shall produce a quotation from the much admired work of the Abbé Barthelemi. • ZOPIRUS. And why do you not sometimes select these great mif- • fortunes, from the events of private life? They would affect me • much more strongly if I saw them continually happen on every fide ‹ of me. • THEODECTUS. I do not know, if they were drawn by a skilful hand, whether they would not excite our feelings too strongly. When • I take my examples from a rank much fuperior to your own, I leave you the liberty of applying them to yourself, and at the fame time the hope of escaping their consequences.' VOYAGE DU JEUNE ANA- CHARSIS, Chap. LXXI. Tom. IV. p. 32. French Ed. 4to. [C] Καὶ τοὺς ὅμοιους ἐλεῖυσι καθ᾽ ἡλικίαν, κατ᾽ ἤθη, κάθ᾿ ἕξεις, κατ᾿ ἀξιώματα, κατὰ γένει· ἐν πᾶσι γὰρ τούτοις, μᾶλλον φαίνεθαι καὶ ἀυτῷ ἂν ὑπάρξαι· ὅλως γὰρ καὶ ἐνλᾶυθα δεῖ λαβεῖν, ὅτι ὅσα ἐφ᾽ ἀνθῶν φιβᾶνται, ταῦτα ἐπ᾿ ἄλλων γιγνόμενα ἐλεῦσιν. ARIST. RHET. L. II. CH. VII. [H] See note 1, chap. IV. The
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. The observations as to the equality of character, extend to unnatural perfection as well as to unnatural deformity, though in a less degree. If a character is drawn compleatly vicious, it is impossible we can place ourselves so in the situation, as to bring it at all home to our own bosoms. We cannot interest ourselves in the fortune of a person, who we are conscious neither resembles ourselves nor any thing else in nature, or pity misfortunes which at once are the consequence and punishment of crimes we abhor. This excess of guilt is I believe seldom, if ever, afsigned to a principal character, but it is sometimes to be met with in fubordinate ones: Glenalvon is a confummate villain, without one quality to foften our indignation and disgust; [1] fince his brutal courage, folely employed in treachery and affaffination, only ferves to encrease our deteftation of him. The defect of the too perfect character is not so obvious. We can indeed at once fee that as to the first cafe, the want of interest on account of fimilarity of manners and situation, the consequence is nearly, if not exactly the fame. I believe Sir Charles Grandifon is much less a favorite with every reader than Tom Jones. But why we are less affected with pity by the sufferings of a perfect than an imperfect character, is not so clear. For if, as Aristotle says, pity is excited by misfortunes that are unmerited; this must apply most strongly to a character completely virtuous [K]. The cause however why we do not sympathife fo [1] See note 1, chap. xv. [K] In the passage quoted in note (G) from the Rhetoric, it appears that the paffions of pity and terror, as laid down there by Aristotle, are only modifications of the fame passion, diftinguished by the force with which they act on our own feelings, and which both depend on the resemblance of the condition and character of the fufferer to those of our own. much
A COMMENTARY ON THE CHAP. XIII. much with the sufferings of a perfect as an imperfect character, may perhaps arife from this circumftance. The resolution in misfortune, the intrepidity in danger, the contempt of pain and death, which are always shewn in a great and heroic character, take off much of our sense of his distress. We may revere, we may wish to emulate such a character, but we cannot feel strongly for a person who disdains to feel for himself. [L] When Iphigenia throws herself at her father's feet, and by the most tender supplications requests him to spare her life, we feel the strongest impreffions of pity; but when assuming a higher resolution, she resolves to devote herself for the glory of her country, we venerate the heroine indeed, but our tears for the trembling virgin are instantly dried. The observation of Horace, [M] To make ME grieve be first your anguish shewn, • And I shall feel your forrows like my own,' COLMAN. is as applicable to the poet's imitation of the character as the actor's performance of it. There is a just observation in the Tatler (No. 30) on this fingularity of feeling. Speaking of two rivals who were killed at the battle of Almanza, Steele makes this remark: 'The beloved lady is a woman of a sensible mind; but she has confefsed to me, that ⚫ after all her true and solid value for Conftant, she had much more concern for the loss of Careless. These noble and ferious spirits • have fomething equal to the adversities they meet with, and confequently lessen the objects of pity. Great accidents seem not cut out • so much for men of familiar characters, which makes them more eafily • pitied and soon after beloved.' [L] In the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. See note VI. chap. xv. [м] ► Si vis me flere, dolendum eft • Primum ipfi tibi.' NOTE
13.4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-41
13.4
THE CHARACTER THAT REMAINS IS A MEDIUM BETWEEN THESE: A MAN NEITHER EMINENTLY CONSPICUOUS FOR VIRTUE AND JUSTICE, NOR REDUCED TO MISERY BY WICKEDNESS AND VILLAINY; BUT RATHER ONE IN HIGH REPUTATION AND PROSPERITY SUFFERING THROUGH SOME HUMAN FRAILTY.
THIS choice of the proper character for tragedy is justified by reason and experience. The critic has already objected both to confummate virtue and confummate vice. The person he has now selected partakes enough of the first to interest us in his favor, and of the last to prevent our indignation and disgust at his sufferings. The crime, or the error, that occafions his distress, should not be brought upon him in confequence of a good action, (which sometimes happens in real life) or be even involuntary; neither should it arise from radical and deliberate villainy, but should result from fome violent paffion, or imprudent action, in a character not devoid of good qualities, though by no means perfect. In fuch colors has Shakespear drawn most of his principal tragic characters. Lear without radical vice is rash and choleric; Macbeth in the beginning of the play, exhibits a continued struggle between honor and ambition; Othello acts under the influence of an ungovernable paffion; Richard the Third appears an exception; and if we mean to reconcile the conduct of that play to this rule of Aristotle, we must I think adopt an excuse, mentioned indeed, but rejected by M. Leffing in
، [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. Modern manners have given to the theatre this defideratum of Ariftotle; the ἁμαρτία μεγάλη, the GREAT FRAILTY as it is excellently expressed by Mr. Twining, which is capable of involving a character in the deepest and most pathetic distress, and at the fame time so far from injuring its moral perfections, that it raises it in our esteem and occafions unmerited distress, without exciting either indignation or disgust. I mean the pafsion of love; that grand hinge on which modern fable, narrative as well as dramatic generally, I had almost said universally, turns. This paffion is to be found in ancient fable, but without the same diftinguishing character. It was confidered like every other passion as a fource of misfortune, and when ungovernable and carried to excess, as a vice. But in modern fable, however violent in its effects, it appears to stamp merit on the character in proportion to its force. I have no doubt that if Mark Antony had been prior to Aristotle he would have conceived him as a very bad person falling from happiness to misery in consequence of his crimes, and confequently no proper fubject for a tragic story. But the magic of this paffion, dressed in the garb of modern gallantry, has changed his nature; and the inglorious death of an abandoned profligate in the lap of floth and prostitution, becomes the glorious facrifice of a generous hero at the shrine of difinterested love. Thomson's tragedy of Tancred and Sigismunda furnishes another instance of this kind. Old Siffredi, who fills the office of the ancient chorus, though throughout the piece he is continually urging Tancred to facrifice his paffion to his duty, in his concluding speech inculcates the neceffity of indulging the passions. I much doubt if such sentiments would have been received with great applause by an Athenian audience. Kk Love
! Love is rather more confpicuous among the Roman poets; but the principal female character in the comedies of Terence is generally a prostitute, while the young woman of virtue is reduced to the situation of a mute. What are the Citheris, the Cynthia, the Delia and the Neæra of Gallus Propertius and Tibullus [Q], but mercenary harlots? The observation of Voltaire on the passion of love, as a subject for the drama, seems perfectly just. It is,' he says, ' of all the passions the ، moft theatrical, the most fertile in sentiments, the most varied. It ought to be the foul of a dramatic piece, or be entirely banished from ' from it.' EPISTLE TO M. MAFFEI ON MEROPE. What Voltaire discovered through art, our Shakespear produced from nature near two centuries before. The passion of love is no where more the entire subject, or if you will the foul of the drama, than in Cymbeline and [R] Romeo and Juliet; but he has introduced no infipid love tale as an under plot in his Macbeth, his Othello, or any of his historical plays, as Addison has in his Cato, and Dryden and Corneille have in the tragedy of Edipus. Shakespear however, the best master of general nature, [Q] Hammond in his Love Elegies, is a direct tranflator of Tibullus: his manners are all Roman. He abuses his mistresses for their venality, and talks of making a campaign, not as his nobler editor suggests to forget Neæra, but to accumulate money to fatisfy her avarice. And I through war must seek detefted gold, • Not for myself, but for my venal fair.' ELEGY II. I believe a campaign has seldom been the road to wealth except to the general and the commiffary. [R] Of this laft tragedy Lessing says, 'I know but of one tragedy to which love has put his * own hand, it is the Romeo and Juliet of Shakespear.' DRAMATURGIE, Part I. page 30. knew
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. knew that love, though a very dramatic passion, was not the only one, and many, indeed most of his tragedies are founded on others. And a French critic says, ' However much we may be prejudiced in favor of ' those tragedies whose interest turns upon love, it is nevertheless true, ، (and we have often remarked it,) that those tragedies which have fuc- ' ceeded best, do not owe their success to the love scenes.' LETTER FROM LE PERE TOURNEMINE TO LE PERE BRUMOY, PREFIXED TO VOLTAIRE'S MEROPE. Now it is obfervable, that from the restoration till within these last five and twenty years, when Garrick had reformed the stage by the school of Shakespear, almost the only tragedies which do not depend on a love story are the Isabella of Southern, and the Venice Preserved of Otway; and to the great interest of both, the stage at this hour bears the strongest teftimony. To Otway indeed may be applied, with the strictest justice, the character given by our critic to Euripides in this chapter, ' that if he does not conduct his • fable so well in other circumstances he is allowed to be the most tragic • of our poets.' Indeed what but the deep pathos of the catastrophe could induce a refined people to tolerate such a compilation of indecency, impiety, and immorality, as the Orphan [R]. From the fecluded life of modest women in [s] Greece, they neither took any part in the ferious concerns of life, out of their own family, nor could they be present at any public spectacle, therefore they were not in [R] • The famous Orphan of Otway, notwithstanding its real beauties, could hardly have ⚫ taken so prodigiously as it hath done if there were not somewhere a defect of good sense as < well as of good morals.' BISHOP OF WORCESTER'S NOTE ON HORACE'S ART OF POETRY, V. 19. See alfo Note 1. Chap. xv. [s] See Note II. ibid. Kk 2 reality
reality principal objects for the drama, which turned chiefly on public actions; nor was the theatre interested in obtaining their fuffrages, by selecting those stories in which they might take a confpicuous part. The revival of the arts found women in a very different situation; in real life they were in high confideration, and in the regions of narrative fable they were, as they continue to be, every thing. -Their bright eyes • Rain'd influence and judg'd the prize ' Of wit and arms, while both contend • To win her grace whom all commend.' We have therefore rather cause to wonder at their not assuming the same universal empire over the earlier modern drama, and that our first writers, and even Shakespear, have represented them actuated by ambition as often as by love, and as mothers, wives, and daughters, rather than as mistresses. But on confidering that all womens parts were played by men before the civil wars, our wonder will ceafe, and we are rather inclined to think that very paffionate love scenes, like some in Romeo and Juliet, must be more disgustful than pleasing [T]. After [T] Befides the effect on the audience it must greatly influence the sensibility of the actor, on whose feelings the true expression of the paffion, and consequently the feelings of the spectator must greatly depend, and these will be affected by a much finaller incongruity. Το cite the words of a writer very well informed as to dramatic effect, (Hill's Actor, chap. xv.) • As love can neither be concealed nor dissembled in real life before eyes that have any degree of difcernment, so on the ftage that illusion which is the foul of all theatrical reprefentations will never be well kept up in a love scene unless the perfons who perform the characters have hearts naturally susceptible of the passion; and we shall then see it in the • greatest perfection when those who are to protest, and figh, and vow to one another on the 4 stage in reality sigh and doat on one another off. We can remember two persons who though they
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. After the restoration, when the theatre acquired its last and brightest ornament, the addition of beautiful and elegant female performers, love reigned unrivalled in the drama; and from that period for many years, except the tragedies just mentioned, no new drama was exhibited without a love tale either principal or fubordinate. Of late years, as we have before observed, the stage has been taking a different turn. We have feen Douglas, the Grecian Daughter, and other tragedies of the fame nature, brought forward with applause suitable to their merit. And this complexion of our drama feems to be encreasing. The peculiar abilities of a justly celebrated actress for the representation of matrons, though excellent in all parts, has occafioned love in almost every new tragedy to give place to conjugal and maternal affection; indeed, so much has the latter got poffeffion of the theatre, that the introduction of a nursery is become almost a hacknied stage trick. ' they had both great merit as players, and had neither any thing of that diffolute life too fre- ، quent among those of their profession, yet when they were to be lovers on the stage never • played naturally. It will be seen that I have in my eye Mr. and Mrs. -. Happy as they were in one another the flat poffeffion put an end to transport; and though perhaps enjoying fomething much worthier and better they could not dissemble that. We may on the ⚫ other hand recollect instances, (but I shall not name the perfons) where those who were • pretended lovers on the stage were real lovers off it, and we never faw characters performed ⚫ in such perfection.' See Note VIII. Chap. xv. and Note 11. Chap. XI. and Note II.. Chap. XVII. as also the note immediately preceding this. NOTE
13.5.
mvp-aristotle-comment-42
13.6
OEDIPUS AND THYESTES.
METASTASIO is much dissatisfied with both these examples. He maintains that Thyestes is a character entirely vicious; and that Œdipus, ، to use his own words, ' is a man of fo fublime and pure a virtue, that ، ، to avoid the risk of becoming, as the oracle had menaced, incestuous and a parricide, he quits what he believes to be his paternal house, • hazards the fucceffion of a crown, and goes alone and voluntarily into exile. He is a man of fuch exalted courage, that being attacked and • infulted by a multitude of persons, instead of flying he valiantly de- • fends himself though alone, kills one, wounds another, and disperses • the rest.' ESTRATTO DELLA POETICA, page 259. To this eulogy on Edipus we may oppose the reasoning of Batteux. • It was in his power to avoid his crime and his misfortune, although • foretold by an oracle. This was the common belief of all Greece [u].. • Laius believed that by destroying his fon he should avoid his destiny; ، Edipus believed that by flying from Corinth, where he thought his ' father and mother then lived, he should avoid the fatal disafter with [u] I think this affertion wants foundation. Laius and Edipus believed they could avoid their destiny, but the event of the fable shews the contrary was the received opinion of the time. The fame may be faid of Aftyages and Cyrus, and Cræsus and Atys, in Herodotus. There are a thousand stories modern as well as ancient of attempts to avoid foretold evil, but they are always unsuccessful. The apologue attributed to Æfop, of the young man who is killed by striking at the picture of a lion, is intended to enforce the impossibility of avoiding our deftiny. • which
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
effects of the deep and filent grief shewn by the queen on her going out, Edipus replies : [w] • Burst as it will;-how mean foe'er my line, • I am refolv'd to trace it home.-Perhaps, ، (Such is the pride of woman,) she disdains My humble birth. - The child of fortune, I- • Blest in Her smile, such groundless scorn despise.- 'HER care maternal; and the kindred months • With gradual course from life's inferior scenes • Have rais'd me up to greatness: for my lineage, • Whate'er it be, enquiry cannot change it.' There are some strokes in the soliloquy of the Bastard in King Lear not unlike part of this speech; and perhaps the reader will trace some resemblance between one passage in it, and a reflection of Macbeth. • Come what, come may, • Time and the hour run thro' the roughest day.' [w] Ὁποῖα χρήζει ῥηγνύτω· τ᾽εμὸν δ᾽ ἐγὼ Κ'ει σμικρόν ἐσι σπέρμ᾽, ἰδεῖν βουλήσομαι. ᾿Αυτὴ δ᾽ ἴσως, (φρονεὶ γὰρ γυνὴ μέγα,) Τὴν δυσγένειαν τὴν ἐμὴν ἀισχύνεται. Ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἐμαυτὸν παῖδα τῆς τύχης νέμων, Τῆς ἐῦ διδέσης, ὀυκ ἀτιμασθήσομαι. Τῆς γὰρ πέφυκα μητρός· ὁι δὲ συγδενεις Μῆνές με μικρὸν καὶ μέγαν διώρισαν. Τοιός δε δ᾽ ἐκφὺς οὐκ ἂν ἐξέλθοιμ᾽, ἔτι Πότ᾿ ἄλλος, ὥσε μὴ κ' μαθεῖν τ᾿ εμὸν γένος. As
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. As to Thyestes, those who are determined never to find Aristotle and the Greeks in the wrong, may at least allow him to be as good a character as Richard the Third. Though to speak candidly, I rather think them both exceptions to the rule laid down by Ariftotle than examples to illustrate it.
13.6.
mvp-aristotle-comment-43
13.7
NOW, THE SUBJECTS OF THE BEST TRAGEDIES ARE TAKEN FROM A FEW FAMILIES.
IN the time of Aristotle, the walk both of history and fable was confined within very narrow limits. (x) The transactions of Greece and Persia were the principal, and indeed the only objects of history properly so called, for that part of the works of Herodotus which does not relate to those countries, is rather the compilation of the traveller than the narration of the regular historian; and fable was confined to the Grecian mythology. Our dramatic field is greatly enlarged. Befides poffeffing almost every story proper for the drama which was known when Ariftotle wrote, we have the additional advantage of events drawn from the annals of more than twenty succeeding centuries, with all the variety of incident and manners that must arise from the adventures, the customs, and prejudices of different ages, governments and climates, and all the combinations that memory and imagination have been able to form out of fuch an immense mass of matter. It is true,' as Bossu observes, ⚫ that the ancients could not foresee what would happen after them: ، [x] See Note Iv. Chap. Ix. LI • but
، ' 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
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THE SECOND FORM, WHICH IS ESTEEMED THE FIRST BY SOME, IS THAT WHICH HAS A DOUBLE COMPOSITION LIKE THE ODYSSEY; HAVING A DIFFERENT CATASTROPHE FOR THE VIRTUOUS AND VICIOUS. THIS FORM APPEARS TO BE THE FIRST, FROM THE WEAKNESS OF THE SPECTATORS, WHICH THE POETS ARE INDUCED TO FOLLOW, AND COMPOSE THEIR PLAYS TO GRATIFY THE FEELINGS OF THE AUDIENCE.
WHY it should be the duty of a poet not to gratify the feelings of his audience, or why it should be a weakness in the audience to wish to see virtue rewarded and vice punished in the catastrophe, provided the paffions of pity and terror have been strongly excited during the course of the drama, is I confefs totally beyond my comprehenfion. If the principal person of the piece, on our interest for whom the general interest of the drama must depend, is to be shewn as falling from happiness to mifery, through some great frailty, short of any species of guilt that shall fink him in our esteem, and is to be represented happy till the catastrophe of the piece, in the catastrophe only will the tragic impreffion be made. Or if the distress begin with the drama, and gradually increase till the fatal catastrophe, the peripetía or fudden revolution of fortune will be wanting. It is impoffible however to reduce to rules that which can be only tried by the criterion of our feelings; and from the passage before us it is obvious that the feelings of the Athenians L12 were
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. representation and the combination of the incidents as the only means of exciting pity and terror: if therefore that representation and that combination were not very striking, they could have but little effect on a theatre, whose apparatus was so ill calculated to conceal the means of imitation. [z] For, after all that has been faid of the dramatic probability of the ancient tragedy, encumbered as it was with its chorus, its exaggerated and unnatural recitation (A), its enormous masks and stilts as described by Julius Pollux and Lucian; its frequent instances of buffoonery, not put, like the similar passages in Shakespear into the mouth of fervants and clowns, but uttered by heroes and kings, and blended with the most serious parts of the drama, we may surely say with Mr. Twining [B], that the Greek tragedy was in ' many respects a fimple, unequal, imperfect thing.' [c] The modern theatre is very different; the means of imitation are less obvious and more natural, and the illusion much more complete. And befides it enters more into the detail both of passion and sentiment, and confequently has a variety of modes of affecting the feelings which [z] See Note II. Chap. v. and Note II. Chap. vI. [A] An enraged grenadier, with a fabre in his hand, is undoubtedly an object of terror ' and alarm; but if to make himself taller he mounts upon stilts; if in order to seem more ' enraged he covers his face with an illumined mask, he will then become a scare-crow, and • frighten children only; his enormous strides will but serve to render him the more ridiculous ' to the rational spectator.' LINGUET ON VOLTAIRE'S TRAGEDIES. [B] See Note 215 near the end. This is faid only as to dramatic effect. The spectacle was undoubtedly most magnificent. [c] See Note 1. Chap. Iv. were
were denied to the ancients. • In the drama of the Greeks we may • see indeed the strongest colors, but they are distinct, neither softened • by reflection or melted into each other; while in the modern drama ، we fee a thousand combinations which far from weakening the picture only serve to render it more lively, more various, and more interesting.' MARMONTEL. The impreffion of the paffions of pity [D] and terror on the mind as to their strength, will be influenced like every other impression corporal as [D] How much we are influenced by particular circumstances and situations, as to affecting impressions every one who confults his own feelings, or studies the feelings of others, will be foon convinced. To take a very familiar instance from the popular amusement of sporting: many a man who during the enthusiasm of the chace, will look on the death of a deer or a hare not only with unconcern but with pleasure, would feel a real pain at seeing a lamb slaughtered by a butcher, or will kill a pheasant or a partridge with his gun for his diversion, when he must be strongly pressed by hunger indeed before he would strangle a fowl with his hands. To those who like to judge rather by others sensations than their own, and think experiment inferior to classical authority, a quotation from Xenophon and Arrian on this subject may have weight. Xenophon speaking of the hare-chace says, ' This animal is so pleasing that who- ⚫ ever fees it either trailed, or found, or pursued, or taken, forgets every thing else that he ⚫ is most attached to. To all this Arrian assents in his Treatise on Coursing except the taking of the hare, which he says ' is neither a pleasing nor a striking sight, but rather dif- • gusting.' The difference of opinion in Xenophon, Arrian supposes to arise from his being ignorant of the use of greyhounds. Undoubtedly the corporal sufferings of the hare are more obvious to the courser than the hunter. Mr. Somerville in his Chace, where certainly it is not his purpose to diminish the enthusiasm of the sport, has chofen to mention a very improper circumstance, and which tends strongly to do it, in his description of the death of the hare. Till round inclos'd • By all the greedy pack, with infant fcreams • She yields her breath.' Thomfon
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. as well as mental, both by the force of the stroke and the sensibility of the object struck. If then the moderns possess more fenfib lity, and at the fame time their theatrical imitation not only exceeds the ancient in truth of representation, but enters more into affecting detail, it may produce that kind of illufion which shall be so strong as, on painful fubjects, to produce the paffions of pity and terror unallayed by the sensation of any attendant pleasure. In this case surely Aristotle would not condemn a poet for softening the pathos of the dramatic story in compliance with the feelings of his audience, fince in the passage quoted from his Treatise on Government he mentions (E) pleasure as a necessary concomitant of the purgation of the paffions by the imitative arts. Here however an objection may possibly occur. Aristotle indeed tells us, that the Athenians were best pleased with the happy catastrophe ending differently to the good and the bad; or in other words, with what is or rather has been usually called POETICAL JUSTICE. But how shall we Thomson not only censures hunting as a cruel diversion, but even blames the use of animal food. Angling however, he praises as a delightful amusement. Even there he feels for the worm. But he speaks with all the complacency imaginable of fixing with gentle twitch the barbed * hook' in the mouth of the fish. The early instructors of youth are now very careful in preventing them from tormenting animals, and it is a very proper care; but at the fame time it oftener originates from mistaken fondness than cruelty. If the fly-killing anecdote of Domitian be true, I think it rather a proof of his want of rational resources of amusement than a specimen of the natural barbarity of his disposition. [Ε] Καὶ πᾶσι γίγνεσθαι τινὰ καθάρσιν, καὶ κώφιζεσθαι μέθ ἡδονὴς. See Note I. Chap. VI. That the primary object of poetry is to please was the opinion also of Erastofthenes, another ancient philofopher, who says, ποιητὴν πάντα σοχάζεσθαι ψυχαγογίας ου διδασ καλίας. The poet effects all his purposes by interesting us not by instructing us.' See the beginning of the bishop of Worcester's Effay on the Idea of Universal Poetry. account
account for what has been said in favor of the opposite conduct of the tragic drama among ourselves? The answer to this objection appears sufficiently obvious [F]. People are very apt to think they like what they ought to like. How far this decifion of Aristotle might change the taste, or rather the fashion of Athens in this cafe, we have no opportunity of knowing; but that it has influenced, afsisted by the critical decifions of Addison and others, the opinion of many of the people of London, though perhaps not their real taste, is certain. Mr. Addison and his colleagues in the composition of the Tatlers and Spectators, have been at great pains to disseminate and enforce this doctrine of Aristotle, to the entire conviction of such of his readers as chose rather to judge of their feelings from the authority of philosophers and critics than their own sensations. See Spectator, No. 40, and Tatler, No. 82. The last mentioned paper is by the later editors attributed to Steele [G], but the doctrine [F] The father of English poetry makes no bad distinction between the decision of pedantry and nature in putting the commendation of the system of Ariftotle in the mouth of the monk, and giving the other opinion to the knight and the hoft. See the quotation from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales by Mr. Twining, Note 100. See also Beattie on Imagination, Chap. v. page 202. [G] In one of these tales which I do not quote as they are in every one's hands, we can hardly, on reflection, pity the man whose misfortune is brought on by so absurd an act as the pulling the trigger of a fire arm at a woman, even with a certainty of its being unloaded, which was not the cafe. A great frailty may be a proper foundation for tragic distress, but I doubt if a great folly is. As to the other story which Gay has made the groundwork of a very popular ballad, the event on which it turns is barely possible but very improbable, and therefore unfit for poetry. I have heard of an event as extraordinary, though directly opposite in the catastrophe, from an eye witness whose veracity I can depend on, which though on the same ground unfit for fable, those of my readers who think as I do on the subject will forgive me for relating. My friend was at one of the small bathing towns on the fouthern coast of England, I believe Teignmouth, when the Royal George was loft at Spithead. He was in the street when the account came. A poor woman in
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. doctrine as to poetical justice, and the weakness of the audience, is exactly correspondent with that of Addison in the Spectator, and this doctrine is supported by the introduction of two as shocking tales as a gloomy imagination ever invented, or the accidental occurrence of diftrefsful incidents actually occasioned. In this country, however, the authority of a dictator even in matters of taste will never be admitted, an appeal lies to the people, and their decree has reversed this dictatorial edict. [H] The tragedy of King Lear has always ended with the happinefs of Cordelia and the restoration of the old monarch, from the first alteration of it by Tate. Indeed Addison himself was too good a whig in all the agony of maternal grief exclaimed, I had a fon on board. A man at the instant was riding down the street. It was that son who had got leave of absence, and had left the ship the day before the accident. In No. 117 of the Tatler, a doctrine diametrically opposite is held. 'Inventions of this ' kind (ending happily) ' are the food and exercise of a good-natured disposition, which they ' please and gratify at the same time that they nourish and strengthen.' This paper the later editors attribute to Addison, but the internal evidence is strongly in favour of its being Steele's. Particularly the story of the dream. [H] Davies in his Dramatic Miscellanies has remarked, that King Lear in its original state was never a favorite. Mr. Colman altered Tate's alteration, preserving the happy catastrophe, but rejecting the love scenes between Edgar and Cordelia. The reason given by Tate for this love episode is quite a la Françoise, viz. the want of heroism in Edgar to take such a mode of saving his life for his own fake only. However the idea that Cordelia gives those harsh answers to her father to avoid a difagreeable marriage, reconciles us to a conduct otherwise a little inconsistent with so gentle a character; but on the other hand it deprives Albany, who is drawn as a perfectly just man, of the only excuse he can have for arming against his own conviction. < Where I could not be honest, ‹ I never yet was valiant: for this business, ' It touches us as France invades our land.' Mm not
not to lay afide his assumed authority, and bow to the majesty of the people, and flatter their prevailing taste even in violation of ancient manners by wedding a Roman virgin to a barbarian king, and of Roman history by dismissing to happiness and quiet a young patriot, who expired foon afterwards with his country's freedom in the plains of Philippi, for the fake of giving a happy catastrophe to his celebrated tragedy. I fay a happy catastrophe, for as to the character of Cato, as it is drawn by Addison, we are neither interested in his life or concerned for his death. To argue from my own feelings, that arrangement of dramatic fable is at the same time the most affecting, and the most pleasing in which those characters in whose welfare we are strongly interested, after experiencing the greatest distress, and while their utter ruin or death seems inevitable, are at once relieved by a sudden revolution of fortune quite unexpected and yet not improbable [1]; and the pleafure received from this will be greatly encreased if the distress of the fable arises from tyranny and oppreffion [K], the author of which. is involved in ruin by the peripetía. Such an arrangement will both: excite pity and terror, and the catastrophe will be still agreeable to our feelings. This form is exemplified in the Wife for a Month of Beaumont and Fletcher, the Marriage A-la-Mode of Dryden, the Grecian [1] The difficulty of doing this, I believe, has occafioned more poets to follow the oppofite plan than the precept of Aristotle; for as Dryden observes in his preface to the Spanish Friar, It is not so easy a business to make a tragedy end happily; for 'tis more difficult • to save than 'tis to kill. The dagger and the cup of poifon are always in readiness; but • to bring the action to the last extremity, and then by probable means to recover all, will * require the art and judgment of a writer, and cost him many a pang in the performance.' [K] This is even approved by Ariftotle. See Note VI. Chap. XVIII. Daughter,
Daughter, and above all in the fourth act of The Merchant of Venice. At the moment Shylock is preparing to execute his bloody purpose, the interpofition of Portia, Tarry a little-there is something else,' and the terror and disappointment of the Jew, has been already mentioned as affording the most striking theatrical situation that can be conceived. Perhaps the subsequent effect is something hurt by the raillery of Gratiano, the force of which should be kept down as much as poffible in the performance, instead of being highly exaggerated as it usually is. We have feen indeed the character of Portia given to a comic actress, and the gravest and most spirited parts of this scene made the vehicles of mimicry. In this Mrs. Clive was followed by Miss Macklin and others. Miss Young, now Mrs. Pope, had the honor of restoring Portia to her proper dignity. The fate of Sir Giles Overreach in Maffinger's New Way to Pay Old Debts, would be a masterpiece of this fort were it not for the circumstance [L] of his daughter being a party in the scheme to betray him, and the lord degrading his character as a nobleman, and still more as a foldier, by taking a principal part in the deception. Though the peripetía, or sudden revolution of fortune, when arifing even from accident is allowable in the tragedy with a happy catastrophe, as in the Wife for a Month of Beaumont and Fletcher, yet I think in the tragedy of the other form the unhappy catastrophe should be a necessary or probable consequence of the circumstances of the fable. Undeferved [L] From a circumstance of the same kind, though not immediately connected with the catastrophe, Shylock moves more of our compaffion than perhaps the poet intended; though this is greatly counteracted by the scene where his imprecations against his daughter's disobedience are alternately interrupted by his vows of vengeance against Antonio, Mm 2 mifery,
misery, purely accidental, will always displease in the representation. Our sense of moral fitness is hurt by it; we are apt to say [M] such things ought not to be. When such things happen in real life our first sentiments take that turn, and we can only reconcile them with our notions of a just and merciful Providence, by looking beyond this life; but we are not likely to make reflections of that kind at the theatre; the dramatic illufion is momentary; the instant we reason about it it vanishes. The distress in Romeo and Juliet arifes only from the Friar's coming a few minutes too late to the monument; and in Garrick's [N] alteration, by Romeo's drinking the poison a few moments too foon. The catastrophe of King Lear and of Douglas are both derived from accident. Tate has altered the first by making the messenger arrive only an instant sooner in the prison; in the original he comes time enough to fave the king. The other may be altered, and I believe has been on a private theatre, by making Douglas turn a moment sooner on Glenalvon. Tragedies of this fort do not require the great art and judgment mentioned by Dryden to change the catastrophe, but it can very feldom be done when the catastrophe arises inevitably from the incidents; as in the Edipus of Sophocles, and in Coriolanus, Othello, Timon of Athens, Venice Preserved, and the Fair Penitent. [o] Dr. Beattie blames the punishment of Lovelace in Clarifsa as not being the immediate consequence of his wickedness, but of fome infe- [M] Elements of Criticism, Vol. II. page 379. [N] By Garrick's judicious alteration the pathos is greatly increased. At the same time that I express a general opinion that the unhappy catastrophe ought not to arise from accident, I do not mean to say that when such an arrangement is adopted the merit of the poet does not increase in proportion as the power of affecting is made more forcible. [o] Effay on Fable and Romance, page 569. riority
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. riority to his antagonist in the use of the small sword. But though the wisdom of the age has abolished the trial by combat from our courts, it still makes a part of the jurisprudence of fable whether epic or dramatic [P]. On the stage we are pleased to fee Richard fall by the hand of Richmond, and Macbeth yield to Macduff, though from the characters of the combatants, it is most probable that the decifion of a duel would in reality have been the reverse. [P] We must nevertheless allow, that when either the epopee or the drama chuse to punish a character they have drawn superlatively vicious with death, they ought not to diftinguish his final conduct with any particular strokes of heroism. The ingenious author of Zelucco has erred in this respect when we consider what a fiend he is made. I think Thomson saw this clearly from the answer he makes Cassandra give to the vaunt of Ægifthus, in his tragedy of Agamemnon. EGISTHUS. We this important day • Will or with conquest crown, or bravely die. CASSANDRA. No, tyrant, no! the gods refuse thee that: • Not like the brave, but like the trembling coward, • Th' afsaffinating coward, shalt thou die.' M. Leffing, in speaking of the German tragedy of Richard the Third, makes a fimilar observation. (For the character of Richard, as drawn by the German poet, see Note Iv. on this chapter.) After so many crimes which we have been compelled to witness, we hear ⚫ that he has fallen in the field of battle. When the queen' (his sister-in-law, I prefume,) ' is informed of it, and the poet makes her say, "This is something," I have never been able ⚫ at the representation to refrain from faying to myself, " No! it's nothing." • More than ' one virtuous monarch has fallen in defending his crown against a powerful rebel. Richard ' dies indeed, but he dies like a hero; dies on the bed of honor: and can fuch a death recom- ⚫ pense me for the pain I have felt during all the piece from feeing the triumph of successful • villainy?' DRAMATURGIE, Part II. page 36. It was given only to Shakespear to paint the character of Richard as a cruel and successful tyrant without caufing him to awaken our disgust, and to make his death at the fame time honorable and supremely dreadful, by means of preceding machinery. NOTE
A COMMENTARY ON THE CHAP. XIII.
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THE SATISFACTION ATTAINED BY THESE MEANS IS NOT THAT WHICH SHOULD PROPERLY BE EXPECTED FROM TRAGEDY, BUT RATHER WHAT BELONGS TO COMEDY. FOR THERE, THOUGH THE CHARACTERS ACCORDING TO THE FABLE ARE AS IM- PLACABLE ENEMIES AS ORESTES AND ÆGISTHUS, THEY MUST GO OUT RECONCILED AT THE END OF THE PLAY, AND NO PERSON MUST BE KILLED BY ANOTHER.
i I PERFECTLY agree with Mr. Twining in his idea concerning the allufion to comedy. Nothing can be more natural than for Ariftotle, after having blamed the happy catastrophe arifing from the punishment of vice, and the reward of virtue, and saying that such an arrangement wanted the tragic requifites of pity and terror, and partook rather of the nature of comedy, to add, that comedy was indeed so averse to objects of pity and terror that it could hardly admit the punishment of vice; the scene must, on no account, be stained with blood; guilt must be reclaimed not punished; and enemies reconciled, even though the event violates the known facts on which the fable is founded. The notion that the death of fome of the persons is an essential characteristic of tragedy, has I believe prevailed on the modern theatre; and some of those dramas which take a higher tone than is usual with comedy, without including any fatal accident, have been announced to the public under the general name of plays. In common conversation we never apply tragic to any event, however distressful, that is not attended by fome fatal consequence. From
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..
A COMMENTARY ON THE CHAP. XIV. i !
