avoiding and reprobating all such (which were not seldom the most expressive) as had been prophaned by a too vulgar use, or had suffered the touch of some other accidental taint. This ran us into periphrases and general expression; the peculiar bane of every polished language. Whereas the rhetorician's judgment here again should direct us: Omnia verba (exceptis paucis parum verecundis) sunt alicubi optima; nam et humilibus interim et vulgaribus est opus, et quæ cultiore in parte videntur sordida, ubi res poscit, propriè dicuntur. Which seems borrowed from Dionysius of Halicarnassus [περ. σύνθεσ. § xii.] ἐδὲν ὅτω ταπεινὸν, ἢ ῥυπαρὸν, ἢ μιαςὸν, ἢ ἄλλην τινὰ δυσχέρειαν ἔχον ἔσεσθαί φημι λόγε μόριον, ᾧ σημαίνεαί τι σῶμα ἢ πρᾶγμα, ὃ μηδεμίαν ἕξει χώραν ἐπιτηδείαν ἐν λόγοις. However those two causes, "The rejection of old words, as barbarous, "and of many modern ones, as unpolite," had so exhausted the strength and stores of our language, that, as I observed, it was high time for some master-hand to interpose and send us for supplies to our old poets; which, there is the highest authority for `saying, no one ever despised, but for a reason, not very consistent with his credit to avow: rudem enim esse omnino in nostris poëtis aut inertissimæ segnitiæ est aut fastidii delicatissimi. [Cic. de fin. 1. i. c. ii.] 72. —SI VOLET USUS, &c.] Consuetudo certissima loquendi magistra; utendumque planè ser mone, ut nummo, qui publica forma est. [Quinetil. 1. i. c. vi.] imitated from Horace. In Lucian too, we find it one of the charges brought against the Pedant, Lexiphanes, that he clipped the standard Coin of the Greek language-σπεδὴν ποιέμενος ὡς δή τι μέγα ὂν, εἴτι ξενίζοι καὶ τὸ καθεςηκός ΝΟΜΙΣ ΜΑ τῆς φωνῆς παρακόποι (c. 20.) " 翼 73. RES GESTAE, etc.] The purport of these lines [from v. 73 to 86] and their connexion with what follows, hath not been fully seen. They would express this general proposition, "That the “several kinds of poetry essentially differ from each "other, as may be gathered, not solely from their "different subjects, but their different measures; "which good sense, and an attention to the peculiar "natures of each, instructed the great inventors "and masters of them to employ." The use made of this proposition is to infer, "that therefore the "like attention should be had to the different species "of the same kind of poetry [v. 89, &c.] as in the case of tragedy and comedy (to which the applica"tion is made) whose peculiar differences and correspondencies, as resulting from the natures of each, should, in agreement to the universal law of decorum, be exactly known and diligently observed 'by the poet." 66 66 Singula quæque locum teneant sortita decentem. v. 92. But, there is a further propriety in this enumeration of the several kinds of poetry, as addressed to the dramatic writer. He is not only to study, for the purposes here explained, the characteristic differences of either species of the drama: He must further be knowing in the other kinds of poetry, so as to be able, as the nature of his work shall demand, to adopt the genius of each, in its turn, and to transfer the graces of universal poetry into the drama. Thus, to follow the division here laid down, there will sometimes be occasion for the pomp and high coloring of the EPIC narration; sometimes for the plaintive softness and passionate inconnexion of the ELEGY: and the, chorus, if characterized in the ancient manner, must catch the fiery, inraptured spirit of the ODE... Descriptas servare vices operumque colores, a. Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, POETA salutor ? Hence is seen the truth of that remark, which there hath been more than once occasion to make, "That, "however general these prefatory instructions may 66 appear, they more especially respect the case of "the drama." 90. INDIGNATUR ITEM, etc.-COENA THYESTAE.] Il met le souper de Thyeste pour toutes sortes de tragedies, says M. Dacier; but why this subject was singled out, as the representative of the rest, is not explained by him. We may be sure, it was not taken up at random. The reason was, that the Thyestes of Ennius was peculiarly chargeable with the fault, here censured: as is plain from a curious passage in the Orator; where Cicero, speaking of the loose numbers of certain poets, observes this, in particular, of the tragedy of Thyestes, Similia sunt quædam apud nostros: velut in Thyeste, Quemnam te esse dicam ? qui tardá in senectute. et quæ sequuntur: quæ nisi cùm tibicen accesserit, ORATIONI SUNT SOLUTÆ SIMILLIMA: which character exactly agrees to this of Horace, wherein the language of that play is censured, as flat and prosaic, and hardly rising above the level of ordinary conversation in comedy. This allusion to a particular play, written by one of their best poets, and frequently exhibited on the Roman stage, gives great force and spirit to the precept, at the same time that it exemplifies it in the happiest manner. It seems further probable to me, that the poet also designed an indirect compliment to Varius, whose Thyestes, we are told, [Quinctil. 1. x. c. i.] was not inferior to any tragedy of the Greeks. This double intention of these lines well suited the poet's general aim, which is seen through all his critical works, of beating down the excessive admiration of the old poets, and of asserting the just honours of the modern. It may further be observed that the critics have not felt the force of the words exponi and narrari in this precept. They are admirably chosen to express the two faults condemned: the first implying a kind of pomp and ostentation in the language, AP. 108-11 : which is therefore improper for the low subjects of comedy and the latter, as I have hinted, a flat, prosaic expression, not above the cast of a common narrative, and therefore equally unfit for tragedy. Nothing can be more rambling than the comment of Heinsius and Dacier on this last word. 94. IRATUSQUE CHREMES TUMIDO DILITIGAT ORe: ET TRAGICUS PLERUMQUE DOLET SERMONE PEDESTRI.] It may not be amiss to open a little more particularly the grounds of this criticism: which may best be done by a commentary on the following lines of the poet : Format enim natura priùs nos intùs ad omnem To draw after the life, in any given conjuncture, the poet must recollect (which may easily be done by consulting with his own conscious experience) that peculiar disposition of mind, into which the speaker is, of necessity, carried by the circumstances of his situation. And the sentiments, which give the image of this peculiar disposition, are the genuine lineaments of the character intended. But the truth of sentiment may be hurt or effaced by incongruous language, just as the exactest lineaments of a portrait are often disguised or lost under a vicious coloring. To paint then as well as draw after the truth, it is requisite that a further regard A 1 |