had no dramatic piece equal to the Silent Woman of Ben Johnson, performed 1609. At which time Corneille was but three old. The rules of the drama are as years old. much violated in the * Cid, 1637, beautiful as it is, as in the Macbeth, Lear, and Othello, all written before Corneille was born; whofe first comedy, Melite, which is now never acted, was represented 1625. The pieces of the very fertile Hardy (for he wrote fix hundred) the immediate prede *Father Tournemine used to relate, that M. de Chalons; who had been fecretary to Mary de Medicis, and had retired to Rouen, was the person who advised Corneille to study the Spanish language; and read to him fome paffages of Guillon de Caftro, which ftruck Corneille fo much, that he determined to imitate his Cid. The artifices used by Richlieu, and the engines he fet to work to crush this fine play, are well known. Not one of the Cardinal's tools was fo vehement as the Abbé d' Aubignac; who attacked Corneille on account of his family, his perfon, his gefture, his voice, and even the conduct of his domeftic affairs. When the Cid first appeared (fays Fontenelle) the Cardinal was as much alarmed as if he had feen the Spaniards at the gates of Paris. In the year 1635, Richlien, in the midft of the important political concerns that occupied his mighty genius, wrote the greatest part of a play, called, La comedie des Tuilleries, in which Corneille propofed fome alterations to be made in the third act: which honeft freedom the Cardinal never forgave. 5 ceffor ceffor of Corneille, are full of improbabilities, indecorums, and abfurdities, and by no means comparable to Melite. As to the correctness of the French stage, of which we hear fo much, the rules of the three unities are indeed rigorously and fcrupulously observed *; but the best of their tragedies, even fome of thofe of the sweet and exact Racine, have defects of another kind, and are what may be justly called, defcriptive and declamatory dramas; and contain the sentiments and feelings of the author or the spectator, rather than of the perfon introduced as speaking. "After the restoration, fays POPE in the margin, Waller, with the Earl of Dorset, Mr. Godolphin, and others, tranflated the Pompey of Corneille; and the more correct French poets began to be in reputation." But the model was unfortunately and injudiciously chofen; for the Pompey of Corneille is one of his moft declamatory† tragedies. * As they are certainly in Samson Agonistes. See the Effay on Shakespeare by Mrs. Montague, in which he has done honour to her fex and nation; and gedies. And the rhyme translation they gave of it, is performed pitifully enough. Even Voltaire confeffes, that Corneille is always making his heroes fay of themselves, that they are great men. It is in this paffage that POPE fays of two great mafters of verfification; Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join WHAT! did Milton contribute nothing to the harmony and extent of our lan which was fent to Voltaire with this motto prefixed to it; by a perfon who admired it as a piece of exquifite criticism PALLAS Te hoc Vulnere, PALLAS Immolat VIRG. The Iphigenie of Racine, it must be owned, is an incomparable piece; it is chiefly fo, from Racine's attentive study of the pathetic Euripides. Corneille had not read the Greek tragedies. He was able to read Aristotle's Poetics only in Heinfius's tranflation. It is remarkable, that there is not a fingle line in Otway or Rowe from the Greek tragedies. And Dryden in his Œdipus has imitated Seneca and Corneille, not Sophocles. Taffo, in one of his letters to a friend, defires him to procure for him a copy of Sophocles and Euripides; but adds, that he begs it may be in Latin, and not in Greek. Smith, though a fcholar, has fcarcely imitated Euripides at all, in his Phædra. * Ver. 267. guage? vary, guage? nothing to our national tafte, by his noble imitations of Homer, Virgil, and the Greek tragedies? Surely his verfes and refound as much, and difplay as much majefty and energy, as any that can be found in Dryden. And we will venture to say, that he that studies Milton attentively, will gain a truer tafte for genuine poetry, than he that forms himself on French writers, and their followers * His name furely was not to be omitted on this occafion. THE other paffages in which POPE appears not to be equal to his original, are, in the three little ftories which Horace has introduced into his fecond epiftle, with so much nature and humour; namely, the ftory of the flave-feller, at verse 2; that of the foldier of Lucullus, at verse 26; and the ftory of the madman at Argos, " It * It is difficult, methinks; to read the following words of Voltaire, without feeling a little indignation. feems as if the fame caufe that deprives the English of a genius for Painting and Mufic, denies them alfo a genius for Tragedy." Letter to Maffei. T. 8. p. 225. verse 128. The laft, particularly, lofes much of its grace and propriety, by transferring the scene from the theatre to the parliament-house, from poetry to politics. age, 64. Two noblemen of taste and learning, the Duke of Shrewsbury and the Earl of Oxford, defired POPE to melt down and çaft anew the weighty bullion of Dr. Donne's fatires; who had degraded and deformed a vaft fund of fterling wit and strong fenfe, by the most harsh and uncouth diction. POPE fucceeded in giving harmony to a writer, more rough and rugged than even any of his and who profited fo little by the example Spencer had fet, of a moft mufical and mellifluous verfification; far beyond the verfification of Fairfax, who is fo frequently mentioned as the greatest improver of the harmony of our language. The fatires of Hall, written in very smooth and pleafing numbers, preceded those of Donne many years; for his Virgidemiarum were published, in fix books, in the year 1597; in which he calls himVOL. II. A a felf |