Pindaric variety to the numbers, that is wanting not only to the best French and Italian, but even to the best Latin odes. In the pieces here commended, the figures are ftrong, and the tranfitions bold, and there is a juft mixture of fentiment and imagery; and particularly, they are animated with a noble spirit of liberty. I must refer the reader to the characters of Alcæus and of Milton in the two firft, and to the ftanza of Mr. Weft's ode, on the barons procuring magna charta, which I fhall infert at length, On yonder plain, Along whose willow-fringed fide I saw, when at thy reconciling word, Injustice, anarchy, inteftine jarr, Defpotic infolence, the wafting fword, And all the brazen throats of civil war Were hufh'd in peace; from this imperious throne Abafh'd, difmay'd, Like a chas'd lion to the favage fhade Of his own forefts fell Oppreffion fled, From vanquish'd John's reluctant hand, THE next LYRIC compofitions of POPE, are two chorufes inferted in a very heavy tragedy altered from Shakespear by the duke of Buckingham; in which we see, that the most accurate obfervation of dramatic rules without genius is of no effect. Thefe chorufes are extremely elegant and harmonious; but are they not chargeable with the fault, which Ariftotle imputes to many of Euripides, that they are foreign and adventitious to the fubject, and contribute nothing towards the advancement of the main action? Whereas the chorus ought, σε Μόριον είναι το όλο, και συναΓωνιζεσθαι, * Dodsley's Miscellanies, vol. ii. pag. 152. See alfo in the fame volume, an excellent ode of Mr. Cobb. * Κεφ. την περι ποιητικής. to to be a part or member of the one Whole, co-operate with it, and help to accelerate the intended event; as is constantly, adds the philofopher, the practice of Sophocles. Whereas thefe reflections of POPE on the baneful influences of war, on the arts and learning, and on the univerfal power of love, feem to be too general, are not fufficiently appropriated, do not rife from the fubject and occafion, and might be inferted with equal propriety in twenty other tragedies. This remark of Ariftotle, though he does not himself produce any examples, máy be verified from the following, among many others. In the Phoenicians of Euripides, they fing a long and very beautiful, but ill placed, hymn to Mars; I fpeak of that which begins fo nobly, Ω πολύμοχθος Άρης, τι ποθ' αιμαλι Και θανατω καλέχη, Βρομια παράμεσος εορίαις * "O direful Mars! why art thou ftill delight"ed with blood and with death, and why "an enemy to the feasts of Bacchus?" And a ftill more glaring instance may be brought from the end of the third act of the Troades, in which the story of Ganymede is introduced not very artificially*. To these may may be added that exquifite ode in praise of Apollo, defcriptive of his birth and victories, which we find in the Iphigenia in Tauris †. On the other hand, the choruses of Sophocles never defert the subject of each particular drama, and all their fentiments and reflections are drawn from the fituation of the principal perfonage of the fable. Nay Sophocles hath artfully found a method of making thofe poetical defcriptions, with which the chorufes of the ancients abound, carry on the chief defign of the piece; and has by these means accomplished what is a great difficulty in writing tragedy, has united poetry with propriety. In the Philoc Ver. 795. + Ver. 1235. et feq. tetes The subject and fcene of this tragedy, fo romantic and uncommon, are highly pleafing to the imagination. See par ticularly tetes the chorus takes a natural occafion, at verse 694, to give a minute and moving picture of the folitary life of that unfortunate hero; and when afterwards at verse 855, pain has totally exhaufted the ftrength and spirits of Philoctetes, and it is neceffary for the plot of the tragedy that he should fall afleep, it is then, that the chorus breaks out into an exquifite ode to fleep. As in the Antigone, with equal beauty and decorum in an address to the god of love, at verfe 791 of that play. And thus laftly, when the birth of Edipus is doubtful, and his parents.unknown, the chorus fuddenly exclaims, « Τις σε, τεκνον, τις σ' έκλε των μακραίωνων μangaswvwv; &c. From which, O my son, "of the immortal gods, didst thou spring? "Was it some nymph, a favourite of Pan ticularly his defcription of his being left in this defolate island, v. 280. His lamentation for the loss of his bow, v. 1140. and also 1185. and his last adieu to the island, 1508. One may here observe by the way, that the acients thought bodily pains, and wounds, &c. proper objects to be reprefented on the stage. See alfo the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, and the lamentations of Hercules in it. "that |