"which have both under-plot and a turned "defign, which keeps the audience in expec"tation of the catastrophe ? whereas in the "Greek poets we see through the whole defign at firft. tr "For the characters, they are neither fo many nor so various in Sophocles and Euripides, as in Shakspeare and Fletcher; only they are more adapted to thofe ends "of tragedy which Ariftotle commends to "us, pity and terror. "The manners flow from the characters, "and confequently muft partake of their ad"vantages and difadvantages. "The thoughts and words, which are the "fourth and fifth beauties of tragedy, are certainly more noble and more poetical in "the English than in the Greek, which "must be proved by comparing them, fome"what more equitably than Mr. Rymer has "done. "After all, we need not yield that the English way is lefs conducing to move pity " and " and terror, because they often shew virtue "oppreffed and vice punished: where they "do not both, or either, they are not to be "defended. "And if we should grant that the Greeks "performed this better, perhaps it may ad"mit of difpute, whether pity and terror are "either the prime, or at least the only ends " of tragedy. "'Tis not enough that Ariftotle has faid "fo; for Aristotle drew his models of tra gedy from Sophocles and Euripides; and, "if he had seen ours, might have changed "his mind. And chiefly we have to say (what I hinted on pity and terror, in the "laft paragraph fave one), that the punish"ment of vice and reward of virtue are the "most adequate ends of tragedy, because most "conducing to good example of life. Now pity is not so easily raised for a criminal, " and the ancient tragedy always represents "its chief person such, as it is for an innocent man; and the fuffering of inno"cence and punishment of the offender is " of the nature of English tragedy: contra 66 "rily, in the Greek, innocence is unhappy "often, and the offender efcapes. Then we "are not touched with the fufferings of any "fort of men fo much as of lovers; and "this was almost unknown to the ancients : "fo that they neither administered poetical 'justice, of which Mr. Rymer boasts, so "well as we; neither knew they the best "common place of pity, which is love. 66 "He therefore unjustly blames us for not building on what the ancients left us; for "it feems, upon confideration of the pre"mises, that we have wholly finished what they began. 66 My judgement on this piece is this, that "it is extremely learned; but that the au"thor of it is better read in the Greek than "in the English poets: that all writers ought to study this critique, as the best "account I have ever feen of the ancients : "that the model of tragedy he has here given, "is excellent, and extreme correct; but "that it is not the only model of all tragedy, "because it is too much circumfcribed in plot, characters, &c, and laftly, that we 3 "may be taught here justly to admire and "imitate the ancients, without giving them "the preference with this author, in preju"dice to our own country. "Want of method in this excellent trea"tife, makes the thoughts of the author "fometimes obfcure. "His meaning, that pity and terror are to "be moved, is, that they are to be moved as "the means conducing to the ends of tra gedy, which are pleasure and instruction. "And these two ends may be thus distinguished. The chief end of the poet is to please; for his immediate reputation depends on it. "The great end of the poem is to instruct, "which is performed by making pleasure the "vehicle of that instruction; for poefy is an art, and all arts are made to profit. Rapin. 66 "The pity, which the poet is to labour "for, is for the criminal, not for those or 10 " him The "him whom he has murdered, or who have "Another obscurity is, where he says So"phocles perfected tragedy by introducing "the third actor; that is, he meant, three "kinds of action; one company finging, or "another playing on the mufick; a third "dancing. "To make a true judgement in this competition betwixt the Greek poets and the English, in tragedy: "Confider, first, how Ariftotle has de"fined a tragedy. Secondly, what he affigns "the end of it to be. Thirdly, what he "thinks the beauties of it. Fourthly, the " means to attain the end propofed. "Compare the Greek and English tragick "poets justly, and without partiality, according to those rules. "Then |