THOMAS RYMER. Author of the Foedera and other popular Works    

Licenced,  
july 17, 1677.  
R. L'estrange.   

THE Tragedies OF The last Age Considered and Examined BY THE Practice of the Ancients, AND BY THE Common sense of all Ages.  
IN A LETTER TO Fleetwood Shepherd, Esq  
By THOMAS RYMER, of Grays-Inn, Esquire.  
— Clament periisse pudorem.  
Cuncti penè patres; ea quum reprehendere coner  
Quae gravis AEsopus, quae doctus Roscius egit.  Hor. 
London, Printed for Richard Tonson at his Shop under Grays-Inn Gate, next Grays-Inn Lane, 1678.   

The Contents.  

ACtion, the unity must be observed, or else the conduct will be all at random, 106.  
where the unity is observed, the Play cannot have two several Names, 106.  
where observed, the Poet cannot easily transgress in the unities of time and place, 24.  
Actors make the success of Plays, 6. 138.  
Aristotle on Poesy long conned in Italy, e'er heard of on this side of the Alps, 142.  
Argument, Plot or Fable for a Tragedy ought to be taken from History, 17. 56.  
aught to be more accurate and Philosophical than History, 14. 16.  
aught to represent persons better than the life, 36.  
Antiochus' conduct when in love with his stepmother, 78.  
Antigone of Sophocles its Argument, 40.  
Athens and London the same for Nature and Manners, 6.  
Athens and Malmsbury have the same Test for Tragedy, 99  
Athenians a fight people, 27, 28.  
Authors of English Tragedy began not where the Ancients left off, 11.  
How they would have Charactered Phedra, 92.   

B.  
Been. Johnson preferred, 144.  
Bloodshed rarely on the Ancient theatres, and why, 27, 28.   

C.  
CAnace Parturiens. Nero the Emperor an actor in it, 70.  
Canace of Speroni Sperone, its argument and preparation, 77.  
Crime, when extenuated by the Ancients, 27. 78.   

D.  
Decorum's shockt, 37. 39 42. 47. and throughout.   

E.  
EEmpericks in Poetry, 5.  
English Language proper for Tragedy, 10, 11.  
Episode by whom introduced, 12. gave offence to the Priests, 12.  
Epic Poems and Tragedys agree, 74. differ 120.  
Euripides blamed by the Ancients for making Characters more wicked than they should be, 36.  
his Etheocles and Polynices, 30, 31, 32. & ult.  
his Phedra, 79, 80.  
Evil design to be represented in its fall but not in its advances, 75, 76.   

F.  
FAble the soul of a Tragedy, 4. 19  
fanatics in Poetry, 8.  
Fancy not straitened by rules, 9  
Frailties, Comical and Heroic frailties, 45.   

H.  
Heart and Mohun the AEsopus and Roscius of the English stage. 138.  
Historical and accidental truths will not do in Tragedy, 14, 15, 19, 47.  
Historical impudence, 114.   

I.  
INstinct of good use in Poetry, 64.   

K.  
KIngs are all in Poetry presumptive Heroes, 61.  
ridiculously pictured, 60.  
not to be swayed by evil Ministers, 46, 47.  
profaned in these Tragedies every where, 107. 114.  
cannot be accessary to a crime, 115.  
one without a Name, 107.   

M.  
MAdness, what sort to be imitated in Poetry, 80.  
Man's life not to be taken away without a just account, 23.  
Manners to be reformed by Poetry, 7.  
Mezentius made an object of Pity, 120.  
Murders in these Tragedies every where absurd, 120.   

P.  
PAssion allows no long speeches, 44.  
no comparisons, 54.  
no parenthesis, 128.  
Please, what naturally, 5. 14. and throughout.  
Pictures how they please, 15.  
Poets not incomprehensible, 14.  
must take care that the Criminal sin not too far, and are not to be trusted for an Hell behind the Scenes, 26.  
Not to take Nature at the second hand, 140.  
what the end and design of Poetry, 13, 14. 15. 142.  
Poetical justice, 23. 25, 26. 37. 128.  
poetical death, 42.  
Pity and Terror, 25. 27. 28. and throughout.  
Preparation; what it ought to be for an incestuous love, 79.  
What for two Brothers that kill each other, 29, 30, to 36.  
What for making a King, 38, 39  
Phedra in Euripides; her love not volnntary, 79, 80.  
Her secrecy, conflict and frenzy, 80.  
Her fortitude, 82, 90, 91.  
Her rave, 81.  
Her reveres, and good sense, 83.  
The Nurse's importunity and subtlety, 81.  
How ready to catch at the least hint, 82.  
Speech to debauch Phedra, from 85 to 89.  
How she equivocates, and deceives Phedra: and speaks to Hippolytus without her consent or privity, 91. 92.  
Phedra in Seneca, the whole conduct unnatural, absurd, nor any way tending to move pity, or tertor, 93, 94, 95, 96.   

R.  
REason is to discipline fancy, 8, 109.   

S.  
SCene wrought up, if not skilfully, torments nature, 76, 113.  
Scene; which only in these Plays proper to move pity, 132.  
But the occasion none of the greatest, the Conduct corpse, the Turn faulty, the Counter-turn ridiculous, 133, 134, 135, 136.  
An instance of a Scene with all these in perfection, 137, 138.  
Socrates brought moral Philosophy in Vogue, assisted by Sophocles and Euripides, 13.  
Seneca his Phedra, 93.  
His thoughts often from the purpose, 97.  
Speech of Julia in Herodian, 49.  
Of Sophia in the Play, 50, 51.  
Compared together, 52, 53.  
Speeches of more mettle, 54, 55.  
Speech of Cassius and Arbaces compared, 103.   

T.  
TRagedy, its reputation in former days, 2.  
What Originally, 11.  
Requirrs what is great in nature, 43, 65, 80, 85.  
Ours of the last age without design, 16.  
Unpolitical, 29.  
Of Rollo, the Argument, 18.  
Condemned, 19, 41.  
How it ought to have been contrived with the same catastrophe, 19, 20.  
And how the characters of Rollo, Otto, Aubrey and Matilda ought to have been designed, 21, 22, 23.  
Rollo and Otto compared with Etheocles and Polynices in Euripides, from 30 to 36.  
Characters, as we sinned them, of Rollo, 37.  
Of Aubrey, 38.  
Of Sophia, 42.  
Of Matilda, ib.  
Of Edith, 43, 44, 45.  
Of Latorche, 46.  
Several reasons why Edith rather than Hamond should have killed the King, 47, 48.  
Reasons for the success of this Tragedy, 55.  
A King and no King, the Title Comical, 57  
The Plot, ib.  
Nothing accurate or Philosophical in it, 57, 58, 59  
How the Plot ought to have been cast, 58.  
Improbabilities, and the characters unlikely, and all unproper, 59  
Character of Arbaces, 61, 62, 63.  
What it should have been, 63.  
How wisely he acquits himself when unkinged, 65, 66, 67.  
Ought rather to have been knocked o'th' head, than to have married a Princess, 67.  
The Princess is made more silly than any common Shepherdess, 68, 69.  
The Queen-Mother a Patient Griselda, 70.  
Reason of this Tragedy's success, 5.  
Maid's Tragedy, its Argument, 104.  
Unnatural, improbable, 106, 107, 113.  
How it might have been better, 126.  
Action double, 106.  
The King a fool and madman, 109.  
Evadne a Monster, 111.  
Melantius, 122.  
Calianax, 123.  
Aspasia, 123, 124.  
Amintor, 125.   

W.  
WHo and who may kill one another with decency, 117.  
Wilful murder not to be suffered in Tragedy, 27.  
Wicked persons not to be brought on the Stage, 120.  
Women judges, 4, 5, 95, 96.  
Modesty necessary and essential to their character, 113.  
Are not to suffer any cruelties from man, 70, 74.  
Virgil's infinite care on that occasion, 71, 72.  
Yet corrected by Varus and Tucca, 73.    

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TO Fleetwood Shepherd, Esq  
HAving several mornings, and early, travelled to St. James', with the only design of being with you; and missing you as often; I became so mortified with the misfortune, that I resolved to come into the Town no more, till assured of your return from Copt-Hall: but because I meant not altogether to kill myself, for my entertainment I provided me some of those Master pieces of Wit, so renowned everywhere, and so edifying to the Stage: I mean the choicest and most applauded English Tragedies of this last age; as Rollo; A King and no King; the Maid's Tragedy by Beaumond and Fletcher: Othello, and julius Caesar, by Shakespeare; and Catiline by Worthy Ben.  
These I perused with some attention, and some reflections I made; in which, how far I mistake your sense, that is, how far I am mistaken, I desire to be informed.  
I had heard that the Theatre was wont to be called the School of Virtue; and Tragedy a Poem for Kings: That they who first brought Tragedy to perfection, were made Vice-Roys and Governors of Islands; were honoured everywhere with Statues of Marble, and Statues of Brass; were styled the Wise Sophocles, the Wise Euripides by God and Man, by Oracles and Philosophers. That for teaching Morality, Crantor and Chrysippus were nobody to 'em. This latter transcribed the whole Medea of Euripides into his works. That so refined a People, and so frugal a Commonwealth as Athens did tax and assess themselves, and laid out more of their public Exchequer upon the representation of these Plays, than all their Wars stood them in, though sometimes both Seas and Land were covered with Pagan Enemies that invaded them. And not Athens only, but (who hated Athens) so austere and glum a generation as those of Sparta, by the care of Lycurgus, agreed the same honour to these Atheman Poets.  
These things coming into my mind, surely (thought I) men's brains lie not in the same place as formerly; or else Poetry is not now the same thing it was in those days of yore.  
I therefore made enquiry what difference might be in our Philosophy and Manners; I found that our Philosophers agreed well enough with theirs, in the main; however, that our Poets have forced another way to the wood; a by-road, that runs directly cross to that of Nature, Manners and Philosophy which gained the Ancients so great veneration.  
I would not examine the proportions, the unities and outward regularities, the mechanical part of Tragedies: there is no talking of Beauties when there wants Essentials; 'tis not necessary for a man to have a nose on his face, nor to have two legs: he may be a true man, though awkward and unsightly, as the Monster in the Tempest.  
Nor have I much troubled their phrase and expression, I have not vexed their language with the doubts, the remarks and eternal triflings of the French Grammaticasters': much less have I cast about for Jests, and gone a quibble-catching.  
I have chief considered the Fable or Plot, which all conclude to be the Soul of a Tragedy; which, with the Ancients, is always found to be a reasonable Soul; but with us, for the most part, a brutish, and often worse than brutish.  
And certainly there is not required much Learning, or that a man must be some Aristotle, and Doctor of Subtleties, to form a right judgement in this particular; common sense suffices; and rarely have I known the Women-judges mistake in these points, when they have the patience to think, and (left to their own heads) they decide with their own sense. But if people are prepossessed, if they will judge of Rollo by Othello, and one crooked line by another, we can never have a certainty.  
Amongst those who will be objecting against the doctrine I lay down, may peradventure appear a sort of men who have remembered so and so; and value themselves upon their experience. I may write by the Book (say they) what I have a mind, but they know what will please. These are a kind of Stage-quacks and Empirics in Poetry, who have got a Receipt to please: And no Collegiate like 'em for purging the Passions.  
These say (for instance) a King and no King, pleases. I say the Comical part pleases.  
I say that Mr. Hart pleases; most of the business falls to his share, and what he delivers, every one takes upon content; their eyes are prepossessed and charmed by his action, before aught of the Poets can approach their ears; and to the most wretched of Characters, he gives a lustre and brillant which dazzles the sight, that the deformities in the Poetry cannot be perceived.  
Therefore a distinction is to be made between what pleases naturally in itself, and what pleases upon the account of Machine's, Actors, Dances and circumstances which are merely accidental to the Tragedy.  
Aristotle observes, that in his time, some who (wanting the talon to write what might please) made it their care that the Actors should help out, where the Muses failed.  
These objectors urge, that there is also another great accident, which is, that Athens and London have not the same Meridian.  
Certain it is, that Nature is the same, and Man is the same, he loves, grieves, hates, envies, has the same affections and passions in both places, and the same springs that give them motion. What moved pity there, will here also produce the same effect.  
This must be confessed, unless they will, in effect say, that we have not that delicate taste of things; we are not so refined, nor so virtuous; that Athens was more civilised by their Philosophers, than we with both our Philosophers and twelve Apostles.  
But were it to be supposed that Nature with us is a corrupt and depraved Nature, that we are Barbarians, and humanity dwells not amongst us; shall our Poet therefore pamper this corrupt nature, and indulge our barbarity? Shall he not rather purge away the corruption, and reform our manners? Shall he not with Orpheus rather choose to draw the Brutes after him, than be himself a follower of the Herd? Was it thus that the ancient Poets (by the best Philosophers) became styled the Fathers of Knowledge, and Interpreters of the Gods?  
Lastly, (though Tragedy is a Poem chief for men of sense,) yet I cannot be persuaded that the people are so very mad of Acorns, but that they could be well content to eat the Bread of civil persons.  
Say others, Poetry and Reason, how come these to be Cater-cousins? Poetry is the Child of Fancy, and is never to be schooled and disciplined by Reason; Poetry, say they, is blind inspiration, is pure enthusiasm, is rapture and rage all over.  
But Fancy, I think, in Poetry, is like Faith in Religion; it makes far discoveries, and soars above reason, but never clashes, or runs against it. Fancy leaps, and frisks, and away she's gone; whilst reason rattles the chains, and follows after. Reason must consent and ratify whatever by fancy is attempted in its absence; or else 'tis all null and void in law. However, in the contrivance and oeconomy of a Play, reason is always principally to be consulted. Those who object against reason, are the fanatics in Poetry, and are never to be saved by their good works.  
Others imagine that these rules and restraints on the Plot and Argument of Tragedy, would hinder much good intrigue, would clog invention, and make all Plays alike and uniform.  
But certainly Nature affords plenty and variety enough of Beauties, that no man need complain if the deformed are cloistered up, and shut from him. Such a Painter has been, who could draw nothing but a Rose; yet other Painters can design one and the same good face in a thousand several figures: it may be remembered that there are but five vowels; or be considered, from seven Planets, and their several positions, how many faces and fortunes the ginger distributes to the people. And has not a Poet more virtues and vices within his circle, cannot he observe them and their influences in their several situations, in their oppositions and conjunctions, in their altitudes and depressions: and he shall sooner find his ink, than the stores of Nature exhausted.  
Other objections may be answered as they fall in the way. I would only have you before hand advertized, that you will find me tied to no certain stile, nor laying my reasons together in form and method. You will find me sometimes reasoning, sometimes declaiming, sometimes citing authority for common sense; sometimes uttering, as my own, what may be had at any Bookshop in the Nation: sometimes doubting when I might be positive, and sometimes confident out of season; sometimes turning Tragedy into what is light and comical, and sporting when I should be serious. This variety made the travel more easy. And you know I am not cut out for writing a Treatise, nor have a genius to pen any thing exactly; so long as I am true to the main sense before me, you will pardon me in the rest.  
Nor will it, I hope, give offence that I handle these Tragedies with the same liberty that I formerly had taken in examining the Epic Poems of Spencer, Cowley, and such names as will ever be sacred to me. Rapine tells us, for his own Countrymen, that none of them had writ a good Tragedy, nor was ever like to write one. And an 
a O sia stata la loro poca fortuna, ò l'imperferione della nostra lingua nelle cose gravy A. Tass●ne.  eminent Italian confesses, that the best of theirs exceeded not a mediocrity; and yet their Divine Tasso had then writ a Tragedy, and Torrismodo strutted it in buskins.  
But I have elsewhere declared my opinion, that the English want neither genius nor language for so great a work. And, certainly, had our Authors began with Tragedy, as Sophocles and Euripides left it; had they either built on the same foundation, or after their model; we might ere this day have seen Poetry in greater perfection, and boasted such Monuments of wit as Greece or Rome never knew in all their glory.  
ACcording to the best account I can gather from old Authors.  
Tragedy was originally, with the Ancients, a piece of Religious worship, a part of their Liturgy. The Priests sung an Anthem to their god Dionysus, whilst the Goat 
b Would therefore read in Horace, Vilem certavit ad hircum, as — Rhetor dicturus ad arras; not being satisfied in Antiquity with what the Commentators devise, when they read, — Vilem certavit ob hircum.  stood at his Altar to be sacrificed: And this was called the Goat-song or Tragedy.  
These Priests were called the Chorus, and now the whole Ceremony was performed by them, till Thespis introduced the Episods, and brought an Actor on the Stage.  
Which Episods the Priests at first mutimed against as an Innovation, they listened a long while, thought it ran off from the Text, and wondered how it would be applied, till at last their patience could hold no longer, and they roared out, 
c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Nothing to Dionisus, nothing to Dionysus, which gave beginning to the Proverb.  
But the Poet gaining upon them by little and little, enlarged the Episod, till it grew the main part; the part which only is by us called the Tragedy. And to make amends to Dionysus, the theatres were all consecrated to him, and the Plays acted there, called Dionysus' Plays.  
After much new-modelling, many changes and alterations, AEschylus came with a second Actor on the Stage, and lessened the business of the Chorus proportionably. But Sophocles adding a third Actor, and painted Scenes, gave (in Aristotle's opinion,) the utmost perfection to Tragedy.  
And now it was that (the men of sense grown weary with discoursing of Atoms and empty Space, and the humour of Mechanical Philosophy near spent.) Socrates set up for Morality, and all the buzz in Athens was now about virtue and good life.  
Comrades with him, and Confederates in his worthy design, were our Sophocleses and Euripides: But these took a different method.  
He instructed in a pleasant facetious manner, by witty questions, allusions and parables.  
These were for teaching by examples, in a graver way, yet extremely pleasant and delightful. And, finding in Histoty, the same end happen to the righteous and to the unjust, virtue often oppressed, and wickedness on the Throne: they saw these particular yesterday-truths were imperfect and unproper to illustrate the universal and eternal truths by them intended. Finding also that this unequal distribution of rewards and punishments did perplex the wisest, and by the Atheist was made a scandal to the Divine Providence. They concluded, that a Poet must of necessity see justice exactly administered, if he intended to please. For, said they, if the World can scarce be satisfied with God Almighty, whose holy will and purposes are not to be comprehended; a Poet (in these matters) shall never be pardoned, who (they are sure) is not incomprehensible; whose ways and walks may, without impiety, be penetrated and examined. They knew indeed, that many things naturally unpleasant to the World in themselves, yet gave delight when well imitated. These they considered as the 
d Aristotle, Poet.  picture of some deformed old Woman, that might cause laughter, or some light, superficial, and comical pleasure; but never to be endured on serious occasions, where the attention of the mind, and where the heart was engaged.  
We have pictures that yield another sort of pleasure, as the last judgement, of Mich. Angelo, the Massacre of the Innocents', the Baptist's head, etc.  
'Tis true; but if they yield any pleasure besides what proceeds from the art, and what rests in eye. 'Tis by the History, to which the picture serves only as an Index.  
For till our memory goes back to the History, the head of the Baptist can say no more to us, than the head of Goliath. But the Ancients in their Tragedies rested not on History.  
They found that History, grossly taken, was neither proper to instruct, nor apt to please; and therefore they would not trust History for their examples, but refined upon the History; and thence contrived something 
e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  more philosophical, and more accurate than History. But whether our English Authors of Tragedy lay their foundation so deep, whether they had any design in their designs, and whether it was to prudence or to chance that they sacrificed, is the business of this present enquiry.  
We have in Herodian the horrid and bloody story of the two Brothers, Antoninus and Geta, Emperors, all which (crude and undigested, as in the Original) we find crammed into  

The Tragedy of Rollo Duke of Normandy.  
NO reason, I presume, can be given, why, having found an History, this Author should change the names; of Antoninus and Geta into Rollo and Otto; Emperors of Rome, into Dukes of Normandy. Nor why he altered the Scene to bring these Cutthroats and Poisoners from the other side of the Alps. Aristotle tells it as extraordinary, of a Tragedy made by Polemon; wherein both the names and matter were of his own invention; and yet it had the fortune to please. He also reminds us that a man is better pleased with the picture of an acquaintance, than of a person of whom we had never heard. And we generally observe, when one tells of an adventure, or but a jest, he will choose to father it on some one that is known, thereby to get attention, and gain more credit to what he relates. Besides, many things are probable of Antoninus, or of Alexander, and particular men, because they are true, which cannot be generally probable: and he that will be feigning persons, should confine his fancy to general probability.  
The Fable is this:  
ROllo and Otto Brothers, and both equally (let me call them) Kings of one and the same Kingdom, cannot agree about the matter. Rollo (by the means of his favourite Latorche) attempts to poison his Brother; which failing, he kills Otto in the arms of their Mother Sophia, with Sword drawn offers to kill his Mother and Sister Mat. but is disarmed by Aubrey, yet sends out Lord Chancellor Gisbert to be chopped in two, and thrown to the dogs; and his Tutor Baldwin also to be beheaded. Hamond, Captain of the Guards, saw all this executed. Allan, the Captain's Brother gives (his quondam-Master) the Chancellor, Christian Burial: for which, he is sent to por. Edith, Baldwin's Daughter, beseeches the King to spare her Father; prevails, but too late. Rollo is in love with her; she resolves his death. Hamond, in revenge of his Brother Allan, stabs, and is stabbed by Rollo, whose Sister Matilda, Aubrey takes to Wife, and Reigns in his stead.  
Now, if you call this a Fable; give me one of old AEsop's; where, for all the corpse outside, there dwells a little reasonable Soul within, a little good Sense at the bottom, which carries it through all Nations, and will commend it to the end of the World.  
For nothing certainly is designed in this of Rollo, either to move pity or terror, either to delight or instruct:  
It is indeed a History, and it may well be a History; for never man of common sense could set himself to invent any thing so gross.  
Poetry requires the ben trovato, something handsomely invented, and leaves the truth to History; but never were the Muses profaned with a more foul, unpleasant, and unwholesome truth, than this which makes the Argument of Rollo.  
If the end of this Tragedy is the Marriage and Coronation of Aubrey, had one of the ancient Poets been to cultivate this History; They would have laid the right of the Crown in Aubrey. They would have given us to understand, that Aubrey's Father, a good King, raised Rollo's Father from a mean condition to be his favourite, and have the places of greatest trust and confidence with him. This ungrateful Villain most treacherously murders the King his Master, settles himself on his Throne, dies in Peace, leaves the Kingdom equally to his two Sons. These Sons enter upon the Government, the people swear Allegiance to 'em, Compliment them with Addresses from all countries'; the Air rings with Vive-le-Roy's and Acclamations. The Sun shines as it was wont, the Grass grows, Cows give white Milk, and no Egyptian Plague troubles the Land. Heaven has forgot, and human means appear none, for either revenging the murdered King, or restoring his Son Aubrey.  
Now is the time for a Poet to show his cunning. Now he must bring a sudden and terrible judgement to destroy the Rollian-Race, and set young Aubrey on the Throne of his Ancestors.  
To effect this, the two Brothers must be made to kill each other; and, as a consequence of this disaster, their Mother is to kill herself for sorrow.  
These Brothers, in their character, would have been harmless men, modest enough, and loving each other tenderly: for had they been wicked, the judgement upon them might be applied as due to their own crimes. Or however their Father's crime in itself would have appeared less, as not enough alone to deserve that vengeance; and if the occasion was not clear, the punishment would be less regarded; but their innocence makes the punishment more signal and extraordinary, and more discovers the work of Heaven. And thus also they are capable of moving pity, when only their Father's crime pursues them; and it seems likely that, other wise, they might have lived happily together.  
Their Sister Matilda must have been a virtuous sweet Lady, every way of singular merit, sensible of her Father's crime, and of the wrong that Aubrey suffers. By this character, all those who had pitied her Brothers, would have been extremely satisfied to see their Sister so well preferred in the Marriage with Aubrey; for Heaven, by this, would seem, in her, to make some amends for the hard measure to the unfortunate Brothers.  
Aubrey should in all his words and actions appear great, promising, and Kingly, to deserve that care which Heaven manifests so wonderfully in his Restoration.  
And because this, of the two Brothers killing each other, is an action morally unnatural; therefore, by way of preparation, the Tragedy would have begun with Heaven and Earth in disorder, nature troubled, unheard of prodigies; something (if I may so say) physically unnatural, and against the ordinary course of nature. Perhaps the first Scene would have showed the Usurper's Ghost from Hell, full of horror for his crime, cursing his Sons, and sending some infernal fury amongst them.  
And, by the way, he might relate all things fit to be known, which passed out of the Drama.  
The nicety in writing upon this Fable, would have chief been in the characters of the two Brothers, These are the persons killed, and, of all things, a Poet must be tender of a man's life, and never sacrifice it to his Maggot and Capriccio. Therefore, as (I said) the Brothers were not to be wicked, so likewise they ought not to be absolutely innocent. For if they had refused to succeed their Father, and when they might have sat on the Throne, have humbled themselves at Aubrey's feet; then no Poetical justice could have touched them: guilty they were to be, in enjoying their Father's crime; but not of committing any new. And this guilt of theirs was also either to be palliated, or else to be passed over in silence, lest, laid too open, the compassion of the Audience might be abated. Neither would it suffice that these Brothers kill each other by some chance; but it should appear, that agitated by their Father's crime, like Machine's, they unavoidably clash against each other; whilst their proper inclination in vain strives against the violence.  
If the English Theatre requires more intrigue, an Author may multiply the Incidents, may add Episods, and thicken the Plot, as he sees occasion; provided that all the lines tend to the same centre: more of a main Plot, Virgil required not for his Epic Poem.  
And peradventure, if the Poet design any certain sense by his Fable, that sense will bind him to the unity of action; and the unity of action cannot well exceed the rule for time. And these two unities will not permit that the Poet can far transgress in the third. So that all the regularities seem in a manner to be linked together: but begin with an absurdity, and nothing reasonable can ever follow. If a Pilot puts to Sea without resolving for what Port, none can wonder that he sails not by the Compass.  
To return to this Tragedy of Rollo, if the stress of the design rests not on Aubrey; but the sense of all terminates in Rollo. The sense must be this; He that sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. And if this be all, where's the Wonder? Have we not every day cried in the Streets, instances of God's revenge against murder, more extraordinary, and more poetical than all this comes to? If this be Poetry, Tyburn is a better and more ingenious School of Virtue, than the Theatre.  
In former times Poetry was another thing than History, or than the Law of the Land. Poetry discovered crimes, the Law could never find out; and punished those the Law had acquitted. The Areopagus cleared Orestes, but with what Furies did the Poets haunt and torment him? and what a wretch made they of Oedipus, when the Casuist excused his invincible ignorance?  
The Poets considered, that naturally men were affected with pity, when they saw others suffer more than their fault deserved; and vice, they thought, could never be painted too ugly and frightful; therefore, whether they would move pity, or make vice detested, it concerned them to be somewhat of the severest in the punishments they inflicted. Now, because their hands were tied, that they could not punish beyond such a degree; they were obliged to have a strict eye on their Malefactor, that he transgressed not too far, that he committed not two crimes, when but responsible for one: nor, indeed, be so far guilty, as by the Law to deserve death. For though historical justice might rest there; yet poetical justice could not be so content. It would require that the satisfaction be complete and full, ere the Malefactor goes off the Stage, and nothing left to God Almighty, and another World. Nor will it suffer that the Spectators trust the Poet for a Hell behind the Scenes; the fire must roar in the conscience of the Criminal, the fiends and furies be conjured up to their faces, with a world of machine and horrid spectacles; and yet the Criminal could never move pity. Therefore amongst the Ancients we find no Malefactors of this kind; a wilful Murderer is with them as strange and unknown, as a Parricide to the old Romans. Yet need we not fancy that they were squeamish, or unacquainted with any of these great lumping crimes in that age; when we remember their Oedipus, Orestes, or Medea. But they took care to wash the Viper, to cleanse away the venom, and with such art to prepare the morsel: they made it all Junket to the taste, and all Physic in the operation.  
They so qualified, so allayed, and covered the crime with circumstances, that little could appear on the Stage, but either the causes and provocations before it, or the remorse and penitence, the despairs and horrors of conscience which followed, to make the Criminal every way a fit object for pity. Nor can we imagine their Stage so rarely endured any bloodshed, and that the sight was displeasing, because the Spectators were some sort of effeminate, unfighting fellows. When we remember the Battles of Marathon and Salamin; and with what small number these very Spectators had routed Xerxes and the greatest Armies in the World. For now it was that the arms of the Athenians (as well as their arts) shined in their greatest glory.  
The truth is, the Poets were to move pity; and this pity was to be moved for the living, who remained; and not for the dead. And they found in nature, that men could not so easily pardon a crime committed before their faces; and consequently could not be so easily disposed to bestow that pity on the Criminal which the Poets laboured for. The Poets, I say, found that the sight of the fact made so strong an impression, as no art of theirs could afterwards fully conquer.  
But leave reasoning, and return to Rollo; it seems very odd to see the first four Scenes pass as if nothing extraordinary were towards, without any preparation; and immediately, without more ado, the two Brothers, two Kings, are a fight. The Ancients would have made the Earth tremble, and the Sun start out of the Firmament at a sight so unnatural. Yet we make no more of them, but turn them out, like two Cocks of the Game, for the diversion of the Rabble.  
Some have remarked, that Athens being a Democracy, the Poets, in favour of their Government, exposed Kings, and made them unfortunate. But certainly, examine the Kings of their Tragedies, they appear all Heroes, and ours but Dogs, in comparison of them. So respectful they seem to Kings in their Democracy, and so unthinking and unpolitick are our Poets under a Monarchy. Thebes was always enemy to Athens, yet would not any National pique, nor other, provoke the Poets to treat those Kings unhandsomely; because by their rules to have lessened the Kings, would have made their Tragedies of no effect, in moving the pity intended by them. They made the King's unfortunate, we make them wicked: they made them to be pitied, we make them to be cursed and abhorred.  
That I may, in all hitherto laid down, be the better understood, let it be observed what measures Euripides took in the Tragedy of Etheocles and Polynices.  
This instance I choose, the condition of those Theban Kings being the nearest to this of Rollo and Otto: for they also were equally Kings, could not agree, killed each other. That we might not suspect that the dissension between them risen from any malice of their own, we are let to know, that the Gods own a vengeance to Thebes, which is now ripe, and ready to fall upon them, for a crime of their Founder Cadmus.  
That their Grandfather Laius warned by the Oracle not to marry, his Marriage had so incensed the Gods, that now they were punishing his disobedience on the third generation.  
That their Father Oedipus had cursed them, and prayed they might die by each others hands.  
These Brothers, to avoid their Father's curse, agree, not to live together, but to Reign by the year alternately, and each to be King in his turn. According to this agreement, the younger Brother goes into banishment, where he marries, makes Allies of some hotheaded Princes, as Tydeus, Capaneus, and five more, and brings a Confederate Army before Thebes. The Brothers have an interview; Polynices demands his turn; Etheocles answers to this effect.  
Now, whilst I may continue a King, I cannot willingly yield to become a Servant. Neither take you a right course, coming with force of Arms, and laying the Country waist. Thebes would blush, should I resign my Sceptre for fear of the Mycenaean spears. In fine, Brother, if I am to transgress, for a Kingdom I would transgress; in all the rest 
f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉:  serve God.  
This haughty speech of Etheocles turns all the current of pity to his Brother's side. Now the Confederates fall on to storm the Town, are repulsed, with great slaughter on both sides. Etheocles, notwithstanding he was the King in possession, notwithstanding he knew (by Tiresias the Prophet) that the Thebans would be victorious, and notwithstanding the danger of his Father's curse; yet out of his generosity and humanity to save the effusion of innocent blood; offers the single Combat with his Brother; which accepted, both are killed, and die friends. Etheocles could not speak, indeed, but his sighs were all tenderness. The last breath of Polynices made these words;  

g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  My friend turned enemy, but still my friend.  
But though Polynices seems ill treated, and his Brother is much too sharp upon him. The reason given by the Poet, is, because he brings foreign Forces to invade his Native Country: and perhaps the Poet on this occasion might somewhat strain his Philosophy to gratify the Politician, but the Poet seems so afraid that the Audience should forget that these dissensions are the effect of their Ancestors crimes; and in no wise spring from their own ill mind and election; that he is every where a hinting to us the curse entailed on the Family by their Grandfather's Marriage; the violence of superior powers, of Demons and Furies, which we want language to express,— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: or some terrible goddess discord. — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉:— Whether discord or your Father is the cause, or some ill spirit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suffer for the old pique against Cadmus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— the land is sick, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— breathed terrible curses against them, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did curse most unhallowed curses to his Sons, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. God is ready to fulfil your curses, because in spite of the gods Laius made Children, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, handing the curses from Laius down to his posterity,— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,— I was not born such a fool to pull out my own eyes, and curse my Sons, if some of the Gods had not made me mad, says Oedipus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,— because of your fiends. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,— your fiend is the cause. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, some bane sent upon the land by evil spirits, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the bane fixed to the Marriage of Laius, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. not escape their Father's Furies, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the joy of the Furies, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because of the Furies, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Plague of the Furies, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sighing curses against his Sons, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,— what comes from god, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, haunted with evil spirits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Polynices had his name from Contention.  
By what I have noted one might think the Poet would have us believe that all the Furies in Hell were broke lose and at work to make these two Brothers miserable, and consequently would have us take their part, would engage our affections, and carry our heart along with a sense of their sufferings: Heaven and Earth conspire their ruin. Quid meus AEneas in te committere tantum?  
What had they done to deserve this persecution? the curse of their Father lay nearest them, and is most insisted on by the Poet, how had they vexed their Father? their Father transported with the sense of his own horrible misfortunes, tore out his own Eyes, and in that condition would have run about the streets, but these two Sons of his kept him within doors by force, this enraged him the more, and he threw his curses about him, which some evil spirits (who haunted the house for some old accounts) gladly lay hold on, and never rested till those curses had their effect.  
By what has been observed any one may judge whether these Characters of Etheocles and Polynices, or those of Rollo and Otto be the better contrived for moving that pity which Tragedy requires. And I have been the more particular, because not only Rollo, but most of the Characters in our Tragedies of the last Age, may be examined by the same reason. And yet Eurypides has been blamed for making his Characters more wicked than they ought to be in Tragedy: he was not taxed by Aristophanes and Aristotle only, but by Sophocles, and the general sense of Athens was against him. They said, in those days, that Comedy (whose Province was humour and ridiculous matter only) was to represent things worse than the truth. History to describe the truth, but Tragedy was to invent things better than the truth. Like good Painters they must design their Images like the Life, but yet better and more beautiful than the Life. The Malefactor of Tragedy must be a better sort of Malefactor than those that live in the present Age. For an obdurate impudent and impenitent Malefactor can neither move compassion nor terror; nor be of any imaginable use in Tragedy.  
See we then Rollo, fight with his own Brother and King, equal to himself, and attempting to poison him, without any remorse; killing him in their mother's arms, without any provocation; calling the Queen their Mother Belldam, and with drawn sword threatening to kill both her and his Sister, without any sense of honour or piety; and must we not imagine a Legion of Devils in his belly. When Rollo has murdered his Brother, he stands condemned by the Laws of Poetry; and nothing remains but that the Poet see him executed, and the Poet is to answer for all the mischief committed afterwards. But Rollo we find has made his escape, and woe be to the Chancellor, to the Schoolmaster, and the Chancellor's Man; for those are to be men of this world no longer. Here is like to be Poetical justice, so many lives taken away, and but the life of one guilty person to answer for all, and is not this a strange method of killing? If the Planets had contrived him for a Cock of thirteen, his first Victory should not have been the most important, he should first have praictised on his subjects, and have risen by degrees to the height of iniquity. His Brother Sovereign was his top-murder; nothing remained after that, unless it were his Lady-Mother.  
Neither is Otto here a much more taking Gentleman, nothing appears in his Cue to move pity, or any way make the Audience of his party.  
But of all the world who would ever have expected that Aubrey is to succeed in the Kingship? 'Tis a good man, but the dullest good man that ever Poor advanced to a Throne by such extraordinary means. Some Dreams or old Prophecy should have begun an expectation in us; or some Lambent-fires encircling his head, have drawn the people's eyes upon him. Rollo and Otto must both make untimely ends, to make way for Aubrey. So strange a Revolution never happens in Poetry, but either Heaven or Earth gives some sorenotice of it.  
However, something shining and extraordinary aught to have appeared in his Character. Indeed he parts Rollo and Otto fight, and Rollo was once disarmed by him. But then for decencies sake and Rollo's credit, he should have been looked on as something more than a mere Subject. In all the rest he appears an humble endeavourer, speaks honestly to no purpose, is braved and abused by Rascals. Whereas each step of his should have been attended with such awe and Majesty, that the spectators, if not guests, might at least wish to see him their Sovereign; and have the pleasure to see their wishes successful.  
Gisbert and Baldwin, Chancellor and Tutor are Devota Capita, only come on the Stage to make Rollo the greater sinner by their murder.  
Further to show his rage against the Chancellor, says Rollo, 
Captain, besides remember this in chief,  
That being executed, you deny,  
To all his Friends the rites of Funeral,  
And cast his Carcase out to Dogs and Fowls.   
No reason here is given for this inhumanity.  
On the like occasion Sophocles contrived a Tragedy, the Plot is this. By the death of Etheocles and Polynices, Creon King of Thebes made an Edict, that none, upon pain of being buried alive, should presume to give burial to Polynices, the reasons pretended are, That Polynices had brought Foreigners to invade his Country, and Etheocles had died in his countries' defence, and therefore it would be unjust to give to both the same honour of Funeral. He further alleges a charge left by Etheocles to the same effect. Now the piety of Antigone could not digest so hard a Law, but in the night she goes and covers her Brother with earth, is taken by the Watch, and (Creon being deaf to all intercession) is sent to punishment. When the Bishop Tiresias reproving Creon strikes him with remorse, who thereupon runs himself to reprieve her, hears from her Tomb the last groans of his only Son Haemon, who he finds had stabbed himself and lay a dying at the feet of Antigone, his dead Mistress. This disaster brought the same violent Fate on the Queen Eurydice, and with her deprived Creon of all that could be dear to him in the world.  
In this we have every thing just, every thing surprising, every thing passionate to extremity.  
Whereas in Rollo we meet with so much stuff lumberd together, that not the least spring can work, nor the least passion stir, that is pleasant or generous; nor the least proportion or beauty of Tragedy appear. Aristotle says that an Image drawn with Chalk in the exact shape and symmetry, will please more than a whole potful of the best Colours thrown upon a wall without any figure or design.  
But to proceed with the Characterrs. Sophia at the first appears a woman of spirit, in opposing so vehemently the division of the Dukedom. But she ill maintains this Character; when Rollo in her presence murders his Brother, threatens both her and her Daughter, she very tamely exhorts the Daughter to a vile compliance, says she 
Rise Daughter. serve his will in what we may,  
Lest what he may not, he enforce the rather.  
Is this all you command us?   
She ought surely in another sort of tone to have resented this outrage, or before to have manifested a partiality for Rollo.  
At his death History informs us she died of grief. 'Tis a wonder this Tragedy spares her; hers would have been a more decent and Poetical death than any of the rest. In this the History is the better Tragedy.  
The Princess Matilda for the small part she bears, acquits herself bravely enough. Yet, methinks, Aubrey and she should have exchanged some words; some glances have been cast, or otherways some approaches have been begun. For here there scarce go three words to the bargain. In the last lines of the Play he comes to this Lady as abruptly as to the Dukedom, both drop into his mouth.  
In Edith these wail, clinging, and beseechings; these showers of tears and words. 
— as you are a god above us,  
Be as a god then full of saving pity,  
Mercy, O Mercy Sir, for his sake Mercy,  
That when your stout heart weeps, shall give you pity.  
Here I must grow.   
This sort of importunity is nothing so proper in this place, it might much better become Comedy, where Miss La Fool intercedes for little Dog or Monkey, in peril for some misdemeanour; something more of stomach and courage had suited her better. Tragedy requires not what is only Natural, but what is great in Nature, and such thoughts as quality and Court-education might inspire. She might indeed be surprised, and at the first let the mere Natural woman escape a little, but one or two so harsh and barbarous repulses should have roused that Tragical spirit so vilely prostituted, and made her reflect on the other bloody scenes, so lately acted before her eyes, and caused her to despair before she had troubled us with her endless impertinencies.  
Nor indeed comes short of her for tongue and wind, the old Duchess, when in all reason one might expect that so violent grief and passions would choke them; they run chattering, as if the concern were no more than a gossipping: theirs are not of the old cut, Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent.  
Take her then resolved to kill this Holofernes, when she sets up for a Heroine, and will revenge the blood of the murdered King Otto, of her Father, and the rest. When that scene presents her full of dire design and bloody purpose, we then indeed have her concise in word, and Laconic in the repartee. To the first Compliment she answers. 
Your grace is full of game.  
Wilt please you sit Sir.  
Of what Sir.  
Has a strange cunning tongue,  
Why do you sigh Sir.  
My anger melts, O I shall lose my justice.  
His tongue will tempt a Saint.  
He will fool me.   
Is it likely that a Lady in her circumstances could be sensible what a pretty lisping way he had with him; or could listen to the soft things he spoke, or answer him so lightly? is not this more like some Minx in an Alley, than any Character for Tragedy? There are in Women comical frailties, and heroic frailties: and several considerations might have made her resolution stagger; but this of the tempting tongue is Comedy out of season.  
I would also in this scene note this passage, says  Ham. 
Pray.  Roll. 
Pray.  Ham. 
Pray if thou canst pray, I will kill thy soul else.  
Pray suddenly.  
This I think sounds not so well in Poetry, whatever it may do in Divinity. And now that I am upon the short Dialogues, let me cite one that went before.  Ham. 
See Sir Gisbert's head.  Roll. 
Good speed, was't with a Sword.  Ham. 
An Axe, my Lord.  Roll. 
An Axe, 'twas vilely done.  
But leaving Edith, let us examine what was there in this Latorche to give him the ascendant over his Sovereign? Was it his Quality, his Valour, or some Pestilent Wit, or what Fiddle had he to Charm this savage Master of his? 
a Sallust.  An Historian (who was never taxed for a prodigal of his words) could not mention the D●me that led Catiline astray, without annexing the Inventory of her Excellencies, as how well she Danced, how she handled the Lute, and how she spoke Greek. Yet Rollo a Prince of as great importance to us, is led by the Nose to do all the mischiefs under the Sun; and no body knows who 'tis does manage him.  
'Tis possible that a Prince may abandon himself to be ruled by some busy creature of no consideration. The Annals of Normandy may mention such Dukes.  
History may have known the like. But Aristotle cries shame. Poetry will allow of nothing so unbecoming, nor dares any Poet imagine that God Almighty would trust his Anointed with such a Guardian Devil.  
In the third Act enters Hamond, Captain of the Guard, and is a nimble Executioner; and who would guests this the Man ordained to kill the Dragon. But whether in Poetry this job more properly belonged to Edith, or to this Hamond, may be a question.  
In the first place 'tis resolved that to neither of them did it belong, but that (of the two) Edith might rather have killed Rollo, the following reasons may prove, viz.  
1. To Edith the provocation was greater; a Father engaging our Piety more strongly than a Brother.  
2. Hamond holding a place of trust, had a stricter tye upon him: and Edith lying under no such obligation; the fact in her would not have been subject to so many aggravations.  
3. She, as a woman, might be presumed not so well to understand Allegiance, and to distinguish how far her Piety was to be restrained by it.  
4. As in her sex reason is said to be more feeble, so the Passions are supposed to be the more violent and precipitate.  
5. The punishment had been more signal and more grievous to the Tyrant, dying by the hand of a woman, and a woman to whom he was making love.  
6. By a woman the fact would have been more surprising and extraordinary; and greater would have been the wonder, which a Poet always endeavours for, when it clashes not with probability.  
7. Baldwin was of better quality than Allan. For though the Maid might be content enough to be robbed of her revenge; yet what would her Father's Ghost say? And indeed what would the Chancellor's and Otto's Ghost say? was their blood dumb? or was not the cry of their blood to be heard? must they be murdered and no harm ensue? only to the Manes of the Chancellor's Man must this Monarch be sacrificed. Allan te hoc vulnere— says Hamond. Allan, my Brother Allon gives this stab.  
Allon it seems is satisfied, whilst his betters must be fain to appeal, and wait till Doomsday.  
Hitherto the Plot and Characters.  
For the thoughts and good sense, compare the speech against dividing the Dukedom, with that in Herodian (from whence our Author takes it) on that same occasion. Upon the division it was agreed, the one Brother to have Europe, the other to have Asia; which their Mother hearing, thus spoke,  
The Sea and Land, my Sons, you have found how to divide; the Propontick, you say, is a bound for either Continent, but how is it that you will divide your Mother? how shall wretched I be cut in two and disposed on to each of you? first, therefore, first slay me, and each of you take his moiety with him, and bury it. So with the Sea and Land, I also shall be divided between you.  
Says Sophia, 
Divide me first, and tear me limb by limb,  
And let them find as many several graves,  
As there are Villages in Normandy,  
And'tis less sin than so to weaken it.  
To hear it mentioned, does already make me  
Envy my dead Lord, & almost Blaspheme  
Those powers which heard my prayers for fruitfulness.  
And did not with my first birth close my womb.  
To me alone my second blessing proves my first,  
My first of misery, for if heaven  
That gave me Rollo, there had stayed his bounty,  
And Otto, my dear Otto ne'er had been,  
Or being had not been so worth my love;  
The stream of my affection had run constant,  
In one fair current all my hopes had been  
Laid up in one, and fruitful Normandy  
In this division had not lost her glories.  
For as 'tis now, 'tis a fair Diamond  
Which being preserved entire, exceeds all value  
But cut in pieces (though these pieces are  
Set in fine gold by the best workman's cunning)  
Parts with all estimation. So this Kingdom  
As 'tis yet whole, the neighbouring Kings may covet  
But cannot compass, which divided will  
Become the spoil of every barbarous Foe  
That will invade it.   
The former speech seems to show a Woman of great spirit, labouring to contain her passion till she may utter her mind: But this latter seems to present a well-breathed and practised Scold, who vents her passion and eases her mind by talking, and can weep and talk everlastingly.  
In that of Julia we find but one thought, yet that followed close and pressed with all the vehemence that a strong passion might inspire; as may be easily apprehended by any who understand in Virgil, It lachrymen, guttisque humectat grandibus ora.  
She is not content to say, divide me, but to lay the Image before their eyes, and make the stronger impression. She will, like the Sea and Land be divided, be cut in two, be shared out to them, to each his moiety, etc.  
But what a pother makes the old Duchess? never French Author hash'd and kickshawed a little sense into so many words that signify nothing. She manages as if she were to hold forth by the glass: Had her passion after the first three words burst out at her eyes, had she wept and torn her hair, her Rhetoric had been more moving, and better understood, and she had acquitted herself Heroickly: But she falls off immediately, as if she had bolted out some rash thing at first, and was afraid of being ta'en at her word; her tongue runs over her passion, and steals into matters that lean another way, and she talks as if she would talk the impression of her first words quite out of the hearer's heads again. After the three first words she flies from the only thought that was proper, high enough, and proportionable to her passion: she is for being split in as many pieces as there are Villages in Normandy; which expression scatters the thought, breaks the resemblance and carries all remote from the occasion, and must in effect move but very indifferently. From thence she plunges into such impertinent and inconsistent wild jargon as is obvious to any man. That of the Diamond is a good thought in itself; but in this place comes very cold from her mouth, 'tis no more than if she had said, Divide the Dukedom, divide me first, nay divide a Diamond, etc. Naturally in a great passion none have leisure to ramble for comparisons, much less to compute the value of Diamonds whole or broken.  
I question not the Grammar, nor how Poetical the stile is, I rest in the sense, nor had yet been so particular, but that I take all this Tragedy to be of the same piece for the writing, unless that scene of the Astrologers; and the Comical part, than which nothing can be more diverting.  
Speeches of more matter I confess we have in the Play, and to Latorche we are obliged for them. 
No friends, Sir, to your honour,  
Friends to your fall, where is your understanding  
The noble vessel that your full soul sailed in,  
Ribbed round with honours, where is that? 'tis ruined.  
The tempest of a woman's sighs has sunk it.  
Friendship, take heed, Sir, is a smiling Harlot,  
That when she kisses, kisses a soldered friendship,  
Pieced out with Promises; O painted Ruin!   
This Latorche always Cants at this rate, and an extraordinary Muse attends him. We may, I think, conclude the success of this Play due chief to the Scenes for laughter, the merry jig under the Gallows, and where the Tragedy tumbles into the Kitchen among the Skoundrels that never saw buskin in their lives before. There the Pantler and Cook give it that relish which renders it one of the most followed entertainments in the Town.   

A King and no King.  
WEll fares it with Tragedy (says an 
a Antiphanes apud Athen.  old stagger) the title is no sooner known, but the Spectators see into the design, and agree what they are to expect. Name Oedipus, they know Laius was his Father, Jocasta his Mother, and all the generation: so there needs no more but hold up a finger, the Curtain's drawn, and to't they go.  
But ill is our condition, we are fain to coin new words, explain what is past, present, and to come, yet never can be understood enough, and without this ado whether Phidon or whether Chremes enters, he is hist off the Stage; when as Teucer, Oedipus, or Peleus might come with authority.  
Our Authors we see, never make use of the advantage which that Comedian envied so much in Tragedy. This Title gives no more light into the design, than had they called it Hocus Pocus; and indeed the name seems rather to promise a Comedy, and one might expect some sort of Mammamouchy King, or Cousin of Duke Trinckelo's for the Hero of the Play.  
The Plot is this:  
The Queen of Iberia, Arane, had feigned herself with child, and made use of Gobrias' Son to carry out the cheat. She afterwards proves truly with child, which came to be Panthea, durst not discover the first cheat, so that Arbaces (Gobria's Son) became actually King, is made really so by marrying Panthea.  
The rest is all Episode.  
In this Fable appears some proportion, shape, and (at the first sight) an outside fair enough, yet at the bottom we hardly find what is more choice, or more exquisite and more perfect than History. By the turn of the Plot, if we look on Arane, this Play might have been called The Deceiver Deceived, if we look on Arbaces, the title might have been The Fortunate Impostor, The lucky Shame, or something of that kind; which shows a want of that good sense in it which Tragedy requires.  
There might have been feigned some right to the Crown long contested between the two Families; (as ours of York and Lancaster) and bloody civil war ready to break out; when unexpectedly all grew hushed and ended in a marriage; which (by a train long laid by Gobrias) took effect. This marriage should not have seemed so advantageous to the false King, and his Father who brought it about; but by manifest reasons of state appeared absolutely necessary for the good of the Kingdom, and above all things, desired and laboured for by the relations of Panthea.  
Whereas on the contrary, we find the Queen Mother attempting to poison this usurper, and see no reason to blame her endeavours.  
What sets this Fable below History, are many improbabilities, and those of the worst sort; because they contribute nothing to the wonder. What more improbable, than that the Mother whose business it was to contrive the death of the Impostor, should never caution or inform her only Daughter, who had the right to the Crown, that Arbaces was none of her Brother, but her vassal, and so obstruct her love for him?  
Nor is it likely that Gobrias should not have reserved some means to let his Son know the secret, that his Sons conduct and addresses to gain the Princess, might have been fashioned accordingly.  
The Characters are all improbable and unproper in the highest degree, besides that both these, their actions and all the lines of the Play run so wide from the Plot, that scarce aught could be imagined more contrary.  
We blunder along without the least streak of light, till in the last act we stumble on the Plot, lying all in a lump together; neither any tolerable direction to guide us thither; nor ought ingenious, just, or reasonable, that carries us from thence.  
What find we in the Son of Gobrias that he must have the Princess and the Kingdom for her portion, save only that the Knave his Father will have it so?  
Take his picture sent before him, and drawn by a friend. — He is vainglorious, and humble, and angry, and patiented, and merry, and dull, and joyful, and sorrowful, in extremity in an hour— Should we find underwritten This is a King, yet could not reason give way to our belief.  
Kings of Tragedy are all Kings by the Poet's Election, and if such as these must be elected, certainly not Polish Diet would ever suffer Poet to have a voice in choosing a King for them. Nor will it serve that Arbaces is not truly a King, for he is actually such, and intended for a true and rightful King before the Poet has done with him, what wants in Birth the Poet should make up in his Merit, every one is to consent and wish him King, because the Poet designs him for one, 'tis (besides) observed that Usurpers generally take care to deserve by their conduct what is denied them by right.  
We are to presume the greatest virtues, where we find the highest of rewards; and though it is not necessary that all Heroes should be Kings, yet undoubtedly all crowned heads by Poetical right are Heroes. This Character is a flower, a prerogative, so certain, so inseparably annexed to the Crown, as by no Poet, no Parliament of Poets, ever to be invaded.  
Arbaces indeed is of a different mould, he no sooner comes on the Stage, but lays about him with his tongue at so nauseous a rate, Captain Bessus is all Modesty to him, to mend the matter his friend shaking an empty skull, says 'Tis pity that valour should be thus drunk. Had he been content to brag only amongst his own Vassals, the fault might be more sufferable, but the King of Armenia is his prisoner, he must bear the load of all; he must be swaggered at, insulted over, and trampled on without any provocation. We have a Scene of his sufferings in each Act of the Play: Bajazet in the Cage was never so carried about, or felt half the barbarous indignities which are thrown on this unfortunate Prince by our monster of a King.  
If the Poet would teach that victory makes a man insolent; he must at the same time make victory blush, and fly to the other side; as a just punishment for him that had abused her favours.  
To the Queen-Mother his language is, Plagues rot the adulterous Witch! thou worse than Woman damned— strumpet— whore! etc. to his Father Gobrias; 
Curses incurable, and all the evils  
Man's body or his spirit can receive,  
Be with thee.   
To the Princess Panthea his supposed Sister, after having cast her in Prison, and a thousand outrages very coarsely.  Arb. 
I have beheld thee with a lustful eye.  
My heart is set on wickedness, to act  
Such sins with thee, as I have been afraid  
To think of. If thou darest consent to this,  
(Which I beseech thee do not) thou mayst gain  
Thy liberty, and yield me a content:  
If not, thy dwelling must be dark and close.  
These speeches, drawing his Sword at the Queen-Mother, and the other outrages, make the sum of our Heroes virtues, and neither worse nor better find we throughout his character. Arbaces should have been considered in a double capacity; he should have been endued with all the greatness of mind, and generosity of a King, and also with the modesty of a Subject. The want of which, is a great aggravation of his fauls; for his carriage towards the Royal Captive, towards the Queen-Mother, towards the Princess, as he was a King, were insupportable, as no King, it was all abominable. History sometimes takes notice of a certain instinct which has strangely hindered many unnatural actions. A Poet, I am sure, ought always to have that instinct, or some good genius ready to serve his Hero upon occasion, to prevent these unpleasant shocking indecencies, which otherwise might happen. This instinct should in Arbaces have begot a respect to his Father Gobrias, and have humbled him in the presence of such as were truly of the Blood Royal.  
And far from decorum is it, that we find the King drolling and quibbling with Bessus and his Buffoons, and worse, that they should presume to break their little jests upon him.  
This too is natural, some will say. There are in nature many things which Historians are ashamed to mention, as below the dignity of an History: Shall we then suffer a Tom Coriat in Poetry? Shall we on the most important day of a King's Reign, and at Court be content with such entertainment as is not above a Cobler's shop? Might not a Poet as well describe to us how the King eats and drinks, or goes to Stool; for these actions are also natural: but observe the behaviour of Arbaces, after that he is found to be no King. Now he will make amends, and give satisfaction to all he had wronged. To the Gentlemen about him.  Arb. 
Why do you keep your hats off; Gentlemen?  
Is it to me? I swear it must not be.  
Nay, trust me, in good Faith it must not be.  
I cannot now command you, but I pray you,  
For the respect you bear me, when you took  
Me for your King; each man clap On his hat  
At my desire.  
And surely the Captive King cannot but be content, when told that  Arb. 
He shall go so home, as never man went.  Mardon. 
Shall he go on's head?  Arb. 
He shall have Chariots easier than air,  
That I will have invented; and ne'er think  
He shall pay any ransom: And thyself  
That art the Messenger shalt ride before him  
On an Horse cut out of an entire Diamond,  
That shall be made to go with golden Wheels.  
I know not how, yet.  
For the Captive King's Mistress;  Arb. 
She shall have some strange thing; we'll have the Kingdom  
Sold utterly, and put into a toy.  
Which she shall wear about her carelessly  
Somewhere or other.  
Now, that he is no King, nor has aught to give, he is for selling all without ask leave of the true Sovereign Panthea. To her his Compliment is,  Arb. 
Grant me one request.  Pant. 
Alas, what can I grant you? what I can, I will.  Arb. 
That you will please to marry me.  
If I can prove it lawful.  Pant. 
Is that all?  
More willingly than I would draw this air.  
Should not rather the Spirit of Majesty have now roused up in the Princess, and she have called to mind his late brutish insolence, and have called him impudent Slave, and discharged a frown that should have struck him dead, or commanded him to be nailed to the floor as false coin, and a counterfeit stamp of Majesty. And certainly his character could deserve no better fate. But for his comfort, this Princess was none of those. One might swear she had a knock in the Cradle; so soft she is at all points, and so silly. No Linsey-woolsey Shepherdess but must have more soul in her, and more sense of decency (not to say) honour. To this Vassal of hers, on her knees for half an hour together, she whines at this rate, viz.  Pan. 
I know I am unworthy, yet not ill  
Armed, with which innocence I here will kneel  
Till I am one with earth; but I will gain  
Some words, and kind ones, from you.  
Thus she continues, and by and by he kisses her thrice, then calls her Witch, Poisoner, Traitor, sends her to Prison; she thanks him with all her heart. Nay, 'tis well the King is pleased with it.  
At the next meeting she will needs be closer and closer to him; he cannot keep her off him, he tells her he would commit incest with her: She returns a drawling, yawning, yielding answer; and proceeds to tell him, that she wishes he were not her Brother, that she loves him so well, she can love no man else; she shall weep her eyes out: and farther.  Pan. 
But is there nothing else  
That we may do, but only walk? methinks  
Brothers and Sisters lawfully may kiss.  
Had Panthea been some Wastcoatteer of the Village, that had been formerly Complaisant with him beyond discretion, more vile submissions she could not devise: But as she is lawful Sovereign, nothing could be invented more opposite to all honesty, honour, and decorum. If we consider them as Brother and Sister, 'tis horribly wicked. If we look on her as Sovereign, and him as her Subject, what can be more dishonourable? So that if instinct guided their love, as lawful and warrantable; it may be answered, that the same iustinct should have prevented that love, as insolent and presumptuous in Arbaces, base and unbecoming in Panthea. For whether a Lady may better marry her Brother, or her Groom, is a question more easily decided in Divinity, than in Poetry.  
We are let to know that the Queen-Mother was for removing the Usurper by poison, and for bringing all into the right channel again. This we might expect to be a Woman courageous, and truly Tragical: yet we find her the veriest patiented Griselda that ever had lain by a Monarch's side. She comes but thrice on the Stage; the first time she is rebuked by Gobrias, with the same language that the Vicar of Newgate might dispense to some sinner forlorn; then she is on her marrowbones to the Impostor without reluctancy. Lastly, when provoked with a drawn Sword, and words more cutting, the proudest rant she could be raised to, was: — Fire consume me if ever I was a Whore.  
If nothing else in the character of Arbaces, the drawing his Sword against a Woman, was enough in Poetry to damn him. After that outrage, he could make no pretensions to aught that is good or honourable.  
On this occasion memorable is that passage in Virgil, where AEneas after having related, how the Town on fire about his ears,— on the sudden awaked from his sleep,— fling headlong by rage and despair,— forsaken by his reason,— his friends slaughtered about him,— the King Priam murdered before his face:— when he spies the cause of all this, Helen, skulking in a corner— at the sight of her. 
Exarsere ignes animo, subit ira cadentem  
Ulcisci patriam, & sceleratas sumere poenas, etc.   
All which, with what follows, comes to no more, than had he said;— In that nick of time I even made a question within myself, whether I was not to take revenge on her; to that degree of madness had my troubles wrought me. Talia jactabam, & furiata ment ferebar.  
Now here, this revenge goes no farther than his thoughts; these thoughts — AEneas himself condemns, and calls them madness; and is also sharply reproved for them by his Guardian Angel, 
Nate, quis indomitas tantus furor excitat iras?  
Quid furis?   
No man but Virgil could ever pen any thing with that infinite care and caution as is this particular passage. One might think Virgil foresaw whatever could be objected; and provided against all scruples.  
Yet of such a nice taste were the Critics in that age of good sense; that Varus and Tucca struck out all the 22 Verses which contain this passage. These were employed by Augustus to inspect what (by the untimely death of Virgil) might have been left imperfect, and they durst not suffer these 22 lines to pass, though essential to the Poem; so tender they were, lest their Hero might lie under a suspicion of transgressing in any punctilio of that nature.  
We need not make a controversy whether Virgil or his Critics be in the right: But if Virgil will not in a man allow the thought of striking a Woman in any circumstances, unless he condemns himself for that thought. And if his Critics will not permit a thought of that kind with any qualifications whatsoever; then we may well conclude, that Poetry to be very gross, where the men both think, and speak, and act their cruelties against Women, without any shame or restraint.  
But Arbaces, though mad, and flashed upon by never so great a hurrican of provacations, was not to be allowed to think of striking; because the Woman's quality was above his, and made her sacred. Neither in this point is there a difference betwixt an Epic Poem and a Tragedy; when the conclusion of both is prosperous.  
As here, AEneas, a King, of great merit, by the assistance of Heaven, and his friends, after much labour, marries Lavinia.  
And Arbaces, no King, of no merit, without friends in Heaven, or on the Earth; without any trouble weds his King's only Daughter, and the Kingdom of Iberia is her portion.  
I know with the Ancients, Orestes killed his Mother, Hercules his Wife and Children, Agamemnon his Daughter. But the first was an act of justice; the second of Frenzy; the last of Religion. But these were all Tragedies unhappy in the catastrophe. And the business so well prepared; that every one might see, that these Worthies had rather have laid violent hands on themselves, had not their will and choice been overruled. Every step they made, appeared so contrary to their inclinations, as all the while showed them unhappy, and rendered them the most deserving of pity in the World.  
Another Canker in the heart of this Tragedy, is the incestuous love (for such it appears) between Arbaces and Panthea, I mean, the conduct of it. When any design on the Stage is in agitation, the Poet must take care that he engage the affections, take along the heart, and secure the good will of the Audience. If the design be wicked, as here the making approaches towards an incestuous enjoyment; the Audience will naturally loath and detest it, rather than favour or accompany it with their good wishes. 'Tis the sad effects and consequences of an ill design which the Audience love to have represented: 'tis then that the penitence, remorse and despairs move us: 'tis then that we grieve with the sorrowful, and weep with those that weep.  
Therefore were the Ancients to make an incestuous love their subject; they would take it in the fall, as it rowls down headlong to desperation and misery.  
Many in the World for their interest may comply and help forward the advances towards an ill action; but on the Stage there is no kindred nor filthy lucre to bias the Audience, or make them partial to the evildoer. If the Poet observe not these measures, the working up of a Scene, is plainly the tormenting of nature, and holding our ears to the Grindstone.  
For an incestuous love, famous amongst the Ancients, was the tale of Macareus and Canace. In the list of those Tragedies wherein Nero delighted to be an Actor, Suetonius reckons Canace parturiens. The title may satisfy us, that all the soft things, all the amours, the flowers and fleurets were over, ere the Offenders entered on the Stage.  
In this last age a noble 
* Speroni Sperone.  Italian composed a Tragedy of Canace after the model of the Ancients; for the time of the action: he also chooses the day of Canaces labour. And then the pangs of childbearing are the easiest that she suffers. For, to heighten the disgrace, this Poet feigns Macareus and Canace to be Twins, and this day to have been their birth day, which the King, their Father, is about to solemnize with a Festival. Immediately we find the two Offenders (under their apprehension of being discovered) in the greatest confusion and despair imaginable. But that we might more justly pity them, he informs us, that their crime proceeded not from any folly or miscarriage in themselves which they might have avoided; but that a 
† Non malattia mortale, Mà fa celeste forza Non propria elettione, Mà un impeto fatal.—  resistless power above, and Celestial force had overruled them: that indeed Venus had an old reckoning with their Father AEolus, for persecuting her AEneas, and thus she discharged it with a vengeance.  
By the rule of the Ancients no colours, no sophistry or ribaldry's, were used to lessen a crime before it was committed: for then their Rhetoric could have no good effect, but must have grated on the hearers patience. But after the fact, when its punishment came heavy upon it, than all their art and invention was at work, to find out circumstances to extenuate the guilt, that the persons guilty might be capable of pity.  
Arbaces in the dishonest love to his Sister, should have followed the example of that Antiochus in the History, who in love with his Stepmother, discovered not his passion by any words or gallantries; but pined away, and gave himself over to die; and had died, if the dexterity of his Physician had not by feeling his Pulse learned the cause of his distemper.  
The better to clear this matter, I will trace the manners and conduct of Phedra in Euripides, where we are told that Hippolytus having too rudely slighted the Altars of Venus, she is offended, and will have the whole Family feel the effects of her resentment. To bring this about, she strikes Phedra with a poisoned dart, and makes her in love with this Hippolytus, her Son in Law. Phedra conceals her love, strives to overcome it, not prevailing, resolves to 
a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  kill herself by fasting. And now for three days had she neither eat nor slept, when she first appears on the Stage. No wonder then if she talks very madly, she is in an hundred minds all at once, she tries all places and all postures, and is always uneasy in the present. Now her dress is a pain to her, and now she will be carried to her Closet and shut up close, instantly again, she calls to have her locks tied back, and nothing but the garb of an Amazon will please her, than she would sleep in some grott, and drink the waters from a mossy fountain. Now she cries for the open air, for ranging the hills, for driving the woods, for whooping the dogs, for chase the Stag, and brandishing a javelin: and ah that the horses were ready to mount. Now she complains of her distraction, and blames some 
b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Divine power; and now her face is loaded with shame; confusion and tears. Hid me (she cries) ah hid me from the world, it pains her (she says) to return to her right senses.  
Here is a Scene of Madness, but not of Bedlam-madness; here is Nature, but not the obscenities, not the blind-sides of Nature, which are represented when Arbaces and Panthea go lose together, and whether of the two Madnesses is the more apt to move pity, need not certainly be a question.  
Hitherto cannot the Governess, Confident, or Nurse of Phedra, understand where Phedra is pinched. She sifts, importunes and conjures her, yet after all is no wiser till accidentally amongst other arguments whereby she would persuade Phedra to live, Live, says she, otherwise you betray your Children to be Lorded over by that other woman's Bastard, this Amazon' s Son, I mean Hippolytus, woes me, says Phedra, you have undone me! name him no more. The Nurse proceeds to torture her with questions, and Phedra returns as many perplexed answers, till at the last says Phedra,  Phed. 
What is it that men call to be in love?  
Nurse. It is of all things the sweetest, and also the most bitter.  Phed. 
I have sufficiently experienced both.  Nurse. 
What says my Child, do you love any Man?  Phed. 
Who is that same, that of the Amazon?  Nurse. 
Say you Hippolytus?  Phed. 
This from yourself you hear, but not from me.  
Alas! undone! intolerable, cries the Nurse, and she will not live one moment longer. And concludes that all, (even modest women too against their will) would be naught, and that Love is the veriest god almighty; there is not the fellow of him in all the heavenly gang.  
I have only cited the conclusion of this Scene, to note the utmost advances of Phedra towards a confession, the only crime of which she was guilty; and to show that this Nurse (so long kept in ignorance) was no fool, but subtle and nimble enough to catch and run away with the least hint that could be offered.  
In the former Scene all the conflict was between love and modesty; this presents love and an active friendship joined, both at once labouring to subdue this modesty, so far only as to extort a confession. The Nurse with wrung hands lies at Phedra's feet, embraces her knees, begs her to live, for her children's sake to live, and tell her pain. Phedra strives, would be from the Nurse's hands, complains of the violence, promises to tell, yet raves and rambles, speaks short and ambiguous, all is darkness; whilst every where tenderness, passion and modesty reign, and appear to admiration.  
This Scene having wrought off the Remains of Phedra's frenzy, in the next she seems more calm, her mind more at ease, and now will move pity from a new Topick, for now this unfortunate Lady is found to be a woman of great sense and understanding. She reasons (to the Chorus) and wonders how humane life becomes so corrupt, for certainly (says she) it cannot be natural to do amiss, when we understand what is right. Yet thus it happens, we have before our eyes, and know what is good, but we practise otherwise. Some out of floath, and others preferring a kind of pleasure before honesty; there be many pleasures of life, as conversation, ease a sweet evil, and modesty. Now there are two sorts of pleasure, one good, this other the bane of Families: but would this appear always in its true colours, 'twould not longer be counted pleasure. These things when I considered, I thought no Philter could ever seduce me to act against my knowledge.  
But to open my mind to you, after love had wounded me, I cast with myself how I might bear my illness the most decently, and from that time made it my care to hid my distemper and keep it to myself. Secondly, I resolved to get my right senses again, and with chastity to overcome my frenzy. In the third place, if the attempt to cure my distemper proved vain, I then thought my best course would be to die.  
For I know the disease to be infamous, and especially in me a woman, odious to all people.  
Then she curses those who first polluted the Marriagebed. And hates the baggages that can talk so smoothly, and yet will do naughty things in a corner. 
a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Blessed Lady, says she, how can they look their husbands in the face? how can they but tremble at their 
b— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  confederate darkness? and be afraid that the very 
c— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  walls and doors should open and cry whore at 'um.  
She concludes, Therefore dear friends, this same shall kill me, that I may never be taken to disgrace my Husband, and the Children I have brought forth.  
The Nurse perceiving her Mistress thus resolute, sets her tongue a running to this purpose. 
Lady (quoth she) I was lately in a twittering fear for you,  
But now I confess myself hen-hearted.  
It has been said, that second thoughts are the wisest.  
And now (believe me) there is nothing singular,  
Nothing unreasonable in your case.  
The truth is, the goddess is terrible angry at you.  
Well, you love? that's no marvel.  
And you would kill yourself for love.  
That would be a pleasant prank, if all that are,  
And that are to be in love must presently take that course.  
There is no striving,  
No dodging with love, when it comes in earnest.  
'Tis easy to those that are yielding.  
But if you will be goodly, and think high of yourself,  
If you will resist and be stubborn,  
Why, then there's no who with it,  
It shakes and breaks, and thunders you to Atoms immediately.  
Love is King of the air,  
Whizz goes his power through the blue seas.  
And we are all of us his offspring.  
They who have read the Chronicles,  
Or are skilled in ancient Ballads,  
Can tell us stories of Jupiter, Semele, Shafalus.  
Of such love, and such wild lovers as you would think strange at.  
Yet these Lovers (many of them) were 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  preferred in heaven,  
And now are waiting at gods ellbow.  
The gods melted with their sufferings, could not be angry.  
And now you will be in a fit.  
You cannot be content with the same Laws,  
With the same Nature, with flesh and blood, like other folks.  
You should have been hatched ' in Jupiter's brain,  
And so been framed some blessed Angel.  
How many men who are right in their senses,  
See their bed tumbled yet walk on,  
And lets it trouble their heads no farther.  
'Tis nine points of wisdom to keep that secret,  
Which would be no credit, when divulged.  
Perfection is an airy notion, never to be found in practice.  
Then surely they are well hoped up,  
Who set themselves to live 
a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  exactly.  
As this world goes, if our good deeds out-tell the bad,  
We shall make an handsome reckoning.  
Then, dear Child, be no longer in an ill mind,  
For the goddess has an heavy pique against you.  
And trust not that she will be check-mated by you.  
Nor think you to be higher than the highest of all:  
For such, in effect, is your last resolution.  
And, to tell you plainly, 'tis an affront to 'em.  
Then pluck up a good heart,  
And love on; since 
b— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  God will have it so.  
You have a wound, cure your wound.  
There are Spells, and Charms, and 
c— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  healing words,  
Some remedy shall be found out for you.  
And truly, if we Women cannot advise you,  
The wit of man will come too late.   
The Nurse here delivers all the good sense that could be proper for the occasion, as may be discerned, notwithstanding the ill dress, in which I have disguised it. A less considering Poet would have displayed all this dialogue-wise, and made it a Scene of mighty sputter. But Euripides would not suffer his Phedra so far to countenance or listen to these lewd reasons, as once to think they deserved any particular answer. To dispute in a matter of this kind, would have been the next door to the being convinced; and to contend, was to put herself in the way of being overcome. She therefore at once makes this return.  Ph. 
'Tis thus that Towns and Kingdoms are destroyed,  
By a fair tongue and flattering speech decoyed:  
We should not file our words to please the ear;  
But strike the mind, and kindle glory there.  
To make short, the Nurse tells her that wise sentences will not do the business: that, for her part, she would not be the minister of any one's pleasure: but in this extremity, where life is at stake, she might without blame for a violent disease, provide an extraordinary Cure.  
Phedra calls these horrible, filthy speeches; and commands her to 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  lock up her mouth.  
The Nurse urges that her words, if they are not clean, they are wholesome; and the preservation of life was of more importance than any proud name she would boast on in her death.  
But she (finding that this sort of discourse did the more exasperated and provoke her Mistress) recants. But (says she) now that it comes in my mind, I have at home 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  healing Philters that will work your Cure without touching upon your modesty.  
Phedra is in fear, makes scruples, asks questions; which the Nurse evades, and tells her, she wanted not to be instructed, but to be assisted.  
In the next Scene Phedra is on the Stage, and overhears the Nurse within, exchanging some words with Hippolytus: whereupon she cries out, says, she is betrayed, curses the Nurse, and resolves to kill herself. And now the apprehensions that Hippolytus would accuse her to his Father, made her write a Letter, laying all the blame on Hippolytus, as the best expedient (that amidit her distractions, she could on the sudden devise) to secure her honour, and to prevent the disgrace of her Family, and of her Children: and with this Letter in her hand, she hangs herself.  
Had some Author of the last age given us the character of Phedra, they (to thicken the Plot) would have brought her in burning of Churches, poisoning her Parents, prostituting herself to the Grooms, soliciting her Son face to face, with all the importunity and impudence they could imagine; and never have left daubing so long as there might remain the least cranny for either pity or probability. They would never have left her, till she had swelled to such a Toad, as nothing but an audience of brass could fit the sight of her.  
But (for our credit) Seneea, before us, in this blind way of designing made no inconsiderable progress. We find his Phedra at the first dash justifying her incestuous love: and her Nurse is the Woman of sentences; who labours with all the wholesome advice, the sense and nonsense she could scrape together, to maul this monstrous lust that raged in her Nursling, Phedra. And whilst she goes on without any signs of success, Phedra surprises her, (on the sudden) resolving to die with a good name. Whereupon the Nurse bids her be patiented, and promises to try what she can do with the young man.  
Without more words, the next Scene presents us Phedra, (as if the late resolution had never been made) all upon the gallantry, she is tricking herself up in Masquerade; and thus she hopes to win the Savage Hippolytus, and the Nurse and she make their supplications to the Goddess of Chastity to help on their design. And now it is that the Nurse attacks him: but how? she expounds to him at large, that a City-life and Women are a comfortable importance; he answers in another harangue, that nothing is like to the ranging in the Country: and truly (for Women) he hates them all mortally. During this conference, Phedra reels in amongst them, falls in a swoon; and well is it for her that she is taken up in the arms of her beloved Son: therefore she takes heart, and puts it to him courageously. But words proving vain, she will needs 
a Etiam in amplexus ruit? Stringatur ensis.  ravish the poor stripling. Hereupon, to cut her neck off, he draws out the brown Falchion, 
b Contactus ensis deserat castum latus.  on which she laying her sweaty palms, he cries foh! flings it from him, and runs away. And now the Nurse puts in her word, and says, marry, 'tis the best way to be beforehand with him, and to cry Whore first. Accordingly they fly to Theseus, Phedra tells him that Hippolytus not only purposed, but had 
c Vim tamen corpus tulit.  effected his filthy purpose upon her body, do she what she could: and ecce signum shows the Sword to witness for her truth. Hereupon Theseus dispatches his Son Hippolytus into another World. And now (with a canker to her) comes Phedra, confesses the truth indeed, and kills herself.  
Now in this Phedra of Seneca, what one occasion of pity have we? what ground for terror? and, above all, what manners have we? ask the generality of Women if they are moved and concerned, if their hearts and good will go along and attend the thoughts and motions of this Phedra? will they not answer that they know no such Woman, that she is no way a kin to them, nor has any resemblance with their nature? She must be some brat of a Succubus, or an evil Spirit, (say they) that personates a Woman; or some Devil in a Machine, that comes to render the Sex odious. Nor can they allow her more compassion than to a Bitch, or Polecat, and what has no relation to human shape.  
Nor can this be a cause of terror: for few Women would be apt to fancy that they could (in any circumstances) be so wicked as this Phedra, Each will say, were it my fate, or should I be cursed to love where I ought not, I would certainly conceal my love, and strive with it, my thoughts, words, and actions, and all, my condition might be every way the same, or very like to that of Phedra in Euripides. But I could never speak or act at this impudent abominable rate, could never be transformed to such a monster as this Phedra of Seneca. And since my conduct would not be the same, my case can never be the same; and consequently this example cannot move or concern, or have any operation to stir either pity or terror in me.  
I have been the more large on this matter, because it may serve as a certain and general test, whereby may be discovered what is naturally apt to move pity or terror. And this is founded on a Philosophy never controverted, but alike current at Malmsbury as at Athens.  
Every one have noted Seneca for his unnatural way of writing. Yet, besides what is already observed in his characters, I cannot leave him, without reminding you, that though he takes all his thoughts from Sophocles and Euripides, yet he rarely affords us any of their good sense. He crumbles every thought into all the little points that ever he can strain it to; and all these points (for, or against him, it matters not) must one way or other be applied.  
Whensoever he finds a Diamond, he forces, and breaks it into an hundred pieces; never letting it rest so long as any of it will sparkle. I desire your patience but for one instance of this kind.  
In the Scene where the Nurse presses to know what it is that pains her Mistress; amongst her other rave; says Phedra in Euripides. 
a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
What sort of love lov'dst thou; ah wretched Mother?  
And thou, unhappy Sister, Wife of Bacchus?  
The third unhappy, I.   
The Poet made Phedra say this, not only, as a proper and natural reflection, that these extravagant loves run in the blood; but as a hint of her disease, and withal so qualified, as might also show her modesty: for she puts less in the conclusion than was in the premises. She concludes to the unhappiness only, and does not (as she might) say. And now the third unhappy Lover, I.  
We find Seneca baiting this thought six several times in one Scene, and we have at least, 40 lines in the Tragedy all mere descant upon it.  Ph. 
Fatale (a) miserae matris agnosco malum,  
Peccare noster novit in sylvis amor, etc.  Ph. 
Aut quis juvare (b) daedalus flammas queat, etc.  Nat. 
— (c) Quid domum infamem gravas  
Superasque matrem?  Nat. 
(e) Memorque matris metue concubitus novos.  Nu. 
Cur monstra cessant? aula cur fratris vacat?  
Prodigia toties orbis insueta audiet,  
Natura toties legibus cedat suis,  
Quoties Amabit Cressa?  Nu. 
Patris memento:  Ph. 
(d) Meminimus matris simul.  Nu. 
Adoritque genitor.  Ph. 
Mitis (f) Ariadnae pater.  Hipp. 
O majus ausa matre monstrifera malum,  
Genetrice peior! illa se tantum stupro  
Contaminavit, & tamen tacitum diu  
Crimen biformi partus exhibuit nota;  
Scelusque matris arguit vultu truci  
Ambiguus infans; ille te venter tulit.  Ph. 
— Aut quis Cressius  
(e) Daedalea vasto Claustra mugitu replens  
Taurus biformis, ore Cornigero ferox  
Divulsit?  
The thought in Euripides was good and just enough; but here we have it hall'd, and pulled, and tossed, and tumbled about, in all postures and figures, and in all colours but the right. Observe but how a a propos the Heroine first starts it. No wonder (says she) if my love goes to the (a) wood, seeing my Mother was gallanted by a Bull; this brings her the ready way to (b) Daedalus and the labyrinth, where both she and the Poet are lost together. One might think, it would well enough serve from the Nurse's mouth for an (c) use of reproof: till shortly after we find it a (d) turncoat, and mustered up by Phedra in the way of an excuse. The rest are all wide from sense and sobriety, as (e) the huge bellow that filled the Dedalian Cloisters.  
This may suffice for Seneca, and Phedra, with whom I had not so long digressed, but that I had Panthea in mine eye all the while. Nor should I have judged Panthea worth all this ado, but that she has many proper Cousins on the Stage. And these vile characters have so long prospered, that they bear high, and are fairly on to pass for excellencies.  
But I grow weary of this Tragedy: In the former I took Latorche by his mouth, and ranting air for a copy of Cassius in Shakespeare: and that you may see Arbaces here, is not without his Cassian strokes.  
Thus Cassius in Shakespeare.  Cass. 
— Brutus and Caesar! what should there be in that Caesar!  
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?  
Writ them together, yours is as fair a name:  
Sound them; it doth become the mouth as well:  
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them, man:  
Brutus will start a Spirit as well as Caesar.  
Now, in the name of all the Gods at once,  
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,  
That he is grown so great?—  
Thus Arbaces.  Arb. 
I have lived  
To conquer men, and now am overthrown  
Only by words, Brother and Sister: where  
Have those words dwelling? I will find'em out,  
And utterly destroy 'em: but they are  
Not to be grasped: let 'em be men or beasts,  
I will cut 'em from the earth; or Towns,  
And I will raze 'em, and then blow 'em up:  
Let 'em be Seas, and I will drink 'em off,  
And yet have unquenched fire within my breast:  
Let 'em be any thing but merely voice.  
Would not these raptures have put Sir Will. Petty in mind of the Irish Inscription?  
FOR FIERCENESS AND FOR FURIOUSNESS,—  
MEN CALL ME THE QUEENS MORTER-PIECE.   

The business of the Maid's Tragedy is this;  
AMintor contracted to Aspasia (Calianax ' s Daughter) by the King's command, marries Evadne, Sister to Melanthius; and expects to lie with her; but the Bride (mincing nothing) flatly tells him that he is but taken for a Cloak; that She, indeed, is a Bedfellow only for the King. The good man is persuaded to dissemble all, till his friend Melanthius extorts from him the secret: and thereupon hectors his Sister Evadne into repentance, and makes her promise to murder the King. Which she effects: in the mean time, by vexing Calianax, Melanthius prevails with him to deliver up the Fort, (wherein consisted the strength of the Kingdom,) and so provides for his own security. Lysimachus, Brother to the murdered King, succeeds on the Throne, and pardons all. Evadne would now go to bed with her Husband, he refuses, she kills herself. Aspasia in man's habit kicks her Sweetheart Amintor, duels him, and is killed; and now Amintor kills himself to follow her: at which sight, his friend Melanthius would also take the same course, but is prevented.  
Here we find Amintor false to his Mistress; and this fault is the source of all the revolutions in this Tragedy.  
Amintor therefore should have named the Tragedy, and some additional title should have hinted the Poet's design.  
But seeing the Maid comes in at the latter end, only, to be killed for company; and seeing the King is the person of greatest importance, is the greatest loser and concerned in the action of the Play more than enough. And seeing that the new King Lysimachus in the close of the Tragedy makes this sober conclusion, says he; 
May this a fair example be to me,  
To rule with temper: for on lustful Kings  
Unlookt-for sudden deaths from heaven are sent.  
But cursed is he that is their instrument.   
From these considerations we might gather that the Poet's intent was to show the dismal consequences of fornication. And if so, than the Title of the Tragedy should have related to the King.  
Whilst thus we are uncertain what ought to be the title, we may suspect that the Action of the Tragedy is double, where there seem two centres, neither can be right; and the lines leading towards them must all be false and confused; the preparation I mean, and conduct must be all at random, since not directed to any one certain end.  
But what ever the Poet designed; nothing in History was ever so unnatural, nothing in Nature was ever so improbable, as we find the whole conduct of this Tragedy, so far are we from any thing accurate, and Philosophical as Poetry requires.  
This will appear as we examine the particular actions and Characters apart.  
Our Poet here gives to the great Comical Booby Calianax, the honour of a long name with a King at th'end on't, yet lets the King himself go without. But since he must be nameless we may treat him with the greater freedom, and to tell my mind, certainly God never made a King with so little wit, nor the devil with so little grace, as is this King Anonymus.  
A King of History might marry his Concubine to another man for a Maid; might hinder that man from the enjoyment. But would not then turn them into the bedchamber to be all night together; nor would come in the morning to interrogate and question him, and torture the soul of him, as we find in this Tragedy, nor would impose it on a husband thus affronted, whom he calls honest and valiant, to be the pimp to his bride. To have taken Amintor's head off had been clemency in comparison of these outrages without any cause or colour. And how wise the King was in all this, may be judged from his own mouth, finding the husband contented and all quiet, the King (jealous that Evadne had not observed covenants) thus taxes her. 
Do not I know the uncontrolled thoughts  
That youth brings with him, when his blood is high  
With expectation and desire of that  
He long had waited for? is not his spirit  
Though he be temperate of a valiant strain,  
As this our age has known? what could he do,  
If such a sudden speech had met his blood,  
But ruin thee for ever? if he had not killed thee,  
He could not bear it thus; he is as we.  
Or any other wronged man.   
As if she had said, you have Evadne, you have broken Articles with me; it cannot be otherwise; for had you kept them, flesh and blood could not endure the affront, and he is such a man as would have cut us all to pieces in revenge. The danger being so clear and certain, and a thousand safe courses before his nose, why should he stumble on this? never was a King of History so errand a fool and madman.  
In framing a Character for Tragedy, a Poet is not to leave his reason, and blindly abandon himself to follow fancy; for than his fancy might be monstrous, might be singular and please no body's maggot but his own, but reason is to be his guide, reason is common to all people, and can never carry him from what is Natural.  
Many are apt to mistake use for nature, but a Poet is not to be an Historiographer, but a Philosopher, he is not to take Nature at the second hand, soiled and deformed as it passes in the customs of the unthinking vulgar.  
The 
a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Phedra in Euripides told us truly that it is not Natural to do evil when we know good. Therefore vice can never please unless it be painted and dressed up in the colours and disguise of virtue, and should any man knowingly and with open eyes prefer what is evil, he must be reckoned the 
b— majus est monstro nefas Nam monstra fato, moribus seelera imputes. Sen.  greatest of Monsters, and in no wise be looked on as any image of what is Natural, or what is suitable with humane kind.  
What is there of the Hero, of Man, or of Nature in these Kings of our Poets framing? And for Evadners' part, did Hell ever give reception to such a Monster? or Cerberus ever wag his tail at an impudence so sacred?  
On the Wedding night the Bridegroom is cajoled by her in no better terms than.  Evad. 
A maidenhead, Amintor, at my years?  
Alas, Amintor, thinkest thou I forbear  
To sleep with thee, because I have put on  
A Maiden strictness; look upon these cheeks  
And thou shalt find the hot and rising blood  
Unapt for such a vow; no, in this heart  
There dwells as much desire, and as much will  
To put that wished act in practice, as ever yet  
Was known to woman, and they have been shown  
Both; but it was the folly of thy youth,  
To think this beauty (to what land so ere  
It shall be called) shall stoop to any second▪  
I do enjoy the best, and in that height  
Have sworn to stand or die.  
Soon after she tells him.  
Alas I must have one  
To Father Children, and to bear the name  
Of husband to me, that my sin may be  
More honourable.  
Hitherto she is bashful, after this the Scene is to be wrought up, and the next Scene presents her impudence triumphant; but I shall trace her duty towards her husband no farther.  
Had Evadne been the injured bodies sister, and had married Amintor out of revenge, or had their been any foundation from circumstances for this sort of carriage, the Character than might have been contrived plausible enough; but both the King's behaviour and hers, uncircumstanced as we have them, are every way so harsh and against Nature, that every thing said by them strikes like a dagger to the souls of any reasonable audience.  
Whatever persons enter upon the Stage the Poetry would be gross enough if the audience could not by the manners distinguish in what Country the Scene lay; whether in England, Italy, or Turkey: more gross would it be if the manners would not discover which were men and which the women.  
Now Nature knows nothing in the manners which so properly and particularly distinguishes woman as doth her modesty, consonant therefore to our principles and Poetical, is what some writers of Natural History have reported; that women when drowned swim with their faces downwards, though men on the contrary.  
Tragedy cannot represent a woman without modesty as natural and essential to her.  
If a woman has got any accidental historical impudence, if documented in the School of Nanna or Heloisa, she is furnished with some stock of acquired impudence, she is no longer to stalk in Tragedy on her high shoes; but must rub off and pack down with the Carriers into the Provence of Comedy, there to be kicked about and exposed to laughter.  
There are degrees of modesty. Evadne and every person feigned aught to be represented with more modesty than Phedra or Semiramis, because the History makes it credible that these had less of modesty then Naturally is inherent to the Sex, yet ought these also to show more of modesty than is ordinarily seen in men, that the Characters might still be distinguished.  
But (of all) the King's murder is attended with those circumstances, with such a knot of absurdity and injustice, that I don't well know where to begin to unravel it.  
This King indeed is born a Monster, a Monster of great hopes, and what might we not have expected from him? yet certainly the Poet cuts him off, e'er ripe for punishment.  
And by such unproper means, that to remove one guilty person he makes an hundred; and commits the deadly sins to punish a venial one.  
If Amintor's falsehood and its fatal consequences are to be noted, what occasion have we for a King in this Tragedy? cannot Corydon deceive his Amarillis (for such is Aspasia) but the King must know of it, the King must be murdered for't?  
To vex this false man, a Groom might have done the job, and have been the Poet's Cuckold-maker to all intents and purposes every jot as well.  
If it be said that the King was accessary to the falsehood, I question whether in Poetry a King can be an accessary to a crime, if the King commanded Amintor; Amintor should have begged the King's pardon; should have suffered all the racks and tortures a Tyrant could inflict; and from Perillus' Bull should have still bellowed out that eternal truth, that his Promise was to be kept, that he is true to Apatia, that he dies for his Mistress, then would his memory have been precious and sweet to after-ages; and the Midsummer-Maydens would have offered their Garlands all at his grave.  
And thus the King might kill Amintor, but Amintor could not pretend that the King or Fortune had made him false. 
— nec nisi miserum fortuna Sinonem  
Finxit, vanum etiam mendacemque improba finget.   
Therefore, I say, the King was not to blame; or however not so far, as in any wise to render his life obnoxious.  
But if the Poet intended to make an example of this King, and that the King right or wrong must be killed. Amintor only felt the highest provocations, and he alone should have been drawn out for the wicked instrument, for Melantius had no reason to be angry at any but at his Sister Evadne; nor could she have any pretence to exercise her hands, unless it were against herself.  
If I mistake not, in Poetry no woman is to kill a man, except her quality gives her the advantage above him, nor is a Servant to kill the Master, nor a Private Man, much less a Subject to kill a King, nor on the contrary.  
Poetical decency will not suffer death to be dealt to each other by such persons, whom the Laws of Duel allow not to enter the lifts together.  
There may be circumstances that altar the case, as when there is a sufficient ground of partiality in an Audience, either upon the account of Religion (as Rinaldo, or Riccardo in Tisso might kill Soliman, or any other Turkish King or great Sultan) or else in favour of our Country for then a private English Hero might overcome a King of some Rival Nation.  
But grant that Evadne lies under none of all these impediments; suppose her duly qualified, and let the King wave his privileges. Is there in History any precedent of a Magdalen sinner, that merely from a fit of repentance fell foul on her Gallant at this horrid rate. Indeed, amongst 'em, they call him lustful Thief, Devil-King, shameless Villain, etc. the Athenian Servants were better bred. 
a Euripides.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ah fool; if we may term our Masters so. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Death take him! no, he is my Master.  
But I say, what reason is there for all this outcry? What can she lay to the King's charge? 
Thou keptest me brave at Court, and Whored me;  
Thou married me to a young noble Gentleman,  
And whored me still.   
The noble Gentleman indeed is wronged: but, good Madam, what reason is there for you to complain? did any force or philter overcome you? was not you as forward? did not you freely and hearty consent? do not we remember your hot rising blood, 
— Your much desire, and as much will  
To put that wished act in practice, as ever yet  
Was known to Woman?   
Has the King cast you off? or broken articles? no: but you repent? then repent at home; you may make bold with your own body, and there let fly your rage and violence. For to kill your Lover, is no effect or operation of repentance, nor has any ground in nature or reason: 'tis worse than brutish.  
But indeed most of our Murderers hitherto have been no better; they are the Poet's Bandogs let lose to worry those the Poet had marked out for slaughter; and never show more reason or consideration: and consequently can in no wise occasion either pity or terror to cause that delight expected from Tragedy.  
In Epic Poetry enemies are killed; and Mezeutius must be a wicked Tyrant; the better to set off Aeneas' piety. In Tragedy, all the clashing is amongst friends, no panegyrics is designed, nor aught intended but pity and terror: and consequently no shadow of sense can be pretended for bringing any wicked persons on the Stage. And yet in that Mezentius of Virgil, we find more virtue than in all the characters I have yet examined; and greater occasion for pity. We forget all his cruelties, when we see that trouble and infinite passion for his Son Lausus, (who was slain in his defence, and whom he would not survive,) which is so admirably expressed. 
— AEstuat ingens  
Imo in cord pudor, mistoque insania luctu,  
Et furiis agitatus amor, & conscia virtus, etc.   
Which lines, Tasso (who translates the whole passage under the names of Solimano and Amiralto into his Gerusalemme) thus renders in more words, but not with more advantage. 
serve in mezzo del cor lo sdegno e l'onta,  
E co'l lutto la rabbia e mista infieme,  
E da le fury l'agitato amore,  
E noto a se medesmo l'empio valour.   
But to return, what yet makes this fact of Evadne more unlikely, is, that she should be hectored into a repentance so pernicious, by her Brother Melantius: who is said to be noble and brave; but from his own mouth we may judge him a Hero, like those we met with formerly; all his words are brags; no Dangerfield, nor Captain Thundergun could sit near him. And for his manners, after one King was murdered by his contrivance, he stands on his guard, and takes up the next King thus roundly.  Mel. 
The short is this,  
'Tis no ambition to lift up myself,  
Urges me thus: I do desire again  
To be a Subject, so I may be freed;  
If not, I know my strength, and will unbuild  
This goodly Town; be speedy and be wise  
In a reply.  
And now this new King, Brother to the former, as heroickly throws him a blank, and bids him make his own terms. His words are these:  Lis. 
Melanthius, writ in that thy choice;  
My Seal is at it.  
And more to the purpose we find not (in the Tragedy) of this second King; save only when he concludes the Play, and tells us, that he (for his part) will take warning how ever he meddles with a Woman; as before has been cited.  
Calianax is an old humorous Lord, neither wise nor valiant, as himself confesses; and yet is entrusted with the strength and keys of the Kingdom: whereas, in Comedy, he would scarce pass, for a good Yeoman of the Cellar.  
His Daughter, Aspasia, that gives name to this Tragedy, makes also here a very simple figure. Never did Amintas or Pastor fido know any thing so tender; nor were the Arcadian Hills ever watered with the tears of a creature so innocent. Pretty Lamb! how mournfully it bleats! it needs no articulate voice to move our compassion: it seeks no shades but under the dismal Yew; and browses only on Willow-garlands: yet it can speak for a kiss or so.  Asp. 
I'll trouble you no more, yet I will take  
A parting kiss, and will not be denied.  
You'll come, my Lord, and for the Virgins weep  
When I am laid in earth; though you yourself  
Can know no pity. Thus I wind myself  
Into this Willow garland, etc.  
At this rate of tattle she runs on, and never knows when she has said enough.  
This Aspasia is a Lord's Daughter, and bred at Court; yet is in the presence, and in the Bedchamber of the Lady that supplants her, and amongst the Bridemaids, where she acts her part; and fawns upon the perjured man that forsakes her. And now cannot I be persuaded that there is aught of nature or probability in all this. Much less would I think this a Woman to handle a Sword, and kick Amintor, as we see her do soon after. Nor can I conceive wherein consists that blessing, as she calls it; which she proposed to herself, in being killed by his hands. This may be Romance, but not Nature.  
And certainly, of all the characters, this of Amintor is the most unreasonable. No reason appears why he was contracted to Aspasia, and less why he forsook her for Evadne; and least of all for his dissembling, and bearing so patiently the greatest of provocations that could possibly be given. Certainly no spectacle can be more displeasing, than to see a man tied to a post, and another buffetting him with an immoderate tongue. Certainly nothing can please a generous mind better, than that of Virgil. Parcere subjectis, & debellare superbos.  
Poetry will allow no provocation or injury, where it allows no revenge. And what pleasure can there be in seeing a King threaten and hector without cause; when none may be suffered to make a return? Poetry will not permit an affront, where there can be no reparation. But well was it for us all, that Amintor was by the Poet his maker, endued with a restraining grace, and had his hands tied.  
The King should first have killed his own Mother to have made him mad enough, and fitted him for such a monstrous provocation. And Amintor too should have been guilty of some enormous crime, (as he is indeed) that drew this curse upon him, and prepared him to receive so horrid an outrage. Both should have been ripe for punishment, which this occasion pulls down upon them, by making them kill each other. Then Poetical justice might have had its course, though no way could pity be due to either of them.  
But surely this character of Amintor is 
a— Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processeret, & sibi constet:  inconsistent, and is contradiction all over. He is a man of Honour, yet breaks his Faith with his Mistress, bears the greatest of affronts from his Wife that ever was given, and dissembles it. 'Tis true; once or twice he is for singing a Catch, for the Fiddle and Dancing; but his countenance is not always set after that copy; he does not always dissemble scurvily: for sometimes we have him looking so pleased, that Comedy would almost be ashamed of such a Cuckold.  
He is also honest, and of unshaken loyalty; yet sometimes has such devilish throws, as would affright any true liege people from sitting at a Coffee-house near him.  
And all the passions in him work so aukwardly, as if he had sucked a Sow. Thus he threatens.  Am. 
— Come to my bed, or by those hairs,  
(Which, if thou hadst a Soul like to thy locks.  
Were threads for Kings to wear about their arms:  Evad. 
Why so perhaps they are.)  Am. 
Tl drag thee to my bed.—  
Should not he rather have kicked her out of doors? And did ever man huff with such a parenthesis?  
As the Scene and provocations work higher; what Aspasia might have said to him, he whines to Evadne.  Am. 
What a strange thing am I?  Evad. 
A miserable one, one that myself am sorry for.  Am. 
Why show it then in this,  
If thou hast pity, though thy love is none:  
Kill me, and all true Lovers that shall live  
In after-ages, crossed in their desires,  
Shall bless thy memory, and call thee good,  
Because such mercy in thy heart was found  
To rid a lingering Wretch.  
Amintor loved Aspasia, and married Evadne, only because the King commanded him. We heard nothing of his love to Evadne till now, that he is turned the amorous Owf, when he ought to be all rage and indignation.  
When he should be silenced, he falls a preaching.  Am. 
Oh thou hast named a word that wipes away  
All thoughts revengeful; in that sacred name  
The King, there lies a terror; what frail man  
Dares lift his hand against it; let the gods  
Speak to him when they please; till then let us suffer and wait.  
This is loyal breath; but presently comes a puff that drives us back to the North of Scotland.  Am. 
— And it is some ease  
To me in these extremes, that I knew this  
Before I touched thee; else had all the sins  
Of mankind stood betwixt me and the King,  
I had gone through'em to his heart and thine.  
Oh, says he, 'tis well it's no worse, for had I lain with thee, I should have been all fire and fury; I would not have valued twenty Kings, but have killed 'em all. Well Amintor, de gustibus non est disputandum, there is difference betwixt men and men; some one, peradventure, of a grosser sense, might have been as cool and well content, if he had been permitted the honour to touch for once where his Majesty had touched before. But now the storm is over, and he proceeds,  Am. 
— Give me thy hand,  
Be careful of thy credit, and sin close,  
'Tis all I wish; upon my Chamber-floor  
I'll rest to night, that morning visiters  
May think we did as married people use,  
And prithee smile upon me when they come,  
And seem to toy, as if thou hadst been pleased  
With what we did.  Evad. 
Fear not, I will do this.  Am. 
Come let us practise, and as wantonly  
As ever loving Bride and Bridegroom met,  
Let's laugh and enter here.  Evad. 
I am content.  Am. 
Down all the swell of my troubled heart.  
When we walk thus entwined, let all eyes see,  
If ever Lovers better did agree.  
See how he concludes too, to the eternal disgrace of Rhyme. One might think that a man in his predicament should scarce be in a mood to be so very particular, and enlarge thus upon the subject, unless he were well pleased with the occasion. Besides, we find here, Lover's, enticed, laugh, Bridegroom, Bride, loving, wantonly, pleased, toy, prithee, did as married people use; so many pleasant words and pretty, got together, Longinus would swear that no man could be angry at heart with all these in his mouth; they ought none of them to be named on the same day with Evadne, and the transactions in this Tragedy. What I have cited, is only from the first Scene, wherein Amintor has business; nor would I follow him farther, but that in the third Act, betwixt him and Melantius we find the first occasion for a Tragical passion that yet (I think) these Plays have afforded us; which arises from the conduct of an Husband who discovers the secret of his Wife's dishonour to his Friend her Brother. Melantius importunes Amintor to tell the cause of his trouble. When the matter comes to be broken, they proceed thus:  Mel. 
— What is it?  Am. 
Why 'tis this,— it is too big  
To get out, let my tears make way awhile.  
Here I suppose, Amintor might better have wept, without telling it to Melantius.  Mel. 
Punish me strangely Heaven, if he escape  
Of life or fame, that brought this Youth to this.  Am. 
Your Sister.  Mel. 
Well said.  Am. 
You'll wished unknown, when you have heard it.  Mel. 
No.  Amint. 
Is much to blame,  
And to the King has given her Honour up—  
This line at the full length, is surely enough, his care is, so to mince that matter as not to offend the Brother. Some broken speeches, as your Sister, the King, her honour, or the like, with now and then a sprinkling of his tears, might have sufficed, and the Brother should have been left to guests and paraphrase the broad meaning. But Amintor harps upon the same string out of time himself. What follows, is plainly to upbraid and affront his Friend by words, though he intended nothing less; for he goes on:  Am. 
And lives in whoredom with him.  
And what yet is more silly, in the next he adds.  Am. 
She's wanton, I am loath to say a whore,  
Though it be true.  
This provokes Melantius to draw his Sword, and he is for fight Amintor; yet I am apt to be of Amintor's mind, which he thus expresses:  Am. 
— It was base in you,  
To urge a weighty secret from your Friend,  
And then rage at it.  
Yet Melantius persists, till Amintor is provoked to draw his Sword, and then Melantius puts up. Harlequin and Scaramouttio might do these things. Tragedy suffers 'em not, here is no place for Cowards, nor for giddy fellows, and Bullies with their squabbles. When a Sword is once drawn in Tragedy, the Scabbard may be thrown away; there is no leaving what is once designed, till it be thoroughly effected. Iphigenia Taurica went to sacrifice Orestes, and she desisted, why? she discovered him to be her Brother. None here are such Fools as by words to begin a quarrel; nor of so little resolution, to be talked again from it, without some new emergent cause that diverts them. No 
a Arist.  simple alteration of mind ought to produce or hinder any action in a Tragedy.  
Yet far more faulty is what follows; the counter-turn has no shadow of sense or sobriety. Melantius has swaggered away his fury, and now Amintor is all agog to be afighting; for what; but to get his secret back again.  Am. 
— Give it me again,  
Or I will find it wheresoever it lies  
Hid in the mortalest part, invent a way to get it back.  
Thou art mad Amintor, Bedlam is the only place for thee; if thou comest here with thy madness, Tragedy expects 
b Terence:  ut cum ratione insanias.  
Hercules was mad, and killed his Wife and Children, yet there was reason in his madness; a mist was cast before his eyes, he mistook them for their enemies, and believed he was revenging their quarrel whilst he heat their brains out. That was a madness might move pity; but this of Amintor is merely brutish, and can move nothing but our aversion. Here is a bluster begun without provocation, and ended without any thing of satisfaction.  
But that I may never find a fault without showing something better. For a quarrel betwixt two friends, with the turn and counter-turn: let me commend that Scene in the Iphigenia in Aulide. Where Agamemnon having consented that his Daughter should be sacrificed, and (that her Mother might let her come the more willingly) sent for her with a pretence that she was to be married to Achilles; yet in a fit of Fatherly tenderness he privately dispatches Letters to hinder her coming. Menelaus meets the Messenger going from Agamemnon, suspects the business, takes the Letters from him before Agamemnon's face, and read them; and now arose the contest: Menelaus was zealous for the public good, the more, because it agreed so much with his own interest: and Agamemnon had cause enough to stand up for his Daughter; but yet, at length, with weeping eyes, and shame for his weakness and partiality, he yielded up the cause. But Menelaus now seeing the conflict of Agamemnon, the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his repentance, this sight melted the heart of him, and now he turns Advocate for Iphigenia: He will have Helen and the concerns of Greece left to the mercy of Heaven, rather than that his Brother Agamemnon should do so much violence to himself; and that so virtuous a young Princess be trapan'd to lose her life.  
Here all the motions arise from occasions great and just; and this is matter for a Scene truly passionate and Tragical.  
We may remember (however we find this Scene of Melanthius and Amintor written in the Book) that at the Theatre we have a good Scene Acted, there is work cut out, and both our AEsopus and Roscius are on the Stage together: Whatever defect may be in Amintor and Melanthius; Mr. Hart and Mr. Mohun are wanting in nothing. To these we own for what is pleasing in the Scene; and to this Scene we may impute the success of the Maid's Tragedy.  
The Drolls in this Play make not so much noise as in the two former; but are less excusable here. In the former they keep some distance, and make a sort of interlude: but here they thrust into the principal places; when we should give our full attention to what is Tragedy. When we would listen to a Lute, our ears are rapt with the tintamar and twang of the Tongues and jewstrumps. A man may be free to make a jest of his own misfortunes: but surely 'tis unnatural and barbarous to laugh when we see another on the Scaffold. Some would laugh to find me mentioning Sacrifices, Oracles, and Goddesses: old Superstitions, say they, not practicable, but more than ridiculous on our Stage. These have not observed with what Art Virgil has managed the Gods of Homer, nor with what judgement Tasso and Cowley employ the heavenly powers in a Christian Poem. The like hints from Sophocles and Euripides might also be improved by modern Tragedians; and something thence devised suitable to our Faith and Customs. 'Tis the general reason I contend for: Nor would I more have Oracles or Goddesses on the Stage, then hear the persons speak Greek, they are Apes and not men that imitate with so little discretion.  
Some would blame me for insisting and examining only what is apt to please, without a word of what might profit.  
1. I believe the end of all Poetry is to please.  
2. Some sorts of Poetry please without profiting.  
3. I am confident whoever writes a Tragedy cannot please but must also profit; 'tis the Physic of the mind that he makes palatable.  
And besides the purging of the passions; something must stick by observing that constant order, that harmony and beauty of Providence, that necessary relation and chain, whereby the causes and the effects, the virtues and rewards, the vices and their punishments are proportioned and linked together; how deep and dark soever are laid the Springs, and however intricate and involved are their operations.  
But these inquiries I leave to men of more phlegm and consideration.  
Othello comes next to hand, but laying my Papers together without more scribbling, I find a volumn, and a greater burden than I dare well obtrude upon you.  
If I blindly wander in erroneous paths, 'tis more than time Mr. Shepherd that you set me right, and if I am not so much out of the way; then most of the main faults in these other Tragedies cannot be far from our view, if we tread not on their skirts already.  
I will wait your direction ere I advance farther, and be sure of your pardon for what is past. Many seeming contradictions I rather chose to slip over, then to be ever casting in your way some parenthesis or some distinction.  
Many other slips and mistakes too you meet withal, but the fortune of Greece depends not on them.  
Nor I know could you (that read Hebrew without the pricks) be at a loss for the sense, where you found not a period truly pointed.  
If the Characters I have examined are the same I take them for, I send you Monsters enough for one Bartholmew-fair: but what would vex a Christian, these are shown us for our own likenesses, these are the Dutch Pictures of humane kind.  
I have thought our Poetry of the last Age as rude as our Architecture, one cause thereof might be, that Aristotle's treatise of Poetry has been so little studied amongst us, it was perhaps Commented upon by all the great men in Italy, before we well know (on this side of the Alps) that there was such a Book in being. And though Horace comprizes all in that small Epistle of his; yet few will think long enough together to be Masters, and to understand the reason of what is delivered so in short.  
With the remaining Tragedies I shall also send you some reflections on that Paradise lost of milton's, which some are pleased to call a Poem, and assert Rhyme against the slender Sophistry wherewith he attacques it: and also a Narrative of Petrarch's Coronation in the Capitol, with all the Pontificalibus on that occasion, which seems wanting in Selden, where he treats on that subject. Let me only anticipate a little in behalf of the Catiline, and now tell my thoughts, that though the contrivance and oeconomy is faulty enough, yet we there find (besides what is borrowed from others) more of Poetry and of good thought, more of Nature and of Tragedy, than peradventure can be scraped together from all those other Plays.  
Nor can I be displeased with honest Ben, when he rather chooses to borrow a Melon of his Neighbour, than to treat us with a Pompion of his own growth.  
But all is submitted to you Men of better sense, by  
SIR, Your most obliged humble Servant T. Rymer.    

THE Life of Sir Walter Raliegh, with his Trial and Arraignment at Winchester, in octavo, price bound 2 s.  
Antony and Cleopatra, a Tragedy, as it is Acted at the Duke's Theatre, written by the Honourable Sir Charles Sedley, Baronet, price 1 s.  
Circe, a Tragedy, as it is Acted at the Duke's Theatre, written by Charles D'avenant, L. L. D. price 1 s.  
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The Art of making Love, or Rules for the Conduct of Ladies and Gallants in their Amours, price bound 1 s.  
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