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temned; for I judged it both natural and probable, that Octavia, proud of her new-gained conquest, would search out Cleopatra to triumph over her; and that Cleopatra, thus attacked, was not of a spirit to shun the encounter: And it is not unlikely, that two exasperated rivals should use such satire as I have put into their mouths; for, after all, though the one were a Roman, and the other a queen, they were both women. It is true, some actions, though natural, are not fit to be represented; and broad obscenities in words, ought in good manners to be avoided; expressions therefore are a modest clothing of our thoughts, as breeches and petticoats are of our bodies. If I have kept myself within the bounds of modesty, all beyond it is but nicety and affectation; which is no more but modesty depraved into a vice. They betray themselves who are too quick of apprehension in such cases, and leave all reasonable men to imagine worse of them, than of the poet.

Honest Montaigne goes yet farther: Nous ne sommes que ceremonie; la ceremonie nous emporte, et laissons la substance des choses: Nous nous tenons aux branches, et abandonnons le tronc et le corps. Nous avons appris aux dames de rougir, oyans seulement nommer ce qu'elles ne craignent aucunement à faire: Nous n'esons appeller à droict nos membres, et ne craignons pas de les employer à toute sorte de debauche. La ceremonie nous defend d'exprimer par paroles les choses licites et naturelles, et nous l'en croyons; la raison nous defend de n'en faire point d' illicites et mauvaises, et personne ne l'en croit. My comfort is, that by this opinion my enemies are but sucking critics, who would fain be nibbling ere their teeth are come.

Yet, in this nicety of manners does the excellenof French poetry consist. Their heroes are the most civil people breathing; but their good breed

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ing seldom extends to a word of sense; all their wit is in their ceremony; they want the genius which animates our stage; and therefore it is but necessary, when they cannot please, that they should take care not to offend. But as the civillest man in the company is commonly the dullest, so these authors, while they are afraid to make you laugh or cry, out of pure good manners, make you sleep. They are so careful not to exasperate a critic, that they never leave him any work: so busy with the broom, and make so clean a riddance, that there is little left either for censure or for praise: For no part of a poem is worth our discommending, where the whole is insipid; as when we have once tasted of palled wine, we stay not to examine it glass by glass. But while they affect to shine in trifles, they are often careless in essentials. Thus, their Hippolitus is so scrupulous in point of decency, that he will rather expose himself to death, than accuse his step-mother to his father; and my critics I am sure will commend him for it: But we of grosser apprehensions are apt to think, that this excess of generosity is not practicable, but with fools and madmen. This was good manners with a vengeance; and the audience is like to be much concerned at the misfortunes of this admirable hero. But take Hippolitus out of his poetic fit, and I suppose he would think it a wiser part, to set the saddle on the right horse, and chuse rather to live with the reputation of a plain-spoken honest man, than to die with the infamy of an incestuous villain.* In the

* That the reader may himself judge of the justice of Dryden's censure, I subjoin the argument on this knotty point, as it is stated by Hippolytus and his mistress in the 5th act of the "Phedre" of Racine.

mean time we may take notice, that where the poet ought to have preserved the character as it was de livered to us by antiquity, when he should have given us the picture of a rough young man, of the Amazonian strain, a jolly huntsman, and both by his profession and his early rising a mortal enemy to love, he has chosen to give him the turn of gallantry, sent him to travel from Athens to Paris, taught him to make love, and transformed the Hippolitus of Euripides into Monsieur Hippolite. I should not have troubled myself thus far with French poets, but that I find our Chedreux* critics wholly form

*

Aricie.

Quoi vous pouvés vous taire en ce peril extreme ?
Vous laissés dans l'erreur un pere qui vous aime ?
Cruel, si de mes pleurs meprisant le pouvoir,
Vous consentéz sans peine a ne me plus revoir.
Partes, separés vous de la triste Aricie,
Mais du moins en partant assurés votre vie.
Defendés votre honneur d' un reproche honteux,
Et forcés votre pere a revoquer ses vœux ;

Il en est temps encore. Pourquoi, par quel caprice,
Laissés vous le champ libre a votre accusatrice?
Eclaircissés Thesee.

Hippolyte.

Hé que n'ai-je point dit ?

Ai-je du mettre au jour l'opprobre de son lit?
Devois-je en lui faisant un recit trop sincere,
D'un indigne rougeur couvrir le front d'un pere?
Vous seul avés percé ce mystere odieux,

Mon cœur pour s' epancher, n'a que vous et les dieux:
Je n'ai pu vous cacher, jugés si je vous aime,
Tout ce que je voulois me cacher a moi-meme.
Mais songés sous quel sceau je vous l'ai révélé ;
Oubliés, si se peut, que je vous ai parlé,
Madame; et que jamais une bouche si pure
Ne s'ouvre pour conter cette horrible avanture.
Sur bequité des dieux osons nous confier,
Ils ont trop d'interet a me justifier,

Et Phédre tot ou tard de son crime punie,
N'en şaúroit eviter la juste ignominié.

Chedreux was the name of the fashionable periwigs of the day, and appears to have been derived from their maker. A

their judgments by them. But for my part, I desire to be tried by the laws of my own country; for it seems unjust to me, that the French should prescribe here, till they have conquered. Our little sonetteers, who follow them, have too narrow souls to judge of poetry. Poets themselves are the most proper, though I conclude not the only critics. But till some genius, as universal as Aristotle, shall arise, one who can penetrate into all arts and sciences, without the practice of them, I shall think it reasonable, that the judgment of an artificer in his own art should be preferable to the opinion of another man; at least where he is not bribed by interest, or prejudiced by malice. And this, I suppose, is manifest by plain inductions: For, first, the crowd cannot be presumed to have more than a gross instinct, of what pleases or displeases them: Every man will grant me this; but then, by a particular kindness to himself, he draws his own stake first, and will be distinguished from the multitude, of which other men may think him one. But, if I come closer to those who are allowed for witty men, either by the advantage of their quality, or by common fame, and affirm that neither are they qualified to decide sovereignly concerning poetry, I shall yet have a strong party of my opinion; for most of them severally will exclude the rest, either from the number

French peruquier, in one of Shadwell's comedies, says, "You talk of de Chedreux; he is no bodie to me. Dere is no man can travaille vis mee. Monsieur Wildish has got my peruke on his head. Let me see, here is de haire, de curle, de brucle, ver good, ver good. If dat foole Chedreux make de peruke like me, I vil be hanga." Bury Fair, Act I. Scene II. It appears from the letter of the literary veteran in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1745, that our author, as he advanced in reputation, assumed the fashionable Chedreux periwig.

of witty men, or at least of able judges. But here again they are all indulgent to themselves, and every one who believes himself a wit, that is, every man, will pretend at the same time to a right of judging. But to press it yet farther, there are many witty men, but few poets; neither have all poets a taste of tragedy. And this is the rock on which they are daily splitting. Poetry, which is a picture of nature, must generally please; but it is not to be understood that all parts of it must please every man; thereforeis not tragedy tobe judged by a witty man, whose taste is only confined to comedy. Nor is every man, who loves tragedy, a sufficient judge of it; he must understand the excellencies of it too, or he will only prove a blind admirer, not a critic. From hence it comes that so many satires on poets, and censures of their writings, fly abroad. Men of pleasant conversation, (at least esteemed so) and endued with a trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out with some smattering of Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of gentlemen, by their poetry;

Rarus enim fermè sensus communis in illâ
Fortuna.

And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their nakedness to public view? Not considering that they are not to expect the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their flatterers after the third bottle. If a little glittering in discourse has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate, but

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