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have thought it a much more noble illustration of the matter. The soldier in that piece, though so much condemned by our modern professors of virtù for being, as they say, the principal figure, is the very thing which raises this picture from a simple portrait (which it must otherwise have been) to the finest moral painting; and in Greece would have placed the painter amongst that class of artists, which they esteemed the noblest, the HOOгPAÞOI. The greatest tragic poet could not have raised a more exquisite distress than this judicious painter has done by the attitude of that soldier; as well as by the subordinate figures, which, with great propriety, are female ones; nothing being so likely to raise in a military mind that mixture of pity and disdain, which he wanted to express, as to see such a hero relieved by charity, and that too the charity of girls and old women.

But, returning to my subject, I will just observe to you, that if it be proper to assist an audience in relishing the pathetic, by shewing an imitation of that pathos in the Chorus, it is much more so to instruct them how to be affected properly, with the characters and actions which are represented in the course of the drama. The character of PIERRE in Venice Preserved, when left entirely to the judgment of the audience, is perhaps one of the most improper for public view, that ever was produced on any stage. It is almost impossible, but some part of the spectators should go from the representation

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with very false and immoral impressions. But had the tragedy been written on the antient plan; had Pierre's character been drawn just as it is, and some few alterations made in Jaffier's, I know no two characters more capable of doing service in a moral view, when justly animadverted upon by the Chorus. I don't say, I would have trusted Otway with the writing of it.

To have done, and to release you. Bad characters become on this plan as harmless in the hands of the poet, as the historian; and good ones become infinitely more useful, by how much the poetic is more forcible than the historical mode of instruction.

LETTER V.

THE reason, why in a former letter you advised me to alter the Chorus, is made very apparent in your last. For, by persuading me to get the odes set to music, and to risk the play on the stage, I understand only that you are willing, any how, to make it a more profitable work for me, than it can possibly be by means of the press alone.

Yet certainly, Sir, one single reflection on our British pit will make you change your sentiments effectually. Think only on the trial made by M. Racine, in a nation much before ours, in a taste for probability and decorum in theatrical diversions. In his two last tragedies, you know,

he has fully succeeded in the very thing I aimed at; and has adapted a noble imitation of antient simplicity to the taste of his own times: particularly in his Athalia, a poem in which the most superb and august spectacle, the most interesting event, and the most sublime flow of inspired poetry, are all nobly and naturally united. Yet I am told, that neither that, nor the Esther, retains its Chorus, when represented on the French theatre.

To what is this owing? To the refinement most certainly of our modern music. This art is now carried to such a pitch of perfection, or if you will of corruption, which makes it utterly incapable of being an adjunct to poetry. Il y a grand apparence, que les progrès que vouz avez faits dans la musique, ont nui enfin à ceux de la veritable tragedie. C'est un talent, qui a fait tort a un autre; says M. Voltaire with his usual taste and judgment. Our different cadences, our divisions, variations, repetitions, without which modern music cannot subsist, are entirely improper for the expression of poetry, and were scarce known to the antients.

But could this be managed, the additional expence necessarily attendant on such a performance, would make the matter impracticable. This Mr. Dryden foresaw long ago. The passage is curious.

"A new theatre, much more ample and much deeper, must be made for that purpose; besides the cost of sometimes forty or fifty habits: which

is an expence too large to be supplied by a company of actors. It is true, I should not be sorry to see a Chorus on a theatre, more than as large and as deep again as ours, built and adorned at a king's charges; and on that condition, and another, which is, that my hands were not bound behind me, as now they are, I should not despair of making such a tragedy as might be both instructive and delightful according to the manner of the Grecians." What he means by having his hands bound, I imagine, is, that he was either engaged to his subscribers for a translation of Virgil, or to the manager of the theatre for so many plays a season. This suffrage of Mr. Dryden is, however, very apposite to the present point. It serves, also, to vindicate my design of imitating the Greek drama. For if he, who was so prejudiced to the modern stage, as to think intrigue a capital beauty in it; if he, I say, owns that the grand secret prodesse et delectare was the characteristic of the Greek drama only, nothing can better justify my present attempt than the approbation he gives to it in this passage.

Having now settled with you all matters of general criticism, I hope in your next you will give me your objections to scenes, speeches, images, &c. And be assured I shall treat your judgment in these matters with greater deference, than I have done in what related to the stage and the Chorus.

Pembroke Hall, 1751.

* ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page 125, ver. 2.

On the left,

Reside the † sages skill'd in nature's lore:

ti. e. The Euvates; one of the three classes of the Druids, according to Am. Marcellinus. Studia liberalium doctrinarum inchoata per Bardos, Euvates, & Druidas. This class, Strabo tells us, had the care of the sacrifices, and studied natural philosophy; which here, by the changeful universe, is shewn to be on Pythagorean principles. Whenever the priests are mentioned in the subsequent parts of the drama, this order of men is intended to be meant, as distinguished from the Druids and Bards.

Page 130, ver. 2.

Thou shalt live;

Yet shalt thou live an interdicted wretch,
All rights of nature cancell'd.

Alluding to the druidical power of excommunication, mentioned by Cæsar. Si quis aut privatus, aut publicus,

*The above quotations, from antient authors, are here thrown together, in order to support and explain some passages in the drama of CARACTACUS, that respect the manners of the Druids; and which, the general account of their customs, to be found in our histories of Britain, does not include

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