number. In the principal figures of a picture, the painter is to employ the sinews of his art; for in them consists the principal beauty of his work. Our author saves me the comparison with tragedy; for he says, that herein he is to imitate the tragick poet, who employs his utmost force in those places, wherein consists the height and beauty of the action. Du Fresnoy, whom I follow, makes DESIGN, or DRAWING, the second part of painting; but the rules which he gives concerning the posture of the figures, are almost wholly proper to that art, and admit not any comparison, that I know, with poetry. The posture of a poetick figure is, as I conceive, the description of his heroes in the performance of such or such an action; as of Achilles, just in the act of killing Hector, or of Æneas who has Turnus under him. Both the poet and the painter vary the posture, according to the action or passion which they represent, of the same person : but all must be great and graceful in them. The same Æneas must be drawn a suppliant to Dido, with respect in his gestures, and humility in his eyes; but when he is forced in his own defence to kill Lausus, the poet shews him compassionate, and tempering the severity of his looks with a reluctance to the action which he is going to perform. He has pity on his beauty and his youth, and is loth to destroy such a masterpiece of nature. He considers Lausus rescuing his father at the hazard of his own life, as an image of himself, when he took Anchises on his shoulders, and bore him safe through the rage of the fire, and the opposition of his enemies; and therefore in the posture of a retiring man, who avoids the combat, he stretches out his arm in sign of peace, with his right foot drawn a little back, and his breast bending inward, more like an orator than a soldier ; and seems to dissuade the young man from pulling on his destiny, by attempting more than he was able to perform. Take the passage as I have thus translated it : Shouts of applause ran ringing through the field, The Trojan chief; who held at bay, from far And thus to Lausus, loud with friendly threat'ning Why wilt thou rush to certain death, and rage And afterwards: He griev'd, he wept; the sight an image brought Of his own filial love; a sadly pleasing thought. But beside the outlines of the posture, the design of the picture comprehends in the next place the forms of faces, which are to be different; and so in a poem or a play must the several characters of the persons be distinguished from 2 each other. I knew a poet, whom out of respect I will not name, who being too witty himself, could draw nothing but wits in a comedy of his; even his fools were infected with the disease of their author. They overflowed with smart repartees, and were only distinguished from the intended wits by being called coxcombs, though they deserved not so scandalous a name. Another, who had a great genius for tragedy,' following the fury of his natural temper, made every man and woman too in his plays stark raging mad: there was not a sober person to be had for love or money. All was tempestuous and blustering; heaven and earth were coming together at every word; a mere This description seems at the first view to be intended for Congreve, to whom it is certainly sufficiently applicable, and who had produced his DOUBLE DEALER in the preceding year, and his LOVE FOR LOVE in 1695. But beside that Dryden's high admiration of Congreve, which he had so strongly manifested in the admirable Verses addressed to that poet on the former play, will not admit of such an application, the words-" I knew,” clearly denote a dead poet, and consequently will exclude Wycherley also. The person meant therefore, I think, was Sir George Etherege, who died a few years before. In Dryden's Epilogue to that author's MAN OF MODE, he says, "Sir Fopling is a fool so nicely writ, "Most ladies would mistake him for a wit." 3 The tragick poet here alluded to, was doubtless Nat. Lee. an hurricane from the beginning to the end,-and every actor seemed to be hastening on the day of judgment. "Let every member be made for its own head," says our author; not a withered hand to a young face. So, in the persons of a play, whatsoever is said or done by any of them, must be consistent with the manners which the poet has given them distinctly; and even the habits must be proper to the degrees and humours of the persons, as well as in a picture. He who entered in the first act a young man, like Pericles, Prince of Tyre,* must not be in danger in the fifth act, of committing incest with his daughter; nor an usurer, without great probability and causes of repentance, be turned into a cutting Moorecraft.' I am not satisfied that the comparison betwixt the two arts in the last paragraph is altogether so + Our author has expressly attributed PERICLES to Shakspeare, and supposed it one of his earliest productions: Shakspeare's own muse his PERICLES first bore, "The PRINCE OF TYRE was elder than the MOOR." In the latter notion, however, he was, I think, mistaken: for whatever share Shakspeare had in its rifacimento, appears to have been contributed some years after King James's accession to the throne. See vol. i. p. 259, and p. 295, n. 5 Moorecraft is a usurer, in THE SCORNFUL LADY, a comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher; who becomes a convert in the last scene. A cutter, in old language, signified -a boisterous swaggerer. just as it might have been; but I am sure of this which follows. "The principal figure of the subject must appear in the midst of the picture, under the principal light, to distinguish it from the rest, which are only its attendants."-Thus, in a tragedy, or an epick poem, the hero of the piece must be advanced foremost to the view of the reader or spectator: he must outshine the rest of all the characters; he must appear the prince of them, like the sun in the Copernican system, encompassed with the less noble planets: because the hero is the centre of the main action; all the lines from the circumference tend to him alone: he is the chief object of pity in the drama, and of admiration in the epick poem. As in a picture, besides the principal figures which compose it, and are placed in the midst of it, there are less groups or knots of figures disposed at proper distances, which are parts of the piece, and seem to carry on the same design in a more inferior manner;-so, in epick poetry there are episodes, and a chorus in tragedy, which are members of the action, as growing out of it, not inserted into it. Such in the ninth book of the ENEIDS is the episode of Nisus and Euryalus. The adventure belongs to them alone; they alone are the objects of compassion and admiration ; but their business which they carry on, is the general concernment of the Trojan camp, then beleaguered by Turnus and the Latins, as the Chris |