tians were lately by the Turks. They were to advertise the chief hero of the distresses of his subjects occasioned by his absence, to crave his succour, and solicit him to hasten his return.

The Grecian tragedy was at first nothing but a chorus of singers; afterwards one actor was introduced, which was the poet himself, who entertained the people with a discourse in verse, betwixt the pauses of the singing. This succeeding with the people, more actors were added, to make the variety the greater; and in process of time, the chorus only sung betwixt the acts, and the Coryphæus, or chief of them, spoke for the rest, as an actor concerned in the business of the play.

Thus tragedy was perfected by degrees; and being arrived at that perfection, the painters might probably take the hint from thence of adding groups to their pictures. But as a good picture may be without a group, so a good tragedy may subsist without a chorus, notwithstanding any reasons which have been given by Dacier to the contrary.

Monsieur Racine has, indeed, used it in his ESTHER; but not that he found any necessity of it, as the French critick would insinuate. The chorus at St. Cyr was only to give the young ladies an occasion of entertaining the King with vocal musick, and of commending their own voices. The play itself was never intended for the publick stage, nor without disparagement to the learned author, could possibly have succeeded

there; and much less the translation of it here. Mr. Wycherley, when we read it together, was of my opinion in this, or rather I of his; for it becomes me so to speak of so excellent a poet, and so great a judge." But since I am in this place,

6 Our author, it is observable, omits no opportunity of commending Wycherley, on whom the encomiums lavished by his contemporaries are perhaps at least equal to his desert.

He almost entirely lost his memory, in consequence of a fever, which he had about the year 1678, when he was near forty years old. "He had (says Pope) this odd particularity in him, from the loss of his memory, that the same chain of thought would return into his mind at the distance of two or three years, without his remembering that it had been there before. Thus perhaps he would write one year an encomium upon avarice, (for he loved paradoxes,) and a year or two after in dispraise of liberty; and in both, the words only would differ, and the thoughts be as much alike, as two medals of different metals out of the same mould.

"He used to read himself asleep o'nights, either in Montagne, Rochefoucauld, Seneca, or Gratian; for these were his four favourite authors. He would read one or other of them in the evening, and the next morning perhaps write a copy of verses on some subject similar to what he had been reading, and have several of their thoughts, only expressed in a different turn: and that without knowing that he was obliged to them for any one thought in the whole poem. I have experienced this in him several times, (for I visited him for a whole winter almost every evening and morning,) and look upon it as one of the strangest phænomenons that ever I observed in the human mind." Spence's ANECDOTES.

as Virgil says, spatiis exclusus iniquis, that is, shortened in my time, I will give no other reason, than that it is impracticable on our stage. 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.

To make a sketch, or a more perfect model of a picture, is, in the language of poets, to draw up the scenary of a play; and the reason is the same for both; to guide the undertaking, and to preserve the remembrance of such things, whose natures are difficult to retain.

To avoid absurdities and incongruities, is the same law established for both arts. The painter is not to paint a cloud at the bottom of a picture, but in the uppermost parts; nor the poet to place what is proper to the end or middle, in the beginning of a poem. I might enlarge on this; but there are few poets or painters, who can be sup

By the translation of Virgil, in which he was now engaged.

posed to sin so grossly against the laws of nature and of art. I remember only one play, and for once I will call it by its name, THE SLIGHTED MAID, where there is nothing in the first act, but what might have been said or done in the fifth; nor any thing in the midst, which might not have been placed as well in the beginning, or the end. To express the passions which are seated in the heart, by outward signs, is one great precept of the painters, and very difficult to perform. In poetry, the same passions and motions of the mind are to be expressed; and in this consists the principal difficulty, as well as the excellency of that art. This, says my author, is the gift of Jupiter; and to speak in the same heathen language, we call it the gift of our Apollo,-not to be obtained by pains or study, if we are not born to it; for the motions which are studied, are never so natural as those which break out in the height of a real passion. Mr. Otway possessed this part as thoroughly as any of the ancients or moderns. I will

8 A comedy written by Sir Robert Stapylton, and acted by the Duke of York's Servants, at their theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, in 1663. Our author has again censured this piece, in the Prologue to CIRCE, 1675:

"Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight, "Did no VOLPONE, nor no ARBACES write; "But hopp'd about, and short excursions made "From bough to bough, as if they were afraid; "And each was guilty of some SLIGhted Maid."

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not defend every thing in his VENICE PRESERved; but I must bear this testimony to his memory,that the passions are truly touched in it, though perhaps there is somewhat to be desired, both in the grounds of them, and in the height and elegance of expression; but Nature is there, which is the greatest beauty.

"In the passions, (says our author,) we must have a very great regard to the, quality of the persons, who are actually possessed with them." The joy of a monarch for the news of a victory, must not be expressed like the ecstasy of a Harlequin on the receipt of a letter from his mistress: -this is so much the same in both the arts, that it is no longer a comparison. What he says of face-painting, or the portrait of any one particular person,―concerning the likeness,—is also as applicable to poetry. In the character of an hero,

9 66 Otway (says Pope) has written but two tragedies out of six, that are pathetick. I believe he did it without. much design, as Lillo has done in his BARNWELL. It is a talent of nature, rather than an effect of judgment, to write so movingly." Spence's ANECDOTES.

Dennis, the Critick, informed Mr. Spence, that " Otway had a friend, one Blakiston, who was shot: the murderer fled towards Dover, and Otway pursued him. In his return he drank water, when violently heated, and so got the fever which was the death of him." Ibid..

Dennis, in the Preface to his Observations on Pope's Translation of Homer, 8vo. 1717, says, Otway died in an alehouse; which is not inconsistent with this account. He certainly generally lived in one.