Deportment; which will naturally be winning and attractive if we think not of them, but lofe their Force in proportion to our Endeavour to make them fuch. WHEN our Confciousness turns upon the main Design of Life, and our Thoughts are employed upon the chief Purpofe either in Business or Pleasure, we fhall never betray an Affectation, for we cannot be guilty of it: But when we give the Paffion for Praise an unbridled Liberty, our Pleasure in little Perfections, robs us of what is due to us for great Virtues and worthy Qualities. How many excellent Speeches and honeft Actions are loft, for want of being indifferent where we ought? Men are oppreffed with regard to their Way of fpeaking and acting, inftead of having their Thoughts bent upon what they fhould do or fay; and by that Means bury a Capacity for great things, by their fear of failing in indifferent things. This, perhaps, cannot be called Affectation; but it has fome Tincture of it, at leaft fo far, as that their Fear of erring in a thing of no Confequence, argues they would be too much pleafed in performing it. IT is only from a thorough Difregard to himself in fuch Particulars, that a Man can act with a laudable Sufficiency: His Heart is fixed upon one Point in view; and he commits no Errors, because he thinks nothing an Error but what deviates from that Intention. THE wild Havock Affectation makes in that Part of the World which fhould be moft polite, is visible where-ever we turn our Eyes: It pushes Men not only into Impertinencies in Converfation, but also in their premeditated Speeches. At the Bar it torments the Bench, whofe Bufinefs it is to cut off all Superfluities in what is fpoken before it by the Practitioner; as well as feveral little Pieces of Injuftice which arife from the Law it felf. I have feen it make a Man run from the Purpose before a Judge, who was, when at the Bar himself, fo close and logical a Pleader, that with all the Pomp of Eloquence in his Power, he never fpoke a Word too much, IT might be born even here, but it often afcends the Pulpit it felf; and the Declaimer, in that facred Place, is frequently fo impertinently witty, fpeaks of the the laft Day it felf with fo many quaint Phrafes, that there is no Man who underftands Raillery, but must refolve to fin no more: Nay, you may behold him fometimes in Prayer, for a proper Delivery of the great Truths he is to utter, humble himself with fo very well-turned Phrafe, and mention his own Unworthinefs in a Way fo very becoming, that the Air of the pretty Gentleman is preferved, under the Lowlinefs of the Preacher. I fhall end this with a fhort Letter I writ the other Day to a very witty Man, over-run with the Fault I am speaking of. Dear SIR, 'I Spent fome Time with you the other Day, and muft take the Liberty of a Friend to tell you of the unfufferable Affectation you are guilty of in all you fay and do. When I gave you an Hint of it, you asked me whether a Man is to be cold to what his Friends think of him? No; but Praise is not to be the Entertainment of every Moment: He that hopes for it must be able to fufpend the Poffeffion of it till proper Periods of Life, or Death it felf. If you would not rather be commended than be Praifeworthy, contemn little Merits; and allow no Man to be fo free with you, as to praife you to your Face. Your Vanity by this Means will want its Food, At the fame time Your Paffion for Efteem will be more fully gratified; Men will praife you in their Actions: Where you now receive one Compliment, you will then receive twenty Civilities. Till then you will neyer have of either, further than, SIR, Your humble Servant, R G 4 Saturday, N 39. Saturday, April 14. Multa fero, ut placem genus irritabile vatum, Hor. S a perfect Tragedy is the nobleft Production of human Nature, fo it is capable of giving the Mind one of the most delightful and moft improving Entertainments. A virtuous Man (fays Seneca) ftruggling. with Misfortunes, is fuch a Spectacle as Gods might look upon with Pleasure: And fuch a Pleasure it is which one meets with in the Reprefentation of a well-written Tragedy.. Diversions of this kind wear out of our Thoughts every thing that is mean and little. They cherish and cultivate that Humanity which is the Ornament of our Nature. They foften Infolence, footh Affliction, and fubdue the Mind to the Difpenfations of Providence. IT is no Wonder therefore that in all the polite Nations of the World, this part of the Drama has met with publick Encouragement.. THE modern Tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome, in the Intricacy and Difpofition of the Fable; but, what a Chriftian Writer would be afhamed to own, falls infinitely fhort of it in the moral Part of the Performance. THIS I may fhew more at large hereafter; and in the mean time, that I may contribute fomething towards the Improvement of the English Tragedy, I fhall take notice, in this and in other following Papers, of some particular Parts in it that feem liable to Exception. ARISTOTLE obferves, that the Iambick Verfe is the Greek Tongue was the most proper for Tragedy: Becaufe at the fame time that it lifted up the Difcourfe from Profe, it was that which approached nearer to it than any other kind of Verfe. For, fays he, we may obferve that Men in ordinary Difcourfe very often fpeak Iambicks, without taking Notice of it. We may take the fame Obfervation of our English Blank Verse, which often enters enters into our common Difcourfe, though we do not attend to it, and is fuch a due Medium between Rhyme and Profe, that it feems wonderfully adapted to Tragedy. I am therefore very much offended when I fee a Play in Rhyme, which is as abfurd in English, as a Tragedy of Hexameters would have been in Greek or Latin. The Solæcifim is, I think, ftill greater in thofe Plays that have fome Scenes in Rhyme and fome in Blank Verse, which are to be looked upon as two feveral Languages; or where we fee fome particular Similies dignified with Rhyme, at the fame time that every thing about them lyes in Blank Verfe. I would not however debar the Poet from concluding his Tragedy, or, if he pleases,. every Act of it, with two or three Couplets, which may have the fame Effect as an Air in the Italian Opera after a long Recitativo, and give the Actor a graceful Exit. Befides, that we fee a Diversity of Numbers in fome Parts of the Old Tragedy, in order to hinder the Ear from being tired with the fame continued Modulation of Voice. For the fame Reason I do not dislike the Speeches in our English Tragedy that close with an Hemiftick, or half Verfe, notwithstanding the Perfon who speaks after it begins a new Verfe, without filling up the preceding one; nor with abrupt Paufes and Breakings-off in the middle of a Verfe, when they humour any Paffion that is expreffed by it. SINCE I am upon this Subject, I muft obferve that our English Poets have fucceeded much better in the Style,, than in the Sentiments of their Tragedies. Their Lan-guage is very often Noble and Sonorous, but the Senfe either very trifling or very common. On the contrary, in the Ancient Tragedies, and indeed in those of Corneille and Racine, tho' the Expreffions are very great, it is the Thought that bears them up and fwells them. For my own part, I prefer a noble Sentiment that is depreffedwith homely Language, infinitely before a vulgar one that is blown up with all the Sound and Energy of Ex-preffion. Whether this Defect in our Tragedies may arise rom Want of Genius, Knowledge, or Experience in the Writers, or from their Compliance with the vicious Tafte of their Readers, who are better Judges of the Language than of the Sentiments, and confequently relish the one G5 more more than the other, I cannot determine. But I believe it might rectifie the Conduct both of the one and of the other, if the Writer laid down the whole Contexture of his Dialogue in plain English, before he turned it into Blank Verfe, and if the Reader, after the Perufal of a Scene, would confider the naked Thought of every Speech in it, when divefted of all its Tragick Orna ments; by this means, without being impofed upon by Words, we may judge impartially of the Thought, and confider whether it be natural or great enough for the Perfon that utters it, whether it deferves to thine in such a Blaze of Eloquence, or fhew it felf in fuch a Variety of Lights as are generally made ufe of by the Writers of our English Tragedy. I must in the next place obferve, that when our Thoughts are great and juft, they are often obfcured by the founding Phrafes, hard Metaphors, and forced Expreffions in which they are cloathed. Shakespear is often very faulty in this Particular. There is a fine Obfervati on in Ariftotle to this purpofe, which I have never seen quoted. The Expreffion, fays he, ought to be very much laboured in the unactive Parts of the Fable, as in Defcriptions, Similitudes, Narrations, and the like, in which the Opinions, Manners and Paffions of Men are not reprefented; for thefe (namely the Opinions, Manners and Paffions) are apt to be obfcured by Pompous Phrafes, and Elaborate Expreffions. Horace, who copied most of his Criticisms after Ariftotle, feems to have had his Eye on the foregoing Rule, in the following Verses: Et Tragicus plerumque doles Sermone pedestri, Tragoedians too lay by their State, to Grieve, Ld. RoscoMMON AMONG our Modern English Poets, there is none who was better turned for Tragedy than Lee; if instead of favouring the Impetuofity of his Genius, he had reftrained 6 |