intereft is confin'd to the hero of the piece and his family all turns upon fuch paffions as the vulgar feel equally with princes, the plot of them may be as proper for comedy as for tragedy: for, take away the names only, and Mithridates is no more than an old fellow in love with a young girl: his two fons are in love with her at the fame time: and he makes use of a very low artifice to difcover which of his fons the lady is fond of. Phedra is a step-mother, who, egg'd on by her confidante, makes love to her fon-in-law, who is unfortunately pre-engag'd. Nero is an impetuous young man, who falls precipitately in love, and immediately wants to be feparated from his wife, and hides himself behind the tapestry to overhear the converfation of his mistress. These are all of them fubjects which Moliere might treat as well as Racine: nay, the whole plot of the Mifer is exactly the fame as that of Mithridates: Harpagon and the king of Pontus are two old fellows in love: each of them has a son for his rival; both of them make use of the fame artifice to discover the intrigue carry'd on between the fon and the mistress; and both pieces end in the marriage of the young man. Moliere Moliere and Racine met with equal success: one made the world laugh, amus'd, and entertain'd them; the other mov'd, terrify'd and made us weep. Moliere expos'd the folly of an old mifer in love; Racine painted the weakness of a great man, and fo contriv'd, as at the fame time even to make that weakness refpectable. Were we to order Vateau and le Brun, each of them, to paint us a wedding; one wou'd give us the representation of a groupe of peasants in an arbour, full of vulgar joy and jollity, plac'd round a rustic table, where drunkenness, riot, debauchery, and immoderate laughter reign'd without controul': the other wou'd paint the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, the feast of the gods, with all their folemn and majestic celebration of it. Thus both of them wou'd reach the highest degree of perfection in their art, by means intirely different.. We may fairly apply every one of these examples to Mariamne. The bad temper of a woman; the love of an old hufband; the malicious tricks of a fifter-inlaw; are fubjects in themfelves inconfiderable, and feem feem rather adapted to comedy: but at the same time a king, whom all the world have honour'd with the name of Great, paffionately enamour'd with the finest woman in the universe; the rage and fury of a monarch fo famous for his virtues and his crimes, his past cruelty, and his prefent remorfe; that perpetual and rapid transition from love to hatred, and from hatred to love; the ambition of his fifter; the intrigues of his minifters; the diftrefsful fituation of a princess whose virtue and beauty have been fo often celebrated and talk'd of to this day, who had seen her father and brother doom'd to death by her husband; and to complete her misfortunes, faw herself belov'd by the murtherer of her family. What a field is here! what an opening for any genius but mine! can we fay this is a fubject unfit for tragedy?. Here we may indeed averr, that, according as things turn out, they change their names. DRAMATIS VARUS, a Roman Prætor, Governor of Syria. MARIAMNE, Wife of Herod. SALOME, Sifter of Herod. ALBINUS, Friend to Varus. MAZAEL, Herod's Minifters. NABAL, an old Officer under the Asmonæan Kings. ELIZA, Confidante of Mariamne. Herod's Guard, Attendants on Varus, Herod, and Mariamne. SCENE JERUSALEM. MARIAMNE. MARIAM NE. A TRAGEDY. ACT I. SCENE I SALOME, MAZAEL, MAZAEL. T is enough: the pow'r of Salome, IT By all acknowledg'd, and by all obey'd, On its firm bafis ftands immoveable : I fled to Azor, with the light'ning's speed, grown A stranger in his kingdom; and the people, |