*

tion with a perfpicuity that is not exceeded by the most accurate reafoning; and makes a deeper impreffion than any moral difcourse can do. To be fatisfied of this, we need but reflect, that a man whofe affections are justly balanced, hath a better chance to escape misfortunes, than one who is a flave to every passion. Indeed, nothing is more evident, than the natural connection that vice hath with mifery, and virtue with happiness; and fuch connection may be illuftrated, by stating a fact as well as by urging an argument. Let us af fume, for example, the following moral truths, That difcord among the chiefs, renders ineffectual all common measures; and that the confequences of a flightly-founded quarrel, foftered by pride and arrogance, are not lefs fatal than those of the groffeft injury. These truths may be inculcated, by the quarrel betwixt Agamemnon and Achilles at the fiege of Troy. In this view, it ought to be the poet's chief aim, to invent proper cir

the bulk of thefe collections convey no inftruction, nor afford any amufement beyond what a child receives in reading an ordinary story.

cumstances,

cumstances, presenting 'to our view the natural confequences of fuch difcord. These circumftances must seem to arife in the common courfe of human affairs: no acciden-, tal or unaccountable event ought to be indulged; for the neceffary or probable.connection betwixt vice and mifery, is learned from no events but what are governed by the characters and paffions of the perfons represented. A real event of which we fee no caufe, may be a leffon to us; because what hath happened may again happen : but this cannot be inferred from a story that is known to be fictitious.

Many are the good effects of fuch compofitions. A pathetic compofition, whether epic or dramatic, tends to a habit of yirtue, by exciting emotions that produce good actions, and avert us from those that are vicious or irregular *. It likewife, by its frequent pictures of human woes, humanizes the mind, and fortifies us in bearing our own misfortunes. A moral compofition must obviously produce the fame good effects, because by being moral it doth * See chap. 2. part 1. fect. 3.

not

not cease to be pathetic. It enjoys befide an excellence peculiar to itself: for it not only improves the heart, as above mentioned, but instructs the head by the moral it contains. For my part, I cannot imagine any entertainment more fuited to a rational being, than a work thus happily illuftrating fome moral truth; where a number of perfons of different characters are engaged in an important action, fome retarding, others promoting, the great catastrophe; and where there is dignity of ftyle as well as of matter. A work of this kind, has our fympathy at command, and can put in motion the whole train of the focial affections. We have at the fame time great mental enjoyment, in perceiving every event and every fubordinate incident connected with its proper cause. Our curiofity is by turns excited and gratified; and our delight is confummated at the clofe, upon finding, from the characters and fituations exhibited at the commencement, that every circumstance down to the final catastrophe is natural, and that the whole in conjunction make a regular chain of caufes and effects.

Confidering

Confidering an epic and dramatic poem as the fame in fubftance, and having the fame aim or end, it might be thought that they are equally fitted for the same subjects. But confidering their difference as to form, there will be found reafon to correct that thought, at least in some degree. Many fubjects may indeed be treated with equal advantage in either form; but the subjects are still more numerous for which one of the forms is better qualified than the other; and there are fubjects proper for the one and not for the other. To give fome flight notion of the difference, as there is no room here for enlarging upon every article, I ob ferve, that dialogue is better qualified for expreffing fentiments, and narrative for dif playing facts, Thefe peculiarities tend to confine each within certain limits. Heroifm, magnanimity, undaunted courage, and the whole tribe of the elevated virtues, figure best in action: tender paffions and the whole tribe of fympathetic affections, figure best in sentiment. What we feel is the most remarkable in the latter: what we perform is the most remarkable in the VOL. III. former,

F f

former. It clearly follows, that tender paffions are more peculiarly the province of tragedy, grand and heroic actions of epic

poetry

*

I have no occafion to fay more upon the epic, confidered as peculiarly adapted to certain fubjects. But as dramatic fubjects are more complex, I must take a narrower view of them; which I do the more willingly, in order to clear a point thrown into great obfcurity by critics,

In the chapter of emotions and paffions t it is occafionally shown, that the subject best fitted for tragedy is the ftory of a man who has himself been the cause of his miffortune. But this man muft neither be deeply guilty nor altogether innocent. The misfortune must be occafioned by a fault incident to human nature, and therefore venial. Misfortunes of this kind, call forth the whole force of the focial affections, and

In Racine, tender fentiments prevail; in Corneille, grand and heroic manners. Hence clearly the preference of the former before the latter, as dramatic poets. Corneille would figure better in an heroic poem,