Puslapio vaizdai
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Em. O, the more Angel fhe!
you the blacker Devil.

And

Oth. She turn'd to folly, and she was an Whore,

Em. Thou doft belye her, and thou art a Devil.

Oh. She was falle as Water.

m. Ihou art rafh as Fire,

To fay that she was falfe: O fhe was heavenly

true.

In this kind of Dialogue they continue for forty lines farther, before the bethinks her felf, to cry Murder.

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Help, help, O help,

The Moor has kill'd my Mistress, murder, Murder.

But from this Scene to the end of the Play we meet with nothing but blood and butchery, described much-what to the style of the laft Speeches and onfeffions of the perfons executed at Tyburn: with this difference, that there we have the fact, and the due course of Justice, whereas our Poet against all Justice and Reason, against all Law, Humanity and Nature, in a barbarous arbitrary way, executes and makes

havock of his subjects, Hab-nab, as they come to hand. Defaemora dropt her Handkerchief; therefore the must be ftifl'd. Othello, by law to be broken on the Wheel, by the foe's cunning elcapes with cutting his own Throat. Caff, for I know not what, comes off with a broken shin. Jago murders his Eenefactor Rederigo, as this were poetical gratitude. Jago is not yet kill'd, because there yet never was fuch a villain alive. The Devil, if once he brings a man to be dipt in a deadly fin, lets him alone, to take his courfe and now when the Foul Fiend has done with him; our wife Authors take the finner into their poetical fervice; there to accomplish him, and do the Devi s drudgery.

Philofophy tells us it is a principle in the Nature of Man to be grateful.

Hiftory may tell us that John an Oaks, John a Stiles, or Jago were ungrateful; Poetry is to follow Nature; Philofophy must be his guide: history and fact in particular cafes of John an Oaks, or John of Styles, are no warrant or direction for a Poet. Therefore Ariftotle is always telling us that Poety is σπεδαιώτερον καὶ φιλοooowleev, is more general and abftracted, is led more by the Philofophy, the reason

and

and nature of things, than Hiftory: which only records things higlety, piglety, right or wrong as they happen. Hiltory might without any preamble or difficulty, fay that Jago was ungrateful. Philofophy then calls him unnatural; But the Poet is not, without huge labour and preparation to expose the Monster; and after fhew the Divine Vengeance executed upon him. The Poet is not to add wilful Murder to his ingratitude: he has not antidote enough for the Poison: his Hell and Furies are not punishment fufficient for one fingle crime, of that bulk and aggravation.

Em. O thou dull Moor, that Handkerchief thou Speakeft on,

Husband:

I found by Fortune, and did give my
For often with a folemn earnestness,
(More than indeed belong'd to fuch a trifle)
He beg'd of me to fteal it.

Here we fee the meanest woman in the Play takes this Handkerchief for a trifle below her Husband to trouble his head about it. Yet we find, it entered into our Poets head, to make a Tragedy of this Trifle.

Then for the unraveling of the Plot, as they call it, never was old deputy Recor

L

der,

der in a Country Town, with his spectacles in fummoning up the evidence, at fuch a puzzle: so blunder'd, and be doultefied : as is our Poet, to have a good riddance : And get the Catastrophe off his hands.

What can remain with the Audience to carry home with them from this fort of Poetry, for their use and edification? how can it work, unless instead of settling the mind, and purging our paffions) to delude our fenfes, diforder our thoughts, addle our brain, pervert our affections, hair our imaginations, corrupt our appetite, and fill our head with vanity, confufion, Tintamarre, and Jingle-jangle, beyond what all the Parish Clarks of London, with their old Teftament farces, and interludes, in Richard the feconds time cou'd ever pretend to ? Our only hopes, for the good of their Souls, can be, that these people go to the Playhoufe, as they do to Church, to fit ftill, look on one another, make no reflection, nor mind the Play, more than they would a Sermion.

There is in this Play, fome burlesk, fome humour, and ramble of Comical Wit, fome fhew,and tome Mimickry to divert the specta tors: but the tragical part is,plainly none other,than a Bloody Farce,without falt or faCHAP

vour,

CHAP. VIII.

Reflections on the Julius Cæfar. Men famous in Hiftory. To be rob'd of their good name, Sacriledge. Shakespear, abuse of History. Contradiction, in the character of Brutus. Villen and Dante, that Hugh Capet from a Butcher. Preparation in Poetry. Strong reafons in Caffius. Roman Senators impertinent as the Venetian. Portia as Defdemona. The fame parts and good breeding. How talk of Business. Whif rers. Brutus's Tinder-box, Sleepy Boy, Fiddle. Brutus and Caffius, Flat-foot Mimicks. The Indignity. Laberius. Play of the Incarnation. The Madonna's-Shouting and Battel. Strollers in Cornwal. Rehearsal, law for acting it once a week.

The Catiline by Ben. Johnfon. Why an Orator to be vir bonus. Ben cou'd diftinguish Men and Manners. Sylla's Ghoft: The Speech not to be made in a blind Corner. Corneille. Common fence teaches Unity of Action. The Chorus, of neceffity, keep the Poet to time, and place. No rule obferv'd. A Life in Plutarch Acts of the Apoftles. Ben is fidus interpres. Is the Horfe in Mill in flat oppofition to Horace. Trifling tale, or corruption of Hiftory, unfit for Tragedy. In contempt of Poetry. Ariftophanes, not the occafion of the Death of Socrates. Was for a reformation in the ferL 2 vice

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