agreed to call a great man, deeply enamoured of the finest woman of the universe; the vehement paffion of this fovereign, fo famous for his virtues and for his crimes, for his former cruelties, and for his prefent remorfe; this continual and rapid tranfition from love to hatred, from hatred back to love; the ambition of his fifter; the intrigues of his ministers; the grievous fituation of a princess whofe beauty and virtues are still celebrated in the world, who faw her father and her brother condemned to death by her own husband, and to complete her misfortunes, was beloved by the murderer of her family. What a vaft field? what a scope for a man of happier parts than I have? can fuch a fubject be deemed unworthy of tragedy? It is in these inftances, that it can be truly faid, that things change their name according to the appearance they are placed in.

Of SIMPLICITY in TRAGEDY, etc.

ADDRESSED

1

To Sir EVERARD FALKENER,

An English merchant ".

Prefixed to the TRAGEDY of ZARAT.

OU are an Englishman, my dear friend, and I was born in France; but all who

You

love the arts are fellow-citizens. Thinking peo ple have pretty much the fame principles every where, and form but one republic. Therefore, it is no more extraordinary now-a-days, to see a

*Afterwards ambaffador at Conftantinople.

+ Those who love literary anecdotes will be well pleafed to know upon what occafion this play was wrote. Several ladies upbraided our author with not admitting love into his tragedies. He anfwered, that if fighing heroes were abfolutely neceffary, he alfo would introduce them on the stage. This piece was undertaken in confequence of this promife, and finished in eighteen days. It met with great fuccefs, and is called at Paris the Chriftian tragedy. They often act it there in the room of Corneille's Polyeuctes or Chriftian hero.

French tragedy inscribed to an Englishman or to an Italian, than it was formerly that a citizen of Ephefus or of Athens fhould address his works to a Greek of some other town. I offer you then, Sir, this tragedy as to my countryman in literature, and as to my intimate

friend.

I take this opportunity also to acquaint the French nation with how much confideration merchants are regarded in England, and the great esteem in which is held there, a profeffion that causes the grandeur of the state; and with what eminence fome among them represent their country in parliament, and are in the rank of legiflators.

I know that this profeffion is despised by fome of our coxcombs; but you know alfo, that your coxcombs and ours are, the most ridi culous animals, that proudly creep on the furface of the earth.

Another reason which induces me to talk on the Belles-Lettres with an Englishman, rather than with any other, is your happy liberty of thinking; which communicates itself to my mind, and emboldens my thoughts, when with you, The man that converses with me, seems to dif pose of my mind: if he feels with ecftacy, he enflames me, and if he thinks with ftrength, my thoughts get vigour. A diffembling courti er communicates to me his diffidence and conftraint; but a mind free and without fear, en, courages me not to cramp the progress of my thoughts, nor put a stop to the flights of my imagination; I glow with his fire. Thus a

young painter inftructed under Coypel

Argiliere †, foon makes the touches of his guides familiar to himfelf, and imperceptibly follows their spirit and manner in his own compofitions. And it is on this account that Virgil made it his duty to admire Homer; he followed the path the Grecian bard had traced and became his rival without becoming his plagiary.

Do not imagine that I fhall make a long apology in favour of the tragedy I send you; I might mention why I did not give Zara a more determined vocation to Chriftianity before she knew her father; and why the hides her fecrets from her lover, etc. but wife minds who love to do justice, will eafily fee many reasons without my mentioning them; and as for the critics who are refolved not to give credit to my arguments, it would be loft time to endeavour to fatisfy them.

I fhall only value myself on writing a piece which is tolerably fimple, a merit to be considered on many accounts. This happy fimplicity was remarkable in the learned antients. Let this novelty be introduced into your pieces; let there be greater truth, a nearer imitation of nature, and nobler images on your theatre, which is at prefent difgraced with gibbets and legerde Addifon has already attempted it; he was the poet of the wife; but he was too affec ted; Portia and Martia, in his boafted Cato, are

main.

}

+ French painters of great reputation, especial

ly the first.

certainly too very infipid perfonages. Imitate the great Addison only in what he excels: cor=rect the rude action of your wild Melpomene's; I write for the men of taste of every place and every age, and introduce into your writings the fimplicity of your manners.

I hope the English poets will not imagine I I mean to offer Zara as a model to them to write from. I recommend a natural fimplicity, and eafy verfe; and, in that, I do not at all intend my own panegyric. If Zara has met with some fuccefs, it is lefs owing to the goodness of the piece, than to the care I take to talk of love in the most tender and affecting manner I could, In that, I Battered the taste of my auditors, knowing the best way to fucceed, is to address men's paffions rather than their reason. Though good Chriftians we are, yet we must have love; and I am perfuaded it was very happy for Corneille that he did not fatisfy himself in his Polyeuctes with having the ftatues of Jupiter broke in peices by the Neophites; for fuch is the corruption of mankind, that perhaps, the great foul of Polyeuctes would have made but little impreffion, and the christian-like lines which he repeats would have been forgot, but for his wife's paffion for her pagan favourite, who, by the way, deserved her love much better than her devotee of a husband.

Such was the cafe of Zara. Every body that frequents plays affured me, that if she had been but merely converted, the audience would have been but little affected; but she was up to the eyes in love; and that is what has made her for