with caution; and it does not become every body to make use of them. Thefe innovations require great circumfpection and a masterly execution. The English themselves allow, for example, that Shakefpear is the only poet among them, who has been able to make ghofts appear, and speak with any fuccefs.

Within that circle none durft move but he.

Dryden.

The more majestic or awful a theatrical action, the more infipid a frequent repetition; as the account of battles, than which, nothing can be more terrible, becomes at last cold and tiresome, thro' a conftant repetition of them in history.

The only play in which Racine has introduced any spectacle is in Athalia, his mafter-piece. An infant appears on the throne, his nurse stands by him, and he is furrounded by priests; a queen gives orders to her foldiers to put this child to death, and armed Levites run to his defence. All this action is pathetic, but without the fublimity of ftile and expreffion, it would have been puerile and filly.

The

The more we aim at ftriking the eye with pomp and ftate, the greater neceffity we are under of fupporting it with elevated thoughts and fentiments. Otherwife the author is a decorator, not a tragic poet. About thirty years ago a tragedy called Montezuma was acted in Paris: the scene opened by a new fpectacle: a palace was reprefented of a magnificent but barbarous ftructure; Montezuma appeared in a very fingular drefs; arrowarmed flaves were placed at the bottom of the stage; eight grandees of the court were near his majefty, proftrate on the ground; Montezuma begins the play by faying to his courtiers:

Arife, your emperor gives you leave to-day,
To fee and speak to him.

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This fpectacle was pleafing; but it was the only good thing in the whole play. For my part, I must confefs it was not without fome dread that I introduced on the french theatre the fenators of Rome in red robes, and giving their opinions. I remembered that when I had formerly introduced

troduced in Edipus, a chorus of Thebans faying,

O Death we all implore thy dreadful aid!
Grant our defires, and terminate our days!

The pit, instead of being seriously affected, was only ftruck with the pretended ridicule of giving these lines to be repeated by actors who were unaccuftomed to fuch folemn dirges; and, inftead of applauding the intent, the execu tion was laughed at. This is what hindered me from making the senators speak in Brutus, when Titus is accused before them; and from encreasing the terror of the fituation by the surprise and grief of these fathers of Rome, who must have marked their aftonishment otherwife than by dumb fhew; but which was not put in execution.

However, my lord, if there are any tolerable paffages in this work, I am obliged for it to friends who think like you. They encouraged me to moderate the feverity of Brutus's temper by paternal love, that the effort he makes in condemning C

his

his fon might be the more pitied and admired. They advised me to give Tullia a character of tenderness and innocence; because, if I had made her a haughty heroine capable of speaking to Titus, as to a fubject who should obey his fovereign, Titus would have been debafed, and the ambaffador would have been useless. They defired, that Titus fhould be drawn a young man violent in his paffions, loving Rome and his father, adoring Tullia, thinking it his duty to be faithful to the very fenate by which he thought himself injured, and hurried away. from his duty by a paffion which he imagined he was master of

And in fact, if Titus had been of the opinion of his mistress, and had given fufficient reafons in favour of kingly authority, Brutus then would be looked on only as a leader of rebels: Titus would feel no more remorfe; Brutus would not have excited compaffion.

up

They defired me alfo to take care that Brutus's fons fhould not both appear upon the stage, because the intereft is loft when

divided;

divided, but above all, faid they, let your piece be fimple; imitate that excellency of the Greeks; be affured that a multiplicity of events, and a complication of interefts is only the resource of barren minds, who are incapable of drawing from one paffion the matter of five acts; ftrive to finish every scene as if it were the only one you had to write. Beautiful details are what fupports a work in verfe, and makes it defcend to pofterity. It is often the peculiar manner of expreffing common thoughts, it is that art of embellishing by the diction what every man feels equally well, that makes the great poet. There are neither farfetched fentiments nor romantic adventures in the fourth book of Virgil, all is extremely natural, and yet it is the greateft effort of the human mind. Racine is fo very much fuperior to those who faid the fame things he did; only because he faid them better. Corneille is never truly great, but when his expreffions are equal to his thoughts. Remember this precept of Mr. Boileau :