nifts*. The human letters are become extremely inhumane. Men of literature injure, cabal, calumniate and lampoon each other. It is furprizing that people will take the liberty to write things they dare not speak. For my part, I have learned from you, reverend father, to avoid fuch meanneffes; you have taught me how to live, as well as how to write.

The Muses sweet, heavenly train,
Are not an envious fift'rhood:
Ambrofia is their conftant food,
Wormwood and bitters they difdain :
And when from Jupiter a call
Brings them to th' immortal hall,.
Where gods affemble and rejoice;
There, fpiteful Satyr's harfher found,
[So Jove decreed,] was never found.
To mingle with the Mufes voice t..

* A religious, fect in France, which, like all other new fects that are perfecuted, is remarkably. rigid, zealous, and paffionate.

The tranflator, who has no fort of pretence to poetry, has attempted the above lines, merely to fhew that the original is in verfe. The number of verses, length of lines, and return of rhyme, are the fame as in the French.

Adieu,

Adieu, my dear reverend father; I fhall be ever devoted to you and yours with that tender acknowledgment which is due to you, and which your pupils do not always preferve.

PREFACE

PREFACE to OEDIPUS..

Ο

EDIPUS, of which a new edition is now published, was reprefented, for the first time, in the beginning of the year 1718. The public received it with great indulgence, and has often seen it since, with pleasure which I attribute, partly, to the advantage this tragedy has always met with of being extremely well acted,. and partly, to the folemnity and pathos of the fubject. Father Folard a jefuit, and Mr. de la Motte of the French academy, have fince handled the fame subject, and both have avoided the faults which I have been guilty of. It would not become me to give an account of their performances. My criticisms, and,. even my praises, would appear equally fufpicious *.

I am ftill lefs inclined to attempt, upon this occafion, laying down rules for the conduct of a dramatic poem. I am per

* Mr. de la Motte published two Œdipuses in 1726, one in rhyme, the other in profe. The dipus in rhyme appeared on the stage four nights; the other was never acted. Voltaire.

fuaded

fuaded that all the subtle reasoning on this fubject, which has been fo much repeated for fome years paft, is not worth one masterly scene, and that there is more to be learned in Polyeuctes* and Cinna †,. than in all the precepts of the abbé d'Aubignac . Severus || and Paulina || are the true masters of the art. So, many books wrote on painting by men of taste, do not inftruct a disciple fo much as feeing a fingle head by Raphael.

The principles of the arts, which depend on the imagination, are all easy and fimple, all drawn from nature and from reason. Pradon and Boyer + knew them as perfectly as Corneille or Racine. The difference

*

+ Two admired tragedies wrote by the elder Corneille.

A great theatrical critic, but much in the fame fituation with our Rymer, who, notwithstanding all his rules, was unable to write a tolerable play himself.

Characters in Corneille's Polieuctes.

+ Two French dramatic authors of the laft age; Pradon was a very correct, but very weak, writer; he was particularly the rival of Mr. Racine, and not without fome fhew of fuccefs; but Racine has

flood

difference always has, and will ever, lie in the application of them. The authors of Armida* and Iffet, and the very worst compofers followed the fame rules of mufic. Le Pouffin worked from the fame principles with Vignon. It seems therefore to as little purpose to talk about rules at the head of a play, as it would be, for a painter to begin by a differtation on his

ftood the teft, while Pradon is entirely forgot. Boyer's plays are ftill lefs known than thofe of Pradon.

Signior Baptifta Lulli, of whom the Spectator thus fpeaks: "He found the French mufick extremely defective, and very often barbarous : However, knowing the genius of the people, the Kumour of their language, and the prejudiced ears he had to deal with, he did not pretend to extirpate the French mufick, and plant the Italian in its stead; but only to cultivate and civilize it with innumerable graces and modulations, which he bor rowed from the Italian. By this means the French mufick is now perfect in its kind; and when you fay it is not fo good as the Italian, you only mean that it does not please you so well; for there is fcarce a Frenchman who would not wonder to hear you give the Italian fuch a preference."

+ Monfieur Rameau, the prefent Handel of the French, who now no longer relish the mufick of Baptifta Lulli:

pictures,