relaxes its animating vigour; and the paffions, which the duty and interest of every Dramatick Author require him to fufpend, lose a confiderable portion of their invigorating influence: Hence inftead of the fudden pleasure, bursting from the incidents gradually unfolded, the mind feels an effort of a lefs active nature: Primus at ille labor verfu tenuiffe legentem As yet unfold the event on no pretence, Pitt's Vida's Art of Poetry. B. 2. Though Euripides of all Poets is the most tragical, yet, says Aristotle', he does not manage well in other refpects : Perhaps this great Critick might in this passage have alluded to the defect under confideration: But on the very point we have the express teftimony of Antiquity; for in the Frogs of Aristophanes there is a dramatick challenge between Æschylus and Euripides on the fubject of their Prologus: When the latter maintains the fuperiority of his own, and recites different lines from the beginning of feveral of his Plays in fupport of his allegation, the former conftantly intercepts him, by closing the hemiftick of each Iambick verfe with Annúdiov aπwhetε, "He has loft his little oil-pot :" By this expreffion Æfchylus humorously infinuates, that Euripides 11 Καὶ ὁ Εὐριπίδης, ἐν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα μὴ εὖ οἰκονομῖν, ἄλλα τραγικωλαλάς γε τῶν womlar Qaivela. De Art, Poet, c, 13, had 14 had debafed the dignity 12 of his dramas by the idleness and monotony 13 of his Prologufes: And when Bacchus, the prefiding Judge, in the conclufion of the fcene pronounces his folemn fentence, he informs Euripides, that the oil-pot in his Prologufes is like a carnofity in the eye 4: If to this judge-. ment of Ariftophanes it fhould be objected, that, as he was the decided enemy of Euripides, it can only prove the rancour of his refentment, I reply, that the Comick Satirist would for his own intereft attempt to wound his Adverfary in the most vulnerable part, according to the prevailing judgment of his most enlightened Contemporaries: The best apology for our Poet is not to deny the general truth of the accufation, or to attempt to exculpate him entirely; but to affert, that though undoubtedly he unravels too much, he does not disclose by his prophetick prelude all the interesting events of the drama: Though other Plays are more fortunate in this respect than the lon, yet this will furnish fufficient evidence to foften the glaring impropriety of the Prologus: Here Mercury does not foretell the intended poison of Ion, 12 The Scholiaft Bifetus on (V. 1232.) of this play of Ariftophanes defines anxibox to fignify the lamp or receptacle of the oil: Hence metaphorically applied to all laborious and nocturnal lucubrations, and fometimes to elevated diction and fonorous words: Here therefore Efchylus threatens Euripides with having fpoiled the pompous majesty of his Prologufes; or, as others understand it, Æfchylus would infinuate by this term, that he foils his rival by his own weapon, viz, by the flimfy and frivolous expreffion of his low and awkward Prologuíes: Thus far the Scholiaft: To this may be added, that Callimachus called tragedy Anxiosos μoa. (See Frag. Callim. a Bent. 319. ed. Ernes. vol. I. p. 548.) Hence Horace, Projicit ampullas, (De Art. Poet. v. 97-) 13 He attacks (fays the Scholiaft, on V. 1250.) the uniformity of the beginnings of his dramas. 14 (V. 1278.) The original, rà σund, here implies a disease, which, according to the Scholiaft, arises from a flethy fubftance in the eye. 15 16 nor the miraculous difcovery of it, nor the fentence of the Delphick Tribunal, nor the flight of Creufa to the altar, From this objection to the Plot I fhall proceed to another: This is the improbable fuppofition, that Ion fhould have lived to the age of manhood according to his own expreffion avμos, or unnamed: If he had before received any appellation, this would have not prevented Xuthus from naming him Ion, as he now does "", "because he firft met him when iffuing from the temple ":" For by the law of Athens the Father was invefted with the privilege of naming his child, not only originally, but of changing his name at any time after his birth, according to his own pleasure : Thus Euripides had a fair opportunity of avoiding the abfurdity of the prefent fuppofition, without lofing the opportunity of giving the appellation to Ion; which circumftance perhaps might be built on fome hiftorical anecdote, The next objection to the Plot is of a nature more important: This is the anticipation by Creufa of the difcovery of her fecret connexion with Apollo in the middle of the Play to the Chorus and the Tutor; which occasions a repetition of it in the Catastrophe, to which it ought to have been referved, when her fituation would naturally have extorted the delicate confeffion in the To V. 661, 18 17 V. 662. 15 V. 1372. 18 The truth of this affertion appears from the oration of Demosthenes against Bæotus on the fubject of his name; where the plaintiff Mantitheus exclaims, " Come now, if your father thought proper that you fhould either "continue to retain the original name he conferred on you, or chofe to alter it to another, would it not appear reasonable for him to exercise that "power" And in the conclufion he exprefsly fays, "the Law not only enables parents to annex whatever name they pleafe to their children origi nally, but again to abolish and destroy it by publick folemnity, if they are fo difpofed." (Ed. Reifke, vol. 2. pars 1. p. 1003 & 1005.) moment 1 moment of parental transport for the fortunate recovery of her loft Infant: Neceffity would then have obliged her to reveal, what Inclination alone does now; and fhe might have been excited without this discovery to poison Ion, whom she then imagined to be the fpurious Son of her husband Xuthus, either from a principle of difappointed private revenge, or of barbarous policy, to prevent the ufurpation of her hereditary throne by a Stranger: The management therefore of the Poet appears to me in this refpect inartificial; and, if we confider it philofophically, perhaps unnatural: The decorum of female modefty is violated; for would any woman in the fituation of Creufa thus voluntarily proclaim her own difgrace? Would fhe, in defiance of the moft delicate fenti ment of the female mind, facrifice her own reputation, because the apprehended the ingratitude of her lover and her husband? What remains after this, but to exclaim in the words of Medea in Apollonius, How charmingly, on the contrary, has Ovid painted the exceffive reluctance of the chaste and dying Lucretia to reveal even to her Father and to her Husband the audacious act of Tarquin; as it revolted fo violently against the innate modefty of her fex: Ter conata loqui, ter deftitit; aufaque quartò Non oculos adeò fuftulit illa fuos Hoc quoque Tarquinio debebimus? eloquar, inquit, 5 Quàque Quàque poteft, narrat; reftabant ultima; flevit, Et matronales erubuere genæ. (Faft. 1. 2. v. 824.) The next defect in the plot, which I fhall mention, is the prolix narrative of the Domestick of Creufa to the Chorus in the interesting moment, when he informs them of the difcovery of the poifon at the banquet: As accomplices in the crime of their royal Mistress, they náturally expect to be involved in the fame punishment, which threatens to be of the moft formidable nature: The account therefore, inftead of containing no less than 106 lines", ought to have been concife, and adapted to the anxiety of the hearers in this alarming interval of horror: How extremely unnatural is it to torture the Chorus with an impertinent defcription of the tent, the figures of the Delphick tapestry, and the ceremonies of the banquet, while their minds must have been agitated in this state of uncertainty! The Poet has here fuffered his imagination to wanton in luxuriance at the expense of dramatick propriety; and the whole paffage may be confidered as a fair illustration of the beautiful cypress of Horace, elegantly defigned, when the real object to be painted is a fhipwreck : Sed nunc non erat his locus, et fortaffe cupreffum This purple fhred therefore must be condemned, as a rich but affected ornament misplaced, and though it dazzles the eye, it revolts against the judgment. The laft objection to the Plot, which I fhall mention, is that of the machinery of 19 From V. 1122 to V. 1229. Minerva |