the human foul. To favour virtue, and speak truth, and take pleasure in those who do so, is natural to man; to act otherwife, requires an effort, does violence to nature, and always implies fome evil purpose in the agent. The first, like progreffive motion, is eafy and graceful; the laft is unfeemly and difficult, like walking fideways, or backwards. The one is fo common, that it is. little attended to, and when it becomes the object of attention, is always confidered as an energy fuitable to moral and rational nature: the other has a strangeness in it, that provokes at once our furprise and disapprobation. And hence the vir tuous character of the ancient chorus * was reconçileable, not only to probability, but to real matter of fact.-The dramatic poets of Greece Actoris partes chorus, officiumque virile Ille bonis faveatque, et confilietur amice, Hor. Ar. Poet. verf. 195. "Let the chorus, like the player, fupport a character, and let it act a manly part. Let it favour the good, and give friendly counsel, and restrain the angry, and love to "compofe the fwellings of paffion. Let it celebrate the "praises of temperance, of falutary juftice, of law, and of 66 peace, with open gates: let it be faithful to its truft, and fupplicate the Gods, and pray, that fortune may return to "the afflicted, and forfake the haughty." 66 rightly rightly judged, that great perfons, like those who appear in tragedy, engaged in any great action, are never without attendants or fpectators, or those at least who obferve their conduct, and make remarks upon it. And therefore, together with the perfons principally concerned, they always introduced attendants or spectators on the ftage, who, by the mouth of one of their number, joined occafionally in the dialogue, and were called the Chorus. That this artifice, though perhaps it might not fuit the modern drama, had a happy effect in beautifying the poetry, illuftrating the morality, and heightening the probability, of the ancient, is a point, which in my opinion admits of fufficient proof, and has in fact been proved by Mr. Mafon, in his Letters, and exemplified in his Elfrida and Cara&tacus; two poems that do honour to the English tongue, and to modern genius. But I do not now enter into any controversy on the fubject: I speak of it with à view only to observe, that the propriety of the character affigned to the chorus is founded on that moral propensity above mentioned. For to introduce a company of unprejudiced perfons, even of the vulgar, witneffing a great event, and yet not pitying the unfortunate, nor exclaiming against tyranny and injuftice, nor rejoicing when the good are fuccefsful, nor wishing well to the the worthy, would be to feign what feldom or never happens in real life; and what, therefore, in the improved state of things that poetry imitates, muft muft never be supposed to happen.-Sentiments that betray a hard heart, a depraved understanding, unwarrantable pride, or any other moral or intellectual perverfity, never fail to give offence, except where they appear to be introduced as examples for our improvement. Poetry, therefore, that is uninftructive, or immoral, cannot please those who retain any moral fenfibility, or uprightness of judgment; and must confequently displease the greater part of any regular fociety of rational creatures. Great wickedness and great genius may have been united in the fame perfon; but it may be doubted, whether corruption of heart and delicacy of tafte be at all compatible. Whenever a writer forgets himself so far, as to give us ground to fufpect him even of momentary impiety or hardheartedness, we charge him in the fame breath with want of confcience and want of tafte; the former being generally, as well as justly, supposed to comprehend the latter. Cowley was an excellent perfon, and a very witty poet: but where is the man who would not be ashamed to acknowledge himself pleafed with that clause in the following quotation, which implies, that the author, puffed up with an idle conceit of the importance of literary renown, was disposed for a moment to look down with equal contempt upon the brutes and the common people! What shall I do, to be for ever known, I fhall I fhall like beafts or common people die, Virgil, defcribing a plague among the beafts, gives the following picture, which has every excellence that can belong to defcriptive poetry; and of which Scaliger, with a noble enthusiasm, declares, that he would rather be the author, than first favourite to Cyrus or Cresus : Ecce autem duro fumans fub vomere taurus Concidit, et mixtum fpumis vomit ore cruorem, Extremofque ciet gemitus. It triftis arator, Mærentem abjungens fraterna morte juvencum, Atque opere in medio defixa relinquit aratra. Which Dryden thus renders: The steer, who to the yoke was bred to bow The learned and amiable Dr. Hurd has omitted these two lines in his late edition of Cowley's poems. I wish fome editor of Dryden would expunge the last part of the following fentence, which, as it now ftands, is a reproach to humanity. "One is for raking in Chaucer for antiquated words, "which are never to be revived, but when found or figni"ficancy is wanting in the prefent language: but many of "his deserve not this redemption: any more than the crouds "of men who daily die or are flain for fixpence in a battle, "merit to be reftored to life, if a wifh could revive them." Poffcript to Virgil. The clown, who curfing Providence repines, His mournful fellow from the team disjoins ; With many a groan forfakes his fruitless care, And in th' unfinish'd furrow leaves the share. Not to infift upon the mifrepresentation of Virgil's meaning in the first couplet, I would only appeal to the reader, whether, by debafing the charming fimplicity of It triftis arator with his blafphemous paraphrafe, Dryden has not destroyed the beauty of the paffage *. Such is the oppo fition * Examples of bad writing might no doubt be produced, on almost any occafion, from Quarles and Blackmore; but as no body reads their works, no body is liable to be misled by them. It would feem, therefore, more expedient to take fuch examples from authors of merit, whofe beauties too often give a fanction to their blemishes. For this reafon it is, that I have, both here and in other places, taken the liberty to fpeak of Dryden with difapprobation. But as I would not be thought infenfible to the merit of an author, to whom every lover of English poetry is deeply indebted, I beg leave, once for all, to deliver at large my opinion of that great genius. : There is no modern writer, whofe ftyle is more diftinguishable. Energy and cafe are its chief characters. The former is owing to a happy choice of expreffions, equally emphatical and plain the latter to a laudable partiality in favour of the idioms and radical words of the English tongue; the native riches and peculiar genius whereof are perhaps more apparent in him, than in any other of our poets. In Dryden's more correct pieces, we meet with no affectation of words of Greek or Latin etymology, no cumbersome pomp of epithets, no drawling circumlocutions, no idle glare of images, no blunderings round about a meaning: his English is pure and fimple, nervous and clear, to a degree which Pope has never exceeded, and not always equalled. Yet, as I have elfewhere |