blind, indiscriminate admiration. Of the father of poetry himself it was said -Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus.. In a note are given a few passages from the poem, which have passed into proverbs, current sayings, or standard quotations.1 Dramatic Poetry: Its Kinds; Shakspere, Addison, Milton. 8. Invented by the Greeks, the drama attained in their hands a perfection which it has never since surpassed. To them we owe the designations of Tragedy and Comedy, the definition of each kind according to its nature and end, and the division into acts. The leading characteristics of dramatic composition have remained unaltered ever since; but the Greek definition of Tragedy was gradually restricted, that of Comedy enlarged, so that it became necessary to invent other names for intermediate or inferior kinds. With the Greeks, a tragedy meant 'the representation of a serious, complete, and important action,' and might involve a transition from calamity to prosperity, as well as from prosperity to calamity.2 By a comedy was meant a representation, tending to excite laughter, of mean and ridiculous actions. Thus the Eumenides of Eschylus, the Philoctetes of Sophocles, and the Alcestis, Helena, and others of Euripides, though called tragedies, do not end tragically in the modern sense, but the reverse. But by degrees it came to be considered that every tragedy must have a disastrous catastrophe, so that a new term-tragi-comedy-which seems to have first arisen in Spain, was invented to suit those dramas in which, though the main action was serious, the conclusion was happy. As Tragedy assumed a narrower meaning, Comedy obtained one pro1 Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen. With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded:- portionably more extensive. Of this a notable illustration is found in Dante, who, though he did not understand by the 'tragic style' what we understand by it, but merely the style of grand and sublime poems, such as the Eneid, yet named his own great work La Commedia, as intending to rank it with a great variety of poems in the middle or ordinary style, not sublime enough to be tragic, and not pathetic enough to be elegiac. In England, the term Comedy was used all through the Elizabethan age in a loose sense, which would embrace anything between a tragi-comedy and a farce. Thus the Merchant of Venice is reckoned among the comedies of Shakspere, though, except for the admixture of comic matter in the minor characters, it is, in the Greek sense, just as much a tragedy as the Alcestis. In the seventeenth century, the term began to be restricted to plays in which comic or satirical matter preponderated. A shorter and more unpretending species, in one or at most two acts, in which any sort of contrivance or trick was permissible in order to raise a laugh, so that the action were not taken out of the sphere of real life, was invented under the name of Farce in the eighteenth century. 9. The best and most characteristic of English plays belong to what is called the Romantic drama. The Classical and the Romantic drama represent two prevalent modes of thought, or streams of opinion, which, parting from each other and becoming strongly contrasted soon after the revival of letters, have ever since contended for the empire of the human mind in Europe. The readers of Mr. Ruskin's striking books will have learnt a great deal about these modes of thought, and will, perhaps, have imbibed too unqualified a dislike for the one, and reverence for the other. Referring those who desire a full exposition to the pages of that eloquent writer, we must be content with saying here, that the Classical drama was cast in the GræcoRoman mould, and subjected to the rules of construction (the dramatic unities) which the ancient dramatists observed; its authors being generally men who were deeply imbued with the classical spirit, to a degree which made them recoil with aversion and contempt from the spirit and the products of the ages that had intervened between themselves and the antiquity which they loved. On the other hand, the Romantic drama, though it borrowed much of its formal part (e.g., the division into acts, the prologue and epilogue, the occasional choruses, &c.) from the ancients, was founded upon and grew out of the Romance literature of the middle ages,-its authors being generally imbued with the spirit of Christian Europe, such as the mingled influences of Christianity and feudalism had formed it. National before all,—writing for audiences in whom taste and fine intelligence were scantily developed, but in whom imagination and feeling were strong, and faith habitual, the dramatists of this school were led to reject the strict rules of which Athenian culture exacted the observance. To gratify the national pride of their hearers, they dramatized large portions of their past history, and in so doing scrupled not to violate the unity of action. They observed, indeed, this rule in their tragedies—at least in the best of them-but utterly disregarded the minor unities of time and place, because they knew that they could trust to the imagination of their hearers to supply any shortcomings in the external illusion. In the play of Macbeth many years elapse, and the scene is shifted from Scotland to England and back again without the smallest hesitation. The result is, that Art gains in one way and loses in another. We are spared the tedious narratives which are rendered necessary in the classical drama by the strict limits of time within which the action is bounded. On the other hand, the impression produced, being less concentrated, is usually feebler and less determinate. It would be a waste of time to enter here, in that cursory way which alone our limits would allow, into any critical discussion of the dramatic genius of Shakspere. The greatest modern critics in all countries have undertaken the task,—a fact sufficient of itself to dispense us from the attempt. Among the numerous treatises, large and small-by Coleridge, Hazlitt, Mrs. Jameson, Guizot, Tieck, Schlegel, Ulrici, &c.-each containing much that is valuable, we would single out Guizot's as embodying, in the most compact and convenient form, the results of the highest criticism on Shakspere himself, on his time, and on his work. 10. Our literature possesses but few dramas of the Classical school, and those not of the highest order. The most celebrated specimen, perhaps, is Addison's Cato. But weak and prosaic lines abound in it, such as or, Cato, I've orders to expostulate; Why will you rive my heart with such expressions? and the scenes between the lovers are stiff and frigid. Yet the play is not without fine passages; as when the noble Roman who has borne unmoved the tidings of the death of his son, weeps over the anticipated ruin of his country: 'Tis Rome requires our tears; The mistress of the world, the seat of empire, The nurse of heroes, the delight of gods, On the whole, Cato's character is finely drawn, and well adapted to call forth the powers of a first-rate actor. His soliloquy at the end, beginning It must be so ;- Plato, thou reasonest well, &c. has been justly praised. The play contains several well-known lines, e.g. The woman that deliberates is lost. "Tis not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it. 6 Heroic and Mock-Heroic Poetry: The Bruce;' 'The Campaign;' 'The Rape of the Lock.' 11. As the unity of the epic poem is derived from its being the evolution of one great complex action, so the unity of the heroic poem proceeds from its being the record of all or some of the great actions of an individual hero. Like the epic, it requires a serious and dignified form of expression; and consequently, in English, employs nearly always, either the heroic couplet, or a stanza of not less than seven lines. Heroic poetry has produced no works of extraordinary merit in any literature. When the hero is living, the registration of his exploits is apt to become fulsome; when dead, tedious. Boileau has perhaps succeeded best; the heroic poems which Addison produced in honour of Marlborough and William III., in hope to emulate the author of the Epître au Roi, are mere rant and fustian in comparison. Our earliest heroic poem, The Bruce of Barbour1 is, perhaps, the best; but the short romance metre in which it is written much injures its effect. A better specimen of Barbour's style cannot be selected than the often-quoted passage on Freedom : A fredome is a noble thing! Fredome mayss man to have liking: 1 See ch. I. I§ 84. A noble hart may have none ease, Then all perquer1 he suld it wyt; 6 5 And he that thryll is, has nocht his : That at hys hart hym drawis to. 12. Addison's heroic poem, The Campaign, contains the well-known simile of the angel, which called forth the admiration and munificence of Godolphin. The story runs as follows:In 1704, shortly after the battle of Blenheim, Godolphin, then Lord Treasurer, happening to meet Lord Halifax, complained that the great victory had not been properly celebrated in verse, and inquired if he knew of any poet to whom this important task could be safely intrusted. Halifax replied that he did indeed know of a gentleman thoroughly competent to discharge this duty, but that the individual he referred to had received of late such scanty recognition of his talents and patriotism, that he doubted if he would be willing to undertake it. Lord Godolphin replied that Lord Halifax might rest assured, that whoever might be named should not go unrewarded for his trouble. Upon which Halifax named Addison. Godolphin sent a common friend to Addison, who immediately undertook to confer immortality on the Duke of Marlborough. The poem called The Campaign was the result. Godolphin saw the manuscript when the poet had got as far as the once celebrated simile of the Angel, which runs thus : So when an Angel, by divine command, |