they have in the confciousness that they are the objects of love and admiration, are ever changing the air of their countenances, and altering the attitude of their bodies, to strike the hearts of the beholders with new sense of their beauty. The dressing part of our sex, whose minds are the same with the fiilier part of the other, are exactly in the like uneafy condition to be regarded for a well-tied cravat, an hat cocked with an unusual brifkness, a very well-chofen coat, or other instances of merit, which they are impatient to see unob ferved. of eloquence in his power, he never spoke a word too much. It might be borne even here, but it often afcends the pulpit itself: and the declaimer, in that sacred place, is frequently so impertinently witty, speaks of the last day itself with so many quaint phrafes, that there is no man who understands raillery, but must refolve to fin no more: nay, you may behold him sometimes in prayer, for a proper delivery of the great truths he is to utter, humble himself with so very well-turned phrafe, and mention his own unworthiness in a way fo very becoming, that the air of the pretty gentleman is preserved, under the lowliness of the preacher, I shall end this with a short letter I writ the other day to a witty man, over-run with the fault I am speaking of. ، But this apparent affectation, arising from an ill-governed confciousness, is not so much to be wondered at in such loose and trivial minds as these; but when you fee it reign in characters of worth and distinction, it is what you cannot but lament, not without some indignation. It creeps into the heart of the wife man as well as that of the coxcomb. When you fee a man of sense look about for applause, and discover an itching inclination to be commended; lays traps for a little incense, even from those whose opinion he values in nothing but his own favour; who is safe against this weakness? or who knows whether he is guilty of it or not? The best way to get clear of fuch a light fondness for applause, is to take all possible' care to throw off the love of it upon occafions that are not in themf Ives laudable, but as it appears, we hope for no praise from them. Of this nature are all graces in mens persons, dress and bodily deportment; which will naturally be winning and attractive if we think not of them, but lose their force in proportion to our endeavour to make them fuch. ' Dear Sir, I Spent some time with you the other day, and must take the liberty of a friend to tell 'you of the unfufferable affectation you are guil'ty of in all you say and do. When I gave you 'an hint of it, you asked me whether a man is to 'be cold to what his friends think of him? No: 'but praise is not to be the entertainment of every moment; he that hopes for it must be able to suspend the possession of it till proper periods of life, or death itself. If you would not ' rather be commended than be praise-worthy, contemn little merits; and allow no man to be 'fo free with you, as to praise you to your face. Your vanity by this means will want its food. At the fame time your passion for esteem will be more fully gratified; men will praise you in When our confciousness turns upon the main ' their actions; where you now receive one comdesign of life, and our thoughts are employed upon pliment, you will then receive twenty civilities. the chief purpose either in business or pleasure, we 'Till then you will never have of either, further shall never betray an affectation, for we cannot be ' than, Sir, guilty of it; but when we give the passion for R praise an unbridled liberty, our pleasure in little perfections robs us of what is due to us for great virtues and worthy qualities. How many excel- N° 39. SATURDAY, APRIL 14. lent speeches and honest actions are loft, for want of being indifferent where we ought? Men are oppreffed with regard to their way of speaking and acting, instead of having their thoughts bent upon what they should do or say; and by that means bury a capacity for great things by their fear of failing in indifferent things. This, perhaps, cannot be called affectation: but it has some tincture of it, at least fo far, as that their fear of erring in a thing of no confequence, argues they would be too much pleased in performing it. It is only from a thorough difregard to himself in such particulars, that a man can act with a laudable fufficiency; his heart is fixed upon one point in view; and he commits no errors, because he thinks nothing an error but what deviates from that intention, The wild havoc affectation makes in that part of the world which should be most polite, is vifible where-ever we turn our eyes; it pushes men not only into impertinencies in conversation, but alfo in their premeditated speeches. At the bar it tormerts the bench, whose business it is to cut off all fuperfluities in what is spoken before it by the practitioner; as well as feveral little pieces of injustice which arife from the law itself. I have seen it make a man run from the purposs before a Judge, who was, when at the bar himself, so close and logical a pleader that with all the pomp 1 Your humble servant, Multa fero, ut placem genus irritabile vatum, Cum fcribo HOR. Ep. II. ii. 102. IMITATED. Much do I fuffer, much to keep in peace This jealous, waspith, wrong-head, rhiming race, A POPE. Sa perfect tragedy is the noblest production of human nature, fo it is capable of giving the mind one of the most delightful and most improving entertainments. A virtuous man, says Seneca, struggling with misfortunes, is fuch a spectacle as gods might look upon with pleasure; and fuch a pleasure it is which one meets with in the reprefentation of a well-written tragedy. Di, versions of this kind wear out of our thoughts every thing that is mean and little. They cher.th and cultivate that humanity which is the tornament of our nature. They soften insolence, footh affliction, and subdue the mind to the difpenfations of providence. It is no wender therefore that in all the polite nations of the world, this part of the Drama has met with public encouragement, The modern tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome in the intricacy and difpofition of the fa 3 bie? 1 ble; but, what a christian writer should be ashamed to own, falls infinitely short of it in the moral part of the performance. This I may shew more at large hereafter; and in the mean time, that I may contribute fomething towards the improvement of the English tragedy, I shall take notice, in this and in other following papers, of fome particular parts in it that feem liable to exception. Aristotle observes, that the Iambic verse in the Greek tongue was the most proper for tragedy; because at the fame time that it lifted up the difcourse from profe, it was that which approached nearer to it than any other kind of verse. For, fays he, we may observe that men in ordinary difcourse very often speak Iambics, without taking notice of it. We make the fame observation of our English blank verse, which often enters into our common discourse, though we do not attend to it, and is such a due medium between rhyme and profe, that it feems wonderfully adapted to tragedy. I am therefore very much offended when I fee a play in rhyme; which is as abfurd in English, as a tragedy of Hexameters would have been in Greek or Latin. The solecism is, I think, still greater in those plays that have fome fcenes in rhyme and fome in blank verse, which are to be looked upon as two feveral languages; or where we fee fome particular fimilies dignified with rhyme, at the fame time that every thing about them lies in blank verse. I would not however debar the poet from concluding his tragedy, or, if he pleases every act of it, with two or three couplets, which may have the fame effect as an air in the Italian opera after a long Recitativo, and give the actor a graceful Exit. Besides, that we fee a diversity of numbers in some parts of the old tragedy, in order to hinder the ear from being tired with the same continued modulation of voice. For the fame reason I do not dislike the speeches in our English tragedy that close with an Hemistic, or half verse, notwithstanding the person who speaks after it begins a new verse, with out filling up the preceding one: nor with abrupt pauses and breakings-off in the middle of a verse, when they humour any passion that is expressed by it. Since I am upon this subject, I must observe that our English poets have succeeded much better in the stile, than in the sentiments of their tragedies. Their language is very often noble and Tonorous, but the sense either very trifiing or very common. On the contrary, in the ancient tragedies, and indeed in those of Corneisle and Racine, though the expreffions are very great, it is the thought that bears them up and swells them. For my own part, I prefer a noble sentiment that is depressed with homely language, infinitely before a vulgar one that is blown up with all the found and energy of expreffion. Whether this defect in our tragedies may arife from want of genius, knowledge, or experience in the writers, or from their compliance with the vicious taste of their readers, who are better judges of the language than of the sentiments, and confequently relish the one more than the other, I cannot determine. But I believe it might rectify the conduct both of the one and of the other, if the writer laid down the whole contexture of his dialogue in plain English, before he turned it into blank verse; and if the reader, after the perufal of a scene, would confider the naked thought of every speech in it, when divested of all its tragic ornaments. By this means without being imposed upon by words, we may judge impartially of the thought, and confider whether it be natural or great enough for the person that utters it, whether it deferves to shine in such a blaze of eloquence, or shew itself in such a variety of lights as are generally made use of by the writers of our English tragedy. I must in the next place observe, that when our thoughts are great and just, they are often obscured by the founding phrases, hard metaphors, and forced expressions in which they are cloathed. Shakespear is often very faulty in this particular. There is a fine observation in Aristotle to this purpose, which I have never feen quoted. The ex preffion, says he, ought to be very much laboured in the unactive parts of the fable, as in defcriptions, fimilitudes, narrations, and the like; in which the opinions, manners, and passions of men are not represented; for these, namely the opinions, manners, and passions, are apt to be obscured by pompous phrases and elaborate expreffions. Horace, who copied most of his criticifms after Ariftotle, seems to have had his eye on the foregoing rule, in the following verses: Et Tragicus plerumque dolet fermone pedeftri: Ars Poet, ver. 95. Tragedians too lay by their state to grieve: Peleus and Telephus, exil'd and poor, Forget their swelling and gigantic words. ROSCOMMON. Among our modern English poets, there is none who was better turned for tragedy than Lee: if, instead of favouring the impetuofity of his genius, he had restrained it, and kept it within its proper bounds. His thoughts are wonderfully suited to tragedy, but frequently lost in such a cloud of words, that it is hard to fee the beauty of them; there is an infinite fire in his works, but so involved in smoke, that it does not appear in half its lustre. He frequently fucceeds in the passionate parts of the tragedy, but more particulary where he flackens his efforts, and eases the stile of those epithets and metaphors, in which he fo much abounds. What can be more natural, more foft, or more paffionate, than that line in Statira's speech, where the describes the charms of Alexander's converfation? Then he would talk- Good Gods; how he would talk! That unexpected break in the line, and turning the defcription of his manner of talking into an admiration of it, is inexpreffibly beautiful, and wonderfully fuited to the fond character of the perfon that speaks it. There is a fimplicity in the words, that outshines the utmost pride of expreffion. Otway has followed nature in the language of his tragedy, and therefore shines in the pafsionate parts more than any of our English poets. As there is fomething familiar and domeftic in the fable of his tragedy, more than in those of any other poet, he has little pomp, but great force in his expreffions. For which reafon, though he has admirably fucceeded in the tender and melting part of his tragedies, he sometimes falls into too great great a familiarity of phrase in those parts, which, It has been observed by others, that this poet has founded his tragedy of Venice Preserved on so wrong a plot, that the greatest characters in it are those of rebels and traitors. Had the hero of his play difcovered the fame good qualities in the defence of his country, that he shewed for its ruin and fubversion, the audience could not enough pity and admire him; but as he is now reprefented, we can only fay of him what the Roman historian fays of Catiline, that his fall would have been glorious (fi pro Patriâ fic concidiffet) had he so fallen in the service of his country. N° 40. MONDAY, APRIL 16. Ac ne fortè putes, me, quæ facere ipfe recufem, C Ut magus; & modò me Thebis, modò ponit Athenis. IMITATED. Yet lest you think I rally more than teach, T POPE. the tragedies that were written in either of these kinds, and observes, that those which ended unhappily had always pleased the people, and carried away the prize in the public disputes of the stage, from these that ended happily. Terror and commiferation leave a pleasing anguish in the mind; and fix the audience in such a ferious composure of thought, as is much more lafting and delightful than any little tranfient starts of joy and fatisfaction. Accordingly we find, that more of our English tragedies have fucceeded, in which the favourites of the audience fink under their calamities, than those in which they recover themselves out of them. The best plays of this kind are the Orphan, Venice Preserved, Alexander the Great, Theodofius, All for Love, Oedipus, Oroonoko, Othello, &c. King Lear is an admirable tragedy of the same kind, as Shakespeare wrote it; but as it is reformed according to the chimerical notion of poetical juftice, in my opinion it has loft half its beauty. At the same time I must allow, that there are very noble tragedies, which have been framed upon the other plan, and have ended happily; as indeed most of the good tragedies which have been written since the starting of the abovementioned criticism, have taken this turn; as the Mourning Bride, Tamerlane, Ulysses, Phædra and Hippolitus, with most of Mr. Dryden's. I must also allow, that many of Shakespeare's, and several of the celebrated tragedies of antiquity, are cast in the same form, I do not therefore difpute against this way of writing tragedies, but against the criticism that would establish this as the only method: and by that means would very much cramp the English tragedy, and perhaps give a wrong bent to the genius of our wri HE English writers of tragedy are possessed with a notien, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent person in distress, they ought not to leave him 'till they have delivered him out of his troubles, or made him triumph over his enemies. This error they have been led into by a ridiculous doctrine in modern criticism, that they are obliged to an equal distribution of rewards and punishments, and an impartial execution of poetical justice. Who were the first that established this rule I know not; but I am fure it has no foundation in nature, in reason, or in the practice of the ancients. We find that good and evil happen alike to all men on this side the grave; and as the prin cipal defign of tragedy is to raise commiferation and terror in the minds of the audience, we shall defeat this great end, if we always make virtue and innocence happy and successful. Whatever crofles and disappointments a good man suffers in the body of the tragedy, they will make but small impression on our minds, when we know that in the last act he is to arrive at the end of his wishes and defires. When we fee him engaged in the depth of his afflictions, we are apt to comfort ourselves, because we are fure he will find his way out of them; and that his grief, how great foever it may be at prefent, will foon terminate in gladness. For this rea fon the ancient writers of tragedy treated men in their plays, as they are dealt with in the world, by making virtue sometimes happy and fometimes miferable, as they found it in the fable which they made choice of, or as it might affect their audience in the most agreeable manner, Aristotle considers ters. The tragi-comedy, which is the product of the English theatre, is one of the most monstrous inventions that ever entered into a poet's thoughts. An author might as well think of weaving the adventures of Æneas and Hudibras into one poem, as of writing such a motly piece of mirth and forrow. But the absurdity of these performances is so very visible, that I shall not infift upon it. The fame objections which are made to tragicomedy, may in some measure be applied to all tragedies that have a double plot in them; which are likewise more frequent upon the English stage, than upon any other; for though the grief of the audience, in such performanees, be not changed into another paffion, as in tragi-comedies; it is diverted upon another object, which weakens their concern for the principal action, and breaks the tide of forrow, by throwing it into different channels. This inconvenience, however, may in a great measure be cured, if not wholly removed, by the skilful choice of an under-plot, which may bear such a near rela tion to the principal design, as to contribute to wards the completion of it, and be concluded by the same catastrophe. There is alfo another particular, which may be reckoned among the blemishes, or rather the false beauties, of our English tragedy: I mean those particular speeches which are commonly known by the name of rants. The warm and passionate parts of a tragedy are always the most taking with the audience; for which reason we often see the players pronouncing, in all the violence of action, several parts of the tragedy which the author writ with great temper, and designed that they should have been fo acted. I have teen Powell very often raise himself a loud clap by this artifice. The poets that were acquainte acquainted with this secret, have given frequent occasion for fuch emotions in the actor, by adding vehemence to words where there was no passion, or inflaming a real passion into fustian. This hath filled the mouths of our heroes with bombaft; and given them such sentiments, as proceed rather from a swelling than a greatness of mind. Unnatural exclamations, curfes, vows, blafphemies, a defiance of mankind, and an outraging of the gods, frequently pass upon the audience for tow'ring thoughts, and have accordingly met with infinite applause. I shall here add a remark, which I am afraid our tragic writers may make an ill use of. As our heroes are generally lovers, their swelling and b ustring upon the stage very much recommends them to the fair part of their audience. The ladies are wonderfully pleased to see a man insulting kings, or affronting the gods in one scene, and throwing himself at the feet of his mistress in another. Let him behave himself infolently towards the men, and ahjectly towards the fair one, and it is ten to one but he proves a favourite of the boxes. Dryden and Lee, in several of their tragedies, have practised this fecret with good success. But to shew how arant pleases beyond the most just and natural thought that is not pronounced with vehemence, I would defire the reader, when he fees the tragedy of Oedipus, to observe how quietly the hero is dismissed at the end of the third act, after having pronounced the following lines, in which the thought is very natural, and apt to move compaffion; To you, good gods, I make my last appeal; And backward tred those paths I fought to thun; Impute my errors to your own decree: My hands are guilty, but my heart is free. Let us then obferve with what thunder-claps of applanse he leaves the stage, after the impieties and execrations at the end of the fourth act; and you will wonder to fee an audience so cursed and fo pleased at the fame time; O that as oft I have at Athen's feen Otter, I forget which, makes one of the causes ' of feparation to be Error Perfona, when a man ' marries a woman, and finds her not to be the ' same woman whom he intended to marry, but another. If that be law, it is, I prefume, exactly my cafe. For you are to know, Mr. Spectator, that there are women who do not let their husband fee their faces till they are married. Not to keep you in suspence, I mean plainly that part of the sex who paint. They are some ' of them so exquisitely skilful this way, that ' give them but a tolerable pair of eyes to fet up with, and they will make befom, lips, cheeks, ' and eye-brows, by their own industry. As for my dear, never man was so enamonred as I was of her fair forehead, neck, and arms, as well as the bright jet of her hair; but to my great aftonish. ment 1 find they were all the effects of art; her • skin is so tarnished with this practice, that when • she first wakes in a morning, she scarce seems young enough to be the mother of her whom I carried to bed the night before. I shall take the liberty to part with her by the first opportunity, unless her father will make her portion fuitable to her real, not her assumed, countenance. This I thought fit to let him and her know by your ' means. I am, Sir, • Your most obedient humble servant.' I cannot tell what the law, or the parents of the [Where, by the way, there was no stage till lady, will do for this injured gentleman, but muft many years after Oedipus.] The stage arife, and the big clouds defcend; So now, in very deed I might behold This pond'rous globe, and all yon marble roof, Meet, like the hands of Jove, and crush man kind. allow he has very much justice on his fide. I have indeed very long observed this evil, and diftinguished those of our women who wear their own, from those in borrowed complexions, by the Picts and the British. There does not need any great difcernment to judge which are which. The British have a lively animated aspect; the Picts, though never so beautiful, have dead uninformed countenances. The muscles of a real face fometimes swell with soft paffion, fudden surprise, and are flushed with agreeable confufions, according as the objects before them, or the ideas presented to them, aficht their imagination. But the Picts behold all things with the fame air, whether they are joyful or fad; the fame fixed insensibility appears upon all ocсаfions. A Pict, though the takes all that pains to invite the approach of lovers, is obliged to keep them at a certain distance; a figh in a languishing lover, if fetched too near her, would diffolve a feature and a kiss snatched by a forward one, might transfer the complexion of the mistress to the admirer. It is hard to speak of these false fair ones, without faying fomething uncomplaisant, but I would only recommend to them to confider how they like coming into a room new-painted; they may may affure themselves, the near approach of a lady who uses this practise is as much more offenfive. i Will Honeycomb told us, one day, an adventure he once had with a Pict. This lady had wit, as well as beauty, at will; and made it her business to gain hearts, for no other reason but to railly the torments of her lovers. She would make great advances to insnare men, but without any manner of scruple break off when there was no provocation. Her ill-nature and vanity made my friend very eafily proof against the charms of her wit and conversation; but her beauteous form, instead of being blemished by her falihood and inconstancy, every day increased upon him, and the had new attractions every time he faw her. When the obferved Will irrevocably her slave, she began to use him as fuch, and after many steps towards fucha cruelty, the at laft utterly banished him. The un-" happy lover strove in vain, by servile epistles, to revoke his doom; till at length he was forced to the lafst refuge, a tound sum of money to her maid. This corrupt attendant placed him early in the morning behind the hangings in her mistress's dreffing-room. He stood very conveniently to observe, without being seen. The Pict begins the face the designed to wear that day, and I have heard him protest she had worked a full half hour before he knew her to be the fame woman. As foon as he faw the dawn of that complexion, for which he had so long languished, he thought fit to break from his concealment, repeating that of Cowley: Th' adorning Thee with so much art, The Pict stood before him in the utmoft confufion, with the prettieft fmirk imaginable on the finished fide of her face, pale as ashes on the other. Honeycomb seized all her gallypots and washes, and carried off his handkerchief full of brushes, scraps of Spanish wool, and phials of unguents. The lady went into the country, the lover was cured. It is certain no faith ought to be kept with cheats, and an oath made to a Pict is of itself void. I would therefore exhort all the British ladies to fingle them out, nor do I know any but Lindamira who should be exempt from discovery; for her own complexion is so delicate, that the ought to be allowed the covering it with paint, as a punithment for choofing to be the worst piece of art extant, instead of the masterpiece of nature. As for my part, who have no expectations from women, and confider them only as they are part of the species, I do not half so much fear offending a beauty as a woman of sense; I shall therefore produce several faces which have been in public this many years, and never appeared. It will be a very pretty entertainment in the play-house, when I have abolished this custom, to fee fo many ladies, when they first lay it down, down, incog. in their own faces; In the mean time, as a pattern for improving their charms, let the sex study the agreeable Statira. Her features are enlivened with the chear fulress of her mind, and good-humour gives an alacrity to her eyes. She is graceful without affecting an air, and unconcerned without appearing careless. Her having no manner of art in her mind, makes her want none in her person, A POPE. Riftotle has observed, that ordinary writers in tragedy endeavour to raise terror and pity in their audience, not by proper sentiments and expreffions, but by the dreffes and decorations of the stage. There is something of this kind very ridiculous in the English theatre, When the author has a mind to terrify us, it thunders; when he would make us melancholy, the stage is darkened. But among all our tragic artifices, I am the most offended at those which are made ufe of to inspire us with magnificent ideas of the perfons that speak. The ordinary method of making an hero, is to clap a huge plume of feathers upon his head, which rises so very high, that there is often a greater length from his chin to the top of his head, than to the fole of his foot. One would believe, that we thought a great man and a tall man the fame thing. This very much embarrasses the actor, who is forced to hold his neck extremely stiff and steady all the while he speaks; and notwithstanding any anxieties which he pretends for his mistress, his country, or his friends, one may see by his action, that his greatest care and concern is to keep the plume of feathers from falling off his head. For my own part, when I see a man uttering his complaints under such a mountain of feathers, I am apt to look upon him rather as an unfortunate H |