ling all the World how ardently I Love and Honour You; and that I am with the utmost Gratitude for all Your Favours, THE SPECTATOR. VOL. II. N° 39. Saturday, April 14, 1711. Multa fero, ut placem genus irritabile vatum Cum fcribo. A Hor. S a perfect Tragedy is the nobleft Production of human Nature, fo it is capable of giving the Mind one of the moft delightful and moft improving Entertainments. A virtuous Man (fays Seneca) ftrugling 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 Representation of a well writ written Tragedy. Diversions of this kind wear out of of T Thoughts every thing that is mean and little. They cherish and cultivate that Humanity which is the Ornament of our Nature. They foften Infolence, footh Affliction, and fubdue the Mind to the Dispensations of Providence. IT is no Wonder therefore that in all the polite Nations of the World, this Part of the Drama has met with publick Encouragement. THE modern Tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome, in the Intricacy and Difpofition of the Fable; but, what a Chriftian Writer would be ashamed to own, falls infinitely fhort of it in the Moral part of the Performance. THIS I may fhew more at large hereafter; and in the mean time, that I may contribute fomething towards the Improvement of the English Tragedy, I fhall take notice, in this and in other following Papers, of fome particular Parts in it that feem liable to Exception. ARISTOTLE obferves, that the Iambick Verfe in the Greek Tongue was the most proper for Tragedy: Because at the fame time that it lifted up the Difcourfe from Profe, it was that which ap approached nearer to it than any other kind of Verfe. For, fays he, we may obferve that Men in ordinary Difcourfe very often fpeak without taid king Notice of it. may make the fame Obfervation of our English Blank Verfe, which often enters into our common Difcourfe, though we do not attend to it, and is fuch 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 ab furd in Englife, as a Tragedy of Hexameters would have been in Grreek or Lat tin. The Solacif is, I think, oftilli greater, in thofe Plays that have fome Scenes in Rhyme and fome în Blank Verfe, which are to be looked upon as two feveral Languages; or where we fee fome particular Similies dignified with Rhyme, at the fame time that every thing about them lyes in Blank Verfe. 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. Befides, that we |