as a rival to his power: And as an oracle had declared the empire's luftre should be restored on her kindling anew the torch of Hymen, the determines to marry Arzaces. Accordingly all the court are by her orders affembled in a magnificent falon, together with the high-priest and magi; and the declares to them that Arzaces is the hero fhe weds. At that instant claps of thunder are heard, and the tomb of Ninus (the scene is laid in fight of it) fhaking, his ghoft rifes from the monument, and addreffing Arzaces, declares he fhall afcend the throne, but that he must first expiate fome crimes by blood in the tomb, and be directed by the high-prieft; who informs him of the fecret of his birth and the murder of his father, and gives him the letter which Ninus wrote with him to Phradates. Arzaces, thus faved from inceft, in an interview

terview with the queen, fhews her this letter, and repairs to the tomb to execute the ghost's injunctions. In the mean time Semiramis is informed that Affur had plotted the deftruction of her fon, and was gone to the tomb to murder him; he repairs thither herself, armed, in his defence: And Ninias (otherwife Arzaces) hearing alfo of Affur's being in the tomb, thinks it the guidance of the gods that he fhould there fall by his hand, and therefore haftens to kill him. In a dark part of the monument he thinks he fees him, and plunges his fword into his breaft; but foon after he finds his miftake, and difcovers that he has flain his mother: She comes forth wounded, and, after making a repentant pathetic fpeech, expires.

This is the outline of the fable of this tragedy, which is exceffively pathetic.

1

Semiramis having been a wicked woman, her death would have been mere poetic juftice, and occafioned little of the pathetic; nor would the fate of Affur, who is ordered to execution, been moving; but Ninias being himfelf the executioner of his own mother, is a ftroke infinitely pathetic and terrible: this circumftance, and the repentance of Semiramis, render the catastrophe very moving. There is an epifode in the piece, which I have taken no notice of. Azema is a princess of the blood, in love with, and beloved by Arzaces. Affur alfo wants to ftrengthen his right to the crown by wedding her. She feems introduced that love may not be excluded from the piece; but in this M. Voltaire did not follow his own rules, for he has in many paffages in his works. difplayed the neceffity of that paffion being predominant, or quite banished.

This is one of thofe pieces wrote fome what in our taste. It is plain the author had Hamlet in his eye throughout it' he has managed his fable in general with judgment; and the thunder and the ghoft of Ninus rifing out of the tomb, are finely and awfully introduced.

If noble fentiments and the charms of language were of the greatest importance in the conftitution of a tragedy, Cato would be one of the moft affecting in our language; but as that celebrated piece is far from poffeffing the most effential merit of tragedy, a fhort view of it will convince us that the defect lies in the fable.

It is not an old man's falling on his fword, the death of another in battle, or a dead corpfe brought on a. ftage, that

are

are circumftances which will of themfelves raise either terror or pity. It is the chufing a fubject tragical in its nature; and the incidents rifing naturally out of each other, in the catastrophe produces an event which furprizes the spectator, and overpowers the foul with compaffion. One great excellency in tragedy is the keeping the catastrophe a fecret till the event is brought about; if an audience foresee it, the poet deprives himself of the advantage which a furprizing and unforeseen event always gives. In a piece where this conduct is obferved, the fouls of the fpectators are in fufpence during the whole representation. The abbé du Bos collects many reafons to prove that poets fhould chufe for their fubjects, events which have happened a long while before the time in which they write: But to add the beauty of furprize

to