latter particularly has drawn his Alexander in fuch strange colours, that the im mortal his paffions. One is full of maxims, rules and precepts; the other of pleafing and agreeable: fentiments. We are more enraptured at Corneille's pieces; at Racine's, more foftened. Corneille is more moral; Racine more natural. The one seems to imitate Sophocles; the other, Euripides." Oeuvres de Bruyere, tome i. p. 36. Corneille is more natural than Racine in one fense, viz. as he is lefs studied and laboured, and more careless and unaffected. He is more folicitous about his thought than his expreffion; more attentive to the matter than the style; and the whole of his work than the particular parts. of it. His aim is rather to do well than to pleafe. He follows his genius, without striving to accommodate it to the taste of the public, and courting the bulk of an audience. On the other hand, Racine is more natural than Corneille in this fenfe, that he is more equal and uniform, no where forced or extravagant, employs commonly the moft proper expreffion, fcarce ever gives into puns. or fuftian, and is more to the level of all capacities than Corneille. The latter frequently thinks, and expreffes him felf, in a manner that has fome-. mortal hero is metamorphofed into a whining lover; nothing but the name of Alexander remains: We expect to meet with the impetuous conqueror; but are furprized to find a character that moves our contempt. St. Evremond characterized him very well, when he faid, "He is as indifferent a hero in love, as in warg and thus the history is disfigured, with out any ornament to the romance. We find him a warrior, whofe glory cannot influence our courage; and a lover, whofe paffion cannot affect our tendernefs." For feveral inftances of this fault in those two French tragedians, I would refer them to the twenty-ninth section thing bold, daring, and turbulent in it. Racine is always elegant, correct, and orderly And fo, an author that was not so brilliant and fo fingular as the firft, nor fo exact and correct as the latter, would appear more natural than either: Such, for inftance is Homer. Trublet's Effays, p. 339. of of the first volume of the abbé du Bos" Reflexions Critiques. Horace advises us, Aut famam fequere, aut fibi convenientia finge, Scriptor. Honoratum fi fortè reponis Achillem,. Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, Jura neget fibi data, nihil non arroget armis. De Arte Poet. Homer gives Achilles his character, when he contends for his captive with Agamemnon; but Euripides carried the fierté too far, when he reprefented himfo devoid of humanity at the facrifice of Iphigenia: Homer did not draw him. (nor does Horace advise it) thus. The prieft feemed to be touched with compaffion, but the lover appeared as it were infenfible. Our poet Lee has drawn Alexander in almost as ridiculous colours as Racine did; he is a hero,, it is true,, La 3 but but thoroughly mad: The foftness of the Frenchman's difpofition made Alexander a lover; and the violent frantic mind of the Englishman drew himself, and called the phantom Alexander: Both were in extremes. As the fentiments of a perfon in tragedy fhould always be adapted to his character in general; fo they should also correfpond to his fituation at the time he fpeaks them. Alonzo is worked up by Zanga's contrivances to determine to kill his bride; as he enters the bower, where The is afleep, with a dagger on that defign, he makes the following addrefs to it: Ye amaranths! ye rofes, like the morn! Sweet myrtles, and ye golden orange groves! Why do you fmile? Why do ye look fo fair? Are you not blafted as I enter in ? Yes; fee how ev'ry flow'r lets fall its head! How fhudders ev'ry leaf without a wind! How . How ev'ry green is as the ivy pale! And foon damnation follow'd. This fpeech, at fo critical a time, is entirely unnatural. Can it be thought, that if fuch an action was to be committed on the fame caufe, that a man could poffibly form a flowery address to the bower, juft at the moment he is going to ftab his wife that was ftill dear to him? It may be faid, perhaps, that although tragedy is an imitation of the actions of men, yet the neceffity of the stage requires many more words on thefe occafions than what paffes in life. Certainly this is true; but ought not these speeches |