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SAMSON AGONISTES,

A

DRAMATICK POEM.

ARISTOT. Poet. Cap. 6.

Τραγωδία μίμησις πράξεως σπεδαίας, κ. τ. λ.

Tragedia eft imitatio actionis feriæ, &c. per mifericordiam et metum perficiens talium affectuum luftrationem.

Of that fort of Dramatick Poem which is called Tragedy.

TRAGEDY, as it was anciently compofed, hath been ever held the graveft, moraleft, and moft profitable of all other poems: therefore faid by Aristotle to be of power by railing pity and fear, or terrour, to purge the mind of those and fuch like paffions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, ftirred up by reading or feeing those paffions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his affertion: for fo, in

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• Of that fort of dramatick poem, called Tragedy.] Milton, who was inclined to Puritanifm, had good reafon to think, that the publication of his Sumfon Agoniftes would be very offenfive to his brethren, who held poetry, and particularly that of the dramatick kind, in the greatest abhorrence, And, upon this account, it is probable, that, in order to excufe himself from having engaged in this profcribed and forbidden fpecies of writing, he thought it expedient to prefix to his Play a formal Defence of Tragedy. T. WARTON.

2 for fo, in phyfick, &c.] Thefe expreffions of Milton may be fuppofed to refer to the doctrine of Signatures then in vogue; which had been introduced by Paracelfus between the years 1530 and 1540, and which inferred the propriety of the use of any vegetable, or mineral, in medicine from the fimilarity of colour, shape, or appearance, which these remedies might bear to the part affected. Thus yellow things, as faffron, turmeric, &c. were given in liver complaints from their analogy of colour to the bile; and other remedies were given in nephritic diforders becaufe the feed or leaf of the plaut refembled the kidney. See

phyfick, things of melancholick hue and quality are used against melancholy, four against four, falt to remove falt humours. Hence philofophers and other graveft writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite out of tragick poets, both to adorn and illustrate their difcourfe. The Apoftle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to infert a verfe of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture, I Cor. xv. 33; and Paræus, commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole

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Paracels. Labyrinth. Med. c. S. And Dr. Pemberton's very gant preface to the English edition of the London Difpenfary. DUNSTER.

3 a verfe of Euripides] The verfe, here quoted, is Evil communications corrupt good manners: but I am inclined to think that Milton is mistaken in calling it a verfe of Euripides; for Jerome and Grotius (who published the fragments of Menander) and the best commentators, ancient and modern, say that it is taken from the Thais of Menander, and it is extant among the fragments of Menander, p. 79. Le Clerc's edit. Osipoi non xpñol öμixízı xanai. Such flips of memory may be found fometimes in the beft writers. NEWTON.

Mr. Glaffe, the learned translator of this tragedy into Greek Iambicks, agrees with Dr. Newton. Dr. Macknight, in his excellent Translation of the Epiftles, is of opinion, that the fentiment is of elder date than the time of Menander; that it was one of the proverbial verfes commonly received among the Greeks, the author of which cannot now be known. drinus calls it 'Iaμbešov тpayınòv, Strom. lib. i. hiftorian exprefsly affigns it to Euripides, Ecc. Hift. lib. iii. cap. 16. ed. Valef. p. 189. It is extant indeed in the fragments of Euripides, as well as in thofe of the comick writer. Milton therefore is not to be charged with forgetfulness, or mistake.

Clemens Alexan-
And Socrates the

TODD.

book as a tragedy, into acts diftinguished each by a chorus of heavenly harpings and fong between. Heretofore men in highest dignity have laboured not a little to be thought able to compofe a tragedy. Of that honour Dionyfius the elder was no lefs ambitious, than before of his attaining to the tyranny. tyranny. Auguftus Cæfar alfo had begun his Ajax, but, unable to please his own judgement with what he had begun, left it unfinished. Seneca, the philofopher is by fome thought the author of thofe tragedies (at least the beft of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, a Father of the Church, thought it not unbefeeming the fanctity of his person to write a tragedy, which is entitled Chrift fuffering. This is mentioned to vindicate tragedy from the fmall efteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day with other common interludes; happening through the poet's errour of intermixing co

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4 a tragedy, &c.] A very fevere, but very juft, criticism on this tragedy of Gregory, which has been too much applauded, has been given by the learned Valckenaer, Præfat. in Euripidis Hippolytum, p. 13. 4to. Lugd. Bat. 1768. Jos. WARTON.

It feems very extraordinary that Milton did not here likewife mention the tragedies of Grotius; his Adamus Exul, Chriftus Patiens, and Sophomphanaus; in his dedication of the laft of which to Gerard Voffius, Grotius juftifies the writing of tragedy with examples and arguments fimilar to thofe of Milton in this tragedy. DUNSTER.

5 of intermixing comick ftuff &c.] This might refer to Shak

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