PROLOGUE TO CESAR BORGIA. [EY MR. N. LEE, 1680.] THE unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, 5 Lives not to please himself, but other men ; 10 Ver. 1. The unhappy man,] Lce had fo melodious a voice, and fuch pathetic elocution, that reading one of his own scenes to Major Mohun at a rehearsal, Mohun in the warmth of his admiration, threw down his part, and exclaimed, "Unless I were able to play it as well as you read it, to what purpose fhould I undertake it." Yet it is a very remarkable circumstance, that Lee failed as an actor in attempting to perform the character of Duncan in Macbeth, 1672. As did Otway in a play of Mrs. Afra Behn, entitled the Jealous Bridegroom. After this failure, the first wrote his Alcibiades, and the last mentioned author his Nero. Dr. J. WARTON. Were there no fear of Antichrift, or France, Which whilome of Requests was called the But now the great Exchange of News 'tis hight, And full of hum and buz from noon 'till night. But all your entertainment ftill is fed 30 By villains in your own dull island bred. where. 35 They have a civil way in Italy, By fmelling a perfume to make A trick would make you lay your fnuff-box by. Murder's a trade, fo known and practis'd there, That 'tis infallible as is the chair. 40 But, mark their feaft, you fhall behold fuch pranks; The pope fays grace, but 'tis the devil gives thanks. PROLOGUE ΤΟ SOPHONISBA, AT OXFORD, 1680. THESPIS, the first professor of our art, At country wakes, fung ballads from a cart. Το prove this true, if Latin be no trespass, "Dicitur et plauftris vexiffe Poemata Thefpis." But Æfchylus, fays* Horace in fome page, 5 Was the first mountebank that trod the stage: * Succeffit vetus his Comoedia, etc. i. e. Comedy began to be cultivated and improved from the time that tragedy had obtained its end, ïoxe tùu iavîñç qúow, under Æfchylus. There is no reafon to fuppofe, with fome critics, that Horace meant to date its origin from hence. The fuppofition is, in truth, contradicted by experience and the order of things. For, as a celebrated French writer obferves, "Le talent d'imiter, qui nous eft naturel, nous porte plutôt à la comedie, qui roule fur des chofes de notre connoiffance, qu'à la Tragedie, qui prend des fujets plus éloignés de l'ufage commun; et en effect, en Grèce aussi bien qu'en France, la Comedie eft l'aînée de la tragedie." [Hift. du Theat. Franc. par M. de Fontenelle.] The latter part of this affertion is clear from the piece referred to; and the other, which refpects Greece, feems countenanced by Ariftotle himself [wp ποιητ. κ. .] "Tis true, comedy, though its rife be every where, at leaft, as early as that of tragedy, is perfected much later. Menander, we know, appeared long after fchylus. And, though the French tragedy, to speak with Ariftotle, oxe Thu tans quo in the hands of Corneille, this cannot be faid of their comedy, which was forced to wait for a Moliere, before it arrived at that pitch of perfection. But then this is owing to Yet Athens never knew your learned sport 10 15 the fuperior difficulty of the comic drama. Nor is it any objection that the contrary of this happened at Rome. For the Romans, when they applied themselves in carneft to the stage, - had not to invent, but to imitate, or rather tranflate, the perfect models of Greece. And it chanced, for reasons which I fhall not stay to deduce, that their poets had better fuccefs in copying their comedy than tragedy. The two happieft fubjects, faid Fontenelle, for tragedy, and comedy among the moderns, are the Cid, and l'Ecole des Femmes. But unluckily, the refpective authors that wrote on each, were not arrived at the full force of their geniufes when they treated thefe fubjects. Events that have actually happened, are, after all, the propereft fubjects for poetry. The beft eclogue of Virgil †, the beft ode of Horace, are founded on real incidents. If we briefly caft our eyes over the most interesting and affecting ftories, ancient or modern, we shall find that they are fuch, as however adorned and a little diversified, are yet grounded on true history, and on real matters of fact. Such, for inftance, among the ancients, are the stories of Jofeph, of Edipus, the Trojan war, and its confequences, of Virginia and the Horatii; fuch, among the moderns, are the ftories of King Lear, the Cid, Romeo and Juliet, and Oronooko. The ferics of events contained in thefe ftories, feem far to furpafs the utmost powers of human imagination. In the beft conducted fiction, fome mark of improbability and incoherence will fill appear. Dr. J. WARTON, |