HERE's not a monster bred beneath the sky
But well-difpos'd by art, may please theeye:
A curious workman by his skill divine,
From an ill object makes a good defign.
Thus to delight us, Tragedy, in tears
For Oedipus, provokes our hopes and fears:
For parricide Orestes asks relief;
And to encrease our pleasure causes grief.
You then that in this noble art would rise,
Come; and in lofty verse dispute the prize.
Would you upon the stage acquire renown,
And for your judges fummon all the town?
Would you your works for ever should remain,
And after ages paft be fought again?
In all you write, obferve with care and art
To move the paffions, and incline the heart.
If in a labor'd act, the pleafing rage
Cannot our hopes and fears by turns engage,
Nor in our mind a feeling pity raise;
In vain with learned scenes you fill your plays :
Your cold difcourfe can never move the mind
Of a ftern critic, naturally unkind;
Who justly tir'd with your pedantic flight,
Or falls afleep, or cenfures all you write.
The secret is, attention first to gain;
To move our minds, and then to entertain:
That from the very opening of the scenes,
The first may show us what the author means.
I'm tir'd to see an actor on the stage,
That knows not whether he's to laugh or rage;
Who, an intrigue unravelling in vain,
Inftead of pleafing keeps my mind in pain.
I'd rather much the naufeous dunce should say
Downright, my name is Hector in the play;
Than with a mafs of miracles, ill-join'd,
Confound my ears and not inftruct my mind.
The fubject's never foon enough expreft;
Your place of action must be fix'd, and rest.
A Spanish poet may with good event,
In one's day's fpace whole ages represent;
There oft the hero of a wandering stage
Begins a child, and ends the play of age:
But we that are by reafon's rules confin'd,
Will, that with art the poem be defign'd,
That unity of action, time, and place,
Keep the stage full, and all our labors
Write not what cannot be with ease conceiv'd;
Some truths may be too ftrong to be believ'd.
A foolish wonder cannot entertain:
My mind's not mov'd if your discourse be vain,
You may relate what would offend the
eye:
Seeing, indeed, would better fatisfy;
But there are objects that a curious art
Hides from the eyes, yet offers to the heart.
The mind is most agreeably furpris'd,
When a well-woven fubject, long disguis'd,
You on a fudden artfully unfold,
And give the whole another face and mould.
At first the Tragedy was void of art;
A fong; where each man danc'd and fung his
And of God Bacchus roaring out the praise,
Sought a good vintage for their jolly days:
Then wine and joy were feen in each man's eyes,
And a fat goat was the beft finger's prize.
Thefpis was firft, who, all befmear'd with lee,
Began this pleasure for posterity :
And with his carted actors, and a song,
Amus'd the people as he pafs'd along.
Next Æfchylus the different perfons plac'd,
And with a better mask his players grac'd :
Upon a theatre his verse express'd,
And fhow'd his hero with a bufkin drefs'd.
Then Sophocles, the genius of his
age,
Increas'd the pomp and beauty of the stage,
Ingag'd the chorus fong in every part,
And polish'd rugged verfe by rules of art:
He in the Greek did thofe perfections gain,
Which the weak Latin never could attain,
Our pious fathers, in their priest-rid age,
As impious and prophane, abhorr'd the stage:
A troop of filly pilgrims, as 'tis faid,
Foolishly zealous, fcandalously play'd,
Instead of heroes, and of love's complaints,
The angels, God, the virgin, and the faints.
At last, right reason did his laws reveal,
And show'd the folly of their ill-plac'd zeal,
Silenc'd thofe nonconformifts of the age,
And rais'd the lawful heroes of the stage:
Only the Athenian mask was laid afide,
And chorus by the mufic was supply'd.
Ingenious love, inventive in new arts,
Mingled in plays, and quickly touch'd our hearts:
This paffion never could refiftance find,
But knows the shortest paffage to the mind.
Paint then, I'm pleas'd my hero be in love;
But let him not like a tame shepherd move ;
Let not Achilles be like Thyrfis feen,
Or for a Cyrus fhow an Artamen;
That struggling oft his paffions we may find,
The frailty, not the virtue of his mind.
Of romance heroes fhun the low design;
Yet to great hearts fome human frailties join :
Achilles muft with Homer's heat engage;
For an affront I'm pleas'd to fee him rage.
Those little failings in your hero's heart
Show that of man and nature he has part:
To leave known rules you cannot be allow'd;
Make Agamemnon covetous and proud,
Æneas in religious rites auftere,
Keep to each man his proper character.
Of countries and of times the humors know;
From different climates different cuftoms grow:
And strive to fhun their fault who vainly drefs
An antique hero like fome modern afs;
Who make old Romans like our English move,
Show Cato fparkish, or make Brutus love.
In a romance thofe errors are excus'd:
There 'tis enough that, reading, we're amus'd:
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