"le tribunal d'Athenes, les femmes n'avoient pas de voix, ou n'en avoient que trés

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peu. Dans le tribunal de Paris, c'est "précisément le contraire; ici il est donc "question de plaire aux femmes, qui afïuré"ment aimeront mieux le pitoyable & le "tendre, que terrible et même le grand." He adds, "Et je ne crois pas au fond qu'elles "ayent grand tort." And what gallant man but would subscribe to this opinion?

On the whole, this attempt of M. de Fontenelle, to innovate in the province of comedy, puts one in mind of that he made, many years ago, in paftoral poetry. It is exactly the fame fpirit which has governed this polite writer in both adventures. He was once for bringing courtiers in maf querade into Arcadia. And now he would fet them unmasked on the comic ftage. Here, at least, he thought they would be in place. But the fimplicity of paftoral dialogue would not fuffer the one; and the familiarity of comic action forbids the other. It must be confeffed, however, he hath fucceeded better in the example of his comedies, than his pastorals. And no wonder. Q 3 For

For what we call the fashions and manners are confined to certain conditions of life, fo that pastoral courtiers are an evident contradiction and abfurdity. But the appetites and paffions extending through all ranks, hence low tricks and low amours are thought to fuit the minifter and sharper alike. However it be, the fact is, that M. de Fontenelle hath fucceeded beft in his comedies. And as his theory is likely to gain more credit' from the fuccefs of his practice than the force of his reafoning, I think it proper to close these remarks with an obfervation or two upon it.

There are, I obferved, three things to be confidered in his comedies, his introduction of great perfonages, his practice of laying the Scene in antiquity, and his pathos.

Now to fee the impropriety of the first of these innovations, we need only observe with what art he endeavours to conceal it, His very dexterity in managing his comic heroes clearly fhews the natural repugnance he felt in his own mind betwixt the representation of fuch characters, and even his own idea of the comic drama. The

The TYRANT is a ftrange title of a comedy. It required fingular addrefs to familiarize this frightful perfonage to our conceptions. Which yet he hath tolerably well done, but by fuch expedients as confute his general theory. For to bring him down to the level of a comic character, he gives us to understand, that the Tyrant was an ufurper, who from a very mean birth had forced his way into the tyranny. And to lower him ftill more, we find him reprefented, not only as odious to his people, but of a very contemptible character. He further makes him the tyrant only of a small Greek town; fo that he paffes, with the modern reader, for little more than the Mayor of a corporation. There is alfo a plain illufion in making a fimple citizen demand his daughter in marriage. For under the cover of this word, which conveys the idea of a perfon in lower life, we think very little of the dignity of a free citizen of Corinth. Whence it appears that the poet felt the neceffity of unkinging this tyrant as far as poffible, before he could make a comic character of him.

The cafe of his ABDOLONIME is ftill eafier. It is true, the ftructure of the fable requires us to have an eye to royalty; but all the pride and pomp of the regal character is ftudiously kept out of fight. Besides, the affair of royalty does not commence till the action draws to a conclusion, the perfons of the drama being all fimple particulars, and even of the lowest figure, through the entire courfe of it.

The King of Sidon is, further, a paltry fovereign, and a creature of Alexander. And the characters of the perfons, which are indeed admirably touched, are purpofely contrived to leffen our ideas of fovereignty..

The LYSIANASSE is a tragedy in form, of that kind which hath a happy catastrophe. The perfons, fubject, every thing fo important, and attaches the mind fo intirely to the event, that nothing interests

more.

As to his laying the fcene in antiquity, and especially in the free towns of Greece, I would recommend it as an admirable expedient to all thofe who are difpofed to

follow

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follow him in this new province of heroic comedy. For amongst other advantages, it gives the writer an occafion to fill the courts of his princes with fimple citizens, which, as was obferved, by no means anfwer to our ideas of nobility. But in any other view I cannot fay much for the practice. It is for obvious reasons highly inconvenient. Even this writer found it fo, when in one of his plays, the MACATE, he was obliged to break through the propriety of antient manners in order to adapt himself to the modern tafte. His duel, as he himself fays, "a l'air bien François et "bien peu Grec." The reader, if he pleases, may fee his apology for this tranfgreffion of decorum. Or, if there were no inconvenience of this fort, the reprefentation of characters after the antique must, on many occafions, be cold and difgufting. At least none but profeffed scholars can be taken with it.

Nor is the ufage of the Latin writers any precedent. For, befides that Horace, we know, condemned it as suitable only to the infancy of their comic poetry, the man

ners,