T ly ignominious, is, to throw ignominy on aný talent. Let us come now to the tranflation of Zara, and to the change that has been lately made on your stage, in the art of dramatic poetry. A cuftom prevailed among you, to which even Mr. Addison fubjected himself, though the wisest of your writers; fo much does custom take place of reason and of law! It confifted in finishing every act with verfes of a different nature from the rest of the play, and these verses neceffarily contained a fimile. Phaedra, leaving the ftage, poetically compares herself to a hind; Cato to a rock; Cleopatra to infants, who cry till they are lulled asleep. The tranflator of Zara is the firft, who dared maintain the right of nature against a taste so foreign to it. He banished this unreasonable cuffom, per fuaded that the language of paffion should be natural, and that the hero, not the poet, fhould be constantly seen by the spectators. It is from this principle, that he has translated in a plain and unaffected stile, all thefe fimple verfes of the original, which would have been Spoiled by an attempt to make them shine with brilliancy of wit or fancy; fuch are the follow ing lines: Joys, which we do not know, we do not wish; Born beyond Ganges, I had been a Pagan; But Ofman lov'd me and I've loft it all. I talk not of a scepter, which he gives me : No to be charm'd with that, were thanks, too humble! Offenfive tribute, and, too poor, for love! I should believe, you hated, had you power Art was made For Zara; Art, however innocent, Looks like deceiving : All these lines are tranflated word for word. It would not have been difficult to set them off; but the tranflator differed in this point from fome of my countrymen. He chofe, and he rendered into his own tongue, all the native fimplicity of these verses. And indeed the stile must be always adapted to the subject. Alzira, Brutus, and Zara, required, for example, three different forts of verfification. If Berenice complained of Titus, and Ariadne of Thefeus, in the ftile of Cinna; Berenice and Ariadne would not affect the audience, Love will never be expreffed, if other beauties are defired than nature and truth. The question is not here to be determined, whether we should admit fo much love in our dramatic performances? I agree that it is a fault; but it is, and it ever will be, an univer fal one; and I do not know what name to give to faults that charm mankind. One thing certain is, that in this defect, (if it may be fo called) the French have fucceeded better than all other nations, antient or modern. Love appears on our stage with a decency, a truth, a delicacy, that is not to be found elfewhere; the reafon of it is, the French nation has made greater progrefs than any other in the knowlege of fociety. The conftant intercourse held up with liveliness and civility between the two fexes, has introduced in France a politeness lefs known elfewhere. Society depends upon the women. Every people, unhappy enough to confine them, is unfociable. Your manners which were yet auftere, your political quarrels, and religious wars, deprived you, till the reign of Charles the second, of the fweets of fociety even in the midst of li berty. Your poets therefore could not be ac quainted with the manner in which love is treated by people of delicacy and refinement. 4 Good comedy was unknown before Moliere appeared, as the art of expreffing true delicate fentiments, was unknown until Racine began to write; because fociety was not till then in its highest perfection. A poet in his closet cannot paint those manners which he has not feen; it is easier to write an hundred odes, or an hundred epiftles, than one scene in which nature is to fpeak. Your Dryden, who was really a great genius yet puts conftantly in the mouth of his amorous heroes, either by hyperboles or rhetoric, or indecent expreffions, both equally contrary to real tenderness. Racine makes Titus fay: Depuis cinq ans entiers chaque jour je la vois ; For five long years I've seen her every day; But your Dryden goes ftill farther, and makes Antony exprefs his paffion in the following manner. How I loved Witness, ye days and nights, and all ye hours, It is difficult to imagine that Antony did really hold fuch a difcourfe to Cleopatra. In the Lame piece Cleopatra thus speaks to Marc Antony: Come to me, come, my foldier, to my arms, G I'll say you were unkind, and punish you, It is extremely probable that Cleopatra of ten talked in this manner: but fuch indecencies ought not to be presented to a respectable audience. It is in vain that fome of your country-men will cry out, "This is nature: They are to be answered, that this flate of nature is the very thing we must veil with care. It does not even fhew a knowlege of the human heart to imagine that the method to please, is to introduce fuch licentious imagery. On the contrary, it excludes true delight from the foul. When every thing is seen at the first glance, one is immediate ly fatisfied. As there remains nothing more to seek for or defire, we become languid where we thought to arrive at the height of joy. And in the purfuit of the contrary method, polite people enjoy a variety of pleasures, of which the groffer part of mankind have not the leaft conception. The fpectators in the former cafe are like lovers, whom a too ready compliance with their defires, difgufts. The greatest caution must be ufed in covering thofe ideas, which would raise a blush, if presented in an open manner. this veil in which confift the pleasures of delicacy; they feel none, where decency is not preferved. It is The French have introduced this rule before other nations, not because they are void of genius and courage to undertake, as the unequal and impetuous Dryden ridiculously pretends, but |