ages ought to be drawn as hiftory relates them. It is unpardonable in a celebrated French author, who has totally misreprefented the characters of Cato and Cicero; the first is made a mere pedant, and Cicero a vile orator and poltroon. Monf. Crebillon has acted in the same abfurd manner; Cataline, the moft infamous of mortals, who undertook to cut the throats of all the magiftrates of his country, and reduce it to ashes, is painted as a great

The critics feem not perfectly to comprehend the genius of Shakefpear. His plays are defective in the mechanical part, which is lefs the work of genius than of experience; and is not otherwife brought to perfection than by diligently obferving the errors of former compofitions. Shakespear excels all the ancients and moderns in knowledge of human nature, and in unfolding even the moft obfcure and refined emotions. This is a rare faculty, and of the greatest importance in a dramatic author; and it is this faculty which makes him furpafs all other writers in the comic as well as tragic vein.

man,

man, who by his abilities, magnanimity, and courage, attracts all the esteem of the fpectators. It would have been ab

furd

* Monf. le Crébillon was intended by his father for the law; but when he went to Paris, he became a frequenter of the theatre; and having an inclination for poetry, attempted a tragedy, on the advice of a friend; it was entitled, La Mort des Enfans de Brutus: He prefented it to the comedians, but was refufed, to the no fmall mortification of the author. However he did not defpair, but wrote another, Idomenée, which was acted for the first time in 1705, when Crébillon was thirty-one years of age; it ran thirteen nights. In 1707, he brought his Atrée on the flage, which was reprefented eighteen times: the fubject is fo terrible, and the character of Atrée fo fiery, that fome thought the fubject too tragic for the French ftage; but the fuccefs of it was fo great, that it fixed the reputation of the poet. In 1706, he married Charlotte Péaget, daughter of a Marchand Apothecaire; upon which occafion his father difinherited him, but afterwards retracted. In 1708, he gave his Electre to the public, with great fuccefs; a noble tragedy, full of the fineft beauties, and prefented fourteen times. Some unlucky affairs depriving M. de Crébillon of moft

of

furd in Shakespear, had he drawn Ri chard an amiable king; let him have

formed

of his fortune, he applied clofer to poetry. In 1711, he brought on his Rhademifte, a tragedy in which the characters of Rhadamifte, Zenobie, and Pharafmene are fo original, fo finely contrafted and admirably preferved, the majeftic force of the poetry fo great, that it was received with tranfport. The actors being obliged to fufpend the reprefentation on the death of Monfeigneur, it was afterwards brought again upon the ftage with almoft unparalelled applaufe, running in the whole thirty times. This piece introduced the poet to the grand monde, and falling into a life of continued dilipation and pleasure, it was 1714 before he produced his next piece, which was Xerxès; but ill received. In 1717, he gave his Sémiramis, the fubject of which piece is but flat; it had only feven reprefentations. About this time he formed the idea of a tragedy on the fubject of Cromwell: He wrote the firft fcene, and the harangue of the protector when he prefented Charles I. to the parliament to be tried; but the odioufness of the fubject made him drop the defign. In 1726, his Pyrrhus appeared, and was acted fixteen nights: And in 1731, he was made a member of the French Academy, in the

place

formed ever fo good a piece, yet the ab. furdity would have been unpardonable: therefore

place of M. de la Faye. Soon after he had a penfion and a place affigned him, which raised him from that ftate of indigence in which he had fo long laboured. In 1748, his Catilina was first acted; he had begun this tragedy twenty years before, and though the greatest hopes were formed of it by the public, from the firft fcene which he recited on his admition into the Academy, yet he had almost laid it afide; but Madame de Pompadour being his patron, he finished it at her requeft, and it was brought on the ftage with the greateft magnificence, before the moft brilliant audience that almoft ever appeared: It ran twenty nights; and, though it abounds with many faults, is the mafter-piece of Crébillon. In 1755, he produced his last tragedy, Le Triumvirat, when he was eighty-one years old, acted ten times fucceffively. He began another, Cléomede, but did not live to finish it, dying in 1762. It is amazing, that a man of fo advanced an age should produce a work of imagination, which has great merit. He was a very amiable character, withont either vanity or pedantry; his memory was prodigious, and his claffical learning polite and extenfive. His fon, Monf. Crébillon le fils, VOL. II.

L

enjays

therefore poets must conform to the cha racters as they are drawn to their hands, or at least must preferve the likeness.

Both Corneille and Racine * have tranfgreffed this great rule of propriety: the latter

enjoys ftill the patronage of M. de Pompadour, and is the author of feveral pieces which abound with wit, and too much obscenity, fuch as Sofa; Egaremens du cœur & de l'efprit; l'Ecumoife; Tant mieux pour elle.

* As I have often mentioned these two celebrated French poets, I will give the reader a translation of la Bruyere's parallel between them.

46

Corneille fubje&s us to his characters and ideas; Racine accommodates himself to ours the one reprefents men as they ought to be; the other, as they are. There is in the first more what we admire and ought to imitate; and in the fecond more of what we perceive in others, and feel in ourfelves. Corneille elevates, furprizes, controuls, and inftructs; Racine pleafes, affects, moves, and penetrates. The former works on s by what is fine, noble, and commanding; the latter infinuates himfelf into us by the delicacy of