pompously pronounces that to write one perfect comedy fhould be the labour of one entire life produced from a concentration of talents, which hardly ever met in any human perfon. After all it will be confeffed that the production of fuch a drama as The Fox in the space of five weeks is a very wonderful performance; for it must on all hands be confidered as the mafter-piece of a very capital artist, a work, that bears the stamp of elaborate design, a strong and frequently a fublime vein of poetry, much fterling wit, comic humour, happy character, moral fatire and unrivalled erudition; a work Quod non imber edax, non aquilo impotens Annorum feries et fuga temporum, In this drama the learned reader will find himfelf for ever treading upon claffic ground; the foot of the poet is fo fitted and familiarized to the Grecian fock, that he wears it not with the awkwardness of an imitator, but with all the eafy confidence and authoritative air of a privileged Athenian: Exclufive of Ariftophanes, in whofe volume he is perfect, it is plain that even the gleanings and broken fragments of the Greek stage had not escaped him; in the very first speech of Volpone's, which opens the comedy, L 3 medy, and in which he rapturoufly addreffes himself to his treasure, he is to be traced most decidedly in the fragments of Menander, Sophocles and Euripides, in Theognis and in Hefiod, not to mention Horace. To follow him through every one would be tedious, and therefore I will give a fample of one paffage only; Volpone is fpeaking to his gold Thou being the beft of things and far tranfcending Thy looks when they to Venus did afcribe, They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids, Let the curious reader compare this with the following fragment of Euripides's Bellerophon and he will find it almost a translation. Ω χρυσὲ δεξίωμα κάλλισον βροτοις, Ως ἐδὲ μήτηρ ἡδονὰς τόιας ἔχει, Cicero made a felection of paffages from the Greek dramatic authors, which he turned into Latin verfe for the purpose of applying them, as occafion fhould offer, either in his writings or pleadings, and our learned countryman seems on his part to have made the whole circle of Greek and and Roman poets his own and naturalized them to our ftage. If any learned man would employ his leifure in following his allufions through this comedy only, I fhould think it would be no unentertaining task, The Fox is indubitably the best production of it's author, and in fome points of substantial merit yields to nothing, which the English stage can oppose to it; there is a bold and happy fpirit in the fable, it is of moral tendency, female chastity and honour are beautifully displayed and punishment is inflicted on the delinquents of the drama with strict and exemplary juftice; The characters of the Hæredipeta, depicted under the titles of birds of prey, Voltore, Corbaccio and Corvino, are warmly coloured, happily contrafted and faithfully fupported from the outfet to the end: Volpone, who gives his name to the piece, with a fox-like craftiness deludes and gulls their hopes by the agency of his inimitable Parafite, or (as the Greek and Roman authors expreffed it) by his Fly, his Mofca; and in this finished portrait Jonfon may throw the gauntlet to the greatest masters of antiquity; the character is of claffic origin; it is found with the contemporaries of Ariftophanes, though not in any comedy of his now exifting; the Middle Dramatifts feem to have handled it very frequently, L 4 quently, and in the New Comedy it rarely failed to find a place; Plautus has it again and again, but the aggregate merit of all his Parafites will not weigh in the scale against this fingle Fly of our poet: The incident of his concealing Bonarie in the gallery, from whence he breaks in upon the scene to the rescue of Celia and the detection of Volpone, is one of the happieft contrivances, which could poffibly be devifed, because at the fame time that it produces the catastrophe, it does not facrifice Mofca's character in the manner most villains are facrificed in comedy by making them commit blunders, which do not correfpond with the addrefs their first representation exhibits and which the audience has a right to expect from them throughout, of which the Double Dealer is amongst others a notable inftance. But this incident of Bonario's interference does not only not impeach the adroitness of the Parafite, but it furnishes a very brilliant occafion for fetting off his ready invention and prefence of mind in a new and fuperior light, and ferves to introduce the whole machinery of the trial and condemnation of the innocent perfons before the court of Advocates: In this part of the fable the contrivance is inimitable, and here the poet's art is a ftudy, which every votarift of the dramatic mufes ought to pay attention tention and refpect to; had the fame addrefs been exerted throughout, the construction would have been a matchless piece of art, but here we are to lament the hafte of which he boafts in his prologue, and that rapidity of compofition, which he appeals to as a mark of genius, is to be lamented as the probable caufe of incorrectness, or at least the best and most candid plea in excuse of it: For who can deny that nature is violated by the abfurdity of Volpone's unfeasonable infults to the very perfons, who had witnessed falfely in his defence, and even to the very Advocate, who had fo fuccefsfully defended him? Is it in character for a man of his deep cunning and long reach of thought to provoke those, on whom his all depended, to retaliate upon him, and this for the poor triumph of a filly jeft? Certainly this is a glaring defect, which every body muft lament, and which can escape nobody. The poet himself knew the weak part of his plot and vainly strives to bolster it up by making Volpone exclaim against his own folly I am caught in my own noofe And again To make a fnare for mine own neck, and rum Out |