Τραγωδία μίμησις πράξεως σπεδαιας, &c.

Tragoedia eft imitatio actionis feriæ, &c. per mifericordiam et metum perficiens talium affectuum luftrationem.

Of that fort of Dramatic Poem which is call'd Tragedy.

T

RAGEDY, as it was anciently compos'd, hath been ever held the gravest, moraleft, and moft profitable of all other poems: therefore faid by Ariftotle to be of power by raifing pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and fuch like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, ftirr'd up by reading or feeing thofe paffions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his affertion: for fo in physic things of melancholic hue and quality are us'd against melancholy, four against four, falt to remove falt humors. Hence philofophers and other graveft writers, as Cicero, Plutarch and others, frequently cite out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illuftrate their dif courfe. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to infert a verse of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture, 1 Cor. XV. 33. and Paræus commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole book as a tragedy, into acts distinguish'd each by a chorus of heavenly harpings and fong between. Heretofore men in highest dignity have labor'd not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy. Of that honor Dionyfius the elder was no less ambitious, than before of his attaining to the tyranny. Auguftus Cæfar alfo had begun his Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinish'd. Seneca the philofopher is by fome thought the author of those tragedies (at least the best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, a Father of the Church, thought it not unbeseeming the fanctity of his person to write a tragedy, which is intitled Chrift fuffering. This is mention'd to vindicate tragedy from the small efteem, or

a verfe of Euripides] The verfe here quoted is Evil communications corrupt good manners: but I am inclin'd to think that Milton is miftaken in calling it a verfe of Euripides; for Jerome and Grotius (who publifh'd the fragments of Menander) and the best commentators, ancient and modern, fay that it is taken from the Thais of Menander, and it is extant

among the fragments of Menander. p. 79. Le Clerc's Edit.

Φθείρουσιν ήθη χρησθ' ομιλια κακαι.

Such flips of memory may be found fometimes in the best writers. As we observed before, Diodorus Siculus cites Eupolis instead of Aristophanes.

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rather