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Out of mere wantonnefs! Oh, the dull devil
Was in this brain of mine, when I devis'd it,
And Mofca gave it second—

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-Thefe are my fine conceits!

I must be merry, with a mischief to me!
What a vile wretch was I, that cou'd not bear
My fortune foberly! I must have my crotchets,
conundrums!-

And my

It is with regret I feel myself compelled to protest against so pleasant an episode, as that which is carried on by Sir Politic Wou'd-be and Peregrine, which in fact produces a kind of double plot and catastrophe; this is an imperfection in the fable, which criticism cannot overlook, but Sir Politic is altogether so delightful a fellow, that it is impoffible to give a vote for his exclufion; the most that can be done against him is to lament that he has not more relation to the main bufinefs of the fable.

The judgment pronounced upon the criminals in the conclufion of the play is so just and folemn, that I must think the poet has made a wanton breach of character and gained but a forry jeft by the bargain, when he violates the dignity of his court of judges by making one of them so abject in his flattery to the Parafite upon the idea of matching him with his daughter, when he hears that Volpone has made him his heir; but this is an objection, that lies 'within

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within the compass of two fhort lines, fpoken afide from the bench, and may easily be remedied by their omiffion in representation; it is one only, and that a very flight one, amongst those venial blemishes

-quas incuria fudit.

It does not occur to me that any other remark is left for me to make upon this celebrated drama, that could convey the flightest cenfure; but very many might be made in the highest ftrain of commendation, if there was need of any more than general teftimony to fuch acknowledged merit. The Fox is a drama of fo peculiar a fpecies, that it cannot be dragged into a comparison with the production of any other modern poet whatsoever; it's conftruction is fo diffimilar from any thing of Shakespear's writing, that it would be going greatly out of our way, and a very grofs abuse of criticism to attempt to fettle the relative degrees of merit, where the characters of the writers are fo widely oppofite: In one we may respect the profundity of learning, in the other we must admire the fublimity of genius; to one we pay the tribute of underftanding, to the other we furrender up the poffeffion of our hearts; Shakespear with ten thoufand spots about him dazzles us with so bright a

lustre,

luftre, that we either cannot or will not fee his faults; he gleams and flashes like a meteor, which shoots out of our fight before the eye can measure it's proportions, or analyse it's properties-but Jonfon ftands ftill to be furveyed, and presents fo bold a front, and levels it so fully to our view, as feems to challenge the compass and the rule of the critic, and defy him to find out an error in the fcale and compofition of his ftructure.

Putting afide therefore any further mention of Shakespear, who was a poet out of all rule, and beyond all compass of criticism, one whose excellencies are above comparifon, and his errors beyond number, I will venture an opinion that this drama of The Fox is, critically speaking, the nearest to perfection of any one drama, comic or tragic, which the English stage is at this day in poffeffion of.

N° CXI,

N CXI.

IN

N my foregoing paper when I remarked that Jonfon in his comedy of The Fox was. clofe copier of the antients, it occurred to me to fay fomething upon the celebrated drama of The Sampson Agonistes, which, though lefs beholden to the Greek poets in it's dialogue than the comedy above-mentioned, is in all other particulars as compleat an imitation of the Antient Tragedy, as the diftance of times and the difference of languages will admit of.

It is profeffedly built according to antient rule and examples and the author by taking Ariftotle's definition of tragedy for his motto, fairly challenges the critic to examine and compare it by that teft. His clofe adherence to the model of the Greek tragedy is in nothing more confpicuous than in the fimplicity of his diction; in this particular he has curbed his fancy with fo tight a hand, that, knowing as we do the fertile vein of his genius, we cannot but lament the fidelity of his imitation; for there is a harshness in the metre of his Chorus, which to a certain

degree

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degree feems to border upon pedantry and affectation; he premises that the measure is indeed of all forts, but I must take leave to observe that in fome places it is no measure at all, or fuch at leaft as the ear will not patiently endure, nor which any récitation can make harmonious. By cafting out of his compofition the ftrophe and antiftrophe, thofe ftanzas which the Greeks appropriated to finging, or in one word by making his Chorus monoftrophic, he has robbed it of that lyric beauty, which he was capable of beftowing in the highest perfection; and why he fhould ftop fhort in this particular, when he had otherwife gone fo far in imitation, is not eafy to guefs; for furely it would have been quite as natural to fuppofe thofe ftanzas, had he written any, might be fung, as that all the other parts, as the drama now ftands with a Chorus of fuch irregular measure, might be recited or given in reprefentation.

Now it is well known to every man converfant in the Greek theatre, how the Chorus, which in fact is the parent of the drama, came in procefs of improvement to be woven into the fable, and from being at firft the whole grew in time to be only a part: The fable being fimple, and the characters few, the ftriking part of the fpectacle rested upon the finging and dancing of

the

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