sufficiently made; if the sentiments at the time are shrewdly imagined, and forcibly expressed, they will have a powerful effect on the mind, and leave impressions which the retribution of poetical justice will hardly be able to efface. On poetical justice, indeed, I do not lay so much stress as some authors have done. I incline to be of the opinion of one of my predecessors, that we are frequently more roused to a love of virtue, and a hatred of vice, when virtue is unfortunate, and vice successful, than when each receives the recompense it merits. But I impute more to striking incidents, to the sentiments running through the tenor of a piece, than to the general impression of its denouement. Mons. d'Alembert says, that in any sort of spectacle which would leave the poet more at liberty than tragedies taken from history, 'in the opera, for example, the author would not easily be pardoned for allowing vice to go unpunished. I remember to have seen,' continued he, a MS. opera of Atreus, where that monster perished by a thunderbolt, exclaiming, with a savage satisfaction, Tonnez, Dieux impuissans ; • This would have made one of the happiest denouements that can well be imagined.' As to theatrical effect, I am quite of his opinion: but as to the moral, I cannot agree with him. The line which he quotes, brilliant, forcible, and bold, would have remained with the audience, not to recal the punishment of guilt, but to mark the pleasure of revenge. But it is not only from the vices or imperfections of tragic characters that we are to fear the danger of familiarising the approach of evil, or encouraging the growth of error. Their very virtues, I fear, are often dangerous to form the principles, or draw the imita tion of their readers. Theirs are not so much the useful, the productive virtues (if I may be allowed the expression) of real life, as the shining and showy qualities which attract the applause, or flatter the vanity of the unthinking. The extreme, the enthusiasm even of a laudable propensity, takes from its usefulness to others, and degenerates into a blind and headlong indulgence in the possessor. In the greatest part of modern tragedies, such are the qualities of the persons that are most in favour with the public. In what relates to passive excellence, prudence to avoid evils, or fortitude to bear them, are not the virtues of tragedy, conversant as it is with misfortune; it is proud to indulge in sorrow, to pour its tears without the control of reason, to die of disappointments which wisdom would have overcome. There is an æra in the life of most young people, and those too the most amiable, where all this is their creed of excellence, generosity, and heroism, and that creed is drawn from romance and tragedy. In the remarks which in this and two former papers I have made on novel and on tragedy, two of the most popular of all kinds of writing, I have ventured, in the hardihood of a moralist, rather beyond the usual caution of a periodical paper that wishes to conciliate the favour of the public. By those whose daily and favourite reading is crossed by my observations I shall be asked, if I mean to proscribe every novel and every tragedy, or of what kind of each I am disposed to allow the perusal, and to what class of readers their perusal may be trusted. To such I would answer in general, that if I had influence enough to abridge the list of both species of reading, I believe neither morals nor taste would suffer by the restriction. I have pointed out the chief dangers to which I conceive the perusal of many such works is liable. I am not, however, insensible of the value, perhaps but too sensible of the power, of these productions of fancy and genius. Nor am I so much a bigot to the opinions I have delivered as to deny that there are uses, noble uses, which such productions may serve, amidst the dangers to which they sometimes expose their readers. The region of exalted virtue, of dignified sentiment, into which they transport us, may have a considerable effect in changing the cold and unfeeling temperament of worldly minds; the indifferent and the selfish may be warmed and expanded by the fiction of distress, and the eloquence of feeling. In the present age, and among certain ranks, indifference and selfishness have become a sort of virtues, and fashion has sometimes taught the young to pride themselves on qualities so unnatural to them. To combat these giants of the rock,' romance and tragedy may be very usefully employed; and that race must have become worthless and degenerate indeed, whom their terrors shall fail to rouse, and their griefs to melt. Nor, as an amusement, can the elegance of that which is drawn from the perusal of a well-written novel, or the representation of a well-composed tragedy, be disputed. It certainly is as much a nobler, as it is a more harmless employment of time, than its waste in frivolous dissipation, or its abuse in the vigils of play. But there is a certain sort of mind common in youth, and that too of the most amiable, kind, tender, warm, and visionary, to which the walks of fancy and enthusiasm, of romantic love, of exaggerated sorrow, of trembling sensibility, are very unsafe. To readers of this complexion, the amusement which the works abovementioned afford should, I think, be sparingly allowed, and judiciously chosen. In such bosoms, feeling or susceptibility must be often repressed or directed; to encourage it by premature or unnatural means is certainly hurtful. They resemble some luxuriant soils which may be enriched beyond a wholesome fertility, till weeds are their only produce; weeds, the more to be regretted, as in the soil from which virtue should have sprung. V. No. 29. SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1785. THE advantages and use of biography have of late been so often mentioned, and are now so universally allowed, that it is needless for any modern author to set them forth. That department of writing, however, has been of late years so much cultivated, that it has fared with biography as with every other art; it has lost much of its dignity in its commonness, and many lives have been presented to the public, from which little instruction or amusement could be drawn. Individuals have been traced in minute and ordinary actions, from which no consequences could arise but to the private circle of their own families and friends, and in the detail of which we saw no passion excited, no character developed, nothing that should distinguish them from those common occur❤ rences, 'Which dully took their course, and were forgotten.' Yet there are few even of those comparatively insignificant lives, in which men of a serious and thinking cast do not feel a certain degree of interest. A pensive mind can trace, in seemingly trivial incidents and common situations, something to feed reflection and to foster thought; as the solitary naturalist culls the trodden weeds, and discovers in their form and texture the principles of vegetative nature. The motive, too, of the relater, often helps out the unimportance of his relation; and to the ingenuous and susceptible, there is a feeling not unpleasant in allowing for the partiality of gratitude, and the tediousness of him who recounts his obligations. The virtuous connexions of life and of the heart it is always pleasing to trace, even though the objects are neither new nor striking. Like those familiar paintings that show the inside of cottages, and the exercise of village duties, such narrations come home to the bosoms of the worthy, who feel the relationship of Virtue, and acknowledge her family wherever it is found. And perhaps there is a calmer and more placid delight in viewing her amidst these unimportant offices, than when we look up to her invested in the pomp of greatness, and the pride of power. I have been led to these reflections by an account, with which a correspondent has furnished me, of some particulars in the life of an individual, a native of this country, who died a few weeks ago in London, Mr. William Strahan, printer to his Majesty. His title to be recorded in a work of this sort my correspondent argues from a variety of considerations unnecessary to be repeated. One which applies particularly to the public office of the Lounger, I will take the liberty to mention. He was the author of a paper in the Mirror; a work in the train of which I am proud to walk, and am glad of an opportunity to plead my relation to it, by inserting the eloge (I take that word as custom has sanctioned it, without adopting its abstract signification) of one of its writers. Mr. Strahan was born at Edinburgh in the year 1715. His father, who had a small appointment in |