I SHALL NOW give my Translation.

De deffeins en regrets & d'erreurs en defirs.

Les Mortels infenfes prominent leur Folie. Dan des malheurs prefents dans l'espoir des plaifirs

Nous ne vivons jamais, nous attendons la rie.

Demain, demain, dot-on, va combler tous

nos vœux.

Demain vient & nous laiffe encore plus malheureux.

Qu'elle est l'erreur, belas! du foin qui nous dévore,

Nul de nous ne voudroit recommencer fon

cours.

De nos premiers momens nous maudissons l'aurore,

Et de la nuit qui vient, nous attendons

encore

Ce qu'ont en vain promis le plus beaux de nos jours, &c.

'Tis in these detach'd paffages that the English have hitherto excell'd. Their dramatic pieces, most of which are barbarous and without decorum, order or verifimilitude, dart fuch refplendent flashes thro' this gloom as amaze and aftonish. The ftyle is too much inflated, too unnatural, too closely copied from the Hebrew wri

ters,

ters, who abound fo much with the Afiatic fuftian. But then it must be alfo confefs'd, that the Stilts of the figurative ftyle on which the English tongue is lifted up, raifes the genius at the fame time very far aloft, tho' with an irregular pace. The first English writer who compos'd a regular Tragedy, and infused a spirit of elegance thro every part of it, was the illuftrious Mr. Addifon. His CATO is a mafter-picce both with regard to the diction, and to the beauty and harmony of the numbers.

The character of Cato is, in my opinion, vaftly fuperior to that of Cornelia in the POMPEY of Corneille: For Cato is great without any thing like fuftian, and Cornelia, who befides is not a neceffary character, tends fometimes to bombaft. Mr. Addifon's Cato appears to me the greatest character that ever was brought upon any Stage, but then the rest of them do not correfpond to the dignity of it: And this dramatic piece fo excellently well writ, is disfigur'd by a dull love-plot, which spreads a certain languor over the whole, that quite murders it.

THE Cuftom of introducing love at random, and at any rate in the drama, pafs'd from Paris to London about 1660, with our ribbonds and our peruques. The ladies who adorn the theatrical circle there, in like manner as in this city, will fuffer love only to be the theme of every converfation.

verfation. The judicious Mr. Addifon had the effeminate complaifance to foften the feverity of his dramatic character fo as to adapt it to the manners of the age; and from an endeavour to pleafe quite ruin'd a mafter-piece in its kind. Since his time, the drama is become more regular, the audience more difficult to be pleas'd, and writers more correct and lefs bold. I have seen some new pieces that were written with great regularity, but which at the fame time were very flat and infipid. One would think that the English had been hitherto form'd to produce irregular beauties only. The fhining monfters of Shakespeare give infinitely more delight than the judicious images of the moderns. Hitherto the poetical genius of the English refembles a tufted tree planted by the hand of nature, that throws out a thousand branches at random, and fpreads unequally, but with great vigour. It dies if you attempt to force its nature, and to lop and drefs it in the fame manner as the trees of the garden of Marli.

LET

LETTER XIX.

O N

COMEDY.

I

AM furpriz'd that the judicious and ingenious Mr. de Muralt, who has publifh'd fome letters on the English and French nations, fhould have confin'd himself, in treating of Comedy merely to cenfure Shadwell, the comic writer. This author was had in pretty great contempt in Mr. de Muralt's time, and was not the poet of the polite part of the nation. His dramatic pieces which pleas'd fome time in acting, were defpis'd by all perfons of taste, and might be compar'd to many plays which I have feen in France, that drew crowds to the play-house, at the fame time that they were intolerable to read; and of which it might be faid, that the whole city of Paris exploded them, and yet all flock'd to fee them reprefented on the ftage. Methinks Mr. de Muralt fhould have mention'd an excellent comic writer, (living when he was in England) I mean Mr. Wycherley, who was a long time known publickly to be happy in the good

graces

8

graces of the most celebrated mistress of King Charles the fecond. This gentleman, who pafs'd his life among perfons of the higheft diftinction, was perfectly well acquainted with their lives and their follies, and painted them with the strongest pencil, and in the trueft colours. He has drawn a Mifanthrope or man-hater, in imi- tation of that of Moliere. All Wycherley's ftrokes are stronger and bolder than those of our Mifanthrope, but then they are less delicate, and the rules of decorum are not fo well obferv'd in this play. The English writer has corrected the only defect that is in Moliere's Comedy, the thinnefs of the plot, which alfo is fo difpos'd, that the characters in it do not enough raise our concern. The English Comedy affects us, and the contrivance of the plot is very ingenious, but at the fame time it is too bold for the French manners. The fable is this.A captain of a man of war, who is very brave, open-hearted, and enflam'd with a spirit of contempt for all mankind, has a prudent fincere friend whom he yet is fufpicious of, and a miftrefs that loves him with the utmost excefs ,of paffion. The captain, fo far from returning her love, will not even condefcend to look upon her; but confides intirely in a falfe friend, who is the moft worthless wretch living. At the fame time he has

given