the whole criticism is falfe, flagrant, and a moft illiberal attack on one of the greatest poets that ever existed, and to whom the Frenchman is infinitely indebted *. IN SECT. III. N these three tragedies, which I have mentioned above, the fubject is formed without having recourfe to a love-plot. Prejudiced as the French nation in general are, in favour of their own literature, fome impartial men amongst them allow the fuperiority of our poetry. "La poëtie Françoise resemble, felon moi, à une belle femme, qui plait par la régularité de ses traits, & par quelques autres beautés particulieres; mais dont les yeux & le teint n'ont ni cette vivacité brillante, ni cette riante fraîcheur, dont l'impreflion fubite & violente enchante, ravit, & enléve l'ame. La poëfie Angloife me paroît refembler à une beauté fort irréguliere, mais que mille appas, qui naiffent de fon irrégularité même, font adorer; qui joint une noble fierté à une douceur amiable; qui réunit tous les agrémens de la jeuneffe ; & qui pofféde, en un mot, tout ce qu'il faut pour charmer." I cannot call Othello's love for Defde, demona, nor that of Hamlet for Ophelia by that name: Jealousy is the reigning paffion in Othello; and Hamlet's love forms fo trifling a part of the piece, that it cannot be regarded in that light. It has been long a difpute, whether this passion is a proper fubject for tragedies; and it has accordingly been confidered in a variety of lights: but the abbé du Bos gives the most fatisfactory opinion about it. "Men, fays he, whom we regard as worthy of our esteem, have a power of interesting us in their various agitations and misfortunes; but we are more particularly affected with the inquietudes and afflictions of fuch, as resemble us in their paffions. Those difcourfes that remind us of ourselves, and entertain us with our own fentiments, have a particular attraction to engage us. It is, therefore, E 3 natural natural for us to be prejudiced in favour of imitations, wherein we difcern ourfelves reprefented in others; that is, wherein we behold perfonages abandoned to fuch paffions, as we either at prefent feel, or have formerly been fwayed by. Man without paffions, is a chimera; but man a prey to all paffions, is a being equally chimerical. The fame conftitution of body that gives us up a prey to fome, fecures us from others. Wherefore there are only fome particular paffions which bear a particular relation to us, the defcription whereof has the privilege and right of commanding our attention *" Thofe Tous les hommes que nous trouvons dignes de notre estime nous intereffent a leurs agitations comme à leurs malheurs; mais nous fommes fenfibles principalement aux inquiétudes comme aux afflictions de ceux qui nous refemblent par leur carac Those who are not fufceptible of the fame paffions as ourselves, do not resemble us fo much as thofe that are, the latter being related to us by a particular cannexion. For instance; Achilles, impatient to set out for the fiege of Troy, draws every body's attention; but still his caractere. Tous les difcours qui nous ramenent à nous mêmes, & qui nous entretiennent de nos propres fentimens, ont pour nous un attrait particulier. Il eft donc naturel d'avoir de la prédilection pour les imitations qui dépeignent d'autres nous-mêmes, c'est à-dire, des perfonnages livrés à des paffions que nous reffentons actuellement, ou que nous avons reffenties autrefois. L'homme fans paflion, eft une chimere; mais l'homme en proye à toutes les paffions, n'est pas un être moins chimerique. Le même temperament qui nous pouffe vers les unes, nous éloigne des autres. Ainfi il n'eft que certaines paffions qui ayent pour nous cet interêt dont j'ai parlé ci-deffus. Il n'y a que certaines paffions qui ayent un raport particulier avec nous, & dont la peinture ait des droits privilégiés fur notre attention. Réflexions critiques fur la Poëfie & fur la fate is much more interefting with respect to a young fellow, that pants with thirst of military glory, than to a man whose ambition is to attain to the command of himself, in order to become more deferving of empire over others. The latter will be more engaged with the character which Corneille gives the emperor Auguftus in his tragedy of Cinna, a character which will have but a very feeble effect upon the admirer of Achilles. The picture of a paffion which we have never felt, or of a fituation wherein we have never been, can never move us in fo lively a manner, as the defcription of fuch paffions and fituations as either are, or have been formerly, our own cafe. In the first place, the mind is but flightly touched with the picture of a paffion, whose symptoms it is a stranger to; it is afraid even of being the dupe |