DRAMATIC AND OTHER POEMS, LETTERS, ESSAYS, &c.
By W. HAWKINS, M. A. Rector of Little Casterton in Rutlandshire, late Poetry Professor in the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Pembroke College.
VOL. II.
OXFORD, PRINTED BY W. JACKSON: Sold by R. and J. DODSLEY, in Pall-Mall; J. RIVINGTON and J. FLETCHER in Paternoster-Row; and W. OWEN, in Fleet-Street, London; J. FLETCHER and S. PARKER, in Oxford.
MDCCLVIII.
To the Right Honourable GEORGE HENRY EARL of LITCHFIELD.
ADDRESSES of this Nature, which are too often fulsom Offerings to Vanity, or servile Applications to Power, when made to Persons of real Worth and Honour, are at the same Time Compliments artfully paid by Authors to themselves..... While the Writer is descanting upon the high Birth, inflexible Probity, patriot Spirit, humane Disposition, and the polite and literary Accomplishments of his Patron, he insinuates himself into the good Opinion of his Reader, as one favoured with the Acquaintance, and honoured by the Countenance and Regard of a Person thus [Page iv] amiable and illustrious..... I shall not pretend, my Lord, wholly to disclaim all Views of this Kind in the present Address I have the Honour to make to you; and accordingly should take a particular Pleasure in enlarging upon the above, and other shining Qualities in your Lordship's Character, did I not recollect that I have no Right to gratify the Public, or myself, at the Expence of your Lordship's private and personal Satisfaction.
Indeed it is my present Interest rather to engage your Lordship's favourable Opinion of the following Performances; and I know nothing more likly to do this than an Assurance that I have aim'd by a suitable Variety to adapt myself to almost all Sorts of Readers but immoral ones; that in some Pieces I have attempted to render the Graces of Numbers and the Embellishments of Poetry subservient [Page v] to the Interests of Virtue, and Religion; that in others I have offered such critical Disquisitions as I hope will afford at least a rational Entertainment to Men of Taste in polite Literature; and that in them all I have endeavoured occasionally to express myself with Dignity, Elegance, and Ease, which, by the way, are not more the Characteristics of good Writing, than of the Air, Manner, and Conversation of a certain Nobleman I have the Honour to be known to..... I look upon myself as apologizing to the Public when I am speaking to your Lordship, and therefore have said thus much from a perfect Sense of the Consequence it must be to me as an Author to secure your Lordship's Approbation of my Writings.
The Dedication of these to your Lordship will after all, I fear, be thought a [Page vi] trifling Proof of my Respect, and therefore I desire it may however be consider'd as a sincere Testimony of my Gratitude for the many Favours you have been pleased to confer on me; the most material of which have been attended with this Circumstance of Credit and Satisfaction, that they are to be attributed to your Lordship's free and unsolicited Kindness, and Condescension.
The Obligations I am under to your Lordship are not of a Nature to be mentioned here; but this Opportunity of expressing a due Acknowledgment of them in the most ample and public Manner, is with the greatest Pleasure taken by
THE THIMBLE.
AN HEROI-COMICAL POEM, IN FIVE CANTOS.
Illustrated with NOTES, Critical and Explanatory, By SCRIBLERUS SECUNDUS.
The THIRD EDITION, Corrected and Enlarged.
TO Miss ANNA MARIA WOODFORD.
AS the Subject of the following Poem naturally led me to inscribe it to one of your Sex, I could not but hope, that the Justness of the present Address, from one who has not the Happiness to be personally known to you, would be a sufficient Apology for the Presumption of it. But tho' I may have the Misfortune to incur your Displeasure, by offending your Humility, I shall, even under the Sense of your Disapprobation, have the Satisfaction to reflect, that I have been guilty of a very artful Piece of Impertinence; since, by placing your Name before my Performance, I have taken the most effectual Method to recommend it to the Public.
[Page iv] Your Example, Madam, is a Reproach to the present indolent Generation; your Glory is not established upon the personal Advantages you possess in so eminent a Manner; which, great as they are, your good Sense assures you, are, at the best, but the Subjects of present Admiration, and can never be the Basis of a lasting Fame.
Your Handy-work, Madam, which has very justly a Place among the Curiosities of that famous University, of which I have the Honour and Happiness to be an inconsiderable Member, has rendered your Name immortal; and your nice Management of the Needle, that little, but important Implement of Oeconomy, has entitled you to the Reputation of the compleatest Housewife in Europe; a Character, to which all Virgins and Wives should aspire.
You have taught us to acknowlege, that the most minute Utensil of Art may, [Page v] by an ingenious Application of it, be made subservient, in the highest Degree, to the Honour of the Artist: A Pin, or a Needle, in your Hands, are Instruments as effectual for that Purpose, as the Poet's Pen, or the Hero's Sword.
I am at present, Madam, in a very perplexed Situation of Mind; I have the Pleasure to consider, that I am now upon a Subject that must be agreeable to all my Readers, and at the same time have the Mortification to recollect, that 'tis distasteful to yourself.
Though therefore all I could say in Commendation of your Merit, the World would think too little, yet, as what I have said you will think too much, I find myself under a Necessity of desiring your Pardon for this Liberty I have taken, and for another in the fourth Canto of this Poem, wherein I have presumed to put a short Prediction, relating [Page vi] to your amiable Character, into the Mouth of the Queen of Love. This I need not otherwise have intimated, since every one must at first Sight perceive, that this Prediction is properly applicable to none but yourself.
After what I have said, Madam, may I venture to hope you have some Patience in Reserve for the Poem? 'Twas design'd for your Amusement, and, if that Design be answered, my Ambition is satisfied: And indeed, to say Truth, I have so thorough a Confidence in your good Nature, that I am persuaded you will look with a favourable Eye upon the following Performance, though not in Justice, yet in Pity to,
THE PREFACE.
I Have always considered a Preface as an Author's Apology for his Performance; in which he has an undoubted Liberty of saying as much as he pleases in Favour of himself: As I cannot therefore but be apprehensive of the Success of the following Piece, I must beg Leave to take this comfortable Privilege, as well as my Poetical Brethren. The principal Circumstances I have to urge in my own Behalf, are, that this Poem is the first Production of a young and unexperienced Author (excepting a few trifling Pieces in the Magazines); and that I am so far from bidding Defiance to the Critics, that I address myself to them in the modest and [Page viii] submissive Terms of, By your Leave,
GENTLEMEN.
As to the Poem itself, I have endeavoured, in some particular Passages, to imitate the Manner of Mr. Pope's Rape of the Lock, upon a Presumption, that such Imitation would be deemed meritorious in so young a Writer as myself. I ought likewise to acknowlege, that I had in View the Episode of the Patten in Mr. Gay's Trivia. How far I have reached the Spirit required in this Kind of Poetry, must be left to the Reader, to whose Candour and Judgment I submit the following Poem.
THE THIMBLE. *
CANTO I.
CANTO II.
CANTO III.
CANTO IV.
CANTO V.
HENRY AND ROSAMOND.
A TRAGEDY.
The SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED.
TO Sir JOHN PHILIPPS, Bart.
THOUGH I am happy in your Permission to shelter under your Name a Performance which stands in much Need of your Favour and Protection, especially as it comes into the World with some Disadvantage; yet I hope you will do me the Justice to believe me actuated by a nobler Principle than that of a Selfishness common to all Authors, in my Choice of a Patron upon the present Occasion.
For, Sir, the following Sheets are with a particular Propriety yours, whether you are considered as a Person sincerely attached to the University of Oxford, or affectionately interesting yourself in the Welfare of Pembroke-College; to the Regard and best Wishes of which Society you have a double Claim, both as an Ornament, and a Benefactor.
The common Topics of Panegyric are obvious; and I have here a fair and agreeable Opportunity of taking Notice of those many amiable Qualities, which adorn you in public and private Life, and for which you are so justly beloved and esteemed: But my Inclination is corrected by a seasonable Thought, that most Writers of the present Age [Page] have, in this Respect, a considerable Advantage over me, as it is much more easy to make a Character, than to describe one.
Besides, it would be needless to enter into a Detail of those Praises, which are already in the Mouth of every Well-wisher to his Country: And therefore I will only indulge the Impulse of Gratitude, which points to that Part of your Character, which more immediately affects me; your Good-nature and Condescension, to which I am indebted for the Honour of your Acquaintance and Friendship, and for your favourable Acceptance of the following Poem.
Give me Leave to assure you, Sir, that I am principally anxious for the Reputation of this Tragedy, from an earnest Desire of transmitting to Posterity a Monument of the Regard and Veneration I have for the Person and Character of Sir JOHN PHILIPPS. I am,
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE most material Objection to this Tragedy, made by Mr. Garrick, was, that it is rather a Poem, than a Play.—A consolatory Octjection at least! as it is founded only in the Author's acknowleged Transgression of the mechanical Laws of the Drama. But however reasonable the Objection might be to the Representation of this Tragedy upon the Stage, it was by no Means thought a sufficient one to its original Publication; nor consequently, 'tis presumed, will be esteemed such against its having a Place in the present Collection.—Those who are offended at the Liberties taken in it, may, if they please, call it an Historical Play, and then all Exceptions of this Nature vanish of Course.—After all, the Objection will perhaps have less Weight with the candid and judicious Reader, when he has favoured with his Perusal the Essay on the Antient and Modern Drama; though he is not to look upon that Essay as written with a View to the Defence of this particular Play, or to consider this Advertisement as any Thing like a Declaration of the Author's Right of Exemption from the common Rules of the Drama, by Virtue of any superiour Qualifications in Himself.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
- King HENRY the Second.
- Prince HENRY.
- Duke of CORNWALL.
- Earl of SALISBURY.
- Lord CLIFFORD.
- Earl of LEICESTER.
- Earl of WINCHESTER.
- Earl of SURRY.
- Queen ELINOR.
- ROSAMOND.
- HARRIANA.
Guards and Attendants.
SCENE in and near CANTERBURY.
HENRY AND ROSAMOND.
ACT I. SCENE I.
SCENE II.
SCENE III.
ACT II. SCENE I.
SCENE II.
ACT III. SCENE I.
SCENE II.
SCENE III.
ACT IV. SCENE I.
SCENE III.
ACT V. SCENE I.
SCENE II.
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE Reader will probably expect some Account of a Play which makes it's first Appearance in the World in this Manner.—He is to know then, that The Siege of ALEPPO having been refused by the Managers of both Theatres, to one of which, viz. Mr. Garrick, it was strongly recommended by Lady Caroline Burdet (who is thereby intitled to my present grateful Acknowlegements), would not have been offered to the Publick, had it not been honoured with the Approbation of several Persons of the first Note in the Republick of polite Literature, whom I am not at Liberty to mention.—I am obliged to declare this, in order to do common Justice to myself, and to obviate the Prejudices which might be conceived against a Performance that has not had the Credit and Advantage of a Theatrical Representation.—But the Play must now speak for itself; of which I shall say no more than just to premise, that the Fable, and whole Construction of it, excepting the Reality of the Siege, is purely fictitious: That the Incidents were designed to be natural, tho' unexpected, not arising from common-place Exigencies, or forced Expedients, (which is too frequently the Case) but from the predominant Principles of the Characters themselves: And that for this Purpose I have endeavoured to give a new, and something of an original Cast to the principal Characters, particularly to those of Theodore, Sophronius, and Ormelia.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
- MANUEL, Governour of Aleppo.
- THEODORE, a Christian Chief.
- OTHMAN, General of the Saracens.
- SOPHRONIUS, Son to Manuel.
- LEON, Friend to Sophronius.
- ROMANUS, Lieutenant to Theodore.
- IZRAIL, an Officer.
- MERVAN, Secretary to the Governour.
- ORMELIA, Daughter to Theodore.
- EUSEBIA, Daughter to Manuel.
Officers, Soldiers, Attendants, &c.
SCENE ALEPPO.
THE SIEGE OF ALEPPO.
ACT I. SCENE I.
SCENE II.
SCENE III.
ACT II. SCENE I.
ACT III. SCENE I.
SCENE II.
ACT IV. SCENE I.
ACT V. SCENE I.
CYMBELINE.
A TRAGEDY, ALTERED FROM SHAKESPEARE.
As it is perform'd at the THEATRE-ROYAL in Covent-Garden.
By WILLIAM HAWKINS, M. A. Late Fellow of Pembroke College, and Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford.
LONDON: Printed for JAMES RIVINGTON and JAMES FLETCHER, at the Oxford Theatre, in Pater-noster-row. MDCCLIX.
[Price One Shilling and Six-pence.]
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE Countess of Litchfield.
I Have the honour of your LADYSHIP'S permission to present to you a Tragedy, which, though it met with numerous and unprecedented difficulties and discouragements in the theatre, will, I hope, be thought not altogether unworthy your protection in the world.—Indeed, if the unpopularity of its late situation could in the least affect that degree of merit, which your LADYSHIP'S candor, or the indulgence of the town, may allow it to have, it would ill become me to recommend [Page iv] it to my readers, under the sanction of so polite and illustrious a name.—But your LADYSHIP has too much good sense, as well as generosity, to judge of this performance by mere appearances, and accidental or unlucky circumstances; and therefore, tho' it will stand as a kind of memorial of the bad fortune, and worse treatment of its author; it may at the same time be a proper testimony of the high respect with which I am,
PREFACE.
THE Tragedy of Cymbeline is, in the whole oeconomy of it, one of the most irregular productions of Shakespeare. Its defects however, or rather its superfluities, are more than equalled by beauties, and excellencies of various kinds. There is at the same time something so pleasingly romantic, and likewise truly British in the subject of it, that, I flatter myself, an attempt to reduce it, as near as possible, to the regular standard of the drama, will be favourably received by all, who are admirers of novelty, when propriety is its foundation. I have accordingly endeavoured to new-construct this Tragedy, almost upon the plan of Aristotle himself, in respect of the unity of Time; with so thorough a veneration however for the great Father of the English stage, that, even while I have presumed to regulate and modernize his design, I have thought it an honour to tread in his steps, and to imitate his Stile, with the humility and reverence of a Son. With this view, I have retained in many places the very language of the original author, and in [Page vi] all others endeavoured to supply it with a diction similar thereunto; so that, as an unknown friend of mine has observed, the present attempt is intirely new, whether it be considered as an alteration from, or an imitation of Shakespeare.
—The difficulty of such an attempt, as rational as it may be, has a kind of claim, I presume, to the indulgence of the public; especially as it has been attended likewise with disadvantages.—For I found myself necessitated by my plan to drop some characters, to contract others, and to omit some scenes and incidents of an interesting nature;—or rather to bring the substance and purport of them within the compass of a few short narrations.—A loss irreparable this, but that conveniencies are likewise to be thrown into the opposite scale; for as, I hope, I have not injured any characters by contracting them, but have left them to all intents, and in point of importance the same; so I have had an opportunity of enlarging and improving some of the original parts, (those particularly of Palador, and Philario, the Pisanio of Shakespeare) and, by varying certain incidents and circumstances, of giving a new cast to the whole drama.—After all, I am very far from meaning to detract from the merit of Shakespeare; or▪ from insinuating that the plays of so exalted a genius require such [Page vii] new-modelling as the present, in order to the rendering them useful or entertaining.—I have ventured publicly to defend this great dramatic Poet in the liberties he has taken; but still Shakespeare himself needs not be ashamed to wear a modern dress, provided it can be made tolerably to fit him.
The only question then will be, whether the present alteration be a judicious one?—And this with all due deference is left to the candour and justice of the public.
It will be proper to acquaint the reader, that, this play, was recommended some time since by a person of the first distinction, to the manager of the other theatre; who declared, that he had the very same altered play in his possession, and that it was designed for representation on his stage. Our Cymbeline therefore was obliged to take up his head quarters at Covent-Garden; where he has contended not only with the usual difficulties, but also with others of an extraordinary nature—Mrs. Bellamy's declining the part of Imogen has done the play incredible prejudice; and convinces me of the vanity of striving against the stream of popularity in general, or the weight of particular disadvantages.—However, I am under obligations to many [Page viii] of the performers, for their best endeavours to do justice to my piece, and for their zeal for its success. To some I am indebted for real service, whose names, as comparisons are invidious, I leave it to the judgment of the reader to supply.
Upon the whole, I am at a loss to ballance the account between myself and my fortune, in this whimsical situation. The kind assistance, and, I hope, not extremely partial approbation of some, adds as much to my credit and satisfaction, as the delicacy, or ill-nature, &c. of others, has deducted from my advantages.—To my friends, I return my sincere acknowledgments, and best wishes; to my enemies, I shall say nothing, 'till they are candid, and sagacious enough to speak more plainly than they have hitherto done,—and more to the purpose.
PROLOGUE.
Spoken by Mr. ROSS.
EPILOGUE.
Spoken by Mrs. VINCENT.
Dramatis Personae.
- CYMBELINE, Mr. RYAN.
- CLOTEN, Mr. CLARKE.
- LEONATUS, Mr. ROSS.
- PALADOR, Mr. SMITH.
- CADWAL, Mr. LOWE.
- BELLARIUS, Mr. SPARKES.
- PHILARIO, Mr. RIDOUT.
- C. LUCIUS, Mr. GIBSON.
- PISANIO, Mr. DYER.
- TWO LORDS.
- IMOGEN, Mrs. VINCENT.
- OFFICERS, SOLDIERS, &C.
SCENE, partly a Royal Castle, and partly in and near a Forest in WALES.
CYMBELINE. A TRAGEDY.
ACT I.
(Reading) Justice and your father's wrath, should he take me in his dominions, could not be so cruel to me, but you, oh! the dearest of creatures, would even renew me with your eyes. Take notice that I am at Milford Haven; what your own love will out of this advise you, follow. So he wishes you all happiness, that remains loyal to his vow, and yours increasing in love, LEONATUS.
ACT II.
My wife, Philario, hath play'd the strumpet in my bed; the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not out of weak surmises, but from proof, as strong as my grief, and as certain as I expect my revenge. That part, thou, Philario, must act for me; Let thine own hand take away her life; I shall give thee opportunity in the road to Milford: my letter is for that purpose to her: so, if thou fear to strike, and to certify it is done, thou hast broken thy vows, and art a traitor to friendship.
(Imogen drops the letter, stands silent, and in the utmost consternation.)
ACT. III.
The DIRGE.
Set by Mr. ARNE, sung by Mr. LOWE.
ACT IV.
[Page 69] If thou lov'st me, let me see thee ere night. I have bought the fidelity of the princess's woman with my gold; she will give thee admittance into her chamber, when nothing will be awake but anger and policy; where thou may'st make such note as will be sufficient to the madding of the abhorred Leonatus. Thy service herein will tie me closer to thyself, and to Augustus thy lord. No more till thou dost console with thy presence, thine and Caesar's in affection, CLOTEN.
ACT V.
AN ESSAY ON GENIUS.
AN ESSAY ON GENIUS.
ADVERTISEMENT.
IN the following Poetical Paraphrase I have thought myself obliged to pursue the Track before me, and to deviate no farther from it, than might be clearly warranted by the Sense and plain Import of the Original.—The greatest Liberty I have taken is in the two last Stanzas, wherein I have ventured to mention some striking Circumstances rather from the Authority of the Holy Scriptures, than that of the Hymn itself; a Liberty which I hope will be indulg'd to the Solemnity of the Occasion.
A PARAPHRASE ON THE TE DEUM.
AN ESSAY ON THE ANTIENT and MODERN DRAMA, OCCASIONED BY MR. MASON's ELFRIDA, And the LETTERS Prefixed to it.
AN ESSAY ON THE ANTIENT and MODERN DRAMA.
I Have often read with much Pleasure the ingenious Mr. Mason's Dramatic Poem, entitled Elfrida, together with the preparatory Letters with which that Gentleman introduces it to the Public. This Piece is professedly written on the Model of the antient Greek Tragedy; and though I flatter myself, the Objections I have to the Principles laid down in those Letters are not removed by this much-labour'd Attempt, yet I will readily own the Design is executed with a skilful hand, and in some respects deserves the Attention of the present Writers of the English Drama. I did not therefore undertake this Argument with any Inclination to differ from a Person of his known [Page 262] Taste, and greatly admired Abilities, but purely in Vindication of the Theory I have had the Honour to deliver in a Course of Lectures to the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD, in which, with a particular View to the Justification of Shakespeare, I have ventured to advance and defend a System in some material Points inconsistent with that under present Consideration. Neither am I unaware of the great Disadvantage I have to contend against, when I oppose a celebrated Writer, whose Sentiments are countenanc'd by the Practise of the antient Poets, and whose Pen is drawn under the Banner of Aristotle himself: A Disadvantage, which the Usage of later Writers, and the almost concurrent Voice of modern Criticism *perhaps will be thought little enough to counterbalance. However, as in Matters of Taste we ought only, I apprehend, to appeal to the genuine Dictates of Good-sense, Reason and Nature (which an implicit Veneration for any Name Antient or Modern may possibly prevent our regarding) so, if Prejudices on both Sides were removed, it would probably appear that the Victory is rather to be divided, than determined, and that without depreciating the real Merit and Excellency [Page 263] of the antient Poets, we may yet safely defend the Principles on which the Moderns reject their Writings as the absolute and everlasting Standard of Dramatic Composition: I mean principally with regard to the three great Unities of Action, Time, and Place.—What I have to say therefore upon these Subjects I submit without farther Apology to the Judgment of the intelligent and impartial Reader, advertising him only in this Place, that he is not to expect a Methodical Treatise of elaborate Criticism, but only a Train of occasional Thoughts and Reflections, as they occur'd to me upon the Perusal of the Poem of Elfrida, and the Letters prefix'd to it.
'Tis evident from this Passage, the ingenious Author would have us consider the Laws of Aristotle, and the Practice of Antiquity relating to the great Unities, as manifestly founded in the first Principles of Nature and Good Sense; and accordingly in order to adapt himself to the present Taste no farther than might be justly allowable, we find him deviating from the Rules and Practice of Antiquity but in two Instances; First in the Choice of a Story, in which Love is the predominant Passion, and Secondly, in which Characters are represented as nearly approaching to private ones as Tragic Dignity would permit. Upon our Author's Hypothesis indeed these are perhaps almost the only Deviations that could be allow'd him; and the Point must at once be given up, if the Theory be true which is here in so positive a manner advanc'd. For Satisfaction therefore in this Matter it may be useful in the first Place to observe, that the Action of the antient Drama, when brought to the Perfection in which Aristotle found it, was so strictly One, and the Fable so absolutely Simple, and almost totally abhorrent from Incident, at least from what Mr. Mason calls Contrivance, Refinement and Intrigue, [Page 265] that the Constitution of the Drama did not so properly require, as suppose and imply a correspondent Unity of Time and Place. Nay, usually we find among the antient Greek Poets the entire Action of the Drama was brought within the Compass of the Representation itself. And indeed if exact Nature and strict Propriety are indispensably to be the Objects of the Dramatic Poet's Attention upon all Occasions, this must be allow'd to be the most perfect Model of Tragedy; and consequently Aristotle himself seems to have indulg'd the Tragic Muse too far, when in conformity with the sometime Practice of the Greek Poets, He has prescrib'd a Day as the due and regular Boundary of all Dramatic Action. For certainly a Day cannot really be compriz'd within the Space of five Hours any more than a Year, or any precise Duration whatsoever. The Truth is, Poetry was the Mother of Criticism, not Criticism of Poetry, and accordingly this great Philosopher form'd his simple Notions and Rules upon the best Plan of the Drama then extant; but I cannot think it will by any Means follow that those Rules are in all Points of perpetual and necessary Obligation: For why was it not in itself as agreeable to Nature and Reason for the Poets to admit Contrivance and Policy, Design and Intrigue into the Constitution of the Fable, as it could possibly be to confine themselves to the [Page 266] Representation of the most simple and uniform Action; especially as they hereby improv'd, and heighten'd that Perplexity, and Distress, which are the great Sources of Delight in Dramatic Entertainment? I say this Latitude of Design is not in itself unreasonable or unnatural, because 'tis not to be dissembled that the Liberty contended for would indeed be, as it has been, in the Hands of the unskilful and injudicious, an Inlet to Confusion and Absurdity. However it will not surely be denied that there is in Fact a very material Difference between Incidents, and the Variety of Designs and Contrivances that occasion them, and mere Bustle and Business; in his contempt of which Word Mr. Mason seems willing to involve the whole System of Dramatic Intrigue. The general Theory I would therefore advance is this, (for I would not be understood to assert it admits of no Exception) that it is not barely the Privilege, but often even the Duty of the Dramatic Poet to adapt himself to the Vicissitudes of Public Taste, and to represent human Life, and human Actions as he finds them; and if in Pursuance of this Design, he may think it expedient to make Choice of a Subject of such a complicated Nature as cannot with Ease and Consistency be dispatch'd within the statutable Limits of Time, and Place, I cannot see why we may not indulge him with a proportionable Allowance of each, in order to [Page 267] prevent infinitely greater Absurdities and Inconsistencies than that Allowance can possibly produce, that is, those confus'd and precipitate Action. And all this while the Extensiveness of the Design, provided it be executed with Judgment in other Respects, deserves rather to be look'd upon as an Excellence and an Improvement upon the old Model, than to be placed to the Account either of the Ignorance or the Inattention of the Writer; of which more hereafter.
This Passage which I have quoted verbatim (abating a few Expressions in it) exactly coincides with my sentiment upon this Head; and the Application which the Author makes of it in Favour of Corneille, may, I presume, be made with equal Propriety at least in Behalf of our Shakespeare.—I am sensible all this while that this great Prince and Father of the English Stage is supposed by Mr. Mason to have shewn a total Disregard of all the Rules of the Drama, in Compliance merely with the Taste of the Times. I must own, I could have been glad to have seen fewer Things supposed upon this Subject. I will take the Liberty likewise to suppose that this great Poet saw no legal or necessary Restraint upon the Force and Impetuosity of his Genius with Regard to the Unities of Action, Time and Place; that he considered the Laws relating to them as merely local and temporary, well adapted indeed to the simple Genius of antient Tragedy, but in themselves and the Reason of Things dispensable upon the Supposition of a Dramatic Plan of a more extensive and complicated Nature. His Opinion might be (like the [Page 269] current one mentioned in Mr. Mason's second Letter) that ‘the strict Adherence to the Unities restrains the Genius of the Poet; by the Simplicity of it's Conduct diminishes the Pathos of the Fable; and by the Admission of a continued Chorus prevents that agreeable Embarrass, which awakens our Attention, and interests our Passions.’—However, that the Nature of Dramatic Poetry will not only admit of a more extensive Model than the Tragedies of the Greek Poets furnish us with, but is also improveable by the same, if it cannot be proved, may at least I think be inferr'd even from the Doctrine of Aristotle himself. This great Critic, it is very well known, calls the Fable the Soul of Tragedy; with a manifest Eye to which Expression, Mr. Dryden observes that Aristotle places the Fable first, ‘non quoad Dignitatem, sed quoad Fundamentum.’ And indeed we need only refer the Reader to the simple Arguments of Aeschylus, and even of Euripides and Sophocles for the most part too, to convince him that the Fable upon the antient Plan of the Drama cannot properly be said to be the Soul of the Poem in any other Sense, than as it is the Subject of it. Nay, this is in a great Measure the Case even of those antient Tragedies which are of the implex Kind, and, as such, esteemed most excellent by our Philosopher. One main Argument used by him for the Priority [Page 270] of the Fable in the constituent Parts of Tragedy is taken from the Consideration of the sudden Revolutions and Discoveries, (the * [...] as he calls them) which distinguish the Tragedies we are speaking of from those of the simplest Kind. These are the means, says he, by which Tragedy more particularly captivates and engages ( [...]) the Mind and Affections.
Now if this Doctrine be applied to the modern Drama, it seems to me not only an Apology for, but in Effect a Recommendation of the Incidents and Revolutions, which are infinitely more numerous upon the British Stage than they were upon that of Athens, and are so offensive to squeamish Judgments; unless it can be proved that these under the Direction of a good Judgment do not contribute to, or rather constitute that Variety which Aristotle plainly refers to in the Passage quoted; or that such Variety in modern Plays has not a proportionable Influence on the Passions, upon which, as Mr. Mason rightly has observed, it is the Business of the Tragic Muse "directly to strike."—If therefore the Fable be the Soul of Tragedy, I will venture to assert, there is more Soul in a good modern Tragedy, than in the best antient one; and that Mr. Dryden might very properly, and therefore gravely call secret [Page 271] Intrigues the Beauties of our modern Stage. Indeed that great Man in some occasional Remarks he made on Mr. Rymer's Reflections on the Tragedies of Fletcher, &c. makes no scruple to give the Preference to our English Poets before the Antients under this very Article of Enquiry: ‘Next shew, says he, in what Antient Tragedy was deficient; for Example, in the Narrowness of it's Plots, and Fewness of Persons, and try whether that be not a Fault in the Greek Poets; and whether their Excellency was so great, when the Variety was visibly so little; or whether what they did was not very easy to be done.’
In Opposition to this the following Words of the ingenious Author of the Notes &c. already referred to, may possibly be urged. ‘An Unity, (says he, speaking of the two Dramas) and even Simplicity in the Conduct of the Fable is a Perfection in each. For the Course of the Affections is diverted and weakened by the Intervention of what we call a double Plot; and even by a Multiplicity of subordinate Events, though tending to a common End; and, of Persons, though all of them, some Way, concerned in promoting it. The like Consideration shews the Observance of this Rule to be essential in just Comedy. For when the Attention is split on so many interfering Objects, we are not at leisure to observe, nor do we fully [Page 272] enter into the Truth of Representation in any of them; the Sense of Humour, as of the Pathos, depending very much on the continued and undiverted Operation of it's Object upon us.’ But in answer to this, I will venture to assert in my Turn, that the Intervention of what we call a Double-Plot, a competent Number (not Multiplicity) of subordinate Events tending to a common End, and of Persons all of them some way concern'd in promoting it, do not weaken, but ease and relieve the Course of the Affections; and also, that in Comedy, the Attention is really quicken'd even by being split on so many interfering Objects;—that different and opposite Characters set off and illustrate each other;—and that we are enabled by a proper Variety of Personages more precisely to observe and fully to enter into The Truth of Representation in all of them: And consequently that a Comedy with a Double-Plot artfully conducted, and fill'd judiciously, not cramm'd with Incidents and Intrigue, in which the several Persons of the Drama have room to exercise, and display themselves, attains it's End, which is the Rotation of Characters, and their specific Differences, (as this Author well observes) more effectually, than the simple, and contracted Comedy of the Antients; but this Matter I have handled more at large *elsewhere, and in the mean time [Page 273] let these respective Opinions be left to the Decision of Fact and Experience.—To return to Mr. Mason.
‘I should be loth indeed to see Incidents, Bustle, and Business supply the Place of Simplicity, Nature and Pathos.’ which, 'tis not to be denied, is the Case in some modern Performances. But that the former are likewise very consistent with the latter, and that such Consistency and Union is one great Point of Dramatic Composition, as calculated for the rational Entertainment of an Audience, may be exemplified in many illustrious Instances; particularly in the Tragedies of Shakespear. It is true this inimitable Poet, is not so greatly remarkable for Depth of Plot and Intricacy of Contrivance, as for the Historical Continuation of his Design, (which, by the way, is indeed carried to an unreasonable Length in some of his Plays) but however, as such Historical Continuation necessarily implies a great Variety of Incidents and Revolutions, it is fairly reducible to the same Head of Disquisition. Shakespear indeed, for the most part, form'd his Dramatic Plans from History, or Romance, and therefore has no extraordinary Claim to the Glory of Invention, either as to the Subject of his Tragedies, or the Conduct of his Plots. His Excellencies, for the most part, are purely Poetical. But this is far from being the Case of all our Dramatic Writers. The [Page 274] Ground-work of the greatest part of our English Tragedies is indeed Historical; but the Superstructure is their own. The whole Business of Plot, Intrigue, and Contrivance, is generally the Work of the Poets; and a Work, when executed with Art and Judgment, that shews them to be superiour at least to their Forefathers of Greece in the ample Field of Invention (the first Point in Poetry): and therefore I should think some of Mr. Mason's Expressions, relating to the kind Assistance of the Violin to the Distress of the Hero or the Poet on the British Stage, may in some measure be retorted upon himself, and those whose Cause he espouses. For though an intermediate Space between the Acts may be requisite for the Purposes of the Modern Drama, and even to save Appearances of the Probability of the Design, yet I can by no means admit these prudential Pauses to be Proofs in themselves of the Distress or Barrenness of the Writer. Methinks to the Relief of these, the antient Chorus seems more peculiarly adapted, when the Drama, by reason of the Scantiness, or if you please Simplicity of it's Matter, and the Narrowness of it's Plots, stood in absolute Need of such seasonable and friendly Interposition: But to the Chorus I am to pay my Compliments again by and by.—
It should be observ'd here, I am supposing all this while that, notwithstanding the Extensiveness [Page 275] of Design in modern Tragedies, a due, and even scrupulous Regard is to be had to Consistency and Uniformity of Plot and Action; That there is to be but one grand central Point as it were, in which the several Underplots, Incidents, Turns, and Vicissitudes of the Drama are finally to terminate; and that though the great Business of the Poet under this Article be to perplex and embarrass his Audience, and to play with their Passions at pleasure, yet he is to take Care that the Unravelling of the whole, and the several Parts, be easy and natural, and the Labyrinths of his Plots such as, according to Mr. Addison's Expression upon another Occasion, may be justly deem'd a regular Confusion. If proper Care and Caution be taken as to these particulars, I confess I am apt to look upon the Transgression of the Letter of the old Laws of Tragedy as Offences rather against the Custom and Usage of Antiquity, than the Dictates of Reason and Nature; and, as great a Veneration as I have for the antient Poets, cannot possibly think I am maintaining an Argument to the prejudice of their real Merit, by endeavouring to assert the Liberty of modern Poets, and to rescue the Drama from Aristotle's * Magna Charta of Restraint.
To speak freely, I must own farther, I cannot subscribe to a Theory that condemns at one Dash [Page 276] almost every Compliance with Public Taste, and the Genius of a People, as mere Complaisance and Servility: I believe a Greek Poet now alive would adapt himself to the Taste of the Times in more Instances than Mr. Mason would allow; and that these have been occasionally more or less consulted and indulged by all Poets in all Ages. Not that I am of Mr. Southern's Opinion (See his Preface to the Fatal Marriage) that every reasonable Man will, and ought to govern in the Pleasures he pays for; for in such Case Hamlet must walk off the Stage to make room for Harlequin.—I would neither servilely indulge Public Taste, nor yet self-sufficiently despise it.—I am willing upon this Occasion once more to shelter myself under the Authority of Dryden.
One reason of that Success (says he in the above-cited Remarks) is in my Opinion this, that Shakespear and Fletcher have written to the Genius of the Age and Nation in which they lived: For though Nature, as he (Mr. Rymer) objects, is the same in all Places, and Reason too the same; yet the Climate, the Age, the Dispositions of the People to whom a Poet writes, may be so different, that what pleas'd the Greeks, would not satisfy an English Audience.
And if they proceeded upon a Foundation of truer Reason to please the Athenians, than [Page 277] Shakespear and Fletcher to please the English, it only shows that the Athenians were a more judicious People: But the Poet's Business is certainly to please the Audience.
Whether our English Audience have been pleased hitherto with Acorns, as he calls it, or with Bread, is the next Question; that is, whether the Means which Shakespear and Fletcher have used in their Plays to raise those Passions before-named, be better applied to the Ends by the Greek Poets, than by them; and perhaps we shall not grant him this wholly. Let it be yielded, that a Writer is not to run down with the Stream, or to please the People by their own usual Methods, but rather to [...] form form their Judgments; it still remains to be proved, that our Theatre needs this total Reformation.—The Faults which he h [...]s found in their Designs, are rather wittily aggravated in many Places, than reasonably urg'd; and as much may be returned on the Greeks, by one who were as witty as himelf:
Mr. Dryden is here compa [...]ng the Ancients with the Moderns, in regard to the Conduct and Command of the two great Tragical Passions, Pity and Terrour, and the Comparison concludes to the Advantage of the latter.
A little farther he proceeds thus, ‘To conclude thereore: if the Plays of the Ancients are [Page 278] more correctly plotted, ours are more beautifully written; and if we can raise Passions as high on worse Foundations, it shews our Genius in Tragedy is greater, for in all other Parts of it, the English have manifestly excelled them.’
I do lot use this as an accurate Piece of Criticism, nor would be understood to oppose the Authority of Mr. Dryden, to the Ipse dixit of Aristotle in general, who has certainly a right to be heard first, in critical as well as philosophical Matters, with a proportionable Consideration of the Age he lived in: The only Point in Debate is, whether he can be supposed in the Nature of Things, from the clear Idea he had form'd of the Greek Drama, to be qualified to give Poetical Laws to all Posterity.—Public Taste, it is probable, (as Mr. Dryden intimates) [...]ries in different [Page 279] Countries, according to the Nature of the Climate, and the Constitution of the People: However, there are some certain, fix'd, and acknowledged Principles of Good Sense, Nature and Reason, that are, as Mr. Rymer observes, equally and universally, in all Ages and Nations, at least all civilized ones, the same: I believe there has been hardly any Age so illiterate, whimsical, or corrupted in this Sense, as to explode these standing Principles; such for Instance, among many others, are the following: That the Drama is to be the true Image and Representation of Nature: That this Representation can only be exhibited under an infinite Variety of Actions, Designs, Characters, Manners, Sentiments and Expressions: That with regard to all, and each of these, Propriety, Consistency, and Probability are most exactly to be observed: That the Motives to all Actions, the Springs of all Passions, the Grounds of all Prejudices, the Peculiarities of all Tempers, have one common Foundation, and are productive of their correspondent Effects, in all Times and Places.—The Knowlege of these Things is the Knowlege of Nature, in which the great Arcana of all Poetry, and particularly Dramatic, are reposited. To these, therefore, it is the Dramatic Poets Care most heedfully to attend; and to these he may attend, in Fact, very consistently, with a Disregard of the Laws of the old Drama, [Page 280] as might be instanced in many of our best Modern Plays, and in almost all of Shakespear's.—It is, indeed, nothing but this Attention that has so eminently raised and preserved the Reputation of these latter, notwithstanding the Poet's absolute Neglect, or rather Defiance of the great Unities contended for as essential to the Drama. And 'tis as certain, that where this Attention is wanting, either through Ignorance or Carelessness, the most regular Observance of these Unities will be found utterly insufficient for the true Purposes of Stage-Poetry.
For these, and the like Reasons, I think one may venture to conclude, that the Practice of the Antients is by no means a necessary Standard of Dramatic writing, and that the Laws relating to the several Unities of Action, Time, and Place, though they do indeed constitute a particular Form, or Species of the Drama, (and we will grant the most exact too) yet are by no means essential to the Nature of it. Whatever is so, cannot be violated or infringed without Contradiction to the common Judgment of Mankind, and disgusting at least, the more rational Part of an Audience. And accordingly every Defect in the Particulars above-mentioned, is always received with proportionable Marks of Disapprobation. But the Case is quite different, in respect of the Liberties Shakespear has taken, which [Page 281] therefore, I can never think absurd or unnatural in themselves. And I am the more confirmed in this Opinion, because Johnson, Fletcher, and many others, who were confessedly acquainted with the Genius of ancient Tragedy, and, generally speaking, not only affected Art and Regularity in their Writings, but even depended principally upon these for the Success of them, did nevertheless, on many Occasions, hold themselves free from the Obligation of the Laws at present in Question.
But herein, our modern Refiners will say they judged wrong; and as to Shakespear, if he has escaped the Severity of Censure upon this Head, it must be ascribed wholly to that Complaisance, which every Generation has thought due to his Excellencies in the higher Beauties of Poetry.—Now this Answer, (and something to this Effect must be the Answer) does itself suppose, that the most punctual Observance of the old Laws, has no Connection with the great Beauties of Poetry, but is only at best the mechanical Part of the Drama: However, 'tis presum'd that the great Name of Shakespear, scorns to be protected by the Complaisance of his Countrymen; and that the Liberties he has taken, are very far from being indefensible.—For is it more improper and irrational, or does it require less Force of of Genius, and Knowlege of Nature, to trace as [Page 282] it were a Passion from it's first Rise, through it's Progress, and to it's final Issue, as that of Jealousy in Othello, or of Ambition in Macbeth, than to represent it only at a stated Period, and at a particular Crisis? Or, if the Poet thinks proper to shift the Scene from a Palace to a Heath, or from Venice to Cyprus, is it at all more inconvenient or impossible for his Audience to attend him, than it was to give him the Meeting, and suppose themselves in the Place where he laid his first Scene? It does not at all appear to me, that a greater Degree of implicit Faith is required in one Instance than in the other: For he may with equal Probability do both, UT MAGUS, as has been hinted above, and he can do neither but in Quality of the same. Times and Places are in a great Measure at the Command of a Genius; and the Argument drawn from the absolute Unnaturalness of every Breach of exact and precise Unity with regard to them, if it proves any Thing, proves too much; it will prove the Unnaturalness of the whole Dramatic Apparatus; it will demonstrate the Impossibility of exhibiting Woods, Fields, Castles, and Towns, in a single Room, and the Absurdity of giving an Ear to a Company of Fidlers, before or after the Solemnity of a Council, or the Tumult of a Battle. In short, it seems to me a most ridiculous Hypercriticism, to object to Improprieties which are more or less [Page 283] inseparable from the Constitution of the Drama, and to talk of Inconsistencies and Impossibilities, where all is confessedly a Delusion. If the Question indeed were, whether of the two be the more artificial Model of Tragedy, that of the Ancients, or the Moderns, I would make no Scruple to give up the Argument: But a regular and exact Model is one Thing, and an excellent Play is another; it is one Thing to allow a reasonable Latitude to a great Genius, and another to prescribe a Plan to a common Poet.
Were the antient Greek Tragedians defective then in Point of Genius, it will be ask'd? Very far from it.—However, I will venture to assert, that the Simplicity, (I had almost said Poverty) of their Fables, is by no means their striking Beauty; that these would have appeared to greater Advantage, had they taken greater Liberties; that neither Nature nor Reason restrained them to the precise Observation of the three Unities, and that the Custom of Antiquity in this Case, under the Abilities of a great Master, would (to use the Words of Shakespear) be more frequently honoured in the Breach, than the Observance.
But what if, after all, some Precedents even from Antiquity itself, will in a certain Measure warrant the Non-observance of the great Rules in Dispute? Euripides and Sophocles, who confessedly improved the more simple Plan of their Predecessor [Page 284] Aeschylus, and are supposed to have brought the Drama to it's State of Perfection, do not superstitiously, and without Exception, adhere to their own general System: Witness first, the Hecuba of Euripides; in which there are apparently two distinct, and almost unconnected Actions; at least, out of the two great Incidents of that Tragedy, two distinct Actions might have been plan'd; for either the Death of Polixena, or the Destruction of Polymnestor, might, and strictly speaking ought, to have been the simple Subject of that Drama. If it be said that both these Actions (or Incidents) were no more than were sufficient or necessary to exemplify the Distresses of Hecuba, and to illustrate the Character of that unhappy Princess, this is saying, in effect, what we have already said, in Defence of the complicated Plan of modern Dramatists; and so,
Again, the Ajax of Sophocles ought to have ended with it's natural Catastrophe, the Death of this Hero; instead of which another Action, properly speaking, commences, arising from the violent Contest between Teucer and Agamemnon concerning the forementioned Hero's Right of Burial; a Contest, which, if the Poet in the present Case had studied, or even regarded absolute Simplicity and Uniformity, he should have reserved for the Groundwork of another Tragedy.—And further [Page 285] the Trachiniae of the same excellent Author is manifestly defective in Point of Unity of Time; of which much more must naturally be supposed to have lapsed between the Departure of Hyllus to inquire after his Father, and his Return to Trachin than the Letter of the Dramatic Law allowed him.—These Defects and Irregularities I have never seen taken Notice of, and much less objected to these justly admired Writers. And though we could bring no other Examples to the same Purpose than the above cited, or however none so obvious as these, yet 'tis apprehended a single Instance of this Nature is of very considerable Weight and Consequence in the present Controversy; and will warrant us in determining that the strict Laws of the Drama were not of indispensable Obligation, even in the Judgment of the Antients themselves.—Indeed if they are, the Merit of a Poet should be tried chiefly at least by them; and therefore when Mr. Mason tells us that Shakespear ought, for his other Virtues, to be exempted from common Rules, he is unjustifiably candid and indulgent to him; for sure he ought by no Means to be exempted, if such Rules are founded in the indispensable Laws and first Principles of Nature and good Sense. If he is fundamentally and essentially ridiculous, a thousand inferiour Beauties will not excuse him. Common Rules are therefore upon certain important Considerations dispensable; and if so, Shakespear's Beauties do not so properly excuse, as acquit him.
[Page 286] If the judicious Reader will apply here, by the Way, some of the foregoing Remarks to the Case of Tragi-Comedy, he will be able perhaps to account not only for the Toleration, but also gracious Reception of so motley a Production upon the English Stage. For though Shakespear, with his Contemporaries and many Successors, did in such Pieces undeniably humour the public Taste to their own Discredit, yet 'tis to be observed, that the grand Arcana of Nature above intimated might be scrupulously attended to even in this heterogeneous Composition; and accordingly when the Tragic and Comic Representation was each excellent in it's Kind, it is no Wonder that the Bulk of an Audience should overlook the manifest Impropriety of the Coalition, or that the more judicious Part should forgive it for the Sake of the fundamental and essential Excellencies of the respective Actions and Representations. It is plainly for this Reason that the best Tragi-Comedies of Shakespear and others are received with general Applause at this very Day; the Ground of Complaint against such Tragic and Comic Union being really not so much that it offends the Judgment, as that it improperly divides the Attention. Two separate Plots, and distinct Actions do this to a ridiculous Degree; but in one and the same Action absolute Uniformity is not essential either to the Tragic or Comic Drama. For tho' the [Page 287] Pathos be the Characteristic of Tragedy, and Humour of Comedy, as well ancient as modern, yet the former will admit of Characters of Pleasantry under certain Regulations, and the latter is frequently known to abound with Circumstances of very affecting, tho' domestic Distress; of which many Instances might, if need were, be on both sides produced, in the several Dramas both of Antients and Moderns. Nor does such occasional and moderate Reciprocation confound or destroy the different Genius, Nature, and End, of the two Species. And it was probably owing to some injudicious Writer's Misapplication of this Truth, and his drawing undue and false Consequences from it, and even in his own Imagination improving it, that either the Name, or the Constitution of Tragi-Comedy did ever subsist. For the Reasons why Plautus calls his Amphitrion a Tragi-Comedy, are of a Nature entirely different from this. However, the great Objection to this Form of Dramatic Composition is certainly, as has been said, that it unsuitably divides the Attention, not that it lessens it, or by exciting many different Passions in the same Space of Time checks the Force of any single one. That the Attention in a very uniform and regular Play, may be divided without being lessened, we have already observed; and indeed, if this were not the Case, absolute Uniformity and Simplicity must be really essential to [Page 288] the two Species of the Drama, and every reciprocal Participation will be proportionably, to the Degree of it, absurd. But to assert this, would be talking against Reason, Experience, and the not uncommon Practice of the best Poets. Is any Man less mov'd by the Delicacy and Tenderness of Lord Townley, upon his Separation from his Wife, on Account of the Mirth that was before excited in him, by the ridiculous Ignorance, and Rusticity of Sir Francis Wronghead? Do we less interest ourselves in the Fate of the unhappy Indiana, because we were diverted by the coxcombical Pertness of Mr. Thomas? Should we be more affected by the pathetical Complaints of Romeo, if they were not contrasted in the Buffoonery of Mercutio? Or, to refer the Reader to a Play or two written directly upon the Tragicomic Plan, does the iniquitous Drollery of the Spanish Friar abate our Concern for the Distresses of Torrismond and Leonora? Or, do the comical Rhodomontades, and Humours of Falstaff and his Associates, take off our Attention from the Bravery of Prince Henry or Hotspur, &c. &c. at the Battle of Shrewsbury.—I am very far from contending for this Mixture, not of opposite, but indeed contradictory Characters, in the same Drama, and much less for the Form of Tragi-Comedy itself: Proper and due Uniformity admits of sufficient Variety, and though it be not essential to the [Page 289] Drama, is no doubt a great Beauty in it: The most popular of the Plays I have mentioned, are not the better for their Medley of Characters; but all this while, let the Fault or Impropriety be placed in a fair Light, and ascrib'd to it's true Cause, which is the real, though nice Connection, between the Genius of Tragedy, and that of Comedy, and the extreme Difficulty of precisely determining how far, or in what Degrees and Proportions the one may assume the Qualities and Properties of the other.
But to return to my Subject:—The simple Constitution of the ancient Drama, has indeed some Advantages over the more complicated one of succeeding Ages, but still such as are abundantly more than ballanc'd by those of the latter. The frequent shifting of Scenes, for Instance, though it does not offend the Judgment, is yet disgusting to the Eye of the Spectator, and so far the Continuation of one and the same Scene, is a peculiar Beauty, and Propriety. But all this while, to this Beauty and local Propriety, many other more important Points of Probability are too often sacrific'd. This is, more or less, I believe, the Case of all strictly uniform Tragedies and Comedies, but evidently, at least of some of our best English Comedies that have been written on the old Dramatic Plan; in which, notwithstanding the Unity of Action, so much Business is [Page 290] transacted, so much Intrigue carried on, by so many different Personages, in one single Spot of Ground, as is utterly incredible; in which Case the Poet really offends against Reason, Nature, and good Sense, purely to save the Appearance of doing so: Indeed if the Unities are essential to the Drama, the utmost Simplicity will of Course be a Perfection in it; and consequently many of the most regular Compositions of our Comic Poets (as the Way of the World, and the Double Dealer of Congreve) will be found to be infinitely their worst Productions: So ambitious have some been of improving the Model of the antient Drama, and yet so cautious at the same Time of taking such Liberties as were absolutely necessary for those Improvements.
After all, Discretion is to be a general Rule even in the Use of Liberty. I would neither fetter the Dramatic Muse, nor yet let her run wild; Deviations from the strict Laws of Antiquity should be made not affectedly and at random, but with a View to Beauties of a higher Nature; not for the Ease of the Poet, but to the Advantage of the Poem. I would not vindicate Shakespear himself in every Instance of his Transgression. To sum up all that need be said upon this Point in a few Words; the old Laws of Aristotle are in my Opinion very proper Regulations and Restraints for an indifferent Poet, but ought not to be the Shackles of a good one.
[Page 291] The other great Point of Difference between the antient and modern Drama, is the Disuse of the Chorus in the latter; which yet Mr. Mason is "willing to think essential to the Tragic Drama." Now admitting the Theory of Aristotle and Mr. Mason to be not only a regular, but also necessary Standard of Dramatic Writings, with Respect to the Unities of Action, Time and Place, the Chorus, though not essential to the Drama, will indeed as Mr. Mason observes ‘lay a proper and necessary Restraint upon the Poet.’ But if these Unities themselves are far from being essential to the Drama, as we have endeavoured to make it appear, the Use of the Chorus is so far at least superseded.—The Chorus was indeed, as I have before observed, not only a constituent Part of, but even a Convenience to the antient Tragedy. If I might be excused the Indelicacy of the Expression for the Significancy of the Sentiment, I would say, let a Tragedy of Aeschylus be gutted of it's Chorus, and you leave it little better than a Skeleton.
To proceed; upon the simple Plan of Antiquity the Chorus introduced, 'tis true, an agreeable Variety into the Drama, and was no doubt both useful and ornamental to it, as it's peculiar Province had more immediate Reference to the great Ends of all Poetry, prodesse & delectare. But after all, if these great Ends are better, or even as well [Page 292] answered without the Chorus; and if these Ends are not obstructed by the Admission of Design, Contrivance and Intrigue into the Fable, but even promoted by it under the Conduct of a masterly Hand, in this Case, I say, it is not to be denied but the Chorus of the Antients has given Place to it's Betters.—It is true Mr. Mason has very positively asserted (for I think he has by no Means sufficiently proved) in Behalf of the old Chorus, that (to lay no Stress upon subordinate Advantages) it augmented the Pathetic, that it afforded ‘a graceful, and natural Resource to the Embellishments of picturesque Description, sublime Allegory, and whatever else comes under the Denomination of pure Poetry;’ and lastly, which is most material, that it was the properest Vehicle ‘to convey moral Reflections with Grace and Propriety.’ For these Reasons, which respect both the Poet and the Audience, he judges the Disuse of the Chorus to be an irreparable Loss to the modern Stage. Let us briefly then review what this Gentleman has said upon each of these Articles.
Now with Regard to the first he offers us the Authority of a Frenchman. ‘If you ask me (says he) how it augmented the Pathetic, I cannot give you a better Answer than the Abbè Vatry has done in his Dissertation on the Subject published in the Memoirs de l' Acad. des Inser. &c. It affected this (says he) both in it's Odes and [Page 293] Dialogue. The wonderful Power of Music and the Dance is universally allowed. And, as these were always Accompaniments to the Odes, there is no Doubt but they contributed greatly to move the Passions. It was necessary that there should be Odes or Interludes; but it was also necessary, that these Interludes should not suffer the Minds of the Audience to cool, but, on the contrary, should support and fortify those Passions, which the previous Scenes had already excited. Nothing imaginable could produce this Effect better, than the choral Songs and Dances, which filled the Mind with Ideas corresponding to the Subject, and never failed to add new Force to the Sentiments of the principal Personages. In the Dialogue also, the Chorus served to move the Passions by shewing to the Spectators other Spectators strongly affected by the Action. A Spectacle of such a Kind as is fitted to excite in us the Passions of Terrour and Pity, will not of itself so strongly affect us, as when we see others also affected by it. The Painters have generally understood this Secret, and have had Recourse to an Expedient similar to that of the Chorus of the Poets. Not content with the simple Representation of an historical Event, they have also added Groupes of assistant Figures, and exprest in their Faces the different Passions, they would [Page 294] have their Picture excite. Nay they sometimes inlist into their Service even irrational Animals. In the Slaughter of the Innocents, LE BRUN was not satisfied with expressing all the Horrour, of which the Subject is naturally capable; he has also painted two Horses with their Hair standing on End, and starting back, as afraid to trample upon the bleeding Infants. This is an Artifice which has often been employed, and which has always succeeded. A good Poet should do the same; and Iphigenia should not be suffered to appear on the Theatre, without being accompanied with Persons capable of feeling her Misfortunes.’
I have transcribed the whole Passage, and can't help nothing in the first Place, a very extraordinary Inaccuracy in this refin'd Portion of Criticism. For sure the above-mentioned Horses, with their "Hair standing on End," and "starting back," &c. did greatly add to the Horrour of this famous Piece, which yet before had, it seems, all the Horrour expressed in it, of which the Subject was naturally capable; or, if they did not augment this Horrour, it will be difficult methinks to to tell what Business they had there. But to be serious:
The wonderful Power of Music is universally allow'd; and Music is by no Means excluded from the modern Stage. Nay, I venture to say, the [Page 295] modern Drama has Recourse to it more effectually, though less frequently, than the old Drama had; as we are more affected by it's occasional and unexpected Graces and Assistances, than we should be by it's stated and periodical Interposition.—For the Dance, I own I am at a Loss to comprehend how it could contribute greatly to move the Passions; I mean the Passions proper for Tragedy: I do not pretend to ascertain the Nature and Method of the antient Stage-Dancing; but such has been the Power of the Dance in later Times, that the Tragic Muse, who is a very grave Matron, has, I believe, no Reason to lament her dancing Days are over. Admitting therefore at present the Propriety and Efficacy of the Choral Songs, I cannot conceive how any Kind of Dance ‘should support and fortify those Passions, which the previous Scenes had excited,’ or ‘fill the Mind with Ideas corresponding to the Subject, and never fail to add new Force to the Sentiments of the principal Personages.’ Nor farther can I see any Thing even in the Songs, or Odes, which had so peculiar a Tendency to produce these Effects, that nothing imaginable could do it as well; for tho' these might answer this Purpose very sufficiently, yet if they were not necessary for it, they cannot be contended for as essential to the Drama, and must consequently be considered only, as we have before observed, in the Light of [Page 296] an ancient Conveniency.—Now I apprehend the Minds of the Audience are in no Danger of cooling under the present System of the Drama, and that the Music between the Acts may be adapted to the Purposes fore-named, of supporting and fortifying the Passions as much as the old Chorus could be. Without depreciating therefore the real Use and Design of the Chorus, we only say we can do in many Respects better, and even in this as well without it.
But farther it seems, ‘In the Dialogue also, the Chorus served to move the Passions, by shewing to the Spectators, other Spectators strongly affected by the Action.’ For, ‘a Spectacle of such a Kind as is fitted to excite in us the Passions of Terrour, and Pity, will not of itself so strongly affect us, as when we see others also affected by it.’ Admitting the Truth of which Assertion, I do not see what is to be inferr'd from it to the Advantage of the antient Chorus. For does not the modern Drama move the Passions (as indeed does the antient exclusive of it's Chorus) by shewing to the Spectators other Persons (not mere Spectators, but Persons more interested in the Action) strongly affected by the Events of the Tragedy? The Intervention therefore of Spectators, as such, upon the Stage is with Respect to this Purpose superfluous and insignificant, except it can be demonstrated that [Page 297] the Passions of Terrour and Pity, or any other are (if I may be allowed the Expression) more powerfully excited at the second Rebound.—Let common Experience at once illustrate and determine this Matter.—Supposing half a dozen indifferent Persons admitted to a Spectacle of Terrour or Distress in real Life, for Instance that of a dying Man taking Leave of his Wife, his Mistress, or his Friend; would not such a Spectacle immediately raise suitable Emotions in all of them, or would each first consult the Passions of his next Neighbour in order to learn what Effect this Spectacle ought to have upon himself? These Questions require no Answer; and therefore as the Drama is so lively a Representation of real Life, they may plainly be applied to any Case of Misery or Horrour exhibited upon the Stage.—For this Reason also it is, that the Illustration of the Matter before us by the Expedients of the Painters is, I apprehend, (with Deference to the ingenious Abbè as Mr. Mason calls him) entirely foreign to the present Purpose. The Painters have very wisely had Recourse to such Expedients as are mentioned in the above-quoted Criticism, because, after all, their Art is but Painting still, and properly speaking describes the Passions, more than it excites them; but the Drama, or rather the Actor in the Drama, realizes what he represents. He must be a very insensible Spectator, who thinks at [Page 298] all of the Poet or the Player, when Mr. Garrick is personating a Richard, a Macbeth, or a Lear. The Poet in short has not the same Occasion for such Artifices and Expedients as the Painter has. Let Iphigenia appear on the Theatre, and behave as she ought to do, and I will be answerable for it, the Audience will be Persons capable of feeling her Misfortunes.
But again, by rejecting the Chorus Mr. Mason tells us the true Poet has lost a ‘graceful and natural Resource to the Embellishments of Picturesque Description, sublime Allegory, and whatever else comes under the Denomination of pure Poetry.’ To which I take Leave to reply, That what the Poet has lost hereby, Tragedy has gained; for if Mr. Mason's own Theory be just, the Tragic Muse (as we have before observed from him) strikes directly upon the Passions of the Audience; which I should be glad to know how Picturesque Description (I mean such as this Gentleman has favoured us with) sublime Allegory, and Poetry in the Abstract, or, if you please, pure Poetry can do. Mr. Mason says, the Lyric Muse addresses herself to the Imagination of a Reader or Hearer; and accordingly ‘few Men have a Strength of Imagination capable of pursuing the Flights of Pindar;’ and still fewer, I will venture to add, those of Mr. Mason in this Dramatic Poem. I am very far from meaning to [Page 299] decry this ingenious Author's peculiar Talent in loco; but I fear in the present Case, while he affects to defend the Cause of the old Chorus, his real Design was to introduce a new one. For, the Name excepted, I can discern little or nothing in the Odes of Mr. Mason similar to those of the antient Chorus; that ‘poetical Flow of tender Commiseration, of religious Supplication, or of virtuous Triumph,’ of which it principally consisted, had none of the long-spun Allegory, and aerial Imagery with which these Dramatic Sonnets of Mr. Mason abound. In Truth it is to be wish'd that this profest Admirer, and Imitator of genuine Nature, and antient Simplicity in the Structure of his Fable, had paid a little more Regard to them in his Diction throughout this whole Poem, and particularly in the Stile of the Choral Compositions under present Consideration. 'Tis Pity indeed an Author so sober and chaste in his whole Oeconomy, should be so remarkably extravagant and loose in his Language.
In the Hymn to the Morning a great deal seems to be unfolded, but little discovered.
[Page 300] Now I apprehend it would pose the most able Linguist to translate these Lines, or the most dextrous Painter to give us a Portrait of this angelical Personage.
Charity has ever been rank'd with the first of moral Virtues; but Mr. Mason not only personifies and deifies it, but likewise makes it a Geometrician, and a Musician into the Bargain.
Again,
—This Passage is I confess very melodious in Point of Numbers; it is indeed like Music itself; for methinks it sounds well, and says nothing.—
[Page 301] In another Ode we have several picturesque Images of the Goddess CONTENT, presented to us; now she sits upon a Bank, and listens to a Linnet.
—Then she is gone to sup with a Hermit, and is amazingly calm and compos'd, tho' she seems every Minute in danger of being drown'd, or knock'd on the Head.
—In my humble Opinion these, and the two following Odes to Constancy and Truth are much [Page 302] more calculated to exercise a Metaphysical Head, than make any Impressions upon a sensible Heart: And after all, the Beauties of such Ideal Poetry as this, tho' they may amuse in the Closet, must surely be lost upon the Stage. To pass by the Ode to CONSTANCY, let us take a short View of TRUTH in all her Glory.
—It is wonderful to observe how far a true Poetic Fancy lifts a Genius above all Prosaic Conception. Most of us profess ourselves Admirers of the Naked Truth; but Mr. Mason has cloth'd her more splendidly than ever Solomon was; tho' I think he has given her rather too fine a Buckle for so clumsy a Girdle.
It is indeed well observ'd by Mr. Pope, that He who would take Boldness from Poetry, must leave Dulness in the room of it; and I am very sensible that no Species of Poetry is allow'd greater Liberties than the Ode;
[Page 303] SED NON UT PLACIDIS COEUNT IMMITIA, &C. Boldness is the Medium between Dulness and Temerity; the Muse has no more Business above the Clouds, than she has under the Ground; and Mr. Mason, tho' he never creeps, is certainly a High-Flyer. The extravagant Thoughts, the far-fetch'd Allusions, and the unconnected Ideas in most of these Odes are a Proof of it.—In truth the Heat of Imagination is apt to transport an Author into false Conclusions, and make him believe He writes Poetry, because He does not write Prose.
But farther, I can by no Means agree with Mr. Mason that ‘if we had a Tragedy of Shakespear's form'd on the Greek Model, we should find in it more frequent, if not nobler Instances of the high Poetical Capacity, than in any single Composition he has left us.’ This Author thinks, ‘we have a Proof of this in those parts of his Historical Plays, which are call'd Chorus's, and written in the common Dialogue Metre.’ Our ‘Imagination (continues he) will easily conceive, how fine an Ode the Description of the Night, preceding the Battle of Agincourt, would have made in his Hands; and what additional Grace it would receive from that Form of Composition.’ Let us turn to the Description as it now stands in Shakespear.
—This noble Description is full of Imagery drawn from sensible Objects, as indeed are most of those we meet with in this incomparable Author; (witness for Instance the Description of Dover Cliff, of Hamlet's Madness, of Brutus's Disorder, &c. &c.) It is consequently of the most affecting Nature, and in a manner possesses the Hearer or the Reader with the same kind of Terrour which the Bravest probably feel upon the Crisis of a decisive Battle. And, by the by, of the same passionate and affecting (i. e. Dramatic Nature) are the Poetical Parts of our best Tragedies in general. Now I cannot conceive that the several Circumstances of this Description could receive additional Force from the Form of an Ode, notwithstanding the acknowledg'd Power of Music; and much less that such a Description would appear [Page 305] to advantage in an Ode of Mr. Mason's. Instead of what we see, hear and feel in the striking Particulars of the before-mention'd Description, Mr. Mason would entertain and amaze us with an allegorical Machine of
or,
—It is certain whatever might be the Mystic Beauties of such an Ode as this, it would at best be a dispassionate One, and so far infinitely less Theatrical, than the foregoing Description of Shakespear. In truth the pure Poetry which Mr. Mason tells us that great Poet had the Power of introducing naturally, and what is most strange, of joining with pure Passion, has an Air utterly different from, or rather contrary to the Flights of Mr. Mason throughout this Performance. Shakespear indeed very rarely gets out of the Reach of our Apprehensions, even when his Subject leads him directly into the Province of Imagination.—I refer the Reader to his Midsummer Night's Dream, his Macbeth, and his Tempest. Upon the whole of this Article, it may I think, be safely affirm'd that the modern Drama is by no means destitute of Opportunities of having recourse to Poetical Embellishments and Picturesque Descriptions of all Kinds; and it has recourse to them, if not so frequently and obviously [Page 306] as the antient Drama by means of the Chorus had, at least more consistently with the Essential Character of Tragedy, whose direct Business it is to excite the Passions, even according to Aristotle's own Definition of it. For whether Images, Descriptions, &c. occasionally and naturally interspers'd with the Matter of the Dialogue itself be not more compatible with that Character, than separate and detach'd Peices of Poetry, is a Question that needs not, I conceive, be discuss'd.—Now if these Considerations will lead us to Conclusions in favour of the Poetical Parts of modern Tragedy against those of the old Chorus, they will, I am sure, do this a fortiori against the pure Poetry of Mr. Mason.
I cannot help observing in this Place, that our Author's Affectation of a Poetical Diction, which contributes so much to the rendering the Odes of his Chorus undramatical, discovers itself likewise in many Parts of the Dialogue itself; and often to such a Degree, that Pomp, Figure, and Allegory ‘supply the Place of Simplicity, Nature, and Pathos.’ How allegorically does Athelwold express the Passion of Joy, mixt with an Apprehension of imminent Danger?
[Page 307] —As this Danger approaches still nearer, the Leader of the Chorus tells the unhappy Pair (Athelwold and Elfrida) that
Upon the Earl's declaring his Resolution to murder himself, he is caution'd against such a desperate Proceeding, by very important (but I think scarce intelligible) Considerations.—
—With what Delicacy, and Pathetic Force is the Remorse of this Hero express'd in the following Passage?
We may observe farther that the same Enthusiastic kind of Spirit betrays our Author in many other Places of this Work (where the Thought is extremely beautiful) into a Stiffness and Formality of Language.—We will give the Reader a few Instances of this.—
In short, to this Spirit we may perhaps ascribe the Impropriety and Unseasonableness of some of Mr. Mason's most elegant and affecting Images and Descriptions.—But I forbear to multiply Quotations.—Enough, I presume, has been said to shew that Mr. Mason throughout this whole Work discovers much more of the Poet, than the Tragedian: He discovers so much indeed of the former, that abating these, and a few other Blemishes and Defects, which I thought it but Justice to my Subject to endeavour to set in a true Light, Elfrida, as a Dramatic Poem, has many exquisite Beauties; which however (as they must be obvious to judicious [Page 310] Eyes) I forbear not for Want of Inclination but of Time to recite. Indeed as this Performance is entitled a Dramatic Poem, and not a Tragedy, by the Author himself, I should have made no Exceptions to it, if the Stile of the Letters prefixed to the Drama had been as modest as the Title Page.—But to return once more to the Chorus. Mr. Mason ‘laments that with the Means of introducing Poetry naturally, is lost also the Opportunity of conveying moral Reflections with Grace and Propriety.’—He tells us afterwards, ‘that in those Parts of the Drama where the Judgment of a mixt Audience is most liable to be misled by what passes before it's View, the chief Actors are generally too much agitated by the furious Passions, or too much attached by the tender ones, to think cooly, and impress on the Spectators a moral Sentiment properly.’—This is indeed asserting roundly, but however, I apprehend, without sufficient Foundation in Reason, or Experience.—I will make bold to assert too, that it is the Business of the Dramatic Poet (and indeed of every other) in a moral View to steal imperceptibly into the Heart of his Audience, or Reader; that Sentiments occasionally and naturally suggested by the Circumstances of the Parties personally concerned, will have a more forcible Effect than a thousand set Lessons of Music and Morality from the Mouth of a third Person; and that the chief Actors are [Page 311] not generally "too much agitated by the furious Passions, or attached by the tender ones, to think cooly (enough for the Purpose) and impress on the Spectators a moral Sentiment properly."
In the next Sentence we are told that ‘A Confidant or Servant has seldom Sense enough to do it, never Dignity enough to be regarded.’—Now, by the way, a Servant or a Confidant may always (if the Poet please) be as sensible a Person as any in the Drama; and sure the Dignity of either, at least of the latter is equal to that of the Personages of the antient Chorus, which for the most Part consisted of a Company of Virgins, the Attendants and Countrywomen of the Hero of the Poem.—Mr. Mason's own Chorus, with all it's Pomp and Solemnity, is composed of Lord Athelwold's Maids.—But after all, do the modern Tragedians usually convey moral Sentiments thro' the Mouths of Servants and Confidants, as these Expressions would lead us to imagine; or granting they do, and err in so doing, is the particular Error of a few to be objected to the general System? Instead therefore of these (and of the Chorus too) the Moderns are ‘sufficiently provided with Persons not merely capable of seeing and hearing, but of arguing, advising, and reflecting; from whom a moral Sentiment never comes unnaturally, but suitably and gracefully.’ For such are (or may be) all the Persons in the Drama. "The Character of Pierre in Venice Preserv'd [Page 312] (Mr. Mason justly observes in another Place) ‘when left entirely to the Judgment of the Audience, is perhaps one of the most improper for public View, that ever was produced on any Stage. It is almost impossible, but some Part of the Spectators should go from the Representation with very false and immoral Impressions. But had that Tragedy been written on the antient Plan; had Pierre's Character been drawn just as it is, and some few Alterations made in Jaffeir's, I know no two Characters more capable of doing Service in a moral View, when justly animadverted upon by the Chorus. For bad Characters become on this Plan as harmless in the Hands of the Poet, as the Historian.’ This would indeed be, as I have elsewhere observed, very just Reasoning against any Man that should undertake to vindicate Mr. Otway's Conduct in the Tragedy referred to; and to oppose the same to the antient Plan; but as this never was, or will be done by any Man in his Senses, it is surely inconclusive to argue against the Inconveniencies of the whole modern Dramatic System from the particular Error of a particular Poet.—The Truth is, perhaps this Gentleman has conceived strong Prepossessions in Favour of that Species of Poetry, which his Talent evidently leads him to; for if he had not himself a particular Taste for an Ode, 'tis likely he would scarce contend for it as absolutely essential [Page 313] to the Drama.—But whatever may have been his real Sentiments upon the Occasion, I hope, I have given sufficient Reasons for differing from him.
Before I conclue I can't help taking Notice, that Mr. Mason has drawn Mr. Dryden himself into his Interests in a very extraordinary Manner; and this I do the rather, as I have more than once referred to that excellent Person's Authority. Mr. Mason, among the insuperable Difficulties in the Way to the desired Reformation of the English Stage, intimates the present improper Form of the Theatres; and the additional Expence requisite for the Purposes of the antient System renders the Matter, he thinks, impracticable. ‘This, he says, Mr. Dryden foresaw long ago;’ and then quotes the following curious Passage from him. ‘A new Theatre, much more ample and much deeper, must be made for that Purpose; besides the Cost of sometimes forty or fifty Habits: which is an Expence too large to be supplied by a Company of Actors. 'Tis true I should not be sorry to see a Chorus on a Theatre, more than as large and as deep again as our's, built and adorned at a King's Charges; and on that Condition, and another, which is, that my Hands were not bound behind me, as now they are, I should not despair of making such a Tragedy, as might be both instructive and delightful, according to the Manner of the Grecians.’
[Page 314] Now does any common Reader apprehend from this Passage, that because Mr. Dryden tells us, he should not be sorry to see a Chorus on a commodious Theatre, &c. therefore he ardently wish'd to see one, and judg'd it absolutely essential to the Drama; or because he declares that in such Case he should not despair of making such a Tragedy as might be instructive and delightful according to the Manner of the Grecians, therefore he long'd to try his Strength in this Field, and acknowledged the grand Secret prodesse & delectare was the Characteristic of the Greek Drama only? And yet such methinks is Mr. Mason's Construction of this Passage."—‘This Suffrage of Mr. Dryden, says he, is, however, very apposite to to the present Point. But it serves also to vindicate my Design of imitating the Greek Drama. For if he, who was so prejudiced to the modern Stage, as to think Intrigue a capital Beauty in it; if he, I say, owns that the grand Secret prodesse & delectare was the Characteristic of the Greek Drama only, nothing I think can better justify my present Attempt than the Approbation he gives to it in this Passage.’—That is (to reduce this Suffrage to a smaller Compass) Mr. Dryden informs us, that if Things were properly circumstanced he would at all Events have attempted a Tragedy upon the Greek Model, and with some Hopes of Success; [Page 315] therefore he plainly preferred the antient to the modern System.—Let the Merits of the Cause be tried by the Evidence of Mr. Dryden, and
I have nothing farther to add than that, if the Reader should chance to wonder at the Freedom I have sometimes taken with this truly ingenious Writer, I desire it may be imputed to my natural Resentment of that Air of Sufficiency and Superiority with which he introduces, I do not say his Performance, but his System.—‘Good Sense (i. e. common Sense) as well as Antiquity required an Adherence to the Unities.’ This peremptory Declaration involves in a very scurvy Term almost every Dramatic Writer but our Author, and a Frenchman or two, since the Days of Aristotle. But delicate Judgment it seems and a true Taste for genuine Nature and antient Simplicity are the Allotments, and Privileges only of a happy Few.—In what Contempt does this Gentleman hold the universal Practice of the modern Stage, when he acquaints us, "he believes he could quickly make the whole tolerably fit for an English Audience by putting the Dialogue of the Chorus into the Mouth of an Emma or Matilda, who with some little Shew of sisterly Concernment, might be easily made to claim Kindred with Earl Athelwold; and by the Addition of an [Page 316] unnecessary Incident or two, which would cost him no more than they are worth in contriving, and an unmeaning Personage or two, who would be as little Expence in creating." I confess I see no Sort of Foundation for this Insult and Superiority in the Arguments, or rather Assertions of Mr. Mason, for which Reason I have written my Thoughts upon this Occasion; otherwise I have no more Pretension to write against him as an Adversary, than Desire to enter the Lists with him as a Poet.
LETTERS, &c.
LETTERS, &c.
I Sit down, in compliance with your Request, to give you my Sentiments upon the Subject started at our last Interview.—In consequence of my Researches upon this Occasion I have been almost led into a very whimsical Conclusion,—that the greatest Genius is the Author a Man happens to have in his Hand. It seems but reasonable to pin our Opinion of an Author upon that of his Editor, or Translator; and yet we may do this, till we are in a manner at a loss for a Criterion to judge good Writing by. Genius assumes as many Shapes as ever Proteus did; and all literary Merit consists principally in Invention, in Judgment, in Fire, in Propriety, in Simplicity, in Elegance, in Accuracy, in Ease, in Wit, in Humour, in Fullness, in Brevity, &c. &c. according to the Spirit, and Complexion of the Writer before me. Mr. Pope declares, Homer was the greatest Epic Poet in the World, and I [Page 320] am quite of his Mind, till I take up Mr. Meyrick's Tryphiodorus.—When I look into my Statius, I begin to think Virgil was a very cold, and insipid Writer; and Virgil's Acquaintance assure me that Statius was little better than a Madman.—In short by Virtue of the Preface, prefix'd to him, Sophocles or Ovid, Terence or Martial, Milton or Butler, &c. &c. is the best Poet; Herodotus or Eutropius, Livy or Sallust, Rapin or Clarendon is the best Historian; Aristotle or Newton, Descartes or Burnet, &c. &c. is the best Philosopher; and Hammond or Hobbes, South, or Toland, Sherlock or Middleton is the best Divine.—
But to be serious.—You will wonder perhaps to be told, that what gave Rise to these ludicrous Remarks of mine was nothing less than Mr. Pope's Commentary upon his universally, and justly admir'd Original, Homer; an Author, whom you will scarce think capable of being complimented, or aggrandiz'd to an undue, and extravagant Degree, especially by so judicious an Editor.—Indeed these great Names are so truly venerable, that I must obviate the Alarm you may take, by assuring you that what I am going to say neither can, nor means to detract from the infinite Merit of the Grecian, or the British Homer; for the former, * ‘I believe upon the [Page 321] whole that scarce any Mortal ever came near him for Wisdom, Learning, and all good Qualities,’ for the latter, He has certainly done more Justice to his Author as an Expositor only, than all the Commentators, antient and modern, put together. After this Declaration you will give me leave to tell you, that Mr. Pope himself appears to me, notwithstanding his very great Abilities, to have sometimes misapprehended the real Design of his Original, to have not unfrequently (to use his own Words again) ‘attributed to him what does not belong to him,’ and now and then to have imagin'd Proprieties, or cover'd Defects with a seeming View rather to the Honour of his Author at all Events, than to the precise Ascertainment of Truth. All this, indeed, might be owing not to a blind Admiration, or to a Want of Discernment, but to a Degree of laudable Partiality, or a too implicit Adherence to the Notions, and Interpretations of the Commentators his Predecessors.
But whatever may be allow'd to an Editor, or Translator, a Stander-by will be more impartial, and is, as such, more likely to think justly of an Author. You who turn to your Homer merely with an Intent to be delighted with him, and consider Mr. Pope as a Person very able and willing to illustrate his great Beauties, and Excellencies, will be apt to sce no [Page 322] Grounds for the above Allegations, but in an Affectation of Singularity, or in Caprice; especially as Mr. Pope makes no Scruple occasionally to point out the Blemishes of his Author, and seems by many Remarks to shew himself thoroughly divested of all unreasonable Prepossessions. ‘* It is customary (says he) with those who translate or comment on an Author, to use him as they do their Mistress; they can see no Faults, or convert his very Faults into Beauties; but I cannot be so partial to Homer, &c. &c.’ In another Place after having enumerated what seem'd to him to be ‘Faults of any consideration,’ he tells us, † ‘he hopes after so free a Confession no reasonable Modern will think him touch'd with the [...] of Madam Dacier and others. I am sensible, continues he, of the Extremes which Mankind run into, in extolling and depreciating Authors: We are not more violent and unreasonable in attacking those who are not yet establish'd into Fame, than in defending those who are, even in every minute Trifle.’—There is as much Modesty as there is Truth in this ingenuous Declaration; and there is great Reason to suppose Mr. Pope in general never speaks of Homer in higher Terms than he really believ'd he deserves. [Page 323] However, whether I have been actuated by a Spirit of Vanity, or of Humour, rather than just Criticism, you will be able to judge when you have read the following Sheets, in which I propose to try Homer by himself, (as every Writer should by his own Key) and by the Suffrages and Evidence of his own Advocates, and Witnesses. For which Purpose, and for something of Method's sake, the first Subject of our Inquiry shall be the Machinery of the Iliad, and the next, the general Oeconomy of this great Poet, and his particular Conduct in Respect of Characters, Incidents, and other Circumstances. And, I persuade myself, the Result of this Inquiry will be your agreeing with me that Homer, with the most fruitful Invention, extensive Knowledge, and no small Judgment, has really much less Art, and Design in this Work, than he is supposed to have had; at least for what appears to the contrary from the Observations of his Commentators.
LETTER II.
THE Machinery, you know, is that Part which the Gods bear in an Epic Poem. That of Homer is conducted with extraordinary Circumstances of Solemnity, and Magnificence. But the great Question is, whether we are in general to take the Simple and literal Sense of [Page 324] the Author with regard to the Appearance, and Actions of these superiour Beings; or whether we are to suppose a secret, and allegorical Meaning to be veil'd under all this Apparatus; or, in other Words, whether we can with any Degree of Certainty extract a System of Morality, or Theology from it. This has been attempted to be done by Mr. Pope, and all others who have undertaken to explain, illustrate, or defend the Writings of this inimitable Poet; and it must be own'd too that this has been done in many Places in a very plausible Manner. However I must be of Opinion, upon reviewing the Iliad, and comparing it with itself, that these Gentlemen have push'd this Matter too far, and by strain'd Explications, and Refinements, found out Mysteries which were never intended; that, generally speaking, we shall do more Justice, and even Honour to Homer by supposing * ‘he follow'd Fame, and common Opinion in his Account of the Gods, though no way agreeable to Truth.’ Upon this Supposition at least, He will, I think appear much more uniform, and reconcileable with himself. I do not deny indeed that the Iliad abounds with noble, and rational Sentiments, and such as are conformable to true Theology; particularly that the Necessity of Divine Assistance [Page 325] and Interposition for all Human Successes is a Moral strongly inculcated throughout the Poem. But whatever Homer's religious Notions, as a Man, might be, or, as Mr. Pope expresses it, ‘whatever he might think of his Gods, he took them as he found them; he brought them into Action according to the Notions which were then entertain'd, and in some Stories as they were then believ'd.’ If you consider his Jupiter as a Fabulous or Poetical Character, there is less in it to shock you; but if you believe, He meant to exhibit to his Reader under this Character, "the One, supreme, omnipotent God" You must soon have a very mean Opinion not only of his Philosophy, but even of his Sense. 'Tis true, ‘He sometimes introduces Jupiter with a Majesty, and Superiority worthy the great Ruler of the Universe,’ particularly in the Beginning of the 8th Book; but he is in general represented as much subject to Weakness, Infirmity, and Passion as the inferiour Deities. Indeed, if any Divine Attribute be plainly, and consistently applied to Jupiter, it is Power; yet even this seems to be applied rather from the Authority of Fabulous Tradition, than by the religious Theory of the Poet himself. For the Story of the Rebellion of the Gods, and their Defeat by Jupiter, which Homer refers to, cannot be understood to be his own Invention. Mr. Pope acknowleges [Page 326] the "* Notions and Descriptions of his Author" in Respect of the Deity, ‘to be in many Passages unworthy of the Divinity:’ † ‘He is not even exempted from our common Appetites, and Frailties; He is made to eat, drink, and sleep.’ It is pleasant enough to observe how careful the Commentators have been, notwithstanding such Acknowledgements, to maintain the suppos'd Superiority of Jupiter, and what shifts they have recourse to to save his Honour upon all Occasions. ‘‡ Eustathius (Mr. Pope tell sus) makes a distinction between [...] and [...], the Words which are us'd at the End of the first Book, and the Beginning of the second with regard to Jupiter's sleeping. He says [...] only means lying down in a Disposition to sleep.’ Now granting this Interpretation ‘to salve the Contradiction that else would follow in the next Book, where it is said Jupiter did not sleep,’ and to prove by-the-by that Homer himself did not nod in this Passage; yet surely it will afford but a slender Argument for the extraordinary Vigilancy of Jupiter in general beyond that of the other Gods; especially as Homer acquaints us in the preceding Lines, that he went to the Bed where [Page 327] he had us'd to take his Repose. *It is worth observing to you that some Criticks in Aristotle's Time objected to the Passage in the second Book, and ‘†pretended it was ridiculous to describe all the Gods sleeping besides Jupiter:’ To which, it seems, Aristotle answers, ‘that nothing is more usual or allowable than that Figure which puts all for the greater part.’ A plain Proof, that neither Aristotle, nor the abovemention'd Critics of those Times, suppos'd any extraordinary Degree of Vigilancy could have been with any Propriety ascrib'd by the Poet to Jupiter.—Perhaps you will be of Opinion too, that there is a little too much Refinement in another Place in the fifth Book, where Mr. Pope says, ‡ ‘we may observe the Decorum and Decency his Author constantly preserves’ in making Jupiter only Smile upon certain Occasions, while the other Gods laugh out.
I leave it to you to judge what Sort of a Salvo this must be, allowing any Foundation for the Distinction itself; as indeed I do not recollect there is. There seems at least to be universal Jollity in Heaven in one very remarkable Passage, without any reserve for the Gravity of this Deity; I mean in the first Book, where Vulcan ‘‖ designs [Page 328] to move laughter by taking upon him the Office of Hebe and Ganymede, with his aukward limping Carriage.’
Thus you see the Jupiter of Homer, with all his Pomp and Preeminence, is hardly above a Level with the subordinate Deities in point of corporal Weakness and Infirmity; nor will you find him to rank much higher if you take a View of his Conduct, and Actions in general throughout the Poem. You will observe him upon numberless Occasions under the Influence of Passions utterly unsuitable to the Purity, as well as Dignity of the Supreme Being. The Fiction of his ‘being deceiv'd and laid asleep,’ and of his amorous correspondence with Juno, has, as Mr. Pope confesses, as great ‘an Air of Impiety, and Absurdity’ as any Fable in all Antiquity. ‘I *must needs, upon the whole, (says that ingenious Remarker) as far as I can judge, give up the Morality of this Fable; but what Colour of Excuse for it Homer might have from antient Tradition, or what mystical, or allegorical Sense might atone for the appearing Impiety, is hard to be ascertain'd at this distant Period of Time.’ Here is a Condemnation, and a [Page 329] Palliation of a Fault in one Breath. Indeed Mr. Pope, thro' his unabated Zeal for the Honour of his Original, is *willing afterwards to suppose the "present Passage to be grounded on Religion," and to be nothing more than the ‘Representation of a religious Solemnity; or else to be purely allegorical, and as such implying only’ the Congress of Jupiter, and Juno, the Mingling of the Aether and the Air (which are generally said to be signified by these two Deities.) But I believe, if you consult the Place, you will think the first Expedient a forc'd one, and the second (allowing the Physical Signification of these two Deities) insufficient for the intended Vindication. For what Connection is there in the Mingling of the Aether and the Air with the Matter in Hand? or how does it in the least effect the Circumstances of the Battle between the Greeks and the Trojans. To say nothing of Venus, who certainly is no Physical Deity, and yet bears a part in this Transaction.—The literal, and obvious Sense of Homer with all its Grossness seems to be the only consistent one which this Passage can fairly be made to carry.
It is worth while to take Notice of the Shifts the Commentators have recourse to, when they are prest with Difficulties of this Nature. Agreeably to the Circumstances of the Extremity, the [Page 330] Allegories of Homer are Moral, and Physical; ‘His *Heaven is no more than an ideal World of abstracted Beings, and so every Motion which rises in the Mind of Man is attributed to the Quality to which it belongs, with the Name of the Deity who is supposed to preside over that Quality superadded to it;’ ‘the †Deities sometimes mean no more than Beings that presided over the Passions and Faculties of the Mind, and in consequence of all this Jupiter is either the Aether, or the Father of Gods and Men, Juno is the Goddess of Honour or the Air, and ‘Minerva the Goddess not only of Wisdom, but of Craft; that is, both of true and false Wisdom,’ &c. &c. as Occasions and Exigencies require.—Now 'tis certain by these Means any Difficulty may be solved, and any Passage in this Author pretty easily cleared; but all this while the Question is, whether any System can be ascertained. Nay in Places where the Meaning of the Author is irreconcileable with allegorical Construction, it is supposed to ‡be "darkened by the Remoteness of our Time." A hidden and mysterious Sense there plainly is, or certainly must be; and we must at all Events, and tho' apparent Absurdities will be saved by it, reject a literal Interpertation of Homer where [Page 331] the Gods are concerned. Mr. Pope himself owns that sometimes Homer's *Machine's play a little too Grossly, and that the Fable violently oppresses the Moral, which it may be lost Labour to search for in every minute Circumstance, if indeed it was intended to be there.’ In Truth, I am apt to think we should read this Poet with more Pleasure, and equal Profit, if we perplexed ourselves less to find out Mysteries in him; and by the way, it is scarce worth our Pains to investigate hidden Meanings, when the plain and literal Moral of the Poem is as obvious upon a thousand Occasions as it is admirable and excellent. If you consider the Machinery of Homer in a Poetical, rather than a Theological, or Philosophical Light, and suppose his Gods to be real Characters acting under the Influence of Human Passions, as antient Fables represented them, and taking their Measures from Motives of personal Affection, Resentment, &c. &c. I believe you will have a surer Inlet into the Meaning of this famous Author, and be able to examine him by Rules not liable to Difficulties, which are only to be removed by forced, and unnatural Solutions.—But as there is a Novelty in this Opinion, You will expect I should strengthen and confirm it by more Reasons, and Observations.
LETTER III.
‘THE *famous Censure of Tully, and Longinus (mentioned by Mr. Pope) that Homer makes God's of his Heroes, and Mortals of his Gods,’ will appear to be groundless, if you regulate your Ideas of this Author by the Notions I have conceived of him. For pure Poetical Fictions, whether invented or adopted by Homer, come not properly under the Cognisance of a Philosophical Inquiry. Accordingly we shall not only have a ready Excuse for this great Poet when he introduces his Deities ‘feasting, fighting, wounded by Men, and shedding a Sort of Blood;’ but also when they are represented as committing Actions unworthy of themselves, and of the respective Characters they are supposed by the common Opinion of Commentators to sustain. Mr. Pope allows that ‘if †the Trojans had no Right to break the Treaty,’ made between them and the Grecians upon the Duel of Paris and Menelaus, ‘the Machine where Juno is made to propose Perjury, Jupiter to allow it, and Minerva to be commissioned to hasten the Execution of it, would be one of the hardest to be reconciled to Reason in the whole Poem.’ Whether therefore the Trojans had a Right to [Page 333] break the Treaty is a Question, it will be very Material, and, I think, easy to determine. Now that "the *Conditions of the Treaty were valid" notwithstanding the snatching away of Paris by Venus in a Cloud, "that is to say, that" the Controversy was to be decided (either) by the Victory, or by the Death of one of the Combatants, is, I apprehend, apparent from many Considerations. It is certain, ‘in the first proposal of the Challenge Paris mentions only the Victory, And who his Rival shall in Arms Subdue;’ nor does Hector, who carries it, say any more.
However (continues the Note) Menelaus understands it of the Death by what he replies:
And in the solemn Oath too Agamemnon specifies the latter, "If by Paris slain"—and ‘If by my Brother's Arms the TROJAN bleed.’ Priam also understands it of both, saying, at his leaving the Field,
Paris himself confesses he has lost the Victory in his Speech to Helen, which he would hardly have done had the whole depended upon that alone; and lastly Menelaus (after the Conquest is clearly [Page 334] his by the Flight of Paris) is still searching round the Field to kill him, as if all were of no Effect without the Death of his Adversary.—It appears from hence (says Mr. Pope) ‘that the Trojans had no ill pretence to break the Treaty, so that Homer ought not to have been directly accused of making Jupiter the Author of Perjury in what follows, which is one of the chief of Plato's Objections against him.’
But was it not extremely natural for Menelaus, Agamemnon, and Priam to mention the Death of one of the Combatants as the Decision of the Controversy, tho' the Terms at the Challenge specified Victory only, in as much as the Death of one seem'd to be the unavoidable Consequence of the Duel, and the Deliverance of Paris by Venus was a Circumstance that could not possibly be foreseen? For Paris, he could not be so absurd as to deny the Loss of the Victory, whatever Shifts he might be drove to evade the Articles of the Combat—indeed he seems to hint at the Expedient of a second Engagement.—
And lastly, for Menelaus, he might very naturally "search round the Field to kill his Adversary" not for the effectual Determination of the Controversy, but for the Gratification of his personal Resentment.
[Page 335] Be this as it will; whatever private Persons might think of this Affair, it is plain the Greeks looked upon the War as ended by this great Event, and accordingly Agamemnon calls upon the Trojans to fulfill the Conditions of the Treaty.
But, in a Word, to put the Matter out of all Doubt, the very Terms at the Commission given to Minerva, suppose the Conditions of the Treaty to be binding upon the Trojans.
These two last Circumstances Mr. Pope, for Reasons obvious enough, takes not the least Notice of: Indeed he found himself so prest by the Difficulties with which this whole Transaction is surrounded, that he is forced to have Recourse to one of the Expedients above-mentioned, viz. that of supposing, ‘Homer's Heaven to be sometimes no more than an ideal World of abstracted Beings, &c. &c. agreeably to this Notion he resolves the Business into this easy Allegory, as [Page 336] he is pleased to call it.’ * Pandarus (who broke the Truce by shooting an Arrow at Menelaus) thinks it Prudence to gain Honour and Wealth at the Hands of the Trojans by destroying Menelaus. This Sentiment is also incited by a Notion of Glory, of which Juno is represented as Goddess. Jupiter, who is supposed to know the Thoughts of Men, permits the Action which he is not Author of, &c. &c."
But how is all this to be reconciled with the general Rules of Interpretation, or with what Mr. Pope †tells us in the very next Note, ‘The Goddess went not to the Trojans, because they hated Paris, and would rather have given him up, ‡than have done an ill Action for him: She therefore looks among the Allies, and finds Pandarus, who was of a Nation noted for Perfidiousness, and had a Soul avaricious enough to be capable of engaging in this Treachery for the Hopes of a Reward from Paris.’ From what Principles of Prudence then or of Honour did Pandarus act? or, lastly, how can Jupiter be said barely to permit, what he expressly commands? It is out of the Power of Allegory and Refinement to salve the Characters of these Deities upon the present Occasion.—But according to the Notion I have formed of Homer's [Page 337] Deities, there will be nothing puzzling in all this Affair.—I can suppose Juno and Minerva to be actuated by a Desire of personal Vengeance on the quondam Judgment of Paris; and indeed I am warranted in this Supposition almost by the present Behaviour of these Goddesses, but clearly I presume, by a Passage in the 24th Book of the Iliad, where the Poet informs us that these very Deities (with Neptune) opposed the Proposal of all the rest, to dispatch Mercury to steal away the Body of Hector, purely from the implacable Hatred they bore to Troy ever since that fatal Determination.
Mr. Pope maintains the Authenticity of this Passage, which it seems some of the *Antients had disputed, who ‘judged it as an Indecency that the Goddess of Wisdom and Achilles should be equally inexorable.’ They thought farther that, ‘had Homer been acquainted with the Judgment of Paris, he would undoubtedly have mentioned it before this time in his Poem, &c." It may be answered, (replies Mr. Pope) that the [Page 338] Silence of Homer in the foregoing Part of the Poem, as to the Judgment of Paris, is no Argument that he was ignorant of that Story: Perhaps he might think it most proper to unfold the Cause of the Destruction of Troy in the Conclusion of the Ilias; that the Reader seeing the Wrong done, and the Punishment of that Wrong immediately following, might acknowledge the Justice of it.’ According to this Observation, which confirms what I have been saying, we must look beyond the Rape of Helen, for the original Cause of the Destruction of Troy, and for the Wrong done which so much exasperated these Goddesses. ‘The same Reason (proceeds the Note) will be an Answer to the Objection relating to the Anger of Pallas: Wisdom cannot be satisfied without Justice, and consequently Pallas, ought not to cease from Resentment, till Troy, has suffered the Deserts of her Crimes.’—Now whether that Crime of Paris could fairly be considered as the Crime of Troy, and whether therefore Wisdom could with Justice pursue it to the Destruction of a whole People, a Novice in Casuistry may determine.—If we suppose, by the by, that the Juno of Virgil was copied from this Original, as there is, I think, no Doubt but she was, we find that Poet in plain Terms ascribing the Illwill of this Goddess towards the Trojans to be the Affront put upon her by Paris.
—You will begin probably to think, the Commentators have affected too much to discover Poetical Secrets in an Author whose Design I take to have been much more simple than it is generally imagined to be.—For your farther Satisfaction, you shall hear from me again upon this Subject.
LETTER IV.
THE Commentators tell us it is with great Art and Judgment that Homer has engaged his several Deities either on the Side of Greece, or on that of Troy. I cannot give you a beter Account of their Sentiments upon this Head, than what you have in Mr. Pope's Note, transcribed from Eustathius, ‘* This Division of the Gods, is not made at Random, but founded on very solid Reasons, drawn from the Nature of these two Nations. He places on the Side of the Greeks all the Gods who preside over Arts, and Sciences, to signify how much in that respect the Greeks excelled all other Nations. Juno, Pallas, Neptune, Mercury, and Vulcan are for the Greeks; Juno, not only as the Goddess who presides over Marriage, and [Page 340] who is concerned to revenge an Jnjury done to the Nuptial Bed, but likewise as the Goddess who represents Monarchical Government, which was better established in Greece than any where else; Pallas, because being the Goddess of War and Wisdom, she ought to assist those who are wronged; besides the Greeks understood the Art of War better than the Barbarians; Neptune, because he was an Enemy to the Trojans upon Account of Laomedon's perfidiousness, and because most of the Greeks being come from Islands, or Peninsulas, they were in some Sort his Subjects; Mercury, because he is a God who presides over Stratagems of War, and because Troy was taken by that of the Wooden Horse; and lastly, Vulcan, as the declared Enemy of Mars and of all Adulterers, and as the Father of Arts.—The Reasons why Mars, and Venus engage for the Trojans are very obvious; the Point in Hand was to favour Ravishers, and Debauchees. But the same Reason, you will say, does not serve for Apollo, Diana, and Latona. It is urg'd that Apollo is for the Trojans, because of the Darts, and Arrows which were the principal Strength of the Barbarians; and Diana because she presided over Dancing, and those Barbarians were great Dancers; and Latona, as influenc'd by her Children. Xanthus being a Trojan River is interested for his Country.’
[Page 341] Now whether these are not rather ingenious than solid Reasons is, in my Mind, scarce a Question.—For all that is here asserted is far from being true. ‘All the Gods who preside over Arts and Sciences are not on the Side of the Greeks:’ Apollo, who is surely one of the most considerable of them being the perpetual Patron of Troy; so that Homer never meant by this Adjustment to ‘signify how much in this respect the Greeks excelled all other Nations. Juno, and Pallas, as plausible as the Reasons here alledged for their siding with the Grecians may seem to be, act in this Affair, by their own *Confessions, as we have seen, from very different Motives; nor will it follow, by the Way, that because the latter of these Goddesses assisted the Greeks, therefore Homer would intimate that the Greeks understood the Art of War better than the Barbarians:’ for as Mr. Pope observes upon Homer's introducing Apollo on the Side of the Trojans in the fourth Book, ‘Mars †(the Friend of Troy) which signifies Courage without Conduct, proving too weak to resist Minerva, or Courage with Conduct, the Poet brings in Wisdom to assist Mars, under the appearance of Apollo:’ and consequently as much may be inferred to the Advantage of the Trojans from the constant Interposition [Page 342] of this God in their Behalf, as is in the Passage before us to that of the Greeks, from the Consideration of the Aid of Minerva.—But farther, Neptune it seems, is for the Greeks, ‘because he was an Enemy to the Trojans, upon Account of Laomedon's Perfidiousness, and because most of the Greeks being come from Islands or Peninsulas, they were in some Sort his Subjects.’ Now Laomedons's *Perfidiousness consisted in the Refusal of the Wages due to this God on Account of the Building of the Walls of Troy, and in other ill-usage, and so we are to look upon Neptune's espousing the Grecian Cause, as the Effect of his Resentment of those personal Indignities; and in this Light he is only acting in conformity to the Idea I have framed of Homer's Gods in general: But why the Greeks can with more Propriety be called Neptune's Subjects because they came from Islands or Peninsulas, than the Trojans themselves, who inhabited a Sea-port Town, (for which very reason Mr. Pope conjectures, Homer ascribes the Building of the Wall to Neptune only) I confess I am at a loss to discover.—Again, Mercury, we are informed is a Partisan of the Grecians ‘because he is a God who presides over Stratagems of War, and because Troy was taken by that of the Wooden Horse;’— [Page 343] Now the ingenuity of the Stratagem of the wooden Horse, if we believe Virgil, we must ascribe not to Mercury, but to Pallas.
However, to let this Deity have the Credit of it; I would only ask whether, supposing he had been introduced by Homer on the Part of Troy, the Sagacity of Eustathius would not have assigned as specious a Reason for it as the present. I can conceive it to be this. Mercury is for the Trojans because he presides over Thieves and Robbers, and is the Favourer of all clandestine Enterprizes, such as was the Rape of Helen by Paris.—But lastly, Vulcan assists the Greeks ‘as the declared Enemy of Mars and of all Adulterers, and as the Father of Arts.’ True—his personal Enmity to Mars, and consequentially to all Adulterers, it is granted naturally engaged him on the Grecian Side;—but as the Father of the Mechanical Arts methinks, he should have fought under Apollo the Father of the liberal ones.
On the other Hand, ‘the Reasons, says Eustathius, why Mars and Venus engage for the Trojans are very obvious; the Point in Hand was to favour Ravishers and Debauchees, rather a Ravisher, &c.’ If all the above-assigned Reasons had been as obvious as these, it had indeed [Page 344] been scarce worth while to have entered into a Discussion of this Matter; but it would be extraordinary if there were no Circumstances to colour the Hypothesis of the Commentators.—Opinions, all this while, are not to be grounded on a few Circumstances that are contrasted by many others.—The Reasons given for the Assistance of the other Deities to Troy, which indeed are delivered with an Air of Diffidence, are most of them far-fetched. ‘It is urged that Apollo is for the Trojans, because of the Darts and Arrows which were the principal Strength of the Barbarians;’ supposing, but by the way not admitting, the Truth of which Assertion itself, might not Apollo, who is Destiny according to the common Notion, have been represented with much more Significancy as opposing Troy, whose Destruction was determined by Fate? One Reason *given by Dacier in the next Book, why Apollo declines fighting with Neptune is, because Apollo ‘being the same with Destiny, and the Ruin of the Trojans being concluded upon and decided, that God can no longer defer it.’ According to this, Apollo by taking the Part of Troy seems to have been Fighting against himself.—But Diana attach'd herself to the Trojan Interests, we are let to know, ‘because she presided over [Page 345] Dancing, and those Barbarians were great Dancers;’ it may be so; and yet I am apt to think the Goddess of Chastity acts a little out of Character here, and by aiding and abetting these Dancers, Ravishers, and Debauchees, is in danger to be taken tripping.
As for Latona, if she was ‘influenced by her Children’ she was a very Dutiful Mother; and Xanthus being a Trojan River" is very Naturally, and without any Design or Artifice of the Poet, "interested for his Country."
Do you not begin to believe upon this Review of the Matter, which I hope you will think a fair and impartial one, that ‘this Division of the Gods in Homer, was made much more at random’ than Eustathius would have persuaded you it was; and that the Gods upon Jupiter's Permission to them to assist either Party in the Beginning of this Book, gratified their personal Inclinations, and Affections;—Nay Jupiter himself supposes they had done, and would do this.
And farther the Speeches which the Poet puts in the Mouths of his Gods when they come to engage, are full of personal Invectives, and Reproaches, and contain little or nothing that countenances [Page 346] an Allegorical Construction. Mars puts Minerva in Mind of the Wound Diomed had given him thro' her Instigation.
Minerva, whom we may observe, Homer represents in this Engagement as superiour to Mars in point of bodily Strength, not by Virtue of any Art or Stratagem, insults her vanquished Antagonist in the Language of a Conquerour, instead of reproving his Rashness in a Style that would have better become the Goddess of Wisdom:
The same Goddess next attacks Venus, and easily overcomes her, which Circumstance may, I apprehend, be best literally understood; for in an Allegorical Sense, Venus might have been at least a Match for Minerva, as Love often takes Possession of the bravest Heart, and is irresistible by the wisest Counsels.—And if Venus had been victorious here, I make no Doubt but that Sense would have been put upon this Passage.
[Page 347] Neptune addresses himself to Apollo in a long Speech, in which he recapitulates the injurious Treatment they had both met with from Laomedon, and wonders at that God's Forgetfulness, and Forgiveness of the same: But he drops not a single Syllable that intimates himself to be the Representative of Humidity, or Apollo of Dryness upon this Occasion.
Juno gives Diana most abusive Language, and "Boxes her soundly" into the Bargain, as Mr. Pope expresses it;—but I see no Clue to a Mystery in all this Business, nor any Thing suitable to the Emblematical Characters of either Goddess.
Lastly, upon Mercury's declining to fight with Latona, Mr. Pope borrows this Remark from Eustathius; that, ‘* It is impossible that Mercury should encounter Latona; such a Fiction would be unnatural, he being a Planet and she representing the Night; for the Planets owe all their Lustre to the Shades of the Night, and then only become visible to the World.’—This Commentator in another Place †exclaims with Admiration; ‘With what Art does the Poet engage the Gods in this Conflict!’ But sure if there be Truth in the last cited Observation, there was little Art in making Latona, and Mercury take different Sides.—In short as exactly [Page 348] * as some Circumstances may tally in the the Disposition of this Engagement, I am apt to think, upon the whole, it is rather to be attributed to Chance, than Design, and that the Expositors in general, either thro' Zeal for the Honour of Homer, or in Ostentation of their own Sagacity, have gone greater Lengths in their Allegorical Hypothesis, than they could justify from the plain Scheme of their Author. But I will take Occasion once more to resume this Argument.
LETTER V.
IT bears hard, I presume, upon the Notion of an allegorical Meaning's being couched under the Appearances and Actions of Homer's Deities, that we are so often at a Loss for any Reason to be alledg'd for them, or cannot give one with Consistency, and Propriety. If this did not abundantly appear to be the Case from what has been laid before you, we might proceed to ask, how it comes to pass that the Interposition of Juno in the †16th Book prevents Jupiter's seeming Design to save Sarpedon? Why does she interpose at all, or why is this the Effect of it? How comes this Goddess to interfere in the present Passage, and Minerva in the ‡22d Book, when Jupiter discovers the same Inclination to deliver Hector?— [Page 349] If Eustathius rightly observes that ‘the Conduct of Homer is remarkably just and rational,’ in the fifth Book of the † Iliad, where he tells us Diomed notwithstanding his intrepid Character retired from Apollo, because ‘it was impossible for him to vanquish Apollo, in whatsoever Capacity he is considered, either as the Sun, or as Destiny; how is it that the same Commentator commends in another Place a Conduct, which is the very Reverse of this? How *observable, says he, or rather Mr. Pope in his Name, is Homer's Art of illustrating the Valour, and Glory of his Heroes? Menelaus, who sees Hector and all the Trojans rushing upon him, would not retire if Apollo did not support them; and though Apollo does support them, he would oppose even Apollo, were Ajax but near him.’ According to this Remark (if it is reconcileable with the former) Menelaus behaves with more Intrepidity or rather Rashness than Diomed himself; and yet neither are the Characteristics of that Hero, of whom we shall have something more to say by and by. In the seventh Book, Apollo, we are informed, ‘†comes very opportunely to save his favourite Hector’ who is overpowered by Ajax. ‘Eustathius says, that Apollo is the very same with Destiny; so that when Homer says [Page 350] Apollo saved him, he means no more than that it was not his Fate yet to die.’ Now methinks, if this Observation is justly made, this Deity should appear to the Relief of every Hero in the like Extremity: And yet it is Venus who saves Paris in the third Book, and Aeneas in the fifth; as Neptune does the latter this same good Office in the twentieth.
It belongs to the Advocates of the common Notion to solve all these Difficulties, and many more that might be added to them.—In the mean Time I would have you turn your Eyes to a Passage or two, where the Allegory is supposed to be self-evident, and tell me whether the Matter be so undeniably clear as the Illustrations of the Commentators pretend to make it. The Descent of Minerva in the first Book to prevent Achilles' attempting the Life of Agamemnon is descanted upon at large as a Passage of this Nature. ‘The * Allegory here (says Mr. Pope) may be allowed by every Reader to be unforced: The Prudence of Achilles checks him in the rashest Moment of his Anger, it works upon him unseen to others, but does not entirely prevail upon him to desist till he remembers his own Importance, and depends upon it, that there will be a Necessity of their courting him at any Expence into their Alliance again. Having [Page 351] persuaded himself by such Reflections, he forbears to attack his General, but thinking that he sacrifices enough to Prudence by this Forbearance, lets the Thought of it vanish from him; and no sooner is Wisdom gone, but he falls into more violent Reproaches for the Gratification of his Passion. All this is a most beautiful Passage, whose Moral is evident, and generally agreed on by the Commentators.’
Now had Minerva only been the Actress in this Affair, all this had been a very natural Explication; but Homer gives us to understand that Minerva was *dispatched by Juno (the Goddess of Honour) on this Errand. If therefore Juno be not an utterly insignificant Personage in this Transaction, the Honour as well as the Prudence of Achilles must be supposed to suggest his present Conduct to him. But as a Soldier, and a passionate one too, no doubt he must think himself obliged in Point of Honour to take immediate Satisfaction for the Affront which had been put upon him; and so his Honour suggests, what his Prudence forbids. As allegorical Persons therefore I can't think but Juno and Minerva appear together with some Force in this Machine. Nor, by the way, does it seem agreeable to the Character of the Goddess of Wisdom to suffer Achilles to break out into such scurrilous and virulent Expressions [Page 352] as he makes Use of in his next Speech to Agamemnon; he does this when Wisdom is gone, Mr. Pope says, but still it was by her Permission, one might say Direction indeed.
The Original is stronger, and contains a more unlimited Commission; and in consequence of it Achilles rates his General with a Vengeance;
Even this Passage then you see is not clear of Difficulties, and as much as may be said in Defence of the allegorical Interpretation, the literal Sense is at least easy, and liable to no Exception.
I will only desire you to turn once more to the fifth Book, of which Mr. Pope observes, * ‘the Allegory lies so open, is carried on with such Closeness, and wound up with so much Fullness and Strength, that it is a Wonder how it could enter into the Imagination of any Critic, that these Actions of Diomed were only a daring and extravagant Fiction in Homer, as if he affected the marvellous at any Rate. The great Moral of it is, that a brave Man should not contend against Heaven, but resist only Venus and Mars, Incontinence and ungoverned Fury.’ [Page 353] —‘Nothing is more observable than the particular Care Homer has taken to shew he designed this Moral.’—‘Minerva, at the Beginning of the Battle, is made to give this Precept to Diomed: Fight not against the Gods, but give Way to them, and resist only VENUS. The Hero himself, as soon as he has performed her Dictates in driving away Venus, cries out not as to the Goddess, but as to the Passion, Thou hast no Business with Warriors, is it not enough that thou deceivest weak Women? Even the Mother of Venus, while she comforts her Daughter, bears Testimony to the Moral: That Man (says she) is not long liv'd who contends with the Gods. And when Diomed, transported by his Nature, proceeds but a Step too far, Apollo discovers himself in the most solemn Manner, and declares this Truth in his own Voice, as it were by direct Revelation: Mortal, forbear, consider and know the vast Difference there is between the Gods and thee, &c.’
Now in the first Place I am afraid Homer will not appear to have been so particularly careful to shew he designed this Moral, as Mr. Pope would make us believe. For though Diomed was commanded ‘in the Beginning of the Battle to give Way to the Gods, and resist only Venus, he is afterwards empowered to attack Mars, and any Deity that should come in his Way;’ ‘[Page 354] Not Mars himself, nor Ought immortal fear. l. 1020.’ Accordingly he is directed in the Original to fall upon Mars * first; and therefore though he actually attacks no other God, he seems to have been sufficiently authorised to do it, which is a Circumstance that clashes with the Allegory.—But what bears still harder upon it in my Opinion is this, that though the Poet speaks in high Terms of the Bravery and Intrepidity of this Hero, and of the Honour he had to be under the immediate Protection of Minerva, yet he represents his wounding of Venus, and contending with the heavenly Powers, as Acts of the highest Rashness and Impiety. Observe Dione's Words to her Daughter, which Mr. Pope refers to as a Proof of Homer's Intention to inculcate his Moral, &c.
And if you will regulate your Opinion by Virgil's Judgment of this Matter, you will find Diomed [Page 355] † according to that Author, as Mr. Pope remarks, ‘in his Answer to the Embassador of King Latinus, enumerating his Misfortunes, and imputing the Cause of them to this impious Attempt upon Venus.’
Nay Diomed condemns himself for this very Action in his Speech to Glaucus in the next Book, and intimates the great Danger he had exposed himself to by it.
I can't help transcribing to you Mr. Pope's Note upon this Place, who begins now to be of the same Sentiment. ‘A quick Change of Mind from the greatest Impiety to as great Superstition is frequently observable in Men, who having been guilty of the greatest Crimes without any Remorse, on the sudden are filled with Doubts and Scruples about the most lawful or indifferent Actions. This seems the present Case of [Page 356] Diomed, who having knowingly wounded and insulted the Deities, is now afraid to engage the first Man he meets, lest perhaps a God might be concealed in that Shape.’ I confess this Fear of Diomed, which violently shakes the Allegory in Question, appears to me inconsistent likewise with the Tenor of this Hero's Character; nor can I think Mr. Pope brings him off when he acquaints us in the following Note, that ‘what Diomed here says is the Effect of Remorse, as if he had exceeded the Commission of Pallas in encountring with the Gods, and dreaded the Consequences of proceeding too far. At least he had no such Commission now, and besides, was no longer capable of distinguishing them from Men (a Faculty she had given him in the foregoing Book). He there mentions this Story of Lycurgus as an Example that sufficed to terrify him from so rash an Undertaking.’
Now in the first Place it by no Means appears that this Commission was expired, or that Faculty ceas'd; at least the contrary may be inferred from Mr. Pope's Translation of this Speech. Diomed says but two Lines above
After all, why should he torment himself with Reflections on what he had done only by Virtue of that Commission before, which he was far from [Page 357] exceeding except in his Attempt upon Apollo, from whom however upon the first Reproof he retired? Or, why should the Example of Lycurgus, who acted not by divine Impulse, terrify one who confessedly did? In this Light what will become of the allegorical Characters of Minerva, Mars, and Venus; or how comes a Hero to be troubled in Conscience because he had been resisting Incontinence, and ungoverned Fury? Thus you find this Allegory, which we were told lies so open, is clogged likewise with its Difficulties; from which indeed neither is the literal Construction of the Passage clear; for it seems unreasonable that a Man should suffer from the Resentment of one God for what he committed by the Direction, and Command of another; though this is no unusual Thing in Pagan Story.
Upon the whole, to have done with the Machinery of this great Poet, I leave it to you to judge, whether there is not abundant Ground to conclude, that the Interpreters have frequently taken Pains to ascertain a Meaning in him which never came into his Head; that if he had a latent and symbolical Meaning, at least they have not hit upon it, and that there is more Ingenuity than Solidity, as we have hinted, in many of their Interpretations. In a Word, I cannot see how any thing like a regular and consistent System either of Theology, or of Morality, can be extracted [Page 358] from Homer's Machinery—if he drops a Sentiment or an Expression occasionally, as he often does, with a View one would think to convince his Reader of the Rectitude of his private Notions with Regard to the Deity, his Jupiter appears to have been a fabulous and traditional Character, and is drawn with Imperfections, and Infirmities incompatible with the natural Ideas of a supreme Being. As to the inferior Deities it seems impossible to form a precise Idea of their hidden Significancy, or allegorical Importance, from the Actions which we have seen ascribed to them: So that Homer had really much less Design in the Plan of his Poem than is supposed (on which Supposition he may however be plainly made more uniform, and of a Piece) or he had much more than has ever yet been, or we may suppose now ever will be, comprehended. In my next I will consider in another Point of View the noble Production of this excellent Poet.
LETTER VI.
IT may be proper to remind you in this Place that I neither have said, nor shall say any thing of Homer with an Intent to lessen your Opinion of him, but to set it right; for it is one Thing to undervalue a Poet, and another to undeceive the Reader. If Homer be justly esteemed one of the greatest Geniuses the World has produced, [Page 359] (perhaps the greatest) it is to be remembered that he is one of the first too; and it is absurd to look for that Perfection in the Original, which we have a Right to expect in the Copy. It is the Characteristic of Invention to be great, of Imitation, to be exact; and if Virgil could not have improved the Model of the Epopee left him by Homer, he should not have taken a Pen in his Hand. The Intervention of Homer with all his Defects will always be the Object of our Admiration; the Judgment of Virgil with all his Proprieties will only deserve our Praise.—I own it has often amazed me to find the Commentators so confident to deny, or solicitous to extenuate Homer's Defects, which really do no Discredit to him, and which ought to be imputed to that Simplicity with which every original Production of the human Mind is naturally imagined. It is, I apprehend, for want of considering this great Author in this Light, that the Expositors often run into the opposite Extreme, and are industrious to discover Beauties and Excellencies which were merely accidental, and ought rather to be put to the Account of the Editor's Affection or Sagacity, than to that of the Art, or Design of the Author.—Under this Notion I have already submitted to your Consideration my Sentiments on Homer's Machines; and agreeably to my Proposal I shall next give you my Thoughts upon the Plan or Oeconomy of [Page 360] the Iliad in general, and then proceed to a Review of the Poet's Conduct in some particular Instances. Now, I think, it may be noted as a Defect in the general Oeconomy of the Iliad, which is to be ascribed to the Cause just mentioned, that the Poet has not taken sufficient Care to interest his Readers on the Side of his Countrymen, notwithstanding the apparent Justice of their Cause. This is clear to me from several Considerations, as first from the Countenance and Protection given to the Trojans in general by Jupiter, in Preference to the Greeks.—I am very sensible the Commentators represent this Protection as the Consequence only of that God's Promise to Thetis, to humble the Grecians, and do Honour to Achilles.—But is it not as plain too, that Jupiter throughout the Poem is personally wellaffected to Troy in general, and that for very good Reasons? It appears from Jupiter's Answer to Thetis, that he had declared himself in the Interest of the Trojans long before she made this Application to him,
And he afterwards, in the Council wherein he intimates himself disposed to end the War, with the [Page 361] Approbation of the other Deities, by suffering the Treaty made upon the Duel of Menelaus, and Paris to take Effect, expresses a more than ordinary Concern for Troy, as a Place that deserved well at his Hands.
Mr. Pope has a Note from Dacier, which corroborates what I have remarked upon this Head. ‘* Jupiter's Reproaching these two Goddesses (Juno and Pallas) with neglecting to assist Menelaus (in the Duel) proceeds from the Affection he bore to Troy; since if Menelaus had gained by their Help a complete Victory, (which it has been observed, was a sufficient one) the Siege had been raised, and the City delivered. On the contrary, Juno and Minerva might suffer Paris to escape, as the Method to continue the War, to the total Destruction of Troy; and accordingly a few Lines after we find them [Page 362] complotting together, and contriving a new Scene of Miseries to the Trojans.’ The latter Part of this Note confirms what has been before observed, that these Goddesses seem to have been actuated by a Spirit of the most inveterate Malice, and Animosity against a whole Race ‘Unius obnoxam.’ The Restitution of Helen, &c. was not the grand Object of their Counsels.
Indeed, if you take them in the Gross, I believe you will find the Deities on the Side of Troy (tho' Mars is in the Number) to be more gentle, and mercifully inclined, than those that are the Assistants of the Greeks.
Again, I can't help being of Opinion that upon the whole, the Poet gives us a much more favourable Idea of the Trojans, than he does of the Greeks, if we regard the Manners, and Characters of the Heroes concerned on both Sides. Let us take a short Vew of the principal Personages that fight in the Cause of Troy. Hector, as Mr. Pope says, ‘* if he is not the chief Hero in the Iliad, is at least the most amiable, and is for several Reasons a favourite Character with every Reader.’—‘He stands in contrast to Achilles, an accomplished Character of Valour, unruffled by Rage, and Anger, and uniting his People by his Prudence, and Example.’ ‘It is the [Page 363] Love of his Country, which appears his principal Passion, and the Motive of all his Actions. He has no other Blemish than that he fights in an unjust Cause, which Homer has yet been careful to tell us he would not do, if his Opinion were followed.’ ‘We may add, that Homer, having so many Greeks to celebrate, makes them shine it their Turns, &c. whereas Hector appears in every Battle the Life and Soul of his Party, and the constant Bulwark against every Enemy; he stands against Agamemnon's Magnanimity, Diomed's Bravery, Ajax's Strength, and Achilles's Fury.’
In a Word, as Mr. Pope tells us in another Place. ‘† Tho' Aeneas is represented a Man of great Courage, yet his Piety is his most shining [Page 364] Character: This is the Reason why he is always the Care of the Gods, &c.’
The Character of Sarpedon, says the same Commentator, is the ‘* most faultless, and amiable in the whole Iliad. This Hero is by Birth superiour to all the Chiefs of either Side, being the only Son of Jupiter engaged in this War. His Qualities are no way unworthy his Descent, since he every where appears equal in Valour, Prudence, and Eloquence to the most admired Heroes: Nor are these Excellencies blemished with any of those Defects with which the most distinguished Characters of the Poem are stained; so that the nicest Criticks cannot find any Thing to offend their Delicacy, but must be obliged to own the Manners of this Hero perfect. His Valour is neither rash, nor boisterous, his Prudence neither timorous, nor tricking; and his Eloquence, neither talkative, nor boasting. He never reproaches the Living, nor insults the Dead; but appears uniform thro' his Conduct in the War, acting with the same generous Sentiments that engaged him in it; having no interest in the Quarrel, but to succour his Allies in distress. This noble Life is ended with a Death as glorious; for in his last Moments he has no other Concern, but for the Honour of his [Page 365] Friends, and the Event of the Day.’—‘His is the only Death in the Iliad attended with Prodigies; even his Funeral is performed by divine Assistance, he being the only Hero whose Body is carried back to be interred in his native Country, &c.’—‘These peculiar and distinguishing Honours seem appropriated by our Author to him alone, as the Reward of a Merit superiour to all his other less perfect Heroes.’ These are the most illustrious Characters on the Side of Troy; tho' the inferiour ones, if not so striking, are at least generally amiable and inoffensive; as those of Deiphobus, Helenus, Polydamas, and Glaucus. Even that of Paris is upon the whole far from being odious, or disgusting. I believe, among other Things the Value every Reader has for these Characters, particularly his Love and Esteem of Hector, inclines his Wishes to the Side of Troy. Indeed Mr. Pope has (perhaps undesignedly) given us in the above Accounts of Sarpedon, a kind of Contrast to the Manners, and Characters of many of the Leaders in the Grecian Army. For the Valour of Achilles, and of Diomed is undoubtedly rash, and boisterous; the Prudence of Ulysses is sometimes * timorous; and the Eloquence of Idomeneus, and Nector is talkative and boasting. But what Prejudices [Page 366] us more than any Thing else against the Greeks, is that Cruelty, and Inhumanity which is so remarkable in their Chiefs of the first Note, and Figure. Granting Achilles in all he does to act in Character, and suitably to his ‘ferocious and vindictive Spirit’ the very Nature of the Character itself is offensive, and the Propriety and Coherence with which it is preserved, distasteful. ‘His Inhumanity in dragging the dead Body of Hector has been severely (and I think indeed not without some Justice, says Mr. Pope) censured by several, both Antients, and Moderns.’ Indeed the Question is whether the whole Picture of Achilles as drawn by Homer, has not stronger, and more violent Features in it than Necessity required? The Subject of the Poem is the Anger of this Hero, and the ill Consequences of it to the Greeks; but this brutal Treatment of the Body of a generous Enemy, is neither the natural Effect of that Anger, nor a Soldier-like Revenge for the Death of his Friend Patroclus.—'Tis true, the Commentators have observed that, ‘* Homer takes Care before Hand, to lessen in his Reader's Mind the Horrour he may conceive from the Cruelty which Achilles will exercise upon the Body of Hector, by shewing this Cruelty as the Punishment only of that which Hector [Page 367] exercises upon the Body of Patroclus; he drags him; he designs to cut off his Head, and to leave his Body upon the Ramparts, exposed to Dogs, and Birds of Prey.’ The Observation is founded on Fact; but however as this Piece of intended Cruelty is inconsistent with Hector's general Character, he should not have been represented as capable of it, and as it was only intended, it makes not so horrible an Impression upon us as the actual Inhumanity of the Poet's favourrite Hero. I have often thought by the way, that the Barbarity of Achilles towards the Remains of the unfortunate, and universally beloved Hector, occasioned the Misrepresentation of the very Fact of his Death by the well-known Story, (which Shakespeare adheres to in his Troilus and Cressida) of Achilles's ungenerously attacking him unarmed, and cutting him to Pieces.—So desirous was the exasperated Author to depreciate the Character of this Hero, and exalt that of his Adversary. But to return; be the Character of Achilles as "poetically perfect" as possible, and the Morality to be drawn from it as obvious as you please, he seems to have the least Merit of any of the principal Personages in the Poem, and we can scarce help being sorry to see so many detestable Qualities on the right Side of the Question: In a Word "the Virtues of Humanity" which he *discovers in the 24th Book, when [Page 368] he restores the Body of Hector to Priam, and "the amiable Qualities" which Mr. Pope tells us ‘soften the terrible Ideas we have conceived of him’ are exercised too late to wipe off the Stain of his past unheroical, and unmanly Behaviour; especially when we consider that this Act of Humanity was the Effect of Jupiter's express Command, delivered by his Mother Thetis.
In short, though we cannot but take Notice of a great deal of Insolence and Cruelty on both Sides, and are shocked, as Mr. Pope confesses he is, at the many Instances of Inhumanity that occur throughout the Poem, ‘which however are not to be *imputed to the Poet, who followed Nature as it was in his Days, but to be ascribed to the uncivilized Manners of those Times, when Mankind was not united by the Bonds of a rational Society,’ yet I believe we shall find much more Blame due to the Greeks, than to the Trojans upon this Score. Not to insist upon those other glaring Proofs of a bloody, and unmerciful Disposition, which Achilles gives in the killing Lycaon †, taking twelve Captives whom he sacrifices afterwards to the Manes of Patroclus, we see Agamemnon too upon certain Occasions betraying a fierce, and cruel Temper; as particularly when he prevails upon his Brother to take away a Trojan's Life which he was inclined in Compassion [Page 369] to *spare. I do not know where you will meet with more savage Sentiments than those of this General in the following Speech to Menelaus.
And if you will turn to the Original you will perhaps think it much softened in this Translation; notwithstanding Mr. Pope's Observation †from Madam Dacier. It should be remembered too, that the venerable Nestor himself is a Spectator and Applauder of this Act of Cruelty.
But there is one Consideration behind that interests the Reader in the Behalf of Troy, much more than all the rest; I mean that of the private Characters of Priam and his Royal Family. Mr. Pope is of Opinion that ‘the Poet's chief ‡Intention in making Hector retire from the Battle to carry a Message to Troy &c. was to introduce the fine Episode of his parting with Andromache’ [Page 370] in which the †amiable Picture of conjugal Love ‘Homer has drawn gives us Cause to think his Genius was no less capable of touching the Heart with Tenderness, than of firing it with Glory.’ ‘This Episode, (says that excellent Person,) tends very much to raise the Character of Hector, and endear him to every Reader,’ and indeed we cannot admire this Hero more in the Field, than we love him at Home. His Conduct, his Courage, and his Valour are common to him with many others, but his affectionate Tenderness to his Parents, his Wife, his Child, and his Friends is characteristical, and peculiar to himself.
In a Word, you cannot, I believe, but be a Well-wisher to the House of Priam, when you consider the general Character of this good old Man himself, whose only Fault was his Indulgence to his Children, and especially his Piety which "renders him a Favourite of Jupiter," and procures him the Restitution of his Son's Body; or when you look into the Manners of his whole Family, not even Helen excepted, but as she is the Mistress of Paris, or Paris himself, but as he is the Admirer of that fatal Beauty. Upon the whole, I leave you to judge whether the Grecians do not deserve the Appellation of barbarous, according to the worst Acceptation of the Term, much more than the People, or the Allies of Troy.
[Page 371] I cannot think then with Mr. Pope that ‘Homer *always appears very zealous for the Honour of Greece,’ or even that he seems to be so in the Instance produced to support the Assertion; I mean, that of the ‘Trojans in the Beginning of the third Book rushing on to the Battle in a barbarous and confused Manner with loud Shouts and Cries, while the Greeks advance in the most profound Silence and exact Order.’ This Circumstance, it seems, is a Proof of the Poet's ‘Endeavour every where to represent the Greeks as superiour to the Trojans in Valour, and the Art of War,’ to which if you add the Circumstance of ‘the Grecians being animated by Pallas and the Trojans instigated by Mars’ i. e. the former, "by a well-conducted Valour," and the latter by "rash Strength and brutal Force," the Matter will bear no Dispute. What Weight there is in this latter Circumstance you will easily see upon recollecting what has been already remarked upon the Machines of Homer, and for the former, I think you will agree with me, that little is to be fairly inferred from it to the Advantage of the Greeks. The Trojan ‘Manner of encountering with Shouts and Outcries’ is no Argument against their military Discipline, or Proof that they were not drawn up in as "exact Order" as the [Page 372] Grecians themselves. ‘* Perhaps these Clamours were only to encourage their Men, instead of martial Instruments,’ as Mr. Pope has not scrupled to intimate; at least it is a Peculiarity (as what Nation is without one?) that does no Discredit to their Discipline, or Skill in the "Art of War." Indeed the supposed constant †Superiority of the Grecians &c. is by no means so apparent to me as it has been to the Commentators in general; and probably you may be of the same Mind if you will refer to Book iv. L. 508, &c. to Book viii. L. 73, &c. to Book xi. L. 93, &c. to Book vii. L. 11, &c. 23, &c. &c. and to other Places, wherein there seems to be no Sort of Inferiority on the Part of Troy in respect of Conduct, Bravery, or Resolution. More might be said upon this Article, but I have exceeded the ordinary Bounds of my Letters, and indeed should not have said so much, but that I thought it necessary to enter into such Particularities as these in order to give you the clearer Idea of an Author whose Work, I presume, you will think it a rational Amusement thoroughly to examine and discuss.
LETTER VII.
I Have two more Objections to the general Oeconomy of the Iliad which I am apt to believe, a little Attention will convince you are reasonable [Page 373] ones; the first is, that Achilles, the Hero of the Poem, is not the first Personage in it in Point of Dignity. Hector is his Superiour in every amiable Quality, and Agamemnon no less so in Power, and Command: And as the former Consideration prepossesses the Reader in Favour of the Trojan General, so the latter has at least a Tendency to interest us on the Side of Authority in the Quarrel at the Beginning of the Poem: And the more so, as Homer, if he was not a Friend to absolute Monarchy, does yet speak in very high Terms of the sacred Rights, and inviolable Supremacy of Kings:
and afterwards,
Old Nestor talks in the same Strain when he attempts to pacify these Chiefs; (see Line 367, &c.) as does Ulysses in the next Book. (see L. 243, &c.
But besides the visible Propriety there had been in making Achilles Commander in Chief, with which Appointment the great Design of the Poem, [Page 374] and the due Execution of it were without Doubt consistent, it is plain that for Want of it you will meet with much Incongruity, not to say Absurdity, in many Places. One obvious Example shall suffice to maintain the Allegation; which is that of Achilles's convening the Council in the first Book; an Act of Royalty that became him no more than it would Diomed, Ulysses, or any secondary Commander in the Army. Indeed this very Circumstance you find mentioned by Mr. Pope in his Note from Plutarch and Eustathius, as doing great Honour to the Judgment of Homer; for which Reason it will be proper to transcribe it.—‘Plutarch observes, how justly Homer applies the Characters of his Persons to the Incidents; not making Agamemnon, but Achilles call this Council, who of all the Kings was most capable of making Observations upon the Plague, and of foreseeing its Duration, as having been bred by Chiron to the Study of Physick. One may mention also a Remark of Eustathius in Pursuance to this, that Juno's advising him in this Case might allude to his Knowledge of an evil Temperament in the Air, of which she was Goddess.’ Now admitting the suppos'd Skill of this Hero, &c. to have been a good Reason for his private Advice in regard to the Convention of this Council, and for his delivering his Opinion in it with more than ordinary Freedom and Confidence, [Page 375] yet how it could give him a Right to call it, or to open it in Consequence of so doing with a formal Speech, I confess, I can't at all comprehend.—You will give me Leave just to illustrate what I have been observing upon this Head, by directing you to a Passage in the 24th Book, in which Achilles at the Height of his Glory, and Popularity among the Greeks, and at the very Instant that ‘he promises * Priam a Cessation of Arms purely by his own Authority’ does nevertheless in Effect acknowledge his Subordination to the Imperial Character, and by his Apprehensions of the Consequences of the present Proceeding: as if the Poet, even while he is aggrandizing his Hero, was conscious of ascribing an Importance to him unsuitable to the Inferiority of his Station.
You observe there is an Inconsistency here which would have been saved had Achilles been the principal Person in respect of Precedence, as well as Valour, &c. &c.
But it is Time to come to the other Objection, which, as I am not singular in it, I will give you in the Words of Mr. Pope's Note prefixed to the 23d Book of the Iliad, and endeavour to confirm it by a Remark or two upon what that Expositor has offered by way of Vindication of his Author. ‘This, and the following Book, which contain the Description of the Funeral of Patroclus, and other Matters relating to Hector, are undoubtedly super-added to the grand Catastrophe of the Poem; for the Story is compleatly finished with the Death of that Hero in the 22d Book. Many judicious Criticks have been of Opinion, that Homer is blameable for protracting it. Virgil closes the whole Scene of Action with the Death of Turnus, and leaves the rest to be imagined by the Mind of the Reader: He does not draw the Picture at full Length, but delineates it so far, that we cannot fail of imagining the whole Draught. There is however one Thing to be said in Favour of Homer, which may perhaps justify him in his Method that what he [Page 377] undertook to paint was the Anger of Achilles; and as that Anger does not die with Hector, but persecutes his very Remains, so the Poet still keeps up to his Subject; nay, it seems to require that he should carry down the Relation of that Resentment, which is the Foundation of his Poem, till it is fully satisfied: And as this survives Hector, and gives the Poet an Opportunity of still shewing many sad Effects of Achilles's Anger, the two following Books may be thought not to be Excrescencies, but essential to the Poem.’
‘Virgil had been inexcusable had he trod in Homer's Footsteps; for it is evident that the Fall of Turnus, by giving Aeneas a full Power over Italy, answers the whole Design and Intention of the Poem; had he gone farther he had overshot his Mark; and though Homer proceeds after Hector's Death, yet the Subject is still the Anger of Achilles.’ Now, I apprehend, the Anger of Achilles, which is the ‘Foundation of the Poem,’ is entirely distinct from that Anger, or rather Revenge with which he ‘persecutes the very Remains of Hector,’ and that the whole declared "Design and Intention" of the Poet was "to paint the Anger of Achilles" as the Source of all the Misfortunes the Grecians underwent; which were ended by the Reconciliation of that Chief and Agamemnon. We then see as plainly the [Page 378] good Effects of Union to the Greeks, as we did the fatal Consequences of Discord through the most considerable Part of the Poem; and therefore the Death of Hector, and the Triumph of the Grecians thereupon was the proper, and natural Catastrophe of the Iliad. The Anger of Achilles, considered as the Passion he was addicted to, might have been protracted through many Books more.—In short, the Super-addition of these Books, especially the latter, instead of being justifiable by the Reasons above alledged, does even come within the Reach of a former Objection: For the Care taken of Hector's Body by two *Deities, the Debate in Heaven †concerning the Redemption of the same by Priam, the Interposition of Jupiter in Behalf of his deceased Votary, Mercury's ‡conducting Priam to the Tent of Achilles, the Interview of the two Monarchs, and lastly, the several pathetic Lamentations made over the Corps of the unfortunate Hero by his Friends, and Relations at Troy, with which the Poem concludes; I say, these Incidents confirm our former Prepossessions in Favour of Hector, leave the most tender Impressions on our Minds, and at the same Time inspire us with fresh Indignation at the Insolence, and Barbarity of his implacable Enemy.—Such are the Defects, as I conceive, in the general Oeconomy [Page 379] of the Ilias.—In my next I will communicate to you some Observations I have made upon the particular Conduct of the great Author in Relation to Characters, Incidents, and other Circumstances, &c. &c.
LETTER VIII.
HOMER is with much Justice to be admired in the main for the agreeable Variety of his Characters, and for the remarkable Spirit, and Uniformity with which each of them is sustained. If he is sometimes faulty upon this Article it is to be ascribed to mere human Infirmity perhaps, or in some Cases to that Simplicity which, as has been said, distinguishes the Inventors of Arts and Sciences from the Improvers of them. To one of these it is probably owing that we see such a scandalous Character as that of Thersites in the Iliad, or so contemptible a one as that of Nireus: The latter, the most beautiful, the former, the most deformed Person of the Poem. 'Tis observable, Mr. Pope informs us, ‘that * Thersites is never heard of after his first Appearance: Such a scandalous Character is to be taken no more Notice of, than just to shew that 'tis despised.’ But whether ludicrous or scandalous Characters ‘ought to have Place in the Epic Poem may be justly [Page 380] questioned,’ or whether it be a Beauty or Propriety to introduce a Person but once, who seems to be utterly unworthy to appear at all. As for * Nireus, the Insignificancy of his Character, should, I think, have excluded him from the Iliad, who likewise makes his Appearance once too often. The Truth is, neither of these Personages are of any Service towards the Illustration of a principal Character. The Caution with which the Courage of Ulysses is tempered, sets off the Intrepidity of Diomed, and the Activity of Hector is finely opposed to the Immobility of Ajax; but the above-mentioned Gentlemen are at best unnecessary Contrasts to each other, and Foils to every Body else.—But that you may not imagine, I am industriously looking after Objections, and picking out Characters for the sake of finding Fault, (an Office I abhor) I must desire you to look a little farther into a Character or two of much higher Rank, which you will, I believe, find to be liable to the Objection of not being preserved with that Nicety of Consistence, and Uniformity, which is in general so Observable in this noble Writer. If you will judge of the Character of Menelaus, by the Idea which Mr. Pope justly gives us of him, †who has taken some Pains to place it in a true Point of View, you will be, [Page 381] I make no doubt, of Opinion, that ‘upon the whole, his Character is by no Means contemptible, tho' not of the most shining Nature: He is called indeed in the 17th Iliad. [...], a soft Warriour, or one whose Strength is of the second Rate; and so his Brother thought him when he preferred Nine before him to Fight with Hector, in the 7th Book.’ Thus far you may safely Subscribe to Mr. Pope's Notion of this Commander; but I am afraid what follows for the Display of the bright Side of this Character, will clash rather too much with these Concessions made to his Disadvantage. For how comes this soft Warriour (whom, you know, I have mentioned before in another Light,) to discover a ‘Spirit of Revenge which distinguishes him from all the other Greeks in the second Book,’ ‘No *Leader in all the List is represented so eager and passionate; he is louder than them all in his Exhortations; more active in running among the Troops, &c. &c.’
If Homer meant to shew us hereby that ‘† his Concern in the War was personal, while the others acted only for Interest or Glory in general,’ it is odd sure that he does not maintain this Priority of Zeal and Ardour, as a consequence [Page 382] of that Concern throughout the Poem. Again is it not hard to Account for his * Forwardness, to accept Hector's Challenge, who immediately afterwards was not thought worthy even to take his Chance of fighting with him? It may be said, that Agamemnon dissuades his brother from the Combat, from a Principle of Brotherly Love, not from any Distrust of his Courage, of which he appears to have so extraordinary an Opinion in the 4th Book, when Menelaus is wounded by Pandarus, that he expresses his Apprehensions, ‘that the Death of that Hero, will force the Greeks to return with shame to their Country.’
But if his Life was of such Consequence to Greece, he should never have been stiled a soft Warriour, or a Chief of the second Rate.
I will only point out to what I think rather an Oversight than not in Homer, with regard to another Character, and then quit the present Article of Inquiry; I mean the Character of Ajax, whom, not absolutely, but comparatively speaking, I can't look upon as a proper Person to be dispatched upon the Embassy to Achilles in the 9th Book. Mr. Pope however informs us ‘that the Choice of [Page 383] three †Persons (Phoenix, Ajax, and Ulysses) is made with a great deal of Judgment. Achilles could not but reverence the venerable Phoenix, &c. Ajax, and Ulysses, had been disgraced in the first Book (L. 187) as well as he, and were therefore proper Persons to persuade him to forgive, as they had forgiven; besides it was the greatest Honour that could be done to Achilles, to send the most worthy Personages in the Army to him. Ulysses was inferiour to none in Eloquence, but to Nestor. Ajax was second to none in Valour but to Achilles. Ajax might have an influence over him as a Relation, &c.’
Yet as ingenious as all this may be, 'tis certain, that of all the Heroes, Ajax was the worst Orator, and so far at least he was was unqualified for the Charge in Question.—He is by no means a favourite Character with the Poet himself; if he had he would have ‘given him a Prize probably in some of the Games in the 23d Book;’ one Reason why he did not, Mr. Pope supposes might be, because he had a Mind to shew that ‘Strength without Conduct, is usually unsuccessful,’ which gives us no favourable Idea of this Hero, and much less authorizes us to pronounce him one of the ‘most worthy Personages in the Army;’ that he was second to none [Page 384] in Strength but to Achilles, may be granted; but in Valour he has no doubt many Competitors.—In Truth I can't help looking upon this as a random Delegation, notwithstanding a few plausible Circumstances, which surely never entered the Author's Head, viz. the Disgrace of Ajax and Ulysses in the first Book, &c. (a Disgrace which, by the way, they neither of them resent, or allude to, in their Speeches to Achilles) or the Relationship of Ajax to that Hero, which he takes not the least Advantage of in his Address to him.—Mr. Pope in the Note last quoted, appears therefore rather to have acted the Part of a ready Friend, than an impartial Commentator.—I will only suppose, and have done, that Diomed had been employed in this Deputation instead of Ajax;—in that Case can't you conceive Mr. Pope would have expressed himself to the following Purpose? ‘It is with wonderful Art and Propriety, that Homer appoints Diomed one of the Embassadors upon this Occasion. It did Honour to Achilles to send upon this Business the most valiant, with the wisest of all the Grecian Commanders. Besides, Diomed *has more of the Character of Achilles himself, than any besides. He has naturally an Excess of Boldness, and too much Fury in his Temper, forward [Page 385] and intrepid like the other, and running after Gods or Men promiscuously as they offer themselves. Add to this, that as he is forward to act in the Field, so is he ready to speak in the Council; where his Advice always inclines to War; and is byassed rather on the Side of Bravery, than Caution. A Man of this Disposition was most likely to influence the Congenial Spirit of Achilles.’—An Ingenious Commentator may take a thousand Occasions of making the most of his Author, and convert Improprieties themselves into Beauties; of which I believe I shall be able to give you a few more Proofs in my remaining Criticisms upon the Iliad of Homer.
LETTER IX.
THE most material Remarks I have farther to make upon the particular Conduct of Homer, &c. I shall communicate to you in Order, as the Passages which seem exceptionable will occur in the Course of the Poem. The first that offers itself is the Interposition of Nestor in the first Book in the Speech wherein he endeavours to make up the Breach between the contending Princes, Achilles and Agamemnon; which, as the Design of the Iliad required it should be ineffectual, I could wish he had spared. Mr. Pope observes, ‘* that the Character of Authority [Page 386] and Wisdom in Nestor, is every where admirably used by Homer, and made to exert itself through all the great Emergencies of the Poem. As he quiets the Princes here (which how he does we shall see presently) he proposes that Expedient which reduces the Army into order, after the Sedition in the second Book. When the Greeks are in the utmost Distresses, 'tis he who advises the Building the Fortification before the Fleet, &c. And 'tis by his Persuasion that Patroclus puts on the Armour of Achilles, which occasions the return of that Hero, &c. &c.’ In these last mentioned Emergencies, indeed the Authority of this venerable Hero has all the Weight you can desire; but sure in the present Instance, in which if it had prevailed, all future Emergencies had been precluded, it was exerted to no, or at best, very little Purpose. The old Man is represented as Master of the Art of Persuasion, and rises to speak with all the Advantages of the sweetest Eloquence, and the Experience of two Generations; and he seems accordingly to promise himself Success in the Proposal of an Accommodation.
But what Effect, after all, has this Oratory? ‘Agamemnon confesses that all he spoke was right,’ but he will not relinquish his Pretensions to Briseïs. ‘Achilles promises not to fight for Briseïs,’ but neither will he for his Country; opprobious Language is given on both Sides; ‘the Council dissolves’ and the Calamities of Greece ensue. For which Reasons I think ‘the Eloquence of Homer's Nestor is thrown out of Character by its proving unavailable’ for the great End he designed it.—If he had not spoken at all, or upon offering to do it, had been interrupted, and prevented by the Fury of Achilles, who seems to have less Veneration for him, than Agamemnon, that Hero had acted in Character, and the Eloquence of the reverened Orator had never been exercised in vain.
The next Objection I have to make, is against the imprudent, and unnecessary Measure taken by Agamemnon, to sound the Disposition of the Grecians [Page 388] in the second Book, by proposing the Return of the Forces to Greece; a Proposal which had taken Effect, but for the Management of Ulysses, and Nestor. It is likely indeed, (to give you the Words of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, *who, in Mr. Pope's Opinion, has given us an admirable Explication of this whole Conduct) ‘Agamemnon (after his Quarrel with Achilles) had nothing so much at Heart as to draw the Greeks to a Battle, yet knew not how to proceed without Achilles, who had just retired from the Army: He was apprehensive that the Greeks who were displeased at the Departure of Achilles, might refuse Obedience to his Orders, should he absolutely command it. In this Circumstance he proposes an Expedient to the Princes in Council, which was that he should sound the Dispositions of the People, by exhorting them to set sail for Greece, but, that then, the other Princes should be ready to dissuade, and detain them.—He had some Cause to fear the Greeks had a Pique against him, which they had concealed, and whatever it was, he judged it absolutely necessary to know it, before he proceeded to a Battle. He therefore furnishes them with an Occasion to manifest it, and at the same Time provides against any ill Effects it [Page 389] might have by his secret Orders to the Princes. It succeeds accordingly, and when the Troops are running to embark, they are stopped by Ulysses and Nestor.’—Now not to insist upon an inaccuracy in this Note; i. e. that Agamemnon ‘judged it Necessary to know what the Pique the Grecians had against him was,’ which if they had any, could be no other than what arose from "their Displeasure at the departure of Achilles," as is expressed in the former Part of the Note; I say, not to dwell upon this, the Question is, whether this Stratagem was not absolutely superseded by the Vision sent by Jupiter to Agamemnon? The Design of this Vision was to deceive him into the Hope, or rather Assurance of taking Troy without the Assistance of Achilles. And it had its Effect. The General, persuaded, as it were by immediate Revelation, of Jupiter's Favour towards him, and Concern for his Glory, and exalted with the Thought of the promised Success to his Arms, communicates his Dream to the Princes in Council, who appear to a Man to be satisfied of the Reality of it, and of the Good-will of Jupiter to the Grecian Cause. Old Nestor gives his Advice in consequence of this Conviction.
Let me ask you now, whether, if this Dream had been communicated to the Troops, as well as the Council, they would not as readily have given Credit to it, and have been impatient to follow to battle a Leader who was the declared Favourite of Heaven? Would not the Belief of taking Troy in the next Attack, under his Command, have entirely removed the Pique they had conceived against him on Account of the Departure of Achilles? if so, as ingenious as the Stratagem in Question may be in itself, and as artful as the Speech of Agamemnon is, which he makes in pursuance of it, it seems to be an Expedient, to which, as Things were then circumstanced, he was not under the least Necessity, nor in Prudence concerned, to have Recourse.
If you will next turn to the 6th Book, I presume you will find an Inconsistency between Hector's very particular Prophecy of the Destruction of Troy, and his Prayer for his Son immediately after; as also, the "strong Hopes *and firm Assurance" [Page 391] he often entertains ‘of raising the Siege by the Flight or Destruction of the Greeks.’
[Page 392] I don't apprehend that what Mr. Pope has urged from Dacier, or advanced himself, in order to salve this Inconsistency, will afford us sufficient Satisfaction. ‘We ought to reflect, says he, that this is only a Prayer: Hector in the Excess of a tender Emotion for his Son, intreats the Gods to preserve Troy, and permit Astyanax to rule there. It is at all Times allowable to beseech Heaven to appease its Anger, and change its Decrees; and we are taught that Prayers can alter Destiny.’—We are taught, I conceive the very Reverse of this by the general Tenour of the Poem: This Assertion however, supposes Hector to have foreseen the Destruction of Troy, and the Ruin of his Family; and yet we are told in the next Sentence, ‘that it cannot be inferred from hence, that Hector had any divine Foreknowledge of his Fate, &c. since in many following Passages we find him possessed with strong Hopes, &c. to raise the Siege, &c.’ Is not this a sort of Confusion of Apologies, and a Defence of one Inconsistency by another? In short, the direct, and express Prophecy above quoted, cannot without much Force, be resolved into the mere ‘Apprehensions and Misgivings of a Soul dejected with Sorrow, &c. by considering the great Dangers to which he saw all that was dear to him exposed.’
[Page 393] But to proceed—The Circumstance of Jupiter's weighing in his Scales the Fates of Greece and Troy in the 8th Book, and those of Hector and Achilles in the 22d, has something very striking, and poetical in it, but at the same Time, is itself liable to the Objection made by Macrobius to Virgil's Imitation of it. ‘Macrobius, says *Mr. Pope, observes with some Colour, that the Application of this Circumstance is not so just in Virgil, as in our Author; for Virgil had made Juno say before, that Turnus would certainly perish.’
But is it not as clear that the Fates of Greece and Troy, and of Hector and Achilles in Homer, were respectively, to all Intents and Purposes, declared before this Suspension of the Scales?—Jupiter, in the Beginning of the 8th Book ‘threatens the Deities with the Pains of Tartarus, if they assist either Side,’ he had in the End of the the preceeding †Book given Tokens of his Wrath against the Grecians; and if we could doubt whether the Threatning just mentioned; was denounced in favour of the Trojans, Minerva's Request [Page 394] "that she may direct the Greeks by her Counsels" must abundantly convince us that it was.
In the Case of Hector, Jupiter is undeniably explicit; he declares the Fate of that Hero approaching, tho' he is inclined, with the Consent of the inferiour Deities, to rescue him from it.
So that Virgil appears at least not only to have copied this Circumstance from Homer, but to have applied it with more Justice; for what Juno said previously to the Suspension of the Scales, is not at least so glaring an Impropriety as what Jupiter says here himself. The best excuse perhaps for both these great Poets, we may borrow from a Note of Mr. Pope's, in the 20th Book, ‘* that it was not easy in the Pagan Religion, to form the justest Ideas upon a Doctrine (viz. that of Destiny, the Divine Power, &c.) so difficult to [Page 395] be cleared; and upon which it is no great Wonder if a Poet should not always be perfectly consistent with himself, when it has puzzled such a Number of Divines, and Philosophers.’
Before I quit this Remark, I must just take Notice of an Oversight in Mr. Pope, who tells us in his Note *upon the Circumstance of Jupiter's weighing the Fates, &c. that ‘This Figure representing God as weighing the destinies of Men in his Balances, was first made use of in Holy Writ.’ Are these only figurative Scales in Homer then? Sure Aeschylus did not look upon them to be such, when (as Mr. Pope informs us from Plutarch) ‘he wrote a whole Tragedy upon this Foundation, which he called Psychostatia, or the weighing of Souls. In this he introduced Thetis and Aurora standing on either Side of Jupiter's Scales, and praying each for her Son, while the Heroes fought.’ I don't see therefore how any Parallel can reasonably be drawn between this Passage, which must be literally understood in Homer, and those figurative Expressions in Scripture, ‘of being weighed in the Balance, and found light, &c. by which the Impartiality of divine Justice is significantly illustrated to the human Understanding. How [Page 396] far Milton may be warranted in borrowing’ this fine Fiction from Homer, which it is acknowledged "he has admirably improved" or in representing the Deity with a Pair of golden Compasses in his Hand upon another Occasion, it is not my present Business to inquire.—Thus much at least may be said in his Behalf, that Boldnesses give no Offence when there is no Allay of Impiety in them. These Remarks shall be continued in my next.
EETTER X.
IN the *12th Book of the Iliad we have an Account of a signal Prodigy which much awakens the Reader's Attention, but I think never satisfies it. I mean that of the Eagle with the Serpent in his Talons, &c. which appears over the Trojan Army. Polydamas †, upon duly considering it, pronounces it to be a Warning to them from Jupiter not to attempt the Grecian Entrenchments that Day, but to retreat, &c. ‘He tells Hector too that what he delivers is not Conjecture, but Science, and appeals for the Truth of it to the Augurs of the Army.’ But notwithstanding all this, Hector holds the Interpretation of the Omen in the utmost Contempt, and insinuates that ‘the Advice proceeded not from the Skill, but Cowardice’ [Page 397] of the Interpreter. He appears indeed to have been in the right not only from the Success of the Trojan Arms at the End of the Book, when Sarpedon ‘makes the first Breach in the Grecian Wall’ and himself forces open one of the "Gates," but even from the Countenance, and Assistance of Jupiter to the Trojans immediately after the Prodigy itself. For the Poet tells us at the Conclusion of Hector's Speech to Polydamas, and upon his "rushing to the Wall" (L. 295) that
Either therefore this Appearance had no Significancy in it, and then it will be difficult to account for the Solemnity with which Homer introduces it, or for his introducing it at all, or else it boded Misfortune to the Grecians; in which Case Polydamas, who is every where shewn in a favourable Light enough, makes if not a cowardly yet an ignorant Application of it.
Macrobius it seems *compares Virgil's Imitation of this Passage in the 11th Aeneid, V. 751, &c. with the Original, and ‘gives the Preference to [Page 398] the latter on Account of Virgil's having neglected to specify the Omen.’ Mr. Pope takes Notice in another Place of this Author's Partiality to Homer; and his Observation on this Circumstance is a strong Instance of it. ‘He should have considered (as Mr. Pope remarks) that Virgil had no Design, or Occasion to make an Omen of it; but took it only as a natural Image, to paint the Posture of two Warriours struggling with each other.’ What Design or Occasion Homer himself had for an Omen in this Place, you see 'tis not so easy to say; you have however a Proof of the Latin Poet's Judgment, and may observe that a needless, or unintelligible Prodigy in Homer will make an excellent Simile in Virgil.
The Recess *of the Gods in the 20th Book is an Incident, which Mr. Pope ‘wonders all the Commentators should be silent upon; it seems strange at the first View, says he, that so many Deities, after having entered the Scene of Action, should perform so short a Part and immediately become themselves Spectators.’ I must indeed look upon this as an Objection to the Conduct of the Poet. Let us hear however what Mr. Pope has urged in his Vindication. He ‘conceives then the Reason of this Conduct in the Poet to be, that Achilles has been inactive during the greatest Part of the Poem; and as he [Page 399] is the Hero of it, ought to be the chief Character in it: The Poet therefore withdraws the Gods from the Field, that Achilles may have the whole Honour of the Day, and not act in Subordination to the Deities; besides the Poem now draws to a Conclusion, and it is necessary for Homer to enlarge upon the Exploits of Achilles, that he may leave a noble Idea of his Valour upon the Mind of the Reader.’
Now I would take the Liberty to ask, whether it be derogatory to the important Character of Achilles to act in Subordination to the Deities? Whether their Superintendency and Assistance has not been an Honour to every Hero in the Course of the Iliad, particularly to Diomed in the fifth Book? Whether Achilles himself makes so great a Figure in this Book as he does in the next when ‘Scamander attacks him with all his Waves; when Neptune and Pallas *appear to assist him: Simois joins Scamander, and at length Vulcan, by the Instigation of Juno, almost dries up the River.’ Does the Interposition of these Deities do a Discredit to the Valour of Achilles, or ‘leave a less noble Idea of it upon the Mind of the Reader’ than he would have had without it?—I dare say you will agree with me that what Mr. Pope observes in the next Note is a kind of Answer to what he has advanced in this, and be [Page 400] convinced that the ‘magnificent Introduction of Achilles into the Field in the Beginning of this Book, when the Gods descend to Battle, and all Nature is in an Uproar, is not answered by any suitable Exploits of that Hero, or by any Atchievement worthy so pompous, and terrible an Apparatus! After the Gods are withdrawn, Achilles and Aeneas meet; but in the very Moment, you expect to see a bloody Combat, you are entertained with a tedious Conversation.’ Take Mr. Pope's own Words.—* ‘Our Expectation is raised to see Gods and Heroes engaged, when suddenly it all sinks into such a Combat in which neither Party receives a Wound; and (what is more extraordinary) the Gods are made the Spectators of so small an Action. What Occasion was there for Thunder, Earthquakes, and descending Deities to introduce a Matter of so little Importance. Neither is it any Excuse to say the Poet has given us a Piece of ancient History, we expected to read a Poet not an Historian. In short after the greatest Preparation for Action imaginable, he suspends the whole Narration, and from the Heat of a Poet, cools at once into the Simplicity of an Historian.’
I can't help asking here, whether this be the first Time Homer is faulty in this Respect? To acquiesce in Mr. Pope's ingenious Justification of the [Page 401] Interview between Glaucus and Diomed *in the 6th Book, which has occasioned so much Censure, I fear the Speech of Nestor to Patroclus in the 11th Book is equally blameable with the Conversation in Question. Machaon is wounded: Achilles (who overlooked the Action from his Ship) sends Patroclus to inquire whether it was he, &c. That Hero has no sooner entered Nestor's Tent, but he sees Machaon bleeding, and is impatient to return to his Friend with the News; upon this Nestor ‘detains him in his Tent standing with a Speech greatly blameable for being too long: he †crouds Incident upon Incident, and when he speaks of himself he expatiates upon his own great Actions, very naturally indeed to old Age, but unseasonably in the present Juncture, &c. &c. &c. The Circumstances he mentions as they have no visible Allusion to the Design of the Speech, seem to be unfortunately introduced. In short, I think they are not so valuable upon any other Account, as because they preserve a Piece of ancient History, &c.’ Perhaps the Piece of ancient History preserv'd here is no more valuable than that which Aeneas leaves us in the above Conversation:—but be that as it will, it is methinks surprizing to find Mr. Pope, after having so impartially given up the Passage, looking after Excuses and Pretences to palliate this Conduct [Page 402] of his Author. I will only mention one on which most Stress seems to be laid. ‘It may not be from the Purpose to observe (says our English Homer) that Nestor might designedly protract the Speech that Partoclus might himself behold the Distress of the Army, &c. whether this was the Intention or not, it must be allowed that the Stay of Patroclus was very happy for the Greeks; for by this Means he met Eurypylus wounded, who confirmed him into a Certainty, that their Affairs were desperate without Achilles's Aid.’ Did Patroclus want to be told this then after the Embassy to Achilles in the 9th Book? or, after Achilles had told him, (what he could not indeed be ignorant of) when he dispatched him upon this very Message, that
In short, any Absurdity may be refined away, if the present can, and if it may be made to appear that the Length of Nestor's Speech, the Interview of Patroclus and Eurypylus, and the farther Delay occasioned by the former's Stay, to cure the Wounds of the latter, which might have been effected by another Hand, were proper, and well timed in this Place.
But to return to the Deities. The magnificent Introduction of the Gods above referred to, so much extolled by Longinus, *seems to be the utmost Effort of Homer's prodigious Genius; and after all, perhaps we must ascribe their Recess so soon to the Poet's consciousness of the Inequality of human Nature, to so exalted a Subject. 'Tis certain the Sublimity of the Passage before us consists not so much in the Horrours of an actual Combat, as in the dreadful Pomp of Preparation. But you will desire to know what became of this supposed Consciousness in the next Book, when the Deities are really described ‘engaging each other.’ To which I can only say, that, whatever induced Homer to attempt here, what he seems to have declined before; I am apt to think the Battle of the Gods the worst, upon the whole, that occurs in the Poem. Mr. Pope himself is much of the same Opinion, you will naturally imagine, in the following Remark upon it. ‘†I must confess I am at a loss how to justify Homer in every point of these Combats with the [Page 404] Gods: When Diana and Juno are to fight, Juno calls her an impudent Bitch, [...]; when they fight, she boxes her soundly, and sends her crying and trembling to Heav'n: As soon as she comes thither, Jupiter falls a laughing at her: Indeed the rest of the Deities seem to be in a merry Vein during all the Action; (tho' Mr. Pope should have excepted Neptune, and Apollo, from the first of which Gods we have another Piece of antient History;) Pallas beats Mars, and laughs at him; Jupiter sees them in the same merry Mood; Juno when she had cuffed Diana, is not more serious: In short unless there be Depths that I am not able to Fathom, Homer never better deserved, than in this Place, the Censure past upon him by the Antients, that as he raised the Characters of his Men up to Gods, so he sunk those of Gods down to Men,’ or even below them.
Mr. Pope is willing to believe, however, that an Allegory may be couched under all this, and I wish any Body could discover it: In the mean Time I can't but observe, that 'tis great Pity the Gods and Goddesses that often appear so nobly in separate Machines throughout the Iliad, should make so mean a Figure in the present Battle.
I must request your Attention to one Incident more, which Mr. Pope would fain reconcile us to, viz. the Flight of Hector in the 22d Book. I apprehend [Page 405] that what that Commentator alledges from the *Conduct of Virgil, ‘who transferred this Passage to the Death of Turnus,’ and likewise from the Doctrine of Aristotle, is extremely insufficient for his Purpose. Turnus is a Character much inferiour to Aeneas, and therefore we are little shocked at his running away from him. But this is confessedly not the Case, the Point of mere Strength excepted, with Hector when compared to Achilles. It was, you'll say, that very Strength which he feared—was it not, that very Strength too, which he had frequently encountered? And if it was not necessary he should fly; I will venture to say it is a Circumstance infinitely disagreeable to the Reader, that he does.
Nor farther is "the Suffrage of Aristotle" himself, if I understand it at all, satisfactory upon this Point. ‘The wonderful, says he, ought to have Place in Tragedy, but still more in Epic Poetry, which proceeds in this Point even to the unreasonable: For as in Epic Poems one sees not the Persons acting, so whatever passes the Bounds of Reason, is proper to Produce the admirable and the marvellous. For Example, what Homer says of Hector pursued by Achilles, would appear ridiculous on the Stage; for the Spectators could not forbear laughing to see on [Page 406] one Side the Greeks standing without any Motion, and on the other, Achilles pursuing Hector &c. &c. But all this does not appear when we read the Poem; for what is wonderful, is always agreeable, and as a Proof of it, we find that they who relate any Thing, usually add something to the Truth, that it may the better please those who hear it.’
What can we infer from all this, but that the Flight of Hector round the Walls of Troy, is an Action, which, as such, will much better bear being told, than represented? No doubt of it—but is an Action, all this while, which is unreasonable in itself, therefore agreeable, because it may be told with Propriety? Do we never wonder without admiring, or marvel with Disgust, as well as Delight? I will grant this Incident renders this Part of the Poem more astonishing, as Aristotle says in a subsequent Paragraph of Mr. Pope's Note; but why it is more admirable, I am quite at a loss to conceive.
What Mr. Pope urges himself in Vindication of this Circumstance, has much more Weight in it; as ‘that Hector never thought himself a Match for Achilles; that this Incident is prepared by Degrees, as Dacier has observed too; that, the mere Sight and Voice of Achilles unarmed, has terrified and put the whole Trojan Army into Disorder: That Hector stays, not that [Page 407] he Hopes to overcome Achilles, but because, Shame, &c. forbid him to re-enter the City; that he stayed by the immediate Will of Heaven, irresistibly bound down by Fate: That he had been reflecting on the Injustice of the War he maintained; that his Spirits are depressed by Heaven: That he flies not from Achilles as a mortal Hero, but from one whom he sees clad in impenetrable Armour, seconded by Minerva, &c. &c.’ which Considerations do indeed amount to a Proof of the Probability of Hector's Flight, but, I think, are no Argument for the Necessity of it. In short, as Mr. Pope himself says, ‘he don't absolutely pretend to justify this Passage in every Point,’ I presume I may venture to say, if Hector had stood his Ground, we should have liked the Poem better for it.
I can't think, by the way, that it is ‘a high Exaltation of Achilles, that so brave a Man as Hector durst not stand him.’ It would methinks have redounded more to Achilles's Glory, had Hector been represented as a Match for him. Indeed ‘this great Event, wherein the whole Fate of Greece and Troy was decided by the Sword of Achilles, and Hector,’ does less Honour to that Hero than any one Action he had been engaged in, for the last of the above Reasons alledged for Hector's Flight, and besause ‘he knew that Hector was to fall by his Hand.’ He was assured of this by Neptune, and Pallas in the 21st. Book.
And again by Minerva, just before his Engagement with Hector. *Nay he tells Hector himself,
And yet Mr. Pope inserts an Observation in † the 24th. Book, which he informs us ought to have been made before; which is, ‘that Achilles did not know that Hector was to fall by his Hand; if he had known it, where would have been the mighty Courage, in engaging him in a single Combat, in which he was sure to conquer? The contrary of this is evident (continues he) from the Words of Achilles to Hector just before the Combat.’—‘I will make no Compacts with thee, but one of us shall fall.’—But sure this Declaration is very consistent with the Knowledge of his future Success, even tho' it had been less clearly ascertained to him.
I hope these Remarks are sufficient to support my former Assertions in regard to Homer: I shall just mention a few Particulars more in my next, in order to make my Criticism as complete as I can, under the present Form, and to corroborate what has been repeatedly advanced, and then take my leave, for a Time, of this noble Author.
LETTER XI.
IF you consider the Iliad of Homer with any thing of exactness of Attention, you will perceive numberless Marks of a Genius, thoughtless of, or, it may be, superiour to the Niceties, and Proprieties in which the Excellencies of second-rate Authors wholly consist. To what has been offered already for the Illustration of this Truth you may add, if you please, the Repetitions with which Homer so much abounds. I am far from asserting that these are never proper, tho' they are often, as Mr. Pope confesses, *visibly absurd. I will only point out one Place, where it is owing to a Repetition, that the very Design of the Author cannot easily be understood: I mean the Speech of Agamemnon in the 9th Book, wherein he proposes to the Generals to quit the Siege, &c. ‘The Criticks †are divided in their Opinion, Mr. Pope acquaints us, whether this Speech, which is Word for Word the same with that Agamemnon makes in the 2d Book, be only a Feint to try the Army, as it is there, or the real Sentiments of the General.’ Mr. Pope says, ‘He does not pretend to decide upon this Point’ nor is it indeed of any great Consequence, any farther than as it makes good what has been remarked; however that Agamemnon upon this Occasion spoke his real Sentiments is, I think most probable, because upon a Parallel one in the 14th Book, he proposes the very [Page 410] same Thing to the Grecian Princes, tho' in different Words.
Again, it is in my Opinion more reasonable to put the frequent Incongruities we meet with in Homer to the Account of Inadvertency, &c. than to reconcile them by forced and unnatural Constructions. Thus Minerva, who is always represented as prudently suppressing her Anger upon Jupiter's declaring himself for Troy, does yet in one Place *break out into as much Virulency of Language as Juno herself.—Thus Neptune in the same Book, when Juno sollicits him to assist the Greeks, rejects so desperate a Proposal with Indignation;
But in the 15th Book he talks in a quite different Strain, and seems determined to dispute the Superiority with Jupiter himself.
—Thus Diomed, to give you one Instance more, ‘is seized with Fear at the very Sight †of Hector [Page 411] in the 11th Book for which Mr. Pope gives us no other Reason than that’ Diomed had just told ‘us, that Jupiter fought against the Grecians, and yet in the 8th Book, when that Deity ‡personally interposes, and throws a burning Thunderbolt at the Feet of this Hero's Horses,’ he can scarce prevail with himself to retreat.
It should be remembered too, that at the very Time when Diomed is struck with this Panick the Poet tells us (notwithstanding the Favour of Jupiter to Troy) the Battle was doubtful.
Nay at that Instant the Greeks were Victors. Ulysses kills Hypirochus and Hippodamus: Diomed slays Agastrophus, and even gives Hector a Blow that stuns him, and insults him afterwards, &c. (see from Line 416 to 474.) It is needless to multiply such Examples.
I should lastly be inclined to ascribe to the same Cause the frequent Unsuitableness of Homer's Epithets, &c. which as they are sometimes distinctive and specific, if I may so say, so are they often general and applied at random. Priam (as Mr. Pope [Page 412] himself has *observ'd) is stiled [...] when ‘he rejects the wholsome Advice of Antenor, and complies with his Son.’—It is the [...] the godlike Polydore, whom Achilles kills in the 20th Book; and yet †this Hero is only the youngest Son of Priam, was forbidden to fight, and famous only for the Swiftness of his Speed, &c.
The Mention of these glaring Improprieties, is abundantly sufficient for the Purpose; else you might be directed to many more of the like Sort in almost any Book of the Poem: Though they may not be improper in an equal Degree.
I have now finished my Remarks upon the Iliad of Homer with as much Accuracy, I hope, as was requisite; and must leave it to your Consideration, whether the common Opinion in respect of this Poet, founded on the Interpretations, and the Prejudices, &c. of the Commentators, be not on many Accounts an erroneous one. If you will suppose this Author to have been not only the most sublime, but the most simple too of all Writers, you will, I believe, have a much more natural and ready Excuse for many of his Blemishes than the Shifts and Glosses of Interpreters [Page 413] can supply you with. Indeed these Defects in an original Author, who was inspired with the Spirit of Poetry even to a Degree of Enthusiasm (to which Inadvertency and Extravagance are essential) will in a great Measure carry their Apology with them.—I have given you my Sentiments impartially, and should take a much greater Pleasure in reviewing the Beauties of this admirable Poet than I have done in arraigning his Faults; but Mr. Pope, to whom I refer you, has illustrated these to more Advantage than I could.—The Practice of succeeding Writers of many Denominations is a Demonstration that we may find a great deal more in Homer to imitate than to avoid. To convince you of my high Esteem of him, and that I mean to part in Friendship with him, I will finish with Part of that Translation from Longinus, varying only, and abating an Expression or two, which concludes Mr. Pope's Notes on the sixth Book. ‘In our Decisions on the Characters of great Men, &c. we must impartially confess, that, with all their Errors, they have more Perfections than the Nature of Man can almost be conceived capable of attaining.—He who commits no Faults is barely read without Censure; but a Genius truly great excites Admiration. In short the Magnificence of a single Period in one of these admirable Authors is, almost, sufficient to atone for all their Defects: Nay farther, if any [Page 414] one should collect from Homer all the Errors that have escaped him, they would bear but little Proportion to the many Beauties to be met with in, almost, every Page of his Writings. 'Tis on this Account that Envy, through so many Ages hath never been able to wrest from him the Prize of Eloquence, &c. &c. which his Merits have so justly acquired: An Acquisition which he still is, and will in all Probability continue possessed of,’
LETTER XII.
IN my former Letters I endeavoured to entertain you with some free, but, I hope, just Remarks upon Mr. Pope's Commentaries upon Homer. If you please we will now take a short Review of that excellent Person's Translation of the same incomparable Author. I must once more prevent your Surprize, and perhaps your Indignation, by declaring that I agree with all the World in allowing this to be, in the main, the best Translation, that our, or it may be, any Language has produced. If I think we might have had a better Translation in some few Respects, I only mean that we might have had it from Mr. Pope [Page 415] himself. Nay, I will go a Step further, and grant you with much Satisfaction that this celebrated Translator always errs on the right Side, and even when he does not do his Reader Justice, never fails to do Honour to his Original: I should rather say, to himself; for if Boldness of Figure, Force of Expression, Smoothness and Ease of Numbers, and the Correspondence of Sound with Sense, be the great Beauties of poetical Diction, I should make no Scruple, upon the whole, to prefer the English Iliad, to the Greek. But these very Excellencies are in some Sort his Errors, and what I admire in this Poem, I can't help often considering as blameable in the Translation. In short, it is the Over-poeticalness of this Translation, if I may so call it, which I take to be exceptionable in many Place. And yet, as there was no Danger of so naturally a warm Translator's sinking into Flatness, and Insipidity, so one would have thought he had laid himself under Restraints sufficient to have prevented his ever soaring into the other Extreme of Rapture, and Extravagance.—There is not more Fire in any one Part of the Translation, than there is good Sense and cool Reasoning in the following Extract from the Preface. ‘It should be considered what Methods may afford some Equivalent in our Language for the Graces of these (viz. the Diction and Versification) in the Greek. It is certain [Page 416] no literal Translation can be just to an excellent Original in a superior Language; but it is a great Mistake to imagine that a rash Paraphrase can make Amends for this general Defect; which is no less in Danger to lose the Spirit of an Ancient, by deviating into the modern Manners of Expression. If there be sometimes a Darkness, there is often a Light in Antiquity, which nothing better preserves than a Version almost literal. I know no Liberties one ought to take, but those which are necessary for translating the Spirit of the Original, and supporting the poetical Style of the Translation: And I will venture to say, there have not been more Men misled in former Times by a servile dull Adherence to the Letter, than have been deluded in ours, by a chimerical insolent Hope of raising and improving their Author. It is not to be doubted that the Fire of the Poem is what a Translator should principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his managing: However it is his safest Way to be content with preserving this to his utmost in the whole, without endeavouring to be more than he finds his Author is, in any particular Place. 'Tis a great Secret in writing to know when to be plain, and when poetical and figurative; and it is what Homer will teach us, if we will but follow modestly in his Footsteps. [Page 417] Where his Diction is bold and lofty, let us raise ours as high as we can; but where his is plain and humble, we ought not to be deterred from imitating him by the fear of incurring the Censure of a mere English Critick. Nothing that belongs to Homer seems to have been more commonly mistaken than the just Pitch of his Style; some of his Translators having swelled into Fustian in a proud Confidence of the Sublime: Others sunk into Flatness in a cold and timorous Notion of Simplicity.—There is a graceful, and dignified Simplicity, as well as a bald and sordid one, &c.—'Tis one Thing to be nicked up, and another not to be dressed at all. Simplicity is the mien between Ostentation and Rusticity.’
If Mr. Pope had always conducted his Translation conformably to these just Sentiments, it would have been the most exact, as it is now the most Spirited one extant: But, I believe, you will by and by be convinced that he has often modernized his Original too much, and sacrificed the true Simplicity of the Antients in general, and the particular Air, and Cast of his Author, either to an Excess of Affection for him, and Desire to set his Work in the most advantageous Light to the English Reader, or to an undue Fear of lessening and injuring him thro' the Inferiority of our Language to the Grecian in many Respects. To one or [Page 418] both of those we are indebted, I presume, for many bold Strokes of Poetry, and fine Pieces of Painting, and Imagery, which are not so much Copies of, as Refinements on, the Original.
And, by the Way, it may be remarked that Mr. Pope should have been more than ordinarily cautious upon this Article, as he was under an absolute Necessity of sinking some Peculiarities in Homer's Diction, which would not bear Transplanting into our Tongue. Such are his compound Epithets, and Repetitions. How our Translator has acquitted himself with regard to these, you will be best informed by consulting himself. *
It is however to be observed in general, that every Thing characteristical in an Author, is, as far as may be, to be most religiously retained; and that, notwithstanding the allowed occasional Use of the Periphrasis, or Circumlocution, the Transposition of Words, and the Substitution of one Expression in the Room of another, &c. &c. by Means of which the Spirit of an Original is preserved without Prejudice to the literal Sense, all imaginable Care is to be taken that these Liberties under the Pretence of maintaining and supporting this Spirit, do not really over-power, and extinguish it. Redundancies are as unoriginal as Insipidities, and the Spirit of an Author may be [Page 419] as much overwhelmed in Exuberance on the one Hand, as it evaporates in Frigidity on the other.—Fire and Water are scarce more opposite than Mr. Pope's Translation of the Iliad, and that of the Aeneid by Dr. Trapp; I am apt to think we shall often form very wrong Ideas of these Poems if we regulate them by these respective Translations; for Mr. Pope seems to have exalted the true Simplicity of Homer, as "graceful and dignified" as it is, in the same Degree that the Doctor has debased the Majesty of Virgil.
You will begin to think it high Time I should make good this Charge, which I shall accordingly endeavour to do by pointing to a few select Passages out of Numbers that might be produced, in which you will plainly discover certain Boldnesses, and Prettynesses, (for you must gratify me in the Use of that Term for them) and very frequently a Mixture of both, that were taken from the Store-house of Mr. Pope's own Imagination, and are utterly foreign to, and destructive of, the plain Scope, and unaffected Spirit of his Author.
There is not perhaps in all the Iliad a more pompous Description than that of Achilles arming himself in the 19th Book. The Comparisons, and Images, (as Mr. Pope well observes) ‘rise in a noble Scale one above another; the Hero is set in a still stronger Point of Light than before, till he is at last in a Manner covered over with [Page 420] Glories; he is at first likened to the Moonlight, then to the Flames of a Beacon, then to a Comet, and lastly to the Sun itself.’ But with all this Sublimity, and almost Enthusiasm, there is a Simplicity which is, I conceive, lost in that Exaggeration of Imagery with which the Translator has embelished the Passage. The whole Description, which is too long to be transcribed, is rather loosely paraphrased perhaps than otherwise, but the Parts I have marked are so many beautiful Excrescencies, which have no Sort of Warrant from the Letter, or most of them even from the Import of the Text.
[Page 421] The following Passages seem liable to the same Objections with the preceding.
Mr. Pope tells us, ‘Homer has * Figures of that Boldness which it is impossible to preserve in another Language.’ It may be sometimes very true; but if you will be at the Pains of comparing these Transcripts with the Original, I believe you will think that the very Figure in the Greek which occasioned that Observation ( [...], my Spear is Mad) hardly ranks higher than the Major Part of those which I have quoted.—I will conclude this Letter with repeating one general Remark, that Mr. Pope, by improving, and embellishing a simple Hint in his Author, and raising pompous Superstructures upon plain Foundations, and by too frequently giving a loose to his own Fancy, has in many Places rather poetically paraphrased Homer, than translated him.
LETTER XIII.
AS there are certain heterogeneous, and unhomerical Boldnesses in Mr. Pope's Translation, if you will permit me to call them so, so there are several Prettynesses, as has been hinted, which, I presume, will fall under the same Denominations. The following are a few of the most remarkable.
These last cited Verses put me in Mind of Mr. Pope's Descriptions of the Morning throughout this Translation, which (one only excepted, see Ver. 131. B. 23.) are much more elegant and picturesque than their Counterparts in the Original.
The Affectation of Poetry in all these Places has diffused an Air over Mr. Pope's Translation quite different from the neat, but generally unornamented Style of his Author, to which the inexpressible simplex munditiis of Horace may pertinently enough be applied. It is owing to this that we meet with such figurative Expressions as these,
To which we may subjoin a Multitude of others similar to them throughout the English Iliad— [Page 427] as—bristling Lances—the steely Circle—dark Show'rs of Jav'lins—the Tide of Combat—the Stream of Fight—the Tide of War—the wooden Tempest—the rocky Show'r—the living Flame, or Fire—the Tide of Trojans—Life's purple Tide—&c. &c. &c. in the free, and unlimited Use of which the Translation is, I apprehend, little justified by the Original.
I have often thought it was with the same View to Ornament, &c. &c. that Mr. Pope wrote his Translation in Rhime. However what Advantages were hereby gained we shall see presently; but it is certain in the mean time that by the Use of it, the Translation becomes absolutely modern, and in its very Form unlike the Original. Mr. Dryden says in his Dedication prefixed to his Translation of the Aeneid, ‘that he who can write well in Rhime, may write better in blank Verse;’ and that ‘Rhime is a Constraint even to the best Poets, and those who make it with most Ease; that what it adds to Sweetness, it takes away from Sense; and that it often makes us swerve from an Author's Meaning.’—I wish, by the by, Mr. Dryden had not asserted one Way and translated another.—It is plain the Superfluities complained of in Mr. Pope are in a great Measure to be imputed to this Method of Translation.
I believe you have had some Instances of this already, but the following are notorious ones.
I have purposely selected these Verses because, excepting the mark'd Redundancies which the Rhime required, they are as close a Translation, as any in the whole Performance. Mr. Pope no doubt was sensible of this Inconvenience naturally inseparable from Rhime; but he supposed probably, the Advantage gained thereby in point of Smoothness, and Harmony would make sufficient Amends for it. Of all Things he would not have his Author thought unpoetical, though there are certainly many Passages in him, which, as Mr. Pope himself occasionally acknowledges, are ‘not made to [Page 429] shine in Poetry.’ It would be tedious to pick out all these, and therefore I will only, for Illustration's Sake, transcribe a very remarkable one, in which a most simple, unadorned Narration of Homer consisting of a List of proper Names, and those even without Epithets for the far greater Part, is, by Virtue of Mr. Pope's Adjuncts, Circumlocutions, and Rhimes, transformed into as poetical and entertaining a Description as most in the Iliad.
[Page 430] This whole Passage, which makes so pretty a Figure in Mr. Pope's Hands, if literally (I mean fairly) translated, and that too in blank Verse, would undoubtedly be very flat and spiritless.
are more just Translations than any two Lines of the whole Number though they have neither Fire, nor Fancy in them. In such Places as these Rhime may among other Expedients help to save the poetical Character of an Author by giving a seeming Equivalent for Spirit in Sound.—But why must a Translation be beautiful and poetical when the Original is not so?—It is the Business of a Translator to give us the whole of an Author, not at all Events to make the best of him.—I will venture to say that had Mr. Pope<