Ꮓ The Boys and Girls whom Charity maintains, 231Implore your help in these pathetic strains: a How could Devotion touch the country pews, Verse chears their leisure, Verse affists their work, C Verse prays for Peace, or fings down Pope and Turk. 236 The filenc'd Preacher yields to potent strain, e Our rural Ancestors, with little bleft, Patient of labour when the end was reft, 240 246 Indulg'd the day that hous'd their annual grain, 250 But NOTES. devoutly employed by a fenfible organist, the union of this inftrument with the voices of a well-inftructed congregation, forms one of the grandest scenes of unaffected piety that human nature can afford. The reverse of this appears, when a company of illiterate people form themselves into a choir distinct from the congregation. Here devotion is loft between the impotent vanity of those who fing, and the ignorant wonder of those who liften. But Mr. Mafon has exhausted this subject in his very judicious and elegant Effay on Pfalmody. WARTON. Libertafque recurrentes accepta per annos h * Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes Intulit agrefti Latio. fic horridus ille NOTES. Defluxit VER. 263. We conquer'd France,] Pope has failed in afcribing that introduction of our polite literature to France, which Horace attributes to Greece among the Romans (ver. 15. orig.). It was to Italy, among the moderns, that we owed our true taste in poetry. Spenfer and Milton imitated the Italians, and not the French. And if he had correctnefs in his view, let us remember, that in point of regularity and correctnefs, the French had no dramatic piece equal to the Silent Woman of Ben Jonson, performed 1609; at which time Corneille was but three years old. The rules of the drama are as much violated in the Cid, 167, beautiful as it is, as in the Macbeth, Lear, and Othello, all written before Corneille was born; whofe first comedy, Melite, which is now never acted, was represented 1624. The pieces of the very fertile Hardy (for he wrote fix hundred), the immediate predeceffor of Corneille, are full of improbabilițies, indecorums, and abfurdities, and by no means comparable to Melite. As to the correctness of the French stage, of which we hear fo much, the rules of the three unities are indeed rigorously and fcrupulouíly obferved; but the best of their tragedies, even fome of those of the sweet and exact Racine, have defects of another kind, and are what may be juflly called defcriptive and declamatory dramas; and contain the fentiments and feelings of the author, or the Spectator, But Times corrupt, and Nature, ill-inclin❜d, h And heals with Morals what it hurts with Wit. * We conquer'd France, but felt our Captive's charms; Her Arts victorious triumph'd o'er our Arms; NOTES. Britain fpectator, rather than of the perfon introduced as speaking. "After the Reftoration," fays Pope, in the margin, “Waller, with the Earl of Dorfet, Mr. Godolphin, and others, tranflated the Pompey of Corneille; and the more correct French poets began to be in reputation." But the model was unfortunately and injudiciously chofen; for the Pompey of Corneille is one of his moft exceptionable tragedies. And the rhyme translation they gave of it is performed pitifully enough. Even Voltaire confeffes, that Corneille is always making his heroes say of themselves, that they are great men. Pope mentions only Waller and Denham as mafters of verfification; What! did Milton contribute nothing to the harmony and extent of our language? no. thing to our national taste, by his noble imitations of Homer, Virgil, and the Greek tragedies? Surely his verses vary, and refound as much, and difplay as much majefty and energy as any that can be found in Dryden. And we will venture to say, that he that ftudies Milton attentively, will gain a truer taste for genuine poetry, than he that forms himself on French writers, and their followers. WARTON. 1 Defluxit numerus Saturnius, et grave virus Munditia pepulere: fed in longum tamen ævum D Et poft " Punica bella quietus quærere cœpit, Quod Sophocles et Thefpis et Æfchylus utile ferrent: Tentavit quoque rem, fi digne vertere poffet: Et placuit fibi, natura fublimis et acer : NOTES. Nam VER. 267. Waller was fmooth;] Mr. Waller, about this time, with the Earl of Dorfet, Mr. Godolphin, and others, tranflated the Pompey of Corneille, and the more correct French poets began to be in reputation. POPE. VER. 269. The long majeflic March,] But Dryden himself fays, that he used the Alexandrine line in imitation of Spenfer. It cannot be allowed that Pope, as is afferted in the following note, by his perpetual encomiums preserved his Master falling into neglect. This truly great but incorrect Poet stood in no need of fuch affiftance. WARTON. VER. 269. Energy divine.] Mr. Pope's gratitude, for what he owed to the Genius and Writings of this great Poet, occafioned thefe perpetual encomiums; which have preferved his Mafter from falling into neglect, and have even raised his reputation higher than ever. Cicero did the fame grateful office to Craffus and Antonius, to whom he had the fame obligations. One of the principal reasons he gives for making them the chief Speakers in his famous Dialogue de Oratore is, "ut laudem eorum jam prope fenefcentem quantum ego poffem (fays he) ab oblivione hominum, atque a filentio vindicarem-deberi hoc a me tantis hominum ingeniis putavi." WARBURTON. VER. 274. Corneille's noble fire,] Father Tournemine used to relate, that M. de Chalons, who had been fecretary to Mary de Medicis, and had retired to Rouen, was the perfon who advised Corneille to study the Spanish language; and read to him fome paffages of Guillon de Caftro, which ftruck Corneille fo much, that he determined to imitate his Cid. The artifices used by Richlieu, and the engines he fet to work to erush this fine play, are Britain to foft refinements lefs a foe, Wit grew polite, and Numbers learn'd to flow. Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire, Show'd us that France had fomething to admire. NOTES. 265 } 270 Not are well known. Not one of the Cardinal's tools was fo vehement as the Abbe d'Aubignac; who attacked Corneille on account of his family, his perfon, his gesture, his voice, and even the conduct of his domestic affairs. When the Cid firft appeared, fays Fontenelle, the Cardinal was as much alarmed as it he had feen the Spaniards at the gates of Paris. In the year 1635, Richlieu, in the midst of the important political concerns that occupied his mighty genius, wrote the greatest part of a play, called La Comedie des Tuilleries, in which Corneille proposed some alterations to be made in the third act: which honeft freedom the Cardinal never forgave. The Medea of Corneille was played 1635. It was the first tolerable tragedy produced in France after the Sophonisba of Mairet, 1633. It is remarkable, that, both in Italy and France, Sophonisba was the story that gave raise to the drama from the hands of Triffino and Mairet. WARTON. VER. 275. Something to admire.] How highly foever we ought to think of the exact Racine, who deferved a stronger epithet, and of the spirited Corneille, France fhewed us also another Poet worthy admiration, I mean Moliere; who, in his way, is equal, if not fuperior, to the two former; I fear we have no English writer of comedy whom we can put in competition with Moliere. Yet this incomparable writer, whose comedies are a school of virtue, |