of an unfaithful imitation: Now the mind has but an imperfect knowlege of paffions which the heart never felt; all the information we can receive from others, being infufficient to give us a just and precife idea of the agitations of a heart over which they tyrannize. Secondly, our heart must have very little inclination. to fuch paffions as we have been infenfible of, at twenty-five years of age. The heart attains to its full strength much earlier than the mind; and it is almost impoffible, methinks, for a man of that age not to have felt the motions of all those paffions, which he is fated to by his conftitution.

It is very common to form a judgment of the natural motions of the heart in general, by what we feel ourselves. Those who have no propenfity to a particular paffion,

paffion, are apt to imagine that the tranf ports with which a poet fills his fcenes, and which he difplays as a natural confequence of a paffion that has never made any impreffions on them, are not expofed according to truth. Either the confequences of fuch a paffion appear to them as mere fallies of the irregular fancy of an extravagant poet; or elfe the perfonages of the piece cease to have the power of interefting them. They regard them no longer as men disturbed with paffion, but as perfons fallen into a state of real phrenzy and madness. According to their way of thinking, thefe people are lefs proper to form a character for the imitation of the ftage, than to be confined to fome of thofe houfes, wherein polite nations fhut up fuch as are difordered in their intellects. Poets therefore cannot be blamed for chufing for the

fubject

fubject of their imitations the effects of thofe paffions, of which men are most fufceptible. Now of all paffions, love is the most general; there being scarce any body but what has had the misfortune of feeling the effects of it, in fomeparts of his life. This is fufficient to engage a person to fympathize with fuch as groan under its tyrannical fway *. Surely, therefore, our poets cannot be blamed for founding fo many of their tragedies on a love-plot. But though this paffion, when made the foundation of the fubject, is fo extremely proper, yet when introduced in a fecondary epifodical manner, it is generally vicious. Thus the loves

* De toutes les paffions celle de l'amour est la plus generale: il n'eft prefque perfonne qui n'ait eu le malheur de la fentir du moins une fois en fa vie. C'en eft affez pour s'intereffer avec affection aux peines de ceux qu'elle tyrannife.

Reflexions Critiques, tome i. § 17.

of

of Juba and Marcia, and of Portius and Lucia, in Addifon's Cato, are vicious and infipid episodes, debafe the dignity, and deftroy the unity of the fable*. Mr. Mafon also justly obferves, that love is a very improper fubject, when not the principal one of tragedy +. Voltaire fays, love must either reign with fovereign fway, or be totally left out: it cannot be made ufe of as a fecondary paffion . And d'Alembert remarks, "Ce fentiment exclufif & impérieux, fi propre à nous confoler de tout, ou à nous rendre tout infupportable, à nous faire jouir de notre existence, ou à nous la faire détefter, veut être fur la théatre comme dans nos cœurs, y régner feul & fans partage. Par-tout ou il ne joue pas le premier rôle, il eft dégradé par le fecond ||."

*Effay on Pope, p. 262.

+ Preface to Elfrida, p. iii.

Letter to the Duchefs of Maine.
Lettre à J. J. Rouffeau, p. 31,

The

The poet I last mentioned fays, "One thing is certain, that in this defect (if it may be called fo) the French have fucceeded better than all other nations, ancient or modern. Love appears on our stage with a decency, a truth, a delicacy, that is not to be found elsewhere; the reason of it is, the French nation has made greater progress than any other in the knowlege of fociety." Surely this affertion must be the effect of prejudice, as it is contrary to the truth. In the Cinna of Corneille, which the prince of Condé called "the breviary of kings, Maximus whines like a fhepherd in Paftor Fido, amidst profound political reflections, that excel thofe of Tacitus and Machiavel; and while the most important event, that could happen to the empire of the

* Letter prefixed to the tragedy of Zara.

world