tion; for as the scene was thus laid abroad, he had the inviting opportunity in the character of fir Politic Would-be, to expose the reigning affectation of knowing men and manners; when the youth of the kingdom were fent, in quest of policy and knowledge, to poison their faith and morals, by the acquisition of Italian atheism and Italian deceit.

In his design and exhibition of characters, Jonfon was particularly happy in delineating those which are generally known by the name of characters of humour; a fubject which he perfectly understood, and which he executed with equal felicity and perfection. But as humour. is the excess of a particular paffion, and appropriate only to a fingle character, it hath from hence been thought, that Jonfon's characters are only paffions or affections perfonized, and not faithful copies from living manners. But to this we might reply, that far from being thought to build his characters upon abstract ideas, he was really accused of reprefenting particular persons then exifting; and that even those characters which appear to be the moft exaggerated, are faid to have had their respective archetypes in nature and life. It is further to be obferved, that many of Jonfon's comedies are of that kind, which may be called particular and partial: the follies they were defigned to cenfure were more immediately local; and as the pursuits which they

expofe,

expose, are now disused or forgotten, we find it difficult to enter into the humour or propriety of the characters. Yet even at this distance, we can perceive that truth of design, and strength of colouring in each, as highly entertain us with their reprefentation or perufal; and render us equally fenfible of the poet's excellence, and art in his masterly performance: "But we may "remark in general of such subjects, as an "exact critic of great tafte expreffeth it, that they are a strong temptation to the writer, to exceed the bounds of truth and mediocrity in his draught of them at first, and « are further liable to an imperfect and even "unfair sentence from the reader afterwards. "For the welcome reception which these pic"tures of prevailing local folly meet with on "the stage, cannot but induce the poet almoft "without defign, to inflame the representation; " and the want of archetypes, in a little time "makes it pafs for immoderate, were it origi

nally given with ever so much discretion and

juftice." HORACE's Art of Poetry illustrated with English Notes, &c. p. 278. Add to this, that in presenting a character on the stage, the due distance and point of view should have a place in the poet's confideration; and this may probably require fome enlargement of the lineaments and features, provided that a just proportion and fymmetry of parts, be observed in

the

the compofition of the whole. I do not mean that he should give us a distorted caricatura, in the room of an agreeable and pleasing picture; but if it be confidered that many diverting pleafantries or actions of ridiculous humour, with lively dialogues in common life, would appear flat and infipid, and have little or no effect upon a general audience, when fet before them in the plain and fimple habit of nature and fact: the poet may poffibly be under the neceffity of bestowing on them fome relief and ornament, from art; and of seasoning his conversations with a high poignancy of wit or repartee, adapted to the lefs exquifite taste of an undistinguishing populace. These causes concurring seem to have given rife to the opinion, that Jonson, in the portraiture of his characters, forbore to copy from real life. And as the preceding obfervations account for this opinion, with a probable verifimilitude, we are apt to flatter ourselves, they may be a fair representation and folution of the matter.

In the collection of Jonfon's poems there are two Tragedies; and of each of these something fhould be faid in reference to his conduct of the drama, and to his judgment in the choice of his Subjects. The poet himself appears to have placed no small value on these plays, and they are not without their proper fhare of merit; but as the piercing eye of criticism hath discoVOL. I.

b

vered

vered errors and defects in both, let us attend to the faults which are objected to them. And first, it is faid the poet was unfortunately mistaken in the choice of his fable; the characters of Catiline and Sejanus are fo well known, and are fo infamous in history, that no kind of pity, the most amiable emotion in the spectator's breast, can poffibly be shown to the diftreffes which befal them; but to this, a reply is elsewhere given in the proper place, where the objection it felf is made. A fecond objection chargeth the author with offending against the laws or cautions advanced by Horace in his Art of Poetry, and which an exact dramatift fhould be careful to obferve in the management of his fable. The cautions of Horace are comprized in the following verses :

Publica materies privati Juris erit, fi
Non circa vilem patulumque moraberis orbem;
Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus
Interpres; nec defilies imitator in arctum,
Unde pedem proferre pudor vetet, aut operis lex.
Ars Poet. v. 131. & feq.

From these verses his excellent commentator deduceth the three following rules, which the poet directs us to obferve: 1. Not to follow the trite, obvious round of the original work, i. e. not fervilely and fcrupulously to adhere to its plan

or

or method in its plain historic order. 2. Not to be tranflators instead of imitators: i. e. if it fhall be thought fit to imitate more expressly any part of the original, to do it with freedom and fpirit, and without a flavish attachment to the mode of expreffion. 3. Not to adopt any particular incident that may occur in the propofed model, which either decency or the nature of the work would reject; and unluckily for Jonfon, this ingenious critic hath pitched on the tragedy of Catiline, as particularly offending against these feveral rules. For, as he proceeds to remark, this tragedy, is in fact the Catilinarian war of Salluft, put into poetical dialogue; and fo offends against the first rule of the poet, in following too fervilely the plain beaten round of the chronicle. 2. The speeches of Cicero and Catiline, of Cato and Cæfar are all of them direct and literal translations of the hiftorian and orator, in violation of the fecond rule, which forbids a too close attachment to the mode or form of expreffion. 3. As a tranfgreffion of that rule, which enjoins a strict regard to the nature and genius of the work, the following is felected as the most obvious and ftriking. In the history, which had for its fubject the whole Catilinarian war, the fates of the confpirators, and the preceding debates concerning the manner of their punishment, were to be distinctly recorded. Hence the long