Page:The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets.djvu/22

2 Thus has Thy Worth (Great JAMES) conjoin'd them now, Whom Battels oft did break, but never bow.

That he was in Favour with King James, is evident from Sir Robert Ayton's Verses before his Tragedies. As for any Particulars of his Family and Private Affairs I can give you no Account, but that it may be reasonably drawn from his Quality, Nation, and Favour at that time, that he was not unhappy in any of them, at least that depended on Fortune.

This Nobleman has by his Writings shew'd Posterity, that he had a just Right to his King's Favour, as any one that reads his Recreations of the Muses will allow. Mr. Langbain tells us of former Editions, but the best is in Folio, London, Printed for ''Tho. Harper'', 1637. and dedicated to King James, not King Charles the First, as Mr. Langbain mistakes. In this Volume are Four Plays, which he calls, Monarchick Tragedies; The Alexandrean Tragedy, Crœsus, Darius, and Julius Cæsar. Nor can I agree with Mr. Langbain, that he has proposed the Ancients for his Model, whom he has follow'd in nothing but the Chorus: For as for the unities of Action, Time, and Place, always observed by them, he seems to know nothing of them. He seems to mistake the very Essence of the Drama, which consists in Action, most of his being Narration; and may rather be term'd Historical Dialogues, than Dramatick Pieces. There is scarce one Action perform'd in View of the Audience; but several Persons come in, and tell of Adventures perform'd by others or themselves, and which often have no more to do with the Business of the Play, than the Persons that speak, as in the First Scene of the Fifth Act of the Alexandrean Tragedy, Aristotle and Phoceon, who have no hand in the various Revolutions of that Play, spend a long Scene on the Uncertainty of Humane Grandeur, only to tell a few Lines of Business done by some of Alexander's Captains. This Play is so far from being after the Model of the Ancients, the Action so far from being one, that 'tis multiplied enough for at least Ten Plays, it containing the various Revolutions, and Murders of the Commanders of the Macedonean Army, after the Death of Alexander; and here, as in the rest, he runs too far back to bring things ab ovo, that have no Relation to the Action, as the Scene between Harpagus and Cyrus, and Cræsus and Sandanis, and many more will evince. If he has not followed the Model of the Ancients, he has yet borrowed very freely their Thoughts, translating whole Speeches from Seneca, Virgil, and others, as the First Act of Julius Cæsar from Juno's Speech in the First of the Æneids; and many of his Sentences, as well as the Defect of his Senteniousness, he owes to Seneca. The Two First Acts generally are wholly foreign to the Business of the Play, as indeed the greatest part of the other Acts are too. This at least may be said of my Lord, that