Page:The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets.djvu/44

24, Pitty and Terror; or the true and natural Movement of the Passions, in which Particular, none of the Ancients (I was going to say equal'd, but I will boldly say) surpass'd our English dead Bards in those Plays, and our living Poet in this of his that I have mention'd. Or the Diction, either in regard to its Propriety, Clearness, Beauty, Nobleness, or Variety. Let any impartial Judge read but All for Love, and tell me if there is or can be a Style more Pure, or more Sublime, more adapted to the Subject in all its Parts: And I believe, notwithstanding all that some Gentlemen have urg'd against the Language in Otway's Plays, it seldom wants any of those Qualities that are necessary to the Perfection of the Piece he has undertaken; he has seldom given us any Persons of Kings or Princes, and if his Stile swell not so much in the Mouths of those of a Lower Degree, whom he has chosen, it was because he had too much regard to the Nature of the Person he introduces. And in Lee (with the Critick's permission let me speak it) you find always something Wildly Noble, and Irregularly Great; and I am unwilling, with some, to think his Stile puffie or tumid; I'm sure in his Play of Lucius Junius Brutus he is generally Just, both in his Thoughts and his Expressions; and it is rather for want of a true Taste of him, than his want of Merit, that he is condemn'd in that Play, I mean, if there be any that do not exempt that from the Faults of his other Plays.

I urge not this as any Reflection on Mr. Congreve's Performance, for which I have all the just Value the Merit of the Play commands; but to do Justice to his great Predecessors on the Stage, at the depressing whose Praise, the Doctor, both in this and his former Preface, seems rather to aim, than at the raising that of Mr. Congreve. No, had I a mind to exert the Critick, I might, like many other of that Denomination, urge those Defects that either the Malice, or too nice Palate of others have descover'd in the Play it self. But I think 'tis a very ungenerous Office (and not to be excus'd by any thing but some extraordinary Provocation) to dissect the Works of a Man of Mr. Congreve's undoubted Merit, when he has done his Endeavour to please the Town, and so notoriously obtain'd his End; and when the Faults that may perhaps be found in 'em, are of a Nature that makes them very disputable, and in which both his Predecessors and Contemporaries have offended; and I suppose he does not pretend to infallibility in Poetry. But tho' I purposely omit all Critical Reflections, yet the Duty of this Undertaking, and the Foundation I build on, obliges me to examine what he may have borrowed from others; which indeed is not much, tho' the Incident of the Tomb, seems to be taken from the Meeting of Artaban and Eliza, at the Tombe of Tyridates, in the Romance of Cleopatra. And Zara has many Features resembling Nourmahal in Aurenge Zebe, and Almeria in the Indian Emperor;