Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/199

Rh he contends for, which consists in this, that the, i.e. the design and conduct of it, is more conducing in the Greeks to those ends of tragedy, which Aristotle and he propose, namely, to cause terror and pity: yet the granting this does not set the Greeks above the English poets.

But the answerer ought to prove two things: first, that the fable is not the greatest master-piece of a tragedy, though it be the foundation of it.

Secondly, That other ends as suitable to the nature of tragedy may be found in the English, which were not in the Greek.

Aristotle places the fable first; not quoad dignitatem, sed quoad fundamentum: for a fable, never so movingly contrived to those ends of his, pity and terror, will operate nothing on our affections, except the characters, manners, thoughts, and words are suitable.

So that it remains for Mr. Rymer to prove, that in all those, or the greatest part of them, we are inferior to Sophocles and Euripides: and this he has Vol. II.