Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/18

 well as on the Theatre. This is an uncontended Excellence, and a chief Branch of its Prerogative; yet I may be allow'd to say without partiality, that herein the Actors share the Poet's praise. Your Lordship knows some Modern Tragedies which are beautiful on the Stage, and yet I am confident you wou'd not read them. Tryphon the Stationer complains they are seldom ask'd for in his Shop. The Poet who Flourish'd in the Scene, is damn'd in the Ruelle; nay more, he is not esteem'd a good Poet by those who see and hear his Extravagancies with delight. They are a sort of stately Fustian, and lofty Childishness. Nothing but Nature can give a sincere pleasure; where that is not imitated, tis Grotesque Painting, the fine Woman ends in a Fishes Tail.

I might also add, that many things, which not only please, but are real Beauties in the reading, wou'd appear absurd upon the Stage: and those not only the Speciosa Miracula, as Horace calls them; of Transformations, of Scylla, Antiphanes, and the Lestrigons, which cannot be represented even in Opera's; but the prowess of Achilles or Æneas wou'd appear ridiculous in our Dwarf-Heroes of the Theatre. We can believe they routed Armies in Homer or in Virgil, but ne Hercules contra duos in the Drama. I forbear to instance in many things which the Stage cannot or ought not to represent. For I have said already more than I intended on this Subject, and shou'd fear it might be turn'd against me; that I plead for the pre-eminence of Epick Poetry, because I have taken some pains in translating Virgil; if this were the first time that I had deliver'd my Opinion in this Dispute. But I have more than once already maintain'd the Rights of my two Masters against their Rivals of the Scene, even while I wrote Tragedies my self, and had no thoughts of this present Undertaking. I submit my Opinion to your Judgment,