Some Account of the English Stage/Volume 2/Heroic Love

Heroic Love. Agamemnon＝Betterton: Achilles＝Verbruggen: Ulysses＝Sandford: Nestor＝Bowman: Chryses＝Kynaston: Patroclus＝Scudamore: Chalcas＝Freeman: Chruseis＝Mrs. Barry: Briseis＝Mrs. Bracegirdle:—Agamemnon and Chruseis are deeply in love with each other—Chryses demands his daughter—Agamemnon and Achilles quarrel—Agamemnon sends Talthybius to Achilles’ tent for Briseis—he protests however to Nestor, that he does not mean to be naughty with her—Chruseis becomes jealous of Briseis—Agamemnon wishes to exculpate himself, but Chruseis on one hand, and Briseis on the other, will not give an opportunity to speak—Briseis arrogates as much to her beauty as Achilles does to his arms—she returns to Achilles—he doubts whether she has been true or false to him—he grows amorous—and they make their exit together—Chruseis, after a long struggle, leaves Agamemnon—he falls into a swoon—and the wise Ulysses concludes the play with—

This T. is unnatural—some parts of it however are well written—particularly the amorous passages—Downes tells us that this play was well acted, and mightily pleased the Court and City—Dryden addressed a copy of complimentary verses to Granville in which he says “Thou copiest Homer”—this is so far from being true, that one is disgusted to the last degree by the principal characters being here represented so totally different from what Homer represents them—Agamemnon is as complete a lover as ever sighed in romance—Chalcas tells him that millions are concerned—he replies—

—Agamemnon observes of Achilles—

Ulysses says of Chruseis—

Walpole very properly observes, that it was fortunate for Granville that he had an intimacy with the Inquisitor-general, (Pope) how else would such lines as these have escaped the Bathos?

The Editors of the B. D. say the language of this play is sublime, yet easy—take a specimen or two—

Chruseis says to Briseis—

Briseis. I have survey’d, and I confess you fair, I like you well—but like myself much better.

Briseis says to Agamemnon—

—And to Achilles in the 5th act—

—Chruseis in the 4th act says—

We should have been obliged to the author, if he had told us in what Greek or Latin writer he ever saw Helen spelt as Hellen.

It is not easy to conceive why Granville calls the Father Chryses and the daughter Chruseis: he ought to have been consistent and not have followed the Latin in one name and the Greek in the other.

Dryden, in his Address to the author, says of the Actors at L. I. F.

With the first two of these lines Downes concludes his R. A. applying personally to Betterton, what Dryden says of the old Actors in general.

Dryden says of the stage—