very unnatural, and looks like killing in cold blood. To give my opinion upon this cafe, the fact ought not to have been reprefented, but to have been told, if there was any occafion for it. It may not be unacceptable to the reader to fee how Sophocles has conducted a tragedy under the like delicate circumftances. Oreftes was in the fame condition with Hamlet in Shakefpeare, his mother having murdered his father, and taken poffeffion of his kingdom in confpiracy with her adulterer. That young prince therefore, being determined to revenge his father's death upon thofe who filled his throne, conveys himself by a beautiful stratagem into his mother's apartment, with a refolution to kill her. But becaufe fuch a fpectacle would have been too fhocking to the audience, this dreadful refolution is executed behind the scenes: the mother is heard calling out to her fon for mercy; and the fon answering her, that she shewed no mercy to his father; after which the fhrieks out that he is wounded, and by what follows we find that he is fiain. I do not remember that in any of our plays there are speeches made behind the fcenes, though there are other inftances of this nature to be met with in those of the ancients and I believe my reader will agree with me, that there is fomething infinitely more affecting in this dreadful dialogue between the mother and her fon behind the scenes, than could have been in any thing tranfacted before the audience. Oreftes immediately after meets the the ufurper at the entrance of his palace; and by a very happy thought of the poet avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that he should live fome time in his present bitterness of foul before he would difpatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part of the palace where he had flain his father, whofe murder he would revenge in the very fame place where it was committed. By this means the poet obferves that decency, which Horace afterwards established by a rule, of forbearing to commit parricides or unnatural murders before the audience. Nec coram populo natos Medea trucidet. Ars Poet. ver. 185. Let not Medea draw her murd'ring knife, The French have therefore refined too much upon Horace's rule, who never defigned to banish all kinds of death from the Stage; but only fuch as had too much horror in them, and which would have a better effect upon the audience when tranfacted behind the scenes. I would therefore recommend to my countrymen the practice of the ancient poets, who were very sparing of their public executions, and rather chofe to perform them behind the fcenes, if it could be done with as great an effect upon the audience. At the fame time I muft obferve, that though the devoted perfons of the tragedy were seldom flain before before the audience, which has generally fomething ridiculous in it, their bodies were often produced after their death, which has always in it something melancholy or terrifying; fo that the killing on the ftage does not seem to have been avoided only as an indecency, but also as an improbability. Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet; Ant humana palàm coquat exta nefarius Atreus; Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem, Quodcunque oftendis mihi fic, incredulus odi. HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 115. Medea muft not draw her murd'ring knife, I hate to fee, and never can believe. ROSCOMMON. I have now gone through the several dramatic inventions which are made use of by the ignorant poets to fupply the place of tragedy, and by the skilful to improve it; fome of which I could wish entirely rejected, and the rest to be ufed with caution. It would be an endless task to confider comedy in the fame light, and to mention the innumerable fhifts that fmall wits put in practice to raise a laugh. Bullock in a fhort coat, and Norris in a long one, feldom fail of this effect. In ordinary comedies, a broad and a narrow brimmed hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of the scene lies in a fhoulder-belt, and fometimes in a pair of whiskers. A Lover running about the stage, with his head peeping out out of a barrel, was thought a very good jeft in king Charles the Second's time; and invented by one of the firft wits of that age. But because ridicule is not io delicate as compaffion, and becaufe the objects that make us laugh are infinitely more numerous than thofe that make us weep, there is a much greater latitude for Comic than Tragic ARTIFICES, and by confequence a much greater indulgence to be allowed them. Saturday April 21, 1711. Ct. N° 45. Natio comoda eft. Juv. Sat. iii. 100. The nation is a company of players. T HERE is nothing which I defire more than a fafe and honourable peace, though at the fame time I am very apprehenfive of many ill confequences that may attend it. I do not mean in regard to our politics, but to our manners. What an inundation of ribbons and brocades will break in upon us? What peals of laughter and impertinence fhall we be expofed to? For the prevention of these great evils, I could heartily with that there was an act of parliament for prohibiting the importation of French fopperies. The Comedy of "The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub," by Sir George Etheridge, 1664. t By ADDISON, probably written at Ghelfea. See final Note to N°7; and N° 221. VOL. I. The The female inhabitants of our ifland have already received very ftrong impreffions from this ludicrous nation, though by the length of the war (as there is no evil which has not fome good attending it) they are pretty well worn out and forgotten. I remember the time when fome of our well-bred country-women kept their valet de chambre, because forfooth, a man was much more handy about them than one of their own fex. I myself have feen one of these male Abigails tripping about the room with a looking glafs in his hand, and combing his lady's hair a whole morning together. Whether or no there was any truth in the ftory of a lady's being got with child by one of thefe her handmaids, I cannot tell; but I think at present the whole race of them is extinct in our own country. About the time that feveral of our fex were taken into this kind of fervice, the ladies likewife brought up the fashion of receiving visits in their beds. It was then looked upon as a piece of illbreeding for a woman to refufe to fee a man, becaufe fhe was not ftirring; and a porter would have been thought unfit for his place, that could have made fo aukward an excufe. As I love to fee every thing that is new, I once prevailed upon my friend WILL HONEYCOMB to carry me along with him to one of thefe travelled ladies, defiring him at the fame time, to present me as a foreigner who could not speak English, that fo I might not be obliged to bear a part in the 'difcourfe. The lady though willing to appear undreft, had put on her beft looks, and painted herfelf 3 |