Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Het. Paris and Troilus, you have both faid
well: (10)

But on the cause and question now in hand
Have glozed but fuperficially; not much
Unlike young men, whom Ariftotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philofophy. (21).

(20) Paris and Troilus, you have both faid well;
And on the caufe and question now in hand

[ocr errors]

Have gloffed, but fuperficially.] I can never think that the Poet expreffed himself thus: 'tis obfurd to fay, that people have talked well, and yet but fuperficially at the fame time. I have ventured to substitute a disjunctive instead of the copulative, by which we gain this commodious fenfe: You have argued very well in the general, but have glozed too juperficially upon the particular question in debate. (21)

not much

Unlike young men, whom graver fages thought t

Unfit to bear moral philofophy.] This is a fophifticated reading firft of Mr Rowe, and afterwards of Mr Pope. I had objected that this was an exception. to Mr Pope's rule laid down in his preface, that "the various readings are fairly put in the margin, fo that every one may compare them; and thofe he has preferred into the text, are con ftantly ex fide codicum, upon authority." Forgraver fages, I faid, was preferred into the text without any authority, and that all the printed copies read the paffage, as I have restored it in the text. To this Mr Pope caviled, that Mr Rowe had made the alteration, fo that I was mistaken in saying that no edition had it fo.But is an arbitrary, undefended alteration an authority? I would not have Mr Pope take it as too high a compliment, when I tell him. I look upon his and Mr Rowe's editions of Shakespeare of one and the fame authority. But to come to the juftification of the

[merged small][ocr errors]

'Tis certain, indeed, that Ariftotle was at least eight hundred years fubfequent in time to Hector; and therefore the Poet makes a remarkable innovation upon chronology. But Mr Pope will have this to be one of those palpable blunders which the illiteracy of the first publishers of his works has fathered on the Poet's memory; and is of opinion it could not be of our Author's penning, it not being at all credible that thefe could be the errors of any man who had i

The reafons, you alledge, do more conduce
To the hot paffion of diftempered blood,

the leaft tincture of a fchool, or the leaft conversation with fuch as had. -'Twas for this reafon, and to shelter our Author from fuch an abfurdity, that Mr Pope expunged the name of Ariftotle, and fubftituted in its place Mr Rowe's -graver fages. But, with fubmiffion, even herein he made at beft but half a cure. If the Poet must be fettered down ftrictly to the chronology of things, it is every whit as abfurd for Hector to talk of philofophy, as for him to talk of Ariftotle. We have fufficient proofs that Pythagoras was the first who invented the word philofophy, and called himself Philofopher. And he was near fix hundred years after the date of Hector, even from his beginning to flouriûn. "Tis true, the thing which we now understand by `philofophy, was then known; but it was only till then called knowledge and wisdom. But to difmifs this point, I believe, this anachronim of our Poet (and, perhaps, the greatest part of the others he is guilty of) was the effect of poetic licence in him, rather than ignorance.

It has been very familiar with the poets, of the stage especially, upon a fuppofition that their audience were not fo exactly informed in chronology, to anticipate the mention of perfons and things, before either the first were born, or the latter thought of. Shakespeare, again in this play, compares the nerves of Ajax with thofe of bull-bearing Milo of Crotona, who was not in being till fix hundred years after that Greck, and was a difciple of Pythagoras. Again, Pandarus, at the conclufion of the play, talks of a Winchefter-goofe; indeed, it is in an addrefs to the audience, and then there may be an allowance, and greater latitude for going out of character. In Coriolanus, as I have obferved in the proper place, Menenius talks of Alexander the Great and Galen. And the very hero of that play complains of the grievance that he must stoop to, in begging voices of Dick and Hob; names which i dare fay Mr Pope does not imagine that Shakespeare believed were ever heard of by that Roman. From his many plays founded on our English annals, and the many points of history accurately tranimitted down in them, I fuppofe it must be confeffed that he was intimately verfed in that part of reading. Yet in his King Lear, he has ventured to make Edgar talk of the Curfeu, a thing not known in Britain till the Norman invafion.

Than to make up a free determination "Twixt right and wrong: for pleasure and revenge

In his King John, he above fifty times mentions cannons, though gunpowder was not used by the English, till above a century and half after the death of that monarch; and what is yet more fingular, (as he could be no stranger to the date of a remarkable man, who lived fo near his own time) twice in the ftory of Henry VI. he makes mention of Machi- avel as a fubtle politician, who was alive in the twentieth year of Henry VIII.

Nor have thefe liberties been taken alone by Shakespeare, among our own poets. In the Humourous Lieutenant of Beaumont and Fletcher, all the first characters of which play are the immediate fucceffors of Alexander the Great, Demetrius, Prince of Macedon, comes out of his chamber with a piftol in his hand, above one thoufand five hundred years before fire-arms were ever thought of. So, in the Oedipus of Dryden and Lee, there is a mention of the machines in the theatre at Athens, though neither plays nor theatres were fo much as known to the world till above five hundred years after that Prince's death. And yet I dare fay, neither Beaumont nor Fletcher ever fuppofed, or thought to make their audiences believe that piftols were ufed in Demetrius's time, nor were Dryden and Lee fo ignorant in dramatic chrono-~logy, as to fuppofe tragedy of as early a date as Oedipus.

But that the poets of our own nation may be justified in thefe liberties by the examples of the antients, I'll throw in a few inftances of the like fort from their predeceffors in the art at Greece and Rome. The Anachronfms of Efchylus I fhali referve to my edition of that poet. The great Sophocles, in his Electra, fuppfes that Oreftes was thrown from his chariot and killed at the Pythian games; which games, as the Scholiaft tells us, were not inftituted till fix hundred years afterwards by Triptolemus. And Euripides, in his Phaniffe, (the fubject of which is the invafion of Thebes by Polynices and the Argives) makes Tirefias talk of his giving the victory to Athens against Eumolpus; though Eumolpus's war against Erechthicus was no lefs than four generations elder than the Theban war. Frequent inftances occur in Athenæus, that thew, beyond exception, how free the comic poets made with chronology. Alexis, in his comedy called Hefione, introduces Hercules drinking out of a Theri clean cup. Now this was a fpecies of cups, invented by

Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice
Of any true decifion. Nature craves,
All dues be rendered to their owners; now
What nearer debt in all humanity,

Than wife is to the hufband? If this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection.
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed wills, refift the fame;
There is a law in each well-ordered nation,
To curb thofe raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.
If Helen then be wife to Sparta's King,
(As, it is known, fhe is) thefe moral laws
Of nature and of nations.speak aloud
To have her back returned. Thus to perfift
In doing wrong, extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion

Thericles a Corinthian potter, who was contemporary with Ariftophanes, above eight hundred years after the period of Hercules. Anaxandrides, in his Protefilaus, a hero that was killed by Hector, brings in Hercules again, and talks of Iphicrates the Athenian general, and Cotys the Thracian King, both living in the Poet's own days. And Diphilus, in his Sappho, makes Archilochus and Hipponax both addreis that poetical lady, though the firft was dead a century before he was born, and though he was dead and rotten before the latter was born. To add but two inftances from the Latin Poets; Seneca, in his tragedy called Her cules Furens, makes the chorus talk of people flocking to the entertainments of a new theatre; though 'tis evident, no theatres were as then built or thought of; and Plautus in his Amphitryon, makes Blepharo talk of golden Philips, a money coined by Alexander's father near nine hundred years after the days of Amphitryon.

If thefe inftances of voluntary tranfgreffion in time may go any way towards acquitting our Poet for the like inconfiftencies, I'll at any time engage to ftrengthen them with ten times the number, fetched from the writings of the best poets, antient and modern, foreign and domeftic.

Is this in way of truth; yet ne'ertheless,
My fprightly brethren, I propend to you
In refolution to keep Helen still;

For 'tis a caufe that hath no mean dependance
Upon our joint and feveral dignities.

Troi. Why, there you touched the life of our
Were it not glory that we more affected [defign:
Than the performance of our heaving fpleens,
I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,
She is a theme of honour and renown,

A fpur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whofe prefent courage may beat down our foes,
And fame, in time to come, canonize us.
For, I prefume, brave Hector would not lofe
So rich advantage of a promifed glory,
As fimiles upon the forehead of this action,
For the wide world's revenue.

Heft. I am yours,

You valiant off-fpring of great Priamus.—
I have a roifting challenge fent amongst
The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks,
Will ftrike amazement to their drowsy fpirits.
I was advertised their great general flept,
Whilft emulation in the army crept:
This, I prefume, will wake him.

[Exeunt.

SCENE, before Achilles's Tent in the Grecian Camp. Enter THERSITES folus.

How now, Therfites? what, loft in the labyrinth of thy fury? fhall the elephant. Ajax carry it thus? he beats me, and I rail at him: O worthy fatisfaction! 'would it were otherwife; that I could beat him, whilft he railed at me. 'Sfoot, I'll learn to conjure and raife devils, but I'll fee fome iffue of my ipiteful execrations. Then there's Achilles, a rare

« ZurückWeiter »