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same time, place under it the genealogy of True Humour, that the reader may at one view behold their different pedigrees and relations.

Falsehood.

Nonsense.

Frenzy. Laughter.

False Humour.

Truth.

Good Sense.
Wit.Mirth.
Humour.

I might extend the allegory, by mentioning several of the children of False Humour, who are more in number than the sands of the sea, and might in 15 particular enumerate the many sons and daughters which he has begot in this island. But as this would be a very invidious task, I shall only observe in general, that False Humour differs from the True, as a monkey does from a man.

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First of all, he is exceedingly given to little apish tricks and buffooneries.

Secondly, he so much delights in mimicry, that it is all one to him whether he exposes by it vice and folly, luxury and avarice; or, on the contrary, 25 virtue and wisdom, pain and poverty.

Thirdly, he is wonderfully unlucky, insomuch that he will bite the hand that feeds him, and endeavour to ridicule both friends and foes indifferently. For having but small talents, he must be 30 merry where he can, not where he should.

Fourthly, being entirely void of reason, he pursues no point either of morality or instruction, but. is ludicrous only for the sake of being so.

Fifthly, being incapable of anything but mock representations, his ridicule is always personal, and 5 aimed at the vicious man, or the writer; not at the vice, or at the writing.

I have here only pointed at the whole species of false humorists; but, as one of my principal designs in this paper is to beat down that malignant spirit, 10 which discovers itself in the writings of the present age, I shall not scruple, for the future, to single out any of the small wits, that infest the world with such compositions as are ill-natured, immoral, and absurd. This is the only exception which I shall 15 make to the general rule I have prescribed myself, of attacking multitudes: since every honest man ought to look upon himself as in a natural state of war with the libeller and lampooner, and to annoy them wherever they fall in his way. This is but 20 retaliating upon them, and treating them as they treat others.

No. 39.

SATURDAY, APRIL 14. [1711.]

Multa fero, ut placem genus irritable vatum,
Cum scribo.-HOR.

As a perfect tragedy is the noblest production of human nature, so it is capable of giving the mind one of the most delightful and most improving 25 entertainments. A virtuous man (says Seneca) struggling with misfortunes, is such a spectacle.

as gods might look upon with pleasure: and such a pleasure it is which one meets with in the representation of a well-written tragedy. Diversions of this kind wear out of our thoughts everything 5 that is mean and little. They cherish and cultivate that humanity which is the ornament of our nature. They soften insolence, soothe affliction, and subdue the mind to the dispensations of Providence.

It is no wonder therefore that in all the polite Io nations of the world, this part of the drama has met with public encouragement.

The modern tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome, in the intricacy and disposition of the fable; but, what a Christian writer would be ashamed to 15 own, falls infinitely short of it in the moral part of the performance.

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This I may show more at large hereafter; and in the mean time, that I may contribute something towards the improvement of the English tragedy, 20 I shall take notice, in this and in other following papers, of some particular parts in it that seem liable to exception.

Aristotle observes, that the iambic verse in the Greek tongue was the most proper for tragedy: 25 because at the same time that it lifted up the discourse from prose, it was that which approached nearer to it than any other kind of verse. For, says he, we may observe that men in ordinary discourse very often speak iambics, without taking 30 notice of it. We may make the same observation of our English blank verse, which often enters into our common discourse, though we do not attend

1 1711, This I shall show.

to it, and is such a due medium between rime and prose, that it seems wonderfully adapted to tragedy. I am therefore very much offended when I see a play in rime; which is as absurd in English, as a tragedy of hexameters would have been in 5 Greek or Latin. The solecism is, I think, still greater, in those plays that have some scenes in rime and some in blank verse, which are to be looked upon as two several languages; or where we see some particular similes dignified with rime, at the ro same time that every thing about them lies in blank verse. I would not however debar the poet from concluding his tragedy, or, if he pleases, every act of it, with two or three couplets, which may have the same effect as an air in the Italian opera after 15 a long recitativo, and give the actor a graceful exit. Besides, that we see a diversity of numbers in some parts of the old tragedy, in order to hinder the ear from being tired with the same continued modulation of voice. For the same reason I do 20 not dislike the speeches in our English tragedy that close with an hemistich, or half verse, notwithstanding the person who speaks after it begins a new verse, without filling up the preceding one; nor with abrupt pauses and breakings-off in the middle 25 of a verse, when they humour any passion that is expressed by it.

Since I am upon this subject, I must observe that our English poets have succeeded much better in the style, than in the sentiments of their tragedies. 30 Their language is very often noble and sonorous, but the sense either very trifling or very common. On the contrary, in the ancient tragedies, and in

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deed in those of Corneille and Racine, though the expressions are very great, it is the thought that bears them up and swells them. For my own part, I prefer a noble sentiment that is depressed with 5 homely language, infinitely before a vulgar one that is blown up with all the sound and energy of expression. Whether this defect in our tragedies may rise from want of genius, knowledge, or experience in the writers, or from their compliance with Io the vicious taste of their readers, who are better judges of the language than of the sentiments, and consequently relish the one more than the other, I can not determine. But I believe it might rectify. the conduct both of the one and of the other, if the 15 writer laid down the whole contexture of his dialogue in plain English, before he turned it into blank verse; and if the reader, after the perusal of a scene, would consider the naked thought of every speech in it, when divested of all its tragic orna20 ments; by this means, without being imposed upon by words, we may judge impartially of the thought, and consider whether it be natural or great enough for the person that utters it, whether it deserves to shine in such a blaze of eloquence, or show itself in 25 such a variety of lights as are generally made use of by the writers of our English tragedy.

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I must in the next place observe, that when our thoughts are great and just, they are often obscured by the sounding phrases, hard metaphors, and forced expressions in which they are clothed. Shakespeare is often very faulty in this particular. There is a fine observation in Aristotle to this pur

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