[ ^8 ] 



the boifterous and ftormy paflions are called into exercife, and 

 this, in fo much the higher degree, as the ftate of which he is 

 a member is narrow and fmall, and the fphere of his activity 

 confined. A democracy may exclude luxury, and favour a fim- 

 plicity of manners ; it may cherifh the ftern republican virtues, 

 and maintain a rigid inflexible charader ; but it is certainly un- 

 favourable to the foft unbendings of domeftic life, to the tender 

 fympathies and mild afFedions of humanity. 



Thus have I endeavoured to point out fome of the caufes, 

 which produced in the Greek tragic writers a prediledion for 

 fubjeds in which the horrible fo violently predominates. And 

 here I might difmifs my fubjed, with a remark, that the hiftory 

 of nations, their forms of government and cuftoms, are not as 

 much confidered, as they defer ve to be, by thofe who undertake 

 to criticife their writers : but two qucftions arife fo naturally 

 out of this difquifition, that I cannot forbear the beftowing on 

 them a few lines. 



There were, as we fee, caufes peculiar to themfelves that 

 led the Greeks to a prediledion for fubjeds of horror, and a 

 marked feledion of them, as the foundation of their dramas : 

 but why do we, in thefe days of morbid foftnefs, when the 

 aflfedation of humanity is carried to an exccfs, under the deno- 

 mination of fentiment ; why do we receive pleafure, from the 

 perufal of tales of horror, and the reprefentation on the ftage 

 of fables, like Macbeth, in which the terrible is predominant? — 



And 



