136 Effay on MaJJinger. 



ter. It was eafy to intereft our feelings for all 

 the charadlers already defcribedj but no writer, 

 before Maflinger, had attempted to make a 

 player the hero of tragedy. This, however, he 

 has executed, with furprizing a,ddrefs, in the 

 Roman Ador. It muft be confefled that Paris, 

 the aflor, owes much of his dignity to inci- 

 dents : at the opening of the play, he defends 

 his profefTion fuccefsfuUy before the fenate ; this 

 artful introduction raifes him in our ideas, above 

 the level of his fituation, for the poet has 

 " graced him with all the power of words ;" the 

 Emprefs's paffion for him places him in a ftill 

 more diftinguifhed light, and he meets his 

 death from the hand of the Emperor himfelf, 

 in a mock-play. It is, perhaps, from a fenfe 

 of the difficulty of exalting Paris's charadler, 

 and of the dexterity requifite to fix the attention 

 of the audience on ic, that Maflinger fays, in 

 the dedication of this play, that " he ever held 

 " it the moft perfedl birth of his Minerva." 

 I know not whether it is owing to defign, or to 

 want of art, that Romont, in the Fatal Dowry, 

 interefts us as much as Charolois, the hero, 

 If Charolois furrenders his liberty to procure 

 funeral rites for his father, Romont previouflj 

 provokes the court to imprifon him, by fpeak- 

 ing with too much animation in the caufe of hi 

 friend. Romont, though infulted by Charolois 

 who difcredits his report of Beaumelle's infide, 



lity 



