[ 448 ] 



the firft fcene, and holds a converfation with Ulyfles, without 

 any abiolute neceffity for theprefence of aGoddefs. 



Mufeodorus.~\ I admit in general of your objections ; but while 

 the ancient tragedies have that limplicity of fubjett which is almoft 

 peculiar to them, (for few indeed of our moderns feem to have 

 followed them- in this point), fome trifling improprieties will 

 never prevent the preference that is due to them upon the 

 whole. 



Soph.] I moft readily own that fimplicity in the fubjedt of the 

 drama cannot be too much commended, and that the ancients 

 have in general attended more to it, than the moderns, but I 

 believe I may venture to aflert, that many of their fubjects are fo 

 Jtmpk indeed that they are almoft entirely uninterefting e . I beg 

 you would for example confider a little the Rhefus of Euripides, 

 which I will allow you is perhaps as fimple as a fubjecl; can well 

 be ; but I do not recollect a imgle circumftance, or incident in the 

 whole, that can be faid to be affecting. The play opens with a 

 fcene between Hector and the Chorus, who inform him, that 

 the Graecians are lighting fires in their camp; Hector imagines 

 from this that they are going to retire : the Chorus, however, 

 who do not appear to be of any great diftinction in the army, 

 but only common centinels, doubt much of this : he is after- 



' It is not pretended by this that the fubjecVs being uninterefting pro- 

 ceeds from its limplicity, but only that by a too fcrupulous attention to 

 the latter, the play often becomes fo, and this is generally the cafe when 

 a writer pitches upon a fimple ftory, when at the fame time he hath 

 not genius and imagination fufficient to render it affecting^ for the greater 

 the fimplicity is, the greater is the .difficulty in this point. This is 

 therefore not a charge upon the ancients for their adherence to this fim- 

 plicity ; but only for choofing fuch fubjects as they wanted genius fome- - 

 times to make interefting, or, perhaps that were incapable of becoming 

 fo, which I take to be the cafe of Euripides's Ilhefus. 



wards 



