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Mr. Rowe is generally imagin'd to have taken some Hints from this Scene in his Character of Bajazet; but as he, of all the Tragick Writers, bears the least Resemblance to our Author in his Diction, I am unwilling to imagine he would condescend to copy him in this Particular.

This Method of surprizing an Audience by raising their Expectation to the highest Pitch, and then baulking it, hath been practis'd with great Success by most of our Tragical Authors.

As very well he may if he hath any Modesty in him, says Mr. D---s The Author of Busiris, is extremely zealous to prevent the Sun's blushing at any indecent Object; and therefore on all such Occasions he addresses himself to the Sun, and desires him to keep out of the way.

Mr. Banks makes the Sun perform the Office of Hymen; and therefore not likely to be disgusted at such a Sight;

Nourmahal sends the same Message to Heaven;

We find another to Hell, in the Persian Princess;

Anthony gives the same Command in the same Words.

Oh! Marius, Marius; wherefore art thou Marius? Otway's Marius.

Nothing is more commom than these seeming Contradictions; such as,

Lee hath improv'd this Metaphor.

Almahide hath the same Contempt for these Appetites;

The Earl of Essex is of a different Opinion, and seems to place the chief Happiness of a General therein.

But if we may believe one, who knows more than either, the Devil himself; we shall find Eating to be an Affair of more moment than is generally imagined.

This Expression is enough of it self (says Mr. D---s) utterly to destroy the Character of Huncamunca; yet we find a Woman of no abandon'd Character in Dryden, adventuring farther and thus excusing her self;

Cassandra speaks before she is asked. Huncamunca afterwards.

Mr. Dennis in that excellent Tragedy, call'd Liberty Asserted, which is thought to have given so great a Stroke to the late French King, hath frequent Imitations of this beautiful Speech of King Arthur;

This beautiful Line, which ought, says Mr. W--- to be written in Gold, is imitated in the New Sophonisba;

The Author of a Song call'd Duke upon Duke, hath improv'd it.

Where, by the help of a little false Spelling, you have two Meanings in the repeated Words.

Edith, in the Bloody Brother, speaks to her Lover in the same familiar Language.

I do not remember any Metaphors so frequent in the Tragick Poets as those borrow'd from Riding Post;

This Image too very often occurs;

There is great Dissension among the Poets concerning the Method of making Man. One tells his Mistress that the Mold she was made in being lost, Heaven cannot form such another. Lucifer, in Dryden, gives a merry Description of his own Formation;

In one Place, the same Poet supposes Man to be made of Metal;

In another, of Dough;

In another of Clay;

One makes the Soul of Wax;

Another of Flint.

To omit the great Quantities of Iron, Brazen and Leaden Souls which are so plenty in modern Authors—I cannot omit the Dress of a Soul as we find it in Dryden;

Nor can I pass by a particular sort of Soul in a particular sort of Description, in the New Sophonisba.

This Line Mr. Banks has plunder'd entire in his Anna Bullen.

I know some of the Commentators have imagined, that Mr. Dryden, in the Altercative Scene between Cleopatra and Octavia, a Scene which Mr. Addison inveighs against with great Bitterness, is much beholden to our Author. How just this their Observation is, I will not presume to determine.

A cobling Poet indeed, says Mr. D. and yet I believe we may find as monstrous Images in the Tragick-Authors: I'll put down one;

Which Lines seem to have as much Title to a Milliner's Shop, as our Author's to a Shoemaker's.

Mr. L--- takes occasion in this Place to commend the great Care of our Author to preserve the Metre of Blank Verse, in which Shakespear, Johnson and Fletcher were so notoriously negligent; and the Moderns, in Imitation of our Author, so laudably observant;

Every Page of Sophonisba gives us Instances of this Excellence.

Verba Tragica.

This Speech hath been terribly maul'd by the Poets.

Our Author, who every where shews his great Penetration into human Nature, here outdoes himself: Where a less judicious Poet would have raised a long Scene of whining Love. He who understood the Passions better, and that so violent an Affection as this must be too big for Utterance, chooses rather to send his Characters off in this sullen and doleful manner: In which admirable Conduct he is imitated by the Author of the justly celebrated Eurydice. Dr. Young seems to point at this Violence of Passion;

And Seneca tells us, Curæleves loquuntur, ingentes stupent. The Story of the Egyptian King in Herodotus is too well known to need to be inserted; I refer the more curious Reader to the excellent Montagne, who hath written an Essay on this Subject.

To understand sufficiently the Beauty of this Passage, it will be necessary that we comprehend every Man to contain two Selfs. I shall not attempt to prove this from Philosophy, which the Poets make so plainly evident.

One runs away from the other;

In a 2d. One Self is a Guardian to the other;

Again,

In the same, the first Self is proud of the second;

In a 3d. Distrustful of him;

In a 4th. Honours him;

In a 5th. At Variance with him;

Again, in a 6th.

From all which it appears, that there are two Selfs; and therefore Tom Thumb's losing himself is no such Solecism as it hath been represented by Men, rather ambitious of Criticizing, than qualify'd to Criticize.

Mr. F--- imagines this Parson to have been a Welsh one from his Simile.

Our Author hath been plunder'd here according to Custom;

Mr. Dryden hath imitated this in All for Love.

This Miltonick Stile abounds in the New Sophonisba.

Morat, Morat, Morat, you love the Name. Aurengzebe.

Here is a Sentiment for the Virtuous Huncamunca (says Mr. D---s) and yet with the leave of this great Man, the Virtuous Panthea in Cyrus, hath an Heart every whit as Ample;

Nor is the Lady in Love Triumphant; more reserv'd, tho' not so intelligible;

A ridiculous Supposition to any one, who considers the great and extensive Largeness of Hell, says a Commentator: But not so to those who consider the great Expansion of immaterial Substance. Mr. Banks makes one Soul to be so expanded that Heaven could not contain it;

The Persian Princess hath a Passage not unlike the Author of this;

This threatens to fill Hell even tho' it were empty; Lord Grizzle only to fill up the Chinks, supposing the rest already full.

Mr. Addison is generally thought to have had this Simile in his Eye, when he wrote that beautiful one at the end of the third Act of his Cato.

This beautiful Simile is founded on a Proverb, which does Honour to the English Language;

I am not so pleased with any written Remains of the Ancients, as with those little Aphorisms, which verbal Tradition hath delivered down to us, under the Title of Proverbs. It were to be wished that instead of filling their Pages with the fabulous Theology of the Pagans, our modern Poets would think it worth their while to enrich their Works with the Proverbial Sayings of their Ancestors. Mr. Dryden hath chronicl'd one in Heroick;

My Lord Bacon is of Opinion, that whatever is known of Arts and Sciences might be proved to have lurked in the Proverbs of Solomon. I am of the same Opinion in relation to those above mention'd: At least I am confident that a more perfect System of Ethicks, as well as Oeconomy, might be compiled out of them, than is at present extant, either in the Works of the Antient Philosophers, or those more valuable, as more voluminous, ones of the modern Divines.