rity of Aristotle is appealed to? If it be thus the author of the Rambler has read the Poetics, and this be the best rule he can collect from that treatise, I am afraid he will find it too short a measure for the poet he is examining, or the critic he is quoting. Aristotle had said "that every whole hath not amplitude enough for the construction of a tragic fable; now by a whole (adds he in the way of illustration), I mean that which hath beginning, middle, and end." This and no more is what he says upon beginning, middle, and end; and this which the author of the Rambler conceives to be a rule for tragedy, turns out to be merely an explanation of the word whole, which is only one term amongst many employed by the critic in his professed and complete definition of tragedy. I should add, that Aristotle gives a further explanation of the terms, beginning, middle, and end, which the author of the Rambler hath turned into English; but in so doing, he hath inexcusably turned them out of their original sense as well as language; as any curious critic may be convinced of, who compares them with Aristotle's words in the eighth chapter of the Poetics.

Of the poetic diction of the Samson Agonistes I have already spoken in general; to particularize passages of striking beauty would draw me into too great length; at the same time, not to pass over so pleasing a part of my undertaking in absolute silence, I will give the following reply of Samson to the chorus

Wherever fountain or fresh current flow'd
Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure
With touch ætherial of heaven's fiery rod,
I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying
Thirst, and refresh'd; nor envied them the grape,
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.

Of the character I may say in few words, that Samson possesses all the terrific majesty of Prometheus chained, the mysterious distress of Edipus, and the pitiable wretchedness of Philoctetes. His properties, like those of the first, are something above human; his misfortunes, like those of the second, are derivable from the displeasure of heaven, and involved in oracles; his condition, like that of the last, is the most abject which human nature can be reduced to from a state of dignity and splendour.

Of the catastrophe there remains only to remark, that it is of unparalleled majesty and terror.

No. LXXVII.

DR. Samuel Johnson, in his life of Rowe, pronounces of "The Fair Penitent, that it is one of the most pleasing tragedies on the stage, where it still keeps its turns of appearing, and probably will long keep them, for that there is scarcely any work of any poet at once so interesting by the fable, and so delightful by the language. The story," he observes, " is domestic, and therefore easily received by the imagination, and assimilated to common life; the diction is exquisitely harmonious, and soft or sprightly as occasion requires." Few people, I believe, will think this character of the Fair Penitent too lavish on the score of commendation; the high degree of public favour in which this tragedy has long stood has ever attracted the best performers in its display. As there is no drama more frequently exhibited, or more generally read, I propose to give it a fair and impartial examination, jointly with the more unknown and less popular tragedy from which it is derived.

The Fair Penitent is in fable and character so closely copied from the Fatal Dowry, that it is impossible not to take that tragedy along with it; and it is matter of some surprise to me that Rowe should have made no acknowledgment of his imitation either in his dedication or prologue, or any where else that I am apprized of.

This tragedy of the Fatal Dowry was the joint. production of Massinger and Nathaniel Field; it takes a wider compass of fable than the Fair Penitent, by which means it presents a very affecting scene at the opening, which discovers young Charalois attended by his friend Romont, waiting with a petition in his hand to be presented to the judges, when they shall meet, praying the release of his dead father's body, which had been seized by his creditors, and detained in their hands for debts he had incurred in the public service, as Field Marshal of the armies of Burgundy. Massinger, to whose share this part of the tragedy devolved, has managed this pathetic introduction with consummate skill and great expression of nature; a noble youth in the last state of worldly distress, reduced to the humiliating yet pious office of soliciting an unfeeling and unfriendly judge to allow him to pay the solemn rites of burial to the remains of an illustrious father, who had fought his country's battles with glory, and had sacrificed life and fortune in defence of an ungrateful state, impresses the spectator's mind with pity and respect, which are felt through every passage of the play: one thing in particular strikes me at the opening of the scene, which is the long silence that the poet has artfully imposed upon his principal character (Charalois) who stands in mute sorrow with his

petition in his hand, whilst his friend Romont, and his advocate Charmi, urge him to present himself to the judges and solicit them in person: the judges now make their entrance, they stop upon the stage: they offer him the fairest opportunity for tendering his petition and soliciting his suit; Charalois remains fixed and speechless: Romont, who is all eagerness in his cause, presses him again and again

Now put on your spirits

Now, Sir, lose not this offered means: their looks,
Fix'd on you with a pitying earnestness,
Invites you to demand their furtherance
To your good purpose.

The judges point him out to each other; they lament the misfortunes of his noble house; they observe,

It is young Charalois

Son to the Marshal, from whom he inherits

His fame and virtues only.

Romont. Hah! They name you.

Dulroy. His father died in prison two days since.

Rochfort. Yes, to the shame of this ungrateful state

That such a master in the art of war,

So nobly and so highly meriting

From this forgetful country, should, for want
Of means to satisfy his creditors

The sum he took up for the general good,
Meet with an end so infamous.

Romont. Dare you ever hope for like opportunity?

It is in vain; the opportunity passes off, and Charalois opens not his mouth, nor even silently tenders his petition.

I have, upon a former occasion, both generally and particularly observed upon the effects of dramatic silence; the stage cannot afford a more beautiful and touching instance than this before us: to say it is not inferior to the silence of Hamlet upon his first appearance, would be saying too little in its favour. I have no doubt but Massinger had this very case in his thoughts, and I honour him no less for the imitating than I should have done for striking out a silence so naturally and so delicately preserved. What could Charalois have uttered to give him that interest in the hearts of his spectators, which their own conclusions during his affecting silence have already impressed? No sooner are the judges gone, than the ardent Romont again breaks forth

This obstinate spleen

You think becomes your sorrow, and sorts well
With your black suits.

This is Hamlet himself, his inky cloak, and customary suits of solemn black. The character of Charalois is thus fixed before he speaks; the poet's art has given the prejudice that is to bear him in our affections through all the succeeding events of the fable; and a striking contrast is established between the undiscerning fiery zeal of Romont and Charalois' fine sensibility and highborn dignity of soul.

A more methodical and regular dramatist would have stopped here, satisfied that the impression already made was fully sufficient for all the purposes of his plot; but Massinger, according to the busy spirit of the stage for which he wrote, is not alarmed by a throng of incidents, and proceeds to open the court and discuss the pleadings on the stage: the advocate Charmi in a set harangue moves the judges for dispensing with the rigour of the law in favour of creditors, and for rescuing the Marshal's corpse out of their clutches; he is browbeaten and silenced by the presiding judge, old Novall: the plea is then taken up by the impetuous Romont, and urged with so much personal insolence that he is arrested on the spot, put in charge of the officers of the court, and taken to prison. This is a very striking mode of introducing the set oration of Charalois: a son