We Qui cils furent, & d'où cils vinrent, may judge, from this paffage, of the state of the language. Master Eustache has been particularly careful to mark the time in which he lived and wrote, by his two concluding lines: L'an mil cent cinquante-cinq ans I will take leave to add, that the second poem, now remaining, in the French language, was entitled, The Romance of Alexander the Great. It was the confederated work of four authors, famous in their time. Lambert le Court, and Alexander of Paris, fung the exploits of Alexander; Peter de Saint Clost, wrote his will in verfe; the writing the will of a hero being then a common topic; and John le Nivelois, added a book concerning the manner in which his death was revenged. It is remarkable, that before this time, all the Romans had been compofed in verses of eight fyllables: but in this piece, the four authors authors first used verfes of TWELVE fyllables, as more folemn and majeftic. And this was the origin, though but little known, of those verses, which we now call ALEXANDRINES; the French heroic measure: the name being derived from Alexander, the hero of the piece, or from Alexander, the most celebrated of the four poets concerned in this work. These were the most applauded poets of that age. Fauchet highly commends this poem; particularly a paffage where a Cavalier is struck to the ground with a lance, who, fays the old bard, Du long comme il etoit, mefura la campagne. Which is not inferior to Virgil's, Hefperiam metire jacens. One would not imagine this line had been written, fo early as the middle of the twelfth century. A great and truly learned antiquary has remarked, for the honour of our country, that about this time, 1160, appeared the first traces of any theatre. "A monk called Nn 2 called Geoffry, who was afterwards abbot of St. Albans in England, employed in the education of youth, made his pupils represent, with proper scenes and dreffes, tragedies of piety. The fubject of the first dramatic piece, was, the miracles of faint Catharine, which appeared long before any of our reprefentations of the MYSTERIES * The prefident Henault, Hiftoire de France. Tom. I. p. 151. a Paris 1749. SECT. SECT. VI. Of the Epistle of SAPPHO to PHAON, and of ELOISA to ABELARD. T is no fmall merit in Ovid, to have invented* this beautiful fpecies of writing epiftles under feigned characters. It is a high improvement on the Greek elegy; to which its dramatic nature renders it greatly fuperior. It is indeed no other than a paffionate foliloquy; in which, the mind gives vent to the diftreffes and emotions under which it labours: but by being directed and addressed to a particular perfon, it gains a degree of propriety, that the best-conducted foliloquy, in a tragedy, must ever want. Our impatience under any preffures of grief, and disorder of mind, makes fuch paffionate expoftulations with the perfons fuppofed to cause such uncafineffes, very natural. Judgment is chiefly Propertius, however, has one compofition of this fort, entitled, Epiftola Arethufæ ad Lycotam. Lib. IV. Eleg. 3. shewn, fhewn, by opening the interefting complaint juft at fuch a period of time, as will give occafion for the most tender fentiments, and the moft fudden and violent turns of paffion to be displayed. Ovid may, perhaps, be blamed for a fameness of fubjects, in these epiftles of his heroines; whofe diftreffes are almoft all occafioned by their lovers forfaking them. His epiftles are likewife too long; which circumstance has forced him into a repetition and languor in the fentiments. It would be a pleasing task, and conduce to the formation of a good taste, to fhew how differently Ovid and the Greek tragedians, have made Medea, Phædra, and Deianira speak, on the very fame occafions. Such a comparison would abundantly manifeft, the FANCY and wIT of Ovid, and the JUDGMENT and NATURE of Euripides and Sophocles. If the character of Medea was not better supported in the tragedy, which Ovid is faid to have produced, and of which Quintilian fpeaks fo advantageously, than it is in her epiftle to Jafon, one may venture to declare, that the Romas would not yet |