under the heads of good, and ill opinion; on the side of the first may be classed admiration and love, hatred and contempt on the other. And these have accordingly divided poetry into two very different kinds, the panegyrical and the satirical; under one of which heads all genuine poetry falls, (for I do not reckon the didactic as poetry in the strictness of speech.)

Without question the subject of all poetry was originally direct and personal. Fictitious character is a refinement, and comparatively modern; for abstraction is in its nature slow, and always follows the progress of philosophy. Men had always friends and enemies before they knew the exact nature of vice and virtue; they naturally, and with their best powers of eloquence, whether in prose or verse, magnified and set off the one; vilified and traduced the other.

The first species of composition in either way was probably some general indefinite topic of praise or blame expressed in a song or hymn, which is the most common and simple kind of panegyric and satire.

But as nothing tended to set their hero or subject in a more forcible light than some story to their advantage or prejudice, they soon introduced a narrative; and thus improved the composition into a greater variety of pleasure to the hearer, and to a more forcible instrument of honour or disgrace to the subject.

It is natural with men when they relate any action with any degree of warmth, to represent the parties to it talking as the occasion requires; and this produces that mixed species of poetry composed of narrative and dialogue, which is very universal in all languages, and of which Homer is the noblest example in any. This mixed kind of poetry seems also to be most perfect, as it takes in a variety of situations, circumstances, reflections and descriptions, which must be rejected on a more limited plan.

It must be equally obvious that men, in relating a story in a forcible manner, do very frequently mimic the looks, gestures and voice of the person concerned, and for the time, as it were, put themselves into his place.

This gave the hint to the drama or acting, and observing the powerful effect of this in public exhibitions *

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* * * But the drama, the most artificial and complicated of all the poetical machines, was not yet brought to perfection; and like those animals, which change their state, some parts of the old narrative still adhered. It still had a ehorus, it still had a prologue to explain the

design; and the perfect drama, an automaton supported and moved without any foreign help, was formed late and gradually. Nay, there are still several parts of the world, in which it is not, and probably never may be formed.-The Chinese Drama.

The drama, being at length formed, naturally adhered to the first division of poetry, the satirical and panegyrical, which made tragedy and comedy.

Men, in praising, naturally applaud the dead. Tragedy celebrated the dead.

Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles. Tragedy turned therefore on melancholy and affecting subjects ;—a sort of threnodia :-its passions, therefore, admiration, terrour, and pity.

Comedy was satirical. Satire is best on the living.

It was soon found that the best way to depress an hated character was to turn it into ridicule; and therefore the greater vices, which in the beginning were lashed, gave place to the contemptible.

Its passion, therefore, became ridicule.

Every writing must have its characteristic passion. What is that of comedy, if not ridicule ?

Comedy therefore is a satirical poem, representing an action carried on by dialogue, to excite laughter by describing ludicrous characters. See Aristotle.

Therefore, to preserve this definition, the ridicule must be either in the action or characters, or both.

An action may be ludicrous, independent of the characters, by the ludicrous situations and accidents which may happen to the charac

ters.

the

But the action is not so important as the characters. We see this every day upon stage.

What are the characters fit for comedy? It appears that no part of human life, which may be subject to ridicule, is exempted from comedy; for wherever men run into the absurd, whether high or low, they may be the subject of satire, and consequently of comedy. Indeed, some characters, as kings, are exempted through decency; others might be too insignificant. Some are of opinion that persons in better life are so polished that their true characters and the real bent of their humour cannot appear. For my own part I cannot give entire credit to this remark; for, in the first place, I believe that good breeding is not so universal or strong in any part of life as to overrule the real characters and strong passions

of such men as would be proper objects of the drama. 2dly. It is not the ordinary common-place discourse of assemblies, that is to be represented in comedy. The parties are to be put in situations in which their passions are roused, and their real characters called forth; and if their situations are judiciously adapted to the characters, there is no doubt but they will appear in all their force, choose what situation of life you please. Let the politest man alive game, and feel at loss, let this be his character; and his politeness will never hide it, nay it will put it forward with greater violence, and make a more forcible contrast.

But genteel comedy puts these characters, not in their passionate, but in their genteel light; makes elegant cold conversation and virtuous personages. Such sort of pictures disagreeable.

Virtue and politeness not proper for comedy, for they have too much or no move

ment.

They are not good in tragedy, much less here.

The greater virtues, fortitude, justice, and the like, too serious and sublime.

It is not every story, every character, every incident, but those only, which answer their end.-Painting of artificial things not good; a thing being useful does not therefore make it most pleasing in picture.-Natural manners good and bad-sentiment.-In common affairs and common life, virtuous sentiments are not even the character of virtuous men; we cannot bear these sentiments but when they are pressed out as it were by great exigencies, and a certain contention, which is above the general style of comedy.

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The first character of propriety the law-suit possesses in an eminent degree. The plot of the play is an iniquitous suit; there can be no fitter persons to be concerned in the active part of it than low necessitous lawyers of had character, and profligates of desperate fortune. On the other hand, in the passive part, if an honest and virtuous man had been made the object of their designs, or a weak man of good intentions, every successful step they should take against him ought rather to fill the audience with horrour than pleasure and mirth; and if in the conclusion their plots should be baffled, even this would come too late to prevent that ill impression; but in the law-suit this is admirably avoided; for the character chosen is a rich avaricious usurer. The pecuniary distresses of such a person can never be looked upon with horrour, and if he should

be even handled unjustly, we always wait his delivery with patience.

Now with regard to the display of the character, which is the essential part of the plot, nothing can be more finely imagined than to draw a miser in law. If you draw him inclined to love and marriage, you depart from the height of his character in some measure, as Moliere has done. Expenses of this kind he may easily avoid. If you draw him in law, to advance brings expense, to draw back brings expense, and the character is tortured and brought out at every moment.

A sort of notion has prevailed, that a comedy might subsist without humour. It is an idle disquisition whether a story in private life, represented in dialogues, may not be carried on with some degree of merit without humour. It may, unquestionably; but what shines chiefly in comedy, the painting the manners of life, must be in a great measure wanting. A character which has nothing extravagant, wrong, or singular in it, can affect but very little; and this is what makes Aristotle draw the great line of distinction between tragedy and comedy. Εν αντη δε τη διαφορα και ἡ τραγωδία, &c. Arist. Poet. ch. 11.

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* * * There is not a more absurd mistake, than that whatever may not unnaturally happen in an action is of course to be admitted into every painting of it. In nature the great and the little, the serious and the ludicrous, things the most disproportionate the one to the other, are frequently huddled together in much confusion. And what then? It is the business of art first to choose some determinate end and purpose, and then to select those parts of nature, and those only, which conduce to that end, avoiding, with most religious exactness, the intermixture of any thing which would contradict it. Else the whole idea of propriety, that is, the only distinction between the just and chimerical in the arts, would be utterly lost. An hero eats, drinks and sleeps like other men; but to introduce such scenes on the stage, because they are natural, would be ridiculous. And why? because they have nothing to do with the end, for which the play is written. The design of a piece might be utterly destroyed by the most natural incidents in the world. Boileau has somewhere criticized, with what surely is a very just severity, on Ariosto, for introducing a ludicrous tale from his host to one of the principal persons of his poem, though the story has great merit in its way. Indeed, that famous piece is so monstrous and extravagant in all its parts, that

one is not particularly shocked with this indecorum. But as Boileau has observed, if Virgil had introduced Æneas listening to a bawdy story from his host, what an episode had this formed in that divine poem! Suppose, instead of Eneas, he had represented the impious Mezentius as entertaining himself in that manner, such a thing would not have been without probability, but it would have clashed with the very first principles of taste, and, I would say, of common sense.

I have heard of a celebrated picture of the last supper; and if I do not mistake, it is said to be the work of some of the Flemish masters; in this picture all the personages are drawn in a manner suitable to the solemnity of the occasion; but the painter has filled the void under the table with a dog gnawing bones. Who does not see the possibility of such an incident, and at the same time the absurdity of introducing it on such an occasion? Innumerable such cases might be stated; it is not the incompatibility or agreeableness of incidents, characters or sentiments, with the probable in fact, but with propriety in design, that admits or excludes them from a place in any composition. We may as well urge that stones, sand, clay and metals lie in a certain manner in the earth, as a reason for building with these materials, and in that manner, as for writing according to the accidental disposition of characters in nature. I have, I am afraid, been longer than it might seem necessary in refuting such a notion; but such authority can only be opposed by a good deal of reason.

We are not to forget that a play is, or ought to be, a very short composition; that if one passion or disposition is to be wrought up with tolerable success, I believe it is as much as can in any reason be expected. If there be scenes of distress and scenes of humour, they must either be in a double or single plot. If

there be a double plot, there are in fact two. If they be in chequered scenes of serious and comic, you are obliged continually to break both the thread of the story and the continuity of the passion; if in the same scene, as Mrs. V. seems to recommend, it is needless to observe how absurd the mixture must be, and how little adapted to answer the genuine end of any passion. It is odd to observe the progress of bad taste; for this mixed passion being universally proscribed in the regions of tragedy, it has taken refuge and shelter in comedy, where it seems firmly established, though no reason can be assigned why we may not laugh in the one as well as weep in the other. The true reason of this mixture is to be sought for in the manners, which are prevalent among a people; it has become very fashionable to affect delicacy, tenderness of heart and fine feeling, and to shun all imputation of rusticity. Much mirth is very foreign to this character; they have introduced therefore a sort of neutral writing.

Now as to characters, they have dealt in them as in the passions. There are none but lords and footmen. One objection to characters in high life is, that almost all wants, and a thousand happy circumstances arising from them, being removed from it, their whole mode of life is too artificial, and not so fit for painting.

And the contrary opinion has arisen from a mistake that whatever has merit in the reality, necessarily must have it in the representation. I have observed that persons, and especially women, in lower life and of no breeding, are fond of such representations. It seems like introducing them into good company, and the honour compensates for the dulness of the entertainment.

Fashionable manners being fluctuating is another reason for not choosing them-sensible comedy-talking sense a dull thing— * *

BOOK 1.

CHAPTER I.

CAUSES OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ROMANS AND BRITAINS.-CESAR'S TWO INVASIONS OF BRITAIN.

In order to obtain a clear notion of the state of Europe before the universal prevalence of the Roman power, the whole region is to be divided into two principal parts; which we shall call northern and southern Europe. The northern part is every where separated from the southern by immense and continued chains of mountains. From Greece it is divided by Mount Hæmus; from Spain by the Pyrenees; from Italy by the Alps. This division is not made by an arbitrary or casual distribution of countries. The limits are marked out by nature; and in these early ages were yet further distinguished by a considerable difference in the manners and usages of the nations they divided. If we turn our eyes to the northward of these boundaries, a vast mass of solid continent lies before us, stretched out from the remotest shore of Tartary quite to the Atlantic Ocean. A line drawn through this extent, from east to west, would pass over the greatest body of unbroken land, that is any where known upon the globe. This tract, in a course of some degrees to the northward, is not interrupted by any sea; neither are mountains so disposed as to form any considerable obstacle to hostile incursions. Originally it was all inhabited but by one sort of people, known by one common denomination of Scythians. As the several tribes of this comprehensive name lay, in many parts, greatly exposed, and as by their situation and customs they were much inclined to attack, and by both ill qualified for defence, throughout the whole of that immense region, there was for many ages a perpetual flux and reflux of barbarous nations. None of their commonwealths continued long enough established on any par

ticular spot to settle, and to subside into a regular order; one tribe continually overpowering or thrusting out another. But as these were only the mixtures of Scythians with Scythians, the triumphs of barbarians over barbarians, there were revolutions in empire, but none in manners. The northern Europe, until some parts of it were subdued by the progress of the Roman arms, remained almost equally covered with all the ruggedness of primitive barbarism.

The southern part was differently circumstanced. Divided, as we have said, from the northern by great mountains, it is further divided within itself by considerable seas. Spain, Greece, and Italy are peninsulas. By these advantages of situation the inhabitants were preserved from those great and sudden revolutions to which the northern world had been always liable. And being confined within a space comparatively narrow, they were restrained from wandering into a pastoral and unsettled life. It was upon one side only that they could be invaded by land. Whoever made an attempt on any other part, must necessarily have arrived in ships of some magnitude; and must therefore have, in a degree, been cultivated, if not by the liberal, at least by the mechanic arts. In fact, the principal colonies, which we find these countries to have received, were sent from Phoenicia, or the Lesser Asia, or Egypt, the great fountains of the antient civility and learning. And they became more or less, earlier or later polished, as they were situated nearer to or farther from these celebrated sources. Though I am satisfied from a comparison of the Celtic tongues with the Greek and Roman, that the original inhabitants of Italy and Greece were of the same race with the people of northern Europe, yet it is certain, they profited so much by their guarded situation, by the mildness of their climate favourable to humanity, and by the foreign infusions, that they came greatly to excel the northern nations in every respect, and particularly in the art and discipline of war. For not being so strong in their bodies, partly from the temperature of their climate, partly

from a degree of softness induced by a more cultivated life, they applied themselves to remove the few inconveniences of a settled society, by the advantages, which it affords in art, disposition, and obedience. And as they consisted of many small states, their people were well exercised in arms, and sharpened against each other by continual war.

Such was the situation of Greece and Italy from a very remote period. The Gauls and other northern nations, envious of their wealth, and despising the effeminacy of their manners, often invaded them with numerous, though ill-formed armies. But their greatest and most frequent attempts were against Italy; their connection with which country alone we shall here consider. In the course of these wars, the superiority of the Roman discipline over the Gallic ferocity was at length demonstrated. The Gauls, notwithstanding the numbers with which their irruptions were made, and the impetuous courage by which that nation was distinguished, had no permanent success. They were altogether unskilful either in improving their victories, or repairing their defeats. But the Romans, being governed by a most wise order of men, perfected by a traditionary experience in the policy of conquest, drew some advantage from every turn of fortune; and, victorious or vanquished, persisted in one uniform and comprehensive plan of breaking to pieces every thing which endangered their safety or obstructed their greatness. For after having more than once expelled the northern invaders out of Italy, they pursued them over the Alps; and carrying the war into the country of their enemy, under several able generals, and at last under Caius Cæsar, they reduced all the Gauls from the Mediterranean sea to the Rhine and the ocean. During the progress of this decisive war, some of the maritime nations of Gaul had recourse for assistance to the neighbouring island of Britain. From thence they received considerable succours: by which means this island first came to be known with any exactness by the Romans; and first drew upon it the attention of that victorious people. Though Cæsar had reduced Gaul, he perceived clearly, that a great deal was still wanting to make his conquest secure and lasting. That extensive country, inhabited by a multitude of populous and fierce nations, had been rather overrun than conquered. The Gauls were not yet broken to the yoke, which they bore with murmuring and discontent. The ruins of their own strength were still considerable; and they had hopes that the Germans,

famous for their invincible courage, and their ardent love of liberty, would be at hand pow erfully to second any endeavours for the recovery of their freedom; they trusted, that the Britains, of their own blood, allied in manners and religion, and whose help they had lately experienced, would not then be wanting to the same cause. Cæsar was not ignorant of these dispositions. He therefore judged, that, if he could confine the attention of the Germans and Britains to their own defence, so that the Gauls, on which side soever they turned, should meet nothing but the Roman arms, they must soon be deprived of all hope, and compelled to seek their safety in an entire submission.

These were the public reasons which made the invasion of Britain and Germany an undertaking, at that particular time, not unworthy a wise and able general. But these enterprises, though reasonable in themselves, were only subservient to purposes of more importance, and which he had more at heart. Whatever measures he thought proper to pursue on the side of Germany, or on that of Britain, it was towards Rome that he always looked, and to the furtherance of his interest there, that all his motions were readily directed. That republic had receded from many of those maxims, by which her freedom had been hitherto preserved under the weight of so vast an empire. Rome now contained many citizens of immense wealth, eloquence and ability. Particular men were more considered than the republic; and the fortune and genius of the Roman people, which formerly had been thought equal to every thing, came now to be less relied upon, than the abilities of a few popular men. The war with the Gauls, as the old, and most dangerous enemy of Rome, was of the last importance; and Cæsar had the address to obtain the conduct of it for a term of years, contrary to one of the most established principles of their government. But this war was finished before that term was expired, and before the designs, which he entertained against the liberty of his country, were fully ripened. It was therefore necessary to find some pretext for keeping his army on foot; it was necessary to employ them in some enterprise, that might at once raise his character, keep his interest alive at Rome, endear him to his troops, and by that means weaken the ties which held them to their country.

From this motive, coloured by reasons plausible and fit to be avowed, he resolved in one and the same year, and even when that was almost expired, upon two expeditions; the