Have read this Day's Paper

I

with a great deal of Pleafure, and could fend you an Account of feveral Elixirs and Antidotes in your third Volume, which your Correfpondents have not taken notice of in their Advertisements; and at the fame time must own to you, that I have feldom feen a Shop furnished with fuch a Variety of Medicaments, and in which there are fewer Soporificks. The feveral Vehicles you have invented for conveying your unacceptable Truths to us, are what I moft particularly admire, as I am afraid they are Secrets which will die with you. I do not find that any of your Critical Effays are taken notice of in this Paper, notwithstanding I look upon them to be excellent Clean

fers

fers of the Brain, and could venture to fuperfcribe them with an Advertisement which I have lately feen in one of our News-Papers, wherein there is an Account given of a Sovereign Remedy for reftoring the Tafte to all fuch Perfons whofe Palates have been vitiated by Diftempers, unwholfome Food, or any the like Occafions. But to let fall the Allufion, notwithstanding your Criticifms, and particularly the Candour which you have difcovered in them, are not the leaft taking part of your Works, I find your Opinion concerning Poetical Juftice, as it is expreffed in the first Part of your Fortieth Spectator, is controverted by fome eminent Criticks; and as you now feem, to our great Grief of Heart, to be winding up your Bottoms, I hoped you would have enlarged a little upon that Subject. It is indeed but a fingle Paragraph in your Works, and I believe thofe who have read it with the fame Attention I have done, will think there is nothing to be objected against it. I have however drawn up fome additional Arguments to ftrengthen the Opinion which you have there delivered, having endeavoured to go to the bottom of that matter, which

you

You may either publish or suppress as you think fit.

• HORACE in my Motto fays, that all Men are vicious, and that they • differ from one another, only as they C are more or less fo. Boileau has given the fame Account of our Wisdom, as Horace has of our Virtue.

Tous les hommes font fous, & malgré tous leurs Joins,

Ne different entre eux, que du plus && du moins,

All Men, fays he, are Fools, and in fpite of their Endeavours to the contrary, differ from one another only as they are more or lefs fo.

TWO or three of the old Greek 'Poets have given the fame turn to a 'Sentence which defcribes the Happi• nefs of Man in this Life;

Τὸ ζῆν ἀλύπως, ἀνδρὸς ἐςι ευτυχές.

That Man is most happy who is the leaft miferable. It will not perhaps be unentertainig to the Polite Reader, to obferve how these three beautiful Sentences are formed upon different Subjects by the fame way of think

ingi

ing; but I fhall return to the first of 'them.

OUR Goodness being of a comparative, and not an abfolute Nature, there is none who in ftrictness can be called a virtuous Man. Every one has in him a natural Alloy, though one may be fuller of Drofs than another: C For this reafon I cannot think it right to introduce a perfect or a faultless Man upon the Stage; not only becaufe fuch a Character is improper to move Compaffion, but because there is no fuch thing in Nature. This might probably be one Reason why the SPECTATOR in one of his Pa pers took notice of that late invented Term called Poetical Juftice, and the wrong Notions into which it has led fome Tragick Writers. The most perfect Man has Vices enough to draw down Punishments upon his Head, and to justify Providence in regard to any Miferies that may befal him. For this reafon I cannot think, but that the Inftruction and Moral are much finer, where a Man ' who is virtuous in the main of his Character falls into Diftrefs, and finks under the Blows of Fortune at the

• end

⚫ end of a Tragedy, than when he is reprefented as Happy and Triumphant. Such an Example corrects the Info'lence of Human Nature, foftens the Mind of the Beholder with Sentiments of Pity and Compaffion, com'forts him under his own private Af• fliction, and teaches him not to judge ' of Mens Virtues by their Succeffes.

cannot think of one real Hero in all Antiquity fo far raifed above human Infirmities, that he might not be very naturally represented in a Tragedy as plunged in Misfortunes and Calamities. The Poet may ftill find out fome prevailing Paffion or Indiscretion in his Character, and fhew it in fuch a manner, as will fufficiently acquit the Gods of any Injuftice in his Sufferings. For as Horace obferves in my Text, the best Man is faulty, though not in fo great a degree as those ' whom we generally call vicious

• Men.

IF fuch a strict Poetial Juftice, as fome Gentlemen infift upon, was to be obferved in this Art, there is no manner of reason why it should not extend to Heroick Poetry, as well as Tragedy. But we find it fo little ob• ferved