lancholy, or rather let us profit by them to become intimately convinced of two great truths; the one, that we ought to have the fame idea of our friends during their lives, that we should entertain were we to be deprived of them; the other, which is a confequence of the former, that we ought to remember them not only when they are abfent, but also when they are present.

There are likewife other connections which we are obliged to contract in fociety, and which it is advantageous to cultivate. Such are those which are founded on esteem and on tafte. Though they have not the fame claims as friendship, they yet afford us a powerful aid to fupport the weight of life.

Think not that it is virtue to deny yourselves the harmless pleasures fuited to your age and circumstances. Wisdom is only amiable and folid by the happy mixture of the amusements it permits and the duties it enjoins.

If to the refources I have enumerated you add that hope which still comforts us under all the misfortunes we can experience, you will find, Lyfis, that Nature has not treated us with that feverity with which the is charged. To conclude, confider the preceding reflections only as an elucidation of the following: It is in the heart that every man refides, and there alone muft he feek his tranquillity and happiness.

NOT E S.
NOT

CHAP. LXIX.

PAGE 45.

On the Number of Tragedies written by Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

ESCHYLUS, according to fome, wrote seventy tragedies (a); according to others, ninety (b). The anonymous author of the Life of Sophocles attributes to that poet a hundred and thirteen; Suidas, a hundred and twentythree; and others, a still greater number (c). Samuel Petit affigns him only fixty-fix (d). According to different writers, Euripides wrote seventy-five, or ninety-two (e); and it appears that we ought to decide in favour of the former number (f). Authors likewise differ with respect to the number of prizes that they gained.

(a) Anonym. in Vit. Æschyl.

(6) Suid. in Aloxua.

(c) Id. in Σοφοκλ.

(d) Pet. Leg. Att. p. 71.

(e) Suid. in Evgin. Varr. ap. Aul. Gell. lib, 17, cap. 4.

(f) Walck. Diatrib. in Euripid. p. 9.

CHAP. LXX.

PAGE 70.

On the Singing and Declamation of the ancient Tragedy.

THE ancients have left us but little light on this fubject; and modern critics have been divided in their opinions, when they have undertaken to elucidate it. It has been afferted that the fcenes were fung; and it has been affirmed that they were only declaimed, or recited. Some have added, that the declamation was noted. I fhall give in a few words the refult of my enquiries.

1. The actors declaimed in the fcenes. Ariftotle, speaking of the means employed by certain kinds of poetry to produce imitation, fays, that the dithyrambics, the nomi, tragedy, and comedy, made use of rhythm, melody, and verfe; with this difference, that the dithyrambics and the nomi employed all the three together, and tragedy and comedy made use of them separately (g): and afterwards he fays that, in the fame piece, tragedy fometimes employs metre alone, and fometimes metre accompanied with melody (b).

It is well known that the scenes were ufually compofed in iambic verfe, because this kind of metre is most proper for dialogue. But Plutarch, fpeaking of the mufical execution of the iambic verses, says that, in tragedy, some were recited while the inftruments played, and that others were fung (i). Declamation was then admitted in the fcenes.

(g) Ariftot. de Poet. cap. 1, t. ii. p. 653, B.

(b) Id. ibid. cap. 6, p. 656, C.

(i) Plut. de Muf. t. ii. p. 1141, A. Buret. Mem. de l'Acad. des Bell. Lettr. t. x. p. 253.

1

2. The actors frequently fang in the fcenes. To the proof afforded by the preceding paffage in Plutarch, I fhall add the following others. Ariftotle affures us that the hypodorian and hypophrygian modes or keys were used in the fcenes, though they were not in the chorufes (k).

"When Hecuba and Andromache fing on the ftage," fays Lucian, "we may pardon them; but for Hercules fo far to forget himself as to fing, is an intolerable abfurdity (/)." The characters of a piece, therefore, fang on

certain occafions.

3. Declamation was never used in the interludes, or intervals between the acts, but in these the whole chorus fang. This propofition is not contested.

4. The chorus fometimes fang in the courfe of a fcene. This is proved from the paffage in Pollux: "When, inftead of a fourth actor, fome one of the chorus is made to fing," &c. (m) And likewise by the precept in Horace: "Let the chorus fing nothing between the interludes which is not clofely connected with the action (n)" as also by a number of examples. It will be fufficient to refer to the Agamemnon of Æschylus, from verse 1099 to verse 1186; the Hippolytus of Euripides, from v. 58 to v. 72; the Oreftes of the fame poet, from v. 140 to v. 207, &c. &c.

5. The chorus, or rather its coryphaus, fometimes entered into dialogue with the actors, and this dialogue was only declaimed. This was especially done when the chorus was asked for any explanations, or when itself requested them from one of the perfons of the drama; in a word, as often

(k) Ariftot. Probl. fect. 19, § 48, t. ii. p. 770, B.

(1) Lucian. de Salt. § 27, t. ii. p. 285.

(m) Poll. lib. 4, cap. 15, § 110.

(n) Horat. de Art. Poet. v. 194.

as it immediately participated in the action. See, in the Medea of Euripides, verfe 811; in the Supplicants of the fame poet, v. 634; in the Iphigenia in Aulis of the fame, v. 917, &c.

The first scenes of the Ajax of Sophocles will fuffice, if I am not mistaken, to fhew the manner in which declamation and finging were employed fucceffively.

Scene the first, Minerva and Ulyffes; fcene the fecond, the fame and Ajax; fcene the third, Minerva and Ulysses. These three fcenes form the expofition of the subject. Minerva relates to Ulyffes that Ajax, in a fit of frenzy, had killed the fhepherds and flaughtered the flocks, imagining that he facrificed to his vengeance the chiefs of the army. This is a fact, and is narrated in iambic verses; whence I conclude that the three scenes were declaimed.

Minerva and Ulyffes go off, and the chorus enters: it is compofed of Salaminians, who deplore the misfortune of their fovereign, of whose frantic actions they have been informed. The chorus entertains doubts, which it feeks to fatisfy. It does not employ the iambic verse; its style is figurative. It is alone, it expreffes itself in a strophe and antiftrophe, both containing the fame number of verfes of the fame metre. This, therefore, is what Ariftotle calls the first speech of the whole chorus (0); and, by confequence, the first interlude, which was always fung by all

the voices of the chorus.

rus.

After the interlude, scene the first, Tecmeffa and the choThis fcene, which continues from verse 200 to verse 307, is, as it were, divided into two parts. In the first, which contains 62 verses, Tecmeffa confirms the accounts of the frenzy of Ajax; her lamentations and thofe of the