ellence of poetry, that without it rhyme and metre are vain. There may be fmoothnefs, fyllabic arrangement, and good sense, in a metrical production; but there can be no true poetry without imagery, warm expreffion, and an enthusiasm which intoxicates the reader, lifts him above the ground, and makes him forget that he is mortal. Poetry is paffion; paffion is a temporary phrenzy, during which we both hear and fee what we are totally infenfible to in our fober fenfes. What did the ancients mean by the Pythian priestefs being numine afflata, when the received infpiration, and delivered it in verfe, and in applying the fame idea to poets, but that they had fuch a temporary delirium? Ratiocination prevailed in Johnfon much more than fenfibility. He has no daring fublimities, nor gentle graces; he never glows with the enthusiasm of the god, or kindles a fympathetic emotion in the bofom of his readers. His poems are the plain and fenfible effufions of a mind never hurried beyond itself, to which the use of rhyme adds no beauty, and from which the use of profe would detract no force. His verfification is fmooth, flowing, and unrestrained; but his pauses are not fufficiently varied, to rescue him from the imputation of monotony. He feems never at a lofs for rhyme, or deftitute of a proper expreffion; and the manner of his verse appears admirably adapted to didactic or fatiric poetry, for which his powers were equally, and perhaps alone qualified. His tragedy of Irene may be considered as the greatest effort of his genius. It is a legitimate dramatic compofition. The unities of time, place, and action, are ftrictly obferved. The diction is nervous, rich, and elegant; but fplendid language, and melodious numbers, will make a fine poem, not a tragedy. The substance of the story is fhortly this. In 1453, Mahomet the Great, firft emperor of the Turks, laid fiege to Conftantinople, and having reduced the place, became enamoured of a fair Greek, whofe name was Irene. The fultan invited her to embrace the law of Mahomet, and to grace his throne. Enraged at this intended marriage, the janizaries formed a confpiracy to dethrone the emperor. To avert the impending danger, Mahomet, in a full affembly of the grandees, “catching with one hand," as Knolles expresses it, “the fair Greek by the hair of her head, and drawing his faulchion with the other, he, at one blow, ftruck off her head, to the great terror of them all; and having fo done, faid unto them, "Now, by this, judge whether your emperor is able to bridle his affections or not." The ftory is fimple, and it remained for Johnfon to amplify it with proper episodes, and give it complication and variety. But he has altered the cha racter and catastrophe, which he found in the hiftorian, fo as to diminish the drama-tic effect. Many faults may be found with the conduct of the fable. The principal oné is, that the plot is double, and has the moft ftriking faults of fuch a fable; for it divides the fpectator's attention and regard between characters, whofe interefts are oppofite, and whofe happiness or mifery is made to depend upon the fame events. We cannot hope the efcape of Demetrius and Afpafia, without dreading the condemnation of Irene; and our wifhes as to each, operating in contradiction, must diminish our concern for both. The catastrophe, which is made to depend upon the fate of Irene, is meanly worked up. It is brought about too fuddenly, without a due connection with preparatory incidents, and at the very moment when we have not leifure to contemplate it, and are alone interested for the escape of Demetrius and Af pafia. We neither anticipate it with fufficient perfpicuity, nor confider it with folemnity, fo as to be affected, upon its oc currence, with genuine dramatic grief or terror. The characters of the piece have nothing difcriminative. They are not representations of different tempers, paffions, and minds, but of different degrees of virtue and vice. They are fo naked of peculiarity, that we cannot know why the fame incidents fhould operate differently upon any one of them, fo as to impel them to a different action, or produce an emotion even varying in ftrength from what it would have done in any other. They poffefs too much of a balanced importance in the conduct of the drama, fo that the mind knows not how to make its election of a principal character, or to fix its attention upon any perfonage to whofe felicity it may attach its wishes, and upon whofe fate it may fufpend its fympathy. From the |