In shameful silence loft the pow'r to wound.
It is further to be observed that this detail on the IAMBICK is not, with strict propriety, annext to a critical history of the SATYR, in which, as Aristotle insinuates insinuates, was used the Capering Tetrameter, and, as the Grammarians observe, Trisyllabicks.
394.—PISOS! BE GRAECIAN MODELS, &c.]
Pope has imitated and illustrated this passage.
Be Homer's works your study and delight,
Read them by day, and meditate by night;
Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring,
And trace the Muses upwards to their spring.
Still with itself compar'd, his text peruse!
And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse!
Essay on Criticism.
404.—A KIND OF TRAGICK ODE, UNKNOWN BEFORE, THESPIS, 'TIS SAID, INVENTED FIRST. IGNOTUM Tragicae GENUS INVENISSE Camaenae Dicitur, &c.
It is surprising that Dacier, who, in a controversial note, in refutation of Heinsius, has so properly remarked Horace's adherence to Aristotle, should not have observed that his history of the Drama opens and proceeds nearly in the same order. Aristotle indeed does not name Thespis, but we cannot but include his improvements among the changes, to which the Critick refers, before Tragedy acquired a permanent form under AEschylus. Thespis seems not only to have embodied the CHORUS, but to have provided a theatrical apparatus for an itinerant exhibition; to have furnished disguises for his performers, and to have broken the continuity of the CHORUS by an Interlocutor; to whom AEschylus adding another personage, thereby first created Dramatick Dialogue; while at the same time by a further diminution of the CHORUS, by improving the dresses of the actors, and drawing them from their travelling waggon to a fixt stage, he created a regular theatre.
It appears then that neither Horace, nor Aristotle, ascribe the origin of Tragedy to Thespis. the Poet first mentions the rude beginning of Tragedy, (carmen tragicum) the Goat-song; he then speaks of the Satyrick Chorus, soon after interwoven with it; and then proceeds to the improvements of these Bacchic Festivities, by Thespis, and AEschylus; though their perfection and final establishment is ascribed by Aristotle to Sophocles. Dacier very properly renders this passage, On dit que Thespis fut le premier jui inventa une especi de tragedie auparavant inconnue aux Grecs. Thespis is said to be the first inventor of a species of Tragedy, before unknown to the Greeks.
Boileau seems to have considered this part of the Epistle in the same light, that I have endeavoured to place it.