Whether this representation of Sophocles be not more agreeable to truth, as collected from wide observation, i. e. from human nature at large, than that of Euripides, the capable reader will judge. If it be, the reason I suppose to have been, that Sophocles painted his characters, such, as, from attending to numerous instances of the same kind, he would conclude they ought to be; Euripides, such, as a narrower sphere of observation had persuaded him they were.
319. Interdum speciosa locis, &c.] The poet’s science in ethics will principally shew itself in these two ways, 1. in furnishing proper matter for general reflexion on human life and conduct; and, 2. in a due adjustment of the manners. By the former of these two applications of moral knowledge a play becomes, what the poet calls, speciosa locis, i. e. (for the term is borrowed from the rhetoricians) striking in its moral topics: a merit of the highest importance on the ancient stage, and which, if prudently employed in subserviency to the latter more essential requisite of the drama, a just expression of the manners, will deserve to be so reputed at all times and on every theatre. The danger is, lest a studied, declamatory moral, affectedly introduced, or indulged to excess, should prejudice the natural exhibition of the characters, and so convert the image of human life into an unaffecting, philosophical dialogue.
319. Morataque recte Fabula, &c.] This judgment of the poet, in regard of the superior efficacy of manners, is generally thought to be contradicted by Aristotle; who in treating this subject, observes, “that let a piece be never so perfect in the manners, sentiments, and style, it will not so well answer the end and purpose of tragedy, as if defective in these, and finished only in the fable and composition.” Ἐάν τις ἐφεξῆς θῇ ῥήσεις ἠθικὰς καὶ λέξεις καὶ διανοίας εὖ πεποιημένας, οὐ ποιήσει ὃ ἦν τῆς τραγῳδίας ἔργον, ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον ἡ καταδεεστέροις τούτοις κεχρημένη τραγῳδία, ἔχουσα δὲ μῦθον καὶ σύστασιν πραγμάτων. Κεφ. ϛʹ. M. Dacier thinks to clear this matter by saying, “that what Aristotle remarks holds true of tragedy, but not of comedy, of which alone Horace is here speaking.” But granting that the artificial contexture of the fable is less necessary to the perfection of comedy, than of tragedy (as it certainly is), yet the tenor of this whole division, exhorting to correctness in general, makes it unquestionable, that Horace must intend to include both. The case, as it seems to me, is this. The poet is not comparing the respective importance of the fable and manners, but of the manners and diction, under this word including also numbers. He gives them the preference not to a good plot, nor even to fine sentiments, but to versus inopes rerum nugæque canoræ. The art he speaks of, is the art of expressing the thoughts properly, gracefully, and harmoniously: the pondus is the force and energy of good versification. Venus is a general term including both kinds of beauty. Fabula does not mean the fable (in distinction from the rest) but simply a play.
323. Graiis ingenium, &c.] The Greeks being eminent for philosophy, especially morals; the last observation naturally gives rise to this. For the transition is easy from their superiority, as philosophers, to their superiority as poets; and the more easy, as the latter is shewn to be, in part, the effect of the former. Now this superiority of the Greeks in genius and eloquence (which would immediately occur, on mentioning the Socraticæ chartæ) being seen and confessed, we are led to ask, “whence this arises.” The answer is, from their making glory, not gain, the object of their wishes.
330. Aerugo et cura peculi Cum semel imbuerit, &c.] This love of gain, to which Horace imputes the imperfect state of the Roman poetry, hath been uniformly assigned, by the wisdom of ancient times, as the specific bane of arts and letters. Longinus and Quintilian account, from hence, for the decay of eloquence, Galen of physic, Petronius of painting, and Pliny, of the whole circle of the liberal arts. An ingenious modern is indeed for carrying his views much further. He, it seems, would account [Refl. sur la Poes. et sur la Peint. v. ii. § xiv.] for this public degeneracy of taste and literature, not from the malignity of the selfish passions, but the baleful influences of the air, emulating, I suppose, herein, the wisdom of that philosophy, which teaches to lay the private degeneracy of individuals on the stars. Thus much however may be true, that other causes have generally co-operated with it. Some of these, as might be shewn, did not escape the attention of these wise ancients. Yet they did right to insist chiefly on this, which is every way equal to the effect ascribed to it. It is so in its nature: For being, as Longinus calls it, νόσημα μικροποιὸν, a disease which narrows and contracts the soul, it must, of course, restrain the generous efforts and expansions of genius; cramp the free powers and energies of the mind, and render it unapt to open itself to wide views, and to the projection of great, extensive designs. It is so in its consequences. For, as one says elegantly, when the passion of avarice grows general in a country, the temples of Honour are soon pulled down, and all men’s sacrifices are made to Fortune[30]. Thus extinguishing the sense of honour, that divinest movement in our frame, and the only one, which can invigorate the mind under the long labours of invention, it must needs be, that the fire and high spirit of genius go out with it; and dragging in its train the love of pleasure, that unmanliest of all the passions, it diffuses such a languor and impotency over the mind, as must leave it at length a prey to a supine wasting indolence; till, as Longinus observes of his own age (and let every friend to letters deprecate the omen), Πάντες ἐγκαταβιοῦμεν, οὐκ ἄλλως πονοῦντες, ἢ ἀναλαμβάνοντες, εἰ μὴ ἐπαίνου καὶ ἡδονῆς ἕνεκα, ἀλλὰ μὴ τῆς ζήλου καὶ τιμῆς ἀξίας ποτὲ ὠφελείας.