[3] It is the licentiousness of the mimi and pantomimes, against which the censure of the holy fathers particularly breaks out, as against a thing irregular and indecent, without supposing it much connected with the cause of religion.
[4] Eschylus, in my opinion, as well as the other poets, his contemporaries, retained the chorus, not merely because it was the fashion, but because, examining tragedy to the bottom, they found it not rational to conceive, that an action, great and splendid, like the revolution of a state, could pass without witnesses.
[5] Much light has been thrown on the Greek drama since the labours of Dr. Johnson, and the père Brumoy. The papers on the subject, in Cumberland's Observer, Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Literature, Mr. Mitchell's Dissertations, in his translation of Aristophanes, and the essays on the Greek Orators and Dramatists, in the Quarterly Review, may be mentioned as among the most popular attempts to illustrate this pleasing department of the Belles-Lettres.—Ed.
DEDICATIONS.
Dr. James's Medicinal Dictionary, 3 vols. folio. 1743.
To Dr. Mead.
SIR,
That the Medicinal Dictionary is dedicated to you, is to be imputed only to your reputation for superiour skill in those sciences, which I have endeavoured to explain and facilitate; and you are, therefore, to consider this address, if it be agreeable to you, as one of the rewards of merit; and, if otherwise, as one of the inconveniencies of eminence.
However you shall receive it, my design cannot be disappointed; because this publick appeal to your judgment will show, that I do not found my hopes of approbation upon the ignorance of my readers, and that I fear his censure least, whose knowledge is most extensive.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
R. JAMES.