"I might here mention the practice of antient Tragic Poets, both Greek and Latin; but as this particular is touched upon in the Paper above-mentioned, I shall pass it over in silence. I could produce passages out of Aristotle in favour of my opinion: And if in one place he says, that an absolutely virtuous man should not be represented as unhappy, this does not justify any one who shall think fit to bring in an absolutely virtuous man upon the stage. Those who are acquainted with that author's way of writing, know very well, that to take the whole extent of his subject into his divisions of it, he often makes use of such cases as are imaginary, and not reducible to practice....
"I shall conclude, says this gentleman, with observing, that tho' the Spectator above-mentioned is so far against the rule of Poetical Justice, as to affirm, that good men may meet with an unhappy Catastrophe in Tragedy, it does not say, that ill men may go off unpunished. The reason for this distinction is very plain; namely, because the best of men [as is said above] have faults enough to justify Providence for any misfortunes and afflictions which may befal them; but there are many men so criminal, that they can have no claim or pretence to happiness. The best of men may deserve punishment; but the worst of men cannot deserve happiness."
Mr. Addison, as we have seen above, tells us, that Aristotle, in considering the Tragedies that were written in either of the kinds, observes, that those which ended unhappily had always pleased the people, and carried away the prize, in the public disputes of the Stage, from those that ended happily. And we shall take leave to add, that this preference was given at a time when the entertainments of the Stage were committed to the care of the magistrates; when the prizes contended for were given by the State; when, of consequence, the emulation among writers was ardent; and when learning was at the highest pitch of glory in that renowned commonwealth.
It cannot be supposed, that the Athenians, in this their highest age of taste and politeness, were less humane, less tender-hearted, than we of the present. But they were not afraid of being moved, nor ashamed of shewing themselves to be so, at the distresses they saw well painted and represented. In short, they were of the opinion, with the wisest of men, That it was better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of mirth; and had fortitude enough to trust themselves with their own generous grief, because they found their hearts mended by it.
Thus also Horace, and the politest Romans in the Augustan age, wished to be affected:
Ac ne forte putes me, quæ facere ipse recusem,
Cum recte tractant alii, laudare maligne;
Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur
Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet; falsis terroribus implet,
Ut magus; & modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.
Thus Englished by Mr. Pope:
Yet, lest you think I railly more than teach,
Or praise malignly Arts I cannot reach,
Let me, for once, presume t'instruct the times
To know the Poet from the Man of Rhymes.
'Tis He who gives my breast a thousand pains,
Can make me feel each passion that he feigns;
Enrage—compose—with more than magic art,
With pity and with terror tear my heart;
And snatch me o'er the earth, or thro' the air,
To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.
Our fair readers are also desired to attend to what a celebrated Critic[42] of a neighbouring nation says on the nature and design of Tragedy, from the rules laid down by the same great Antient.
'Tragedy, says he, makes man modest, by representing the great masters of the earth humbled; and it makes him tender and merciful, by shewing him the strange accidents of life, and the unforeseen disgraces to which the most important persons are subject.