[64] The cat ran away with this part of the copy, on which the Author had unfortunately laid some of Mother Crump's sausages.
[65] Corneille recommends some very remarkable day wherein to fix the action of a tragedy. This the best of our tragical writers have understood to mean a day remarkable for the serenity of the sky, or what we generally call a fine summer's day: so that, according to this their exposition, the same months are proper for tragedy which are proper for pastoral. Most of our celebrated English tragedies, as Cato, Mariamne, Tamerlane, &c., begin with their observations on the morning. Lee seems to have come the nearest to this beautiful description of our author's:—
"The morning dawns with an unwonted crimson,
The flowers all odorous seem, the garden birds
Sing louder, and the laughing sun ascends
The gaudy earth with an unusual brightness:
All nature smiles."—"Cæs. Borg."
Massinissa, in the new Sophonisba, is also a favourite of the sun:—
"The sun too seems
As conscious of my joy, with broader eye