Volume IX Part 42 (1/2)

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 showing 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 fort.i.tude 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, quae facere ipse recusem, c.u.m recte tractant alii, laudere 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 point Athenis.

Thus Englished by Mr. Pope:

Yet, lest thou think I rally 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 pa.s.sion that he feigns; Enrage--compose--with more than magic art, With pity and with terror tear my heart; And s.n.a.t.c.h me o'er the earth, or through the air, To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.

Our fair readers are also desired to attend to what a celebrated critic*

of a neighbouring nation says on the nature and design of tragedy, from the rules laid down by the same great antient.

* Rapin, on Aristotle's Poetics.

'Tragedy,' says he, makes man modest, by representing the great masters of the earth humbled; and it makes him tender and merciful, by showing him the strange accidents of life, and the unforeseen disgraces, to which the most important persons are subject.

'But because man is naturally timorous and compa.s.sionate, he may fall into other extremes. Too much fear may shake his constancy of mind, and too much of tragedy to regulate these two weaknesses. It prepares and arms him against disgraces, by showing them so frequent in the most considerable persons; and he will cease to fear extraordinary accidents, when he sees them happen to the highest part of mankind. And still more efficacious, we may add, the example will be, when he sees them happen to the best.

'But as the end of tragedy is to teach men not to fear too weakly common misfortunes, it proposes also to teach them to spare their compa.s.sion for objects that deserve it. For there is an injustice in being moved at the afflictions of those who deserve to be miserable. We may see, without pity, Clytemnestra slain by her son Orestes in aeschylus, because she had murdered Agamemnon her husband; yet we cannot see Hippolytus die by the plot of his step-mother Phaedra, in Euripides, without compa.s.sion, because he died not, but for being chaste and virtuous.

These are the great authorities so favourable to the stories that end unhappily. And we beg leave to reinforce this inference from them, that if the temporary sufferings of the virtuous and the good can be accounted for and justified on Pagan principles, many more and infinitely stronger reasons will occur to a Christian reader in behalf of what are called unhappy catastrophes, from the consideration of the doctrine of future rewards; which is every where strongly enforced in the History of Clarissa.

Of this, (to give but one instance,) an ingenious modern, distinguished by his rank, but much more for his excellent defence of some of the most important doctrines of Christianity, appears convinced in the conclusion of a pathetic Monody, lately published; in which, after he had deplored, as a man without hope, (expressing ourselves in the Scripture phrase,) the loss of an excellent wife; he thus consoles himself:

Yet, O my soul! thy rising murmurs stay, Nor dare th' All-wise Disposer to arraign, Or against his supreme decree With impious grief complain.

That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade, Was his most righteous will: and be that will obey'd.

Would thy fond love his grace to her controul, And in these low abodes of sin and pain Her pure, exalted soul, Unjustly, for thy partial good detain?

No--rather strive thy grov'ling mind to raise Up to that unclouded blaze, That heav'nly radiance of eternal light, In which enthron'd she now with pity sees, How frail, how insecure, how slight, Is every mortal bliss.

But of infinitely greater weight than all that has been above produced on this subject, are the words of the Psalmist:

'As for me, says he,* my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipt: for I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For their strength is firm: they are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men--their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than their heart could wish--verily I have cleansed mine heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence; for all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me. Until I went into the sanctuary of G.o.d; then understood I their end--thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.'

* Psalm lxxiii.

This is the Psalmist's comfort and dependence. And shall man, presuming to alter the common course of nature, and, so far as he is able, to elude the tenure by which frail mortality indispensably holds, imagine that he can make a better dispensation; and by calling it poetical justice, indirectly reflect on the Divine?

The more pains have been taken to obviate the objections arising from the notion of poetical justice, as the doctrine built upon it had obtained general credit among us; and as it must be confessed to have the appearance of humanity and good nature for its supports. And yet the writer of the History of Clarissa is humbly of opinion, that he might have been excused referring to them for the vindication of his catastrophe, even by those who are advocates for the contrary opinion; since the notion of poetical justice, founded on the modern rules, has hardly ever been more strictly observed in works of this nature than in the present performance.

For, is not Mr. Lovelace, who could persevere in his villanous views, against the strongest and most frequent convictions and remorses that ever were sent to awaken and reclaim a wicked man--is not this great, this wilful transgressor condignly punished; and his punishment brought on through the intelligence of the very Joseph Leman whom he had corrupted;* and by means of the very woman whom he had debauched**--is not Mr. Belton, who had an uncle's hastened death to answer for***--are not the infamous Sinclair and her wretched partners--and even the wicked servants, who, with their eyes open, contributed their parts to the carrying on of the vile schemes of their respective princ.i.p.als--are they not all likewise exemplarily punished?

* See Letter LVIII. of this volume.

** Ibid. Letter LXI.