with itself, in order to give it as much as poffible the appearance of ferioufnefs and truth. We know, that the scenery of the fixth book is wholly fictitious; but the Romans did not certainly know how far it might be fo: founded as it was on ancient tradition, which no history they had could overturn; and on philofophical opinions, which they had never heard confuted, and which, where Revelation was unknown, = might feem refpectable, on account of the abilities of Pythagoras, Plato, and other great men who had taught them.

To which I may add, 4thly, as an argument decifive of the prefent queftion, That if Virgil wifhed his countrymen to believe him to have been not in earnest in what he had told them of a pre-existent and future ftate, he must also have wished them to understand,, that the compliments he had been paying to the most favourite characters among their ancestors were equally infincere; and that what he had faid of the virtues of Camillus, Brutus, Cato, Scipio, and even Auguftus himfelf, was altogether vifionary, and had as good a right to a paffage through the ivory gate, as any other falfehood. Had Octavia underflood this to be the poet's meaning, the would not have rewarded him fo liberally for his matchlefs encomium on the younger Marcellus.

Had

this indeed been his meaning, all the latter part of the fixth book would have been a ftudied infult on Auguftus, and the other heroes there celebrated, as well as on the whole Roman people. Strange, that the moft judicious writer in the world should commit fuch a blunder in the moft elaborate part of a poem which he had confecrated to the honour of VOL. XXXII.

his country, and particularly to that of his great patron Auguftus!

We must therefore admit, either that Virgil had lost his fenfes, or, which is more probable, that, in fending Eneas and the Sybil through the ivory gate, he intended no farcaftic reflection either on his country or on his poetry. In a word, we must admit, that, in this part of his fable, he was just as much in earneft as in any other; and that there was no more joke in Eneas's afcent through the gate of ivory,' than in his defcent through the cave of Avernus. How then are we to understand this adventure of the gate anfwer, By making the poet his own interpreter, and not feeking to find things in his book which we have no good reafon to think were ever in his head.

In the nineteenth book of the Odyffey, Penelope, fpeaking of dreams, fays to her nurse, that there are two gates by which they are. tranfmitted to us; one made of horn, through which the true dreams pafs, and the other of ivory, which emits falfe dreams. This thought Homer probably derived from fome Egyptian cuftom or tradition, which one might difcufs with many quotations and much appearance of learning; and this, no doubt, gave Virgil the hint of the paffage now before us. But Virgil's account differs from Homer's more than the commentators feem to be aware of. Homer does not fay in what part of the world his gates are; Virgil's are in Italy, not far from Cume, and are faid to be the outlet from Ely. fium into the upper world: a wild fiction no doubt, but not more wild than that of making the cave of Avernus the inlet from the upper world into the nether. Homer's

gates are the gates of dreams; Virgil calls his the gates of fleep. The former are not faid to tranfmit any thing but dreams; of the latter, one tranfmits dreams, and the other real ghofts or fhades. For thus, though all the commentators are against me, I must understand the words umbris veris; because in Virgil umbra often fignifies a ghost, but never in him, nor in any other good writer, (fo far as I know) a dream. If it be afked, what ghots they were that ufed to pass this way; the answer is eafy: they were thofe who, after having been a thousand years in Elyfium, and taken a draught of Lethe, were fent back to the upper world to animate new bodies. If again it were asked, whether fuch beings might not be of fo fubtle a nature as to work their way into the upper world without paffing through a gate; I should answer, that vifible fubftances, which might be purified by fire, or washed in water, and could not get over the river Styx but in a boat, must be fo far material at least, as to be capable of confinement, and confequently of being fet at liberty.

The falfa infomnia that go out by the ivory gate may mean, either deceitful dreams, or dreams in general, that is, unfubftantial things, as oppofed to realities; which laft I take to be the preferable fignification. Be this, however, as it will, Eneas and the Sybil were neither ghofts nor dreams, but human flesh and blood; and could no more be fuppofed to partake of the qualities alluded to in the name of the gate by which Anchifes difmiffed them, than a man is fuppofed to be lame for having paffed through Cripplegate, or than the Lord Mayor of London, by entering in proceffion through

Temple-bar, is fuppofed to have be come a better churchman than before, or a better lawyer. Through one or other of the gates of fleep the Trojan and his guide must pass, or they never could return to the upper world at all: and that gate the poet probably made choice of, which firft occurred to him; and that probably would first occur, which founded beft in his verfe: or perhaps one might fay, in the way of conjecture, that he thought fit to open the ivory gate, because the other, being appropriated to the purified ghofts, might not be fo well fuited to mere mortals. This is certain, that, though the ablative eburna ftands very gracefully in the 898th line, the ablative cornea could not; because, being the foot am phimacer, it can have no place in a regular hexameter.

As to the analogy that fome critics have fancied between horn and truth, and between falfehood and ivory, it is fo whimsical, and fo abfurd, that I need not mention it.

And now, by removing the mist of allegory from Virgil's gates, I flatter myself, that I have made these verses fomewhat more intelligible than they have been generally fuppofed to be; that I have proved the latter part of this epifode to be confiftent with the rest of it; and that I haye yindicated a favourite author from the heavy charges of impiety and ill-manners, whereof, however repugnant to his general character, it would not be eafy for those to clear him who follow the common, though lefs obvious, interpretations.

Extract from an Account of the Ger

man Theatre, by Henry Mackenzie, Efq. From the fame.

N examining thefe pieces in detail, and appropriating them to their refpective authors, one is immediately ftruck with the name of Leffing, whom Germany fo much reveres as one of the founders of her drama. He is the author of the firft piece in Friedel's collection, Emilie de Galotti, another tragedy in one act called Philotas, a third called Sara Samfon, and a drame entitled, Nathan le Sage. He is author alfo of feveral other plays contained in the Theatre Allemand of Junker, one of which, Minna de Barnhelm, is reckoned the chef d'œuvre of German comedy. I have perused it with all the attention to which its high character entitled it, and indeed with a great degree of the pleasure, though not with all the admiration which that high character led me to expect. It is of the graver or fentimental kind of comedy, where the characters maintain a war of generofity, from which the embarrassments and implications of the plot, not very intricate nor artificial ones, refult, The principal perfon is a Major Telheim, a difbanded officer, whofe merits his country had ill rewarded; a man of the most confummate bravery, generofity and virtue, for whom thofe qualities have gained the love of every foldier and domestic around him. They have procured him a till more valuable attachment, the love of the heroine of the piece, Minna of Barnhelm, who, on hearing of the Major's regiment being dibanded, comes to Berlin to feek him, and to make him happy. The rival nobleness of mind of these two characters produces the principal incidents of the piece, which however are not always natural, nor very happily imagined; and be

fides, as Fielding jocularly fays, when comparing a fhallow book to a fhallow man, may be eafily feen through. But, with all thefe defects, and that want of comic force which the turn and fituation of the principal characters naturally oc cafions, the play muft please and intereft every reader. There is fomething in the conftitution of the human mind fo congenial to difintereftedness, generofity and magnanimity, that it never fails to be pleased with fuch characters, after all the deductions which critical difcernment can make from them. Amidft the want of comic humour which I have obferved in this play, I muft not omit, however, doing juftice to a ferjeant-major of Telheim's regiment, and to Juftin his valet, who are drawn with a ftrong and natural pencil. The ftory of the fpaniel, told by the latter, when his malter's poverty makes him wish to dismiss him from his fervice, is one of the best imagined, and best told, I remember to have met with. There is a good deal of comic character and lively dialogue in fome of Leffing's lefs celebrated pieces in the collection of Junker; but the plots are in general extravagant and farcical.

In judging of Leffing as a tragic writer, one will do him no injuftice by making the tragedy of Emilie de Galotti the criterion of that judg ment. The others in these volumes are very inferior to this, which is certainly, in point of compofition, character, and paffion, a performance of no ordinary kind. Lef fing was well acquainted with the ancient drama, and wifhed to bring the theatre of his country to a point of regularity nearer to that of the ancients. He published, for some time, a periodical criticism on theatrical compofition, called, "Le I 2

Drama.

Dramaturgie de Hambourg." His plays, accordingly, though not exactly conformable to the Ariftotelian ftandard, approach pretty near to it in the obfervation of the unities. He is faid to have got into a difpute with Goethé on this fubject, in which, from a degree of timidity' in his nature, he rather yielded to his antagonist. I am not sure if he has profited by confining himfelf more than fome other of his countrymen within the bounds of the regular drama. The fable of Emilie de Galotti, as well as of his other tragedies, is more regular than happy, and the denouement neither natural nor pleafing. It is founded on circumstances fomewhat fimilar to thofe in the ftory of Virginia. A prince of Guaftalla is defperately enamoured of Emilie de Galotti, who is just about to be married to a man of rank and fortune, the Count Appiani. On the day of his marriage, he is way laid by order of a wicked minifter of the prince, and murdered. His bride is brought to the prince's country-feat, where, to prevent any chance of her difhonour, her father kills her.

After the first reading of Emilie, I was difpofed to wonder at the reputation it had acquired; but a fecond placed it higher in my eftimation. This was naturally the cafe in a performance where the whole was neither fo perfect nor fo interefting as fome of the fcenes in detail were forcible and ftriking. The heroine Emilie de Galotti is but imperfectly drawn, and not very well fupported. Indeed, it may in general be obferved in thefe pieces, that the characters of the female perfonages are by much the most defective, both in beauty and in force. This may perhaps be afcribed to the state of fociety in Ger

many, where the fex is lefs an object of confideration and refpe&t than in France, and fome other parts of the Continent. But there is another lady in this tragedy, the Countess d'Orfina, the betrayed and abandoned miftrefs of the prince, whofe character the poet has delineated with great ability; and one fcene, in which the is introduced along with the father of Emilie, in genuine expreffion of paffion, and pointed force of dialogue, may be compared to fome of the best which the modern ftage can boast.

In the developement of the fecret foldings of the heart, Leffing feems deeply fkilled, and the opening fcenes of this tragedy contain fome of thofe little incidents that mark an intimacy with human nature, which genius alone can claim. But in its progrefs we find, in fome degree, a want of that ftrong and juft delineation and fupport of character, but chiefly of that probable conduct and interefting fituation, which are the great and peculiar requifites of dramatic excellence. It feems alfo defective in the pathetic, for which certainly the fubject afforded very great room, and which, in a fimilar fituation, our countryman Rowe has contrived so strongly to excite.

Of Leffing's performances in thefe volumes, the next in merit, though, in my opinion, at a confiderable diftance, is Sara Samfon, an English ftory, of which the idea feems chiefly taken from Clarija, though one character in it, that of a violent and profligate woman, is evidently borrowed from Millwood in George Barnwell. I must venture to doubt, whether a character of this fort be proper for filling a principal place in tragedy. There is a degree of infamy in the vice of fuch a perfon

that is fcarcely fuitable to the dignity of the higher drama, and which difgufts us with its appearance. The Marwood of Leffing is introduced in fuch a manner as to heighten that difguft. The amiable female of the piece, Sara Samfon, is no exception from the general defect of female character in this collection. And her father, who is placed in the tender fituation of which feveral authors have made fo affecting a ufe, the parent of a child feduced from honour, though ftill alive to virtue, is infipidly drawn, and awkwardly introduced. In this tragedy, is an incident, of which Leffing feems to be fond, as he has repeated it with very little variation in another tragedy called L'Esprit Fort, a dream, related by the heroine, predictive of the catastrophe. This, as it anticipates the conclufion, is always faulty. No part of the conduct of a play is more nice and difficult than that degree of information which the author is to give the audience in the course of it. In general, he fhould certainly not foreftal their expectations, by opening his plot too foon. But there is an admirable theatrical effect which of ten refults from letting the audience know what the perfons of the drama are ignorant of, which ftretches, if may ufe the expreffion, the cords of fear, anxiety and hope in the fpectators to the highest pitch, through fcenes which otherwife would produce thefe feelings in an inferior, as well as in a momentary degree. This knowledge in the audience, of Merope's fon, while fhe, in ignorance of his perfon, is on the point of putting him to death, is one of the moft interefting fituations which dramatic invention has ever produced; and there is nothing on

I

the French ftage which equals the

horror of that fcene of Crebillon's Atree et Thyeffe, where the devoted brother attempts to difguife himself from Atreus, while the terrified fpectators know him all the while, and tremble at every look and word which they think will difcover him.

Next to Leffing, in point of name, is Goethe, the author of two tragedies in this collection, Goetz de Berliching and Clavidge, and of a drame entitled Stella. The firft I have already mentioned as highly irregular in its plan, being a life thrown into dialogue rather than a tragedy. The coftume of the age in which the events are fuppofed to have happened, is very well preferved. The fimple manners, the fidelity, the valour and the generofity of a German knight, are pourtrayed in a variety of natural fcenes. This national quality, I prefume, has been the caufe of its high fame in Germany, to which it feems to me to have otherwise not a perfectly adequate claim. His Clavidgo is founded on an incident which happened to the celebrated Caron de Beaumarchais in Spain, who is introduced as a perfon of the drama, under the name of Ronac, an anagram of Caron, with the letters a little tranfpofed. The dif trefs of the play arifes from the falfehood of a lover, who leaves his miftiefs after being engaged to marry her. Neither the delineation of the characters, nor the management of the plot in the firft two acts, is entitled to much applaufe; but the laft act, which pafies in fight of the corple of Maria, is wrought up with uncommon force, and muft, on the ftage, be productive of high effect. His third performance, Stella, is frongly marked I. 3

with