but ftill preferving fuch a refemblance as fhews them to be derived from the fame origin.

The

Jealous of the neighbouring states, and ever attentive to the glory and interest of their commonwealth, an Athenian audience liftened with pleasure to any circumstances, in their theatrical entertainments, which reflected honour on their country. inftitution of the Areopagus by the express commands of Minerva; a perpetual amity promised by Oreftes between Argos and Athens in the tragedy of the Eumenides; and a prophecy of Promotheus, which threw a luftre on the author of the race of the Heraclidæ, were circumftances, without queftion, fedulously fought by the poet, and favorably received by the fpectator. But though such subjects might be chosen, or invented, as would introduce fome favorable incidents, or flattering reflections, this intention did not always reign through the whole drama.

It has been just now observed, that Shakefpear has an advantage over the Greek poets, in the more folemn, gloomy, and mysterious air of his national fuperftitions; but this avails him only with critics of deep penetration and true tafte, and with whom fentiment has more fway than authority. The learned have received the popular tales of Greece from their poets; ours are derived to them from the illiterate vulgar. The phantom of Darius, in the tragedy of the Perfians, evoked by ancient rites, is beheld with reverence by the scholar, and endured by the bel efprit. To these the ghost of Hamlet is an object of contempt or ridicule. Let us candidly examine these royal shades, as exhibited to us by those great masters in the art of exciting pity and terror, Æschylus and Shakespear; and impartially decide which poet throws most of the fublime into the præternatural character; and, also, which has the art to render it most efficient in the drama. This enquiry may be more interesting, as the French wits have often mentioned

an inftance of

mentioned Hamlet's ghost as the barbarifm of our theatre. The Perfians, of Æfchylus, is certainly one of the most auguft fpectacles that ever was represented on a theatre; nobly imagined, happily sus tained, regularly conducted, deeply interesting to the Athenian people, and favorable to their great scheme of refifting the power of the Perfian monarch. It would be abfurd to depreciate this excellent piece, or to bring into a general comparison with it, a drama of fo different a kind as the tragedy of Hamlet. But it is furely allowable to compare the Perfian phantom with the Danish ghost; and to examine, whether any thing but prejudice, in favour of the ancients, protects the fuperftitious circumstances relative to the one, from the ridicule with which thofe accompanying the other are treated. Atoffa, the widow of Darius, relates to the fages of the Perfian council, a dream and an omen; they advise her to confult the shade of her dead lord, upon what is to be done in the unfortunate fituation of Xerxes juft defeated by the Greeks. In the third act she

4

enters

enters offering to the Manes a libation composed of milk, honey, wine, oil, &c. upon this Darius iffues from his tomb. Let the wits, who are fo fmart on our ghoft's disappearing at the cock's crowing, explain why, in reason, a ghost in Perfia, or in Greece, should be more fond of milk and honey, than averfe, in Denmark, to the crowing of a cock. Each poet adopted, in his work, the fuperftition relative to his fubject; and the poet who does fo, understands his bufinefs much better than the critic, who, in judging of that work, refuses it his attention. The phantom of Darius comes forth in his regal robes to Atoffa and the Satraps in council, who, in the Eaftern manner, pay their filent adorations to their emperor. His quality of ghost does not appear to make any impreffion upon them; and the Satraps fo exactly preferve the characters of courtiers, that they do not venture to tell him the true state of the affairs of his kingdom, and its recent difgraces: finding he cannot get any information from them, he addreffes himself to Atoffa, who does not break forth

with that paffion and tenderness one should fuppofe fhe would do on the fight of her long loft husband; but very calmly informs him, after fome flattery on the conftant profperity of his reign, of the calamitous state of Perfia under Xerxes, who has been ftimulated by his courtiers to make war upon Greece. The phantom, who was to appear ignorant of what was past, that the Athenian ear might be foothed and flattered with the detail of their victory at Salamis, is allowed, for the fame reason, fuch prescience as to foretell their future triumph at Platea. Whatever elfe he adds by way of council or reproof, either in itself, or in the mode of delivering it, is nothing more than might be expected from any old counsellor of state. Darius gives his advice to the old men, to enjoy whatever they can, because riches are of no ufe in the grave. As this touches the most abfurd and ridiculous foible in human nature, the increase of a greedy and folicitous defire of wealth as the period of enjoyment of it becomes more precarious and short, the admonition has fomething of