TITUS AND BERENICE,

A TRAGEDY.

Grandis oratio non est turgida, sed naturali pulchritudine exsurgit.

PET. ARB. SATYRIC. CAP. 2.

VOL. I.

M

TITUS AND BERENICE.

CORNEILLE and RACINE, two of the greatest ornaments of the French drama, have each found employment for their genius in the celebrated conduct of Titus towards Berenice, which attaches so much glory to his character in the pages of the Roman historians. The Berenice of Corneille, the product of his declining age, cannot bear a comparison with his Cid, and is, perhaps, thrown into deeper obscurity by the superior lustre of it's rival. The elegant and classical mind of Racine, has tempted him to reject, in the present instance, the vicious practice which modern refinement has introduced into the higher department of the drama, and to copy the pure models which the Greek writers afforded him, in the simplicity of their plots, and the unity of their actions. Accordingly, in his Berenice, our interest is undivided: we are never called from the doubtful struggles of the emperor, the agonies of Berenice, and the stifled emotions of Antiochus, to bear a part in any inferior distresses; but are wholly fixed upon one event, and that as great and striking as any we meet with in history. It has, however, been objected to the French author, and by his own countrymen, that his piece cannot be termed a tragedy so properly as a pastoral dialogue; and that Titus is not

strictly a Roman hero, but discovers too great an analogy to a courtier of Versailles*.

These remarks are not irrelevant to the piece immediately before us, inasmuch as it being a close imitation of the French tragedy, whatever of praise or censure is bestowed upon it's essentials, will be the property of the original author. The only important alterations made by Otway, are, first, reducing the piece to three acts, and curtailing, by that means, the speeches in the original, which, without great force of expression, as well as elevation of thought, are apt to sink into languor; and, in the second place, making Antiochus discover his passion to Titus in an early part of the play, which is deferred by the French author till the last scene. The dialogue is, generally, a close, and, occasionally, a literal translation, which leaves to Otway scarcely any other merit than what results from his versification, in which he has considerably improved upon his former pieces.

Titus and Berenice was represented in February, 1676-7.

* Report says, that a French nobleman having asked the great Condé his opinion of the tragedy, he replied in this verse from she fifth act:

68

Depuis deux ans entiers, chaque jour je la vois,

Et crois toujours la voir pour la première fois.”

ΤΟ

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN, EARL OF ROCHESTER,

ONE OF THE GENTLEMEN OF HIS MAJESTY'S BED-CHAMBER, &c.

MY LORD,

DEDICATIONS are grown things of so nice a nature, that it is almost impossible for me to pay your lordship those acknowledgments I owe you, and not (from those who cannot judge of the sentiments I have of your lordship's favours) incur the censure either of a fawner or a flatterer; both which ought to be as hateful to an ingenuous spirit as ingratitude. None of these would I be guilty of, and yet in letting the world know how good and how generous a patron I have, (in spite of malice) I am sure I am honest.

My Lord, never was poetry under so great an oppression as now, as full of fanaticisms as religion; where every one pretends to the spirit of wit, sets up a doctrine of his own, and hates a poet worse than a quaker does a priest.

To examine how much goes to the making up one of those dreadful things that resolve our dissolution: it is, for the most part, a very little French breeding, much assurance, with a great deal of talk, and no

sense.

Thus he comes to a new play, enquires the author of it, and (if he can find any) makes his personal misfortunes the subject of his malice to some of his companions, who have as little wit, and as much ill-nature as himself; and so to be sure (as far as he can) the play is damned.