SONNETS: III. Qual in colle aspro, al imbrunir di sera.'. ....... IV. Diodati, e te'l dirò con maraviglia.'. V. Per certo i bei vostr' occhi, Donna mia three.. 202 VIII. When the Assault was intended to the City.... 203 203 204 XI. On the Detraction which followed upon my XII. On the same..... XIII. To Mr. H. Lawes on the publishing his Airs... XV. To the Lord General Fairfax.. XVII. To Sir Henry Vane the younger.. XIX. On his Blindness..... XX. To Mr. Lawrence. XXI. To Cyriac Skinner. XXII. To the same... XXIII. On his deceased Wife.. PSALMS LATIN POEMS. Compliments addressed to the Author... I. Ad Carolum Deodatum. II. In Obitum Præconis Academici Cantabrigi Page ensis.... III. In Obitum Præsulis Wintoniensis. IV. Ad Thomam Junium, &c...... 199 200 200 201 201 205 206 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 213 214 215 216 250 256 260 261 264 269 Page 275 VI. Ad Carolum Deodatum ruri commorantem.... VII. 'Nondum, blanda, tuas leges, Amathusia, noxam.' 278 EPIGRAMMATUM LIBER : I. In Proditionem Bombardicam. II. In eandem.... III. In eandem. IV. In eandem.. V. In Inventorem Bombardæ. VI. Ad Leonoram Romæ canentem. VII. Ad eandem..... VIII. Ad eandem.. IX. In Salmasii Hundredam. X. In Salmasium. " XI. Galli exconcubitu,' etc.. XIII. Ad Christinam Suecorum Reginam, nomine SYLVARUM LIBER: In Obitum Procancellarii, Medici. In Quintum Novembris. In Obitum Præsulis Eliensis. Naturam non pati Senium... De Idea Platonica quemadmodum Aristoteles in tellexit...... Ad Patrem. Greek Verses: Psalm cxiv, etc.. Ad Salsillum, Poetam Romanum, ægrotantem.. Epitaphium Damonis.. Ad Joannem Rousium, Oxoniensis Academiæ Bib- ..... 283 283 284 284 284 285 285 286 286 287 287 287 288 289 291 300 303 306 307 312 314 316 321 830 OF THAT SORT OF DRAMATIC POEM WHICH IS CALLED TRAGEDY. TRAGEDY, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems; therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion; for so in physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours. Hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illustrate their discourse. The apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the text of holy scripture, 1 Cor. xv. 33; and Paræus, commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole book, as a tragedy, into acts, distinguished each by a chorus of heavenly harpings and song between. Heretofore men in highest dignity have laboured not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy. Of that honour Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious, 3 than before of his attaining to the tyranny. Augustus Cæsar also had begun his Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinished. Seneca, the philosopher, is by some thought the author of those tragedies, at least the best of them, that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, a father of the church, thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a tragedy, which is entitled, Christ Suffering. This is mentioned to vindicate tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day with other common interludes; happening through the poet's error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity, or introducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judicious hath been counted absurd, and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people. And though ancient tragedy use no prologue, yet using sometimes, in case of self-defence, or explanation, that which Martial calls an epistle, in behalf of this tragedy coming forth after the ancient manner, much different from what among us passes for best, thus much beforehand may be epistled : that Chorus is here introduced after the Greek manner, not ancient only but modern, and still in use among the Italians. In the modeling therefore of this poem, with good reason, the ancients and Italians are rather followed, as of much more authority and fame. The measure of verse used in the chorus is of all sorts, called by the Greeks 4 Monostrophic, or rather Apolelymenon, without regard had to Strophe, Antistrophe, or Epode, which were a kind of stanzas framed only for the music, then used with the chorus that sung; not essential to the poem, and therefore not material; or being divided into stanzas or pauses, they may be called Allœostropha. Division into act and scene referring chiefly to the stage, to which this work never was intended, is here omitted. It suffices if the whole drama be found not produced beyond the fifth act. Of the style and uniformity, and that commonly called the plot, whether intricate or explicit, which is nothing indeed but such economy, or disposition of the fable as may stand best with verisimilitude and decorum, they only will best judge who are not unacquainted with Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three tragic poets, unequalled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavour to write tragedy. The circumscription of time, wherein the whole drama begins and ends is, according to ancient rule and best example, within the space of twenty-four hours. |