tions, that she is little affected by the cir cumstance of Clytemnestra's relation to the murderer, becaufe fhe herself had no mother, means only that justice is not governed by any affection or personal confideration, but acts by an invariable and general rule. If the oracle commanded, and the laws justified the act of Oreftes, by appointing the next in blood to avenge the murder, then other circumstances of a special and inferior kind, were not to have any weight. I am inclined to think this tragedy is a mixture of History and Allegory. Æfchylus affected the allegorical manner fo much, as to form a tragedy, called the Balance, upon the allegory in Homer, of Jupiter's weighing the fates of Hector and Achilles *; and it is apparent, that the Prometheus of this author, is the ancient allegory of Prometheus wrought into a drama. Prometheus makes his firft appear ance with two fymbolical perfons, Violence and Force, which are, apparently, of the Poet's fiction. Pere Brumoy intimates a

Apud Plut. de modo leg. poëtas.

fuf

fufpicion that this tragedy is an allegory, but imagines it alludes to Xerxes or Darius, because it abounds with reflections on tyranny. To flatter the republican fpirit, all the Grecian tragedies are full of fuch reflections. But an oblique cenfure on the Perfian monarch could not have excufed the direct imputations thrown on the character of Jupiter, if the circumftances of the story. had been taken in a literal fenfe; nor can it be fuppofed that the Athenians would have endured the moft violent affronts to have been offered to the character of that deity to whom they every day offered facrifice. An allegory being fometimes a mere phyfical hypothefis, might without impiety be treated with freedom. - It is probable that many allegories brought from the hieroglyphic land of Egypt, were, in the groffer times of Greece, literally understood by the vulgar; but, in more philofophic ages, were again transmuted into allegory; which will account for the mythology of the Greeks and Ægyptians varying greatly,

but

but still preserving such a resemblance 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. institution 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 Prometheus, which threw a luftre on the author of the race of the Heraclidæ, were circumftances, without queftion, feduloufly fought by the Poet, and favorably received by the Spectator. But though fuch fubjects might be chofen, or invented, as would introduce fome favorable incidents, or flattering reflections, this intention did not always reign through the whole drama,

It was just now observed, that Shakefpear has an advantage over the Greek Poets, in the more folemn, gloomy, and mysterious air of his national superstitions; 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 ghoft of Hamlet is an object of contempt or ridicule. Let us candidly examine these royal fhades, as exhibited to us by thofe great masters in the art of exciting pity and terror, Æfchylus and Shakespear; and impartially decide which Poet throws most of the Sublime into the præternatural character; and, also, which has the art to render it most efficient in the drama. This enquiry may be the more interefting because the French wits have often mentioned

mentioned Hamlet's ghoft as an instance of the barbarism of our theatre. The Perfians, of Æfchylus, is certainly one of the most august spectacles that ever was represented on a theatre; nobly imagined, happily fuftained, regularly conducted, deeply interefting to the Athenian people, and favoràble to their great scheme of refifting the power of the Persian 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 ghoft; and to examine, whether any thing but prejudice, in favour of the ancients, protects the fuperftitious circumftances relative to the one, from the fame ridicule with which the others have been 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

the