turgid expreffion; the former is more flowing and genuine, as well as more easy and natural. In all probability Mr. Pope contributed not a little to this vifible alteration of ftyle. The characters of Solyman, Muftapha, Zanga, Ruftan, and Roxolana, are drawn with fkill; and the conduct of the fable is managed with fome degree of probability. The play is founded on the jealousy of power, which cannot bear a rival in a fucceffor. The author has in feveral places made good ufe of Tacitus, particularly in a speech of Ruftan, where he describes the tumultuous behavour of the janizaries at the appearance of the emperor; which is nearly a translation of an admirable paffage in that writer, where he defcribes the struggle of contending paffions in the equally terrified and terrifying Roman legions in Pannonia, when in the presence of their general Drufus, the emperor's fon.--Illi quoties oculos ad multitudinem retulerant, vocibus truculentis ftrepere, rurfum vifo Cæfare, trepidare, murmur incertum, atrox clamor, et repente quies, diverfis D 2 1 diverfis animorum motibus pavebant, ter rebantque: When they caft their eyes abroad On their own gather'd ftrength, rekindled rage, Thomfon and Mallet were foon after commanded by the prince of Wales to write the mafque of Alfred, to celebrate the birthday of lady Augusta, his eldest daughter, which was twice acted, in the gardens of Clifden, by Quin, Milward, Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Horton, and other players. The accommodations for the company, I was told, were but fcanty, and ill managed; and the players were not treated as perfons ought to be who are employed by a prince. Quin, I believe, was admitted among thofe of the higher order; and Mrs. Clive might be fafely trufted to take care of herself any where. Mr. Mr. Mallet's reputation was now fo highly advanced, that the dutchefs of Marlborough left 1000l. by legacy to him and Mr. Glover, as a reward for writing the life of the duke of Marlborough. The latter declining the task, the whole fum became the property of the former. Mr. Mallet, after the death of his friend Thomson, which happened in 1748, refumed the story of Alfred, on which they had written in conjunction. He obferved that in the first sketch, Alfred was but the fecond character in his own piece; and this, I imagine, was owing to the influence of Quin, whofe manner of speaking and figure were better adapted to the part of the hermit than Alfred. He found himself obliged to make great alterations, more agreeable to the dignity of the principal part, and more fuited to Mr. Garrick's powers, who undertook to act it. Abundance of fongs, and fome odes, were added, and many new incidents and characters; fo that little of the old mafque remained. In decorations of magnificent triumphal arches, D 3 arches, dances of furies, various harmony of music and incantations, fine fcenes and dreffes, this mafque exceeded every thing which had before made its appearance on the English stage. The fubject was noble, and well worthy the pen of the most fublime genius. Ifcarce know any character in history so truly sublime and venerable as that of Alfred*; and we may defy all the writers from his days to our own to furnish one equal in every princely virtue to this renowned king. That Mallet's genius could not rise to the idea of this great and accomplished man, is not to be wondered at; but at the fame time we must grant that the attempt was gene He has laid hold of a circumstance rous. * Swift, in his lift of fix great men, to whom no feventh (in his opinion) could be added, might have very fafely made a feptemvirate with Alfred, who deferved a better title to renown than Ariftides; a man who, after having robbed the common treasury of Greece depofited at Delphi, confeffed, indeed, that the action was not just, but very profitable. in in his history truly dramatical, his disguifing himself in a mean habit, to preferve himself for occafions to deliver his people from the tyranny of the Danes, and to reftore their liberty; and it must be owned too, that the principles of government which he inculcates throughout the piece are liberal, and fit for the inftruction of a prince who is to govern a free people. This mafque was, I believe, written under the influence, and by the encouragement, of lord Bolingbroke; nor do the political maxims infifted upon in it differ from thofe laid down fo copiously in his idea of the Patriot King. More than this, and what the reader will perhaps think worth his attention, lord Bolingbroke wrote the three following stanzas in the celebrated fong of Rule Britannia, in the year 1751, a few months be fore his death, and which, I fuppofe, he intended to be prophetical of the glories of his prefent Majesty's reign. |