remes rails in a tumid strain: and a
tragic writer generally expresses grief in a prosaic style. Telephus and
Peleus, when they are both in poverty and exile, throw aside their rants
and gigantic expressions if they have a mind to move the heart of the
spectator with their complaint.

It is not enough that poems be beautiful; let them be tender and
affecting, and bear away the soul of the auditor whithersoever they
please. As the human countenance smiles on those that smile, so does it
sympathize with those that weep. If you would have me weep you must
first express the passion of grief yourself; then, Telephus or Peleus,
your misfortunes hurt me: if you pronounce the parts assigned you ill, I
shall either fall asleep or laugh.

Pathetic accents suit a melancholy countenance; words full of menace, an
angry one; wanton expressions, a sportive look; and serious matter, an
austere one. For nature forms us first within to every modification of
circumstances; she delights or impels us to anger, or depresses us to
the earth and afflicts us with heavy sorrow: then expresses those
emotions of the mind by the tongue, its interpreter. If the words be
discordant to the station of the speaker, the Roman knights and plebians
will raise an immoderate laugh. It will make a wide difference, whether
it be Davus that speaks, or a hero; a man well-stricken in years, or a
hot young fellow in his bloom; and a matron of distinction, or an
officious nurse; a roaming merchant, or the cultivator of a verdant
little farm; a Colchian, or an Assyrian; one educated at Thebes, or one
at Argos.

You, that write, either follow tradition, or invent such fables as are
congruous to themselves. If as poet you have to represent the renowned
Achilles; let him be indefatigable, wrathful, inexorable, courageous,
let him deny that laws were made for him, let him arrogate every thing
to force of arms. Let Medea be fierce and untractable, Ino an object of
pity, Ixion perfidious, Io wandering, Orestes in distress.

If you offer to the stage any thing unattempted, and venture to form a
new character; let it be preserved to the last such as it set out at the
beginning, and be consistent with itself. It is difficult to write with
propriety on subjects to which all writers have a common claim; and you
with more prudence will reduce the Iliad into acts, than if you first
introduce arguments unknown and never treated of before. A public story
will become your own p