rettily to jingle upon the _peril
douteux_, and the _mal certain_; but this is rather an awkward way of
introducing the account of the pestilence, with which all the other
dramatists have opened their scene. OEdipus, however, is at once
sensible of the cause which detained Theseus at his melancholy court,
amidst the horrors of the plague:

_Je l'avais bien juge qu'_ un interet d'amour
_Fermait ici vos yeux aux perils de ma cour._

_OEdipo conjectere opus est_--it would have been difficult for any
other person to have divined such a motive. The conduct of the drama
is exactly suitable to its commencement; the fate of OEdipus and of
Thebes, the ravages of the pestilence, and the avenging of the death
of Laius, are all secondary and subordinate considerations to the
loves of Theseus and Dirce, as flat and uninteresting a pair as ever
spoke _platitudes_ in French hexameters. So much is this the
engrossing subject of the drama, that OEdipus, at the very moment when
Tiresias is supposed to be engaged in raising the ghost of Laius,
occupies himself in a long scene of scolding about love and duty with
Dirce; and it is not till he is almost bullied by her off the stage,
that he suddenly recollects, as an apology for his retreat,

_Mais il faut aller voir ce qu'a fait Tiresias._

Considering, however, the declamatory nature of the French dialogue,
and the peremptory rule of their drama, that love, or rather
gallantry, must be the moving principle of every performance, it is
more astonishing that Corneille should have chosen so masculine and
agitating a subject, than that he should have failed in treating it
with propriety or success.

In the following tragedy, Dryden has avowedly adopted the Greek model;
qualified, however, by the under plot of Adrastus and Eurydice, which
contributes little either to the effect or merit of the play. Creon,
in his ambition and his deformity, is a poor copy of Richard III.,
without his abilities; his plots and treasons are baffled by the
single appearance of OEdipus; and as for the loves and woes of
Eurydice, and the prince of Argos, they are lost in the horrors of the
principal story, like the moonlight amid the glare of a conflagration.
In other respects, the conduct of the piece closely follows the
"OEdipus Tyrannus," and, in some respects, even improves on that
excellent model. The Tiresias of Sophocles, for example, upon his
first introduction, denounces OEdipus as the slayer of L