se he has not only chosen two of
the greatest heroes of their age, but has likewise interested the
liberty of Rome, and their own honours, who were the redeemers of it,
in this debate. And if he has made Brutus, who was naturally a patient
man, to fly into excess at first, let it be remembered in his defence,
that, just before, he has received the news of Portia's death; whom
the poet, on purpose neglecting a little chronology, supposes to have
died before Brutus, only to give him an occasion of being more easily
exasperated. Add to this, that the injury he had received from
Cassius, had long been brooding in his mind; and that a melancholy
man, upon consideration of an affront, especially from a friend, would
be more eager in his passion, than he who had given it, though
naturally more choleric. Euripides, whom I have followed, has raised
the quarrel betwixt two brothers, who were friends. The foundation of
the scene was this: The Grecians were wind-bound at the port of Aulis,
and the oracle had said, that they could not sail, unless Agamemnon
delivered up his daughter to be sacrificed: he refuses; his brother
Menelaus urges the public safety; the father defends himself by
arguments of natural affection, and hereupon they quarrel. Agamemnon
is at last convinced, and promises to deliver up Iphigenia, but so
passionately laments his loss, that Menelaus is grieved to have been
the occasion of it, and, by a return of kindness, offers to intercede
for him with the Grecians, that his daughter might not be sacrificed.
But my friend Mr Rymer has so largely, and with so much judgment,
described this scene, in comparing it with that of Melantius and
Amintor, that it is superfluous to say more of it; I only named the
heads of it, that any reasonable man might judge it was from thence I
modelled my scene betwixt Troilus and Hector. I will conclude my
reflections on it, with a passage of Longinus, concerning Plato's
imitation of Homer: "We ought not to regard a good imitation as a
theft, but as a beautiful idea of him who undertakes to imitate, by
forming himself on the invention and the work of another man; for he
enters into the lists like a new wrestler, to dispute the prize with
the former champion. This sort of emulation, says Hesiod, is
honourable, [Greek: Agathe d' eris esti Brotoisin]--when we combat for
victory with a hero, and are not without glory even in our overthrow.
Those great men, whom we propose to ourselves as pat