man may be called a distress to the world, and ought to affect us
more, than any feigned distress, how well drawn soever. I am glad
of an occasion of giving you under my hand this testimony, both how
excellent I think this work to be, and how excellent I thought the
author.'

It is generally allowed that the characters in this play are finely
varied and distinguished; that the sentiments are just, and
well adapted to the characters; that it abounds with beautiful
descriptions, apt allusions to the manners, and opinions of the times
where the scene is laid, and with noble morals; that the diction is
pure, unaffected, and sublime; and that the plot is conducted in a
simple and clear manner.

Some critics have objected, that there is not a sufficient ground
and foundation, for the distress in the fourth and fifth acts. That
Phocyas only assists the enemy to take Damascus a few days sooner,
than it must unavoidably have fallen into the hands of the Saracens
by a capitulation, which was far from dishonourable. If Phocyas is
guilty, his guilt must consist in this only, that he performed the
same action from a sense of his own wrong, and to preserve the idol
of his soul from violation, and death, which he might have performed
laudably, upon better principles. But this (say they) seems not
sufficient ground for those strong and stinging reproaches he casts
upon himself, nor for Eudocia's rejecting him with so much severity.
It would have been a better ground of distress, considering the
frailty of human nature, and the violent temptations he lay under; if
he had been at last prevailed upon to profess himself a Mahometan: For
then his remorse, and self-condemnation, would have been natural, his
punishment just, and the character of Eudocia placed in a more amiable