My comfort is, that by this opinion my enemies are but sucking
critics, who would fain be nibbling ere their teeth are come.

Yet, in this nicety of manners does the excellency of French poetry
consist. Their heroes are the most civil people breathing; but their
good breeding seldom extends to a word of sense; all their wit is in
their ceremony; they want the genius which animates our stage; and
therefore it is but necessary, when they cannot please, that they
should take care not to offend. But as the civilest man in the
company is commonly the dullest, so these authors, while they are
afraid to make you laugh or cry, out of pure good manners make you
sleep. They are so careful not to exasperate a critic, that they
never leave him any work; so busy with the broom, and make so clean
a riddance that there is little left either for censure or for
praise: For no part of a poem is worth our discommending, where the
whole is insipid; as when we have once tasted of palled wine, we stay
not to examine it glass by glass. But while they affect to shine in
trifles, they are often careless in essentials. Thus, their
Hippolytus is so scrupulous in point of decency, that he will rather
expose himself to death, than accuse his stepmother to his father;
and my critics I am sure will commend him for it. But we of grosser
apprehensions are apt to think that this excess of generosity is not
practicable, but with fools and madmen. This was good manners with
a vengeance; and the audience is like to be much concerned at the
misfortunes of this admirable hero. But take Hippolytus out of his
poetic fit, and I suppose he would think it a wiser part to set the
saddle on the right horse, and choose rather to live with the
reputation of a plain-spoken, honest man, than to die with the infamy
of an incestuous villain. In the meantime we may take notice, that
where the poet ought to have preserved the character as it was