force. Are there not instances of plays wherein the history is so
perverted, that we can know the heroes whom they celebrate by no other
marks than their names? nay, do we not find the same character placed
by different poets in such different lights, that we can discover not
the least sameness, or even likeness, in the features? The Sophonisba
of Mairet and of Lee is a tender, passionate, amorous mistress of
Massinissa: Corneille and Mr Thomson give her no other passion but the
love of her country, and make her as cool in her affection to
Massinissa as to Syphax. In the two latter she resembles the character
of queen Elizabeth; in the two former she is the picture of Mary queen
of Scotland. In short, the one Sophonisba is as different from the
other as the Brutus of Voltaire is from the Marius, jun., of Otway, or
as the Minerva is from the Venus of the ancients.

Let us now proceed to a regular examination of the tragedy before us,
in which I shall treat separately of the Fable, the Moral, the
Characters, the Sentiments, and the Diction. And first of the

Fable; which I take to be the most simple imaginable; and, to use the
words of an eminent author, "one, regular, and uniform, not charged
with a multiplicity of incidents, and yet affording several
revolutions of fortune, by which the passions may be excited, varied,
and driven to their full tumult of emotion."--Nor is the action of
this tragedy less great than uniform. The spring of all is the love
of Tom Thumb for Huncamunca; which caused the quarrel between their
majesties in the first act; the passion of Lord Grizzle in the second;
the rebellion, fall of Lord Grizzle and Glumdalca, devouring of Tom
Thumb by the cow, and that bloody catastrophe, in the third.

Nor is the Moral of this excellent tragedy less noble than the Fable;