dramatic; that it was difficult for the Performers to speak it;
that let it be either in the middling or in low life, it may,
though in metre and spirited, be properly familiar and colloquial;
that, many in the middling rank are not without erudition;
that they have the feelings and sensations of nature, and every
emotion in consequence thereof, as well as the great, and that
even the lowest, when impassioned, raise their language; that
the writing of prose is generally the plea and excuse of poverty
of Genius." And some others being of the same opinion, I have
now chang'd it all into metre.


Fired is the Muse! and let the Muse be fired.
Who's not inflam'd, when what he speaks he feels?
Young.


The introduction by the moderns of confidents, those friends
in Tragedy, to whom the chief personages discover their secrets
and situation, has been also objected to by critics. The discovery
is indeed purposely made to the audience, and supplies the want of
a chorus. But to speak in Monsieur Brumos's own stile: "If Homer,
in his Epic poem, found a Patroclus necessary to his Achilles, and
Virgil an Achates to Aeneas, such examples may well justify the
Dramatic Poets in calling in the assistance of associates, who
generally appear of more use than ornament to the piece." Besides,
were it not for them, long and disgusting soliloquies must be
innumerable, especially if there be any plot in the piece of
either love, ambition, or conspiracy. In short, as he again says,
"they are the mortar which forms the proper cement to fix the