e priest he was:

'--Nec te tua plurima, Pantheu,
Labentum pietas, nec Apollinis infula texit. AEn. II.

'Nor could thy piety thee, Pantheus, save,
Nor ev'n thy priesthood, from an early grave.'

'I might here mention the practice of antient tragic poets, both Greek
and Latin; but as this particular is touched upon in the paper
above-mentioned, I shall pass it over in silence. I could produce
passages out of Aristotle in favour of my opinion; and if in one place he
says, that an absolutely virtuous man should not be represented as
unhappy, this does not justify any one who should think fit to bring in
an absolutely virtuous man upon the stage. Those who are acquainted with
that author's way of writing, know very well, that to take the whole
extent of his subject into his divisions of it, he often makes use of
such cases as are imaginary, and not reducible to practice. . . .

'I shall conclude,' says this gentleman, 'with observing, that though the
Spectator above-mentioned is so far against the rule of poetical justice,
as to affirm, that good men may meet with an unhappy catastrophe in
tragedy, it does not say, that ill men may go off unpunished. The reason
for this distinction is very plain; namely, because the best of men [as
is said above,] have faults enough to justify Providence for any
misfortunes and afflictions which may befall them; but there are many men
so criminal, that they can have no claim or pretence to happiness. The
best of men may deserve punishment; but the worst of men cannot deserve
happiness.'

Mr. Addison, as we have seen above, tells us, that Aristotle, in
considering the tragedies that were written in either of the kinds,
observes, that those which ended unhappily had always pleased the people,
and carried away the prize, in the public disputes of the stage, from
those that ended happily. And we shall take leave to add, that this
preference was given at a time when the entertainments of the stage were
committed to the care of the magistrates; when the prizes contended for
were given by the state; when, of consequence, the emulation among
writers was ardent; and when learning was at the highest pitch of glory
in that renowned commonwealth.

It cannot be supposed, that the Athenians, in this their highest age of
taste and politeness, were less humane, less tender-hearted, than we of
the present. But they were not afraid of being moved, nor ashamed of
showing