ord, nor by fire--no one
but Theseus knew the manner of his death. With an impressive hint,
that it was as strange and wonderful as his life had been dismally
eventful, the poet drops a curtain over the fate of his hero. This
last sublime scene Dryden has not ventured to imitate; and the rants
of Lee are a poor substitute for the calm and determined despair of
the "OEdipus Coloneus."

Seneca, perhaps to check the seeds of vice in Nero, his pupil, to whom
incest and blood were afterwards so familiar[1], composed the Latin
tragedy on the subject of OEdipus, which is alluded to by Dryden in
the following preface. The cold declamatory rhetorical stile of that
philosopher was adapted precisely to counteract the effect, which a
tale of terror produces on the feelings and imagination. His taste
exerted itself in filling up and garnishing the more trifling
passages, which Sophocles had passed over as unworthy of notice, and
in adjusting incidents laid in the heroic age of Grecian simplicity,
according to the taste and customs of the court of Nero[2]. Yet though
devoid of dramatic effect, of fancy, and of genius, the OEdipus of
Seneca displays the masculine eloquence and high moral sentiment of
its author; and if it does not interest us in the scene of fiction, it
often compels us to turn our thoughts inward, and to study our own
hearts.

The OEdipe of Corneille is in all respects unworthy of its great
author. The poet considering, as he states in his introduction, that
the subject of OEdipus tearing out his eyes was too horrible to be
presented before ladies, qualifies its terrors by the introduction of
a love intrigue betwixt Theseus and Dirce. The unhappy propensity of
the French poets to introduce long discussions upon _la belle
passion_, addressed merely to the understanding, without respect to
feeling or propriety, is nowhere more ridiculously displayed than in
"OEdipe." The play opens with the following polite speech of Theseus
to Dirce:

_N'ecoutez plus, madame, une pitie cruelle,
Qui d'un fidel amant vous ferait un rebelle:
La gloire d'obeir n'a rien que me soit doux,
Lorsque vous m'ordonnez de m'eloigner de vous.
Quelque ravage affreux qu'etale ici la peste,
L'absence aux vrais amans est encore plus funeste;
Et d'un si grand peril l'image s'offre en vain,
Quand ce peril douteux epargne un mal certain._
Act premiere, Scene premiere.

It is hardly possible more p