f the dead.

Another objection to OEdipus has been derived from the doctrine of
fatalism, inculcated by the story. There is something of cant in
talking much upon the influence of a theatre on public morals; yet, I
fear, though the most moral plays are incapable of doing much good,
the turn of others may make a mischievous impression, by embodying in
verse, and rendering apt for the memory, maxims of an impious or
profligate tendency. In this point of view, there is, at least, no
edification in beholding the horrible crimes unto which OEdipus is
unwillingly plunged, and in witnessing the dreadful punishment he
sustains, though innocent of all moral or intentional guilt, Corneille
has endeavoured to counterbalance the obvious conclusion, by a long
tirade upon free-will, which I have subjoined, as it contains some
striking ideas.[4] But the doctrine, which it expresses, is
contradictory of the whole tenor of the story; and the correct
deduction is much more justly summed up by Seneca, in the stoical
maxim of necessity:

_Fatis agimur, cedite Fatis;
Non solicitae possunt curae,
Mutare rati stamina fusi;
Quicquid patimur mortale genus,
Quicquid facimus venit ex alto;
Servatque sua decreta colus,
Lachesis dura revoluta manu._

Some degree of poetical justice might have been preserved, and a
valuable moral inculcated, had the conduct of OEdipus, in his combat
with Laius, been represented as atrocious, or, at least,
unwarrantable; as the sequel would then have been a warning, how
impossible it is to calculate the consequences or extent of a single
act of guilt. But, after all, Dryden perhaps extracts the true moral,
while stating our insufficiency to estimate the distribution of good
and evil in human life, in a passage, which, in excellent poetry,
expresses more sound truth, than a whole shelf of philosophers:

The Gods are just--
But how can finite measure infinite?
Reason! alas, it does not know itself!
Yet man, vain man, would, with this, short-lined plummet,
Fathom the vast abyss of heavenly justice.
Whatever is, is in its causes just,
Since all things are by fate. But purblind man
Sees but a part o'the chain; the nearest links;
His eyes not carrying to that equal beam,
That poises all above.--

The prologue states, that the play, if damned, may be recorded as the
"first buried since the Woollen Act." This enables us to fix the date
of the performance. By the 30th Charles II.