e prologue and epilogue informed you,
that OEdipus was the most celebrated piece of all antiquity; that
Sophocles, not only the greatest wit, but one of the greatest men in
Athens, made it for the stage at the public cost; and that it had the
reputation of being his masterpiece, not only among the seven of his
which are still remaining, but of the greater number which are
perished. Aristotle has more than once admired it, in his Book of
Poetry; Horace has mentioned it: Lucullus, Julius Caesar, and other
noble Romans, have written on the same subject, though their poems are
wholly lost; but Seneca's is still preserved. In our own age,
Corneille has attempted it, and, it appears by his preface, with great
success. But a judicious reader will easily observe, how much the copy
is inferior to the original. He tells you himself, that he owes a
great part of his success, to the happy episode of Theseus and Dirce;
which is the same thing, as if we should acknowledge, that we were
indebted for our good fortune to the under-plot of Adrastus, Eurydice,
and Creon. The truth is, he miserably failed in the character of his
hero: If he desired that OEdipus should be pitied, he should have made
him a better man. He forgot, that Sophocles had taken care to show
him, in his first entrance, a just, a merciful, a successful, a
religious prince, and, in short, a father of his country. Instead of
these, he has drawn him suspicious, designing, more anxious of keeping
the Theban crown, than solicitous for the safety of his people;
hectored by Theseus, condemned by Dirce, and scarce maintaining a
second part in his own tragedy. This was an error in the first
concoction; and therefore never to be mended in the second or the
third. He introduced a greater hero than OEdipus himself; for when
Theseus was once there, that companion of Hercules must yield to none.
The poet was obliged to furnish him with business, to make him an
equipage suitable to his dignity; and, by following him too close, to
lose his other king of Brentford in the crowd. Seneca, on the other
side, as if there were no such thing as nature to be minded in a play,
is always running after pompous expression, pointed sentences, and
philosophical notions, more proper for the study than the stage: the
Frenchman followed a wrong scent; and the Roman was absolutely at cold
hunting. All we could gather out of Corneille was, that an episode
must be, but not his way: and Seneca supplied us