Page:Elfrida, a Dramatic Poem - Mason (1752).djvu/12

sary rules of the Drama, hath since been consider'd as a characteristic of his vast and original genius; and confequently set up as a model for succeeding writers. Hence M. Voltaire remarks very justly, "que le merite de cet auteur a perdu le Theatre Anglois. Le tems, que, seul fait la reputation des hommes, rend à la fin leurs defauts respectables."

Yet, notwithstanding the absurdity of this low superstition, the notion is so popular amongst Englishmen, that I fear it will never be entirely discredited, till a Poet rises up amongst us with a genius as elevated and daring as Shakespeare's, and a judgment as sober and chastis'd as Racine's. But as it seems too long to wait for this prodigy, it will not surely be improper for any one of common talents, who would entertain the public without indulging its caprice, to take the best models of antiquity for his guides; and to adapt those models, as near as may be, to the manners and taste of his own times. Unless he do both, he will, in effect, do nothing. For it cannot be doubted, that the many gross faults of our stage, are owing to the complaisance and servility, with which the ordinary run of writers have ever humour'd that illiterate, whimsical, or corrupted age, in which it was their misfortune to be born.

Milton, you will tell me, is a noble exception to this observation. He is so, and would have been a nobler, had he not run into the contrary extreme. The contempt, in which, perhaps with justice, he held the age he liv'd in, prevented him from condescending either to amuse or to instruct it. He had, before, given to his unworthy Countrymen the noblest Poem,that