Page:Elfrida, a Dramatic Poem - Mason (1752).djvu/13

that genius, conducted by ancient art, could produce; and he had seen them receive it with disregard, if not with dislike. Conscious therefore of his own dignity, and of their demerit, he look'd to posterity only for his reward, and to posterity only directed his future labours. Hence it was perhaps, that he form'd his Sampson Agonistes on a model more simple and severe than Athens herself would have demanded; and took Æschylus for his master, rather than Sophocles or Euripides: intending by this conduct to put as great a distance as possible between himself and his contemporary writers; and to make his work (as he himself said) much different from what amongst them passed for the best.

The success of the Poem was, accordingly, what one would have expected. The age, it appeared in, treated it with total neglect; neither hath that posterity, to which he appealed, and which has done justice to most of his other writings, as yet given to this excellent piece its full measure of popular and universal fame. Perhaps in your closet, and that of a few more, who unaffectedly admire genuine nature and antient simplicity, the Agonistes may hold a distinguished rank. Yet, I think, we cannot say (in Hamlet's phrase) "that it pleases the Million; it is still Caviar to the general."

Hence, I think, I may conclude, that unless one would be content with a very late and very learned posterity, Milton's conduct in this point should not be followed. A Writer of Tragedy must certainly adapt himself more to the general taste; because the Dramatic, of all kinds of Poetry, ought tobe