ces the inclination of his own Nature, if ’tis opposite to that of the Persons represented : for the Dead cannot know our Manners, but Reason, which is of all times, may make us know theirs.
One of the greatest Faults of our Nation, is to make all center in it, even to that degree, as to call those very persons Strangers in their own Country, who have not exactly either our air or manners. Upon this score we are justly reproach’d, for not knowing how to esteem things, but by the relation they have to us; of which Corneille made a sad, but undeserv’d experiment, in his Sophonisba. Mairet, who describ’d his unfaithful to old Syphax, and in love with the young and victorious Massinissa, pleased the whole world, in a manner, by hitting upon the inclination of the Ladies, and the true humour of the Courtiers. But Corneille, who makes the Greeks speak better than the Greeks, the Romans than the Romans, the Carthaginians than the Citizens of Carthage speak themselves : Corneille, who is almost the only person that has a true taste of Antiquity, has had the misfortune not to please our age, for representing the true Character of Asdrubal’s Daughter. Thus, to the disgrace of our Judgments, he that hath surpass’d all our Authors, and has in this respect, perhaps, even surpass’d himself, by allowing to those great names all that was their due, could not oblige us to do him the same piece of justice; being enslaved by custom, to set a value on those things the present mode recommends; and little dispos’d by reason, to esteem those qualities and sentiments, which are not agreeable to our own.
Let us then conclude, after so long a Reflection, that Alexander and Porus ought to have preserv’d their Characters entire; that it was our business to view them upon the banks of Hydaspes,
