such as they were; not theirs to come to the banks of the Seine, to study our Nature, and speak our Thoughts. The speech of Porus should have had something more unusual, and extraordinary in it. If Quintus Curtius has made himself admir'd for his Oration of the Scythians, where he gives them thoughts and expressions natural to their Nation, this Author might have render'd himself as much admir'd, by representing to us the rarity of a Genius of another World.
The different conditions of these two Kings, in which both of them behav'd themselves so gallantly; their Virtue differently exercis'd in the variety of their fortune, bespeak the attention of Historians, and oblige 'em to describe them to us. The Poet, who was at liberty to add to the truth of things, or at least to set them off with all the ornaments of his Art, instead of using colours and figures to embellish them, hath taken away much of their beauty; and whether the scruple of saying too much of them, did not suffer him to say enough; or whether 'tis owing to the barrenness of his Invention, he falls vastly short of the truth. He might have enter'd into their most private thoughts, and have drawn from the bottom of those great Souls, as Corneille hath done, their most secret motions; whereas he scarce goes so far as their bare outside, little curious to remark well what appear'd and little prying to discover what lay conceal'd.
I could have wish'd, that our Author had laid the stress of his skill, in giving us a just representation of those great men; and that in a Scene worthy of the magnificence of the subject, he had carried the Greatness of their Souls as high as it was possible. If the Conversation of Sertorius and Pompey[1]
- ↑ See Corneille's Sertorius, Act III. Scene I.
