Butler’s Remains are nearly as good and full of sterling genius as his principal poem. Take the following ridicule of the plan of the Greek tragedies as an instance. —‘Reduce all tragedy, by rules of art, Back to its ancient theatre, a cart, And make them henceforth keep the beaten roads Of reverend choruses and episodes; Reform and regulate a puppet-play, According to the true and ancient way; That not an actor shall presume to squeak, Unless he have a license for ‘t in Greek: Nor devil in the puppet-play be allowed To roar and spit fire, but to fright the crowd, Unless some god or demon chance to have piques Against an ancient family of Greeks; That other men may tremble and take warning How such a fatal progeny they’re born in; For none but such for tragedy are fitted, That have been ruined only to be pitied: And only those held proper to deter, Who have th’ ill luck against their wills to err; Whence only such as are of middling sizes, Betwixt morality and venial vices, Are qualified to be destroyed by fate, For other mortals to take warning at.’ _Upon Critics._ His ridicule of Milton’s Latin style is equally severe, but not so well founded. I have only to add a few words respecting the dramatic writers about this time, before we arrive at the golden period of our comedy. Those of Etherege[16] are good for nothing, except The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter, which is, I think, a more exquisite and airy picture of the manners of that age than any other extant. Sir Fopling himself is an inimitable coxcomb, but pleasant withal. He is a suit of clothes personified. Dorimant (supposed to be Lord Rochester) is the genius of grace, gallantry, and gaiety. The women in this courtly play have very much the look and air (but something more demure and significant) of Sir Peter Lely’s beauties. Harriet, the mistress of Dorimant, who ‘tames his wild heart to her loving hand,’ is the flower of the piece. Her natural, untutored grace and spirit, her meeting with Dorimant in the Park, bowing and mimicking him, and the luxuriant description which is given of her fine person, altogether form one of the _chef d’œuvres_ of dramatic painting. I should think this comedy would bear reviving; and if Mr. Liston were to play Sir Fopling, the part would shine out with double lustre, ‘like the morn risen on mid-noon.’—Dryden’s comedies have all the point that there is in ribaldry, and all the humour that there is in extravagance. I am sorry I can say nothing better of them. He was not at home in this kind of writing, of which he was himself conscious. His play was _horse-play_. His wit (what there is of it) is ingenious and scholar-like, rather than natural and dramatic. Thus Burr, in the Wild Gallant, says to Failer, ‘She shall sooner cut an atom than part us.’—His plots are pure _voluntaries_ in absurdity, that bend and shift