Monsieur Racine has, indeed, used it in his “Esther;” but not that he found any necessity of it, as the French critic would insinuate. The chorus at St Cyr was only to give the young ladies an occasion of entertaining the king with vocal music, and of commending their own voices. The play itself was never intended for the public stage, nor, without disparagement to the learned author, could possibly have succeeded there; and much less the translation of it here. Mr Wycherley, when we read it together, was of my opinion in this, or rather I of his; for it becomes me so to speak of so excellent a poet, and so great a judge. But since I am in this place, as Virgil says, _spatiis exclusus iniquis_, that is, shortened in my time, I will give no other reason, than that it is impracticable on our stage. A new theatre, much more ample and much deeper, must be made for that purpose, besides the cost of sometimes forty or fifty habits, which is an expence too large to be supplied by a company of actors. It is true, I should not be sorry to see a chorus on a theatre more than as large and as deep again as ours, built and adorned at a king’s charges; and on that condition, and another, which is, that my hands were not bound behind me, as now they are,[134] I should not despair of making such a tragedy as might be both instructive and delightful, according to the manner of the Grecians. To make a sketch, or a more perfect model of a picture, is, in the language of poets, to draw up the scenery of a play; and the reason is the same for both; to guide the undertaking, and to preserve the remembrance of such things, whose natures are difficult to retain.