But we of grosser
apprehensions are apt to think that this excess of generosity is not
practicable, but with fools and madmen. This was good manners with
a vengeance; and the audience is like to be much concerned at the
misfortunes of this admirable hero. But take Hippolytus out of his
poetic fit, and I suppose he would think it a wiser part to set the
saddle on the right horse, and choose rather to live with the
reputation of a plain-spoken, honest man, than to die with the infamy
of an incestuous villain. In the meantime we may take notice, that
where the poet ought to have preserved the character as it was
delivered to us by antiquity, when he should have given us the
picture of a rough young man, of the Amazonian strain, a jolly
huntsman, and both by his profession and his early rising a mortal
enemy to love, he has chosen to give him the turn of gallantry, sent
him to travel from Athens to Paris, taught him to make love, and
transformed the Hippolytus of Euripides into Monsieur Hippolyte.
I should not have troubled myself thus far with French poets, but
that I find our Chedreux critics wholly form their judgments by them.
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