peculiar life and ornament your presence gives to all assemblies, was no small motive to determine me in the choice of my patroness. The charms that shine out in the person of your Grace, may convince every one, that there is nothing unnatural in the power which is ascribed to the beauty of Andromache.

The strict regard I have had to decency and good manners throughout this work, is the greatest merit I pretend to plead in favour of my presumption; and is, I am sensible, the only argument that can recommend it most effectually to your protection.

I am,

with the greatest respect,
Madam,

your Grace's most humble

and most obedient servant.

AMBROSE PHILIPS.

THE

DISTREST MOTHER

Is a translation by AMBROSE PHILIPS from the ANDROMAQUE of the great French dramatic poet RACINE. It was acted originally at Drury-Lane Theatre, and first printed in 1712.

To those who confine their admiration to the strong fabrics of our dramatists of the golden age of Englishpoesy, the beginning of the seventeenth century, the prolixity of harangue, and the tedious progression of the action, characteristic of the French drama, are not likely to pass without their usual reprobation. Yet many fine touches of nature considerably enliven the slumber of the stage, and much flow and facility of expression gives to the conveyance of elegant sentiments the dress they best delight to adopt.

The taste of ADDISON seems considerably to have fluctuated. He naturally, it may be presumed from the selections in the Spectator, loved the gorgeousgrandeur of SHAKSPERE, and the sublime and profound delineations of Milton,-but he deferred too much to the predominant authorities of the French critics. BOILEAU hurried him into a stigma of the Tuscan muse, which even the fairer critics of our

own day are scarcely able to supplant-and people talk of the tinsel of TORQUATO TASSO, because ADDISON had seconded the ungrounded censure of Bo1LEAU. It too frequently happens, that, without the trouble of thought, the deliberation of decision, the herd of smatterers in letters follow the critic BELL WEATHER, even when he tinkles them from their proper bounds.

ADDISON found this play perfectly consonant with the axioms of his French dogmatizers, and the Spectators were filled with its praises. PHILIPS it was also his pleasure to lift into a rivalry with POPE; and the composition of the MARIAMNE OF FENTON, the original author, never wrested such vehemence of praise as the translation of PHILIPS from the original of RACINE.

I recollect to have seen this piece performed with the powerful support of Mrs. CRAWFORD and Mrs. YATES, and, even then, small was the effect produced upon the heart-The scenes are too cold and declamatory-and the personages are considerable sufferers, by being above our pity and superior to our sympathy.

PREFACE.

In all the works of genius and invention, whether in verse or prose, there are in general but three manners of style; the one sublime and full of majesty; the other simple, natural, and easy; and the third, swelling, forced, and unnatural. An injudicious affectation and sublimity is what has betrayed a great many authors into the latter; not considering that real greatness in writing, as well as in manners, consists in an unaffected simplicity. The true sublime does not lie in strained metaphors and the pomp of words, but rises out of noble sentiments and strong images of nature; which will always appear the more conspicuous, when the language does not swell to hide and overshadow them.

These are the considerations that have induced me to write this tragedy in a style very different from what has been usually practised amongst us in poems of this nature. I have had the advantage to copy after a very great master, whose writings are deservedly admired in all parts of Europe, and whose excellencies are too well known to the men of letters in this nation, to stand in need of any farther discovery of them here. If I have been able to keep up to the beauties of Monsieur Racine in my attempts, and to do him no prejudice in the liberties I have taken frequently to vary from so great a poet, I shall have no reason to be dissatisfied with the labour it has cost me to bring the compleatest of his works upon the English stage,

I shall trouble my reader no farther, than to give him some short hints relating to this play, from the preface of the French

author. The following lines of Virgil mark out the scene, the action, and the four principal actors in this tragedy, together with their distinct characters; excepting that of Hermione, whose rage and jealousy is sufficiently painted in the Andromache of Euripides.

Littoraque Epiri legimus, portuque subimus
Chaonio, et celsam Butbroti ascendimus urbem
Solemnes tum forte dapes, et tristia dona
Libabat cineri Andromache, manesque vocabat
Hectoreum ad tumulum, viridi quem cespite inanem,
Et geminas, causam lacrymis, sacraverat aras—
Dejecit vultum, et demissa voce locuta est:
O felix una ante alias Priameïa virgo,

Hostilem ad tumulum, Trojæ sub manibus altis
Jussa mori! quæ sortitus non pertulit ullos,
Nec victoris beri tetigit captiva cubile.
Nos patriâ incensâ, diversa per æquora vectæ,
Stirpis Achillea fastus, juvenemque superbum,
Servitio enixa tulimus, qui deinde secutus
Ledæam Hermionem, Lacedæmoniosque bymenæos-
Ast illum ereptæ magno inflammatus amore
Conjugis, et scelerum Furiis agitatus Orestes
Excipit incautum patriasque obtruncat ad aras.

VIRG. N. Lib. iii.

The great concern of Andromache, in the Greek poet, is for the life of Molossus, a son she had by Pyrrhus. But it is more conformable to the general notion we form of that princess, at

anax.

eat distance of time, to represent her as the disconsolate widow of Hector, and to suppose her the mother only of AstyConsidered in this light, no doubt, she moves our compassion much more effectually, than she could be imagined to do in any distress for a son by a second husband.