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compose a Tragedy. Of that honour Dionysius the elder was no less
ambitious, then before of his attaining to the Tyranny. Augustus Caesar
also had begun his Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what
he had begun, left it unfinisht. Seneca the Philosopher is by some
thought the Author of those Tragedies (at lest the best of them) that go
under that name. Gregory Nazianzen a Father of the Church, thought it
not unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a Tragedy which he
entitl'd, Christ suffering. This is mention'd to vindicate Tragedy from
the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it
undergoes at this day with other common Interludes; hap'ning through the
Poets error of intermixing Comic stuff with Tragic sadness and gravity;
or introducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judicious hath
bin counted absurd; and brought in without discretion, corruptly to
gratifie the people. And though antient Tragedy use no Prologue, yet
using sometimes, in case of self defence, or explanation, that which
Martial calls an Epistle; in behalf of this Tragedy coming forth after
the antient manner, much different from what among us passes for best,
thus much before-hand may be Epistl'd; that Chorus is here introduc'd
after the Greek manner, not antient only but modern, and still in use
among the Italians. In the modelling therefore of this Poem with good
reason, the Antients and Italians are rather follow'd, as of much more
authority and fame. The measure of Verse us'd in the Chorus is of all
sorts, call'd by the Greeks Monostrophic, or rather Apolelymenon,
without regard had to Strophe, Antistrophe or Epod, which were a kind of
Stanza's fram'd only for the Music, then us'd with the Chorus that sung;
not essential to the Poem, and therefore not material; or being divided
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