An Engliſh ſtomach requires ſomething ſolid and ſubſtantial, and will riſe hungry from a regale of nothing but ſweetmeats.
An opera is a kind of ambigu: the table is finely illuminated, adorned with flowers and fruits, and every thing that the ſeaſon affords fragrant or delightful to the eye or the odour; but unleſs there is ſomething too for the appetite, it is odds but the gueſts break up diſſatisfied.
It is incumbent upon the poet alone to provide for that in the choice of his fable, the conduct of his plot, the harmony of his numbers, the elevation of his ſentiments, and the juſtneſs of his characters. In this conſiſts the ſolid and the ſubſtantial.
The nature of this entertainment requires the plot to be formed upon ſome ſtory in which Enchanters and Magicians have a principal part. In our modern heroic poems they ſupply the place of the gods with the Ancients, and make a much more natural appearance by being mortals, with the difference only of being endowed with ſupernatural power.
The characters ſhould be great and illuſtrious; the figure the actor makes upon the ſtage is one part of the ornament; by conſequence the ſentiments muſt be ſuitable to the characters in which love and honour will have the principal ſhare.
The dialogue, which in the French and the Italian is ſet to notes, and ſung, I would have pronounced: if
