"Muley Zeydan is as ingenious a man as his brother Muley Moloch; as
where he hints at the story of Castor and Pollux:
May we ne'er meet;
For, like the twins of Leda, when I mount,
He gallops down the skies.
"As for the Mufti, we will suppose that he was bred up a scholar,
and not only versed in the law of Mahomet, but acquainted with all
kinds of polite learning. For this reason he is not at all surprised
when Dorax calls him a Phaeton in one place, and in another tells him
he is like Archimedes.
"The Mufti afterwards mentions Ximenes, Albornoz, and cardinal
Wolsey, by name. The poet seems to think, he may make every person,
in his play, know as much as himself, and talk as well as he could
have done on the same occasion. At least, I believe, every reader
will agree with me, that the above-mentioned sentiments, to which I
might have added several others, would have been better suited to
the court of Augustus than that of Muley Moloch. I grant they are
beautiful in themselves, and much more so in that noble language,
which was peculiar to this great poet. I only observe, that they are
improper for the persons who make use of them."
The catastrophe of the tragedy may be also censured, not only on the
grounds objected to that of "OEdipus," but because it does not
naturally flow from the preceding events, and opens, in the fifth act,
a new set of persons, and a train of circumstances, unconnected with
the preceding action.
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