The Distrest Mother/The Preface

In all the Works of Genius and Invention, whether in Verse or Prose, there are in general but two Manners of Style; the one simple, natural, and easie; the other swelling, forced, and unnatural. An injudicious Affectation of 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 de Racine in my Attempt, 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 Jealousie is sufficiently painted out in the Andromache of Euripides.

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 this great Distance of Time, to represent her as the Disconsolate Widow of Hector, and to suppose her the Mother only of Astyanax. Considered 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.

In Order to bring about this beautiful Incident, so necessary to heighten in Andromache the Character of a tender Mother, an affectionate Wife, and a Widow full of Veneration for the Memory of her deceased Husband; the Life of Astyanax is indeed a little prolonged beyond the Term fixed to it by the general Consent of the Ancient Authours. But so long as there is nothing improbable in the Supposition, a judicious Critick will always be pleased, when he finds a Matter of Fact (especially so far removed in the dark and fabulous Ages) falsified, for the Embellishment of a whole Poem.