Agrippina, a Tragedy

""Agrippina" was begun in London in December, 1741. The first scene was sent to West in Hertfordshire about 31st March, 1742, with the following remarks:—"I take the liberty of sending you a long speech of Agrippina; much too long, but I could be glad you would retrench it. Aceronia, you may remember, had been giving quiet counsels. I fancy, if it ever be finished, it will be in the nature of Nat. Lee's "Bedlam Tragedy," which had twenty-five acts and some odd scenes." On the 4th April West wrote in reply, "I own, in general, I think Agrippina's speech too long; but how to retrench it I know not. But I have something else to say, and that is in relation to the style, which appears to me too antiquated."
    Gray replied defending his style, observing, "the language of the age is never the language of poetry; except among the French, whose verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose. Our poetry, on the contrary, has a language peculiar to itself, to which almost every one that has written has added something by enriching it with foreign idioms and derivatives, nay sometimes words of their own composition or invention. Shakespeare and Milton have been great creators this way."
    To this West replied in a very interesting letter; and in his next letter Gray dismisses the subject thus: "As to Agrippina, I begin to be of your opinion, and find myself (as women of their children) less enamoured of my productions the older they grow. She is laid up to sleep till next summer, so bid her good-night."
    Gray never resumed it; possibly West's death made him unwilling to take up again what had been a subject of interest to each; also, as he told Norton Nicholls, the labour of polishing a long poem would be intolerable. Gray thought the first ten or twelve lines of "Agrippina" the best, but West preferred the last fourteen in the first scene.
    This fragment no longer exists in Gray's MS."

"We place the fragmentary Agrippina here, because the few lines of the second scene are an attempt to complete it, made, as we believe, about the same time as the Ode on the Cat was written. (Cf. n. on the Eton Ode l. 29.) Gray communicated part of the first scene to Walpole in Dec. 1746 (''I send you a scene in a tragedy; if it don't make you cry it will make you laugh; and so it moves some passion, that I take to be enough''). In January 1747 he sent him the remainder of the scene, ''that was lost in a wilderness of papers.'' Walpole had evidently complimented him on the portion already sent, and Gray says ''Certainly you do her too much honour; she seemed to me to talk like an old boy, all in figures and mere poetry, instead of nature and the language of real passion. Do you remember 'Approchez-vous Néron'? Who would not rather have thought of that half line, than all Mr Rowe's flowers of eloquence?''
''Approcbez-vous Néron'' is from Racine's Britannicus (IV. ii. 1); it is thus that Racine's Agrippina re-asserts her authority over her son who has put her under arrest. Burrhus has just been urging her to remember in the coming interview that Nero is her emperor. (Compare the counsels of Gray's Aceronia.) A like master-stroke of Racine's is the ''Tu peux sortir'' with which Agrippina dismisses Nero after upbraiding him with the murder of Britannicus (V. vi. ad fin.).
Gray saw Britannicus in Paris on the 21st of May 1739, as he tells West next day; ''all the characters, particularly Agrippina and Nero, done to perfection.'' Walpole was no doubt with him and would remember the effect given to these touches on the stage. Those who choose to compare the Argument of Agrippina with Britannicus will see that Racine is copied almost with a schoolboy's fidelity; the projected union of Junia and Britannicus, favoured by Agrippina, would have found its counterpart in that of Otho and Poppaea, favoured by the same person from analogous motives; the passion of Nero would again have been the obstacle; Nero was to have been in hiding once more to overhear a conversation; the part of Burrhus would have been played by Seneca; the pretended friend Narcissus would have reappeared in Agrippina in the person of Anicetus, captain of the guard; Agrippina's confidante Albina is replaced by Aceronia.
Gray is his own best critic on Agrippina, the interest of which lies mainly in the remarks to which it gave occasion. He returned from abroad with a vivid impression of the French classic stage,—of its constructive power, which he could only imitate with Chinese exactness,—and its dramatic point, which as he confesses, perhaps too humbly, he could not imitate at all. Johnson says ''It was certainly no loss to the English stage that Agrippina was never completed.'' Nevertheless, if Gray had completed this effort of his 26th year, Agrippina would have compared favourably with anything which the English stage produced at the same epoch. If Gray had been prevailed upon by Walpole, it might have appeared about the same time as Johnson's own Irene, which was certainly no gain to our dramatic literature; and in structure (thanks to Racine), in diction, and above all in the management of tragic blank verse Agrippina would have much excelled Johnson's cumbrous performance. Or it might have been acted side by side with Thomson's posthumous Coriolanus, the last of those tragedies of his which Voltaire found 'frigid,'—an epithet with which we now conveniently damn almost all eighteenth century Tragedy, Voltaire's included; and it would at least have achieved that dignity of expression which Thomson in his plays only affected, whilst it would have been free from the vulgarisms of which he was often capable.
Gray tells Walpole (Jan. 1747) ''Poor West put a stop to that tragic torrent he saw breaking in upon him''—but it does not seem that he acquiesced in the main article of West's criticism. West wrote (April 4, 1742) ''The style appears to me too antiquated. Racine was of another opinion [he means to Gray]: he nowhere gives you the phrases of Ronsard. I should rather choose a style that bordered upon [Addison's] Cato, than upon Shakespeare. One may imitate (if one can) Shakespeare's manner, his surprising strokes of true nature, his expressive force in painting characters, and all his other beauties; preserving at the same time our own language. Were Shakespeare alive now, he would write in a different style from what he did.''
Gray's reply has often been quoted, and has for us a wider scope than belongs to it as a defence of his Agrippina. ''As to the matter of stile, I have this to say: The language of the age is never the language of poetry; except among the French, whose verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose. Our poetry, on the contrary, has a language peculiar to itself; to which almost every one, that has written, has added something by enriching it with foreign idioms and derivatives: nay sometimes words of their own composition or invention. Shakespeare and Milton have been great creators this way; and no one more licentious than Pope or Dryden, who perpetually borrow expressions from the former.'' Then he gives instances from Dryden, among which it is curious to note such words as 'mood,' 'smouldering,' 'beverage,' 'array,' and 'way ward' mentioned as having an antiquated sound; a fact which may teach us how much even the current language of our time owes to the principle for which Gray contends, and which he followed in his verse."

"cf. the "Elegy," 71, 72; "Ode for Music," 79."

"Cf. the "Elegy," 118."

"Writing to Stonehewer when sending the "Ode for Music" for the perusal of the Duke of Grafton, Gray says: "I did not see why Gratitude should sit silent and leave it to Expectation to sing, who certainly would have sung and that à gorge deployee upon such an occasion.""

"Cf. "Elegy," 73."

"Cf. "Progress of Poesy," 53."

"See the "Bard," 69."

"cf. 'gorgeous Tragedy,' "Il Penseroso," 97."

"cf. "Sonnet on the Death of West," 13."

"cf. "Ode on Eton," 29 and Note."