absurdity And. tradi

or city. The unity of action in all plays is yet more conspicuous; for they do not burden them with underplots, as the English do.: which is the reason why many scenes of our tragi-comedies carry on a design 5 that is nothing of kin to the main plot; and that we see two distinct webs in a play, like those in illwrought stuffs; and two actions, that is, two plays, carried on together, to the confounding of the audience; who, before they are warm in their con10 cernments for one part, are diverted to another; and by that means espouse the interest of neither. From. hence likewise it arises, that the one half of our actors are not known to the other. They keep their distances, as if they were Mountagues and Capulets, and 15 seldom begin an acquaintance till the last scene of the fifth act, when they are all to meet upon the stage. There is no theatre in the world has any thing số absurd as the English tragi-comedy;. 'tis a drama of our own invention, and the fashion of it is enough to 20 proclaim it so; here a course of mirth, there another of sadness and passion, and a third of honour and a duel1: thus, in two hours and a half, we run through all the fits of Bedlam. The French affords you as much variety on the same day, but they do it not so 25 unseasonably, or mal à propos, as we our poets present you the play and the farce together; and our stages still retain somewhat of the original civility of the Red Bull n :

comedy

Atque ursum et pugiles media inter carmina poscunt. 30 The end of tragedies or serious plays, says Aristotle, is to beget admiration, compassion, or concernment;

but are not mirth and compassion things incompatible?^ and is it not evident that the poet must of necessity destroy the former by intermingling of the latter? that is, he must ruin the sole end and object of his tragedy, to introduce somewhat that is forced into it1, 5 and is not of the body of it. Would you not think that physician mad, who, having prescribed a purge, should immediately order you to take restringents 2?

'But to leave our plays, and return to theirs. I have noted one great advantage they have had in the 10 plotting of their tragedies; that is, they are always grounded upon some known history: according to that of Horace, Ex noto fictum carmen sequar; and in that they have so imitated the ancients, that they have surpassed them. For the ancients, as was ob- 15 served before, took for the foundation of their plays some poetical fiction, such as under that consideration could move but little concernment in the audience, because they already knew the event of it. But the French goes farther:

20

Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet, Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum". He so interweaves truth with probable fiction, that he puts a pleasing fallacy upon us; mends the intrigues of fate, and dispenses with the severity of 25 history, to reward that virtue which has been rendered to us there unfortunate. Sometimes the story has left the success so doubtful, that the writer is free, by the privilege of a poet, to take that which of two or more relations will best suit with his design: 30 as for example, in 3 the death of Cyrus, whom Justin

3

1 forced in, A.

2 restringents upon it, A.

3 А от.

and some others report to have perished in the Scythian war, but Xenophon affirms to have died in his bed of extreme old age". Nay more, when the event is past dispute, even then we are willing to be de5 ceived, and the poet, if he contrives it with appearance of truth, has all the audience of his party; at least during the time his play is acting: so naturally we are kind to virtue, when our own interest is not in question, that we take it up as the general concernment 10 of mankind. On the other side, if you consider the. historical plays of Shakspeare, they are rather so many chronicles of kings, or the business many times of thirty or forty years, cramped into a representation of two hours and an half; which is not to imitate or 15 paint nature, but rather to draw her in miniature, to take her in little; to look upon her through the wrong end of a perspective, and receive her images not only much less, but infinitely more imperfect than the life: this, instead of making a play delightful, renders it 20 ridiculous:—

Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi ».

For the spirit of man cannot be satisfied but with truth, or at least verisimility; and a poem is to contain, if not τὰ ἔτυμα, yet ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, as one of the 25 Greek poets has expressed ito.

'Another thing in which the French differ from us and from the Spaniards, is, that they do not embarrass, or cumber themselves with too much plot; they only represent so much of a story as will constitute one 30 whole and great action sufficient for a play; we, who

undertake more, do but multiply adventures; which,

not being produced from one another, as effects from causes, but barely following, constitute many actions in the drama, and consequently make it many plays.

'But by pursuing closely1 one argument, which is not cloyed with many turns, the French have gained 5 more liberty for verse, in which they write; they have leisure to dwell on a subject which deserves it; and to represent the passions, (which we have acknowledged to be the poet's work,) without being hurried from one thing to another, as we are in the plays 10 of Calderon, which we have seen lately upon our theatres, under the name of Spanish plots. I have taken notice but of one tragedy of ours, whose plot has that uniformity and unity of design in it, which I have commended in the French; and that is Rollon, 15 or rather, under the name of Rollo, the Story of Bassianus and Geta in Herodian: there indeed the plot is neither large nor intricate, but just enough to fill the minds of the audience, not to cloy them. Besides, you see it founded upon the truth of history, 20 -only the time of the action is not reduceable to the strictness of the rules; and you see in some places a little farce mingled, which is below the dignity of the other parts; and in this all our poets are extremely peccant even Ben Johnson himself, in Sejanus and 25 Catiline, has given us this oleo" of a play, this unnatural mixture of comedy and tragedy; which to me sounds just as ridiculously as the history of David with the merry humours of Golia's. In Sejanus you may take notice of the scene betwixt Livia and the 30 physician, which is a pleasant satire upon the artificial 2 Goliah's, C.

1 close, A.

5

helps of beauty: in Catiline you may see the parliament of women; the little envies of them to one another; and all that passes betwixt Curio and Fulvia: scenes admirable in their kind, but of an ill mingle with the rest.

But I return again to the French writers, who, as I have said, do not burden themselves too much with plot, which has been reproached to them by an ingenious person of our nation as a fault; for, he says, 10 they commonly make but one person considerable in a play; they dwell on him, and his concernments, while the rest of the persons are only subservient to set him off. If he intends this by it, that there is one person in the play who is of greater dignity than 15 the rest, he must tax, not only theirs, but those of the ancients, and which he would be loth to do, the best of ours; for it is impossible but that one person must be more conspicuous in it than any other, and consequently the greatest share in the action must devolve 20 on him. We see it so in the management of all affairs; even in the most equal aristocracy, the balance cannot be so justly poised, but some one will be superiour to the rest, either in parts, fortune, interest, or the consideration of some glorious exploit; which 25 will reduce the greatest part of business into his hands.

'But, if he would have us to imagine, that in exalting one character the rest of them are neglected, and that all of them have not some share or other in 30 the action of the play, I desire him to produce any of Corneille's tragedies, wherein every person, like so many servants in a well-governed family, has not some