I am ftill lefs inclined to attempt, upon this occafion, laying down rules for the conduct of a dramatic poemi. I am perfuaded that all the fubtile reasoning on this subject, which has been fo much repeated for fome years paft, is not worth one masterly scene, and that there is more to be learned in Polyeuctes and Cinna +, than "in all the precepts of the abbe d'Aubignac ‡. Severus and Paulina § are the true masters of the art. So, many books wrote on painting by men of taste, do not instruct a disciple so much as feeing a single head by Raphael

The principles of the arts, which depend on the imagination, are all eafy and fimple, all drawn from nature and from reafon. Pardon t and Boyer knew them as perfectly as Corneille or Racine. The difference always has lain, and ever will lie, in the application of them.

*

The

Two admired tragedies wrote by the elder Corneille.

A great theatrical critic, but much in the fame fituation with our Rymer, who, notwithstanding all his rules, was unable to write a tolerable play himself,

Characters in Corneille's Polyeuctes.

Two French dramatic authors of the last age; Pardon was a very correct, but weak, writer; he was particularly the rival of Mr. Racine, and not without fome fhew of fuccefs; but Racine has stood the teft, while Pardon is entirely forgot. Boyer's plays are ftill lefs known than thofe of Pardon.

authors of Armida and Iffé t, and the very worst composers, followed the fame rules of mufic. Le Pouffin worked from the fame principles with Vignon. It feems therefore to as little purpose to talk about rules at the head of a play, as it would be, for a painter to begin by a differtation on his pictures, or for a musician' to attempt proving that his composition ought to please.

But as Mr. de la Motte wants to establish rules directly contrary to those which have been followed by our great masters; it is proper to affert the cause of thefe antient laws, not because they are antient, but because they are just and neceffary, and might meet in a man of his merit, a formidable antagonist.

Mr. de la Motte would fain banish the unities of action, place, and time.

The French were the firft among the mo

* Signior Baptifta Lulli, of whom the Spectator thus fpeaks: "He found the French music extremely defective, and very often barbarous, However, knowing the genius of the people, the humour of their language, and the prejudiced ears he had to deal with, he did not pretend to extirpate the French mufic, and plant the Italian in its ftead, but only to cultivate and civilize it with innumerable graces and modulations, which he borrowed from the Italian. By this means the French music is now perfect in its kind; and when you fay it is not fo good as the Italan, you only mean that it does not please you fo well; for there is fearce a Frenchman who would not wonder to hear you give the Italian fuch a preference."

+ Monfeur Rameau, the prefent: Handel of the French, who now no longer relish the music of Baptifta Lulli.

derns who revived thefe wife dramatic laws. The other nations continued a great while without receiving a yoke that seemed so strict; but as it was a reasonable one, and that reafon gets the better of every thing at last, they have all now bent to it. The English writers at present affect to declare before their plays, that the continuance of the action is the fame with that of the representation; they go farther than us, who have been in this point their masters.

*

The learned of every country begin to look upon those ages as barbarous, in which, these laws were unknown to the greatest geniuses, fuch as Lopez de Vega and Shakespear. They confefs the obligation they have to us, for recovering them from that barbarism. Is it poffible that a Frenchman can now employ all his parts and talents in order to bring us back to it again? Though I had had nothing else to say against Mr. de la Motte's opinion, but that Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Addifon, Congreve, Maffei, have all fubmitted to the dramatic laws which he endeavours to fubvert, it fhould be fufficient to deter any body that was tempted to break through them; but Mr. de la Motte deferves to be answered with arguments, rather than with authorities

What is a dramatic performance? the reprefentation of an action. Why not of two or three actions? because the mind is incapable of comprehending several objects at the fame time;

*The greatest dramatic poet of the Spaniards, and almost the only one, whose works are known abroad.

because the intereft, which is divided, is foon deftroyed; because we are even fbocked at feeing two different pieces of history in the fame picture; and because nature alone points out to us this precept, which ought to be as invariable as nature's felf.

For the fame reafons, the unity of place is alfo effential; for one action is necessarily confined to one place. If the perfons represented are at Athens in the first act, how can they get to Perfia by the fecond? Has Le Brun ever drawn Alexander at Arbella and in the Indies on the fame canvas?" I fhould not be furprized, fays Mr. de la Motte, artfully, that a people of sense, but lefs fond of rules, fhould be fatisfied to fee Coriolanus reprefented, as condemned at Rome in the first act; received by the Volfcii in the third; and befieging Rome in the fourth, etc.".

In the first place, I cannot conceive how a rational and learned people fhould not be fond of rules which are the refult of good sense, and calculated to heighten their entertainment. In the fecond place, every body must perceive that what Mr. de la Motte mentions as the proper fubject for one tragedy, in fact, contains fubjects for three; and that this project, though it be well executed, would be nothing more than a plot of Jodelle's or Hardy's †, finely verfified by a good modern poet.

The unity of time is naturally joined to the

*Two French poets, cotemporary with our Shakespear, guilty of his faults, but not poffeffed of his genius

other unities. When I am prefent at a play, that is, at the representation of an action, I mean to see the accomplishment of that one action. Suppose, for inftance, a confpiracy at Rome against Auguftus: I want to know what will become of Auguftus and of the confpirators. If the poet lengthens out the action to a fortnight, he must give me an account of what paffes during that time, for my business there is to be informed of every things that happens, and nothing useless should happen. If he relates what paffes every day, there are then fifteen different actions of more or less confequence. It is no longer accomplishing the confpiracy, which he fhould come to at once, but giving a long history which cannot be interesting, as it only ferves to keep back the decifion of the event which I am impatient to be acquainted with. I did not come to the play for the hiftoof a hero, but to fee one action of his life. Besides, the fpectator is but three hours at the play, and therefore the action should only laft three hours. Cinna, Andromache *, Bajazet †, Oedipus either Corneille's or Mr. de la Motte's, or mine (if I may mention it here), are not of a longer duration. If other plots require a greater length of time for their execution, it is a license only pardonable in favour of very great beauties, and the farther this licenfe is extended, the greater the fault must be.

ry

+ Two of Racine's tragedies; the first has been tranflated, or rather imitated in a very masterly manner by Mr. Phillips, under the title of the Di ftreffed Mother.