them in Dejection, and mollify them with tender Emotions by the Fall of Greatnefs, the Danger of Innocence, and the Croffes of Love. He is not long foft and pathetick, without fome idle Conceit, or contemptible Equivocation. He no fooner begins to move, than he counteracts himfelf; and Terrour and Pity, as they are rifing in the Mind, are checked and blafted by fudden Frigidity.

A Quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous Vapours are to the Traveller; he follows it at all Adventures, it is fure to lead him out of his Way, and fure to entangle him in the Mire. It has fome malignant Power over his Mind, and its Fafcinations are irresistible. Whatever be the Dignity or Profundity of his Difquifition, whether he be enlarging Knowledge, or exalting Affection, whether he be amufing Attention with Incidents, or enchaining it in Sufpenfe, let but a Quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his Work unfinished. A Quibble is the golden Apple, for which he will always turn afide from his Career, or ftoop from his Elevation. A Quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him fuch Delight, that he was content to purchase it by the Sacrifice of Reafon, Propriety, and Truth. Quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he loft the World, and was content to lose it.

A

It will be thought strange, that in enumerating the Defects of this Writer, I have not yet mentioned his Neglect of the Unities; his Violation of thofe Laws which have been inftituted and established by the joint Authority of Poets and of Criticks.

For his other Deviations from the Art of Writing, I refign him to critical Juftice, without making any other Demand in his Favour, than that which must be indulged to all human Excellence; that his Virtues be rated with his Failings: But, from the Cenfure which this Irregularity may bring upon

him, I fhall, with due Reverence to that Learning which I muft oppofe, adventure to try how I can defend him.

His Hiftories, being neither Tragedies nor Comedies, are not subject to any of their Laws; nothing more is neceffary to all the Praife which they expect, than that the Changes of Action be fo prepared as to be understood, that the Incidents be various and affecting, and the Characters confiftent, natural, and distinct. No other Unity is intended,, and therefore none is to be fought.

In his other Works he has well enough preferved the Unity of Action. He has not, indeed, an Intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled; he does not endeavour to hide his Defign only to difcover it, for this is feldom the Order of real Events, and Shakespeare is the Poet of Nature: But his Plan has commonly what Ariftotle requires, a Beginning, a Middle, and an End; one Event is concatenated with another, and the Conclufion follows by eafy Confequence. There are perhaps fome Incidents that might be fpared, as in other Poets there is much Talk that only fills up Time upon the Stage; but the general Syftem makes gradual Advances, and the End of the Play is the End of Expectation.

To the Unities of Time and Place he has fhewn no Regard, and perhaps a nearer View of the Principles on which they ftand will diminish their Value, and withdraw from them the Veneration which, from the Time of Corneille, they have very generally received, by difcovering that they have given more Trouble to the Poet, than Pleafure to the Auditor.

The Necefity of obferving the Unities of Time and Place arifes from the fuppofed Neceflity of making the Drama credible. The Criticks hold it impoffible, that an Action of Months or Years can be poffibly believed to pafs in three Hours; or that the

Spectator

Spectator can suppose himself to fit in the Theatre, while Ambassadors go and return between diftans Kings, while Armies are levied, and Towns befieged, while an Exile wanders and returns, or till he whom they faw courting his Miftrefs, fhall lament the untimely Fall of his Son. The Mind revolts from evident Falfhood, and Fiction lofes its Force when it departs from the Resemblance of Reality.

From the narrow Limitation of Time neceffarily arifes the Contraction of Place. The Spectator, who knows that he saw the first Act at Alexandria, cannot fuppofe that he fees the next at Rome, at a Diftance to which not the Dragons of Medea could, in fo fhort a Time, have tranfported him: He knows with Certainty that he has not changed his Place; and he knows that Place cannot change itself; that what was a House cannot become a Plain; that what was Thebes can never be Perfepolis.

Such is the triumphant Language with which a Critick exults over the Mifery of an irregular Poet, and exults commonly without Refistance or Reply.

It is Time therefore to tell him, by the Authority of Shakespeare, that he affumes, as an unquestionable Principle, a Pofition, which, while his Breath is forming it into Words, his Understanding pronounces to be falfe. It is falfe, that any Reprefentation is mistaken for Reality; that any dramatick Fable, in its Materiality, was ever credible, or, for a fingle Moment, was ever credited.

The Objection arifing from the Impoffibility of paffing the firft Hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, fuppofes, that when the Play opens, the Spectator really imagines himfelf at Alexandria, and believes that his Walk to the Theatre has been a Voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the Days of Antony and Cleopatra. Surely he that imagines this, may imagine more. He that can take the Stage at

one

One Time for the Palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an Hour for the Promontory of Alium." Delufion, if Delufion be admitted, has no certain Limitation: If the Spectator can be once perfuaded, that his old Acquaintance are Alexander and Cæfar, that a Room illuminated with Candles is the Plain of Pharfalia, or the Bank of Granicus, he is in a State of Elevation above the Reach of Reafon, or of Truth, and from the Heights of empyrean Poetry may defpife the Circumfcriptions of terreftrial Nature. There is no Reason why a Mind thus wandering in Extafy fhould count the Clock, or why an Hour fhould not be a Century in that Calenture of the Brains that can make the Stage a Field.

The Truth is, that the Spectators are always in their Senfes, and know, from the firft Act to the laft, that the Stage is only a Stage, and that the Players are only Players. They come to hear a certain Number of Lines recited with just Gesture and elegant Modulation. The Lines relate to fome Action, and an Action must be in fome Place; but the different Actions that complete a Story may be Places very remote from each other; and where is the Abfurdity of allowing that Space to reprefent firft Athens, and then Sicily, which was always known to be neither Sicily nor Athens, but a modern Theatre.

By Suppofition, as Place is introduced, Time may be extended: The Time required by the Fable elapfes for the most Part between the Acts; for, of fo much of the Action as is represented, the real and poetical Duration is the fame. If in the firft Act, Preparations for War against Mithridates are reprefented to be made in Rome, the Event of the War may, without Abfurdity, be reprefented, in the Catastrophe, as happening in Pontus; we know that there is neither War, nor Preparation for War; we know that we are neither in Rome nor Pontus; that neither Mithri dates nor Lucullus are before us. The Drama exhiVOL. II.

I

bits

bits fucceffive Imitations of fuccellive Actions; and why may not the fecond Imitation reprefent an Action that happened Years after the firft, if it be fo connected with it, that nothing but Time can be fuppofed to intervene? Time is, of all Modes of Existence, moft obfequious to the Imagination; a Lapfe of Years is as easily conceived as a Paffage of Hours. In Contemplation we eafily contract the Time of real Actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only fee their Imitat tion.

It will be asked, how the Drama moves, if it is not credited. It is credited, with all the Credit due to a Drama. It is credited, whenever it moves, as a just Picture of a real Original; as representing to the Auditor what he would himself feel, if he were to do or fuffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The Reflection that strikes the Heart is not, that the Evils before us are real Evils, but that they are Evils to which we ourselves may be expofed. If there be any Fallacy, it is not that we fancy the Players, but that we fancy ourselves unhappy for a Moment; but we rather lament the Poffibility, than fuppofe the Prefence of Mifery; as a Mother weeps over her Babe, when the remembers that Death may take it from her. The Delight of Tragedy proceeds from our Consciousnefs of Fiction; if we thought Murders and Treafons real, they would please to

more.

Imitations produce Pain or Pleasure, not because they are mistaken for Realities, but because they bring Realities to Mind. When the Imagination is recre ated by a painted Landfcape, the Trees are not fuppofed capable to give us Shade, or the Fountains Coolness; but we confider, how we should be pleafed with fuch Fountains playing befide us, and fuch Woods waving over us. We are agitated in reading the Hiftory of Henry the Fifth, yet no Man takes his

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