AN ESSAY OF Dramatick Poesy.

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[↔] IT was that memorable Day, in the first Summer of the late War, when our Navy ingag'd the Dutch: A Day wherein the two most mighty and best appointed Fleets which any Age had ever seen, disputed the Command of the greater half of the Globe, the Commerce of Nations, and the Riches of the Universe. While these vast sloating Bodies, on either side, mov'd against each other in parallel Lines, and our Country-men, under the happy Conduct of his Roy al Highness, went breaking, by little and little, into the Line of the Enemies; the Noise of the Cannon from both Navies reach'd our Ears about the City: So that all Men, being alarm'd with it, and in a dreadful Suspense of the Event, which they knew was then deciding, every one went following the Sound as his Fancy led him; and leaving the Town almost empty, some took towards the Park, somc cross the River, others down it; all seeking the Noise in the Depth of Silence. [↔] Amongst the rest, it was the Fortune of Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius and Neander, to be in Company toge ther: Three of them Persons whom their Wit and Quality have made known to all the Town: And whom I have chose to hide under these borrowed Names, that they may not suffer by so ill a Relation as I am going to make of their Discourse. [↔] Taking then a Barge which a Servant of Lisideius had provided for them, they made haste to shoot the Bridge, and lest behind them that great fall of Waters which hindred them from hearing what they desir'd: After which, having disingag'd themselves from many Vessels which rode at Anchor in the Thames, and almost block'd up the Passage towards Greenwich, they ordered the Wa termen to let fall their Oars more gently; and then every one favouring his own Curiosity with a strict Si lence, it was not long ere they perceived the Air to break about them like the Noise of distant Thunder, or of Swallows in a Chimney: Those little Undulations of Sound, though almost vanishing before they reach'd them, yet still seeming to retain somewhat of their first Hor ror which they had betwixt the Fleets: After they had attentively listened till such time as the Sound by little and little went from them; Eugenius lifting up his Head, and taking Notice of it, was the first who con gratulated to the rest that happy Omen of our Nation's Victory: Adding, that we had but this to desire in Confirmation of it, that we might hear no more of that Noise which was now leaving the English Coast. When the rest had concurr'd in the same Opinion, Cri tes, a Person of a sharp Judgment, and somewhat too delicate a Taste in Wit, which the World hath mista ken in him for ill Nature, said, smiling to us, That if the Concernment of this Battel had not been so exceeding great, he could scarce have wish'd the Victory at the Price he knew he must pay for it, in being subject to the reading and hearing of so many ill Verses, as he was sure would be made on that Subject. Adding, That no Argument could scape some of those eternal Rhy mers, who watch a Battel with more diligence than the Ravens and Birds of Prey; and the worst of them surest to be first in upon the Quarry, while the better able, ei ther out of Modesty writ not at all, or set that due Va lue upon their Poems, as to let them be often desired, and long expected. There are some of those impertinent Peo ple of whom you speak, answer'd Lisideius, who, to my Knowledge, are already so provided, either way, that they can produce not only a Panegyrick upon the Vi ctory, but, if need be, a Funeral Elegy on the Duke: Wherein, after they have crown'd his Valour with many Laurels, they will at last deplore the odds under which he fell, concluding that his Courage deserv'd a better Destiny. All the Company smil'd at the Conceit of Li sideius; but Crites, more eager than before, began to make particular Exceptions against some Writers, and said, the publick Magistrate ought to send betimes to forbid them; and that it concern'd the Peace and Quiet of all honest People, that ill Poets should be as well si lenc'd as seditious Preachers. In my Opinion, replied Eugenius, you pursue your Point too far; for as to my own particular, I am so great a Lover of Poesy, that I could wish them all rewarded, who attempt but to do well; at least, I would not have them worse us'd than one of their Brethren was by Sylla the Dictator: Quem in concione vidimus (says Tully) cum ei libcllum malus poe ta de populo subjecisset, quod epigramma in eum fecisset tan tummodo alternis versibus longiusculis, statim ex iis rebus quas tunc vendebat jubere ei præmium tribui, sub ea con ditione ne quid postea scriberet. I could wish with all my Heart, replied Crites, that many whom we know, were as bountifully thank'd upon the same Condition, that they would never trouble us again. For amongst others, I have a mortal Apprehension of two Poets, whom this Victory, with the help of both her Wings, will never be able to escape. 'Tis easy to guess whom you intend, said Lisideius; and without naming them, I ask you if one-of them does not perpetually pay us with Clenches upon Words, and a certain clownish kind of Raillery? If now and then he does not offer at a Catachresis or Clevelandism, wresting and torturing a Word into another Meaning: In fine, if he be not one of those whom the French would call un mauvais buffon; one who is so much a well willer to the Satyr, that he intends, at least, to spare no Man; and though he cannot strike a Blow to hurt any, yet he ought to be punish'd for the Malice of the Action; as our Witches are justly hang'd, because they think themselves to be such: and suffer deservedly for believing they did Mischief, because they meant it. You have describ'd him, said Crites, so exactly, that I am afraid to come after you with my other Extremity of Poetry: He is one of those, who having had some ad vantage of Education and Converse, knows better than the other what a Poet should be, but puts it into practice more unluckily than any Man; his Style and Matter are every where alike; he is the most calm, peaceable Writer you ever read: He never disquiets your Passions with the least Concernment, but still leaves you in as even a Tem per as he found you; he is a very Leveller in Poetry, he creeps along with ten little Words in every Line, and helps out his Numbers with For to, and Unto, and all the pretty Expletives he can sind, till he drags them to the end of another Line; while the Sense is left tir'd half way behind it: He doubly starves all his Verses, sirst, for want of Thought, and then of Expression; his Poetry neither has Wit in it, nor seems to have it; like him in Martial: Pauper videri Cinna vult, & est pauper: [↔] He affects Plainness, to cover his want of Imagina tion: When he writes the serious Way, the highest Flight of his Fancy is some miserable Antithesis, or seeming Contradiction; and in the Comick, he is still reaching at some thin Conceit, the Ghost of a Jest, and that too flies before him, never to be caught; these Swallows which we see before us on the Thames, are the just Re semblance of his Wit: You may observe how near the Water they stoop, how many proffers they make to dip, and yet how seldom they touch it: And when they do, 'tis but the Surface: They skim over it but to catch a Gnat, and then mount into the Air and leave it. Well, Gentlemen, said Eugenius, you may speak your Pleasure of these Authors; but though I and some few more a bout the Town may give you a peaceable Hearing, yet assure your selves, there are Multitudes who would think you malicious, and them injur'd: Especially him whom you first described: he is the very Withers of the City: They have bought more Editions of his Works than would serve to lay under all their Pies at the Lord Mayor's Christmas. When his famous Poem first came out in the Year 1660, I have seen them reading it in the midst of Change-time; nay, so vehement they were at it, that they lost their Bargain by the Candles ends: But what will you say if he has been received amongst great Persons? I can assure you, this Day, he is the Envy of one, who is Lord in the Art of Quibbling; and who does not take it well, that any Man should intrude so far into his Province. All I would wish, replied Crites, is, That they who love his Writings, may still admire him, and his Fellow Poet, qui Bavium non odit, & c. is Curse suf ficient. And farther, added Lisideius, I believe there is no Man who writes well, but would think he had hard Measure, if their Admirers should Praise any thing of his: Nam quos contemnimus, eorum quoque laudes con temnimus. There are so few who write well in this Age, said Crites, that methinks any Praises should be welcome; they neither rise to the Dignity of the last Age, nor to any of the Ancients; and we may cry out of the Writers of this time, with more reason than Petronius of his, Pace vestrâ liceat dixisse, primi omnium eloquen tiam perdidistis: You have debauched the true old Poe try so far, that Nature, which is the Soul of it, is not in any of your Writings. [↔] If your Quarrel (said Eugenius) to those who now write, be grounded only on your Reverence to Antiquity, there is no Man more ready to adore those great Greeks and Romans than I am: But on the other side, I cannot think so contemptibly of the Age in which I live, or so dishonourably of my own Country, as not to judge we equal the Ancients in most kinds of Poesy, and in some surpass them; neither know I any reason why I may not be as zealous for the Reputation of our Age, as we find the Ancients themselves were in Reverence to those who lived before them. For you hear your Horace saying, Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crassè Compositum, illepidéve putetur, sed quia nuper. And after, Si meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit, Scire velim pretium chartis quotus arroget annus? [↔] But I see I am ingaging in a wide Dispute, where the Arguments are not like to reach close on either side; for Poesy is of so large an Extent, and so many both of the Ancients and Moderns have done well in all Kinds of it, that in citing one against the other, we shall take up more time this Evening, than each Man's Occasions will allow him: Therefore I would ask Crites to what Part of Poesy he would confine his Arguments, and whether he would defend the general Cause of the Ancients against the Moderns, or oppose any Age of the Moderns against this of ours. [↔] Crites a little while considering upon this Demand, told Eugenius that if he pleased he would limit their Dispute to Dramatick Poesy; in which he thought it not difficult to prove, either that the Ancients were superior to the Moderns, or the last Age to this of ours. [↔] Eugenius was somewhat surpriz'd, when he heard Cri tes make Choice of that Subject; For ought I see, said he, I have undertaken a harder Province than I imagin'd; for though I never judg'd the Plays of the Greek or Ro man Poets comparable to ours; yet on the other side, those we now see acted, come short of many which were written in the last Age: But my Comfort is, if we are o'ercome, it will be only by our own Country-men: And if we yield to them in this one part of Poesy, we more surpass them in all the other; for in the Epique or Lyrick way it will be hard for them to shew us one such amongst them, as we have many now living, or who lately were. They can produce nothing so courtly writ, or which expresses so much the Conversation of a Gentle man, as Sir John Suckling; nothing so even, sweet, and flowing as Mr. Waller: Nothing so Majestick, so cor rect, as Sir John Denham; nothing so elevated, so co pious, and full of Spirit, as Mr. Cowley: As for the Italian, French, and Spanish Plays, I can make it evi dent, that those who now write, surpass them; and that the Drama is wholly ours. [↔] All of them were thus far of Eugenius his Opinion, that the Sweetness of English Verse was never understood or practis'd by our Fathers; even Crites himself did not much oppose it: And every one was willing to ac knowledge how much our Poesy is improv'd, by the happiness of some Writers yet living; who first taught us to mould our Thoughts into easy and significant Words; to retrench the Superfluities of Expression, and to make our Rhyme so properly a Part of the Verse, that it should never mislead the Sense, but it self be led and govern'd by it. [↔] Eugenius was going to continue this Discourse, when Lisideius told him that it was necessary, before they pro ceeded further, to take a standing Measure of their Con troversy; for how was it possible to be decided who writ the best Plays, before we know what a Play should be? but, this once agreed on by both Parties, each might have Recourse to it, either to prove his own Ad vantages, or to discover the Failings of his Adversary. [↔] He had no sooner said this, but all desir'd the Favour of him to give the Definition of a Play; and they were the more importunate, because neither Aristotle, nor Horace, nor any other, who had writ of that Subject, had ever done it. [↔] Lisideius, after some modest Denials, at last confess'd he had a rude Notion of it; indeed rather a Description than a Definition: but which serv'd to guide him in his pri vate Thoughts, when he was to make a Judgment of what others writ: That he conceiv'd a Play ought to be, Ajust and lively Image of human Nature, representing its Passions and Humours, and the Changes of Fortune to which it is subject; for the Delight and Instruction of Mankind. [↔] This Definition (though Crites rais'd a Logical Obje ction against it; that it was only à genere & fine, and so not altogether perfect;) was yet well received by the rest: And after they had given order to the Water-men to turn their Barge, and row softly, that they might take the cool of the Evening in their return, Crites, being desired by the Company to begin, spoke on be half of the Ancients, in this manner. [↔] If Confidence presage a Victory, Eugenius, in his own Opinion, has already triumphed over the Ancients; no thing seems more easy to him, than to overcome those whom it is our greatest Praise to have imitated well: for we do not only build upon their Foundations; but by their Models. Dramatique Poesie had time enough, reck oning from Thespis (who first invented it) to Aristophanes, to be born, to grow up, and to flourish in Maturity. It has been observed of Arts and Sciences, that in one and the same Century they have arriv'd to great Perfection; and no wonder, since every Age has a kind of Univer sal Genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular Studies: The Work then being push'd on by many Hands, must of necessity go forward. [↔] Is it not evident, in these last hundred Years (when the Study of Philosophy has been the Business of all the Virtuosi in Christendom) that almost a New Nature has been reveal'd to us? that more Errors of the School have been detected, more useful Experiments in Philosophy have been made, more noble Secrets in Opticks, Me dicine, Anatomy, Astronomy, discover'd, than in all those credulous and doting Ages from Aristotle to us? So true it is that nothing spreads more fast than Sci ence, when rightly and generally cultivated. [↔] Add to this, the more than common Emulation that was in those times of writing well; which though it be found in all Ages, and all Persons that pretend to the same Reputation; yet Poesy being then in more Esteem than now it is, had greater Honours decreed to the Pro fessors of it; and consequently the Rivalship was more high between them; they had Judges ordain'd to decide their Merit, and Prizes to reward it; and Historians have been diligent to record of Æschylus, Euripides, Sopho cles, Lycophron, and the rest of them, both who they were that vanquissi'd in these Wars of the Theatre, and how often they were crown'd: While the Asian Kings and Grecian Common-wealths scarce afforded them a nobler Subject, than the unmanly Luxuries of a debauch'd Court, or giddy Intrigues of a Factious City. Alit æmulatio ingenia (saith Paterculus) & nunc invidia, nunc admiratio incitationem accendit: Emulation is the Spur of Wit, and sometimes Envy, sometimes Admiration quickens our Endeavours. [↔] But now since the Rewards of Honour are taken a way, that virtuous Emulation is turn'd into direct Ma lice; yet so slothful, that it contents it self to condemn and cry down others, without attempting to do better; 'Tis a Reputation too unprofitable, to take the necessary Pains for it; yet wishing they had it, that Desire is in citement enough to hinder others from it. And this, in short, Eugenius, is the reason, why you have now so few good Poets; and so many severe Judges: Certainly, to imitate the Ancients well, much Labour and strong Study is required: Which Pains, I have already shewn, our Poets would want incouragement to take, if yet they had Ability to go through the Work. Those Ancients have been faithful Imitators, and wise Observers of that Nature which is so torn and ill represented in our Plays; they have handed down to us a perfect Resemblance of her; which we, like ill Copyers, neglecting to look on, have rendred monstrous, and disfigur'd. But, that you may know how much you are indebted to those your Masters, and be ashamed to have so ill requited them: I must remember you, that all the Rules by which we practise the Drama at this Day, (either such as relate to the Justness and Symmetry of the Plot; or the Episodi cal Ornaments, such as Descriptions, Narrations, and other Beauties, which are not essential to the Play;) were delivered to us from the Observations which Aristotle made, of those Poets, who either lived before him, or were his Contemporaries: We have added nothing of our own, except we have the Confidence to say our Wit is better; Of which none boast in this our Age, but such as understand not theirs. Of that Book which Aristotle has left us, περὶ τῆς Ποιητικῆς, Horace his Art of Poetry, is an excellent Comment, and, I believe, restores to us that second Book of his concerning Comedy, which is wanting in him. [↔] Out of these two have been extracted the famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unitez, or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action. [↔] The Unity of Time they comprehend in twenty four Hours, the compass of a Natural Day; or as near it as can be contriv'd: And the Reason of it is obvious to e very one, that the Time of the feigned Action, or Fable of the Play, should be proportion'd as near as can be to the Duration of that Time in which it is represented; since therefore all Plays are acted on the Theatre in a space of Time much within the compass of twenty four Hours, that Play is to be thought the nearest Imitation of Nature, whose Plot or Action is confin'd within that Time; and, by the same Rule which concludes this gene ral Proportion of Time, it follows, that all the Parts of it are (as near as may be) to be equally sub-divided; name ly, that one Act take not up the suppos'd Time of half a day; which is out of Proportion to the rest; since the other four are then to be straitned within the Compass of the remaining half; for it is unnatural, that one Act, which being spoke or written, is not longer than the rest, should be suppos'd longer by the Audience; 'tis there fore the Poet's Duty, to take care that no Act should be imagin'd to exceed the Time in which it is represented on the Stage; and that the Intervals and Inequalities of Time be suppos'd to fall out between the Acts. [↔] This Rule of Time how well it has been observ'd by the Ancients, most of their Plays will witness; you see them in their Tragedies (wherein to follow this Rule, is certainly most difficult) from the very Beginning of their Plays, falling close into that part of the Story which they intend for the Action or principal Object of it: Leaving the former Part to be delivered by Narration: So that they set the Audience, as it were, at the Post where the Race is to be concluded: And saving them the tedious Expectation of seeing the Poet set out and ride the Beginning of the Course, they suffer you not to be hold him, till he is in sight of the Goal, and just upon you. [↔] For the Second Unity, which is that of Place, the An cients meant by it, That the Scene ought to be conti nued through the Play, in the same Place where it was laid in the Beginning: For the Stage, on which it is repre sented, being but one and the same Place, it is unnatu ral to conceive it many; and those far distant from one another. I will not deny, but by the Variation of paint ed Scenes, the Fancy (which in these Cases will contri bute to its own Deceit) may sometimes imagine it seve ral Places, with some Appearance of Probability; yet it still carries the greater likelihood of Truth, if those Places be suppos'd so near each other, as in the same Town or City, which may all be comprehended under the larger Denomination of one Place: For a greater Distance will bear no proportion to the shortness of time, which is allotted in the Acting, to pass from one of them to ano ther. For the Observation of this, next to the Ancients, the French are to be most commended. They tye them selves so strictly to the Unity of Place, that you never see in any of their Plays, a Scene chang'd in the middle of an Act: If the Act begins in a Garden, a Street, or Chamber, 'tis ended in the same Place; and that you may know it to be the same, the Stage is so supplied with Persons, that it is never empty all the time: He who en ters second has Business with him who was on before; and before the second quits the Stage, a third appears who has Business with him. [↔] This Corneille calls La Liaison des Scenes, the Continui ty or joining of the Scenes; and 'tis a good Mark of a well contriv'd Play, when all the Persons are known to each other, and every one of them has some Affairs with all the rest. [↔] As for the Third Unity, which is that of Action, the Ancients meant no other by it than what the Logicians do by their Finis, the End or Scope of any Action: That which is the first in Intention, and last in Execu tion: Now the Poet is to aim at one great and com pleat Action, to the carrying on of which all things in his Play, even the very Obstacles, are to be subservient; and the Reason of this is as evident as any of the for mer. [↔] For two Actions equally labour'd and driven on by the Writer, would destroy the Unity of the Poem; it would be no longer one Play, but two: Not but that there may be many Actions in a Play, as Ben. Johnson has observ'd in his Discoveries, but they must be all sub servient to the great one, which our Language happily expresses in the Name of Under-plots: Such as in Te rence's Eunuch is the difference and reconcilement of Thais and Phædria, which is not the chief Business of the Play, but promotes the Marriage of Chærea and Chremes's Sister, principally intended by the Poet. There ought to be but one Action, says Corneille, that is, one compleat Action which leaves the Mind of the Audience in a full Repose: but this cannot be brought to pass, but by many other imperfect Actions which conduce to it, and hold the Audience in a delightful Suspense of what will be. [↔] If by these Rules (to omit any other drawn from the Precepts and Practice of the Ancients) we should judge our modern Plays; 'tis probable, that few of them would endure the Tryal: That which should be the Business of a Day, takes up in some of them an Age; instead of one Action they are the Epitomes of a Man's Life; and for one Spot of Ground (which the Stage should represent) we are sometimes in more Countries than the Map can show us. [↔] But if we will allow the Ancients to have contriv'd well, we must acknowledge them to have written bet ter. Questionless we are deprived of a great Stock of Wit in the loss of Menander amongst the Greek Poets, and of Cæcilius, Afranius, and Varius among the Romans. We may guess at Menander's Excellency, by the Plays of Terence, who translated some of them; And yet wanted so much of him, that he was called by C. Cæsar the Half-Menander; and may judge of Varius, by the Testi monies of Horace, Martial, and Velleius Paterculus: 'Tis probablc that these, could they be recover'd, would de cide the Controversy; but so long as Aristophanes and Plautus are extant; while the Tragedies of Euripides, So phocles, and Seneca are in our Hands, I can never see one of those Plays which are now written, but it encreases my Admiration of the Ancients; and yet I must ac knowledge further, that to admire them as we ought, we should understand them better than we do. Doubt less many things appear flat to us, the Wit of which de pended on some Custom or Story which never came to our Knowledge; or perhaps on some Criticism in their Language, which being so long dead, and only re maining in their Books, 'tis not possible they shou'd make us understand perfectly. To read Macrobius, ex plaining the Propriety and Elegancy of many Words in Virgil, which I had before pass'd over without considera tion, as common things, is enough to assure me that I ought to think the same of Terence; and that in the Purity of his Style (which Tully so much valued, that he ever carried his Works about him) there is yet left in him great room for Admiration, if I knew but where to place it. In the mean time, I must desire you to take notice, that the greatest Man of the last Age (Ben. John son) was willing to give place to them in all things: He was not only a profess'd Imitator of Horace, but a learned Plagiary of all the others; you track him every where in their Snow. If Horace, Lucan, Petronius Arbiter, Seneca, and Juvenal, had their own from him, there are few serious Thoughts which are new in him; you will pardon me therefore, if I presume he lov'd their Fashion when he wore their Cloaths. But since I have otherwise a great veneration for him, and you, Eugenius; prefer him above all other Poets, I will use no further Arguments to you than his Ex ample: I will produce before you Father Ben. dress'd in all the Ornaments and Colours of the Ancients, you will need no other Guide to our Party, if you follow him; and whether you consider the bad Plays of our Age, or regard the good Plays of the last, both the best and worst of the modern Poets, will equally in struct you to admire the Ancients. [↔] Crites had no sooner left speaking, but Eugenius, who had waited with some Impatience for it, thus began: [↔] I have observed in your Speech, that the former Part of it is convincing, as to what the Moderns have profited by the Rules of the Ancients; but in the latter you are careful to conceal how much they have excell'd them: We own all the Helps we have from them, and want neither Veneration nor Gratitude, while we acknow ledge, that to overcome them we must make use of the Advantages we have received from them; but to these Assistances we have join'd our own Industry; for (had we sat down with a dull Imitation of them) we might then have lost somewhat of the old Perfection, but ne ver acquir'd any that was new. We draw not there fore after their Lines, but those of Nature; and having the Life before us, besides the Experience of all they knew, it is no wonder if we hit some Airs and Features which they have miss'd. I deny not what you urge of Arts and Sciences, that they have flourished in some Ages more than others; but your Instance in Philosophy makes for me: For if Natural Causes be more known now than in the time of Aristotle, because more studied, it follows, that Poesy and other Arts may, with the same Pains, arrive still nearer to Perfection; and, that granted, it will rest for you to prove, that they wrought more perfect Images of human Life, than we; which, seeing in your Discourse you have avoided to make good, it shall now be my task to shew you some Part of their Defects, and some few Excellencies of the Mo derns; and I think there is none among us can imagine I do it enviously, or with purpose to detract from them; for what Interest of Fame or Profit can the living lose by the Reputation of the dead; on the other side, it is a great Truth which Velleius Paterculus affirms, Audita visis libentius laudamus; & præsentia invidiâ, præterita admiratione prosequimur; & his nos obrui, illis instrui credimus: That Praise or Censure is certainly the most fincere, which unbrib'd Posterity shall give us. [↔] Be pleased then, in the first Place, to take notice, that the Greek Poesy, which Crites has affirm'd to have arriv'd to Perfection in the Reign of the old Comedy, was so far from it, that the Distinction of it into Acts was uot known to them; or if it were, it is yet so darkly deli ver'd to us, that we cannot make it out. [↔] All we know of it is from the singing of their Cho rus, and that too is so uncertain, that in some of their Plays we have reason to conjecture they sung more than five times. Aristotle indeed divides the integral Parts of a Play into four: First, the Protasis, or Entrance, which gives light only to the Characters of the Persons, and proceeds very little into any part of the Action: Second ly, the Epitasis, or working up of the Plot, where the Play grows warmer: The Design or Action of it is drawing on, and you see something promising that it will come to pass: Thirdly, the Catasiasis, call'd by the Romans, Status, the Height, and full Growth of the Play: We may call it properly the Counter-turn, which destroys that Expectation, imbroils the Action in new Difficulties, and leaves you far distant from that hope in which it found you; as you may have observed in a vio lent Stream, resisted by a narrow Passage; it runs round to an Eddy, and carries back the Waters with more swiftness than it brought them on. Lastly, the Catastro phe, which the Grecians call'd λύσις, the French, le de nouement, and we, the discovery or unravelling of the Plot: There you see all things settling again upon their first Foundations, and the Obstacles which hindred the Design or Action of the Play once remov'd, it ends with that Resemblance of Truth and Nature, that the Audi ence are satisfied with the Conduct of it. Thus this great Man deliver'd to us the Image of a Play, and I must confess it is so lively, that from thence much light has been deriv'd to the forming it more perfectly into Acts and Scenes; but what Poet first limited to five the Number of the Acts I know not; only we see it so firmly establish'd in the time of Horace, that he gives it for a Rule in Comedy; Neu brevior quinto, neu sit pro ductior actu: So that you see the Grecians cannot be said to have consummated this Art: writing rather by En trances, than by Acts; and having rather a general in digested Notion of a Play, than knowing how, and where to bestow the particular Graces of it. [↔] But since the Spaniards at this Day allow but three Acts, which they call Jornadas, to a Play; and the Ita lians, in many of theirs follow them; when I condemn the Ancients, I declare it is not altogether because they have not five Acts to every Play, but because they have not confin'd themselves to one certain Number; 'tis building an House without a Model: And when they succeeded in snch Undertakings, they ought to have sa crific'd to Fortune, not to the Muses. [↔] Next, for the Plot, which Aristotle call'd ὁ μῦθος, and often τῶν πραγμάτων σύνθεσις, and from him the Romans Fabula, it has already been judiciously ob serv'd by a late Writer, that in their Tragedies it was only some Tale deriv'd from Thebes or Troy, or at least some thing that happen'd in those two Ages; which was worn so thread-bare by the Pens of all the Epique Poets, and even by Tradition it self of the Talkative Greeklings (as Ben. Johnson calls them) that before it came upon the Stage, it was already known to all the Audi ence: And the People, so soon as ever they heard the Name of Oedipus, knew as well as the Poet, that he had kill'd his Father by a Mistake, and committed Incest with his Mother, before the Play; that they were now to hear of a great Plague, an Oracle, and the Ghost of Laius: So that they sate with a yawning kind of Ex pectation, till he was to come with his Eyes pull'd out, and spake a hundred or more Verses in a Tragick Tone, in complaint of his Misfortunes. But one Oedipus, Her cules, or Medea, had been tolerable; poor People, they scap'd not so good cheap: they had still the Chapon Bou illé set before them, till their Appetites were cloy'd with the same Dish, and the Novelty being gone, the Plea sure vanish'd: So that one main End of Dramatick Poesy in its Definition, which was to cause Delight, was of consequence destroy'd. [↔] In their Comedies, The Romans generally borrow'd their Plots from the Greek Poets; and theirs was com monly a little Girl stollen or wandred from her Parents, brought back unknown to the City, there got with Child by some lewd young Fellow; who, by the help of his Servant, cheats his Father: and when her time comes, to cry Juno Lucina fer opem; one or other sees a little Box or Cabinet which was carried away with her, and so discovers her to her Friends, if some God do not prevent it, by coming down in a Machine, and taking the thanks of it to himself. [↔] By the Plot you may guess much of the Characters of the Persons. An old Father, who would willingly before he dies see his Son well married; his debauch'd Son, kind in his Nature to his Mistress, but miserably in want of Money; a Servant or Slave, who has so much Wit to strike in with him, and help to dupe his Father, a Braggadochio Captain, a Parasite, and a Lady of Pleasure. [↔] As for the poor honest Maid, on whom the Story is built, and who ought to be one of the principal Actors in the Play, she is commonly a Mute in it: She has the breeding of the Old Elizabeth way, which was for Maids to be seen, and not to be heard; and it is enough you know she is willing to be married, when the Fifth Act requires it. [↔] These are Plots built after the Italian Mode of Houses, you see through them all at once; the Characters are indeed the Imitations of Nature, but so narrow as if they had imitated ouly an Eye or an Hand, and did not dare to venture on the Lines of a Face, or the Proporti on of a Body. [↔] But in how straight a compass soever they have bounded their Plots and Characters, we will pass it by, if they have regularly pursued them, and perfectly ob serv'd those three Unities of Time, Place and Action: the knowledge of which you say is deriv'd to us from them. But in the first Place give me leave to tell you, that the Unity of Place, however it might be practised by them, was never any of their Rules: We neither find it in Aristotle, Horace, or any who have written of it, till in our Age the French Poets first made it a Pre cept of the Stage. The Unity of Time, even Terence himself (who was the best and most regular of them) has neglected: His Heautontimoroumenos or Self-punisher takes up visibly two Days, says Scaliger; the two first Acts concluding the first Day, the three last the Day en suing; and Euripides, in tying himself to one Day, has committed an Absurdity never to be forgiven him: For in one of his Tragedies he has made Theseus go from Athens to Thebes, which was about forty English Miles, under the Walls of it to give Battel, and appear Victo rious in the next Act; and yet from the time of his Departure to the return of the Nuntius, who gives the Relation of his Victory, Æthra and the Chorus have but thirty six Verses; which is not for every Mile a Verse. [↔] The like Error is as evident in Terence his Eunuch, when Laches, the old Man, enters by mistake into the House of Thais, where betwixt his Exit, and the En trance of Pythias, who comes to give ample Relation of the Disorders he has rais'd within, Parmeno who was left upon the Stage, has not above five Lines to speak: C'est bien employer un temps si court, says the French Poet, who furnish'd me with one of the Observations: And almost all their Tragedies will afford us Examples of the like Nature. [↔] 'Tis true, they have kept the Continuity, or as you call'd it, Liaison des Scenes, somewhat better: two do not perpetually come in together, talk, and go out toge ther; and other two succeed them, and do the same throughout the Act, which the English call by the Name of single Scenes; but the reason is, because they have seldom above two or three Scenes, properly so call'd, in every Act; for it is to be accounted a new Scene, not on ly every time the Stage is empty, but every Person who enters, tho' to others, makes it so; because he intro duces a new Business: Now the Plots of their Plays be ing narrow, and the Persons few, one of their Acts was written in a less compass than one of our well-wrought Scenes, and yet they are often deficient even in this: To go no further than Terence, you find in the Eunuch, An tipho entring single in the midst of the third Act, after Chremes and Pythias were gone off: In the same Play you have likewise Dorias beginning the fourth Act alone; and after she has made a Relation of what was done at the Soldier's entertainment (which by the way was very inartificial, because she was presum'd to speak directly to the Audience, and to acquaint them with what was Necessary to be known, but yet should have been so contriv'd by the Poet, as to have been told by Persons of the Drama to one another, and so by them to have come to the Knowledge of the People) she quits thc Stage, and Phædria enters next, alone likewise: He also gives you an Account of himself, and of his returning from the Country in Monologue, to which unnatural way of Narration Terence is subject in all his Plays: In his Adelphi or Brothers, Syrus and Demea enter; after the Scene was broken by the Departure of Sostrata, Geta and Canthara; and indeed you can scarce look into any of his Comedies, where you will not presently discover the same Interruption. [↔] But as they have fail'd both in laying of their Plots, and in the Management, swerving from the Rules of their own Art, by mis-representing Nature to us, in which they have ill satisfied one Intention of a Play, which was Delight; so in the instructive Part they have err'd worse: Instead of punishing Vice, and rewarding Virtue, they have often shewn a prosperous Wickedness, and an un happy Piety: They have set before us a bloody Image of Revenge in Medea, and given her Dragons to convey her safe from Punishment. A Priam and Astyanax murder'd, and Cassandra ravish'd, and the Lust and Murder ending in the Victory of him who acted them. In short, there is no Indecorum in any of our modern Plays, which, if I would excuse, I could not shadow with some Authori ty from the Ancients. [↔] And one farther Note of them let me leave you: Tra gedies and Comedies were not writ then as they are now, promiscuously, by the same Person; but he who found his Genius bending to the one, never attempted the other way. This is so plain, that I need not instance to you, that Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, never any of them writ a Tragedy; Æschylus; Euripides, Sophocles and Seneca ne ver meddled with Comedy: The Sock and Buskin were not worn by the same Poet. Having then so much care to excel in one kind, very little is to be pardon'd them if they miscarried in it; and this would lead me to the Con sideration of their Wit, had not Crites given me suffici ent Warning not to be too bold in my Judgment of it; because the Languages being dead, and many of the Cu stoms, and little Accidents on which it depended, lost to us, we are not competent Judges of it. But tho' I grant, that here and there we may miss the Application of a Proverb or a Custom, yet a thing well said will be Wit in all Languages; and tho' it may lose something in the Translation, yet to him who reads it in the Ori ginal, 'tis still the same; He has an Idea of its Excel lency, tho' it cannot passe from his Mind into any other Expression or Words than those in which he finds it. When Phædria in the Eunuch had a Command from his Mistress to be absent two Days, and encouraging him self to go through with it, said, Tandem ego non illâ ca ream, si opus sit, vel totum triduum? Parmeno, to mock the Softness of his Master, lifting up his Hands and Eyes, cries out as it were in admiration, Hui! universum tri duum! the Elegancy of which universum, tho' it cannot be rendred in our Language, yet leaves an Impression on our Souls: But this happens seldom in him, in Plautus oftner; who is infinitely too bold in his Metaphors and coyning Words, out of which many times his Wit is nothing; which questionless was one reason why Horace falls upon him so severely in those Verses: Sed proavi nostri Plautinos & numeros, & Laudavere sales, nimium patienter utrumque, Ne dicam stolidé. [↔] For Horace himself was cautious to obtrude a new Word on his Readers, and makes Custom and common Use the best Measure of receiving it into our Writings. Multa renascentur quæ nunc cecidere, cadentque Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, Quem penes, arbitrium est, & jus, & norma loquendi. [↔] The not observing this Rule is that which the World has blam'd in our Satyrist Cleveland; to express a thing hard and unnaturally, is his new way of Elocution: 'Tis true, no Poet but may sometimes use a Catachresis; Virgil does it, Mistaque ridenti Colocasia fundet Acantho, In his Eclogue of Pollio; and in his seventh Æneid, Mirantur & undæ, Miratur nemus, insuetum fulgentia longe Scuta virûm fluvio, pictasque innare carinas. [↔] And Ovid once so modestly, that he asks leave to do it, Si verbo audacia detur, Haud metuam summi dixisse Palatia cœli. [↔] Calling the Court of Jupiter by the Name of Augustus his Palace, tho' in another place he is more bold, where he says, Et longas visent Capitolia pompas. But to do this always, and never be able to write a Line without it, tho' it may be admir'd by some few Pedants, will not pass upon those who know that Wit is best convey'd to us in the most easy Language; and is most to be ad mir'd when a great Thought comes drest in words so commonly receiv'd, that it is understood by the meanest Apprehensions, as the best Meat is the most easily di gested. But we cannot read a Verse of Cleveland's with out making a Face at it, as if every Word were a Pill to swallow: He gives us many times a hard Nut to break our Teeth, without a Kernel for our Pains. So that there is this difference betwixt his Satyrs and Doctor Donn's, That the one gives us deep Thoughts in com mon Language, tho' rough Cadence; the other gives us common Thoughts in abstruse Words: 'Tis true, in some places his Wit is independent of his Words, as in that of the Rebel Scot: Had Cain been Scot, God would have chang'd his Doom; Not forc'd him wander, but confin'd him home. [↔] Si sic omnia dixisset! This is Wit in all Languages: 'Tis like Mercury, never to be lost or kill'd: And so that other, For Beauty, like White-Powder, makes no noise, And yet the silent Hypocrite destroys. [↔] You see the last Line is highly Metaphorical, but it is so soft and gentle, that it does not shock us as we read it. [↔] But, to return from whence I have digress'd, to the Consideration of the Ancients Writing and their Wit, (of which, by this time, you will grant us in some measure to be fit Judges,) Tho' I see many excellent Thoughts in Seneca; yet he, of them who had a Genius most pro per for the Stage, was Ovid; he had a way of writing so fit to stir up a pleasing Admiration and Concernment, which are the Objects of a Tragedy, and to shew the various Movements of a Soul combating betwixt two different Passions, that had he liv'd in our Age, or in his own could have writ with our Advantages, no Man but must have yielded to him; and therefore I am con fident the Medea is none of his; for though I esteem it for the Gravity and Sententiousness of it, which he him self concludes to be suitable to a Tragedy, Omne genus scripti gravitate Tragœdia vincit, yet it moves not my Soul enough to judge that he, who in the Epique way wrote things so near the Drama, as the Story of Myr rha, of Caunus and Byblis, and the rest, should stir up no more Concernment where he most endeavour'd it. The Master-piece of Seneca I hold to be that Scene in the Troades, where Ulysses is seeking for Astyanax to kill him: There you see the Tenderness of a Mother, so re presented in Andromache, that it raises Compassion to a high Degree in the Reader, and bears the nearest Resem blance of any thing in the Tragedies of the Ancients, to the excellent Scenes of Passion in Shakespear, or in Fletcher: For Love Scenes you will find few among them, their Tragick Poets dealt not with that soft Pas sion, but with Lust, Cruelty, Revenge, Ambition, and those bloody Actions they produc'd; which were more capable of raising Horrour than Compassion in an Au dience: Leaving Love untouch'd, whose Gentleness would have temper'd them, which is the most frequent of all the Passions, and which being the private Concernment of every Person, is sooth'd by viewing its own Image in a publick Entertainment. [↔] Among their Comedies, we find a Scene or two of Tenderness, and that where you would least expect it, in Plautus; but to speak generally, their Lovers say little, when they see each other, but anima mea, vita mita; ζωὴ κκαὶ ψυχὴ, as the Women in Juvenal's time us'd to cry out in the Fury of their Kindness: Any sud den gust of Passion (as an Ecstasy of Love in an unex pected Meeting) cannot better be express'd than in a Word, and a Sigh, breaking one another. Nature is dumb on such Occasions, and to make her speak, would be to represent her unlike her self. But there are a thou sand other Concernments of Lovers, as Jealousies, Com plaints, Contrivances, and the like, where not to open their Minds at large to each other, were to be wanting to their own Love, and to the Expectation of the Au dience; who watch the Movements of their Minds, as much as the Changes of their Fortunes. For the imagin ing of the first is properly the Work of a Poet, the latter he borrows from the Historian. [↔] Eugenius was proceeding in that part of his Discourse, when Crites interrupted him. I see, said he, Eugenius and I are never like to have this Question decided be twixt us; for he maintains the Moderns have acquir'd a new Perfection in Writing, I can only grant they have altered the Mode of it. Homer describ'd his Heroes, Men of great Appetites, Lovers of Beef broil'd upon the Coals, and good Fellows; contrary to the Practice of the French Romances, whose Heroes neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep for Love. Virgil makes Æneas a bold Avower of his own Virtues, Sum pius Æneas famâ super æthera notus; [↔] which in the civility of our Poets is the Character of a Fanfaron or Hector: For with us the Knight takes oc casion to walk out, or sleep, to avoid the Vanity of tel ling his own Story, which the trusty Squire is ever to perform for him. So in their Love-Scenes, of which Eugenius spoke last, the Ancients were more hearty, we more talkative: They writ Love as it was then the Mode to make it, and I will grant this much to Eugenius, that perhaps one of their Poets, had he liv'd in our Age, Si foret hoc nostrum fato delapsus in ævum, [↔] (as Horace says of Lucilius) he had alter'd many things; not that they were not natural before, but that he might accommodate himself to the Age in which he liv'd; yet in the mean time we are not to conclude any thing rash ly against those great Men, but preserve to them the Dig nity of Masters, and give that Honour to their Memories, (Quos Libitina sacravit;) part of which we expect may be paid to us in future Times. [↔] This Moderation of Crites, as it was pleasing to all the Company, so it put an end to that Dispute; which Eu genius, who seem'd to have the better of the Argument, would urge no farther: But Lisideius, after he had ac knowledg'd himself of Eugenius his Opinion concerning the Ancients; yet told him he had forborn, till his Dis course were ended, to ask him, why he preferr'd the English Plays above those of other Nations? And whe ther we ought not to submit our Stage to the Exactness of our next Neighbours? [↔] Tho', said Eugenius, I am at all times ready to defend the Honour of my Country against the French, and to maintain, we are as well able to vanquish them with our Pens, as our Ancestors have been with their Swords; yet, if you please, added he, looking upon Neander, I will commit this Cause to my Friend's management; his Opi nion of our Plays is the same with mine: And besides, there is no reason, that Crites and I, who have now left the Stage, should re enter so suddenly upon it; which is against the Laws of Comedy. [↔] If the Question had been stated, replied Lisideius, who had writ best, the French or English forty Years ago, I should have been of your Opinion, and adjudged the Ho nour to our own Nation; but since that time, (said he, turning towards Neander) we have been so long together bad Englishmen, that we had no leisure to be good Poets; Beaumont, Fletcher, and Johnson (who were only capable of bringing us to that degree of Perfection which we have) were just then leaving the World; as if in an Age of so much Horror, Wit and those milder Studies of Hu manity had no farther business among us. But the Muses, who ever follow Peace, went to plant in another Country; it was then that the great Cardinal of Richlieu began to take them into his Protection; and that, by his encouragement, Corneille and some other French-men re form'd their Theatre, (which before was as much below ours, as it now surpasses it and the rest of Europe;) but because Crites, in his Discourse for the Ancients, has pre vented me, by observing many Rules of the Stage, which the Moderns have borrow'd from them; I shall only, in short, demand of you, whether you are not convinc'd that of all Nations the French have best observ'd them? in the Unity of Time you find them so scrupulous, that it yet remains a Dispute among their Poets, whe ther the artificial Day of twelve Hours, more or less, be not meant by Aristotle, rather than the natural one of twenty four; and consequently, whether all Plays ought not to be reduc'd into that compass? This I can testify, that in all their Drama's writ within these last twenty Years and upwards, I have not observ'd any that have extended the Time to thirty Hours. In the Unity of Place they are full as scrupulous; for many of their Criticks limit it to that very Spot of Ground where the Play is suppos'd to begin; none of them exceed the compass of the same Town or City. [↔] The Unity of Action in all their Plays is yet more con spicuous, for they do not burden them with Under-plots, as the English do; which is the reason why many Scenes of our Tragi-comedies carry on a design that is nothing of kin to the main Plot; and that we see two distinct Webs in a Play, like those in ill-wrought Stuffs; and two Actions, that is, two Plays carried on together, to the confounding of the Audience; who, before they are warm in their Concernments for one Part, are diverted to ano ther; and by that means espouse the Interest of neither. From hence likewi se it arises, that the one half of our Actors are not known to the other. They keep their di stances as if they were Mountagues and Capulets, and sel dom 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 so absurd as the English Tragi-comedy, 'tis a Drama of our own Inven tion, and the Fashion of it is enough to proclaim it so; here a Course of Mirth, there another of Sadness and Passion, and a third of Honour, and fourth a Duel: Thus in two hours and a half we run through all the Fits of Bedlam. The French afford you as much Variety on the same Day, but they do it not so 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 ci vility of the Red Bull. Atque ursum & pugiles media inter carmina poscunt. [↔] 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 de stroy 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 it, and is not of the body of it: Would you not think that Physician mad, who having prescribed a Purge, should immediate ly order you to take Restringents? [↔] But to leave our Plays, and return to theirs, I have no ted one great Advantage they have had in the 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 imi tated the Ancients, that they have surpass'd them. For the Ancients, as was observ'd before, took for the foun dation of their Plays some Poetical Fiction, such as un der that consideration could move but little concernment in the Audience; because they already knew the Event of it. But the French goes farther: 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 History, to reward the Virtue which has been render'd 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: As for Example, In the death of Cyrus, whom Justin and some others report to have perish'd in the Scythian War, but Xenophon affirms to have died in his Bed of extream old Age. Nay more, when the Event is past dispute, even then we are wil ling to be deceiv'd, 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 of Mankind. On the other side, if you consider the Hi storical Plays of Shakespear, they are rather so many Chronicles of Kings, or the Business many times of thirty or forty Years, crampt into a Representation of two Hours aad a half, which is not to imitate or 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 ridiculous. Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi. [↔] For the Spirit of Man cannot be satisfied but with Truth, or at least Verifimility; and a Poem is to contain, if not τὰ ἔτυμα, yet ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, as one of the Greek Poets has express'd it. [↔] Another thing in which the French differ from us and from the Spaniards, is, that they do not embarass or cum ber themselves with too much Plot: They only represent so much of a Story as will constitute one whole and great Action sufficient for a Play; we, who undertake more, do but multiply Adventures; which not being produc'd from one another, as Effects from Causes, but barely follow ing, constitute many Actions in the Drama, and conse quently make it many Plays. [↔] But by pursuing closely one Argument, which is not cloy'd with many Turns, the French have gain'd more liberty for Verse, in which they write: They have lei sure to dwell on a Subject which deserves it; and to re present the Passions (which we have acknowledg'd to be the Poet's work) without being hurried from one thing to another, as we are in the Plays of Calderon, which we have seen lately upon our Theaters, under the name of Spanish Plots. I have taken notice but of one Trage dy of ours, whose Plot has that uniformity and unity of Design in it, which I have commended in the French; and that is Rollo, 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, only the time of the Action is not reduceable to the strictness of the Rules; and you see in some places a little Farce min g'ed, which is below the dignity of the other Parts; and in this all our Poets are extreamly peccant, even Ben Johnson himself in Sejanus and 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 Go liah. In Sejanus you may take notice of the Scene be twixt Livia and the Physician, which is a pleasant Satyr upon the artificial 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 Ful via: 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 reproach'd to them by an ingenious Person of our Nation as a Fault; for he says they com monly 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 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 'tis impossi ble but that one Person must be more conspicuous in it than any other, and consequently the greatest share in the Action must devolve on him. We see it so in the management of all Affairs: even in the most equal Ari stocracy, the balance cannot be so justly pois'd, but some one will be Superior to the rest; either in Parts, For tune, Interest, or the Consideration of some glorious Ex ploit; which will reduce the greatest part of Business in to 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 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-govern'd Family) has not some Employment, and who is not necessary to the carrying on of the Plot, or at least to your understandiug it. [↔] There are indeed some protatick Persons in the An cients, whom they make use of in their Plays, either to hear, or give the Relation: But the French avoid this with great Address, making their Narrations only to, or by such, who are some way interested in the main Design. And now I am speaking of Relations, I cannot take a fitter Opportunity to add this in favour of the French, that they often use them with better judgment and more à propos than the English do. Not that I commend Nar rations in general, but there are two sorts of them: one of those things which are antecedent to the Play, and are related to make the conduct of it more clear to us; but 'tis a Fault to chuse such Subjects for the Stage as will force us on that Rock; because we see they are seldom listned to by the Audience, and that is many times the ruin of the Play: For, being once let pass without At tention, the Audience can never recover themselves to understand the Plot; and indeed it is somewhat unrea sonable, that they should be put to so much trouble, as, that to comprehend what passes in their sight, they must have recourse to what was done, perhaps, ten or twenty Years ago. [↔] But there is another sort of Relations, that is, of things happening in the Action of the Play, and suppos'd to be done behind the Scenes: And this is many times both convenient and beautiful: For, by it the French avoid the Tumult, to which we are subject in England, by repre senting Duels, Battels, and the like; which renders our Stage too like the Theaters where they fight Prizes. For what is more ridiculous than to represent an Army with a Drum and five Men behind it; all which, the Heroe of the other side is to drive in before him? or to see a Duel fought, and one slain with two or three thrusts of the Foils, which we know are so blunted, that we might give a Man an Hour to kill another in good earnest with them? [↔] I have observ'd, that in all our Tragedies the Audience cannot forbear laughing when the Actors are to die; 'tis the most comick Part of the whole Play. All Passions may be lively represented on the Stage, if to the well writing of them the Actor supplies a good commanded Voice, and Limbs that move easily, and without stiffness; but there are many Actions which can never be imitated to a just height: Dying efpecially is a thing which none but a Roman Gladiator could naturally perform on the Stage, when he did not imitate or represent, but do it; and therefore it is better to omit the Representation of it. [↔] The Words of a good Writer which describe it lively, will make a deeper Impression of Belief in us, than all the Actor can insinuate into us, when he seems to fall dead before us; as a Poet in the Description of a beau tiful Garden, or a Meadow, will please our Imagination more than the place it self can please our sight. When we see Death represented, we are convinc'd it is but Fi ction; but when we hear it related, our Eyes (the strong est Witnesses) are wanting, which might have undeceiv'd us; and we are all willing to favour the slight when the Poet does not too grosly impose on us. They there fore who imagine these Relations would make no Con cernment in the Audience, are deceiv'd, by confounding them with the other, which are of things antecedent to the Play; those are made often in cold Blood (as I may say) to the Audience; but these are warm'd with our Concernments, which were before awaken'd in the Play. What the Philosophers say of Motion, that, when it is once begun, it continues of it self, and will do so to E ternity without some stop put to it, is clearly true on this Occasion; the Soul being already mov'd with the Characters and Fortunes of those imaginary Persons, con tinues going of its own accord, and we are no more weary to hear what becomes of them when they are not on the Stage, than we are to listen to the News of an absent Mistress. But it is objected, That if one part of the Play may be related, then why not all? I answer, Some parts of the Action are more fit to be represented, some to be related. Corneille says judiciously, that the Poet is not oblig'd to expose to View all particular Actions which conduce to the principal: He ought to select such of them to be seen, which will appear with the greatest Beauty, either by the magnificence of the Show, or the vehemence of Passions which they produce, or some o ther Charm which they have in them, and let the rest ar rive to the Audience by Narration. 'Tis a great mistake in us to believe the French present no part of the Action on the Stage: Every alteration or crossing of a Design, every new-sprung Passion, and turn of it, is a part of the Action, and much the noblest, except we conceive nothing to be Action till the Players come to Blows; as if the painting of the Heroe's Mind were not more pro perly the Poet's Work, than the strength of his Body. Nor does this any thing contradict the Opinion of Ho race, where he tells us, Segnius irritant animos demìssa per aurem, Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus. ---- [↔] For he says immediately after, ---------- Non tamen intus Digna geri promes in scenam, multaque tolles Ex oculis, quæ mox narret facundia præsens. [↔] Among which many he recounts some, Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet, Aut in avem Progne mutetur, Cadmus in anguem, &c. [↔] That is, those Actions which by reason of their Cruelty will cause Aversion in us, or by reason of their Impos sibility, Unbelief, ought either wholly to be avoided by a Poet, or only deliver'd by Narration. To which we may have leave to add such as to avoid Tumult, (as was before hinted) or to reduce the Plot into a more reasonable compass of Time, or for defect of Beauty in them, are rather to be related than presented to the Eye. Examples of all these kinds are frequent, not only among all the Ancients, but in the best receiv'd of our English Poets. We find Ben Johnson using them in his Mag netick Lady, where one comes out from Dinner, and relates the Quarrels and Disorders of it to save the unde cent appearance of them on the Stage, and to abbreviate the Story: And this in express imitation of Terence, who had done the same before him in his Eunuch, where Py thias makes the like Relation of what had happen'd with in at the Soldier's Entertainment. The Relation, likewise, of Sejanus's Death, and the Prodigies before it, are re markable; the one of which was hid from sight to avoid the Horror and Tumult of the Representation; the other to shun the introducing of things impossible to be be liev'd. In that excellent Play, The King and no King, Fletcher goes yet farther; for the whole unravelling of the Plot is done by Narration in the fifth Act, after the manner of the Ancients; and it moves great Concern ment in the Audience, tho' it be only a Relation of what was done many Years before the Play. I could multiply other Instances, but these are sufficient to prove, that there is no Error in chusing a Subject which re quires this sort of Narrations; in the ill Management of them, there may. [↔] But I find I have been too long in this Discourse, since the French have many other Excellencies not common to us; as that you never see any of their Plays end with a Conversion, or simple change of Will, which is the or dinary way which our Poets use to end theirs. It shews little Art in the conclusion of a Dramatick Poem, when they who have hinder'd the Felicity during the four Acts, desist from it in the Fifth, without some powerful Cause to take them off their Design; and tho' I deny not but such Reasons may be found, yet it is a Path that is cautiously to be trod, and the Poet is to be sure he convinces the Audience, that the Motive is strong e nough. As for Example, the Conversion of the Usurer in The Scornful Lady, seems to me a little forc'd; for be ing an Usurer, which implies a lover of Money to the highest degree of Covetousness, (and such the Poet has represented him) the Account he gives for the sudden Change is, that he has been dup'd by the wild young Fellow, which in reason might render him more wary another time, and make him punish himself with harder Fare and coarser Cloaths to get up again what he had lost: But that he should look on it as a Judgment, and so repent, we may expect to hear in a Sermon, but I should never indure it in a Play. [↔] I pass by this; neither will I insist on the Care they take, that no Person after his first Entrance shall ever appear, but the Business which brings him upon the Stage shall be evident: Which Rule if observ'd, must needs ren der all the Events in the Play more natural: For there you see the Probability of every Accident, in the Cause that produc'd it; and that which appears Chance in the Play, will seem so reasonable to you, that you will there find it almost necessary; so that in the Exit of the Actor you have a clear Account of his Purpose and Design in the next Entrance: (tho', if the Scene be well wrought, the Event will commonly deceive you) for there is nothing so absurd, says Corneille, as for an Actor to leave the Stage, only because he has no more to say. [↔] I should now speak of the Beauty of their Rhyme, and the just reason I have to prefer that way of writing in Tragedies before ours in Blank-Verse; but because it is partly receiv'd by us, and therefore not altogether pecu liar to them, I will say no more of it in relation to their Plays. For our own, I doubt not but it will ex ceedingly beautify them, and I can see but one Reason why it should not generally obtain, that is, because our Poets write so ill in it. This indeed may prove a more prevailing Argument than all others which are us'd to de stroy it, and therefore I am only troubled when great and judicious Poets, and those who are acknowledg'd such, have writ or spoke against it; as for others, they are to be answer'd by that one Sentence of an ancient Author. Sed ut primo ad consequendos eos quos priores ducimus accendimur, ita ubi aut præteriri, aut æquari eos posse desperavimus, studium cum spe senescit: quod scilicet, assequi non potest, sequi desinit; præteritóque eo in quo eminere non possumus, aliquid in quo nitamur conquirimus. [↔] Lisideius concluded in this manner; and Neander af ter a little pause thus answer'd him. [↔] I shall grant Lisideius, without much dispute, a great part of what he has urg'd against us; for I acknowledge, that the French contrive their Plots more regularly, and observe the Laws of Comedy, and Decorum of the Stage (to speak generally) with more Exactness than the Eng lish. Farther, I deny not but he has tax'd us justly in some Irregularities of ours which he has mention'd; yet, after all, I am of Opinion, that neither our Faults nor their Virtues are considerable enough to place them a bove us. [↔] But the lively Imitation of Nature being in the Defi nition of a Play, those which best fulfil that Law, ought to be esteem'd Superior to the others. 'Tis true, those Beauties of the French Poesy are such as will raise Per fection higher where it is, but are not sufficient to give it where it is not: They are indeed the Beauties of a Sta tue, but not of a Man, because not animated with the Soul of Poesy, which is Imitation of Humour and Passi ons: And this Lisideius himself, or any other, however byass'd to their Party, cannot but acknowledge, if he will either compare the Humours of our Comedies, or the Characters of our serious Plays, with theirs. He who will look upon theirs which have been written 'till these last ten Years or thereabouts, will find it an hard matter to pick out two or three passable Humours amongst them. Corneille himself, their Arch-Poet, what has he produc'd, except The Liar, and you know how it was cry'd up in France; but when it came upon the English Stage, though well translated, and that part of Dorant acted with so much Advantage as I am confident it never re ceiv'd in its own Country, the most favourable to it would not put it in Competition with many of Fletcher's or Ben Johnson's. In the rest of Corneille's Comedies you have little Humour; he tells you himself his way is first to shew two Lovers in good Intelligence with each o ther; in the working up of the Play, to embroil them by some Mistake, and in the latter end to clear it, and re concile them. [↔] But of late Years Moliere, the younger Corneille, Qui nault, and some others, have been imitating afar off the quick Turns and Graces of the English Stage. They have mix'd their serious Plays with Mirth, like our Tragi-Comedies, since the Death of Cardinal Richelieu, which Lisideius, and many others, not observing, have commended that in them for a Virtue, which they them selves no longer practise. Most of their new Plays are, like some of ours, derived from the Spanish Novels. There is scarce one of them without a Veil, and a trusty Diego, who drolls much after the rate of the Adventures. But their Humours, if I may grace them with that name, are so thin sown, that never above one of them comes up in any Play: I dare take upon me to find more variety of them in some one Play of Ben Johnson's, than in all theirs together: As he who has seen the Alchy mist, the Silent Woman, or Bartholomew-Fair, cannot but acknowledge with me. [↔] I grant the French have performed what was possible on the ground-work of the Spanish Plays; what was pleasant before, they have made regular; but there is not above one good Play to be writ on all those Plots; they are too much alike to please often, which we need not the Experience of our own Stage to justifie. As for their new Way of mingling Mirth with serious Plot, I do not, with Lisideius, condemn the thing, though I cannot approve their manner of doing it: He tells us, we cannot so speedily recollect our selves after a Scene of great Passion and Concernment, as to pass to another of Mirth and Humour, and to enjoy it with any relish: But why should he imagine the Soul of Man more hea vy than his Senses? Does not the Eye pass from an un pleasant Object to a pleasant, in a much shorter time than is required to this? And does not the Unpleasant ness of the first commend the Beauty of the latter? The old Rule of Logick, might have convinc'd him, That Contraries when plac'd near, set off each other. A con tinued Gravity keeps the Spirit too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes, as we bait in a Journey, that we may go on with greater ease. A Scene of Mirth mix'd with Tragedy, has the same effect upon us which our Musick has betwixt the Acts, which we find a Relief to us from the best Plots and Language of the Stage, if the Discourses have been long. I must therefore have stron ger Arguments ere I am convinc'd, that Compassion and Mirth in the same Subject destroy each other; and in the mean time, cannot but conclude, to the Honour of our Nation, that we have invented, increas'd, and perfected a more pleasant way of writing for the Stage, than was ever known to the Ancients or Moderns of any Nation, which is Tragi-Comedy. [↔] And this leads me to wonder why Lisideius and many others should cry up the Barrenness of the French Plots, above the Variety and Copiousness of the English. Their Plots are single, they carry on one Design, which is push'd forward by all the Actors, every Scene in the Play contributing and moving towards it: Our Plays, besides the main Design, have Under-Plots, or By-Concernments, or less considerable Persons, and Intrigues, which are carried on with the Motion of the main Plot: As they say the Orb of the fix'd Stars, and those of the Planets, though they have Motions of their own, are whirl'd about by the Motion of the primum mobile, in which they are contain'd: That Similitude expresses much of the English Stage: For if contrary Motions may be found in Nature to agree; if a Planet can go East and West at the same time; one way by Virtue of his own Motion, the other by the force of the first Mover; it will not be difficult to imagine how the Under-Plot, which is only different, not contrary to the great Design, may naturally be con ducted along with it. [↔] Eugenius has already shewn us, from the Confession of the French Poets, that the Unity of Action is suffici ently preserv'd, if all the imperfect Actions of the Play are conducing to the main Design: But when those pet ty Intrigues of a Play are so ill order'd, that they have no coherence with the other, I must grant that Lisideius has reason to tax that want of due Connexion; for Co ordination in a Play is as dangerous and unnatural as in a State. In the mean time, he must acknowledge our Va riety, if well order'd, will afford a greater Pleasure to the Audience. [↔] As for his other Argument, that by pursuing one sin gle Theme they gain an Advantage to express and work up the Passions, I wish any Example he could bring from them would make it good: for I confess their Verses are to me the coldest I have ever read: Neither indeed is it possible for them, in the way they take, so to express Passion, as that the Effects of it should appear in the Concernment of an Audience, their Speeches be ing so many Declamations, which tire us with the Length; so that instead of perswading us to grieve for their imaginary Heroes, we are concern'd for our own trou ble, as we are in tedious Visits of bad Company; we are in pain till they are gone. When the French Stage came to be reform'd by Cardinal Richelieu, those long Harangues were introduc'd, to comply with the Gravity of a Churchman. Look upon the Cinna and the Pompey, they are not so properly to be called Plays, as long Dis courses of Reason of State: And Polieucte in Matters of Religion is as solemn as the long Stops upon our Organs. Since that time it is grown into a Custom, and their Actors speak by the Hour-glass, like our Parsons; nay, they account it the Grace of their Parts, and think them selves disparaged by the Poet, if they may not twice or thrice in a Play entertain the Audience with a Speech of an hundred Lines. I deny not but this may suit well enough with the French; for as we, who are a more sul len People, come to be diverted at our Plays; so they, who are of an aiery and gay Temper, come hither to make themselves more serious: And this I conceive to be one reason, why Comedies are more pleasing to us, and Tragedies to them. But to speak generally, it can not be deny'd, that short Speeches and Replies are more apt to move the Passions, and beget Concernment in us, than the other: For it is unnatural for any one in a Gust of Passion, to speak long together; or for another, in the same Condition, to suffer him without Interrup tion. Grief and Passion are like Floods rais'd in little Brooks by a sudden Rain; they are quickly up, and if the Concernment be pour'd unexpectedly in upon us, it overflows us: But a long sober Shower gives them leisure to run out as they came in, without trou bling the ordinary Current. As for Comedy, Repartee is one of its chiefest Graces; the greatest Pleasure of the Audience is a Chace of Wit kept up on both sides, and swiftly manag'd. And this our Fore-fathers, if not we, have had in Fletcher's Plays, to a much higher Degree of Perfection, than the French Poets can, reasonably, hope to reach. [↔] There is another part of Lisideius his Discourse, in which he has rather excus'd our Neighbours than com mended them; that is, for aiming only to make one Person considerable in their Plays. 'Tis very true what he has urged, That one Character in all Plays, even with out the Poet's Care, will have Advantage of all the o thers; and that the Design of the whole Drama will chiefly depend upon it. But this hinders not that there mav be more shining Characters in the Play; many Per sons of a second Magnitude, nay, some so very near, so almost equal to the first, that Greatness may be oppos'd to Greatness, and all the Persons be made considerable, not onely by their quality, but their action. 'Tis evi dent, that the more the Persons are, the greater will be the Variety of the Plot. If then the Parts are managed so regularly, that the Beauty of the whole be kept in tire, and that the Variety become not a perplex'd and confus'd Mass of Accidents, you will find it infinitely pleafing to be led in a Labyrinth of Design, where you see some of your way before you, yet discern not the End till you arrive at it. And that all this is practica ble, I can produce for Examples many of our English Plays: As the Maids Tragedy, the Alchymist, the Silent Woman; I was going to have named the Fox, but that the Unity of Design seems not exactly observ'd in it; for there appear two Actions in the Play; the first natu rally ending with the fourth Act; the second forc'd from it in the fifth: Which yet is the less to be condemn'd in him, because the Disguise of Volpone, though it suited not with his Character as a crafty or covetous Person, agreed well enough with that of a Voluptuary: And by it the Poet gain'd the End at which he aim'd, the Pu nishment of Vice, and the Reward of Virtue, both which that Disguise produc'd. So that to judge equally of it, it was an excellent fifth Act, but not so naturally proceeding from the former. [↔] But to leave this, and pass to the latter part of Lisidei us his Discourse, which concerns Relations, I must ac knowledge with him, that the French have reason to hide that part of the Action which would occasion too much Tumult on the Stage, and to chuse rather to have it made known by Narration to the Audience. Farther, I think it very convenient, for the Reasons he has given, that all incredible Actions were remov'd; but, whether Custom has so insinuated it self into our Country-men, or Nature has so form'd them to Fierceness, I know not; but they will scarcely sufter Combats and other Ob jects of Horror to be taken from them. And indeed, the Indecency of Tumults is all which can be objected against fighting: For why may not our Imagination as well suffer it self to be deluded with the Probability of it, as with any other thing in the Play? For my Part, I can with as great ease persuade my self that the Blows are given in good earnest, as I can, that they who strike them are Kings or Princes, or those Persons which they represent. For Objects of Incredibility, I would be satisfied from Lisideius, whether we have any so remov'd from all appearance of Truth, as are those of Corneille's Andromede? A Play which has been frequented the most of any he has writ. If the Perseus, or the Son of an Heathen God, the Pegasus and the Monster, were not capable to choak a strong Belief, let him blame any Re presentation of ours hereafter. Those indeed were Ob jects of Delight; yet the Reason is the same as to the Probability: For he makes it not a Balette or Masque, but a Play, which is to resemble Truth. But for Death, that it ought not to be represented, I have, besides the Arguments alledged by Lisideius, the Authority of Ben Johnson, who has forborn it in his Tragedies; for both the Death of Sejanus and Catiline are related: Though in the latter I cannot but observe one Irregularity of that great Poet: He has remov'd the Scene in the same Act, from Rome to Catiline's Army, and from thence again to Rome; and besides, has allow'd a very inconsiderable time after Catiline's Speech, for the striking of the Battel, and the return of Petreius, who is to relate the event of it to the Senate: Which I should not animadvert on him, who was otherwise a painful Observer of τὸ πρε πὸν, or the decorum of the Stage, if he had not us'd ex tream Severity in his Judgment on the incomparable Shakespear for the same fault. To conclude on this Sub ject of Relations, if we are to be blam'd for shewing too much of the Action, the French are as faulty for disco vering too little of it: A Mean betwixt both should be observed by every judicious Writer, so as the Audience may neither be left unsatisfied by not seeing what is beautiful, or shock'd by beholding what is either incre dible or indecent. I hope I have already prov'd in this Discourse, that though we are not altogether so punctu al as the French, in observing the Laws of Comedy; yet our Errors are so few, and little, and those things where in we excel them so considerable, that we ought of right to be preferr'd before them. But what will Lisi deius say, if they themselves acknowledge they are too strictly bounded by those Laws, for breaking which he has blam'd the English? I will alledge Corneille's Words, as I find them in the end of his Discourse of the three Unities; Il est facile aux speculatifs d'estre severes, &c. “'Tis easy for speculative Persons to judge severely; but if they would produce to publick View ten or twelve Pieces of this Nature, they would perhaps give more Latitude to the Rules than I have done, when by Experience they had known how much we are limited and constrain'd by them, and how many Beau ties of the Stage they banish'd from it.“ To illustrate a little what he has said: By their servile Observations of the Unities of time and place, and integrity of Scenes, they have brought on themselves that dearth of Plot, and narrowness of Imagination, which may be observed in all their Plays. How many beautiful Accidents might naturally happen in two or three Days, which cannot arrive with any probability in the Compass of twenty four Hours? There is time to be allowed also for matu rity of Design, which amongst great and prudent Per sons, such as are often represented in Tragedy, can not, with any likelihood of truth, be brought to pass at so short a warning. Farther by tying themselves strict ly to the Unity of Place, and unbroken Scenes, they are forc'd many times to omit some Beauties which cannot be shewn where the Act began; but might, if the Scene were interrupted, and the Stage clear'd for the Persons to enter in another place; and therefore the French Poets are often forc'd upon Absurdities: For if the Act begins in a Chamber, all the Persons in the Play must have some Business or other to come thither, or else they are not to be shewn that Act, and sometimes their Cha racters are very unfitting to appear there: As Suppose it were the King's Bed-chamber, yet the meanest Man in the Tragedy must come and dispatch his Business there, rather than in the Lobby or Court-yard, (which is fitter for him) for fear the Stage should be clear'd, and the Scenes broken. Many times they fall by it into a greater Inconvenience: for they keep their Scenes un broken, and yet change the Place; as in one of their newest Plays, where the Act begins in the Street. There a Gentleman is to meet his Friend; he sees him with his Man, coming out from his Father's House; they talk together, and the first goes out: The Second who is a Lover, has made an appointment with his Mistress; she appears at the Window, and then we are to imagine the Scene lies under it. This Gentleman is call'd away, and leaves his Servant with his Mistress: Presently her Father is heard from within; the young Lady is afraid the Serving-man should be discover'd, and thrusts him into a place of safety, which is suppos'd to be her Closet. After this, the Father enters to the Daughter, and now the Scene is in a House: For he is seeking from one Room to another for this poor Philipin, or French Diego, who is heard from within, diolling and breaking many a miserable Conceit on the subject of his sad Condition. In this ridiculous Manner the Play goes forward, the Stage being never empty all the while: so that the Street, the Window, the two Houses, and the Closet, are made to walk about, and the Persons to stand still. Now what I beseech you is more easy than to write a regular French Play, or more difficult than to write an irregular English one, like those of Fletcher, or of Shake spear? [↔] If they content themselves, as Corneille did, with some flat design, which like an ill Riddle, is found out ere it be half propos'd; such Plots we can make every way regular as easily as they: But whene'er they endeavour to rise to any quick turns and counter-turns of Plot, as some of them have attempted, since Corneille's Plays have been less in vogue, you see they write as irregularly as we, though they cover it more speciously. Hence the reason is perspicuous, why no French Plays, when trans lated, have, or ever can succeed on the English Stage. For, if you consider the Plots, our own are fuller of Va riety; if the Writing, ours are more quick and fuller of spirit: and therefore 'tis a strange mistake in those who decry the way of writing Plays in Verse, as if the En glish therein imitated the French. We have borrowed nothing from them; our Plots are weav'd in English Looms: we endeavour therein to follow the variety and greatness of Characters which are deriv'd to us from Shakespear and Fletcher: the copiousness and well-knitting of the Intriegues we have from Johnson; and for the Verse it self we have English Precedents of elder date than any of Corneille's Plays: (not to name our old Co medies before Shakespear, which were all writ in verse of six feet, of Alexandrines, such as the French now uses) I can shew in Shakespear, many Scenes of Rhyme toge ther, and the like in Ben Johnson's Tragedies: In Cati line and Sejanus sometimes thirty or forty lines; I mean, besides the Chorus, or the Monologues, which by the way, shew'd Ben no Enemy to this way of Writing, e specially if you read his Sad Shepherd, which goes some times on Rhyme, sometimes on blank Verse, like an Horse who eases himself on Trot and Amble. You find him likewise commending Fletcher's Pastoral of the Faith ful Shepherdess; which is for the most part Rhyme, though not refin'd to that Purity to which it hath since been brought: And these Examples are enough to clear us from a servile Imitation of the French. [↔] But to return whence I have digress'd, I dare boldly affirm these two things of the English Drama: First, That we have many Plays of ours as regular as any of theirs; and which, besides, have more variety of Plot and Characters: And secondly, that in most of the irre gular Plays of Shakespear or Fletcher, (for Ben Johnson's are for the most part regular) there is a more masculine Fancy, and greater Spirit in the writing, than there is in any of the French. I could produce even in Shakespear's and Fletcher's Works, some Plays which are almost ex actly form'd; as The Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Scornful Lady: But, because (generally speaking) Shakespear, who writ first, did not perfectly observe the Laws of Comedy, and Fletcher, who came nearer to Perfection, yet through Carelesness made many Faults; I will take the Pattern of a perfect Play from Ben Johnson, who was a careful and learned Observer of the Dramatick Laws, and from all his Comedies I shall select The Si lent Woman: of which I will make a short Examen, ac cording to those Rules which the French observe. [↔] As Neander was beginning to examine The Silent Wo man; Eugenius, earnestly regarding him, I beseech you, Neander, said he, gratify the Company, and me in par ticular so far as, before you speak of the Play, to give us a Character of the Author; and tell us frankly your O pinion, whether you do not think all Writers, both French and English, ought to give place to him? [↔] I fear, replied Neander, That in obeying your Com mands, I shall draw some Envy on my self. Besides, in performing them, it will be first necessary to speak some what of Shakespear and Fletcher, his Rivals in Poesy; and one of them, in my Opinion, at least his Equal, perhaps his Superior. [↔] To begin then with Shakespear: he was the Man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive Soul. All the Images of Na ture were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: When he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who ac cuse him to have wanted Learning, give him the greater Commendation: he was naturally learn'd: he needed not the Spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd in wards, and found her there. I cannot say, he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to com pare him with the greatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, and insipid; his Comick Wit degenerating into Clenches, his Serious swelling into Bombast. But he is always great, when some great Occasion is presented to him: No Man can say, he ever had a fit Subject for his Wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of Poets, Quantum lenta solent inter Viburna Cupressi. [↔] The Consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eaton say, That there was no Subject of which any Poet ever writ, but he would produce it much better done in Shake spear; and however others are now generally preferr'd before him, yet the Age wherein he liv'd, which had Contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Johnson, never equall'd them to him in their Esteem: And in the last King's Court, when Ben's Reptation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater Part of the Courtiers, set our Shakespear far above him. [↔] Beaumont and Fletcher, of whom I am next to speak, had, with the Advantage of Shakespear's Wit, which was their Precedent, great natural Gifts, improv'd by Study. Beaumont especially being so accurate a Judge of Plays, that Ben Johnson while he liv'd submitted all his Writ ings to his Censure, and, 'tis thought, us'd his Judg ment in correcting, if not contriving all his Plots. What value he had for him appears by the Verses he writ to him; and therefore I need speak no farther of it. The first Play that brought Fletcher and him in Esteem, was their Philaster; for before that, they had written two or three very unsuccessfully: As the like is reported of Ben Johnson, before he writ Every Man in his Humour. Their Plots were generally more regular than Shake spear's, especially those which were made before Beau mont's Death; and they understood and imitated the Con versation of Gentlemen much better; whose wild De baucheries, and Quickness of Wit in Repartees, no Poet before them could paint as they have done. Humour, which Ben Johnson deriv'd from particular Persons, they made it not their Business to describe: They repre sented all the Passions very lively, but above all, Love. I am apt to believe the English Language in them arriv'd to its highest Perfection; what Words have since been taken in, are rather Superfluous than Ornamental. Their Plays are now the most pleasant and frequent Entertain ments of the Stage; two of theirs being acted through the Year for one of Shakespear's or Johnson's: The Rea son is, because there is a certain Gayety in their Comedies, and Pathos in their more serious Plays, which suits gene rally with all Mens Humours. Shakespear's Language is likewise a little obsolete, and Ben Johnson's Wit comes short of theirs. [↔] As for Johnson, to whose Character I am now ar rived, if we look upon him while he was himself, (for his last Plays were but his Dotages) I think him the most learned and judicious Writer which any Theater ever had. He was a most severe Judge of himself as well as others. One cannot say he wanted Wit, but ra ther that he was frugal of it. In his Works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and Language, and Hu mour also in some measure, we had before him; but something of Art was wanting to the Drama, 'till he came. He manag'd his Strength to more advantage than any who preceded him, You seldom find him making Love in any of his Scenes, or endeavouring to move the Passions; his Genius was too sullen and Saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such an Height. Hu mour was his proper Sphere, and in that he delighted most to represent Mechanick People. He was deeply conversant in the Ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrow'd boldly from them: There is scarce a Poet or Historian among the Roman Authors of those Times, whom he has not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has done his Robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any Law. He invades Au thors like a Monarch, and what would be Theft in other Poets, is only Victory in him. With the Spoils of these Writers he so represents old Rome to us in its Rites, Ce remonies, and Customs, that if one of their Poets had written either of his Tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him. If there was any Fault in his Language, 'twas, that he weav'd it too closely and laboriously, in his Comedies especially: Perhaps too, he did a little too much Romanize our Tongue, leaving the Words which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them: Wherein though he learnedly followed their Language, he did not enough comply with the Idiom of ours. If I would compare him with Shakespear, I must acknow ledge him the more correct Poet, but Shakespear the greater Wit. Shakespear was the Homer, or Father of our Dramatick Poets; Johnson was the Virgil, the Pat tern of elaborate Writing; I admire him, but I love Shakespear. To conclude of him, as he has given us the most correct Plays, so in the Precepts which he has laid down in his Discoveries, we have as many and pro fitable Rules for perfecting the Stage, as any wherewith the French can furnish us. [↔] Having thus spoken of the Author, I proceed to the Examination of his Comedy, The Silent Woman.