dor, when no cause can be affigned for these emotions. The communication of nervous diforders, efpecially of the convulfive kind, is often fo atonishing, that is has been referred to fafcination or witchcraft. We will not pretend to explain the nature of this mental infection; but it is a fact well established, that fuch a thing exists, and that there is fuch a principle in nature as an healthy fympathy, as well as a morbid infection.

An old man who enters into this philofophy, is far from envying or proving a check on the innocent pleasures of young people, and particularly of his own children. On the contrary, he attends with delight to the gradual opening of the imagination and the dawn of reason; he enters by a fecret fort of sympathy into their guiltless joys, that revive in his memory the tender images of his youth, which, as Mr. Addifon obferves, by length of time have contracted a foftness inexpreffibly agreeable; and thus the evening of life is protracted to an happy, honourable, and unenvied old age.

more trouble to the poet, than pleafure to the auditor.

The neceffity of obferving the unities of time and place arifes from the fuppofed neceffity of making the drama credible. The critics hold it impoffible, that an action of months or years can be poffibly believed to pass in three hours; or that the fpectator can fuppofe himself to fit in the theatre, while ambaffadors go and return between diftant kingdoms, while armies are levied and towns befieged, while an exile wanders and returns, or till he whom they faw courting his mistress, fhall lament the untimely fall of his fon. The mind revolts from evident falfehood; and fiction lofes its force, when it departs from the refemblance of reality.

From the narrow limitation of time neceffarily arifes the contraction of place. The fpectator, who knows that he faw the first act at Alexandria, cannot fuppofe that he fees the next at Rome, at a diftance to which not the dragons of Medea could, in fo fhort a time, have tranfported him; he knows with certainty that he has not changed his place; and he knows that place cannot change itfelf; that what was a house cannot become a plain; that what was Thebes can never be Perfepolis.

Such is the triumphant language with which a critic exults over the mifery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without refiftance or reply. It is time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shakespeare, that he affumes as an unquestionable principle, a pofition, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his understanding pronounces to

be

be falfe. It is falfe, that any reprefentation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatic fable in its materiality was ever credible, or for a fingle moment was ever credited.

The objection arifing from the impoffibility of paffing the firft hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, fuppofes, that when the play opens, the fpectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the days of Anthony and Cleopatra. Surely he that imagines this, may imagine more. He that can take the ftage at one time for the palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the promontory of Actium. Delusion, if delufion be admitted, has no certain limita tion; if the fpectator can be once perfuaded, that his old acquaintance are Alexander and Cæfar, that a room illuminated with can

dles is the plain of Pharfalia, or the bank of Granicus, he is in a fate of elevation above the reach of reafon, or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry, may defpife the circumfcriptions of terrestrial nature. There is no reason why a mind thus wandering in ecftafy should count the clock, or why an hour fhould not be a century in that calenture of the brain that can make a ftage a field.

The truth is, that the fpectators are always in their fenfes, and know, from the first act to the laft, that the ftage is only a ftage, and that the players are only players. They come to hear a certain number of lines recited with just gef

ture and elegant modulation. The lines relate to fome action, and an action must be in fome place; but the different actions that compleat a ftory may be in many places very remote from each other; and where is the abfurdity of allowing that space to reprefent first Athens, and then Sicily, which was always known to be neither Sicily nor Athens, but a modera theatre ?

By fuppofition, as place is introduced, time may be extended : the time required by the fable elapfes for the most part between the acts; for, of fo much of the action as is reprefented, the real and poetical duration is the same. If, in the first act, preparations for war against Mithridates are reprefented to be made in Rome, the event of the war may, without abfurdity, be represented in the cataftrophe, as happening in Pontus ; we know that there is neither war, nor preparations for war; we know that we are neither in Rome nor Pontus; that neither Mithridates nor Lucullus are before us. The drama exhibits fucceffive imitations of fucceffive actions; and why may not the fecond imitations reprefent an action that happened years after the firft, if it be fo connected with it, that nothing but time can be fuppofed to intervene? Time is, of all modes of existence, moft obfequious to the imagination; a lapfe of years is as easily conceived as a paffage of hours. In contemplation we eafily contract the time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only fee their imitation.

It will be asked, how the drama moves,

5

moves, if it is not credited. It is credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is credited, whenever it moves, as a just picture of a real original; as reprefenting to the auditor what he would himself feel, if he were to do or fuffer what is there feigned to be fuffered or to be done. The reflection that ftrikes the heart, is not that the evils before us are real evils, but that they are evils to which we ourselves may be expofed. If there be any fallacy, it is not that we fancy the players, but that we fancy ourselves unhappy for a moment; but we rather lament the poffibility than fuppofe the prefence of mifery, as a mother weeps over her babe, when the remembers that death may take it from her. The delight of tragedy proceeds from our confcioufnels of fiction. If we thought murders and treasons real, they would please

no more.

Imitations produce pain or plea fure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind. When the imagination is recreated by a painted landscape, the trees are not fuppofed capable to give us fhade, or the fountains coolness; but we confider how much we fhould be pleafed with fuch fountains playing befide us, and fuch woods waving over us. We are agitated in reading the history of Henry the Fifth, yet no man takes his book for the field of Agincourt. A dramatic exhibition is a book recited with concomitants that increafe or diminish its effect. Fa miliar comedy is often more powerful on the theatre, than in the page; imperial tragedy is always lefs. The humour of Petruchio

may be heightened by grimace; but what voice or what gesture can hope to add dignity or force to the foliloquy of Cato?

A play read, affects the mind like a play acted. It is therefore evident, that the action is not fuppofed to be real; and it follows, that between the acts a longer or fhorter time may be allowed to pafs, and that no more account of space or duration is to be taken by the auditor of a drama, than by the reader of a narrative, before whom may pafs in an hour the life of an hero, or the revolutions of an empire.

Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by de. fign, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impoffible to decide, and useless to inquire. We may reasonably fuppole, that, when he rose to notice, he did not want the counfels and admonitions of fcholars and critics, and that he at laft deliberately perfifted in a practice, which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is effential to the fable but unity of action, and as the unities of time and place arife evidently from falfe affumptions, and, by circumfcribing the extent of the drama, leffen its variety, I cannot think it much to be lamented, that they were not known by him, or not obferved: nor, if fuch another poet could arife, fhould I very vehemently reproach him, that his first act paffed at Venice, and his next in Cyprus. Such violations of rules merely pofitive, become the comprehenfive genius of Shakespeare, and fuch cenfures are fuitable to the minute and flender criticism of Voltaire :

Non

Non ufque adeo permifcuit imis Longus fumma dies, ut non, Metelli Serventur leges, malint a Cæfare tolli.

fi voce

Yet when I speak thus flightly of dramatic rules, I cannot but re

collect how much wit and learning may be produced against me; before fuch authorities I am afraid to fland; not that I think the prefent queftion one of those that are to be decided by mere authority, but becanfe it is to be fufpected, that thefe precepts have not been fo eafily received, but for better reafons than I have yet been able to find. The refult of my enquiries, in which it would be ludicrous to boaft of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place are not effential to a just drama; that though they may fometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be facrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and inftruction; and that a play written with nice obfervation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elaborate curiofity, as the product of fuperfluous and oftentatious art, by which is fhewn, rather what is poffible, than what is neceffary.

He that, without diminution of any other excellence, fhall preserve all the unities unbroken, deferves the like applaufe with the architect, who fhall difplay all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any deduction from its ftrength; but the principal beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy: and the greatest graces of a play are to copy nature and inftru& life.

Perhaps, what I have here not dogmatically but deliberately written, may recall the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almost frighted at my own

temerity; and when I eftimate the fame, and the strength of those that maintain the contrary opinion, am filence; as Eneas withdrew from ready to fink down in reverential Neptune thaking the wall, and the defence of Troy, when he saw Juno heading the befiegers.

Those whom my argument cannot perfuade to give their approbation to the judgment of Shakefpeare, will eafily, if they confider

the condition of his life, make fome allowance for his ignorance.

The impropriety into which Chriftian poers have been led by following Homer and Virgil, in their excarfions to the heavenly manfions, confidered both in a poetical and in a moral fenfe; from a Letter concerning epic poems taken from fcripture biftory.

T

HOSE lofty paffages in

Homer and Virgil junly raise our admiration, where Jupiter commiffions the inferior deities to convey his orders to the fons of men. But when Milton and Geffner reprefent the True God of heaven and earth, as delivering his commands to the attendant angels, though our affections are warmed with the fublimity of the fentiments, our reafon is difgufted at the fight of a glaring impropriety. For the heathen writers have given to the boldeft of their narrations an air of probability, which is neceffarily wanting in the chriftian. The mufe is fuppofed to dictate what the poet writes. As he is a goddess, and of courfe admitted to the celestial councils, there is nothing im probable in his relating, upon fuch authority, what paffes there. But

the

the different plan, on which our modern authors have constructed their poems, does not allow of the fame latitude. They were in fact obliged, how unwilling foever they might be, to renounce the affiftance of that heavenly guide, who had conducted their ancient matters to the affemblies of the gods. The chriftian theology contradicts the fuppofition of the chriftian poet's infpiration it does not even permit us to look upon him as better inftructed in the arcana of heaven than ourselves. For as chriftians we all affent to the fame truths; as chriftians we are all equally concerned in the fame important events *.* The words are Geffner's, and the confequence I would draw from them is juft the reverse of his: inftead of facred history being the moft proper fubject for the exercife of genius, it is, in reality, the moft improper; but let it be remembered, that this affertion is confined entirely to epic poetry, and that only upon a fuppofition, that machinery is effential to it.

Mr. Addifon fomewhere obferves, that an epic poem ought to be credible in its principal parts. This obfervation fhould not be limited to the incidents only it extends likewife to the poet's information about them. For though the facts confidered in themfelves may not be void of probability, yet if they are fo with refpect to the writer's knowledge of them, if he takes upon

him to inftruct us in what there is no poffible means of his knowing; if the light of history and tradition fails, and that of infpiration is excluded, the whole narrative, as far as it is involved in this total darkness, is in reality incredible +: and one may in fuch a cafe apply to the epic, what Horace does in another to the dramatic poet.

Quodcunque oftendas mihi fic, incredulus odi.

The invocation of the mufe was not therefore in the immortal works of antiquity, as it often is in the tranfient productions of modern genius, a mere matter of ceremony, and a thing of courfe; nor was it defigned only, like the legiflator's pretended conference with fome celeftial power, to ftamp upon them a divine authority; but it was indifpenfably requifite to give many of the principal parts that degree of probability, which is one effential ingredient in every fpecies of writing.

Accordingly, if we look into Homer and Virgil, we find them fupplicating the mufe's favour, and relying on her inspiration.