Chapter XVI: Canto IV (5)

[Footnote 120: This objection, although stated against Crites the prototype of Howard, occurs in Sir Robert's own preface, who points out an additional advantage attending it. He observes, that the subjects of the ancients were usually the most known stories and fables; a circumstance which led them to compose their plays rather of speeches and chorus's, than of scenic action, and representation: Because, "Seneca making choice of Medea, Hippolytus, and Hercules Œtus, it was impossible to show Medea throwing the mangled limbs of Jason into her age-renewing kettle, or to present the scattered limbs of Hippolytus upon the stage, or show Hercules burning upon his own funeral pile."]

[Footnote 121: Our author has quoted from memory. The lines are--_At nostri proavi_, &c. and afterwards--_Ne dicam_ stulte, _mirati_.--MALONE.]

[Footnote 122: A mistake for eighth.]

[Footnote 123: This remark is unfounded; for the words are--_et longæ visent Capitolia pompæ_. Ovid. MET. l. i. In the preceding quotation, for _verbo_, we should read _verbis_; and for _metuam summi_,--_timeam magni_.--MALONE.]

[Footnote 124: The insurrection in Scotland, in Charles I.'s time, inflamed Cleiveland as much as the nation. We have often heard of poetic fire, but he is the only author who calls for a bucket of water to quench it:

Ring the bells backward, I am all on fire;
Not all the buckets in a country quire
Shall quench my rage--
]

[Footnote 125: Our author (as Dr Johnson has observed) "might have determined this question upon surer evidence; for it [Medea] is quoted by Quintilian as Seneca's, and the only line which remains of Ovid's play, (for one line is left us,) is not found there."]

[Footnote 126: One of the old theatres, and of the lowest order among them.]

[Footnote 127: Although a zealous admirer of the author, I am at a loss to see much merit in the plot of "The Bloody Brother, or Rollo" of Fletcher. The hero is a Duke of Normandy, who first kills his brother in his mother's arms; then has his chancellor chopped to pieces, and thrown to the dogs; beheads his tutor, kills an officer of his guards for burying the reliques of his chancellor, and finally is stabbed by the captain of his guards, and succeeded in his dukedom by his cousin; a person of no note through the play, but who, being left alive when every other person is killed, is raised to the throne as a matter of necessity. This is the history of Geta and Caracalla, and a very disagreeable one it is, but certainly not the plot of a play. As for the farce mingled with it, there are three state criminals led to be hanged, who join in the old catch,

And three merry boys,
And three merry boys,
And three merry boys are we,
As ever did sing
Three parts in a string,
All under the triple tree.
]

[Footnote 128: I thought I had discovered this ingenious person to be the honourable Edward Howard, author of the "British Princes," who, in the preface to the "Woman's Conquest," has this passage: "And here I cannot chuse but reflect on our mean imitation of French plays, by introducing of servants and waiting-women to have parts, without being essential characters; an error well avoided by our former writers, who never admitted any otherwise than as messengers and attendants, except on the account of being characters, as is to be seen by Numphs in "Bartholomew Fair," and Face in the "Alchymist;" the latter of which (notwithstanding what can be objected against him) may deservedly be granted one of the best parts on our English stage." But the passage does not quite correspond with the sentiment in the text; besides, the "Woman's Conquest" did not appear till 1670-1, two years after the Essay. The preface contains some oblique attacks upon Dryden.]

[Footnote 129: Our author's last play of "Love Triumphant" is winded up in the last act by the mere change of will on the part of Veramond.]

[Footnote 130: Velleius Paterculus, I. 17.]

[Footnote 131: Here the first edition has, "by Mr Hart." This play was first acted in 1661, under the title of "The Liar," and revived in 1685, under that of "The Mistaken Beauty."]

[Footnote 132: In 1642.]

[Footnote 133: "The Adventures of five Hours," is a comedy imitated from the Spanish of Calderon, by Sir Samuel Tuke, with some assistance from the Earl of Bristol. It was acted at court 1663, and received great applause. Cowley writes a laudatory poem, for which in the "Session of Poets" he is censured by Apollo; Diego is described, in the characters of the _dramatis personæ_, as "servant to Octavio, bred a scholar, a great coward, and a pleasant droll." It would seem from the preface, that this mode of affixing characters to the _dramatis personæ_ was then a novelty.]

[Footnote 134: The custom of placing an hour-glass before the clergyman was then common in England. It is still the furniture of a country pulpit in Scotland. A facetious preacher used to press his audience to _take another glass with him_.]

[Footnote 135: Most modern readers revolt at the incident, as a monstrous improbability.]

[Footnote 136: The insolence with which the dry and dogged Jonson used to carp at Shakespeare, is highly illustrative of that jealousy with which he is taxed by Drummond of Hawthornden. The most memorable attack on Shakespeare, on the score mentioned in the text, is the prologue to "Every Man in his Humour."

Though need make many poets, and some such
As art and nature have not bettered much;
Yet ours, for want, hath not so loved the stage,
As he dare serve the ill customs of the age,
Or purchase your delight at such a rate,
As, for it, he himself must justly hate:
To make a child new swaddled, to proceed
Man, and then shoot up in one beard and weed,
Past threescore years; or with three rusty swords,
And help of some few foot, and half-foot words,
Fight over York, and Lancaster's long jars,
And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars.
He rather prays, you will be pleased to see
One such to day, as other plays should be;
Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas,
Nor creaking throne comes down, the boys to please,
Nor nimble squib is seen, to make afeard
The gentlewomen; nor rolled bullet heard
To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drum
Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come;
But deeds, and language, such as men do use,
And persons, such as comedy would chuse;
When she would shew an image of the times,
And sport with human follies, not with crimes;
Except we make them such, by loving still
Our popular errors, as you'll all confess,
By laughing at them, they deserve no less:
Which when you heartily do, there's hope left, then
You, that have so graced monsters, may like men.

In "Every Man Out of his Humour," the same sneer is directed against the same quarter:

"_Mit._ He cannot alter the scene without crossing the seas.

"_Cor._ He need not, having a whole island to run through, I thinke.

"_Mit._ No! how comes it then that _in some one play we see so many seas, countries, and kingdoms passed over with such admirable dexteritie_?

"_Cor._ O, that but shews how well the authors can travaile in their vocation, and outrun the apprehension of their auditorie."]

[Footnote 137: Our old poets saw something peculiarly ludicrous in the anapoestic canter of these doggrel Alexandrines. The old comedy of "Gammer Gurton's Needle" is composed entirely of them. Shakespeare often uses them where the dialogue is carried on by his clowns, or comic characters; as in "Love's Labour's Lost," act III.; in most of the quaint skirmishes of wit and punning, in the "Comedy of Errors;" and in the "Taming of the Shrew." Other examples from low comedy of that early age are given in Reed's edition of Shakespeare, Vol. xx. p. 462. After all, this same Alexandrine is only the common ballad-stanza of "Chevy Chace," written in two lines at length, instead of being subdivided into four. Mr Malone remarks, that the assertion in the text is too general.]

[Footnote 138: Mr Malone justly observes, that the caution observed in this decision, proves the miserable taste of the age. In fact, Jonson, by dint of learning and arrogance, fairly bullied the age into receiving his own character of his merits; and he was not the only person of the name that has done so.]

[Footnote 139: The learned John Hales of Eton, whom Wood calls a _walking library_, and Clarendon pronounces the least man and greatest scholar of his time. Gildon tells the anecdote to which Dryden seems to allude, in an essay addressed to Dryden himself on the vindication of Shakespeare, and he quotes our author as his authority. "The matter of fact, if my memory fail me not, was this: Mr Hales of Eton affirmed, that he would show all the poets of antiquity out-done by Shakespeare, in all the topics and common places made use of in poetry. The enemies of Shakespeare would by no means yield him so much excellence; so that it came to a resolution of a trial of skill upon that subject. The place agreed on for the dispute, was Mr Hales's chamber at Eton. A great many books were sent down by the enemies of this poet; and on the appointed day, my Lord Falkland, Sir John Suckling, and all the persons of quality that had wit and learning, and interested themselves in the quarrel, met there; and upon a thorough disquisition of the point, the judges chosen by agreement out of this learned and ingenious assembly, unanimously gave the preference to Shakespeare; and the Greek and Roman poets were adjudged to veil at least their glory in that to the English hero." GILDON'S _Essays_.

Tate, in the preface to the "Loyal General," and Rowe, in his "Life of Shakespeare," quote the same anecdote.]

[Footnote 140: _Humour_, in the ancient dramatic language, signified some peculiar or fantastic bias, or habit of mind, in an individual. See Vol. X. p. 396, 456.]

[Footnote 141: Dryden here understands _wit_ in the enlarged sense of invention, or genius.]

[Footnote 142: This conversation, however, appears formidably stiff in the present age.]

[Footnote 143: I should be sorry to see the comparative merits of the stages tried upon that issue: Moliere, in natural comedy, is as far superior to Jonson, as Shakespeare is to both.]

[Footnote 144: The reasons against rhyme,--and very weighty our author at last found them,--are taken from the Preface to Sir Robert Howard's plays, the Crites of the dialogue.

"Another way of the ancients, which the French follow, and our stage has now lately practised, is, to write in rhyme; and this is the dispute betwixt many ingenious persons, whether verse in rhyme, or verse without the sound, which may be called _blank_ verse, (though a hard expression,) is to be preferred. But take the question largely, and it is never to be decided; but, by right application, I suppose it may; for in the general, they are both proper, that is, one for a play, the other for a poem or copy of verses; a blank verse being as much too low for one, as rhyme is unnatural for the other. A poem, being a premeditated form of thoughts upon designed occasions, ought not to be unfurnished of any harmony in words or sound; the other is presented as the present effect of accidents not thought of: so that it is impossible it should be equally proper to both these, unless it were possible that all persons were born so much more than poets, that verses were not to be composed by them, but already made in them. Some may object, that this argument is trivial, because, whatever is shewed, it is known still to be but a play; but such may as well excuse an ill scene, that is not naturally painted, because they know it is only a scene, and not really a city or country.

"But there is yet another thing which makes verse upon the stage appear more unnatural; that is, when a piece of a verse is made up by one that knew not what the other meant to say, and the former verse answered as perfectly in sound as the last is supplied in measure; so that the smartness of a reply, which has its beauty by coming from sudden thoughts, seems lost by that which rather looks like a design of two, than the answer of one. It may be said, that rhyme is such a confinement to a quick and luxuriant fancy, that it gives a stop to its speed, till slow judgment comes in to assist it; but this is no argument for the question in hand: for the dispute is not, which way a man may write best in, but which is most proper for the subject he writes upon; and, if this were let pass, the argument is yet unsolved in itself: for he that wants judgment in the liberty of his fancy, may as well shew the defect of it in its confinement: and, to say truth, he that has judgment will avoid the errors, and he that wants it will commit them both. It may be objected, it is improbable that any should speak _extempore_ as well as Beaumont and Fletcher makes them, though in blank verse: I do not only acknowledge that, but that it is also improbable any will write so well that way. But if that may be allowed improbable, I believe it may be concluded impossible that any should speak as good verses in rhyme, as the best poets have writ; and therefore, that which seems nearest to what it intends, is ever to be preferred. Nor is great thoughts more adorned by verse, than verse unbeautified by mean ones; so that verse seems not only unfit in the best use of it, but much more in the worse, when a servant is called, or a door bid to be shut, in rhyme. Verses (I mean good ones) do in their height of fancy declare the labour that brought them forth, like majesty, that grows with care; and Nature, that made the poet capable, seems to retire, and leave its offers to be made perfect by pains and judgement. Against this I can raise no argument but my Lord of Orrery's writings, in whose verse the greatness of the majesty seems unsullied with the cares, and his inimitable fancy descends to us in such easy expressions, that they seem as if neither had ever been added to the other, but both together flowing from a height; like birds got so high, that use no labouring wings, but only with an easy care preserve a steadiness in motion. But this particular happiness, among those multitudes which that excellent person is owner of, does not convince my reason, but employ my wonder: yet I am glad such verse has been written for our stage, since it has so happily exceeded those whom we seemed to imitate. But while I give these arguments against verse, I may seem faulty that I have not only written ill ones, but written any: but, since it was the fashion, I was resolved, as in all indifferent things, not to appear singular, the danger of the vanity being greater than the error; and therefore I followed it as a fashion, though very far off."]

[Footnote 145: This makes it obvious, that Neander is Dryden himself.]

[Footnote 146: Vide Daniel, his _Defence of Rhyme_. DRYDEN.]

[Footnote 147: Accurately,

_Interdum vulgus recté videt est ubi peccat_.]

[Footnote 148: "The Siege of Rhodes," by Sir William D'Avenant; "Mustapha," by Lord Orrery; "The Indian Queen," by Sir Robert Howard and Dryden; and "The Indian Emperor," by Dryden alone.]

[Footnote 149: There is this great difference, that, from the mode of pronouncing, the rhythm of the blank verse does not necessarily obtrude itself on the audience: that of the couplet indubitably must.]

[Footnote 150: John Taylor, the Water-poet as he called himself, from his profession of a waterman, was, according to Wood, a man who, having a prodigious _genie_ to poetry, wrote eighty books, which not only made much sport at the time, but were thought worthy of being remitted into a large folio. He was a staunch cavalier, which might in some degree bribe Anthony's judgment of his poetry. His poetry is very like that which Skelton wrote a century before him. Among other pieces, there are some comical addresses to his subscribers, whom he divides into those who had received and paid their books; those who had done neither; and those who, having received, were unable to pay. To the first class he abounds in gratitude; the second he addresses as between hope and despair; the third he treats civilly, as they were defaulters from inability, and had always given him plenty of sack and fair promises: But, as was reason, he reserves the extremity of his displeasure for a fourth class of subscribers, who, having received his books, refused to pay the subscription.]

[Footnote 151: This Sir Robert Howard quoted, in his preface to the "Duke of Lerma;" and unluckily translated it, "Shutting the palace gates," for which Dryden severely animadverts on him, Vol. II. p. 278.]

[Footnote 152: Meaning Sir Robert Howard himself.]

[Footnote 153: From the conduct of Louis XIV., who gradually retrenched until he altogether abolished the edict of Nantes, there was a constant emigration to England of his Huguenot subjects.]

HEADS

OF

AN ANSWER TO RYMER's REMARKS, &c.

Thomas Rymer, distinguished as the editor of the _Fœdera_ of England, was in his earlier years ambitious of the fame of a critic. In 1678, he published a small duodecimo, entitled, "The Tragedies of the last Age considered and examined by the practice of the Ancients, and the common Sense of all Ages, in a Letter to Fleetwood and Shepherd." The criticisms apply chiefly to the tragedies of the latter part of the reigns of Elizabeth, and James I.; out of which he has singled, as the particular subjects of reprehension, those of "Rollo," "The Maid's Tragedy," and "King and no King." In this criticism, there was "much malice mingled with a little wit;" obvious faults and absurdities were censured as disgusting to common sense, on the one hand; on the other, licenses unpractised by the ancients were condemned as barbarous and unclassical.

A severe critic, if able but plausibly to support his remarks by learning and acumen, strikes terror through the whole world of literature. It is in vain to represent to such a person, that he only examines the debtor side of the account, and omits to credit the unfortunate author with the merit that he has justly a title to claim. Instead of a fair accounting between the public and the poet, his cause is tried as in a criminal action, where, if he is convicted of a crime, all the merit of his work will not excuse him. There must be something in the mind of man favourable to a system which tends to the levelling of talents in the public estimation, or such critics as Rymer could never have risen into notice. Yet Dryden, in the following projected answer to his Remarks, has treated him with great respect; and Pope, according to Spence, pronounced him "one of the best critics we ever had."

That Dryden should have been desirous to conciliate the favour of an avowed critic, was natural enough; but that Pope should have so spoken of Rymer, only argues, either that he was prejudiced by the opinions which his youth had sucked in from Walsh, Wycherly, and Trumbull, or that his taste for the drama was far inferior to his powers in every other range of poetry.

If Dryden had arranged and extended the materials of his answer, it is possible that he would have treated Rymer with less deference than he shewed while collecting them; for in the latter years of Dryden's life they were upon bad terms. See Vol. xii. p. 45, and Epistle to Congreve, Vol. xi. p. 57.

To a reader of the present day, when the cant of criticism has been in some degree abandoned, nothing can be more disgusting than the remarks of Rymer, who creeps over the most beautiful passages of the drama with eyes open only to their defects, or their departure from scholastic precept; who denies the name of poetry to the "Paradise Lost," and compares judging of "Rollo" by "Othello," to adjusting one crooked line by another. But I would be by no means understood to say, that there is not sometimes justice, though never mercy, in his criticism.

Dryden had intended to enter the lists with Rymer in defence of the ancient theatre, and with this view had wrote the following Heads of an Answer to the Remarks. They were jotted down on the blank leaves of a copy of the book presented to Dryden by Rymer. The volume falling into the hands of the publisher of Beaumont and Fletcher's works, in 1711, they prefixed Dryden's observations, as furnishing an apology for their authors. They were again published by Dr Johnson, into whose hands they were put by Garrick, who had the original in his collection. The arrangement is different in the two copies; that of Dr Johnson has been adopted, as preferred by Mr Malone.

HEADS

OF AN

ANSWER TO RYMER's REMARKS

ON THE

TRAGEDIES OF THE LAST AGE.

That we may the less wonder why pity and terror are not now the only springs on which our tragedies move,[154] and that Shakespeare may be more excused, Rapin confesses, that the French tragedies now all run on the _tendre_; and gives the reason, because love is the passion which most predominates in our souls; and that therefore the passions represented become insipid, unless they are conformable to the thoughts of the audience. But it is to be concluded, that this passion works not now amongst the French so strongly, as the other two did amongst the ancients. Amongst us, who have a stronger genius for writing, the operations from the writing are much stronger; for the raising of Shakespeare's passions is more from the excellency of the words and thoughts, than the justness of the occasion; and if he has been able to pick single occasions, he has never founded the whole reasonably; yet, by the genius of poetry in writing, he has succeeded.

Rapin attributes more to the _dictio_, that is, to the words and discourse of a tragedy, than Aristotle has done, who places them in the last rank of beauties; perhaps, only last in order, because they are the last product of the design, of the disposition or connection of its parts, of the characters, of the manners of those characters, and of the thoughts proceeding from those manners. Rapin's words are remarkable:--It is not the admirable intrigue, the surprising events, and extraordinary incidents, that make the beauty of a tragedy; it is the discourses, when they are natural and passionate.--So are Shakespeare's.

The parts of a poem, tragic or heroic, are,

1. The fable itself.

2. The order or manner of its contrivance, in relation of the
parts to the whole.

3. The manners, or decency of the characters, in speaking or
acting what is proper for them, and proper to be shewn by the poet.

4. The thoughts, which express the manners.

5. The words, which express those thoughts.

In the last of these, Homer excels Virgil; Virgil all other ancient poets; and Shakespeare all modern poets.

For the second of these, the order: the meaning is, that a fable ought to have a beginning, middle, and an end, all just and natural; so that that part, _e.g._ which is the middle, could not naturally be the beginning or end, and so of the rest: all depend on one another, like the links of a curious chain. If terror and pity are only to be raised, certainly this author follows Aristotle's rules, and Sophocles' and Euripides's example; but joy may be raised too, and that doubly, either by seeing a wicked man punished, or a good man at last fortunate; or perhaps indignation, to see wickedness prosperous, and goodness depressed: both these may be profitable to the end of tragedy, reformation of manners; but the last improperly, only as it begets pity in the audience; though Aristotle, I confess, places tragedies of this kind in the second form.

He who undertakes to answer this excellent critique of Mr Rymer, in behalf of our English poets against the Greek, ought to do it in this manner: either by yielding to him the greatest part of what he contends for, which consists in this, that the μύθος _i.e._ the design and conduct of it, is more conducing in the Greeks to those ends of tragedy, which Aristotle and he propose, namely, to cause terror and pity; yet the granting this does not set the Greeks above the English poets.

But the answerer ought to prove two things: First, that the fable is not the greatest master-piece of a tragedy, though it be the foundation of it.

Secondly, that other ends, as suitable to the nature of tragedy, may be found in the English, which were not in the Greek.

Aristotle places the fable first; not _quoad dignitatem, sed quoad fundamentum_: for a fable, never so movingly contrived to those ends of his, pity and terror, will operate nothing on our affections, except the characters, manners, thoughts, and words, are suitable.

So that it remains for Mr Rymer to prove, that in all those, or the greatest part of them, we are inferior to Sophocles and Euripides; and this he has offered at, in some measure; but, I think, a little partially to the ancients.

For the fable itself: it is in the English more adorned with episodes, and larger than in the Greek poets; consequently more diverting. For if the action be but one, and that plain, without any counter-turn of design or episode, _i.e._ under-plot, how can it be so pleasing as the English, which have both under-plot and a turned design, which keeps the audience in expectation of the catastrophe? whereas in the Greek poets we see through the whole design at first.

For the characters, they are neither so many nor so various in Sophocles and Euripides, as in Shakespeare and Fletcher; only they are more adapted to those ends of tragedy which Aristotle commends to us, pity and terror.

The manners flow from the characters, and consequently must partake of their advantages and disadvantages.

The thoughts and words, which are the fourth and fifth beauties of tragedy, are certainly more noble and more poetical in the English than in the Greek, which must be proved by comparing them somewhat more equitably than Mr Rymer has done.

After all, we need not yield, that the English way is less conducing to move pity and terror, because they often shew virtue oppressed and vice punished; where they do not both, or either, they are not to be defended.

And if we should grant that the Greeks performed this better, perhaps it may admit of dispute, whether pity and terror are either the prime, or at least the only ends of tragedy.

It is not enough that Aristotle has said so, for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides; and if he had seen ours, might have changed his mind. And chiefly we have to say, (what I hinted on pity and terror, in the last paragraph save one,) that the punishment of vice and reward of virtue are the most adequate ends of tragedy, because most conducing to good example of life. Now pity is not so easily raised for a criminal, (and the ancient tragedy always represents its chief person such,) as it is for an innocent man; and the suffering of innocence and punishment of the offender is of the nature of English tragedy: contrarily, in the Greek, innocence is unhappy often, and the offender escapes. Then we are not touched with the sufferings of any sort of men so much as of lovers, and this was almost unknown to the ancients: so that they neither administered poetical justice, of which Mr Rymer boasts, so well as we; neither knew they the best common-place of pity, which is love.

He therefore unjustly blames us for not building on what the ancients left us; for it seems, upon consideration of the premises, that we have wholly finished what they began.

My judgment on this piece is this; that it is extremely learned, but that the author of it is better read in the Greek than in the English poets; that all writers ought to study this critique, as the best account I have ever seen of the ancients; that the model of tragedy he has here given is excellent, and extreme correct; but that it is not the only model of all tragedy, because it is too much circumscribed in plot, characters, &c.; and lastly, that we may be taught here justly to admire and imitate the ancients, without giving them the preference, with this author, in prejudice to our own country.

Want of method in this excellent treatise, makes the thoughts of the author sometimes obscure.

His meaning, that pity and terror are to be moved, is, that they are to be moved as the means conducing to the ends of tragedy, which are pleasure and instruction.

And these two ends may be thus distinguished. The chief end of the poet is to please; for his immediate reputation depends on it.

The great end of the poem is to instruct, which is performed by making pleasure the vehicle of that instruction; for poesy is an art, and all arts are made to profit. Rapin.

The pity which the poet is to labour for, is for the criminal, not for those or him whom he has murdered, or who have been the occasion of the tragedy. The terror is likewise in the punishment of the same criminal, who, if he be represented too great an offender, will not be pitied; if altogether innocent, his punishment will be unjust.

Another obscurity is, where he says, Sophocles perfected tragedy by introducing the third actor;[155] that is, he meant, three kinds of action; one company singing, or speaking; another playing on the music; a third dancing.

To make a true judgment in this competition betwixt the Greek poets and the English, in tragedy:

Consider, first, how Aristotle has defined a tragedy. Secondly, what he assigns the end of it to be. Thirdly, what he thinks the beauties of it. Fourthly, the means to attain the end proposed.

Compare the Greek and English tragic poets justly, and without partiality, according to those rules.

Then, secondly, consider whether Aristotle has made a just definition of tragedy; of its parts, of its ends, and of its beauties; and whether he, having not seen any others but those of Sophocles, Euripides, &c. had, or truly could determine what all the excellencies of tragedy are, and wherein they consist.

Next shew in what ancient tragedy was deficient; for example, in the narrowness of its plots, and fewness of persons; and try whether that be not a fault in the Greek poets, and whether their excellency was so great, when the variety was visibly so little; or whether what they did was not very easy to do.

Then make a judgment on what the English have added to their beauties; as, for example, not only more plot, but also new passions, as, namely, that of love, scarce touched on by the ancients, except in this one example of Phædra, cited by Mr Rymer; and in that how short they were of Fletcher.

Prove also that love, being an heroic passion, is fit for tragedy, which cannot be denied, because of the example alleged of Phædra; and how far Shakespeare has out-done them in friendship, &c.

To return to the beginning of this enquiry; consider, if pity and terror be enough for tragedy to move; and I believe, upon a true definition of tragedy, it will be found, that its work extends farther, and that is to reform manners, by a delightful representation of human life in great persons, by way of dialogue. If this be true, then not only pity and terror are to be moved, as the only means to bring us to virtue, but generally love to virtue, and hatred to vice, by shewing the rewards of one, and punishments of the other; at least, by rendering virtue always amiable, though it be shewn unfortunate, and vice detestable, though it be shewn triumphant.

If then, the encouragement of virtue, and discouragement of vice, be the proper ends of poetry in tragedy, pity and terror, though good means, are not the only. For all the passions, in their turns, are to be set in a ferment; as joy, anger, love, fear, are to be used as the poet's common-places, and a general concernment for the principal actors is to be raised, by making them appear such in their characters, their words, and actions, as will interest the audience in their fortunes.

And if, after all, in a larger sense, pity comprehends this concernment for the good, and terror includes detestation for the bad, then let us consider whether the English have not answered this end of tragedy, as well as the ancients, or perhaps better.

And here Mr Rymer's objections against these plays are to be impartially weighed, that we may see whether they are of weight enough to turn the balance against our countrymen.

It is evident, those plays which he arraigns, have moved both those passions in a high degree upon the stage.

To give the glory of this away from the poet, and to place it upon the actors, seems unjust.[156]

One reason is, because whatever actors they have found, the event has been the same, that is, the same passions have been always moved; which shews, that there is something of force and merit in the plays themselves, conducing to the design of raising these two passions: and suppose them ever to have been excellently acted, yet action only adds grace, vigour, and more life, upon the stage, but cannot give it wholly where it is not first. But secondly, I dare appeal to those who have never seen them acted, if they have not found these two passions moved within them; and if the general voice will carry it, Mr Rymer's prejudice will take off his single testimony.

This, being matter of fact, is reasonably to be established by this appeal; as if one man says it is night, when the rest of the world conclude it to be day, there needs no farther argument against him, that it is so.

If he urge, that the general taste is depraved, his arguments to prove this can at best but evince, that our poets took not the best way to raise those passions; but experience proves against him, that those means which they have used have been successful, and have produced them.

And one reason of that success is, in my opinion, this, that Shakespeare and Fletcher have written to the genius of the age and nation in which they lived; for though nature, as he objects, is the same in all places, and reason too the same, yet the climate, the age, the disposition of the people, to whom a poet writes, may be so different, that what pleased the Greeks would not satisfy an English audience.

And if they proceeded upon a foundation of truer reason to please the Athenians, than Shakespeare and Fletcher to please the English, it only shews, that the Athenians were a more judicious people; but the poet's business is certainly to please the audience.

Whether our English audience have been pleased hitherto with acorns, as he calls it, or with bread, is the next question; that is, whether the means which Shakespeare and Fletcher have used in their plays to raise those passions before named, be better applied to the ends by the Greek poets than by them. And perhaps we shall not grant him this wholly: let it be yielded, that a writer is not to run down with the stream, or to please the people by their own usual methods, but rather to reform their judgments,--it still remains to prove, that our theatre needs this total reformation.

The faults which he has found in their designs, are rather wittily aggravated in many places, than reasonably urged; and as much may be returned on the Greeks by one who were as witty as himself.

2. They destroy not, if they are granted, the foundation of the fabric, only take away from the beauty of the symmetry: for example, the faults in the character of the "King and no King"[157] are not as he makes them, such as render him detestable, but only imperfections which accompany human nature, and are for the most part excused by the violence of his love; so that they destroy not our pity or concernment for him. This answer may be applied to most of his objections of that kind.

And Rollo[158] committing many murders, when he is answerable but for one, is too severely arraigned by him, for it adds to our horror and detestation of the criminal; and poetic justice is not neglected neither, for we stab him in our minds for every offence which he commits; and the point which the poet is to gain on the audience is not so much in the death of an offender, as the raising an horror of his crimes.

That the criminal should neither be wholly guilty, nor wholly innocent, but so participating of both as to move both pity and terror, is certainly a good rule, but not perpetually to be observed; for that were to make all tragedies too much alike; which objection he foresaw, but has not fully answered.

To conclude, therefore; if the plays of the ancients are more correctly plotted, ours are more beautifully written. And if we can raise passions as high on worse foundations, it shews our genius in tragedy is greater; for, in all other parts of it, the English have manifestly excelled them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 154: Rymer sets out with the old dogma, that no source of tragedy was legitimate, except that springing from pity or terror.]

[Footnote 155: "After much new-modelling, many changes, and alterations, Æschylus came with a second actor on the stage, and lessened the business of the chorus proportionably. But Sophocles adding a third actor and painted scenes, gave, in Aristotle's opinion, the utmost perfection to tragedy." RYMER'S _Remarks_, p. 13.]

[Footnote 156: Alluding to the following remarks of Rymer transferring the pleasing effect of the plays, which he censures, to the lively representation. "Amongst those who will be objecting against the doctrine I lay down, may peradventure appear a sort of men who have remembered so and so; and value themselves upon their experience. I may write by the book (say they) what I have a mind, but they know what will please. Those are a kind of stage-quacks and empirics in poetry, who have got a receipt to please; and no collegiate like them for purging the passions.

"These say (for instance) a "King and no King" pleases. I say the comical part pleases.

"I say that Mr Hart pleases; most of the business falls to his share, and what he delivers, every one takes upon content; their eyes are prepossessed and charmed by his action, before aught of the poet's can approach their ears; and to the most wretched of characters, he gives a lustre and brilliance, which dazzles the sight, that the deformities in the poetry cannot be perceived."--_Remarks_, p. 5.

He has a similar observation in page 138:--"We may remember, however we find this scene of Melantius and Amintor written in the book, that at the theatre we have a good scene acted. There is work cut out, and both our Æsopus and Roscius are on the stage together: whatever defect may be in Amintor and Melantius, Mr Hart and Mr Mohun are wanting in nothing. To these we owe for what is pleasing in the scene; and to this scene we may impute the success of the "Maid's Tragedy."]

[Footnote 157: After laying it down as a necessary rule, that a king in tragedy is, _ex jure_, a hero, Rymer proceeds to arraign the character of Arbaces, for his vain glory, presumption, incestuous passion for his sister, and extravagance of language. He sums his character up in the words of the Irish inscription:

For fierceness and for furiousness,
Men call me the queen's mortar-piece.
]

[Footnote 158: "When Rollo has murdered his brother, he stands condemned by the laws of poetry; and nothing remains but that the poet see him executed, and the poet is to answer for all the mischief committed afterwards. But Rollo we find has made his escape, and woe be to the chancellor, to the school-master, and to the chancellor's man; for those are to be men of this world no longer. Here is like to be poetical justice, so many lives taken away, and but the life of one guilty person to answer for all; and is not this a strange method of killing? If the planets had contrived him for a cock of thirteen, his first victory should not have been the most important; he should first have practised on his subjects, and have risen by degrees to the height of iniquity. His brother sovereign was his top-murder; nothing remained after that, unless it were his lady-mother."]