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be in fome place; but the different actions that complete a story may be in places very remote from cach other; and where is the abfurdity of allowing that space to represent firft Athens, and then Sicily, which was always known to be neither Sicily nor Athens, but a modern 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 fame.. 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 reprefented, in the catastrophe, as happening in Pontus; we know that there is neither war, nor preparation for war; we know that we are neither in Rome nor Pontus; that neither Mithridates nor Lucullus are before us. The drama exhibits fuc-1 ceffive imitations of fucceffive actions, and why may not the fecond imitation reprefent an action that happened years after the firft; if it be fo connected with it, that nothing but time can be fuppofed to intervene. Time is, of all modes of exiftence, most obfequious to the imagination; a lapfe of years is as eafily 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, if it is not credited. It is credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is credited, whenever it moves, as a juft, [B4] picture

picture of a real original; as representing to the auditor what he would himfelf 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 ourfelves 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 consciousness of fiction; if we thought murders and treafons real, they would please no more.

Imitations produce pain or pleasure, 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 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 dramatick exhibition is a

book recited with concomitants that increase or diminish its effect. Familiar 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 gefture can hope to add dignity or force to the foliloquy of Cato?

A play

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 fpace or duration is to be taken by the auditor of a drama, than by the reader of a narrative, before whom may pass in an hour the life of a hero, or the revolutions of an empire.

Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by defign, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impoffible to decide, and useless to enquire. We may reasonably suppose, that, when he rofe to notice, he did not want the counfels and admonitions of fcholars and criticks, 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 false 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 observed: 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 positive, become the comprehenfive genius of Shakespeare, and fuch cenfures are fuitable to the minute and flender criticifm of Voltaire :

Non ufque adeo permifcuit imis

Longus fumma dies, ut non, fi voce Metelli
Serventur leges, malint a Cæfare tolli.

Yet

Yet when I speak thus flightly of dramatick rules, I cannot but recollect how much wit and learning may be produced against me; before fuch authorities I am afraid to ftand, not that I think the prefent queftion one of thofe that are to be decided by mere authority, but because it is to be fufpected, that these precepts have not been fo eafily received, but for better reasons than I have yet been able to find. The refult of my enquiries, in which it would be ludicrous to boast of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place are not effential to a juft drama, that though they may fometimes conduce to pleafure, 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.

2

He that, without diminution of any other excellence, shall 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 inftruct life.

Perhaps, what I have here not dogmatically but deliberately written, may recal the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almoft frighted at my own temerity; and when I eftimate the fame and the ftrength of thofe that maintain the contrary

opinion,

opinion, am ready to fink down in reverential filence; as Æneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he faw Neptune fhaking the wall, and Juno heading the befiegers.

Those whom my arguments cannot perfuade to give their approbation to the judgment of Shakespeare, will eafily, if they confider the condition of his life, make fome allowance for his ignorance.

Every man's performances, to be rightly estimated must be compared with the state of the age in which he lived, and with his own particular opportunities; and though to a reader a book be not worse or better for the circumstances of the author, yet as there is always a filent reference of human works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how far man may extend his defigns, or how high he may rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank we fhall place any particular performance, curiosity is always busy to discover the inftruments, as well as to furvey the workmanship, to know how much is to be afcribed to original powers, and how much to cafual and adventitious help. The palaces of Peru or Mexico were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if compared to the houses of European monarchs; yet who could forbear to view them with aftonishment, who remembered that they were built without the use of iron?

The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet ftruggling to emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been tranfplanted hither in the

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