tice, compared with the general dictates of

common sense.

For I perfectly agree with this judicious critic, that we have a right to inquire if, in what concerns the stage, we are not sometimes governed by established customs instead of rules; for Rules they will not deserve to be esteemed, till they have undergone the rigid scrutiny of

reason m.

In respect of the Practice, then, it must be owned, there are many stories in private life capable of being worked up in such a manner as to move the passions strongly; and, on the contrary, many subjects taken from the great world capable of diverting the spectator by a pleasant picture of the manners. And lastly, it is also true, that both these ends may be affected together, in some degree, in either piece. But here is the point of enquiry. Whether if the end in view be to affect, this will not be accomplished BETTER by taking a

m "" Que nous sommes en droit d'examiner si, en fait "de Theatre, nous n'aurions pas quelquefois des habitudes au lieu de regles, car les regles ne peuvent l'être qu' après avoir subi les rigueurs du tribunal de la raison."

p. 37.

subject from the public than private fortunes of men: Or, if the End be to please by the truth of character, whether we are not likely to perceive this pleasure more FULLY when the story is of private, rather than of public life? For, as Aristotle said finely on a like occasion, we are not to look for every sort of pleasure from tragedy [or comedy] but that which is peculiarly proper to each1. "Human life, this writer says, 66 can be considered but as "high or low;" and "a representation of it "can please only as it attaches, or affects." I ask then, to which sort of life shall the dramatic poet confine himself, when he would endeavour to raise these affections or these attachments to the highest pitch. The answer is plain. For if the poet would excite the tender passions, they will rise higher of necessity, when awakened by noble subjects, than if called forth by such as are of ordinary and familiar notice. This is occasioned by what one may call a TRANSITION OF THE PASSIONS: that affection of the mind which is produced by the impression of great objects, being more easily convertible into the stronger degrees of pity and commiseration, than such as arises from a

· Οὐ πᾶσαν δεῖ ζηλεῖν ἡδονὴν ἀπὸ τραγῳδίας, ἀλλὰ τὴν οἰκείαν, Ποιητ. κ. ιδ'.

view of the concerns of common life. The more important the interest, the greater part our minds take in it, and the more susceptible are we of passion.

On the other hand, when the intended pleasure is to result from strong pictures of human nature, this will be felt more entirely, and with more sincerity, when we are at leisure to attend to them in the representation of inferior persons, than when the rank of the speaker, or dignity of the subject, is constantly drawing some part of our observation to itself. In a word, though mixed dramas may give us pleasure, yet the pleasure, in either kind, will be LESS in proportion to the mixture. And the end of each will be then attained MOST PERFECTLY when its character, according to the ancient practice, is observed.

To consider then the writer's favourite position, that le pitoyable and le tendre are ❝ common both to tragedy and comedy." The position, in general, is true. The difficulty is in fixing the degree, with which it ought to prevail in each. If passion predominates in a picture of private life, I call it a tragedy of private story, because it produces the end which tragedy designs. If humour predominates in a

draught of public life, I call it a comedy of public story, because it gives the pleasure of pure comedy. Let these then be two new species of the drama, if you please, and let new names be invented for them. Yet, were I a poet, I should certainly adhere to the old practice. That is, if I wanted to produce passion, I should think myself able to raise it highest on a great subject. And if I aimed to attach by humour, I should depend on catching the whole attention of the spectator more successfully on a familiar subject.

But by a familiar subject, this critic will say, he means, as I do, a subject taken from ordinary life; and that the affairs of kings and princes may very properly come into comedy under this view. Besides the reason already produced against this innovation, I have this further exception to it. The business of comedy, he will allow, is in part at least to exhibit the manners. Now the princely or heroic comedy is singularly improper for this end. If persons of so distinguished a rank be the actors in comedy, propriety demands that they be shewn in conformity to their characters in real life. But now that very politeness, which reigns in the courts of princes and the houses of the great, prevents the manners from

shewing themselves, at least with that distinctness and relief which we look for in dramatic characters. Inferior personages, acting with less reserve and caution, afford the fittest occasion to the poet of expressing their genuine tempers and dispositions. Or, if a picture of the manners be expected from the introduction of great persons, it can be only in tragedy, where the importance of the interests and the strong play of the passions strip them of their borrowed disguises, and lay open their true characters. So that the princely, or heroic, comedy is the least fitted, of any kind of drama, to furnish this pleasure.

The ancients appear to have had no doubt at all on the matter. The tragedy on low life, and comedy on high life, were refinements altogether unknown to them. What then hath occasioned this revolution of taste amongst us? Principally, I conceive, these three things.

1. The comedy on high life hath arisen. from a different state of government. In the free towns of Greece there was no room for that distinction of high and low comedy, which the moderns have introduced. And the reason was, the members of those communities were so nearly on a level, that any one was a repre