of one act, shews great incorrectness, and destroys the whole intention of the division of a play into acts. Mr. Addison's Cato, is remarkable beyond most English tragedies, for regularity of conduct. The author has limited himself, in time, to a single day; and in place, has maintained the most rigorous unity. The scene is never changed; and the whole action passes in the hall of Cato's house, at Utica.

In general, the nearer that a poet can bring the dramatic representation, in all its circumstances, to an imitation of nature and real life, the impression which he makes on us will always be the more perfect. Probability, as I observed at the beginning of the Lecture, is highly essential to the conduct of the tragic action, and we are always hurt by the want of it. It is this that makes the observance of the dramatic unities to be of consequence, as far as they can be observed without sacrificing more material beauties. It is not, as has been sometimes said, that, by the preservation of the unities of time and place, spectators, when they assist at the theatre, are deceived into a belief of the reality of the objects which are there set before them; and that, when those unities are violated, the charm is broken, and they discover the whole to be a fiction. No such deception as this can ever be accomplished. No one ever imagines himself to be at Athens, or Rome, when a Greek or Roman subject is presented on the stage. He knows the whole to be an imitation only; but he requires that imitation to be conducted with skill and verisimilitude. His pleasure, the entertainment which he expects, the interest which he is to take in the story, all depend on its being so conducted. His imagination, therefore, seeks to aid the imitation, and to rest on the probability; and the poet, who shocks him by improbable circumstances, and by awkward, unskilful imitation, deprives him of his pleasure, and leaves him hurt and displeased. This is the whole mystery of the theatrical illusion.

331

LECTURE XLVI.

TRAGEDY....GREEK, FRENCH, ENGLISH TRAGEDY.

HAVING treated of the dramatic action in tragedy, I proceed next to treat of the characters most proper to be exhibited. It has been thought, by several critics, that the nature of tragedy requires the principal personages to be always of illustrious character, and of high, or princely rank; whose misfortunes and sufferings, it is said, take faster hold of the imagination, and impress the heart more forcibly, than similar events happening to persons in private life. But this is more specious, than solid. It is refuted by facts. For the distresses of Desdemona, Monimia, and Belvidera, interest us as deeply as if they had been princesses or queens. The dignity of tragedy does, indeed, require, that there should be nothing degrading, or mean, in the circumstances of the persons which it exhibits; but it requires nothing more. Their high rank may render the spectacle more splendid, and the subject seemingly of more importance, but conduces very little to its being interesting or pathetic; which depends entirely on the nature of the tale, on the art of the poet in conducting it, and on the sentiments to which it gives occasion. In every rank of life, the relations of father, husband, son, brother, lover, or friend, lay the foundation of those affecting situations, which make man's heart feel for man.

The moral characters of the persons represented, are of much greater consequence than the external circumstances in which the poet places them. Nothing, indeed, in the conduct of tragedy, demands a poet's attention more, than so to describe his personages, and so to order the incidents which relate to them, as shall leave upon the spectators, impressions favourable to virtue, and to the administration of Providence. It is not

necessary, for this end, that poetical justice, as it is called, should be observed in the catastrophe of the piece. This has been long exploded from tragedy; the end of which is, to affect us with pity for the virtuous in distress, and to afford a probable representation of the state of human life, where calamities often befal the best, and a mixed portion of good and evil is appointed for all. But, withal, the author must beware of shocking our minds with such representations of life as tend to raise horror, or to render virtue an object of aversion. Though innocent persons suffer, their sufferings ought to be attended with such circumstances, as shall make virtue appear amiable and venerable; and shall render their condition, on the whole, preferable to that of bad men, who have prevailed against them. The stings and the remorse of guilt must ever be represented as productive of greater miseries, than any that the bad can bring upon the good.

Aristotle's observations on the characters proper for tragedy, are very judicious. He is of opinion, that perfect unmixed characters, either of good or ill men, are not the fittest to be introduced. The distresses of the one being wholly unmerited, hurt and shock us; and the sufferings of the other, occasion no pity. Mixed characters, such as in fact we meet with in the world, afford the most proper field for displaying, with out any bad effect on morals, the vicissitudes of life; and they interest us the more deeply, as they display emotions and passions which we have all been conscious of. When such persons fall into distress through the vices of others, the subject may be very pathetic; but it is always more instructive, when a person has been himself the cause of his misfortune, and when his misfortune is occasioned by the violence of passion, or by some weakness incident to human nature. Such subjects both dispose us to the deepest sympathy, and administer useful warnings to us for our own conduct.

Upon these principles, it surprises me that the story of Edipus should have been so much celebrated by all the critics, as one of the fittest subjects for tragedy; and so often brought upon the stage, not by Sophocles only, but by Corneille also, and Voltaire. An innocent person, one, in the main, of a virtuous character, through no crime of his own, nay, not by the

1

vices of others, but through mere fatality and blind chance, is involved in the greatest of all human miseries. In a casual rencounter, he kills his father, without knowing him; he afterwards is married to his own mother; and, discovering himself in the end to have committed both parricide and incest, he becomes frantic, and dies in the utmost misery. Such a subject excites horror rather than pity. As it is conducted by Sophocles, it is indeed extremely affecting; but it conveys no instruction; it awakens in the mind no tender sympathy; it leaves no impression favourable to virtue or humanity.

It must be acknowledged, that the subjects of the ancient Greek tragedies were too often founded on mere destiny, and inevitable misfortunes. They were too much mixed with their tales about oracles, and the vengeance of the gods, which led to many an incident sufficiently melancholy and tragical; but rather purely tragical than useful or moral. Hence both, the Edipus's of Sophocles, the Iphigenia in Aulis, the Hecuba of Euripides, and several of the like kind. In the course of the drama, many moral sentiments occurred. But the instruction, which the fable of the play conveyed, seldom was any more than that reverence was owing to the gods, and submission due to the decrees of destiny. Modern tragedy has aimed at a higher object, by becoming more the theatre of passion; pointing out to men the consequences of their misconduct; shewing the direful effects which ambition, jealousy, love, resentment, and other such strong emotions, when misguided, or left unrestrained, 'produce upon human life. An Othello, hurried by jealousy to murder his innocent wife; a Jaffier, ensnared by resentment and want, to engage in a conspiracy, and then stung with remorse, and involved in ruin ; a Siffredi, through the deceit which he employs for public spirited ends, bringing destruction on all whom he loved; a Calista, seduced into a criminal intrigue, which overwhelms herself, her father and all her friends in misery; these, and such as these, are the examples which tragedy now displays to the public view; and by means of which it inculcates on men the proper government of their passions.

Of all the passions which furnish matter to tragedy, that which has most occupied the modern stage, is love. To the

In few of

ancient theatre, it was in a manner wholly unknown. their tragedies is it ever mentioned; and I remember no more than one which turns upon it, the Hippolitus, of Euripides. This was owing to the national manners of the Greeks, and to that greater separation of the two sexes from one another, than has taken place in modern times; aided too, perhaps, by this circumstance, that no female actress ever appeared on the ancient stage. But though no reason appears for the total exclusion of love from the theatre, yet with what justice or propriety it has usurped so much place, as to be in a manner the sole hinge of modern tragedy, may be much questioned. Voltaire, who is no less eminent as a critic than as a poet, declares loudly and strongly against this predominancy of love, as both degrading the majesty, and confining the natural limits of tragedy. assuredly, the mixing of it perpetually with all the great and solemn revolutions of human fortune which belong to the tragic stage, tends to give tragedy too much the air of gallantry, and juvenile entertainment. The Athalie of Racine, the Merope of Voltaire, the Douglas of Mr. Home, are sufficient proofs, that without any assistance from love, the drama is capable of producing its highest effects upon the mind.

And

This seems to be clear, that wherever love is introduced into tragedy, it ought to reign in it, and to give rise to the principal action. It ought to be that sort of love which possesses all the force and majesty of passion; and which occasions great and important consequences. For nothing can have a worse effect or be more debasing to tragedy, than, together with the manly and heroic passions, to mingle a triffling love intrigue, as a sort of seasoning to the play. The bad effects of this are sufficiently conspicuous both in the Cato of Mr. Addison, as I had occasion before to remark, and in the Iphigenie of Racine.

After a tragic poet has arranged his subject, and chosen his personages, the next thing he must attend to, is the propriety of sentiments; that they may be perfectly suited to the charac ters of those persons to whom they are attributed, and to the situations in which they are placed. The necessity of observ. ing this general rule is so obvious, that I need not insist upon it. It is principally in the pathetic parts, that both the difficulty and the importance of it are the greatest, Tragedy is