Cause or Beginning; the Effect of that Caufe, which is naturally the Middle; and the unravelling or finishing it, which is the End produc'd by the Middle, as that by the Beginning.

I have been the larger upon this Head, because so much Beauty depends upon it, and it is a Doctrine not fo common, but that it needs a thorow Explication.

The Subject of the Drama fhould be of a just Extent, neither too narrow, nor too large; but that it may be seen, view'd, and confider'd at once, without confounding the Mind, which if too little and narrow, it will do, or make it wander, or distract it; as it will do, if it be too large and extenfive. That is, the Piece ought to take up juft fo much time, as is necessary or probable for the introducing the Incidents, with their just Preparation. For to make a good Tragedy, that is, a just Imitation, the Action imitated ought not in reality to be longer than the Reprefentation; for by that means it has the more Likeness, and by confequence is the more perfect: but as there are Actions of ten or twelve Hours, and their Representations cannot poffibly be fo long; then muft we bring in fome of the Incidents in the Intervals of the Acts, the better to deceive the Audience, who cannot be impos'd on with fuch tedious and long Actions, as we have generally on the Stage; as whole Lives, and many Actions of the fame Man, where the Probable is loft as well as the Necessary and in this our Shakespear is every where faulty, thro the ignorant Mode of the Age in which he liv'd; and which I inftance not as a Reproach to his Memory, but only to warn the Reader, or young Poet to avoid the fame Error.

Having fhewn what an Action is, we now come more closely to the Subject; and firft to the Unity of the Action, which can never be broken without deftroying the Poem. This Unity is not preferv'd by the Representation of feveral Actions of one Man; as of Julius Cefar, or Anthony and Brutus. Thus in the Cafar of Shakespear, there is not only the Action of Cafar's Death, where the Play ought to have ended, but many other fubfequent Actions of Anthony and Brutus, even to the Overthrow and Death of Brutus and Caffius; and the Poet might as well

have carry'd it down to the fettling of the Empire in Augustus, or indeed to the Fall of the Roman Empire in Auguftulus. For there was no more reafon for the ending it where he does, than at the Establishment of Auguftus. Natural Reason indeed show'd to Shakespear the Abfurdity of making the Representation longer than the Time, and the Place more extenfive than the Place of acting; as is plain from his Chorus's in his Hiftorical Plays, in which he apologizes for the Abfurdity: as in the beginning of the fourth Act of the Winter's Tale, among other things, Time, the Chorus fays;

Your Patience this allowing,

I turn my Glafs, and give my Scene fuch growing,

As

you had flept between, &c.

And the second Act of Henry V. begins another Chorus, excufing the Variation of the Place :

Thus with imagin'd Wings our firft Scene flies

In Motion of no less Celerity

Than that of Thought. Suppofe that you have feen

The well-appointed King at Dover-Peer, &c.

And fo goes on to defcribe all his Paffage, &c. introducing a Narration to fupply the Gap of the Action, or rather, of the Actions.

But the Chorus of the fifth Act is plainer on this Head:

Vouchsafe to those, that have not read the Story,
That I may prompt them; and of fuch as have,

I humbly pray them to admit th' Excuse

Of TIME, of Numbers, and true Course of things,
Which cannot in their huge, and proper Life

Be here prefented, &c.

In Pericles Prince of Tyre, the Chorus's excufe the rambling from place to place, and the like: But 'tis pity that his Discovery of the Abfurdity did not bring him to avoid it, rather than make. an Apology for it. But this is not the only Fault of the way of writing in his time, which he did not correct; for in the Chorus of the third Act of Henry V. he concludes in this manner :

And fo our Scene muft to the Battel fly;
Where, O! for pity, we fhall much disgrace
With four or five moft vile and ragged Foils
(Right ill-difpos'd, in Brawl ridiculous)
The Name of Agincourt: Yet fit and see,
Minding true things by what their Mock'ries be.

Hence it is plain, that Shakespear's good Senfe perceiv'd the ridiculous Abfurdity of our fighting Senfes, our Drum and Trumpeting Scenes; but he chose to go on in the way that he found beaten to his hands, because he unhappily knew no better road.

But to return from this fhort Digreffion.------This Unity of Action does not exclude the Episodes or various Under-Actions, which are dependent on, and contribute to the chief, and which without it are nothing. Thus a Painter represents in a Battel-Piece the Actions of every Particular that makes up the Army; but all these compose that main Action of the Battel. But this does not excufe the faulty Episodes or Under-plots (as they call them) of our English Plays, which are distinct Actions, and contribute nothing at all to the principal. Of this kind is Creon and Euridice, and Adraftus in our lamentable Oedipus. But indeed we have few Plays free from this Abfurdity; of which the Orphan is one, where the Action is one, and every Episode, Part, or Under-Action, carries on and contributes to the main Action or Subject.

Thus the different Actions of different Men are not more diftinctly different Actions, than thofe of one Man at different times. And we might as well make a Unity of all the Actions in the World, as of thofe of one Man. No Action of the fame Man can be brought into a Tragedy, but that which neceffarily or probably,

relates

relates to that Action, which the Tragedy imitates. The Wound of Ulyffes, which he receiv'd in Parnaffus, was necessary to his Difcovery; but his Madness to avoid the War, was not and therefore Homer takes notice of the former, but not of the latter. For as in all other Imitations, fo in Tragedy, the thing imitated must be but One. This Action, with its Episodes or Under-Actions, ought to be fo link'd together, that to take any part away, or to endeavour to transpose them, destroys the whole: for these Epifodes or Under-Actions ought either neceffarily or probably to be produc'd by the main Action, as the Death of Patroclus by the Anger of Achilles. For whatever can be put in or left out, without caufing a fenfible Change, can never be part of the Action. This is a fure Rule to diftinguish the true Episodes from the false: And this Rule will indeed condemn moft of our English Tragedies, in fome of which, the very principal Character may be left out, and the Play never the worse. But more of that hereafter.

From what has been faid of the Actions, main, and Epifodic, it is plain that the Poet is not oblig'd to relate things juft as they happen, but as they might, or ought to have happen'd: that is, the Action ought to be general and allegorical, not particular; for particular Actions can have no general Influence. Thus Homer, in the Action of Achilles, intends not the Description of that one individual Man, but to fhow what Violence and Anger would make all Men of that Character fay or do: As therefore Achilles is a general and allegorical Perfon, fo ought all Heroes of Tragedy to be; where they fhould fpeak and act neceffarily or probably, as all Men fo qualify'd, and in those Circumstances would do: differing from Hiftory in this, that the Drama confults not the Truth of what any particular Perfon did fay or do, but only the general Nature of fuch Qualities to produce fuch Words and Actions. 'Tis true that Tragedy employs true Names, but that is to give a Credibility to the Action; the Perfons still remaining general and allegoric. I would therefore recommend to the Poet the intire Invention of his own Fable; there being very few Actions in Hiftory, that are capable of being made general and allegoric, which is the Beauty and Effential of

both

both an Epic and Dramatic Action: not but the Poet may take Incidents from History and Matter of Fact; but then they must have that Probability, and Verifimilitude that Art requires.

But all these Properties of the Action, which we have given, are not fufficient; for the Action that is to be imitated in Tragedy, must also be fuch as excites Terrour and Compaffion, and not Admiration, which is a Paffion too weak to have the Effect of Tragedy. Terrour and Pity are rais'd by Surprize, when Events are produc'd out of Caufes contrary to our Expectation; that is, when the Incidents produce each other, not merely follow after each other: for if it do not neceffarily follow, 'tis no Incident for Tragedy. The Surprize must be the Effect of Defign, not Chance, of precedent Incidents; allowing ftill, that there are Accidents that are by Chance, which yet feem done by Design, as the Fall of the Statue of Mitys on his Murderer, which kill'd him, for that Accident looks like the Work of Providence. Thofe Fables, where this is obferv'd, will always appear the fineft. Thus Oedipus is the best Subject for Tragedy that ever was; for all that happen'd to him is the Effect of Fortune: yet every body may fee, that all the Accidents have their Caufes, and fall out according to the Design of a particular Providence.

As the Actions imitated by Tragedy, fo are all its Fables Simple, or Implex. The Simple is that, in which there is neither Change of the Condition or State of the principal Perfon or Perfons, which is call'd the Peripetie, or Discovery; and the unravelling the Plot is only a fingle Passage of Agitation, or Trouble, or Repofe and Tranquillity; as in the Medea and Hecuba of Euripides, and the Philoctetes, and Ajax of Sophocles: the fame is the Fable of the Ilias, and that of the Aneis. The Implex Fable is that, which has a Peripetie, or a Discovery, or both; which is the most beautiful, and the leaft common. In the Antigone of Sophocles, there is the Change of the State and Fortune of Creon, and that produc'd by the Effect of his own barbarous Decree and Obftinacy. But in his Oedipus and Electra, there is both a Peripetie and Discovery; the firft to Mifery, the latter to Revenge, and Happiness. Oedipus, with his Change of Fortune, discovers, VOL. VII.

e

that