ANALYSIS.

Dramatic poetry.
1. Tragedy.

rule observed; and by whom is it not? these unities, yet what must we reHow does this appear? What is the member; and why? In particular, second rule; and why? This is mana- what must we remember? How is this ging the personæ dramatis in what illustrated; and what instances of an manner? Whereas, what does the per- adherence to this rule are mentioned? fection of dramatic writing require? When will the impression in general, All that has hitherto been said, relates be the more perfect? How is this reto what; and in order to render it mark fully illustrated? more complete, what have critics added? Of the strict observance of these, what is observed? What do they respectively require? What is the intention of both these rules? What must we observe? From what does this appear; and hence, for what was there no room left? What has been the effect of suspending the spectacle totally for some little time between the acts? While the acting of the play is interrupted, what can the spectator do; and therefore, what follows? On the ancient stage, what do we plainly see? As the scene could not be shifted, what was the consequence? To what did this lead? From what did the like improbabilities arise; and why? Though modern poets need not strictly to observe

A. The strain and spirit favourable to
virtue.

B. Aristotle's account of it.
c. The subject.
D. The origin.
E. The chorus.
F. Unity.

a. Unity of action.

(a.) Unity and simplicity contrasted.

(b.) Directions for the conduct of
the acts.

(c.) The close considered.
(d.) Why tragic representations af-
fords gratification.

(e.) Directions for the scenes of the

acts.

b. Unity of time and place.

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 befall 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 cha'racters, such as in fact we meet with in the world, afford the most proper field for displaying, without any bad effect on morals, the vicissitudes of life; and they interest us the more deeply, as they display the emotions and passions of which we have all been conscious. 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 vices of others, but through mere fatality and blind chance, is involved in the greatest of all human 'miseri s. 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 awa

kens 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 Edipuses 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; showing 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, insnared 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 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 ancient theatre, it was in a manner wholly unknown. In few of 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. And 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 Mérope 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. 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 trifling 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 Iphigénie 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 be perfectly suited to the characters of those persons to whom they are attributed, and to the situations in which they are placed. The necessity of observing 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 the region of passion. We come to it expecting to be moved; and let the poet be ever so judicious in his conduct, moral in his intentions, and elegant in his style, yet if he fails in the pathetic, he has no tragic merit; we return cold and disappointed from the performance; and never desire to meet with it more.

To paint passion so truly and justly as to strike the hearts of the hearers with full sympathy, is a prerogative of genius given to few. It requires strong and ardent sensibility of mind. It requires the author to have the power of entering deeply into the characters which he draws; of becoming for a moment the very person whom he exhibits, and of assuming all his feelings. For, as I have often had occasion to observe, there is no possibility of speaking properly the language of any passion, without feeling it; and it is to the absence or deadness of real emotion, that we must ascribe the want of success in so many tragic writers, when they attempt being pathetic.

No man, for instance, when he is under the strong agitations of anger, or grief, or any such violent passion, ever thinks of describing to another what his feelings at that time are; or of telling them what he resembles. This never was, and never will be, the language of any person, when he is deeply moved. It is the language of one who describes coolly the condition of that person to another; or it is the language of the passionate person himself, after his emotion has subsided, relating what his situation was in the moments of passion. Yet this sort of secondary description, is what tragic poets too often give us, instead of the native and primary language of passion. Thus, in Mr. Addison's Cato, when Lucia confesses to Portius her love for him, but at the same time, swears with the greatest solemnity, that in the present situation of their country she will never marry him; Portius receives this unexpected sentence with the utmost astonishment and grief; at least the poet wants to make us believe that he so received it. How does he express these feelings?

Fix'd in astonishment, I gaze upon thee,
Like one just blasted by a stroke from heav'n,
Who pants for breath, and stiffens yet alive
In dreadful looks; a monument of wrath.

This makes his whole reply to Lucia. Now did any person, who was of a sudden astonished and overwhelmed with sorrow, ever since the creation of the world, express himself in this manner? This is indeed an excellent description to be given us by another, of a person who was in such a situation. Nothing would have been more proper for a bystander, recounting this conference, than to have said,

Fix'd in astonishment, he gaz'd upon her

Like one just blasted by a stroke from heav'n,
Who pants for breath, &c.

But the person, who is himself concerned, speaks on such an occasion in a very different manner. He gives vent to his feelings; he pleads for pity; he dwells upon the cause of his grief and astonishment; but never thinks of describing his own person and looks, and showing us, by a simile, what he resembles. Such representations of passions are no better in poetry than it would be in painting, to make a label issue from the mouth of a figure, bidding us remark, that this figure represents an astonished or a grieved person.

On some other occasions, when poets do not employ this sort of descriptive language in passion, they are too apt to run into forced and unnatural thoughts, in order to exaggerate the feelings of persons, whom they would paint as very strongly moved. When Osmyn, in the Mourning Bride, after parting with Almeria, regrets, in a long soliloquy, that his eyes only see objects that are present, and cannot see Almeria after she is gone; when Jane Shore, in Mr. Rowe's tragedy, on meeting with her husband in her extreme distress, and finding that he had forgiven her, calls on the rains to give her their drops, and the springs to give her their streams, that she may never want a supply of tears; in such passages, we see very plainly, that it is neither Osmyn, nor Jane Shore, that speak; but the poet himself in his own person, who, instead of assuming the feelings of those whom he means to exhibit, and speaking as they would have done in such situations, is straining his fancy, and spurring up his genius, to say something that shall be uncommonly strong and lively.

If we attend to the language that is spoken by persons under the influence of real passion, we shall find it always plain and simple; abounding indeed with those figures which express a disturbed and impetuous state of mind, such as interrogations, exclamations, and apostrophes; but never employing those which belong to the mere embellishment and parade of speech. We never meet with any subtilty or refinement, in the sentiments of real passion. The thoughts which passion suggests, are always plain and obvious ones, arising directly from its object. Passion never reasons, nor speculates, till its ardour begins to cool. It never leads to long discourse or declamation. On the contrary, it expresses itself most commonly in short, broken, and interrupted speeches; corresponding to the violent and desultory emotions of the mind.

When we examine the French tragedians by these principles,