earried to a most blamable excess; and that, independent of their passion for verbal quibbles, there is an irregularity, and a capricious uncertainty in the taste and judgment of these good old writers, which excites at once our amusement and our compassion. If it be true that no other man has ever written so finely as Shakspeare has done in his happier passages, it is no less true that there is not a scribbler now alive who could possibly write worse than he has sometimes written,-who could, on occasion, devise more contemptible ideas, or misplace them so abominably, by the side of such incomparable excellence."-Review of Ford.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE THREE UNITIES.

611. MAN acts with deliberation, will, and choice: he aims at some end-glory, for example, or riches, or conquest, the procuring nappiness to individuals, or to his country in general: he proposes means, and lays plans to attain the end purposed. Here are a num ber of facts or incidents leading to the end in view, the whole composing one chain by the relation of cause and effect. In running over a series of such facts or incidents, we cannot rest upon any one; because they are presented to us as means only, leading to some end; but we rest with satisfaction upon the end or ultimate event; because there the purpose or aim of the chief person or persons is accomplished. This indicates the beginning, the middle, and the end, of what Aristotle calls an entire action. (Poet. cap. vi. See also tap. vii.) The story naturally begins with describing those circumstances which move the principal person to form a plan, in order to compass some desired event: the prosecution of that plan and the. obstructions, carry the reader into the heat of action: the middle is properly where the action is the most involved; and the end is where the event is brought about, and the plan accomplished.

A plan thus happily accomplished after many obstructions, affords wonderful delight to the reader; to produce which, a principle mentioned above (chap. viii.) mainly contributes, the same that disposes the mind to complete every work commenced, and in general to carry every thing to a conclusion.

I have given the foregoing example of a plan crowned with success, because it affords the clearest conception of a beginning, a mid

610. Rules for the dialogue. Shakspeare. Dryden. Congreve.-Rhyme.--Intermixture of blank verse and prose.-Lord Jeffrey's comparison of the modern and the old English drania.

on

dle, and an end, in which consists unity of action; and indeed stricter unity cannot be imagined than in that case. But an action may have unity, or a beginning, middle, and end, without so intimate a relation of parts; as where the catastrophe is different from what is intended or desired, which frequently happens in our best tragedies. In the AEneid, the hero, after many obstructions, makes his plan ef fectual. The Iliad is formed upon a different model: it begins with the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon; goes on to describe the several effects produced by that cause; and ends in a reconciliation. Here is unity of action, no doubt, a beginning, a middle, and an end; but inferior to that of the Eneid, which will thus appear. The mind hath a propensity to go forward in the chain of history: it keeps always in view the expected event; and when the incidents or under parts are connected by their relation to the event, the mind runs sweetly and easily along them. This pleasure we have in the Eneid. It is not altogether so pleasant, as in the Iliad, to connect effects by their common cause; for such connection forces the mind to a continual retrospect: looking back is like walking backward.

Homer's plan is still more defective, upon another account, That the events described are but imperfectly connected with the wrath of Achilles, their cause: his wrath did not exert itself in action; and the misfortunes of his countrymen were but negatively the effects of his wrath, by depriving them of his assistance.

612. If unity of action be a capital beauty in a fable imitative of human affairs, a plurality of unconnected fables must be a capital deformity. For the sake of variety, we indulge an under-plot that is connected with the principal: but too unconnected events are extremely unpleasant, even where the same actors are engaged in both. Ariosto is quite licentious in that particular: he carries on at the same time a plurality of unconnected stories. His only excuse is, that his plan is perfectly well adjusted to his subject; for every thing in the Orlando Furioso is wild and extravagant.

Though to state facts in the order of time is natural, yet that order may be varied for the sake of conspicuous beauties. (See chapter i.) If, for example, a noted story, cold and simple in its first movements, be made the subject of an epic poem, the reader may be hurried into the heat of action, reserving the preliminaries for a conversationpiece, if thought necessary; and that method, at the same time, hath a peculiar beauty from being dramatic. (See chapter xxi.) But a privilege that deviates from nature ought to be sparingly indulged; and yet romance-writers make no difficulty of presenting to the reader, without the least preparation, unknown persons engaged in some arduous adventure equally unknown. In Cassandra, two personages, who afterwards are discovered to be heroes of the

611. Remarks on human action. The beginning, middle, and end of a story.-A plas crowned with success, agreeable-An action may have unity, though the catastrophe dis fer from what is intended. The Æneid. The Iliad.

fable, start up completely armed upon the banks of the Euphrates, and engage in a single combat.*

A play analyzed, is a chain of connected facts, of which each scene makes a link. Each scene, accordingly, ought to produce some incident relative to the catastrophe or ultimate event, by advancing or retarding it. A scene that produceth no incident, and for that reason may be termed barren, ought not to be indulged, because it breaks the unity of action; a barren scene can never be entitled to a place, because the chain is complete without it.

Upon the whole, it appears that all the facts in an historical fable ought to have a mutual connection, by their common relation to the grand event or catastrophe. And this relation, in which the unity of action consists, is equally essential to epic and dramatic compositions.

613. How far the unities of time and of place are essential, is a question of greater intricacy. These unities were strictly observed in the Greek and Roman theatres; and they are inculcated by the French and English critics as essential to every dramatic composition. They are also acknowledged by our best poets, though in practice they make frequent deviation, which they pretend not to justify, against the practice of the Greeks and Romans, and against the solemn decision of their own countrymen. But in the course of this inquiry it will be made evident that in this article we are under no necessity to copy the ancients; and that our critics are guilty of a mistake in admitting no greater latitude of place and time than was admitted in Greece and Rome.t

All authors agree that tragedy in Greece was derived from the hymns in praise of Bacchus, which were sung in parts by a chorus. Thespis, to relieve the singers, and for the sake of variety, introduced one actor, whose province it was to explain historically the subject of the song, and who occasionally represented one or other personage. Eschylus, introducing a second actor, formed the dialogue,

*I am sensible that a commencement of this sort is much relished by readers disposed to the marvellous. Their curiosity is raised, and they are much tickled in its gratification. But curiosity is at an end with the first reading, because the personages are no longer unknown; and therefore at the second reading, a commencement so artificial loses its power, even over the vulgar. A writer of genius prefers lasting beauties.

[By unity of action is meant that all the incidents of the poet shall point to one great catastrophe. By the unities of time and place is understood that the actual performance of the action may pass nearly during the time, and within the place of the representation. Without unity of action it is impossible to excite and agitate the passions; and without the unities of time and place it is impossible to preserve probability, and to persuade the spectators that the action is not imaginary. But with all these unities properly combined, the illusion will be complete, and the passions will be as effectually roused by the feigned events as if they were real. Barron, Lect. 55.]

612. Capital deformity in a fable.-Order in which facts may be stated.--.A play analyzed. Rule for each stone. Unity of action defined.

by which the performance became dramatic; and the actors were multiplied when the subject represented made it necessary. But still the chorus, which gave a beginning to tragedy, was considered as an essential part. The first scene generally unfolds the preliminary circumstances that lead to the grand event; and this scene is by Aristotle termed the prologue. In the second scene, where the action properly begins, the chorus is introduced, which, as originally, continues upon the stage during the whole performance: the chorus frequently makes one in the dialogue; and when the dialogue happens to be suspended, the chorus, during the interval, is employed in singing. Sophocles adheres to this plan religiously, Euripides is not altogether so correct. In some of his pieces it becomes necessary to remove the chorus for a little time. But when that unusual step is risked, matters are so ordered as not to interrupt the representation: the chorus never leave the stage of their own accord, but at the command of some principal personage, who constantly waits their return.

Thus the Grecian drama is a continued representation without interruption; a circumstance that merits attention. A continued representation with a pause, affords not opportunity to vary the place of action, nor to prolong the time of the action beyond that of the representation. A real or feigned action that is brought to a conclusion after considerable intervals of time and frequent changes of place, cannot accurately be copied in a representation that admits no latitude in either. Hence it is that the unities of place and of time were, or ought to have been, strictly observed in the Greek tragedies; which is made necessary by the very constitution of their drama, for it is absurd to compose a tragedy that cannot be justly represented.

614. Modern critics, who for our drama pretend to establish rules founded on the practice of the Greeks, are guilty of an egregious blunder. The unities of place and of time were in Greece, as we see, a matter of necessity, not of choice; and I am now ready to show that if we submit to such fetters, it must be from choice, not necessity. This will be evident upon taking a view of the constitution of our drama, which differs widely from that of Greece whether more or less perfect, is a different point, to be handled afterwards. By dropping the chorus, opportunity is afforded to divide the representation by intervals of time, during which the stage is evacuated and the spectacle suspended. This qualifies our drama for subjects spread through a wide space both of time and of place: the time supposed to pass during the suspension of the representa

;

*[For an interesting history of the medieval and modern drama, see Shaw's English Literature, pp. 97-110.]

613. The unities of time and place; are they essential?-Grecian tragedy described. In forence.

tion is not measured by the time of the suspension: and any place may be supposed when the representation is renewed, with as much facility as when it commenced: by which means many subjects can be justly represented in our theatres that were excluded from those of ancient Greece. This doctrine may be illustrated by comparing a modern play to a set of historical pictures: let us suppose them five in number, and the resemblance will be complete. Each of the pictures resembles an act in one of our plays: there must necessarily be the strictest unity of place and of time in each picture; and the same necessity requires these two unities during each act of a play, because during an act there is no interruption in the spectacle. Now, when we view in succession a number of such historical pictures, let it be, for example, the history of Alexander by Le Brun, we have no difficulty to conceive that months or years have passed between the events exhibited in two different pictures, though the interruption is imperceptible in passing our eye from the one to the other; and we have as little difficulty to conceive a change of place, however great. In which view there is truly no difference between five acts of a modern play, and five such pictures. Where the representation is suspended, we can with the greatest facility suppose any length of time or any change of place: the spectator, it is true, may be conscious that the real time and place are not the same with what are employed in the representation; but this is a work of reflection; and by the same reflection he may also be conscious that Garrick is not King Lear, that the play-house is not Dover Cliffs, nor the noise he hears thunder and lightning. In a word, after an interruption of the representation, it is no more difficult for a spectator to imagine a new place, or a different time, than at the commencement of the play to imagine himself at Rome, or in a period of time two thousand years back. And indeed, it is abundantly ridiculous that a critic, who is willing to hold candlelight for sunshine, and some painted canvasses for a palace or a prison, should be so scrupulous about admitting any latitude of place or of time in the fable, beyond what is necessary in the represen

tation.

615. There are, I acknowledge, some effects of great latitude in time that ought never to be indulged in a composition for the theatre: nothing can be more absurd than at the close to exhibit a full-grown person who appears a child at the beginning: the mind rejects, as contrary to all probability, such latitude of time as is requisite for a change so remarkable. The greatest change from place to place hath not altogether the same bad effect. In the bulk of human affairs place is not material; and the mind, when occupied with an interesting event, is little regardful of minute circumstances; these may be varied at will, because they scarce make any impression.

614. Blunder of modern critics.-How the English drama differs from the Grecian. Inference. A modern play compared to a set of historical pictures.