trangers fell. He searched for death over the field; but who could kill the mighty Comal? Throwing away his shield, an arrow found his manly breast. He sleeps with his Galvina; their green tombs are seen by the mariner, when he bounds on the waves of the north. 609. Next, upon the peculiarities of a dramatic poem. And the first I shall mention is a double plot; one of which must resemble an episode in an epic poem; for it would distract the spectator instead of entertaining him, if he were forced to attend, at the same time, to two capital plots equally interesting. And even supposing it an under-plot like an episode, it seldom hath a good effect in tragedy, of which simplicity is a chief property; for an interesting subject that engages our affections, occupies our whole attention, and leaves no room for any separate concern. Variety is more tolerable in comedy, which pretends only to amuse, without totally occupying the mind. But even there, to make a double-plot agreeable, is no slight effort of art: the under-plot ought not to vary greatly in its tone from the principal; for discordant emotions are unpleasant when jumbled together; which, by the way, is an insuperable objection to tragi-comedy. Upon that account the Provoked Husband deserves censure: all the scenes that bring the family of the Wrongheads into action, being ludicrous and farcical, are in a very different tone from the principal scenes, displaying severe and bitter expostu lations between Lord Townley and his lady. The same objection touches not the double-plot of the Careless Husband; the different subjects being sweetly connected, and having only so much variety as to resemble shades of colors harmoniously mixed. But this is not all. The under-plot ought to be connected with that which is principal, so much at least as to employ the same persons: the under-plot ought to occupy the intervals or pauses of the principal action; and both ought to be concluded together. This is the case of the Merry Wives of Windsor. Violent action ought never to be represented on the stage. While the dialogue goes on, a thousand particulars concur to delude us into an impression of reality; genuine sentiments, passionate language, and persuasive gesture: the spectator once engaged, is willing to be deceived, loses sight of himself, and without scruple enjoys the spectacle as a reality. From this absent state he is roused by violent action: he awakes as from a pleasing dream, and, gathering his senses about him, finds all to be a fiction. Horace delivers the same rule, and founds it upon the same reason: Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet; The French critics join with Horace in excluding blood from the 608. Episode, how designated from the principal action. Example.-Effect of an episode: when to be indulged; conditions. stage; but, overlooking the most substantial objection, they urge only that it is barbarous and shocking to a polite audience. 610. A few words upon the dialogue; which ought to be so conducted as to be a true representation of nature. I talk not here of the sentiments, nor of the language; for these come under differ ent heads: I talk of what properly belongs to dialogue-writing; where every single speech, short or long, ought to arise from what is said by the former speaker, and furnish matter for what comes after, till the end of the scene. In this view, all the speeches, from first to last, represent so many links of one continued chain. No author, ancient or modern, possesses the art of dialogue equal to Shakspeare. Dryden, in that particular, may justly be placed as his opposite: he frequently introduces three or four persons speaking upon the same subject, each throwing out his own notions separately, without regarding what is said by the rest: take for an example the first scene of Aurenzebe. Sometimes he makes a number club in relating an event, not to a stranger, supposed ignorant of it, but to one another, for the sake merely of speaking: of which notable sort of dialogue, we have a specimen in the first scene of the first part of the Conquest of Granada. In the second part of the same tragedy, scene second, the King, Abenamar, and Zulema, make their separate observations, like so many soliloquies, upon the fluctuating temper of the mob. A dialogue so uncouth, puts one in mind of two shepherds in a pastoral, excited by a prize to pronounce verses alternately, each in praise of his own mistress. This manner of dialogue-writing, besides an unnatural air, has another bad effect: it stays the course of the action, because it is not productive of any consequence. In Congrevo's comedies, the action is often suspended to make way for a play of wit. No fault is more common among writers, than to prolong a speech after the impatience of the person to whom it is addressed ought to prompt him or her to break in. Consider only how the impatient actor is to behave in the mean time. To express his impatience in violent action without interrupting, would be unnatural; and yet to dissemble his impatience, by appearing cool where he ought to be highly inflamed, would be no less so. Rhyme being unnatural and disgustful in dialogue, is happily banished from our theatre: the only wonder is that it ever found admittance, especially among a people accustomed to the more manly freedom of Shakspeare's dialogue. By banishing rhyme, we have gained so much as never once to dream of any further improvement. And yet, however suitable blank verse may be to elevated characters and warm passions, it must appear improper and affected in the mouths of the lower sort. Why then should it be a rule, That every scene in tragedy must be in blank verse? Shak 669. Double-plot in a dramatic poem; in a comedy.-Rules for the under-plot.-Violent action on the stage. speare, with great judgment, has followed a different rule; which 15, to intermix prose with verse, and only to employ the latter where it is required by the importance or dignity of the subject. Familiar thoughts and ordinary facts ought to be expressed in plain language: to hear, for example, a footman deliver a simple message in blank verse, must appear ridiculous to every one who is not biased by custom. In short, that variety of characters and of situations, which is the life of a play, requires not only a suitable variety in the sentiments, but also in the diction. [Upon the conduct of the dialogue, Lord Jeffrey thus contrasts he modern with the old English drama: "On the modern stage, every scene is visibly studied and digested beforehand; and every thing from beginning to end, whether it be description, or argument, or vituperation, is very obviously and ostentatiously set forth in the most advantageous light, and with all the decorations of the most elaborate rhetoric. Now, for mere rhetoric and fine composition, this is very right; but for an imitation of nature, it is not quite so well. . "On the old English stage, however, the discussions always appear to be casual, and the argument quite artless and disorderly. The persons of the drama, in short, are made to speak like men and women who meet without preparation in real life. Their reasonings are perpetually broken by passion, or left imperfect for want of skill. They constantly wander from the point in hand, in the most unbusiness-like manner in the world; and after hitting upon a topic that would afford to a judicious playwright room for a magnificent seesaw of pompous declamation, they have generally the awkwardness to let it slip, as if perfectly unconscious of its value; and uniformly leave the scene without exhausting the controversy, or stating half the plausible things for themselves that any ordinary advisers might have suggested-after a few weeks' reflection. As specimens of eloquent argumentation, we must admit the signal inferiority of our native favorites; but as true copies of nature-as vehicles of passion, and representations of character, we confess we are tempted to give them the preference. When a dramatist brings his chief characters on the stage, we readily admit that he must give them something to say, and that this something must be interesting and characteristic; but he should recollect also, that they are supposed to come there without having anticipated all they were to hear, or meditated on all they were to deliver; and that it cannot be characteristic therefore, because it must be glaringly unnatural, that they should proceed regularly through every possible view of the subject, and exhaust, in set order, the whole magazine of reflections that can be brought to bear upon their situation. "It would not be fair, however, to leave this view of the matter, without observing, that this unsteadiness and irregularity of dialogue, which gives such an air of nature to our older plays, is frequently carried 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 happiness to individuals, or to his country in general: he proposes means, and lays plans to attain the end purposed. Here are a number 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 cap. 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 drama. จด 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 Eneid, 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 plaa crowned with success, agreeable.-An action may have unity, though the catastrophe dif fer from what is intended. The Eneid. The Iliad. |