No More Learning

This I can testify, that in all their dramas writ within
these last twenty years and upwards, I have not observed any that have
extended the time to thirty hours. In the unity of place they are full
as scrupulous; for many of their critics limit it to that very spot of
ground where the play is supposed to begin; none of them exceed the
compass of the same town or city.

The unity of action in all their plays is yet more conspicuous; for
they do not burden them with under-plots, as the English do: which is
the reason why many scenes of our tragi-comedies carry on a design
that is nothing of kin to the main plot; and that we see two distinct
webs in a play, like those in ill-wrought stuffs; and two actions,
that is, two plays, carried on together, to the confounding of the
audience; who, before they are warm in their concernments for one part,
are diverted to another; and by that means espouse the interest of
neither. From hence likewise it arises, that the one half of our actors
are not known to the other. They keep their distances, as if they were
Montagues and Capulets, and seldom begin an acquaintance till the last
scene of the fifth act, when they are all to meet upon the stage. There
is no theatre in the world has any thing so absurd as the English
tragi-comedy; it is a drama of our own invention, and the fashion of
it is enough to proclaim it so; here a course of mirth, there another
of sadness and passion, and a third of honour and a duel: thus, in two
hours and a half we run through all the fits of Bedlam. The French
affords you as much variety on the same day, but they do it not so
unseasonably, or _mal à propos_, as we: our poets present you the play
and the farce together; and our stages still retain somewhat of the
original civility of the Red Bull:[126]

_Atque ursum et pugiles media inter carmina poscunt_.

The end of tragedies or serious plays, says Aristotle, is to beget
admiration, compassion, or concernment; but are not mirth and
compassion things incompatible? and is it not evident, that the poet
must of necessity destroy the former by intermingling of the latter?
that is, he must ruin the sole end and object of his tragedy, to
introduce somewhat that is forced into it, and is not of the body of
it. Would you not think that physician mad, who, having prescribed a
purge, should immediately order you to take restringents?

But to leave our plays, and return to theirs. I have noted one great
advantage they have had in the plotting of their tragedies; that is,
they are always grounded upon some known history: according to that
of Horace, _Ex noto fictum carmen sequar_; and in that they have so
imitated the ancients, that they have surpassed them. For the ancients,
as was observed before, took for the foundation of their plays some
poetical fiction, such as under that consideration could move but
little concernment in the audience, because they already knew the event
of it. But the French goes farther:

_Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet,
Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum_.

He so interweaves truth with probable fiction, that he puts a pleasing
fallacy upon us, mends the intrigues of fate, and dispenses with the
severity of history, to reward that virtue which has been rendered
to us there unfortunate. Sometimes the story has left the success so
doubtful, that the writer is free, by the privilege of a poet, to take
that which of two or more relations will best suit with his design:
as for example, in the death of Cyrus, whom Justin and some others
report to have perished in the Scythian war, but Xenophon affirms to
have died in his bed of extreme old age. Nay more, when the event is
past dispute, even then we are willing to be deceived, and the poet,
if he contrives it with appearance of truth, has all the audience of
his party; at least during the time his play is acting: so naturally we
are kind to virtue, when our own interest is not in question, that we
take it up as the general concernment of mankind. On the other side,
if you consider the historical plays of Shakespeare, they are rather
so many chronicles of kings, or the business many times of thirty or
forty years, cramped into a representation of two hours and a half;
which is not to imitate or paint nature, but rather to draw her in
miniature, to take her in little; to look upon her through the wrong
end of a perspective, and receive her images not only much less, but
infinitely more imperfect than the life: this, instead of making a play
delightful, renders it ridiculous:

_Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi_.

For the spirit of man cannot be satisfied but with truth, or at
least verisimility; and a poem is to contain, if not τὰ ἐτυμα,
yet ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, as one of the Greek poets has expressed it.

Another thing in which the French differ from us and from the
Spaniards, is, that they do not embarrass, or cumber themselves
with too much plot; they only represent so much of a story as will
constitute one whole and great action sufficient for a play: we, who
undertake more, do but multiply adventures; which, not being produced
from one another, as effects from causes, but barely following,
constitute many actions in the drama, and consequently make it many
plays.

But by pursuing closely one argument, which is not cloyed with many
turns, the French have gained more liberty for verse, in which they
write: they have leisure to dwell on a subject which deserves it;
and to represent the passions, (which we have acknowledged to be the
poet's work,) without being hurried from one thing to another, as
we are in the plays of Calderon, which we have seen lately upon our
theatres, under the name of Spanish plots. I have taken notice but of
one tragedy of ours, whose plot has that uniformity and unity of design
in it, which I have commended in the French; and that is "Rollo,"[127]
or rather, under the name of Rollo, the story of Bassianus and Geta
in Herodian: there indeed the plot is neither large nor intricate,
but just enough to fill the minds of the audience, not to cloy them.
Besides, you see it founded upon the truth of history,--only the time
of the action is not reduceable to the strictness of the rules; and you
see in some places a little farce mingled, which is below the dignity
of the other parts; and in this all our poets are extremely peccant:
even Ben Jonson himself, in "Sejanus" and "Catiline," has given us this
olio of a play, this unnatural mixture of comedy and tragedy, which
to me sounds just as ridiculously as the history of David with the
merry humours of Goliah. In "Sejanus" you may take notice of the scene
betwixt Livia and the physician, which is a pleasant satire upon the
artificial helps of beauty: in "Catiline" you may see the parliament of
women; the little envies of them to one another; and all that passes
betwixt Curio and Fulvia: scenes admirable in their kind, but of an ill
mingle with the rest.

But I return again to the French writers, who, as I have said, do not
burden themselves too much with plot, which has been reproached to them
by an ingenious person of our nation[128] as a fault; for he says,
they commonly make but one person considerable in a play; they dwell
on him, and his concernments, while the rest of the persons are only
subservient to set him off. If he intends this by it,--that there is
one person in the play who is of greater dignity than the rest, he must
tax, not only theirs, but those of the ancients, and, which he would
be loth to do, the best of ours; for it is impossible but that one
person must be more conspicuous in it than any other, and consequently
the greatest share in the action must devolve on him. We see it so in
the management of all affairs; even in the most equal aristocracy, the
balance cannot be so justly poised, but some one will be superior to
the rest, either in parts, fortune, interest, or the consideration of
some glorious exploit; which will reduce the greatest part of business
into his hands.

But, if he would have us to imagine, that in exalting one character the
rest of them are neglected, and that all of them have not some share
or other in the action of the play, I desire him to produce any of
Corneille's tragedies, wherein every person (like so many servants in a
well-governed family) has not some employment, and who is not necessary
to the carrying on of the plot, or at least to your understanding it.

There are indeed some protatic persons in the ancients, whom they make
use of in their plays, either to hear, or give the relation: but the
French avoid this with great address, making their narrations only
to, or by such, who are some way interested in the main design. And
now I am speaking of relations, I cannot take a fitter opportunity
to add this in favour of the French, that they often use them with
better judgment and more _á propos_ than the English do. Not that I
commend narrations in general,--but there are two sorts of them; one,
of those things which are antecedent to the play, and are related to
make the conduct of it more clear to us; but it is a fault to chuse
such subjects for the stage as will force us on that rock, because
we see they are seldom listened to by the audience, and that is many
times the ruin of the play; for, being once let pass without attention,
the audience can never recover themselves to understand the plot; and
indeed it is somewhat unreasonable, that they should be put to so much
trouble, as, that to comprehend what passes in their sight, they must
have recourse to what was done, perhaps, ten or twenty years ago.

But there is another sort of relations, that is, of things happening in
the action of the play, and supposed to be done behind the scenes; and
this is many times both convenient and beautiful: for, by it the French
avoid the tumult to which we are subject in England, by representing
duels, battles, and the like; which renders our stage too like the
theatres where they fight prizes. For what is more ridiculous than to
represent an army with a drum and five men behind it; all which, the
hero of the other side is to drive in before him? or to see a duel
fought, and one slain with two or three thrusts of the foils, which we
know are so blunted, that we might give a man an hour to kill another
in good earnest with them?

I have observed, that in all our tragedies the audience cannot forbear
laughing when the actors are to die; it is the most comic part of the
whole play. All passions may be lively represented on the stage, if
to the well-writing of them the actor supplies a good commanded voice,
and limbs that move easily, and without stiffness; but there are many
actions which can never be imitated to a just height: dying especially
is a thing which none but a Roman gladiator could naturally perform
on the stage, when he did not imitate, or represent, but do it; and
therefore it is better to omit the representation of it.

The words of a good writer, which describe it lively, will make a
deeper impression of belief in us, than all the actor can insinuate
into us, when he seems to fall dead before us; as a poet in the
description of a beautiful garden, or a meadow, will please our
imagination more than the place itself can please our sight. When we
see death represented, we are convinced it is but fiction; but when we
hear it related, our eyes (the strongest witnesses) are wanting, which
might have undeceived us; and we are all willing to favour the slight
when the poet does not too grossly impose on us. They, therefore, who
imagine these relations would make no concernment in the audience,
are deceived, by confounding them with the other, which are of things
antecedent to the play: those are made often in cold blood, as I may
say, to the audience; but these are warmed with our concernments,
which were before awakened in the play. What the philosophers say of
motion, that, when it is once begun, it continues of itself, and will
do so to eternity, without some stop put to it, is clearly true on
this occasion: the soul, being already moved with the characters and
fortunes of those imaginary persons, continues going of its own accord;
and we are no more weary to hear what becomes of them when they are not
on the stage, than we are to listen to the news of an absent mistress.
But it is objected, that if one part of the play may be related, then
why not all? I answer, some parts of the action are more fit to be
represented, some to be related. Corneille says judiciously, that the
poet is not obliged to expose to view all particular actions which
conduce to the principal: he ought to select such of them to be seen,
which will appear with the greatest beauty, either by the magnificence
of the show, or the vehemence of passions which they produce, or some
other charm which they have in them, and let the rest arrive to the
audience by narration. It is a great mistake in us to believe the
French present no part of the action on the stage: every alteration or
crossing of a design, every new-sprung passion, and turn of it, is a
part of the action, and much the noblest, except we conceive nothing
to be action till the players come to blows; as if the painting of the
hero's mind were not more properly the poet's work, than the strength
of his body. Nor does this any thing contradict the opinion of Horace,
where he tells us,

_Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus_.

For he says immediately after,

------------_Non tamen intus
Digna geri promes in scenam_; multaq; _tolles
Ex oculis, quæ mox narret facundia præsens_.

Among which many he recounts some:

_Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet,
Aut in avem Progne mutetur, Cadmus in anguem_, &c.

That is, those actions which by reason of their cruelty will cause
aversion in us, or by reason of their impossibility, unbelief, ought
either wholly to be avoided by a poet, or only delivered by narration.
To which we may have leave to add such as, to avoid tumult, (as was
before hinted,) or to reduce the plot into a more reasonable compass of
time, or for defect of beauty in them, are rather to be related than
presented to the eye. Examples of all these kinds are frequent, not
only among all the ancients, but in the best received of our English
poets. We find Ben Jonson using them in his "Magnetic Lady," where one
comes out from dinner, and relates the quarrels and disorders of it to
save the undecent appearance of them on the stage, and to abbreviate
the story: and this in express imitation of Terence, who had done the
same before him in his "Eunuch," where Pythias makes the like relation
of what had happened within at the Soldier's entertainment. The
relations, likewise, of Sejanus's death, and the prodigies before it,
are remarkable; the one of which was hid from sight to avoid the horror
and tumult of the representation; the other, to shun the introducing
of things impossible to be believed. In that excellent play, "The King
and no King," Fletcher goes yet farther; for the whole unravelling of
the plot is done by narration in the fifth act, after the manner of
the ancients; and it moves great concernment in the audience, though
it be only a relation of what was done many years before the play. I
could multiply other instances, but these are sufficient to prove, that
there is no error in chusing a subject which requires this sort of
narrations; in the ill management of them, there may.

But I find I have been too long in this discourse, since the French
have many other excellencies not common to us; as that you never see
any of their plays end with a conversion, or simple change of will,
which is the ordinary way which our poets use to end theirs. It shews
little art in the conclusion of a dramatic poem, when they who have
hindered the felicity during the four acts, desist from it in the
fifth, without some powerful cause to take them off their design; and
though I deny not but such reasons may be found, yet it is a path that
is cautiously to be trod, and the poet is to be sure he convinces the
audience, that the motive is strong enough. [129] As for example, the
conversion of the Usurer in "The Scornful Lady," seems to me a little
forced; for, being an usurer, which implies a lover of money to the
highest degree of covetousness, (and such the poet has represented
him,) the account he gives for the sudden change is, that he has been
duped by the wild young fellow; which in reason might render him more
wary another time, and make him punish himself with harder fare and
coarser clothes to get up again what he had lost: but that he should
look on it as a judgment, and so repent, we may expect to hear in a
sermon, but I should never endure it in a play.

I pass by this; neither will I insist on the care they take, that no
person after his first entrance shall ever appear, but the business
which brings him upon the stage shall be evident; which rule, if
observed, must needs render all the events in the play more natural;
for there you see the probability of every accident, in the cause that
produced it; and that which appears chance in the play, will seem so
reasonable to you, that you will there find it almost necessary: so
that in the exit of the actor you have a clear account of his purpose
and design in the next entrance; (though, if the scene be well wrought,
the event will commonly deceive you;) for there is nothing so absurd,
says Corneille, as for an actor to leave the stage, only because he has
no more to say.

I should now speak of the beauty of their rhyme, and the just reason
I have to prefer that way of writing in tragedies before ours in
blank-verse; but because it is partly received by us, and therefore not
altogether peculiar to them, I will say no more of it in relation to
their plays. For our own, I doubt not but it will exceedingly beautify
them; and I can see but one reason why it should not generally obtain,
that is, because our poets write so ill in it. This indeed may prove
a more prevailing argument than all others which are used to destroy
it, and therefore I am only troubled when great and judicious poets,
and those who are acknowledged such, have writ or spoke against it: as
for others, they are to be answered by that one sentence of an ancient
author:[130] _Sed ut primo ad consequendos eos quos priores ducimus,
accendimur, ita ubi aut præteriri, aut æquari eos posse desperavimus,
studium cum spe senescit: quod, scilicet, assequi non potest, sequi
desinit;--prœteritoque eo in quo eminere non possumus, aliquid in
quo nitamur, conquirimus_.

Lisideius concluded in this manner; and Neander, after a little pause,
thus answered him:

I shall grant Lisideius, without much dispute, a great part of what he
has urged against us; for I acknowledge, that the French contrive their
plots more regularly, and observe the laws of comedy, and decorum of
the stage, (to speak generally,) with more exactness than the English.
Farther, I deny not but he has taxed us justly in some irregularities
of ours, which he has mentioned; yet, after all, I am of opinion, that
neither our faults, nor their virtues, are considerable enough to place
them above us.

For the lively imitation of nature being in the definition of a play,
those which best fulfil that law, ought to be esteemed superior to
the others. 'Tis true, those beauties of the French poesy are such as
will raise perfection higher where it is, but are not sufficient to
give it where it is not: they are indeed the beauties of a statue,
but not of a man, because not animated with the soul of poesy, which
is imitation of humour and passions: and this Lisideius himself, or
any other, however biassed to their party, cannot but acknowledge, if
he will either compare the humours of our comedies, or the characters
of our serious plays, with theirs. He who will look upon theirs which
have been written till these last ten years, or thereabouts, will find
it an hard matter to pick out two or three passable humours amongst
them. Corneille himself, their arch-poet, what has he produced except
"The Liar," and you know how it was cried up in France; but when it
came upon the English stage, though well translated, and that part
of Dorant acted[131] to so much advantage as I am confident it never
received in its own country, the most favourable to it would not put it
in competition with many of Fletcher's or Ben Jonson's. In the rest of
Corneille's comedies you have little humour; he tells you himself, his
way is, first to shew two lovers in good intelligence with each other;
in the working up of the play, to embroil them by some mistake, and in
the latter end to clear it, and reconcile them.

But of late years Moliere, the younger Corneille, Quinault, and some
others, have been imitating afar off the quick turns and graces of the
English stage. They have mixed their serious plays with mirth, like
our tragi-comedies, since the death of Cardinal Richelieu,[132] which
Lisideius, and many others, not observing, have commended that in them
for a virtue, which they themselves no longer practise. Most of their
new plays are, like some of ours, derived from the Spanish novels.
There is scarce one of them without a veil, and a trusty Diego, who
drolls much after the rate of the "Adventures. "[133] But their humours,
if I may grace them with that name, are so thin sown, that never above
one of them comes up in any play. I dare take upon me to find more
variety of them in some one play of Ben Jonson's, than in all theirs
together: as he who has seen the "Alchemist," "The Silent Woman," or
"Bartholomew Fair," cannot but acknowledge with me.

I grant the French have performed what was possible on the ground-work
of the Spanish plays; what was pleasant before, they have made
regular: but there is not above one good play to be writ on all those
plots; they are too much alike to please often, which we need not
the experience of our own stage to justify. As for their new way of
mingling mirth with serious plot, I do not, with Lisideius, condemn
the thing, though I cannot approve their manner of doing it. He tells
us, we cannot so speedily recollect ourselves after a scene of great
passion and concernment, as to pass to another of mirth and humour, and
to enjoy it with any relish: but why should he imagine the soul of man
more heavy than his senses? Does not the eye pass from an unpleasant
object to a pleasant, in a much shorter time than is required to
this? and does not the unpleasantness of the first commend the beauty
of the latter? The old rule of logic might have convinced him, that
contraries, when placed near, set off each other. A continued gravity
keeps the spirit too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes, as we
bait in a journey, that we may go on with greater ease. A scene of
mirth, mixed with tragedy, has the same effect upon us which our music
has betwixt the acts; which we find a relief to us from the best plots
and language of the stage, if the discourses have been long. I must
therefore have stronger arguments, ere I am convinced that compassion
and mirth in the same subject destroy each other; and in the mean
time, cannot but conclude, to the honour of our nation, that we have
invented, increased, and perfected, a more pleasant way of writing
for the stage, than was ever known to the ancients or moderns of any
nation, which is tragi-comedy.

And this leads me to wonder why Lisideius and many others should
cry up the barrenness of the French plots, above the variety and
copiousness of the English. Their plots are single, they carry on one
design, which is pushed forward by all the actors, every scene in the
play contributing and moving towards it. Our plays, besides the main
design, have under-plots, or by-concernments, of less considerable
persons and intrigues, which are carried on with the motion of the
main plot: as they say the orb of the fixed stars, and those of the
planets, though they have motions of their own, are whirled about by
the motion of the _primum mobile_, in which they are contained. That
similitude expresses much of the English stage; for if contrary motions
may be found in nature to agree; if a planet can go east and west at
the same time;--one way by virtue of his own motion, the other by the
force of the first mover;--it will not be difficult to imagine how the
under-plot, which is only different, not contrary to the great design,
may naturally be conducted along with it.

Eugenius has already shewn us, from the confession of the French
poets, that the unity of action is sufficiently preserved, if all the
imperfect actions of the play are conducing to the main design; but
when those petty intrigues of a play are so ill ordered, that they
have no coherence with the other, I must grant that Lisideius has
reason to tax that want of due connection; for co-ordination in a
play is as dangerous and unnatural as in a state. In the mean time he
must acknowledge, our variety, if well ordered, will afford a greater
pleasure to the audience.

As for his other argument, that by pursuing one single theme they gain
an advantage to express and work up the passions, I wish any example he
could bring from them would make it good; for I confess their verses
are to me the coldest I have ever read. Neither, indeed, is it possible
for them, in the way they take, so to express passion, as that the
effects of it should appear in the concernment of an audience, their
speeches being so many declamations, which tire us with the length; so
that instead of persuading us to grieve for their imaginary heroes,
we are concerned for our own trouble, as we are in tedious visits of
bad company; we are in pain till they are gone. When the French stage
came to be reformed by Cardinal Richelieu, those long harangues were
introduced, to comply with the gravity of a churchman. Look upon the
"Cinna" and the "Pompey;" they are not so properly to be called plays,
as long discourses of reason of state; and "Polieucte" in matters
of religion is as solemn as the long stops upon our organs. Since
that time it is grown into a custom, and their actors speak by the
hour-glass, like our parsons;[134] nay, they account it the grace of
their parts, and think themselves disparaged by the poet, if they may
not twice or thrice in a play entertain the audience with a speech of
an hundred lines. I deny not but this may suit well enough with the
French; for as we, who are a more sullen people, come to be diverted
at our plays, so they, who are of an airy and gay temper, come thither
to make themselves more serious: and this I conceive to be one reason,
why comedies are more pleasing to us, and tragedies to them. But to
speak generally: it cannot be denied, that short speeches and replies
are more apt to move the passions, and beget concernment in us, than
the other; for it is unnatural for any one, in a gust of passion, to
speak long together; or for another, in the same condition, to suffer
him without interruption. Grief and passion are like floods raised
in little brooks by a sudden rain; they are quickly up, and if the
concernment be poured unexpectedly in upon us, it overflows us: But
a long sober shower gives them leisure to run out as they came in,
without troubling the ordinary current. As for comedy, repartee is one
of its chiefest graces; the greatest pleasure of the audience is a
chace of wit, kept up on both sides, and swiftly managed. And this our
forefathers, if not we, have had in Fletcher's plays, to a much higher
degree of perfection, than the French poets can reasonably hope to
reach.

There is another part of Lisideius's discourse, in which he has rather
excused our neighbours, than commended them; that is, for aiming only
to make one person considerable in their plays. It is very true what
he has urged, that one character in all plays, even without the poet's
care, will have advantage of all the others; and that the design of
the whole drama will chiefly depend on it. But this hinders not that
there may be more shining characters in the play: many persons of a
second magnitude, nay, some so very near, so almost equal to the first,
that greatness may be opposed to greatness, and all the persons be
made considerable, not only by their quality, but their action. It is
evident, that the more the persons are, the greater will be the variety
of the plot. If then the parts are managed so regularly, that the
beauty of the whole be kept entire, and that the variety become not a
perplexed and confused mass of accidents, you will find it infinitely
pleasing to be led in a labyrinth of design, where you see some of your
way before you, yet discern not the end till you arrive at it. And that
all this is practicable, I can produce for examples many of our English
plays: As "The Maid's Tragedy," "The Alchemist," "The Silent Woman:" I
was going to have named "The Fox," but that the unity of design seems
not exactly observed in it; for there appear two actions in the play;
the first naturally ending with the fourth act, the second forced from
it in the fifth: which yet is the less to be condemned in him, because
the disguise of Volpone, though it suited not with his character
as a crafty or covetous person, agreed well enough with that of a
voluptuary;[135] and by it the poet gained the end at which he aimed,
the punishment of vice, and the reward of virtue, both which that
disguise produced. So that to judge equally of it, it was an excellent
fifth act, but not so naturally proceeding from the former.

But to leave this, and pass to the latter part of Lisideius's
discourse, which concerns relations, I must acknowledge with him, that
the French have reason to hide that part of the action which would
occasion too much tumult on the stage, and to chuse rather to have
it made known by narration to the audience. Farther, I think it very
convenient, for the reasons he has given, that all incredible actions
were removed; but, whether custom has so insinuated itself into our
countrymen, or nature has so formed them to fierceness, I know not;
but they will scarcely suffer combats and other objects of horror to
be taken from them. And indeed, the indecency of tumults is all which
can be objected against fighting: for why may not our imagination as
well suffer itself to be deluded with the probability of it, as with
any other thing in the play? For my part, I can with as great ease
persuade myself, that the blows are given in good earnest, as I can,
that they who strike them are kings or princes, or those persons which
they represent. For objects of incredibility,--I would be satisfied
from Lisideius, whether we have any so removed from all appearance of
truth, as are those of Corneille's "Andromede;" a play which has been
frequented the most of any he has writ. If the Perseus, or the son of
an heathen god, the Pegasus, and the Monster, were not capable to choke
a strong belief, let him blame any representation of ours hereafter.
Those indeed were objects of delight; yet the reason is the same as to
the probability; for he makes it not a ballet, or masque, but a play,
which is to resemble truth. But for death, that it ought not to be
represented, I have, besides the arguments alleged by Lisideius, the
authority of Ben Jonson, who has forborne it in his tragedies; for both
the death of Sejanus and Catiline are related; though, in the latter, I
cannot but observe one irregularity of that great poet; he has removed
the scene in the same act, from Rome to Catiline's army, and from
thence again to Rome; and besides, has allowed a very considerable time
after Catiline's speech, for the striking of the battle, and the return
of Petreius, who is to relate the event of it to the senate; which I
should not animadvert on him, who was otherwise a painful observer of
τὸ πρεπὸν, or the _decorum_ of the stage, if he had not used
extreme severity in his judgment on the incomparable Shakespeare for
the same fault. [136] To conclude on this subject of relations, if we
are to be blamed for shewing too much of the action, the French are as
faulty for discovering too little of it; a mean betwixt both should
be observed by every judicious writer, so as the audience may neither
be left unsatisfied by not seeing what is beautiful, or shocked by
beholding what is either incredible or undecent.

I hope I have already proved in this discourse, that though we are
not altogether so punctual as the French, in observing the laws of
comedy, yet our errors are so few, and little, and those things
wherein we excel them so considerable, that we ought of right to be
preferred before them. But what will Lisideius say, if they themselves
acknowledge they are too strictly bounded by those laws, for breaking
which he has blamed the English? I will allege Corneille's words, as
I find them in the end of his Discourse of the three Unities: _Il
est facile aux speculatifs d'estre severes_, &c. "It is easy for
speculative persons to judge severely; but if they would produce to
public view ten or twelve pieces of this nature, they would perhaps
give more latitude to the rules than I have done, when, by experience,
they had known how much we are limited and constrained by them, and
how many beauties of the stage they banished from it. " To illustrate a
little what he has said:--by their servile observations of the unities
of time and place, and integrity of scenes, they have brought on
themselves that dearth of plot, and narrowness of imagination, which
may be observed in all their plays. How many beautiful accidents might
naturally happen in two or three days, which cannot arrive with any
probability in the compass of twenty-four hours? There is time to be
allowed also for maturity of design, which amongst great and prudent
persons, such as are often represented in tragedy, cannot, with any
likelihood of truth, be brought to pass at so short a warning. Farther,
by tying themselves strictly to the unity of place, and unbroken
scenes, they are forced many times to omit some beauties which cannot
be shewn where the act began; but might, if the scene were interrupted,
and the stage cleared for the persons to enter in another place; and
therefore the French poets are often forced upon absurdities: for if
the act begins in a chamber, all the persons in the play must have some
business or other to come thither, or else they are not to be shewn
that act; and sometimes their characters are very unfitting to appear
there: as suppose it were the king's bed-chamber, yet the meanest man
in the tragedy must come and dispatch his business there, rather than
in the lobby, or court-yard, (which is fitter for him,) for fear the
stage should be cleared, and the scenes broken. Many times they fall by
it into a greater inconvenience; for they keep their scenes unbroken,
and yet change the place; as in one of their newest plays, where the
act begins in the street. There a gentleman is to meet his friend; he
sees him with his man, coming out from his father's house; they talk
together, and the first goes out: the second, who is a lover, has made
an appointment with his mistress; she appears at the window, and then
we are to imagine the scene lies under it. This gentleman is called
away, and leaves his servant with his mistress: presently her father is
heard from within; the young lady is afraid the serving-man should be
discovered, and thrusts him into a place of safety, which is supposed
to be her closet. After this, the father enters to the daughter, and
now the scene is in a house: for he is seeking from one room to another
for this poor Philipin, or French Diego, who is heard from within,
drolling and breaking many a miserable conceit on the subject of his
sad condition. In this ridiculous manner the play goes forward, the
stage being never empty all the while: so that the street, the window,
the two houses, and the closet, are made to walk about, and the persons
to stand still. Now, what, I beseech you, is more easy than to write
a regular French play, or more difficult than to write an irregular
English one, like those of Fletcher, or of Shakespeare?

If they content themselves, as Corneille did, with some flat design,
which, like an ill riddle, is found out ere it be half proposed, such
plots we can make every way regular as easily as they; but whenever
they endeavour to rise to any quick turns and counter-turns of plot,
as some of them have attempted, since Corneille's plays have been less
in vogue, you see they write as irregularly as we, though they cover
it more speciously. Hence the reason is perspicuous, why no French
plays, when translated, have, or ever can succeed on the English stage.
For, if you consider the plots, our own are fuller of variety; if the
writing, ours are more quick and fuller of spirit; and therefore 'tis a
strange mistake in those who decry the way of writing plays in verse,
as if the English therein imitated the French. We have borrowed nothing
from them; our plots are weaved in English looms: we endeavour therein
to follow the variety and greatness of characters, which are derived
to us from Shakespeare and Fletcher; the copiousness and well-knitting
of the intrigues we have from Jonson; and for the verse itself we have
English precedents of elder date than any of Corneille's plays. Not to
name our old comedies before Shakespeare, which were all writ in verse
of six feet, or Alexandrines, such as the French now use,--[137] I can
shew in Shakespeare, many scenes of rhyme together, and the like in
Ben Jonson's tragedies: in "Catiline" and "Sejanus" sometimes thirty
or forty lines,--I mean besides the chorus, or the monologues; which,
by the way, shewed Ben no enemy to this way of writing, especially if
you read his "Sad Shepherd," which goes sometimes on rhyme, sometimes
on blank verse, like an horse who eases himself on trot and amble.
You find him likewise commending Fletcher's pastoral of "The Faithful
Shepherdess," which is for the most part rhyme, though not refined to
that purity to which it hath since been brought. And these examples are
enough to clear us from a servile imitation of the French.

But to return whence I have digressed: I dare boldly affirm these two
things of the English drama;--First, that we have many plays of ours
as regular as any of theirs, and which, besides, have more variety
of plot and characters; and, secondly, that in most of the irregular
plays of Shakespeare or Fletcher, (for Ben Jonson's are for the most
part regular,) there is a more masculine fancy, and greater spirit in
the writing, than there is in any of the French. I could produce even
in Shakespeare's and Fletcher's works, some plays which are almost
exactly formed; as the "Merry Wives of Windsor," and "The Scornful
Lady:" but, because (generally speaking) Shakespeare, who writ first,
did not perfectly observe the laws of comedy, and Fletcher, who came
nearer to perfection, yet through carelessness made many faults; I will
take the pattern of a perfect play from Ben Jonson, who was a careful
and learned observer of the dramatic laws, and from all his comedies I
shall select "The Silent Woman;" of which I will make a short examen,
according to those rules which the French observe.

As Neander was beginning to examine "The Silent Woman," Eugenius,
earnestly regarding him; I beseech you, Neander, said he, gratify the
company, and me in particular, so far as, before you speak of the play,
to give us a character of the author; and tell us frankly your opinion,
whether you do not think all writers, both French and English, ought to
give place to him?

I fear, replied Neander, that, in obeying your commands, I shall draw
some envy on myself. Besides, in performing them, it will be first
necessary to speak somewhat of Shakespeare and Fletcher, his rivals in
poesy; and one of them, in my opinion, at least his equal, perhaps his
superior. [138]

To begin then with Shakespeare. He was the man who of all modern, and
perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All
the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not
laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than
see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning,
give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed
not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and
found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I
should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is
many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his
serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great
occasion is presented to him: no man can say, he ever had a fit subject
for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of
poets,

_Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi_.

The consideration of this made Mr Hales of Eton[139] say, that there
was no subject of which any poet ever writ, but he would produce
it much better done in Shakespeare; and however others are now
generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which
had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled them
to him in their esteem: and in the last king's court, when Ben's
reputation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater
part of the courtiers, set our Shakespeare far above him.

Beaumont and Fletcher, of whom I am next to speak, had, with the
advantage of Shakespeare's wit, which was their precedent, great
natural gifts, improved by study; Beaumont especially being so
accurate a judge of plays, that Ben Jonson, while he lived, submitted
all his writings to his censure, and 'tis thought, used his judgment
in correcting, if not contriving, all his plots. What value he had
for him, appears by the verses he writ to him; and therefore I need
speak no farther of it. The first play that brought Fletcher and him
in esteem, was their "Philaster;" for before that, they had written
two or three very unsuccessfully: as the like is reported of Ben
Jonson, before he writ "Every Man in his Humour. " Their plots were
generally more regular than Shakespeare's, especially those which
were made before Beaumont's death; and they understood and imitated
the conversation of gentlemen much better; whose wild debaucheries,
and quickness of wit in repartees, no poet before them could paint as
they have done. Humour,[140] which Ben Jonson derived from particular
persons, they made it not their business to describe: they represented
all the passions very lively, but above all, love. I am apt to believe
the English language in them arrived to its highest perfection; what
words have since been taken in, are rather superfluous than ornamental.
Their plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments
of the stage; two of theirs being acted through the year for one of
Shakespeare's or Jonson's: the reason is, because there is a certain
gaiety in their comedies, and pathos in their more serious plays,
which suits generally with all men's humours. Shakespeare's language is
likewise a little obsolete, and Ben Jonson's wit comes short of theirs.

As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon
him while he was himself, (for his last plays were but his dotages,)
I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre
ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others.
One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In
his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and language, and
humour also in some measure, we had before him; but something of art
was wanting to the drama, till he came. He managed his strength to
more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him making
love in any of his scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions; his
genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially
when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such an
height. Humour was his proper sphere; and in that he delighted most to
represent mechanic people. He was deeply conversant in the ancients,
both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them: there is scarce
a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times, whom he
has not translated in "Sejanus" and "Catiline. " But he has done his
robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any
law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in
other poets, is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers
he so represents old Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies, and customs,
that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had
seen less of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language, it
was, that he weaved it too closely and laboriously, in his comedies
especially: perhaps too, he did a little too much Romanize our tongue,
leaving the words which he translated almost as much Latin as he
found them: wherein, though he learnedly followed their language, he
did not enough comply with the idiom of ours. If I would compare him
with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but
Shakespeare the greater wit. [141] Shakespeare was the Homer, or father
of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate
writing; I admire him, but I love Shakespeare. To conclude of him; as
he has given us the most correct plays, so in the precepts which he has
laid down in his "Discoveries," we have as many and profitable rules
for perfecting the stage, as any wherewith the French can furnish us.

Having thus spoken of the author, I proceed to the examination of his
comedy, "The Silent Woman. "


_Examen of "The Silent Woman. "_

To begin first with the length of the action; it is so far from
exceeding the compass of a natural day, that it takes not up an
artificial one. It is all included in the limits of three hours and
an half, which is no more than is required for the presentment on
the stage: a beauty perhaps not much observed; if it had, we should
not have looked on the Spanish translation of "Five Hours" with so
much wonder. The scene of it is laid in London; the latitude of place
is almost as little as you can imagine; for it lies all within the
compass of two houses, and after the first act, in one. The continuity
of scenes is observed more than in any of our plays, except his own
"Fox" and "Alchemist. " They are not broken above twice, or thrice
at most, in the whole comedy; and in the two best of Corneille's
plays, the "Cid" and "Cinna," they are interrupted once. The action
of the play is entirely one; the end or aim of which is the settling
Morose's estate on Dauphine. The intrigue of it is the greatest and
most noble of any pure unmixed comedy in any language: you see in it
many persons of various characters and humours, and all delightful. As
first, Morose, or an old man, to whom all noise, but his own talking,
is offensive. Some, who would be thought critics, say this humour of
his is forced: but to remove that objection, we may consider him first
to be naturally of a delicate hearing, as many are to whom all sharp
sounds are unpleasant; and secondly, we may attribute much of it to
the peevishness of his age, or the wayward authority of an old man in
his own house, where he may make himself obeyed; and to this the poet
seems to allude in his name Morose. Beside this, I am assured from
divers persons, that Ben Jonson was actually acquainted with such a
man, one altogether as ridiculous as he is here represented. Others
say, it is not enough to find one man of such an humour; it must be
common to more, and the more common the more natural. To prove this,
they instance in the best of comical characters, Falstaff. There are
many men resembling him; old, fat, merry, cowardly, drunken, amorous,
vain, and lying. But to convince these people, I need but tell them,
that humour is the ridiculous extravagance of conversation, wherein
one man differs from all others. If then it be common, or communicated
to many, how differs it from other men's? or what indeed causes it to
be ridiculous so much as the singularity of it? As for Falstaff, he
is not properly one humour, but a miscellany of humours or images,
drawn from so many several men: that wherein he is singular is his wit,
or those things he says, _prœter expectatum_, unexpected by the
audience; his quick evasions, when you imagine him surprised, which, as
they are extremely diverting of themselves, so receive a great addition
from his person; for the very sight of such an unwieldy old debauched
fellow is a comedy alone. And here, having a place so proper for it,
I cannot but enlarge somewhat upon this subject of humour into which
I am fallen. The ancients had little of it in their comedies; for the
τὸ γελοῖον of the old comedy, of which Aristophanes was
chief, was not so much to imitate a man, as to make the people laugh at
some odd conceit, which had commonly somewhat of unnatural or obscene
in it. Thus, when you see Socrates brought upon the stage, you are not
to imagine him made ridiculous by the imitation of his actions, but
rather by making him perform something very unlike himself: something
so childish and absurd, as by comparing it with the gravity of the true
Socrates, makes a ridiculous object for the spectators. In their new
comedy which succeeded, the poets sought indeed to express the ἦθος,
as in their tragedies the πάθος of mankind. But this ἦθος
contained only the general characters of men and manners; as old men,
lovers, serving-men, courtezans, parasites, and such other persons as
we see in their comedies; all which they made alike: that is, one old
man or father, one lover, one courtezan, so like another, as if the
first of them had begot the rest of every sort: _Ex homine hunc natum
dicas_. The same custom they observed likewise in their tragedies. As
for the French, though they have the word _humeur_ among them, yet they
have small use of it in their comedies, or farces; they being but ill
imitations of the _ridiculum_, or that which stirred up laughter in
the old comedy.
But among the English 'tis otherwise: where, by humour
is meant some extravagant habit, passion, or affection, particular
(as I said before) to some one person, by the oddness of which, he is
immediately distinguished from the rest of men; which being lively and
naturally represented, most frequently begets that malicious pleasure
in the audience which is testified by laughter; as all things which are
deviations from customs are ever the aptest to produce it: though by
the way this laughter is only accidental, as the person represented is
fantastic or bizarre; but pleasure is essential to it, as the imitation
of what is natural. The description of these humours, drawn from the
knowledge and observation of particular persons, was the peculiar
genius and talent of Ben Jonson; to whose play I now return.

Besides Morose, there are at least nine or ten different characters
and humours in the "Silent Woman;" all which persons have several
concernments of their own, yet are all used by the poet, to the
conducting of the main design to perfection. I shall not waste time in
commending the writing of this play; but I will give you my opinion,
that there is more wit and acuteness of fancy in it than in any of
Ben Jonson's. Besides, that he has here described the conversation
of gentlemen in the persons of True-Wit, and his friends, with more
gaiety, air, and freedom, than in the rest of his comedies. [142] For
the contrivance of the plot, 'tis extreme, elaborate, and yet withal
easy; for the λύσις, or untying of it, 'tis so admirable,
that when it is done, no one of the audience would think the poet could
have missed it; and yet it was concealed so much before the last scene,
that any other way would sooner have entered into your thoughts. But
I dare not take upon me to commend the fabric of it, because it is
altogether so full of art, that I must unravel every scene in it to
commend it as I ought. And this excellent contrivance is still the more
to be admired, because 'tis comedy where the persons are only of common
rank, and their business private, not elevated by passions or high
concernments, as in serious plays. Here every one is a proper judge
of all he sees; nothing is represented but that with which he daily
converses: so that by consequence all faults lie open to discovery, and
few are pardonable. 'Tis this which Horace has judiciously observed:

_Creditur, ex medio quia res arcessit, habere
Sudoris minimum; sed habet Comedia tanto
Plus oneris, quanto veniæ minus_.

But our poet, who was not ignorant of these difficulties, has made use
of all advantages; as he who designs a large leap, takes his rise from
the highest ground. One of these advantages is that which Corneille
has laid down as the greatest which can arrive to any poem, and which
he himself could never compass above thrice in all his plays; viz. the
making choice of some signal and long-expected day, whereon the action
of the play is to depend. This day was that designed by Dauphine for
the settling of his uncle's estate upon him; which, to compass, he
contrives to marry him. That the marriage had been plotted by him long
beforehand, is made evident, by what he tells True-Wit in the second
act, that in one moment he had destroyed what he had been raising many
months.

There is another artifice of the poet, which I cannot here omit,
because by the frequent practice of it in his comedies, he has left
it to us almost as a rule; that is, when he has any character or
humour wherein he would shew a _coupe de maître_, or his highest
skill, he recommends it to your observation, by a pleasant description
of it before the person first appears. Thus, in "Bartholomew-Fair,"
he gives you the pictures of Numps and Cokes, and in this, those of
Daw, Lafoole, Morose, and the Collegiate Ladies; all which you hear
described before you see them. So that before they come upon the
stage, you have a longing expectation of them, which prepares you to
receive them favourably; and when they are there, even from their first
appearance you are so far acquainted with them, that nothing of their
humour is lost to you.

I will observe yet one thing further of this admirable plot; the
business of it rises in every act. The second is greater than the
first; the third than the second; and so forward to the fifth. There
too you see, till the very last scene, new difficulties arising to
obstruct the action of the play; and when the audience is brought
into despair that the business can naturally be effected, then, and
not before, the discovery is made. But that the poet might entertain
you with more variety all this while, he reserves some new characters
to shew you, which he opens not till the second and third act. In
the second, Morose, Daw, the Barber, and Otter; in the third, the
Collegiate Ladies; all which he moves afterwards in by-walks, or
under-plots, as diversions to the main design, lest it should grow
tedious, though they are still naturally joined with it, and somewhere
or other subservient to it. Thus, like a skilful chess-player, by
little and little he draws out his men, and makes his pawns of use to
his greater persons.

If this comedy, and some others of his, were translated into French
prose, (which would now be no wonder to them, since Moliere has lately
given them plays out of verse, which have not displeased them,) I
believe the controversy would soon be decided betwixt the two nations,
even making them the judges. [143] But we need not call our heroes to
our aid; be it spoken to the honour of the English, our nation can
never want in any age such, who are able to dispute the empire of wit
with any people in the universe. And though the fury of a civil war,
and power, for twenty years together, abandoned to a barbarous race
of men, enemies of all good learning, had buried the muses under the
ruins of monarchy; yet, with the restoration of our happiness, we see
revived poesy lifting up its head, and already shaking off the rubbish
which lay so heavy on it. We have seen since his majesty's return, many
dramatic poems which yield not to those of any foreign nation, and
which deserve all laurels but the English. I will set aside flattery
and envy; it cannot be denied but we have had some little blemish
either in the plot or writing of all those plays which have been made
within these seven years; and perhaps there is no nation in the world
so quick to discern them, or so difficult to pardon them, as ours: yet
if we can persuade ourselves to use the candour of that poet, who,
though the most severe of critics, has left us this caution by which
to moderate our censures--

----_ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis
Offendar maculis_;----

if, in consideration of their many and great beauties, we can wink
at some slight and little imperfections, if we, I say, can be thus
equal to ourselves, I ask no favour from the French. And if I do not
venture upon any particular judgment of our late plays, 'tis out of
the consideration which an ancient writer gives me: _vivorum, ut magna
admiratio, ita censura difficilis_: betwixt the extremes of admiration
and malice, 'tis hard to judge uprightly of the living. Only I think it
may be permitted me to say, that as it is no lessening to us to yield
to some plays, and those not many, of our own nation, in the last age,
so can it be no addition to pronounce of our present poets, that they
have far surpassed all the ancients, and the modern writers of other
countries.

This was the substance of what was then spoke on that occasion; and
Lisideius, I think, was going to reply, when he was prevented thus
by Crites:--I am confident, said he, that the most material things
that can be said, have been already urged on either side; if they
have not, I must beg of Lisideius, that he will defer his answer till
another time: for I confess I have a joint quarrel to you both, because
you have concluded, without any reason given for it, that rhyme is
proper for the stage. I will not dispute how ancient it hath been
among us to write this way; perhaps our ancestors knew no better till
Shakespeare's time. I will grant it was not altogether left by him, and
that Fletcher and Ben Jonson used it frequently in their pastorals,
and sometimes in other plays. Farther, I will not argue whether we
received it originally from our own countrymen, or from the French;
for that is an inquiry of as little benefit as theirs, who, in the
midst of the late plague, were not so solicitous to provide against
it, as to know whether we had it from the malignity of our own air, or
by transportation from Holland. I have therefore only to affirm, that
it is not allowable in serious plays; for comedies, I find you already
concluding with me. To prove this, I might satisfy myself to tell
you, how much in vain it is for you to strive against the stream of
the people's inclination; the greatest part of which are prepossessed
so much with those excellent plays of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Ben
Jonson, which have been written out of rhyme, that except you could
bring them such as were written better in it, and those too by persons
of equal reputation with them, it will be impossible for you to gain
your cause with them, who will still be judges. This it is to which,
in fine, all your reasons must submit. The unanimous consent of an
audience is so powerful, that even Julius Cæsar, (as Macrobius reports
of him,) when he was perpetual dictator, was not able to balance it
on the other side; but when Laberius, a Roman knight, at his request
contended in the _Mime_ with another poet, he was forced to cry out,
_Etiam favente me victus es, Laberi_. But I will not, on this occasion,
take the advantage of the greater number, but only urge such reasons
against rhyme, as I find in the writings of those who have argued for
the other way. First then, I am of opinion, that rhyme is unnatural in
a play, because dialogue there is presented as the effect of sudden
thought. [144] For a play is the imitation of nature; and since no man,
without premeditation, speaks in rhyme, neither ought he to do it on
the stage. This hinders not but the fancy may be there elevated to an
higher pitch of thought than it is in ordinary discourse; for there
is a probability that men of excellent and quick parts may speak noble
things _extempore_: but those thoughts are never fettered with numbers,
or sound of verse, without study; and therefore it cannot be but
unnatural to present the most free way of speaking in that which is the
most constrained. For this reason, says Aristotle, 'tis best to write
tragedy in that kind of verse which is the least such, or which is
nearest prose: and this amongst the ancients was the iambic, and with
us is blank verse, or the measure of verse kept exactly without rhyme.
These numbers therefore are fittest for a play; the others for a paper
of verses, or a poem; blank verse being as much below them, as rhyme is
improper for the drama. And if it be objected, that neither are blank
verses made _extempore_, yet, as nearest nature, they are still to be
preferred. But there are two particular exceptions, which many besides
myself have had to verse; by which it will appear yet more plainly, how
improper it is in plays. And the first of them is grounded on that very
reason for which some have commended rhyme; they say, the quickness of
repartees in argumentative scenes receives an ornament from verse. Now
what is more unreasonable than to imagine, that a man should not only
light upon the wit, but the rhyme too, upon the sudden? This nicking
of him who spoke before both in sound and measure, is so great an
happiness, that you must at least suppose the persons of your play to
be born poets: _Arcades omnes, et cantare pares, et respondere parati_;
they must have arrived to the degree of _quicquid conabar dicere_,
to make verses almost whether they will or no. If they are any thing
below this, it will look rather like the design of two, than the answer
of one: it will appear that your actors hold intelligence together;
that they perform their tricks like fortune-tellers, by confederacy.
The hand of art will be too visible in it, against that maxim of all
professions--_Ars est celare artem_; that it is the greatest perfection
of art to keep itself undiscovered. Nor will it serve you to object,
that however you manage it, 'tis still known to be a play; and
consequently, the dialogue of two persons, understood to be the labour
of one poet. For a play is still an imitation of nature; we know we are
to be deceived, and we desire to be so; but no man ever was deceived
but with a probability of truth; for who will suffer a gross lie to be
fastened on him? Thus we sufficiently understand, that the scenes which
represent cities and countries to us, are not really such, but only
painted on boards and canvass; but shall that excuse the ill painture
or designment of them? Nay, rather ought they not to be laboured with
so much the more diligence and exactness, to help the imagination?
since the mind of man does naturally tend to truth; and therefore the
nearer any thing comes to the imitation of it, the more it pleases.

Thus, you see, your rhyme is uncapable of expressing the greatest
thoughts naturally, and the lowest it cannot with any grace: for what
is more unbefitting the majesty of verse, than to call a servant, or
bid a door be shut in rhyme? and yet you are often forced on this
miserable necessity. But verse, you say, circumscribes a quick and
luxuriant fancy, which would extend itself too far on every subject,
did not the labour which is required to well turned and polished rhyme,
set bounds to it. Yet this argument, if granted, would only prove,
that we may write better in verse, but not more naturally. Neither is
it able to evince that; for he who wants judgment to confine his fancy
in blank verse, may want it as much in rhyme; and he who has it, will
avoid errors in both kinds. Latin verse was as great a confinement to
the imagination of those poets, as rhyme to ours: and yet you find Ovid
saying too much on every subject. _Nescivit_ (says Seneca) _quod bene
cessit relinquere_; of which he gives you one famous instance in his
description of the deluge:

_Omnia pontus erat, deerant quoque litora ponto_.

Now all was sea, nor had that sea a shore.

Thus Ovid's fancy was not limited by verse, and Virgil needed not verse
to have bounded his.

In our own language we see Ben Jonson confining himself to what ought
to be said, even in the liberty of blank verse; and yet Corneille, the
most judicious of the French poets, is still varying the same sense
an hundred ways, and dwelling eternally on the same subject, though
confined by rhyme. Some other exceptions I have to verse; but since
these I have named are for the most part already public, I conceive it
reasonable they should first be answered.

It concerns me less than any, said Neander, (seeing he had ended,) to
reply to this discourse; because when I should have proved, that verse
may be natural in plays, yet I should always be ready to confess, that
those which I have written in this kind come short of that perfection
which is required. [145] Yet since you are pleased I should undertake
this province, I will do it, though with all imaginable respect and
deference, both to that person from whom you have borrowed your
strongest arguments, and to whose judgment, when I have said all, I
finally submit. But before I proceed to answer your objections, I must
first remember you, that I exclude all comedy from my defence; and
next, that I deny not but blank verse may be also used, and content
myself only to assert, that in serious plays, where the subject and
characters are great, and the plot unmixed with mirth, which might
allay or divert these concernments which are produced, rhyme is there
as natural, and more effectual, than blank verse.

And now having laid down this as a foundation,--to begin with
Crites,--I must crave leave to tell him, that some of his arguments
against rhyme reach no farther than, from the faults or defects of ill
rhyme, to conclude against the use of it in general. May not I conclude
against blank verse by the same reason? If the words of some poets, who
write in it, are either ill chosen, or ill placed, (which makes not
only rhyme, but all kind of verse in any language unnatural,) shall
I, for their vicious affectation, condemn those excellent lines of
Fletcher, which are written in that kind? Is there any thing in rhyme
more constrained than this line in blank verse? --

I heaven invoke, and strong resistance make;

where you see both the clauses are placed unnaturally; that is,
contrary to the common way of speaking, and that without the excuse
of a rhyme to cause it: yet you would think me very ridiculous, if I
should accuse the stubbornness of blank verse for this, and not rather
the stiffness of the poet. Therefore, Crites, you must either prove,
that words, though well chosen, and duly placed, yet render not rhyme
natural in itself; or that however natural and easy the rhyme may be,
yet it is not proper for a play. If you insist on the former part, I
would ask you, what other conditions are required to make rhyme natural
in itself, besides an election of apt words, and a right disposition of
them? For the due choice of your words expresses your sense naturally,
and the due placing them adapts the rhyme to it. If you object, that
one verse may be made for the sake of another, though both the words
and rhyme be apt, I answer, it cannot possibly so fall out; for either
there is a dependance of sense betwixt the first line and the second,
or there is none: if there be that connection, then in the natural
position of the words the latter line must of necessity flow from the
former; if there be no dependance, yet still the due ordering of words
makes the last line as natural in itself as the other: so that the
necessity of a rhyme never forces any but bad or lazy writers to say
what they would not otherwise. 'Tis true, there is both care and art
required to write in verse. A good poet never establishes the first
line, till he has sought out such a rhyme as may fit the sense, already
prepared to heighten the second: many times the close of the sense
falls into the middle of the next verse, or farther off, and he may
often avail himself of the same advantages in English which Virgil had
in Latin,--he may break off in the hemistick, and begin another line.
Indeed, the not observing these two last things, makes plays which
are writ in verse so tedious: for though, most commonly, the sense is
to be confined to the couplet, yet nothing that does _perpetuo tenore
fluere_, run in the same channel, can please always. 'Tis like the
murmuring of a stream, which, not varying in the fall, causes at first
attention, at last drowsiness. Variety of cadences is the best rule;
the greatest help to the actors, and refreshment to the audience.

If then verse may be made natural in itself, how becomes it unnatural
in a play? You say the stage is the representation of nature, and no
man in ordinary conversation speaks in rhyme. But you foresaw, when
you said this, that it might be answered--neither does any man speak
in blank verse, or in measure without rhyme. Therefore you concluded,
that which is nearest nature is still to be preferred. But you took
no notice, that rhyme might be made as natural as blank verse, by the
well placing of the words, &c. All the difference between them, when
they are both correct, is the sound in one, which the other wants;
and if so, the sweetness of it, and all the advantage resulting from
it, which are handled in the preface to the "Rival Ladies," will yet
stand good. As for that place of Aristotle, where he says plays should
be writ in that kind of verse which is nearest prose, it makes little
for you; blank verse being properly but measured prose. Now measure
alone, in any modern language, does not constitute verse; those of
the ancients in Greek and Latin consisted in quantity of words, and a
determinate number of feet. But when, by the inundation of the Goths
and Vandals into Italy, new languages were introduced, and barbarously
mingled with the Latin, of which the Italian, Spanish, French, and
ours, (made out of them and the Teutonic,) are dialects, a new way
of poesy was practised; new, I say, in those countries, for in all
probability it was that of the conquerors in their own nations: at
least we are able to prove, that the eastern people have used it from
all antiquity. [146] This new way consisted in measure or number of
feet, and rhyme. The sweetness of rhyme, and observation of accent,
supplying the place of quantity in words, which could neither exactly
be observed by those barbarians, who knew not the rules of it, neither
was it suitable to their tongues as it had been to the Greek and Latin.
No man is tied in modern poesy to observe any farther rule in the feet
of his verse, but that they be dissyllables; whether Spondee, Trochee,
or Iambic, it matters not; only he is obliged to rhyme: neither do
the Spanish, French, Italian, or Germans, acknowledge at all, or very
rarely, any such kind of poesy as blank verse amongst them. Therefore,
at most 'tis but a poetic prose, a _sermo pedestris_; and, as such,
most fit for comedies, where I acknowledge rhyme to be improper.
Farther, as to that quotation of Aristotle, our couplet verses may be
rendered as near prose as blank verse itself, by using those advantages
I lately named,--as breaks in an hemistick, or running the sense into
another line,--thereby making art and order appear as loose and free
as nature: or not tying ourselves to couplets strictly, we may use
the benefit of the Pindaric way, practised in the "Siege of Rhodes;"
where the numbers vary, and the rhyme is disposed carelessly, and far
from often chyming. Neither is that other advantage of the ancients
to be despised, of changing the kind of verse when they please, with
the change of the scene, or some new entrance; for they confine not
themselves always to iambics, but extend their liberty to all lyric
numbers, and sometimes even to hexameter. But I need not go so far
to prove, that rhyme, as it succeeds to all other offices of Greek
and Latin verse, so especially to this of plays, since the custom of
nations at this day confirms it; the French, Italian, and Spanish
tragedies are generally writ in it; and sure the universal consent of
the most civilized parts of the world, ought in this, as it doth in
other customs, to include the rest.

But perhaps you may tell me, I have proposed such a way to make rhyme
natural, and consequently proper to plays, as is unpracticable; and
that I shall scarce find six or eight lines together in any play, where
the words are so placed and chosen as is required to make it natural.
I answer, no poet need constrain himself at all times to it. It is
enough he makes it his general rule; for I deny not but sometimes
there may be a greatness in placing the words otherwise; and sometimes
they may sound better; sometimes also the variety itself is excuse
enough. But if, for the most part, the words be placed as they are
in the negligence of prose, it is sufficient to denominate the way
practicable; for we esteem that to be such, which in the trial oftener
succeeds than misses. And thus far you may find the practice made good
in many plays: where you do not, remember still, that if you cannot
find six natural rhymes together, it will be as hard for you to produce
as many lines in blank verse, even among the greatest of our poets,
against which I cannot make some reasonable exception.

And this, sir, calls to my remembrance the beginning of your discourse,
where you told us we should never find the audience favourable to this
kind of writing, till we could produce as good plays in rhyme, as
Ben Jonson, Fletcher, and Shakespeare, had writ out of it. But it is
to raise envy to the living, to compare them with the dead. They are
honoured, and almost adored by us, as they deserve; neither do I know
any so presumptuous of themselves as to contend with them. Yet give me
leave to say thus much, without injury to their ashes, that not only
we shall never equal them, but they could never equal themselves, were
they to rise and write again. We acknowledge them our fathers in wit,
but they have ruined their estates themselves, before they came to
their children's hands. There is scarce an humour, a character, or any
kind of plot, which they have not used. All comes sullied or wasted to
us: and were they to entertain this age, they could not now make so
plenteous treatments out of such decayed fortunes. This therefore will
be a good argument to us either not to write at all, or to attempt some
other way. There is no bays to be expected in their walks: _tentanda
via est, quâ me quoque possum tollere humo_.

This way of writing in verse, they have only left free to us; our age
is arrived to a perfection in it, which they never knew; and which (if
we may guess by what of theirs we have seen in verse, as the "Faithful
Shepherdess," and "Sad Shepherd") it is probable they never could have
reached. For the genius of every age is different; and though ours
excel in this, I deny not but that to imitate nature in that perfection
which they did in prose, is a greater commendation than to write in
verse exactly. As for what you have added,--that the people are not
generally inclined to like this way,--if it were true, it would be no
wonder, that betwixt the shaking off an old habit, and the introducing
of a new, there should be difficulty. Do we not see them stick to
Hopkins and Sternhold's Psalms, and forsake those of David, I mean
Sandys his translation of them? If by the people you understand the
multitude, the ὁι πολλοὶ, it is no matter what they think;
they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong: their judgment
is a mere lottery. _Est ubi plebs recté putat, est ubi peccat. _[147]
Horace says it of the vulgar, judging poesy. But if you mean the mixed
audience of the populace and the noblesse, I dare confidently affirm,
that a great part of the latter sort are already favourable to verse;
and that no serious plays, written since the king's return, have
been more kindly received by them, than "The Siege of Rhodes," the
"Mustapha," "The Indian Queen," and "Indian Emperor. "[148]

But I come now to the inference of your first argument. You said, that
the dialogue of plays is presented as the effect of sudden thought,
but no man speaks suddenly, or _extempore_, in rhyme; and you inferred
from thence, that rhyme, which you acknowledge to be proper to epic
poesy, cannot equally be proper to dramatic, unless we could suppose
all men born so much more than poets, that verses should be made in
them, not by them.

It has been formerly urged by you, and confessed by me, that since no
man spoke any kind of verse _extempore_, that which was nearest nature
was to be preferred. I answer you, therefore, by distinguishing betwixt
what is nearest to the nature of comedy, which is the imitation of
common persons and ordinary speaking, and what is nearest the nature of
a serious play: this last is indeed the representation of nature, but
'tis nature wrought up to an higher pitch. The plot, the characters,
the wit, the passions, the descriptions, are all exalted above the
level of common converse, as high as the imagination of the poet can
carry them, with proportion to verisimility. Tragedy, we know, is wont
to image to us the minds and fortunes of noble persons, and to pourtray
these exactly; heroic rhyme is nearest nature, as being the noblest
kind of modern verse.

_Indignatur enim privatis, et prope socco
Dignis, carminibus, narrari cæna Thyeste_,--

says Horace: and in another place,

_Effutire leves indigna tragœdia versus. _

Blank verse is acknowledged to be too low for a poem, nay more, for a
paper of verses; but if too low for an ordinary sonnet, how much more
for tragedy, which is by Aristotle, in the dispute betwixt the epic
poesy and the dramatic, for many reasons he there alleges, ranked above
it?

But setting this defence aside, your argument is almost as strong
against the use of rhyme in poems as in plays; for the epic way is
every where interlaced with dialogue, or discoursive scenes; and
therefore you must either grant rhyme to be improper there, which
is contrary to your assertion, or admit it into plays by the same
title which you have given it to poems. For though tragedy be justly
preferred above the other, yet there is a great affinity between
them, as may easily be discovered in that definition of a play which
Lisideius gave us. The _genus_ of them is the same,--a just and
lively image of human nature, in its actions, passions, and traverses
of fortune: so is the end,--namely for the delight and benefit of
mankind. The characters and persons are still the same, _viz. _ the
greatest of both sorts; only the manner of acquainting us with those
actions, passions, and fortunes, is different. Tragedy performs it
_viva voce_, or by action, in dialogue; wherein it excels the epic
poem, which does it chiefly by narration, and therefore is not so
lively an image of human nature. However, the agreement betwixt them
is such, that if rhyme be proper for one, it must be for the other.
Verse, 'tis true, is not the effect of sudden thought; but this hinders
not that sudden thought may be represented in verse, since those
thoughts are such as must be higher than nature can raise them without
premeditation, especially to a continuance of them, even out of verse;
and consequently you cannot imagine them to have been sudden either in
the poet, or the actors. A play, as I have said, to be like nature,
is to be set above it; as statues which are placed on high are made
greater than the life, that they may descend to the sight in their just
proportion.

Perhaps I have insisted too long on this objection; but the clearing of
it will make my stay shorter on the rest. You tell us, Crites, that
rhyme appears most unnatural in repartees, or short replies: when he
who answers, (it being presumed he knew not what the other would say,
yet) makes up that part of the verse which was left incomplete, and
supplies both the sound and measure of it. This, you say, looks rather
like the confederacy of two, than the answer of one.

This, I confess, is an objection which is in every man's mouth, who
loves not rhyme: but suppose, I beseech you, the repartee were made
only in blank verse, might not part of the same argument be turned
against you? for the measure is as often supplied there as it is in
rhyme; the latter half of the hemistick as commonly made up, or a
second line subjoined, as a reply to the former; which any one leaf
in Jonson's plays will sufficiently clear to you. You will often find
in the Greek tragedians, and in Seneca, that when a scene grows up
into the warmth of repartees, (which is the close fighting of it,) the
latter part of the trimeter is supplied by him who answers; and yet it
was never observed as a fault in them by any of the ancient or modern
critics. [149] The case is the same in our verse as it was in theirs;
rhyme to us being in lieu of quantity to them. But if no latitude is to
be allowed a poet, you take from him not only his licence of _quidlibet
audendi_, but you tie him up in a straiter compass than you would a
philosopher. This is indeed _Musas colere severiores_. You would have
him follow nature, but he must follow her on foot: you have dismounted
him from his Pegasus. But you tell us, this supplying the last half of
a verse, or adjoining a whole second to the former, looks more like
the design of two, than the answer of one. Suppose we acknowledge it:
How comes this confederacy to be more displeasing to you than in a
dance which is well contrived? You see there the united design of many
persons to make up one figure: after they have separated themselves
in many petty divisions, they rejoin one by one into a gross: the
confederacy is plain amongst them, for chance could never produce
any thing so beautiful; and yet there is nothing in it that shocks
your sight. I acknowledge the hand of art appears in repartee, as of
necessity it must in all kind of verse. But there is also the quick and
poignant brevity of it (which is an high imitation of nature in those
sudden gusts of passion) to mingle with it; and this, joined with the
cadency and sweetness of the rhyme, leaves nothing in the soul of the
hearer to desire. It is an art which appears; but it appears only like
the shadowings of painture, which being to cause the rounding of it,
cannot be absent; but while that is considered, they are lost: so while
we attend to the other beauties of the matter, the care and labour of
the rhyme is carried from us, or at least drowned in its own sweetness,
as bees are sometimes buried in their honey. When a poet has found the
repartee, the last perfection he can add to it, is, to put it into
verse. However good the thought may be, however apt the words in which
it is couched, yet he finds himself at a little unrest, while rhyme is
wanting. He cannot leave it till that comes naturally, and then is at
ease, and sits down contented.

From replies, which are the most elevated thoughts of verse, you pass
to those which are most mean, and which are common with this lowest
of household conversation. In these, you say, the majesty of verse
suffers. You instance in the calling of a servant, or commanding a door
to be shut, in rhyme. This, Crites, is a good observation of yours,
but no argument: for it proves no more but that such thoughts should
be waved, as often as may be, by the address of the poet. But suppose
they are necessary in the places where he uses them, yet there is no
need to put them into rhyme. He may place them in the beginning of a
verse, and break it off, as unfit, when so debased, for any other use;
or granting the worst,--that they require more room than the hemistick
will allow, yet still there is a choice to be made of the best words,
and least vulgar, provided they be apt to express such thoughts. Many
have blamed rhyme in general, for this fault, when the poet, with a
little care, might have redressed it. But they do it with no more
justice, than if English poesy should be made ridiculous for the sake
of the Water-poet's rhymes. [150] Our language is noble, full, and
significant; and I know not why he who is master of it may not clothe
ordinary things in it as decently as the Latin, if he use the same
diligence in his choice of words:

_Delectus verborum origo est eloquentiæ. _

It was the saying of Julius Cæsar, one so curious in his, that none
of them can be changed but for a worse. One would think, _unlock the
door_, was a thing as vulgar as could be spoken; and yet Seneca could
make it sound high and lofty in his Latin:--

_Reserate clusos regii postes laris. _[151]

Set wide the palace gates.

But I turn from this exception, both because it happens not above twice
or thrice in any play that those vulgar thoughts are used; and then
too, were there no other apology to be made, yet the necessity of them,
which is alike in all kind of writing, may excuse them. For if they are
little and mean in rhyme, they are of consequence such in blank verse.
Besides that the great eagerness and precipitation with which they are
spoken, makes us rather mind the substance than the dress; that for
which they are spoken, rather than what is spoke. For they are always
the effect of some hasty concernment, and something of consequence
depends on them.

Thus, Crites, I have endeavoured to answer your objections: it remains
only that I should vindicate an argument for verse, which you have
gone about to overthrow. It had formerly been said, that the easiness
of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant; but that the labour of
rhyme bounds and circumscribes an over-fruitful fancy; the sense there
being commonly confined to the couplet, and the words so ordered,
that the rhyme naturally follows them, not they the rhyme. To this
you answered, that it was no argument to the question in hand; for
the dispute was not which way a man may write best, but which is most
proper for the subject on which he writes.

First, give me leave, sir, to remember you, that the argument against
which you raised this objection, was only secondary: it was built on
this hypothesis,--that to write in verse was proper for serious plays.
Which supposition being granted, (as it was briefly made out in that
discourse, by shewing how verse might be made natural,) it asserted,
that this way of writing was an help to the poet's judgment, by putting
bounds to a wild overflowing fancy. I think therefore it will not be
hard for me to make good what it was to prove on that supposition. But
you add, that were this let pass, yet he who wants judgment in the
liberty of his fancy, may as well shew the defect of it when he is
confined to verse; for he who has judgment will avoid errors, and he
who has it not, will commit them in all kinds of writing.

This argument, as you have taken it from a most acute person,[152]
so, I confess, it carries much weight in it: but by using the word
judgment here indefinitely, you seem to have put a fallacy upon us.
I grant, he who has judgment, that is, so profound, so strong, or
rather so infallible a judgment, that he needs no helps to keep it
always poised and upright, will commit no faults either in rhyme, or
out of it. And on the other extreme, he who has a judgment so weak and
crazed, that no helps can correct or amend it, shall write scurvily
out of rhyme, and worse in it. But the first of these judgments is no
where to be found, and the latter is not fit to write at all. To speak
therefore of judgment as it is in the best poets; they who have the
greatest proportion of it, want other helps than from it, within. As
for example, you would be loth to say, that he who is endued with a
sound judgment, has no need of history, geography, or moral philosophy,
to write correctly. Judgment is indeed the master-workman in a play;
but he requires many subordinate hands, many tools to his assistance.
And verse I affirm to be one of these: it is a rule and line by which
he keeps his building compact and even, which otherwise lawless
imagination would raise either irregularly or loosely; at least, if
the poet commits errors with this help, he would make greater and more
without it:--it is, in short, a slow and painful, but the surest kind
of working. Ovid, whom you accuse for luxuriancy in verse, had perhaps
been farther guilty of it, had he writ in prose. And for your instance
of Ben Jonson, who, you say, writ exactly without the help of rhyme;
you are to remember, it is only an aid to a luxuriant fancy, which
his was not: as he did not want imagination, so none ever said he had
much to spare. Neither was verse then refined so much, to be an help
to that age, as it is to ours. Thus then the second thoughts being
usually the best, as receiving the maturest digestion from judgment,
and the last and most mature product of those thoughts being artful
and laboured verse, it may well be inferred, that verse is a great help
to a luxuriant fancy; and this is what that argument which you opposed
was to evince.

Neander was pursuing this discourse so eagerly, that Eugenius had
called to him twice or thrice, ere he took notice that the barge stood
still, and that they were at the foot of Somerset-stairs, where they
had appointed it to land. The company were all sorry to separate so
soon, though a great part of the evening was already spent; and stood
awhile looking back on the water, upon which the moon-beams played, and
made it appear like floating quicksilver: at last they went up through
a crowd of French people,[153] who were merrily dancing in the open
air, and nothing concerned for the noise of guns, which had alarmed the
town that afternoon. Walking thence together to the Piazze, they parted
there; Eugenius and Lisideius to some pleasant appointment they had
made, and Crites and Neander to their several lodgings.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 106: The third of June, 1665. See the "Annus Mirabilis,"
and the Notes, Vol. IX. p.