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placed character and paffion before our eyes, instead of defcribing the one weakening the other.

Afable that is compofed on the rules of criticifm, can admit of little or no variety of action, few incidents, and confequently few of those fituations which give rife to quick and paffionate dialogue; which introduce naturally thofe fudden ftrokes and turns of paffion, which can only delineate truth of character. When the action of the tragedy paffes before our eyes; when a variety of ftriking incidents fet the characters of the piece in their full light; when we hear only the language of passion varying through all the perfonages; in fuch a piece our terror and pity will be moved to the greatest degree: but this cannot be where the unities are obferved.-Let us confider

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the original of thefe unities; Brumoy gives us the following account of them.

"The Iliad, fays he, and good fense, ought by the fame motive to have determined Efchylus to chufe for the fubject of a tragedy one great action, in ittelf illuftrious and interefting. An action perfect and entire, where the parts made. a whole. A. fingular action; without a mixture of independent actions. An action which contained one fingle truth, hid in a circle of events united one to another, and all. tending at once to der. monstrate the plot to the understanding,, in proportion as they fhowed it to the eyes. It is eafy to. fee that tragedy is: only the epic poem abridged, for the action, the chain of events, the fable (as: Ariftotle calls it) have in Homer that: unity, that fimplicity, that nobleness,

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that intereft, that whole, that connection, that innocence, that perfection; in short, all thofe qualities which the Greeks took care to introduce into their plays. From the unity of action proceeded the unity of place Nature only, which Efchylus in his views of Homer ftudied, could have made him perceive, that the specta. tors being placed in a pit, or in a circus,. it was neceffary that the action, in order to make it carry the refemblance of truth, fhould pafs under their eyes, confequently in one and the fame place. Homer being but a narrator, might make the narration take voyages without his heroes, and might change the fcene without carrying his readers into another country. Nothing had been more easy to the tragic poets, and to Efchylus, who was their model, to follow a hero fometimes into his clofet, where he planned his enterprizes,

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enterprizes, and fometimes into the plain where he fought his battles. But would that have been in nature? Certainly not. The spectator may help to deceive himfelf upon the duration of an action, be it more or lefs, provided that that action does not go beyond certain bounds, and that the intervals are dextrously managed; but he cannot deceive himself fo grofly in the scenery part, as to imagine that it paffes from a palace to a plain, and from one city to another, while he fees himself fhut up in a bounded fituation *.

This paffage I think proves the futility of the arguments which have fo often been produced in favour of the unities. Efchylus we will fuppofe took the hint.

Theatre des Grecs.

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from Homer; Sophocles and Euripides followed the example; Ariftotle and other critics pointed out the practice of the fe Grecians, and from them drew up rules for tragic compofition. Such then is the authority in question. But can it be thought that all fucceeding writers are to tread in the fame paths as the Greeks? Why have we dropped their chorus ? None but the most bigoted fticklers to antiquity pretend that the modern invention of acts is a vaft improvement in tragedy; the chorus was a perpetual cramp on the poet, but our acts allow a much greater latitude. My Lord: Kaimes has a very fenfible obfervation on this fubject, which I fhall quote. " By dropping the chorus, fays he, an opportunity is afforded to fplit our drama into parts or acts, which in the reprefentation are diftinguished by intervals of time; and

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