pictures, or for a mufician to attempt proving that his compofitions ought to pleafe.

But as Mr. de la Motte wants to establifh rules directly contrary to those which have been followed by our great masters ; it is proper to affert the cause of these ancient laws, not because they are ancient, but because they are juft and neceffary, and might meet in a man of his merit, a formidable antagonist.

Mr. de la Motte would fain banish the unities of action, place and time.

The French were the first among the moderns who revived these wife dramatic laws. The other nations continued a great while without receiving a yoke that feemed fo ftrict; but as it was a reasonable one, and that reafon gets the better of every thing at laft, they have all now bent to it. The english writers at prefent affect to declare before their plays, that the continuance of the action is the fame with that of the representation; they go farther than us, who have been in this. point their masters.

The

The learned of every country begin to look upon thofe ages as barbarous, in which, thefe laws were unknown to the greatest geniuses, fuch as Lopez de Vega* and Shakespear. They confefs the obligation they have to us, for having recovered them from that barbarism. Is it poffible that a Frenchman can now employ all his parts and talents in order to bring us back to it again? Though I had had nothing else to say against Mr. de la Motte's opinion, but that Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Addifon, Congreve, Maffei, have all fubmitted to the dramatic laws which he endeavours to fubvert, it fhould be fufficient to deter any body that was tempted to break through them; but Mr. de la Motte deferves to be answered with arguments, rather than with autho

rities.

What is a dramatic performance? the representation of an action. Why not of two or three actions? Because the mind

* The greatest dramatic poet of the Spaniards, and almost the only one, whofe works are known abroad.

is

is incapable of comprehending feveral objects at the fame time; because the intereft, which is divided, is foon destroyed; because we are even fhocked at seeing two different pieces of history in the fame picture; and because nature alone points out to us this precept, which ought to be as invariable as nature's felf.

For the fame reasons, the unity of place is also effential; for one action is neceffarily confined to one place. If the perfons represented are at Athens in the first act, how can they get to Perfia by the fecond? Has Le Brun ever drawn Alexander at Arbella and in the Indies on the fame canvas?" I fhould not be furprized, fays Mr. de la Motte, artfully, that a people of fenfe, but lefs fond of rules, fhould be fatisfied to fee Coriolanus represented, as condemned at Rome in the first act; received by the Volfcii in the third; and befieging Rome in the fourth, &c."

In the first place, I cannot conceive how a rational and learned people should not be fond of rules which are the re

fult

fult of good fenfe, and calculated to heighten their entertainment. In the fecond place, every body must perceive that what Mr. de la Motte mentions as the proper fubject for one tragedy, in fact, contains fubjects for three; and that this project, tho' it fhould be well executed, would be nothing more than a plot of Jodelle's or Hardy's †, finely verified by a good modern poet.

*

The unity of time is naturally joined to the other unities. When I am prefent at a play, that is, at the representation of an action, I mean to fee the accomplishment of that one action. Suppofe, for instance, a confpiracy at Roine against Augustus: I want to know what will become of Auguftus and of the confpirators. If the poet lengthens out the action to a fortnight, he must give me an account of what paffes during that time, for my business there is to be informed of every thing that happens, and nothing useless should happen. If he relates what paffes every day, there are

+ Two French poets, cotemporary with our Shakespear, guilty of his faults, but not poffeffed of his genius.

then

then fifteen different actions of more or lefs confequence. It is no longer accomplishing the confpiracy, which he should come to at once, but giving a long history that cannot be interefting, as it only ferves to keep back the decifion of the event which I am impatient to be acquainted with. I did not come to the play for the hiftory of a hero, but to fee one action of his life.

Befides, the spectator is but three hours at the play, and therefore the action fhould only last three hours. Cinna, Andromaché, Bajazet +, Edipus either Corneille's or Mr. de la Motte's, or mine. (if I may mention it here), are not of a longer duration. If other plots require a greater length of time for their execution, it is a license only pardonable in favour of very great beauties, and the farther this licenfe is extended, the greater the fault must be.

+ Two of Racine's tragedies; the first has been tranflated, or rather imitated in a very masterly manner by Mr. Phillips, under the title of the DiAtreffed Mother.

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