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Show An Old Fa- By the Plot you may cue s » H S S ^ fc^to&awdl Married; his Debauch'd Son, kind in his Nature ton guefs much ofthe Charaaers of the Perfons. ly befoi : to his" fo muc ; a'BraggadochioCapt is to be the b and it quires it. at once igh you m L -u ,&0r the Italian Mode of Hotifes, you fee thorow them all r h e l C X c S " u e i n K e V i t a t i o n s of Nature, but fo narrow as if they had ilmuteTonly an Eye or anHand,and did not dare to venture on the hues ract rs we vUpafeitby, ifthey luiveregularly purfued them, and perfectly obferv'd thofe three Unitiesof Time, Place, and Aftion:! he knowledge of winch vou tab derh'd to us from them. But in the firft place give m e leave to teli lou that the Unity of Place, how ever it might be pracf .fed by them, was neve, anv of their Rules: W e neither find it in Jrtftotie, Horace, or any w h o have Written of it till in our Age the French Poets firft made it a Precept ot the Stage. The Unity of time, evenTirww himfelf ( w h o was the belt and moft regufarof < them") has neglected • His Heautontimoroumenos or Self-Puniitier takes up vsfibly two Days; therefore, hys Scaltger, the two firft Acts concluding the firft Day, were Acted over-Night; the three laft on the enfuing Day : and Eurypidts, m tying himfelf to one Day, has committed an ablurdity never to be forgiven him: For in one of his Tragedies he has made 7 hefew go from Athens to Thebes, whidi was about 40 Engliih Miles, under the Walls ot it to give Battel, and appear Vi-aoriousinthenextA61; and yet from the time ot his departure to the return of theNuntias, w h o gives the relation of his Victory, A.thra and the Chorus have but^Verfes; that is not for Mile a Verfe. The like error is as evident.ih Terence his Eonuch, when Laches, the Old M a n, Enters in a miftake the Houieof'J'h.tif, where betwixt his Exit and the entrance of Pythias, who comes to give an ample relation ofthe Garboils he has rais'd within, Parmexo who was left upontheStage, has not above five lines to fpeak : C'*/? h'ten employe un temps (i court, fays the French Poet, w h o furnifh'd m e with one ot theQbUrvaftons; And almoft af Ltagedies will afford us examples of the like Nature. 'listrue, they have kept the continuity, or as you calI'd it, Liaifon des Scenes fomewhat better: T w o do not perpetually come in together, talk, and go out together ; and other two fucceed them, and do the fame throughout the Act, wl Hngliiti call by the name of lingle Scenes ; but the reafon is, becaufe tl.ey have feldcm above two or three Scenes, properly fo call'd, in every Aft; for it is to he accounted a new Scene, not every time the Stage is empty, but every Perfen who Enters, though to others, makes it fo ; becaufe he introduces a new buiir.cls: N o w the Plots of their Plays being narrow, and the Perfons few, one of their Acts was Written in a lefs Compafs than one of our well wrought Scenes, and re often deficient ev en in this: T o go no farther thznTerence, you find in the Eunuch ^//^oentring lingle in the midil of the third Act, after Chremes and Pjthiaswtvc gone off: In the lame Play you have likewife Dorias beginning the fourth Act alone; and after fix has made a relation of what was done at the Soldiers. Ecteitainment (which by the way was very inartificial to do, becaufe fhe am'd to fpeak directly to the Audience, and to acquaint them with what was neceffary to be known,but yet fhould have been fo contriv'd by the Poet as to •beentold by Perfons of the Drama to one another, and fo by them to have come to the knowledge of the People) fhe quits the Stage, and Pha-dna Enters He alfo gives you an account of himfelf, and of his re- - ™ ..iw..i»,. xiv, cmw ^ivu juu an account 01 nimieir, anci 01 ins re-nom the Country in Molonogue, to which unnatural way of narration, TV-is fubject in all his Plays : In his Adelphi or Brothers, Syrus and Demea Enter; .eene was broken by the departure of Softrata, Geta and Canthara; and canfcarcc lo©k into any of his Comedies, where you will not prefent-lydifcover the feme interruption. IW US ? C y h t V e H d b ? t h in hVi n S of the* Mots, and managing of them, m the Rules of their own Art, by mif-reprefeming Nature to us,Tn which of Dramatic I Poefie. 9 which they haveill fatisfied oneintention of a Play, which was delight, fo in the inftructlve part they have err'd wort". : Inftead of punilhing Vice and rewarding Virtue, they have often fhown a Profpcrous Wickednefs, and an Unhappy Piety : They have let 1 bloudy Image of revenge in Meix*, and given her Dragons to convey her fife from punifhment. A PJ i*m and Afiyanax murder'd, and Caffandra ravim'd; and the Luft and Murder ending in the Victory of him that ed them: In fhort, there is no indecorum in any of our Modern Plays, which if I would excufe, I could not lhadowwith fome Authority from th.e Ancients. And one farther note of them let m e leave you : Tragedies and Comedies we're not Writ then as they are now, promifcuoully, by the lame Perfon ; but he w h o found his genius bending to the one, never attempted the other way. This is fo plain, that] iot inftanceto you, that Ariftophants, Planfus, Terence, never any of them Writ a Tragedy.; Afchylus, Eurypides, Sophocles a -a, never medled with Comedy ; the Sock and Buskin were not worn by the fame Poet: Having then fo much re to excel in one kind, very little is to be pardon'd them ifthey mifcarried in it . and this would lead m e to the confideration of their Wir, had not Crites givei cut warning not to be too bold in m y judgment of it; becaufe the l. lead, and many ofthe Cuftoms and Utile accidents on which it o , 1 fti i us, w e are not compe it. B_u,ttho wen iy mifs the application of erb or a Cuftom, yet a tiling well laid will I Wit in all Languages ; and though it may lofe f( theTranilation, yet, to him w h o reads itin the Original, 'tis ftill the tsexcellency, though it cannot pais from his mind ini >n or words than thofe in which he finds it. W h en Phwdria-in the Eunuch hai rid from his Miitrefs to be abfent two Days; andencour himfelf to go through with it, laid ; 'Tandem ego non ilia caream, (i opus (it, vel tot urn triduum ? Parmeno to mock the*Toftnefs of his Matter, lifting up his hands and Eyes, crys out as it were in admiration; Hui! umverfum triduum ! The Elegancy of which umverfum, though it cannot be rendred in our Language, vet leaves an imprellion of the Wit upon our Souls : But this happens feldom in him, in Plautus oftner; w h o is infinitely too bold in his Metaphors and coining words; out of which many times his Wit is nothing, which queftionlefs was one reafon w h y Horace fall, upon him fo fevcrely in thofe Verfes : Std Proavi no/hi Plant inos & numeros, & Laudavere files, nimi urn pat tenter utrumque A1 For Horace himfelf was cautious to obtrude a new Word upon his Readers, and makes Cuftom and common ufe the belt meafure of receiving it into our Writings. Mult a / qu.e nunccccidere, cadentq; Qua nunc honore vocabula, f volet ufus, Qu num eft, 6" jus, & norma loquendi. The notobferv nig tins Rule is that which the World has blam'd in our Satirift CI . hard and unnaturally, is his new way ot Elocution: 'Tis true, no Poet bur \ '-times ufe a Catachrejis; Virgildoes it; •/ Colocafiafundtt Acantho. In liis Eclogue ofPoHio, and in his 7th /Eneid. Mir.tr: ur cy undx, Mil 'us, infiu turn fulgent ia longe, zio, pict'afq ', innare carinas. And 0 vid once fo modeftly, that he asks leave to do it; iur iixiffe Palalia ccvli. Calling the Court of Jupiter by the name ofAuguflus his Palace, though in another place he is more bold, where he fays, Et longas vifent Capitoli.i pompas. But to do this always, and never be able to Write a line without it, though it maybe admir'd by foi Pedants, will not pafs upon thofe w h o know that W i t is belt ivey'd to us in the moft eafie Language ; and is moft to be admir'd when a grear 'thought comes dreft in Words fo commonly rcceiv'd that it is undcrftood by the meaneft apprehenj s the belt meat is the moft eafily digefted : But w e cannot read a Verfe of Cl ithout making a Face at it, as if every W o r d were iPijltofwallow: H e gives us oDuotc tao Kre Drcnnenl\ f or Tohura tp adiine. .o neS og m itavheansty tuthsie mrdeees ei Bpas ht'ha2tirh sdo duiNgfhuftetsre tinonce cb rboematmkwo ioxnut rL haTinsege Sutaahtg,yre wr° ietutshgh oha nd |