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Ch. XXIIIJ. pear, with great judgment, has followed a different rule; which is, to intermix profe with verfe, and only to employ the latter where it is required by the importance or dignity of the fubject. Familiar thoughts and ordinary facts ought to be expreffed in plain language: to hear for example a footman deliver a fimple meffage in blank verfe, muft appear ridiculous to every one who is not biaffed by cuftom. In fhort, that variety of characters and of fituations, which is the life of a play, requires not only a fuitable variety in the fentiments,, but alfo in the diction..

CHA P. XXIII. THE THREE UNITIES.

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HE first chapter accounts for the pleasure we have in a chain of connected facts. In hiftories of the world, of a country, of a people, this pleasure is but faint; because the connections are flight or obfcure. We find more entertainment in biography, where the incidents are connected by their relation to one perfon, who makes a figure, and commands our attention, But the greatest entertainment of the kind, is in the history of a fingle event, fuppofing it interefting; and the reafon is, that the facts and circumftances are connected by the strongest of all relations, that of cause and effect a number of facts that give birth to each other form a delightful train; and we have great mental enjoyment in our progrefs from the beginning to the end.

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But this fubject merits a more particular difcuffion. When we confider the chain of caufes and effects in the material world, independent of purpose, defign, or thought, we find a number of incidents in fucceffion, without beginning, middle, or end. every thing that happens is, in different refpects, both a cause and an effect; being the effect of what goes before, and the caufe of what follows: one incident may affect us more, another lefs; but all of them, important and trivial, are fo many links in the univerfal chain: the mind, in viewing thefe incidents, cannot reft or fettle ultimately upon any one; but is carried along in the train without any close.

But when the intellectual world is taken under view,.

in conjunction with the material, the fcene is varied.. Man acts with deliberation, will, and choice: he aims at fome end, glory, for example, or riches, or conqueft, the procuring happiness to individuals, or to his country in general: he propofes means, and lays plans to attain the end propofed. Here are a number of facts or incidents leading to the end in view, the whole connected into one chain by the relation of caufation. In running over a feties of fuch facts or incidents, we cannot reft upon any one; because they are prefented to us as menng only, leading to fome end: but we reft with fatisfaction upon the ultimate event; because there the purpose or aim of the chief perfon or perfons, is completed, and brought to a final conclufion. This indicates the beginning, the middle, and the end, of what Ariftotle calls an entire action*. The ftory naturally begins with defcribing thofe circumftances which move the diftinguished perfon to form a plan, in order to compafs fome defired event: the profecution of that plan and the obftructions, carry the reader into the heat of action: the middle is properly where the action is the most involved; and the end is where the event is brought about, and the plan accomplished.

A plan thus happily perfected after many obstructions, affords wonderful delight to the reader; to produce which, a principle mentioned above † mainly contributes, the fame that difpofes the mind to complete eve ry work commenced and in general to carry every thing to its ultimate conclufion.

I have given the foregoing example of a plan crowned with fuccefs, because it affords the clearest concep tion of a beginning, a middle, and an end, in which confifts unity of action; and indeed ftricter unity cannot be imagined than in that cafe. But an action may have unity, or a beginning, middle, and end, without fo intimate a relation of parts; as where the catastrophe is different from what is intended or defired; which frequently happens in our best tragedies. In the Eneid, the hero, after many obftructions, brings his plan to perfe&ion. The Iliad is formed upon a different model:

* Poet. cap. 6. See also cap. 7.

† Chap. 8.

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it begins with the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon; goes on to defcribe the feveral effects produced by that cause; and ends in a reconciliation. Here is unity of action, no doubt, a beginning, a middle, and an end; but inferior to that of the Æneid: which will thus appear. The mind hath a propensity to go forward in the chain of history: it keeps always in view the expected event; and when the incidents or underparts are connected together by their relation to the event, the mind runs fweetly and easily along them. This pleasure we have in the Eneid. It is not altogether so pleasant, as in the Iliad, to connect effects by their common cause; for such connection forces the mind to a continual retrofpect: looking backward is like walking backward.

Homer's plan is still more defective, for another reafon, That the events described are but imperfectly connected with the wrath of Achilles, their cause: his wrath did not exert itself in action; and the misfortunes of his countrymen were but negatively the effects of his wrath, by depriving them of his affistance.

If unity of action be a capital beauty in a fable imitative of human affairs, a plurality of unconnected fables must be a capital defect. For the fake of variety, we indulge an under-plot that is connected with the principal defect: but two unconnected events are a great deformity; and it leffens the deformity but a very little, to engage the fame actors in both. Ariofto is quite licentious in that particular: he carries on at the fame time a plurality of unconnected stories. His only excufe is, that his plan is perfectly well adjufted to his fubject; for every thing in the Orlando Furiofo is wild and extravagant.

Though to ftate facts according to the order of time is natural, yet that order may be varied for the fake of confpicuous beauties. If, for example, a noted ftory, cold and fimple in its first movements, be made the fubject of an epic poem, the reader may be hurried into the heat of action; referving the preliminaries for a converfation-piece, if it fhall be thought neceffary; and

* See chap. 1.

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that method, at the fame time, being dramatic, hath a peculiar beauty, which narration cannot reach *. But a privilege that deviates from nature ought to be sparingly indulged; and yet with refpect to that privilege, romance writers have no moderation: they make no difficulty of prefenting to the reader, without the least preparation, unknown perfons engaged in fome arduous adventure equally unknown In Caffandra, two perfonages, who afterward are difcovered to be the heroes of the story, ftart up completely armed upon the banks of the Euphrates, and engage in a single combat t.

A play analyfed, is a chain of connected facts, of which each fcene makes a link. Each scene, accordingly, ought to produce fome incident relative to the catastrophe or ultimate event, by advancing or retarding it. A fcene that produceth no incident, and for that reafon may be termed barren, ought not to be indulged, because it breaks the unity of action: a barren scene can never be intitled to a place, because the chain is complete without it. In the Old Batchelor, the 3d fcene of act 2. and all that follow to the end of that act, are mere converfation-pieces, without any confequence. The 10th and 11th fcenes, act 3. Double Dealer, the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th fcenes, act 1. Love for Love, are of the fame kind. Neither is The way of the World entirely guiltefs of fuch scenes. It will be no juftification, that they help to difplay characters: it were better, like Dryden in his dramatis perfona, to defcribe characters beforehand, which would not break the chain of action. But a writer of genius has no occafion for fuch artifice: he can difplay the characters of his perfonages much more to the life in fentiments

* See chap. 21.

I am fenfible that a commencement of this fort is much relished by certain readers difpofed to wonder. Their curiofity is raifed, and they are much tickled in its gratification. But curiofity is at an end with the first reading, because the perfonages are no longer unknown; and therefore at the fecond reading a commencement fo artificial, lofes all its power even over the vulgar. A writer of genius loves to deal in lafting beauties.

fentiment and action. How fuccefsfully is this done by Shakespear! in whose works there is not to be found a fingle barren scene.

Upon the whole, it appears, that all the facts in an hiftorical fable, ought to have a mutual connection, by their common relation to the grand event or catastrophe. And this relation, in which the unity of action confifts, is equally effential to epic and dramatic compofitions.

In handling unity of action, it ought not to escape obfervation, that the mind is fatisfied with flighter unity in a picture than in a poem; because of the percepti ons of the former are more lively than the ideas of the latter. In Hogarth's Enraged Mufician, we have a collection of every grating found in nature, without any mutual connection except that of place. But the hor ror they give to the delicate ear of an Italian fidler, who is represented almost in convulfions, beftows unity upon the piece, with which the mind is fatisfied.

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How far the unities of time and of place are effential, is a queftion of greater intricacy. Thefe unities were ftrictly obferved in the Grecian and Roman theatres; and they are inculcated by the French and English critics, as effential to every dramatic compofition. theory, these unities are alfo acknowledged by our best poets, though their practice feldom correfponds: they are often forc'd to take liberties, which they pretend not to juftify, against the practice of the Greeks and Romans, and against the folemn decifion of their own countrymen. But in the courfe of this inquiry it will bemade evident, that in this article we are under no neceffity to copy the antients, and that our critics are guil-ty of a mistake, in admitting no greater latitude of place and time than was admitted in Greece and Rome.

Suffer me only to premife, that the unities of placeand time, are not, by the moft rigid critics, required in a narrative poem. In fuch compofition, if it pretend to copy nature, these unities would be abfurd; because real events are feldom confined within narrow limits either of place or of time: and yet we can follow hiftory, or an historical fable, through all its changes, with the greatest facility: we never once think of measuring the real time by what is taken in reading; nor of form-.