An English Garner: Critical Essays & Literary Fragments Part 11

"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. JOHNSON using them in his _Magnetic Lady_, where one comes out from dinner, and Relates the quarrels and disorders of it; to save the indecent appearing 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 soldiers' entertainment.

"The Relations, likewise, of _SEFa.n.u.s_'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 chosing a subject which requires this sort of Narration. In the ill managing of them, they 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 our Poets use [_are accustomed_] to end theirs.

"It shows 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: 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.

"As, for example, the conversion of the _Usurer_ in the _Scornful Lady_, seems to me, a little forced. For, being a Usurer, which implies a Lover of Money in 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 coa.r.s.er clothes, to get it up again. But that he should look upon it as a judgement, and so repent; we may expect to hear of in a Sermon, but I should never endure it in a Play.

"I pa.s.s by this. Neither will I insist upon _the care they take, that no person, after his first entrance, shall ever appear; but the business which brings upon the Stage, shall be evident_. Which, if observed, must needs render all the events of 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 Exits of their Actors, you have a clear account of their 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 [pp. 503, 578, 598]. 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. _Sed ut primo ad consequendos eos quos priores ducimus accendimur, ita ubi aut praeteriri, aut aequari eos posse desperavimus, studium c.u.m spe senescit: quod, scilicet, a.s.sequi non potest, sequi desinit; praeteritoque 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 _the French contrive their Plots more regularly; 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 the Definition of a Play [p.

513]; 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, not of a Man; because not animated with the Soul of Poesy, which is _Imitation of Humour and Pa.s.sions_.

"And this, LISIDEIUS himself, or any other, however biased 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 that will look upon theirs, which have been written till [within]

these last ten years [_i.e._, 1655, _when MOLIERE began to write_], or thereabouts, will find it a hard matter to pick out two or three pa.s.sable 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 to so much advantage by Mr. HART, as, I am confident, it never received in its own country; the most favourable to it, would not put it in compet.i.tion with many of FLETCHER's or BEN.

JOHNSON's. In the rest of CORNEILLE's Comedies you have little humour. He tells you, himself, his way is first to show 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 up.

"But, of late years, DE 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 [_in_ 1642]: which LISIDEIUS and many others not observing, have commended that in them for a virtue [p. 531], 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_ [pp. 533, 553]. But their humours, if I may grace them with that name, are so thin sown; that never above One of them comes up in a Play. I dare take upon me, to find more variety of them, in one play of BEN. JOHNSON'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 upon all those Plots. They are too much alike, to please often; which we need not [adduce] 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 re-collect ourselves, after a Scene of great Pa.s.sion and Concernment, as to pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 [_lunch_] upon 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; and that, 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 Compa.s.sion and Mirth, in the same subject, destroy each other: and, in the meantime, 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 [p. 533], 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 push forward by all the Actors; every scene in the Play contributing and moving towards it. Ours, 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: just as they say the orb [?_orbits_] 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 [from], not contrary to the great Design, may naturally be conducted along with it.

"EUGENIUS [?_LISIDEIUS_] has already shown us [p. 534], 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 meantime, 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 pa.s.sions_ [p. 533]; 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 Pa.s.sion 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 the tedious visits of bad [_dull_] 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 _POMPEY_! They are not so properly to be called Plays, as long Discourses of Reason[s] of State: and _POLIEUCTE_, in matters of Religion, is as solemn as the long stops upon our organs. Since that time, it has grown into a custom; and their Actors speak by the hour gla.s.s, as our Parsons do. 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 a hundred or two 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; 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 Comedy is more pleasing to us, and Tragedy to them.

"But, to speak generally, it cannot be denied that _short_ Speeches and Replies are more apt to move the pa.s.sions, and beget concernment in us; than the other. For it is unnatural for any one in a gust of pa.s.sion, to speak long together; or for another, in the same condition, to suffer him without interruption.

"Grief and Pa.s.sion 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 Chase 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 arrive at.

"There is another part of LISIDEIUS his discourse, in which he has rather excused our neighbours, than commended them; that is, _for aiming only_ [simply] _to make one person considerable in their Plays_.

"'Tis very true what he has urged, that one Character in all Plays, even without the Poet's care, will have the 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 s.h.i.+ning 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.

"'Tis 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 ma.s.s 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: and, by it, the Poet gained the end he aimed at, the punishment of vice, and reward of virtue; 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 to pa.s.s to the latter part of LISIDEIUS his discourse; which concerns RELATIONS. I must acknowledge, with him, that the French have reason, _when they hide that part of the Action, which would occasion too much tumult on the Stage_; and choose rather to have it made known by Narration to the audience [p. 535]. Farther; I think it very convenient, for the reasons he has given, that _all incredible Actions were removed_ [p. 537]: 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 or 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 any other thing in the Play. For my part, I can, with as great ease, persuade myself that the blows, which are struck, 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_ [p. 537], I would be satisfied from LISIDEIUS, whether we have any so removed from all appearance of truth, as are those in CORNEILLE's _ANDROMEDE_? A Play that has been frequented [_repeated_] the most, of any he has writ. If the _PERSEUS_ or the son of the heathen G.o.d, 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 Ballette [_Ballet_] or Masque; but a Play, which is, _to resemble truth_.

"As for _Death_, that _it ought not to be represented_ [p. 536]: I have, besides the arguments alleged by LISIDEIUS, the authority of BEN.

JOHNSON, who has foreborne it in his Tragedies: for both the death of SEJa.n.u.s 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 inconsiderable 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 upon him, who was otherwise a painful observer of [Greek: to prepon] or the Decorum of the Stage: if he had not used extreme severity in his judgement [_in his 'Discoveries'_] upon the incomparable SHAKESPEARE, for the same fault.

"To conclude on this subject of Relations, if we are to be blamed for showing 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 indecent.

"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 [so] 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 tied up by those laws: for the breaking which, he has blamed the English? I will allege CORNEILLE's words, as I find them in the end of this _Discourse_ of _The three Unities_. _Il est facile aux speculatifs d'etre severe, &c_. ''Tis easy, for speculative people to judge severely: but if they would produce to public view, ten or twelve pieces of this nature; they would, perhaps, give more lat.i.tude to the Rules, than I have done: when, by experience, they had known how much we are bound up, and constrained by them, and how many beauties of the Stage they banished from it.'

"To ill.u.s.trate, a little, what he has said. By their servile imitations of the UNITIES of TIME and PLACE, and INTEGRITY OF SCENES they have brought upon themselves the 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 compa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 shown 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 shown in that Act: and sometimes their characters are very unfitting to appear there. As, suppose it were the King's Bedchamber; yet the meanest man in the Tragedy, must come and despatch his business there, rather than in the Lobby or Courtyard (which is [_were_] fitter for him), for fear the Stage should be cleared, and the Scenes broken.