An English Garner: Critical Essays & Literary Fragments Part 9

to strike in with him, and help to dupe his father, A braggadochio Captain, a Parasite, and a Lady of Pleasure.

"As for the poor honest maid, upon whom all the story is built, and who ought to be one of the princ.i.p.al Actors in the Play; she is commonly a Mute in it. She has the breeding of the old ELIZABETH [_Elizabethan_]

way, for 'maids to be seen, and not to be heard': and it is enough, you know she is willing to be married, when the Fifth Act requires it.

"These are plots built after the Italian mode of houses. You see through them all at once. The Characters, indeed, are Imitations of Nature: but so narrow as if they had imitated only an eye or an hand, and did not dare to venture on the lines of a face, or the proportion of a body.

"But in how strait a compa.s.s sorever, they have bounded their Plots and Characters, we will pa.s.s it by, if they have regularly pursued them, and perfectly observed those three Unities, of TIME, PLACE, and ACTION; the knowledge of which, you say! is derived to us from them.

"But, in the first place, give me leave to tell you! that the Unity of PLACE, however it might be practised by them, was never any of their Rules. We neither find it in ARISTOTLE, HORACE, or any who have written of it; till, in our Age, the French poets first made it a Precept of the Stage.

"The Unity of TIME, even TERENCE himself, who was the best and most regular of them, has neglected. His _Heautontimoroumenos_ or 'Self Punisher' takes up, visibly, two days. 'Therefore,' says SCALIGER, 'the two first Acts concluding the first day, were acted overnight; the last three on the ensuing day.'

"And EURIPIDES, in tying himself to one day, has committed an absurdity never to be forgiven him. For, in one of his Tragedies, he has made THESEUS go from Athens to Thebes, which was about forty English miles; under the walls of it, to give battle; and appear victorious in the next Act: and yet, from the time of his departure, to the return of the _Nuntius_, who gives relation of his victory; _AETHRA_ and the _Chorus_ have but thirty-six verses, that is, not for every mile, a verse.

"The like error is evident in TERENCE his _Eunuch_; when _LACHES_ the old man, enters, in a mistake, the house of _THAIS_; where, between his _Exit_ and the Entrance of _PYTHIAS_ (who comes to give an ample relation of the garboils he has raised within), _PARMENO_ who was left upon the stage, has not above five lines to speak. _C'est bien employe, un temps si court!_ says the French poet, who furnished me with one of the[se]

observations.

"And almost all their Tragedies will afford us examples of the like nature.

"'Tis true, they have kept the Continuity, or as you called it, _Liaison des Scenes_, somewhat better. Two do not perpetually come in together, talk, and go out together; and other two succeeded them, and do the same, throughout the Act: which the English call by the name of 'Single Scenes.'

But the reason is, because they have seldom above two or three Scenes, properly so called, in every Act. For it is to be accounted a _new_ Scene, not every time the Stage is empty: but every person _who enters_, though to others, makes it so; because he introduces a new business.

"Now the Plots of their Plays being narrow, and the persons few: one of their Acts was written in a less compa.s.s than one of our well-wrought Scenes; and yet they are often deficient even in this.

"To go no further than TERENCE. You find in the _Eunuch_, _ANTIPHO_ entering, single, in the midst of the Third Act, after _CHREMES_ and _PYTHIAS_ were gone off. In the same play, you have likewise _DORIAS_ beginning the Fourth Act alone; and after she has made a relation of what was done at the soldier's entertainment (which, by the way, was very inartificial to do; because she was presumed to speak directly to the Audience, and to acquaint them with what was necessary to be known: but yet should have been so contrived by the Poet as to have been told by persons of the Drama to one another, and so by them, to have come to the knowledge of the people), she quits the Stage: and _PHAEDRIA_ enters next, alone likewise. He also gives you an account of himself, and of his returning from the country, in monologue: to which unnatural way of Narration, TERENCE is subject in all his Plays.

"In his _Adelphi_ or 'Brothers,' _SYRUS_ and _DEMEA_ enter after the Scene was broken by the departure of _SOSTRATA_, _GETA_, and _CANTHARA_; and, indeed, you can scarce look into any of his Comedies, where you will not presently discover the same interruption.

"And as they have failed both in [the] laying of the Plots, and managing of them, swerving from the Rules of their own Art, by misrepresenting Nature to us, in which they have ill satisfied one intention of a Play, which was Delight: so in the Instructive part [pp. 513, 582-4], they have erred worse. Instead of punishing vice, and rewarding virtue; they have often shown a prosperous wickedness, and an unhappy piety. They have set before us a b.l.o.o.d.y Image of Revenge, in _MEDEA_; and given her dragons to convey her safe from punishment. A _PRIAM_ and _ASTYANAX_ murdered, and _Ca.s.sANDRA_ ravished; and l.u.s.t and Murder ending in the victory of him that acted them. In short, there is no indecorum in any of our modern Plays; which, if I would excuse, I could not shadow with some Authority from the Ancients.

"And one farther note of them, let me leave you! Tragedies and Comedies were not writ then, as they are now, promiscuously, by the same person: but he who found his genius bending to the one, never attempted the other way. This is so plain, that I need not instance to you, that ARISTOPHANES, PLAUTUS, TERENCE never, any of them, writ a Tragedy; AESCHYLUS, EURIPIDES, SOPHOCLES, and SENECA never meddled with Comedy. The Sock and Buskin were not worn by the same Poet. Having then so much care to excel in one kind; very little is to be pardoned them, if they miscarried in it.

"And this would lead me to the consideration of their Wit, had not CRITES given me sufficient warning, not to be too bold in my judgement of it; because (the languages being dead, and many of the customs and little accidents on which it depended lost to us [p. 518]) we are not competent judges of it. But though I grant that, here and there, we may miss the application of a proverb or a custom; yet, a thing well said, will be Wit in all languages: and, though it may lose something in the translation; yet, to him who reads it in the original, 'tis still the same. He has an Idea of its excellency; though it cannot pa.s.s from his mind into any other expression or words than those in which he finds it.

"When _PHAEDRIA_, in the _Eunuch_, had a command from his mistress to be absent two days; and encouraging himself to go through with it, said, _Tandem ego non illa caream, si opus sit, vel totum triduum? PARMENO_ to mock the softness of his master, lifting up his hands and eyes, cries out, as it were in admiration, _Hui! universum triduum!_ The elegancy of which _universum_, though it cannot be rendered in our language; yet leaves an impression of the Wit on our souls.

"But this happens seldom in him [_i.e., TERENCE_]; in PLAUTUS oftner, who is infinitely too bold in his metaphors and coining words; out of which, many times, his Wit is nothing. Which, questionless, was one reason why HORACE falls upon him so severely in those verses.

"_Sed Proavi nostri Plautinos el numeros et Laudavere sales, nimium patienter utrumque Ne dicam stolide_.

"For HORACE himself was cautious to obtrude [_in obtruding_] a new word upon his readers: and makes custom and common use, the best measure of receiving it into our writings,

"_Multa renascentur quae nunc cecidere, cadentque Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus Quem penes, arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi_.

"The not observing of this Rule, is that which the World has blamed in our satirist CLEVELAND. To express a thing hard and unnaturally is his New Way of Elocution. Tis true, no poet but may sometimes use a _catachresis_. VIRGIL, does it,

"_Mistaque ridenti Colocasia fundet Acaniho_--

"in his Eclogue of _POLLIO_.

"And in his Seventh AEneid--

"_Mirantur et unda, Miratur nemus, insuetam fulgentia longe, Scuta virum fluvio, pictaque innare carinas_.

"And OVID once; so modestly, that he asks leave to do it.

"_Si verbo audacia, detur Haud metuam summi dixisse Palatia coeli_

"calling the Court of JUPITER, by the name of AUGUSTUS his palace.

Though, in another place, he is more bold; where he says, _Et longas visent Capitolia pompas_.

"But to do this always, and never be able to write a line without it, though it may be admired by some few pedants, will not pa.s.s upon those who know that _Wit is best conveyed to us in the most easy language: and is most to be admired, when a great thought comes dressed in words so commonly received, that it is understood by the meanest apprehensions; as the best meat is the most easily digested_. But we cannot read a verse of CLEVELAND's, without making a face at it; as if every word were a pill to swallow. He gives us, many times, a hard nut to break our teeth, without a kernel for our pains. So that there is this difference between his _Satires_ and Doctor DONNE's: that the one [_DONNE_] gives us deep thoughts in common language, though rough cadence; the other [_CLEVELAND_] gives us common thoughts in abtruse words. 'Tis true, in some places, his wit is independent of his words, as in that of the _Rebel Scot_--

"Had CAIN been Scot, G.o.d would have changed his doom, Not forced him wander, but confined him home.

"_Si sic, omnia dixisset!_ This is Wit in all languages. 'Tis like MERCURY, never to be lost or killed. And so that other,

"For beauty, like white powder, makes no noise, And yet the silent hypocrite destroys.

"You see the last line is highly metaphorical; but it is so soft and gentle, that it does not shock us as we read it.

"But to return from whence I have digressed, to the consideration of the Ancients' Writing and Wit; of which, by this time, you will grant us, in some measure, to be fit judges.

"Though I see many excellent thoughts in SENECA: yet he, of them, who had a genius most proper for the Stage, was OVID. He [_i.e., OVID_] had a way of writing so fit to stir up a pleasing admiration and concernment, which are the objects of a Tragedy; and to show the various movements of a soul combating betwixt different pa.s.sions: that, had he lived in our Age, or (in his own) could have writ with our advantages, no man but must have yielded to him; and therefore, I am confident the _MEDEA_ is none of his.

For, though I esteem it, for the gravity and sentiousness of it (which he himself concludes to be suitable to a Tragedy, _Omne genus scripti gravitate Tragadia, vincit_); yet it moves not my soul enough, to judge that he, who, in the Epic way, wrote things so near the Drama (as the stories of _MYRRHA,_ of _CAUNUS and BIBLIS,_ and the rest) should stir up no more concernment, where he most endeavoured it.

"The masterpiece of SENECA, I hold to be that Scene in the _Troades_, where _ULYSSES_ is seeking for _ASTYANAX,_ to kill him. There, you see the tenderness of a mother so represented in _ANDROMACHE_, that it raises compa.s.sion to a high degree in the reader; and bears the nearest resemblance, of anything in their Tragedies, to the excellent Scenes of Pa.s.sion in SHAKESPEARE or in FLETCHER.

"For Love Scenes, you will find but few among them. Their Tragic poets dealt not with that soft pa.s.sion; but with l.u.s.t, Cruelty, Revenge, Ambition, and those b.l.o.o.d.y actions they produced, which were more capable of raising horror than compa.s.sion in an audience: leaving Love untouched, whose gentleness would have tempered them; which is the most frequent of all the pa.s.sions, and which (being the private concernment of every person) is soothed by viewing its own Image [p. 549] in a public entertainment.

"Among their Comedies, we find a Scene or two of tenderness: and that, where you would least expect it, in PLAUTUS. But to speak generally, their lovers say little, when they see each others but anima mea! vita mea! [Greek: zoae kai psuchae!] as the women, in JUVENAL's time, used to cry out, in the fury of their kindness.

"Then indeed, to speak sense were an offence. Any sudden gust of pa.s.sion, as an ecstasy of love in an unexpected meeting, cannot better be expressed than in a word and a sigh, breaking one another. Nature is dumb on such occasions; and to make her speak, would be to represent her unlike herself. But there are a thousand other concernments of lovers as jealousies, complaints, contrivances, and the like; where, not to open their minds at large to each other, were to be wanting to their own love, and to the expectation of the audience: who watch the Movements of their Minds, as much as the Changes of their Fortunes. For the Imaging of the first [p. 549], is properly the work of a Poet; the latter, he borrows of the Historian."

EUGENIUS was proceeding in that part of his discourse, when CRITES interrupted him.

"I see," said he, "EUGENIUS and I are never likely to have this question decided betwixt us: for he maintains the Moderns have acquired a _new perfection_ in writing; I only grant, they have _altered the mode_ of it.

"HOMER describes his heroes, [as] men of great appet.i.tes; lovers of beef broiled upon the coals, and good fellows: contrary to the practice of the French romances, whose heroes neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep for love.

"VIRGIL makes _AENEAS_, a bold avower of his own virtues,

"_Sum pius AENEAS fama super aethera notus_;

"which, in the civility of our Poets, is the character of a _Fanfaron_ or Hector. For with us, the Knight takes occasion to walk out, or sleep, to avoid the vanity of telling his own story; which the trusty Squire is ever to perform for him [p. 535].

"So, in their Love Scenes, of which EUGENIUS spoke last, the Ancients were more hearty; we, the more talkative. They writ love, as it was then the mode to make it.