he aims at fome end, glory, for example, or riches, or conqueft, the procuring happiness to individuals, or to his country in general: he proposes means, and lays plans to attain the end purpofed. Here are a number of facts or incidents, leading to the end in view, the whole compofing one chain by the relation of caufe and effect. In running over a series of such facts or incidents, we cannot reft upon any one; because they are prefented to us as means only, leading to fome end: but we reft with fatisfaction upon the end or ultimate event; because there the purpofe or aim of the chief perfon or perfons is accomplished. This indicates the beginning, the middle, and the end, of what Ariftotle calls an entire action.* The. story naturally begins with defcribing thofe circumftances which move the principal 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 accomplished after many obftructions, affords wonderful delight to the reader; to produce which, a principle mentioned above t mainly contributes, the fame that disposes the mind to complete every work commenced, and in general to carry every thing to a conclufion. I have given the foregoing example of a plan crowned with fuccefs, because it affords the clearest conception 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 * Poet. cap. 6. See alfo cap. 7. f Chap. 8. where the catastrophe is different from what is intended or defired, which frequently happens in our bet tragedies. In the Eneid, the hero, after many obftructions, makes his plan effectual. The Iliad is formed upon a different model: It begins with the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon; goes on to defcribe the feveral effects produced by that caufe; 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 Eneid, which will thus appear. The mind hath a propenfity to go forward in the chain of hiftory: it keeps always in view the expected event; and when the incidents or under-parts are connected 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 fo pleafant, as in the Iliad, to connect effects by their common caufe; for fuch connection forces the mind to a continual retrofpect: looking back is like walking backward. Homer's plan is fill more defective upon another account, That the events defcribed are but imperfectly connected with the wrath of Achilles, their caufe 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 affiftance. If unity of action be a capital beauty in a fable imitative of human affairs, a plurality of unconnect. ed fables must be a capital deformity. For the fake of variety, we indulge an under-plot that is connected with the principal: but two unconnected events are extremely unpleafant, even where the fame actors are engaged in both. Ariofto is quite licentious in that particular: he carries on at the fame time a plurality of unconnected ftories. 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 in the order of time is natural, yet that order may be varied for the fake of confpicuous beauties.* If, for example, a noted story, 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 thought neceffary; and that method, at the fame time, hath a peculiar beauty from being dramatic. But a privilege that deviates from nature ought to be fparingly indulged; and yet romance-writers 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 discovered to be the heroes of the fable, start up completely armed upon the banks of the Euphrates, and engage in a fingle combat.‡ 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 Bachelor, * See chap. 1. + See chap. 21. I am fenfible that a commencement of this fort is much relished by readers difpofed to the marvellous. Their curiofity is raifed, and they are much tickled in its gratification. But cariofity is at an end with the first reading, because the perfonages are no longer unknown; and there fore at the fecond reading, a commencement fo artificial lofes its power even over the vulgar. A writer of geniu prefers lasting beauties, Bachelor, the 3d scene of act 2. and all that follow to the end of that act, are mere converfation-pieces, productive of no 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 guiltless of fuch fcenes. It will be no juftification, that they help to display characters: it were better, like Dryden, in his dramatis perfonæ, to describe 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 fentiment and action. How fuccefsfully is this done by Shakefpear in whofe works there is not to be found a fingle barren fcene. Upon the whole, it appears, that all the facts in an historical fable, ought to have a mutual connection, by their common relation to the grand event or cataftrophe, 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 the perceptions 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 horror they give to the delicate ear of an Italian fidler, who is reprefented almost in convulfions, beftows anity upon the piece, with which the mind is fatisfied. How far the unities of time and of place are ef fential, is a queftion of greater intricacy. Thefe unities were ftrictly obferved in the Greek and Roman theatres : theatres and they are inculcated by the French and English critics, as effential to every dramatic compofition. They are alfo acknowledged by our best poets, though in practice they make frequent deviation, 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 course of this inquiry it will be made evident, that in this article we are under no neceffity to copy the ancients; and that our critics are guilty of a mistake, in admitting no greater latitude of place and time than was admitted in Greece and Rome. Suffer me only to premise, that the unities of place and time, are not by the most rigid critics required in a narrative poem. In fuch a compofition, if it pretend to copy nature, thefe unities would be abfurd; be cause real events are feldom confined within narrow limits either of place or of time. And yet we can follow history, 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 forming any connection between the place of action and that which we occupy. I am fenfible, that the drama differs fo far from the epic, as to admit different rules. It will be ob ferved, "That an historical fable, intended for reading folely, is under no limitation of time nor of place, more than a genuine hiftory; but that a dramatic compofition cannot be accurately reprefented, unless it be limited, as its reprefentation is, to one place and to a few hours; and therefore that it can admit.no fable but what has these properties: becaufe it would be abfurd to compofe a piece for reprefentation that cannot be justly reprefented." This argument, I acknowledge, has at least a plaufible appearance; and yet |