weary, and then takes a little Whistle, and falls a whiftling; at the fame time you hear an hundred Whistles, which make 'fo fhrill a noise that 'tis enough to confound the Heads of all the Spectators. By this time, our poor Poet is quite ruin'd; all his Study and Pains having been at the Mercy of a Blockhead, according as he was in good or bad Humour.'

This perhaps may feem a harder Fate, than what our Poets here are liable to: But whilft Ignorance is to be Judge of Art, and the Direction of the Theatre is in fuch Hands, it is certain, the Cafe is much the fame. For the Fate of a Play depends on thefe Gentlemen's Opinion of it, who have nothing to guide them but Fancy, which leads them ten times into an Error, for once that it hits right; and then it is by wondrous chance. Nay, it is no new Defect of the Stage; for when the Poets, that is, the Masters of the Art, left off ordering the Stage, and directing the Actors, as the admirable Critick Monfieur Dacier obferves in his Notes on the laft Chapter of Ariftotle's Art of Poetry, the Players being left to themfelves, immediately fpoil'd the acting, and degenerated from that Wisdom and Simplicity, by which they had been maintain'd.

These are the Gentlemen particularly that bring their Arguments againft regular Plays, which had been as falfly urg'd before the Reformation of the French Stage; as is plain from the Academy's Animadverfions on the Cid of Corneille, p. 22: Let their Words juftify my Affertion Que fi au contraire, quelques Pieces regulaires donnent peu de Satisfaction; il ne faut pas croire, que ce foit la Faute des Regles, mais bien celles des Auteurs; dont le Sterile Genie na pu fournir a l'Art, une que fuft affez Riche: i. e. If, on the contrary, fome regular Pieces. give but little Satisfaction, you ought not to believe, that this is the Fault of the Rules, but of the Authors; whofe barren Genius cannot fupply Art with what is rich and noble.' The Rules of Art indeed are not for any Man, to whom Nature has not given a Genius; without which it is impoffible to observe, or indeed perfectly to understand them.

The

The ingenious Michael Cervantes, the celebrated Author of Don Quixot, tells us, that the fame Objection was made to him in Defence of irregular Plays, that had ufurp'd the Spanish Stage under the Direction of the Actors. Which I fhall transcribe, because it shows that Stage to be like ours; that the Opinion of a Man of his Wit and Judgment, may have a juft Influence on those, who look more on Authority, than Reafon.

In the 50th Chapter of his firft Part, rate are difcourfing to this purpose,

the Canon and the CuIf these Plays, that

6 are now in vogue, as well thofe that are mere Fiction, as those that are taken out of Hiftory, are all or the greatest part. of them, plain vifible Fopperies, and things without Head or Tail; yet the Multitude delights in, and thinks them good, tho they are so far from it. And if the Poets who write, and 'the Players who act, say they must be such, because the Mul• titude will have them fo, and no otherwife; and that those ‹ which are regular, and carry on the Plot according to Art, are only of use to a few wife Men, who understand them, and all the rest make nothing of them; and that it is better for them to get their Bread by Many, than to be look'd on by a Few

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If this be fo, I fay, the fame will be the Fate of my Book; ' after I have crack'd my Brain to obferve the Rules I have fpoken of, I fhall lofe my Labour. And tho I have sometimes • endeavour'd to perfuade the Actors, that they are in the wrong. ' in following that Opinion; and that they would draw more 'People, and gain more Reputation by acting Plays, that are according to the Rules of Art, than by thofe Mad ones: They: are fo fond of their own Opinion, that there is no bearing them out of it. I remember I once faid to one of thefe obftinate Men

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Tell me, don't you remember that a few Years ago, there were three Plays acted in Spain, written by a famous Poet of this Kingdom, which were fo excellent, that they astonish'd, pleas'd, and furpriz'd all that faw them, as well ignorant, as wife; the Multitude, as better Sort? And those three alone yielded the Actors more Money than thirty

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• of

of the best that have been made fince. Doubtlefs, Sir, faid the Poet I fpeak of, you mean the Ifabella, Phillis, and Alexan← der? I mean the fame, quoth I, and fee whether those did not • obferve the Rules of Art; and did not please all People? So that the Fault is not in the Multitude, who require Follies; but in those, who know not how to fhow them any thing else. Nor was the Play of Ingratitude Reveng'd a Foppery; nor was .6 there any in that of Numantia; nor the Amorous Merchant 'much lefs in the Favourable She-Enemy; nor in fome others, that have been written by judicious Poets, to their great Reputation and Renown, and to the Advantage of thofe that acted them. Much more I urg'd; which, in my Opinion, confounded, but did not convince him, fo as to make him recede from his erroneous Conceit."

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• You have hit on a thing, Master Canon, (anfwer'd the Curate) that has stir'd up the old Grudge I bear the Plays now in ufe; which is not inferior to my Averfion to Books of Knight-Errantry. For whereas the Drama, according to Tully, ought to be a Mirror of human Life, a Pattern of Manners, and a lively Image of Truth; thofe, that are acted now-a-days, are Mirrors of Extravagancies; Patterns of Follies; and lively Images of Lewdnefs. For what greater Extravagancies can there be, than to bring on a Child in its Swadling-bands, in the first Scene of the firft Act; and in the second to have him walk in, as grown. up to a ftout Man? And what greater Folly than to reprefent to us a fighting old Fellow, and a cowardly young Man; an haranguing Footman; a Page taking on him to be a PrivyCounsellor; a King a mere Clown; a Princess an errant Cook-Wench? What fhall I fay to the Time and Place, that these Accidents may or might have happen'd in? For I have feen a Play, whose first Act began in Europe, the second in Afia, and the third in Africa; and had it held out four Acts, the fourth < would have ended in America; and fo it would have been acted in all the four Quarters of the World.

And if Imitation be the principal Part of the Drama, how is it poffible that any tolerable Understanding should be pleas'd

to fee, that when they are acting a Paffage, that happen'd in the Days of King Pepin, or Charlemagne; the fame Man, who acts the Hero of the Play, fhould be made the Emperor Heraclius, who carry'd the Crofs to Jerufalem, in order to recover the Holy Sepulchre, as Godfrey of Bulloin did, when there are many Years distance betwixt those Actions? Or when the Play is grounded on Fiction, to apply it to Truths out of History; or patch it up with Accidents, that happen'd to several Perfons, and at feveral Times; and this not with any Contrivance to make it appear probable, but with manifeft Errors altogether inexcufable? And the worft of it is, there are fome Blockheads who call this Perfection, and all the reft Notion and Pedantry, &c.'

And after some Reflections on the monftrous Miracles forg'd for their religious Plays, he proceeds

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All this is an Affront to Truth, a Difcredit to Hiftory, and a Shame to the Spanish Wits. Because Foreigners, who are Every ftrict in obferving the Laws of the Drama, look on us as ignorant and barbarous, when they fee the Abfurdity, and enormous Folly of thefe we write. And that is not excus'd by faying, that the chief Design of well-govern'd Commonwealths, in permitting Plays to be acted, is to divert the Commonalty with fome lawful Recreation, to difperfe the ill Humours that Idleness often breeds; and that fince this is done by any Play good, or bad, there is no Occafion to prefcribe Laws, or confine thofe that write, or those that act them, to make them fuch as they ought to be: For, as I faid, any of them ferve to compass the End defign'd by them. To this I would answer, that the End would be infinitely better attain'd by good Plays, than these that are not fo. For a Man, after feeing a good and well-contriv'd Play, would go away pleas'd with the Comedy, inftructed by the ferious Part, furpriz'd at the Plot, improv❜d by the Language, warn'd by the Frauds, in"form'd by the Examples, difgufted at Vice, and in love with Virtue: For a good Play muft work all these Effects upon him that fees it, tho he be never fo rude, and unthinking. And

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it is abfolutely impoffible, but that a Play, that has all thefe Qualifications, must please, divert, fatisfy, and content beyond that which wants them; as for the most part those do that are now acted. And the Poets that write them are not in the Fault; for fome of them are very fenfible of the Errors they commit, and know what they ought to do. But Plays

being become venal, they fay, and are in the right on't, that the Actors would give nothing for them, if they were not of that Stamp. And therefore the Poet endeavours to fuit himfelf to what the Actor, who is to pay for it, requires, &c.

This is fo near an Image of our Dramatick State, in this Nation, that I hope the Obfervation of fo receiv'd a Wit as Michael Cervantes, will have fome weight with our Men of Figure, who are, or would be thought Men of Sense and Politenefs. Yet, if they should think Authority insufficient, because against their wretched Goûft; I fhall fhew, that Reason is as much against them: and then fhew the Source of our ill Tafte, and the Corruption of our Stage, by giving a View of the Original and Rife of the Drama, in Greece, in Rome, and in this Nation.

To come therefore to Reason, against those blind Enemies to Regularity, and without which there can be no Harmony, we must prove that Poetry is an Art.

As the Injuftice of Men was the Caufe of Laws, fo the Decay of Arts, and the Faults committed in them (as Dacier obferves) oblig'd Men first to make Rules, and afterwards to revive them. The Laws of Legislators place all their Reason in their Will, or the prefent Occurrences; but the Rules of Poetry advance nothing but what is accompany'd with Reason, and drawn from the common Sentiments of Mankind: fo that Men themfelves become the Rule and Measure of what these prescribe.

All Arts are certain Rules or Means of arriving at, or doing fomething that is good and beneficial to Mankind; now Poetry aiming at the Inftruction of Men by Pleasure, it propofes a certain End for the Good of Men: it must therefore have certain Rules or Means of obtaining that End; and is therefore an Art.

Poetry