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modern plays above twenty actors, when the action has not required half the number. In the principal figures of a Picture, the Painter is to employ the sinews of his art, for in them consists the principal beauty of his work. Our author saves me the comparison with Tragedy: for he says, that "herein he is to imitate the Tragic Poet, who employs his utmost force in those places, wherein consist the height and beauty of the action.'

Du Fresnoy, whom I follow, makes DESIGN, or Drawing, the second part of Painting; but the rules which he gives concerning the posture of the figures are almost wholly proper to that art, and admit not any comparison, that I know, with Poetry. The posture of a poetic figure is, as I conceive, the description of his heroes in the performance of such or such an action as of Achilles, just in the act of killing Hector; or of Æneas, who has Turnus under him. Both the Poet and the Painter vary the postures, according to the action or passion, which they represent of the same person. But all must be great and graceful in them. The same Æneas must be drawn a suppliant to Dido, with respect in his gestures, and humility in his eyes; but when he is forced, in his own defence, to kill Lausus, the Poet shows him compassionate, and tempering the severity of his looks with a reluctance to the action which he is going to perform. He has pity on his beauty and his youth, and is loth to destroy such a master-piece of nature. He considers Lausus rescuing his father, at the hazard of his own life, as an image of himself, when he took Anchises on his shoulders, and bore him safe through the rage of the fire, and the opposition of his enemies; and therefore, in the posture of a retiring man, who avoids the combat, he stretches out his arm in sign of peace,

with his right foot drawn a little back, and his breast bending inward, more like an orator than a soldier; and seems to dissuade the young man from pulling on his destiny, by attempting more than he was able to perform. Take the passage as I have thus translated it:

Shouts of applause ran ringing through the field,
To see the son the vanquish'd father shield;
All, fir'd with noble emulation, strive,

And with a storm of darts to distance drive

The Trojan chief; who, held at bay, from far
On his Vulcanian orb sustained the war.
Eneas thus o'erwhelmed on ev'ry side,

Their first assault undaunted did abide ;

And thus to Lausus, loud, with friendly threat'ning cry'd,
Why wilt thou rush to certain death, and rage

In rash attempts beyond thy tender age,

Betrayed by pious love!

And afterwards,

He griev'd, he wept, the sight and image brought
Of his own filial love a sadly pleasing thought.

}

But, beside the outlines of the posture, the design of the Picture, comprehends in the next place the "forms of faces which are to be different ;" and so in a Poem, or Play, must the several characters of the persons be distinguished from each other. I knew a Poet, whom out of respect I will not name, who, being too witty himself, could draw nothing but wits in a Comedy of his; even his fools were infected with the disease of their author: they overflowed with smart repartees, and were only distinguished from the intended wits by being called coxcombs, though they deserved not so scandalous a name. Another, who had a great genius for Tragedy, following the fury of his natural temper, made every man and woman too, in his Plays, stark raging mad; there was not a sober person to be had for love or money; all was tempestuous and blustering; heaven and earth were coming together at every

word; a mere hurricane from the beginning to the end; and every actor seemed to be hastening on the day of judgment !

"Let every member be made for its own head,” says our author, not a withered hand to a young face. So in the persons of a Play, whatever is said or done by any of them, must be consistent with the manners which the Poet has given them distinctly: and even the habits must be proper to the degrees and humours of the persons as well as in a Picture. He who entered in the first act a young man, like Pericles, Prince of Tyre, must not be in danger, in the fifth act, of committing incest with his daughter; nor an usurer, without great probability and causes of repentance, be turned into a cutting Moorcraft.

I am not satisfied that the comparison betwixt the two arts, in the last paragraph, is altogether so just as it might have been; but I am sure of this which follows.

« The principal figure of the subject must appear in the midst of the Picture, under the principal ight, to distinguish it from the rest, which are only its attendants." Thus in a Tragedy, or in an Epic Poem, the hero of the piece must be advanced foremost to the view of the reader or spectator: he must outshine the rest of all the characters; he must appear the prince of them, like the sun in the Copernican System, encompassed with the less noble planets. Because the hero is the centre of the main action, all the lines from the circumference tend to him alone; he is the chief object of pity in the drama, and of admiration in the Epic Poem.

As in a Picture, besides the principal figures which compose it, and are placed in the midst of it, there are less "groupes or knots of figures disposed at proper

distances," which are parts of the piece, and seem to carry on the same design in a more inferior manner : so in Epic Poetry there are episodes, and a chorus in Tragedy, which are members of the action, as growing out of it, not inserted into it. Such in the ninth book of the Eneis, is the episode of Nisus and Euryalus : the adventure belongs to them alone; they alone are the objects of compassion and admiration; but their business which they carry on is the general concernment of the Trojan camp, then beleaguered by Turnus and the Latines, as the Christians were lately by the Turks: they were to advertise the chief hero of the distresses of his subjects, occasioned by his absence, to crave his succour, and solicit him to hasten his return.

The Grecian Tragedy was at first nothing but a chorus of singers; afterwards one actor was introduced, which was the poet himself, who entertained the people with a discourse in verse, betwixt the pauses of the singing. This succeeding with the people, more actors were added to make the variety the greater: and in process of time the chorus only sung betwixt the acts, and the Coryphæus, or chief of them, spoke for the rest, as an actor concerned in the business of the play.

Thus Tragedy was perfected by degrees; and being arrived at that perfection, the Painters might probably take the hint from thence, of adding groups to their Pictures: but as a good Picture may be without a group, so a good Tragedy may subsist without a chorus, notwithstanding any reasons which have been given by Dacier to the contrary.

Monsieur Racine has indeed used it in his Esther, but not that he found any necessity of it, as the French Critic would insinuate. The chorus at St. Cyr was

only to give the young ladies an occasion of entertaining the king with vocal music, and of commending their own voices. The play itself was never intended for the public stage; nor, without any disparagement to the learned author, could possibly have succeeded there, and much less in the translation of it here. Mr. Wycherly, when we read it together, was of my opinion in this, or rather I of his; for it becomes me so to speak of so excellent a poet, and so great a judge. But since I am in this place, as Virgil says, "Spatiis exclusus iniquis," that is, shortened in my time, I will give no other reason than that it is impracticable on our stage. A new theatre, much more ample, and much deeper, must be made for that purpose, besides the cost of sometimes forty or fifty habits, which is an expence too large to be supplied by a company of actors. It is true, I should not be sorry to see a chorus on a theatre, more than as large and as deep again as ours, built and adorned at a king's charges: and on that condition and another, which is, that my hands were not bound behind me, as now they are, I should not despair of making such a Tragedy as might be both instructive and delightful, according to the manner of the Grecians.

"To make a sketch, or a more perfect model of a Picture," is, in the language of poets, to draw up the scenery of a play; and the reason is the same for both to guide the undertaking, and to preserve the remembrance of such things whose natures are difficult to retain.

To avoid absurdities and incongruities is the same law established for both Arts. "The Painter is not to paint a cloud at the bottom of a Picture, but in the uppermost parts;" nor the Poet to place what is proper to the end or middle in the beginning of a

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