It is no wonder, therefore, that in all the polite uations of the world, this part of the drama has met with public encouragement. The modern tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome in the intricacy and disposition of the fable; but, what a Christian writer would be ashamed to own, falls infinitely short of it in the moral part of the performance. This I may show more at large hereafter: and in the meantime, that I may contribute something toward the improvement of the English tragedy, I shall take notice, in this and in other following papers, of some particular parts in it that seem liable to exception. Aristotle observes, that the Iambic verse in the Greek tongue was the most proper for tragedy; because at the same time that it lifted up the discourse from prose, it was that which approached nearer to it than any other kind of verse. "For," says he, "we may observe that men in or dinary discourse very often speak iambics without taking notice of it." We may make the same observation of our English blank verse, which often enters into our common discourse, though we do not attend to it, and is such a due medium between or, rhyme and prose, that it seems wonderfully adapted to tragedy. I am therefore very much offended when I see a play in rhyme; which is as absurd in English, as a tragedy of hexameters would nave been in Greek or Latin. The solecism is, I think, still greater in those plays that have some scenes in rhyme and some in blank verse, which are to be looked upon as two several languages; or where we see some particular similes dignified with rhyme at the same time that everything about them lies in blank verse. I would not how ever debar the poet from concluding his tragedy, if he pleases, every act of it, with two or three couplets, which may have the same effect as an air in the Italian opera after a long recitativo, and give the actor a graceful exit. Beside that, we see a diversity of numbers in some parts of the old tragedy in order to hinder the ear from being tired with the same continued modulation of voice. For the same reason I do not dislike the speeches in our English tragedy that close with a hemistich, or half verse, notwithstanding the person who speaks after it begins a new verse, without filling up the preceding one; nor with abrupt pauses and breakings off in the middle of a verse, when they humor any passion that is expressed by it. Since I am upon this subject, I must observe that our English poets have succeeded much better in the style than in the sentiment of their tragedies. Their language is very often noble and souorous, but the sense either very trifling or very common. On the contrary, in the ancient tragedies, and indeed in those of Corneille and Racine, though the expressions are very great, it is the thought that bears them up and swells them. For my own part, I prefer a noble sentiment that is depressed with homely language, infinitely before a vulgar one that is blown up with all the sound and energy of expression. Whether this defect in our tragedies inay arise from want of genius, knowledge, or experience in the writers, or from their compliance with the vicious taste of their readers, who are better judges of the language than of the sentiments, and consequently relish the one more than the other, I cannot determine. But I believe it ight rectify the conduct both of the one and of the other, if the writer laid down the whole contexture of his dialogue in plain English, before he turned it into blank verse: and if the reader, after the perusal of a scene, would consider the naked thought of every speech in it, when divested of all its tragic ornaments. By this means, without being imposed upon by words, we may judge im partially of the thought, and consider whether it be natural or great enough for the person that utters it, whether it deserves to shine in such a blaze of eloquence, or show itself in such a variety of lights as are generally made use of by the writers of our English tragedy. I must in the next place observe, that when our thoughts are great and just, they are often obscured by the sounding phrases, hard metaphors, and forced expressions in which they are clothed. Shakspeare is often very faulty in this particular. There is a fine observation in Aristotle to this purpose, which I have never seen quoted. The expression, says he, ought to be very much labored in the inactive parts of the fable, as in descrip tions, similitudes, narrations, and the like; in which the opinions, manners, and passions of men are not represented; for these (namely, the opinions, manners, and passions) are apt to be obscured by pompous phrases and elaborate expressions. Horace, who copied most of his criticisms after Aristotle, seems to have had his eye on the foregoing rule, in the following verses: Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri: HOR., Ars. Poet., ver. 95. Tragedians, too, lay by their state to grieve: Peleus and Telephus, exil'd and poor, Forget their swelling and gigantic words.-ROSCOMMON. Among our modern English poets, there is none who has a better turn for tragedy than Lee; if, instead of favoring the impetuosity of his genius, he had restrained it, and kept it within its proper bounds. His thoughts are wonderfully suited to tragedy, but frequently lost in such a cloud of words that it is hard to see the beauty of them. There is an infinite fire in his works, but so involved in smoke that it does not appear in half its luster. He frequently succeeds in the passionate parts of the tragedy, but more particularly where he slackens his efforts, and eases his style of those epithets and metaphors in which he so much abounds. What can be more natural, more soft, or more passionate, than that line in Statira's speech where she describes the charms of Alexander's conversation? Then he would talk-Good gods! how he would talk! That unexpected break in the line, and turning the description of his manner of talking into an admiration of it, is inexpressibly beautiful, and wonderfully suited to the fond character of the person that speaks it. There is a simplicity in the words that outshines the utmost pride of expression. Otway has followed nature in the language of his tragedy, and therefore shines in the passionate parts more than any of our English poets. As there is something familiar and domestic in the fable of his tragedy, more than in those of any other poet, he has little pomp, but great force in his expressions. For which reason, though he has admirably succeeded in the tender and melting part of his tragedies, he sometimes falls into too great familiarity of phrase in those parts, which, by Aristotle's rule, ought to have been raised and supported by the dignity of expression. It has been observed by others, that this poet has founded his tragedy of Venice Preserved on so wrong a plot, that the greatest characters in it are those of rebels and traitors. Had the hero of this play discovered the same good qualities in the defense of his country that he showed for its ruin No. 40.] MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1711. and subversion, the audience could not enough the chimerical notion of poetical justice, in my pity and admire him; but as he is now represented, humble opinion it has lost half its beauty. At the we can only say of him what the Roman historian same time I must allow, that there are very noble the other says of Catiline, that his fall would have been tragedies which have been framed upon glorious (si pro patria sic concidisset), had he so plan, and have ended happily; as indeed most of fallen in the service of his country.-C. the good tragedies, which have been written since the starting of the above-mentioned criticism, have taken this turn as The Mourning Bride, Tamerlane, Ulysses, Phedra and Hippolytus, with most of Mr. Dryden's. I must also allow, that many of Shakspeare's, and several of the celebrated tragedies of antiquity, are in the same form. I do not therefore dispute against this way of writing tragedies, but against the criticism that would establish this as the only method; and by that means would very much cramp the English tragedy, and perhaps give a wrong bent to the genius of our writers. Ac ne forte putes me quæ facere ipse recusem, IMITATED. Yet lest you think I rally more than teach, The tragi comedy, which is the product of the English theater, is one of the most monstrous inventions that ever entered in a poet's thoughts. An author might as well think of weaving the adventures of Æneas and Hudibras into one poem, as of writing such a piece of motley sorrow. the absurdity of these performances is so very visible, that I shall not insist upon it. But The same objections which are made to tragicomedy, may in some measure be applied to all tragedies that have a double plot in them; which are likewise more frequent upon the English stage, than upon any other; for though the grief of the audience, in such performances, be not changed into another passion, as in tragi-comedies; it is diverted upon another object, which weakens their concern for the principal action, and breaks the tide of sorrow, by throwing it into different chanThis inconvenience, however, may in a nels. great measure be cured, if not wholly removed, by the skillful choice of an under plot, which may bear such a near relation to the principal design, as to contribute toward the completion of it, and be concluded by the same catastrophe. And snatch me o'er the earth, or through the air, To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.-POPE. THE English writers of tragedy are possessed with a notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent person in distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his troubles, or made him triumph over his enemies. This error they have been led into by a ridiculous doctrine in modern criticism, that they are obliged to an equal distribution of rewards and punishments, and an impartial execution of poetical justice. Who were the first that established this rule I know not; but I am sure it has no foundation in nature, in reason, or in the practice of the ancients. We find that good and evil happen alike to all men on this side the grave; and as the principal design of tragedy is to raise commiseration and terror in the minds of the audience, we shall defeat this great end, if we always make virtue and innocence happy and successful. Whatever crosses There is also another particular, which may be and disappointments a good man suffers in the reckoned among the blemishes, or rather the false body of the tragedy, they will make but a small beauties of our English tragedy: I mean those impression on our minds, when we know that in particular speeches which are commonly known the last act he is to arrive at the end of his wishes by the name of Rants. The warm and passionate and desires. When we see him engaged in the parts of a tragedy are always the most taking with depth of his afflictions, we are apt to comfort our- the audience; for which reason we often see the selves, because we are sure he will find his way players pronouncing, in all the violence of action, out of them; and that his grief, how great soever several parts of the tragedy which the author wrote it may be at present, will soon terminate in glad with great temper, and designed that they should ness. For this reason, the ancient writers of tra- have been so acted. I have seen Powell very often gedy treated men in their plays, as they are dealt raise himself a loud clap by this artifice. The with in the world, by making virtue sometimes poets that were acquainted with this secret, have happy and sometimes miserable, as they found it given frequent occasion for such emotions in in the fable which they made choice of, or as it the actor, by adding vehemence to words where might affect the audience in the most agreeable there was no passion, or inflaming a real passion manner. Aristotle considers the tragedies that into fustian. This hath filled the mouths of our were written in either of these kinds, and observes, heroes with bombast; and given them such sentithat those which ended unhappily had always ents as proceed rather from a swelling than pleased the people, and carried away the prize in the public disputes of the stage, from those that ended happily. Terror and commiseration leave a pleasing anguish on the mind, and fix the audience in such a serious composure of thought, as is much more lasting and delightful than any little I shall here add a remark, which I am afraid transient starts of joy and satisfaction. Accord- our tragic writers may make an ill use of. ingly we find, that more of our English tragedies heroes are generally lovers, their swelling and have succeeded, in which the favorites of the au- blustering upon the stage very much recommends dience sink under their calamities, than those in them to the fair part of the audience. The ladies which they recover themselves out of them. The are wonderfully pleased to see a man insulting best plays of this kind are, The Orphan, Venice kings, or affronting the gods, in one scene, and Preserved, Alexander the Great, Theodosius, All for throwing himself at the feet of his mistress in Love, Edipus, Oroonoko, Othello, etc. King Lear another. Let him behave himself insolently tois an admirable tragedy of the same kind, as Shak-ward the men, and abjectly before the fair one, speare wrote it; but as it is reformed according to and it is ten to oue but he proves a favorite with a greatness of mind. Unnatural exclamations, curses, vows, blasphemies, a defiance of mankind, and an outraging of the gods, frequently pass upon the audience for towering thoughts, and have accordingly met with infinite applause. As our the boxes. Dryden and Lee, in several of their tragedies, have practiced this secret with good success. But to show how a rant pleases beyond the most just and natural thought that is not pronounced with vehemence, I would desire the reader, when he sees the tragedy of Edipus, to observe how quietly the hero is dismissed at the end of the third act, after having pronounced the following lines, in which the thought is very natural, and apt to move compassion: To you, good gods, I make my last appeal; If in the maze of fate I blindly run. And backward tread those paths I sought to shun; My hands are guilty, but my heart is free. Let us then observe with what thunder-claps of applause he leaves the stage, after the impieties and execrations at the end of the fourth act; and you will wonder to see an audience so cursed and so pleased at the same time. O that, as oft I have at Athens seen them but a tolerable pair of eyes to set up with, "Your most obedient, humble servant.. I cannot tell what the law or the parents of the lady will do for this injured gentleman, but must allow he has very much justice on his side. I have indeed very long observed this evil, and distinguished those of our women who wear their own, from those in borrowed complexions, by the [Where, by the way, there was no stage till many Picts and the British. There does not need any years after Edipus.] "Supposing you to be a person of general knowledge, I make my application to you on a very particular occasion. I have a great mind to be rid of my wife, and hope, when you consider my case, you will be of opinion I have very just pretensions to a divorce. I am a mere man of the town, and have very little improvement but what I have got from plays. I remember in the Silent Woman, the learned Dr. Cutberd, or Dr. Otter (I forget which), makes one of the causes of separation to be Error Persone-when a man marries a woman, and finds her not to be the same woman whom he intended to marry, but another. If that be law, it is, I presume, exactly my case. For you are to know, Mr. Spectator, that there are women who do not let their husbands see their faces till they are married. "Not to keep you in suspense, I mean plainly that part of the sex who paint. They are some of them so exquisitely skillful in this way, that give great discernment to judge which are which. The British have a lively animated aspect; the Picts, though never so beautiful, have dead uninformed countenances. The muscles of a real face sometimes swell with soft passion, sudden surprise, and are flushed with agreeable confusions, according as the objects before them, or the ideas presented to them, affect their imagination. But the Picts behold all things with the same air, whether they are joyful or sad; the same fixed insensibility appears upon all occasions. A Pict, though she takes all that pains to invite the approach of lovers, is obliged to keep them at a certain distance; a sigh in a languishing lover, if fetched too near her, would dissolve a feature; and a kiss snatched by a forward one, might transfer the complexion of the mistress to the admirer. It is hard to speak of these false fair ones, without saying something uncomplaisant, but I would only recommend to them to consider how they like to come into a room new painted; they may assure themselves the near approach of a lady who uses this practice is much more offensive. Will Honeycomb told us one day, an adventure he once had with a Pict. This lady had wit, as well as beauty, at will; and made it her business to gain hearts, for no other reason but to rally the torments of her lovers. She would make great advances to insnare men, but without any manner of scruple break off when there was no provocation. Her ill-nature and vanity made my friend very easily proof against the charms of her wit and conversation; but her beauteous form, instead of being blemished by her falsehood and inconstancy, every day increased upon him, and she had new attractions every time he saw her. When she observed Will irrevocably her slave, she began to use him as such, and after many steps toward such a cruelty, she at last utterly banished him. The unhappy lover strove in vain, by servile epistles, to revoke his doom; till at length he was forced to the last refuge, a round sum of money to her maid. This corrupt attendant placed him early in the morning behind the hangings in her mistress's dressing-room. stood very conveniently to observe, without being seen. The Pict begins the face she designed to wear that day, and I have heard him protest she had worked a full half hour before he knew her to be the same woman. As soon as he saw the dawn of that complexion, for which he had so He long languished, he thought fit to break from his concealment, repeating that verse of Cowley: Th' adorning thee with so much art Is but a barbarous skill; The Pict stood before him in the utmost confusion, with the prettiest smirk imaginable on the finished side of her face, pale as ashes on the other. Honeycomb seized all her gallipots and washes, and carried off his handkerchief full of brushes, scraps of Spanish wool, and vials of unguents. The lady went into the country, the lover was cured. audience, not by proper sentiments and expres sions, but by the dresses and decorations of the stage. There is something of this kind very ridi culous in the English theater. When the author has a mind to terrify us, it thunders; when he would make us melancholy, the stage is darkened. But among all our tragic artifices, I am the most offended at those which are made use of to inspire us with magnificent ideas of the persons that speak. The ordinary method of making a hero, is to clap a huge plume of feathers upon his head, which rises so very high that there is often a greater length from his chin to the top of his head than to the sole of his foot. One would believe It is certain no faith ought to be kept with that we thought a great man and a tall man the cheats, and an oath made to a Pict is of itself void. I would therefore exhort all the British actor, who is forced to hold his neck extremely same thing. This very much embarrasses the ladies to single them out, nor do I know any but stiff and steady all the while he speaks; and notLindamira who should be exempt from discovery: withstanding any anxieties which he pretends for for her own complexion is so delicate, that she his mistress, his country, or his friends, one may ought to be allowed the covering it with paint, as see by his action that his greatest care and concern a punishment for choosing to be the worst piece is to keep the plume of feathers from falling off his of art extant, instead of the master-piece of na-head. For my own part, when I see a man utter ture. As for my part, who have no expectations ing his complaints under such a mountain of feathfrom women, and consider them only as they are part of the species, I do not half so much fearers, I am apt to look upon him rather as an unfor tunate lunatic than a distressed hero. As these offending a beauty, as a woman of sense; I shall therefore produce several faces which have been superfluous ornaments upon the head make a great man, a princess generally receives her grandeur in public these many years, and never appeared. from those additional incumbrances that fall into It will be a very pretty entertainment in the play-her tail-I mean the broad sweeping train that house (when I have abolished this custom) to follows her in all her motions, and finds constant see so many ladies, when they first lay it down, employment for a boy who stands behind her to incog. in their own faces. how others are affected at this sight, but I must open and spread it to advantage. I do not know confess my eyes are wholly taken up with the page's part: and, as for the queen, I am not so attentive to anything she speaks, as to the right adjusting of her train, lest it should chance to trip up her heels, or incommode her, as she walks to and fro upon the stage. It is, in my opinion, a very odd spectacle, to see a queen venting her passions in a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the two persons act on the stage at the same time are very different. The princess is afraid lest she should incur the displeasure of the king her father, or lose the hero her lover, while her attendant is only concerned lest she should entangle her feet in her petticoat. In the meantime, as a pattern for improving their charms, let the sex study the agreeable Statira. Her features are enlivened with the cheerfulness of her mind, and good-humor gives an alacrity to her eyes. She is graceful without affecting an air, and unconcerned without appearing careless. Her having no manner of art in her mind, makes her want none in her person. How like is this lady, and how unlike is a Pict, to that description Dr. Donne gives of his mistress: -Her pure and eloquent blood ADVERTISEMENT. A young gentlewoman of about nineteen years of age (bred in the family of a person of quality, lately deceased), who paints the finest flesh-color, wants a place, and is to be heard of at the house of Mynheer Grotesque, a Dutch painter in Bar bican. N. B. She is also well skilled in the drapery part, and puts on hoods, and mixes ribbons so as to suit the colors of the face, with great art and success.-R. We are told, that an ancient tragic poet, to move the pity of his audience for his exiled kings and distressed heroes, used to make the actors represent them in dresses and clothes that were threadbare and decayed. This artifice for moving pity seems as ill contrived as that we have been speaking of to inspire us with a great idea of the persons introduced upon the stage. In short, would have our conceptions raised by the dignity of thought and sublimity of expression, rather than by a train of robes or a plume of feathers. Another mechanical method of making great men, and adding dignity to queens, is to accompany them with halberts and battle-axes. Two or three shifters of scenes, with the two candlesnuffers, make up a complete body of guards upon the English stage; and by the addition of a few porters dressed in red coats can represent above a dozen legions. I have sometimes seen a couple of armies drawn up together upon the stage, when the poet has been disposed to do honor to his generals. It is impossible for the reader's imagination to multiply twenty men into such prodigious multitudes, or to fancy that two or three hundred thousand soldiers are fighting in a room of forty or fifty yards in compass. Incidents of such nature should be told, not represented I should, therefore, in this particular, recommend! to my countrymen the example of the French stage, where the kings and queens always appear unattended, and leave their guards behind the scenes. I should likewise be glad if we imitated the French in banishing from our stage the noise of drums, trumpets, and huzzas, which is sometimes so very great, that when there is a battle in the Haymarket theater, one may hear it as far as Charing-cross. I have here only touched upon those particulars which are made use of to raise and aggrandize the persons of a tragedy; and shall show, in another paper, the several expedients which are practiced by authors of a vulgar genius to move terror, pity, or admiration in their hearers. The tailor and the painter often contribute to the success of a tragedy more than the poet. Scenes affect ordinary minds as much as speeches; and our actors are very sensible that a welldressed play has sometimes brought them as full audiences as a well-written one. The Italians have a very good phrase to express this art of imDosing upon the spectators by appearances: they all it the "Fourberia della scena,' The knavery, or trickish part of the drama." But however the show and outside of the tragedy may work upon the vulgar, the more understanding part of the audience immediately see through it, and despise it. A good poet will give the reader a more lively idea of an army or a battle, in a description, than if he actually saw them drawn up in squadrons and battalions, or engaged in the confusion of a fight Our minds should be opened to great conceptions, and inflamed with glorious sentiments by what the actor speaks, more than by what he appears. Can all the trappings or equipage of a king or hero, give Brutus half that pomp and majesty which he receives from a few lines in Shakspeare?-C. No. 43.] THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1711. VIRG. Æn., vi, 854. THERE are crowds of men, whose great misfortune it is that they were not bound to mechanic arts or trades: it being absolutely necessary for them to be laid by some continual task or employment. These are such as we commonly call dull fellows; persons who for want of something to do, out of a certain vacancy of thought rather than curiosity, are ever meddling with things for which they are unfit. I cannot give you a notion of them better, than by presenting you with a letter from a gentleman, who belongs to a society of this order of men, residing at Oxford. and think, that the most important negotiations may be best carried on in such assemblies. I shall, therefore, for the good of mankind (which I trust you and I are equally concerned for), propose an institution of that nature for example sake. "I must confess the design and transactions of too many clubs are trifling, and manifestly of no consequence to the nation or public weal. Those I will give you up. But you must do me then the justice to own, that nothing can be more useful or laudable, than the scheme we go upon. To avoid nicknames and witticisms, we call ourselves The Hebdomadal Meeting. Our president continues for a year at least, and sometimes for four or five; we are all grave, serious, designing men in our way; we think it our duty, as far as in us lies, to take care the constitution receives no harm-Ne quid detrimenti res capiat publica-To censure doctrines or facts, persons or things, which we do not like; to settle the nation at home, and to carry on the war abroad, where and in what manner we think fit. If other people are not of our opinion, we cannot help that. It were better they were. Moreover, we now and then condescend to direct in some measure the little affairs of our own university. "Verily, Mr. Spectator, we are much offended at the act for importing French wines. A bottle or two of good solid edifying port at honest George's, made a night cheerful, and threw off reserve. But this plaguy French claret will not only cost us more money, but us less good. Had we been aware of it before it had gone far, I must tell you, we would have petitioned to be heard upon that subject. But let that pass. too "I must let you know likewise, good Sir, that we look upon a certain northern prince's march, in connection with infidels, to be palpably against our good-will and liking; and for all Monsieur Palmquist, a most dangerous innovation; and we are by no means yet sure, that some people are not at the bottom of it. At least, my own private letters leave room for a politician, well versed in matters of this nature, to suspect as much, as a penetrating friend of mine tells me. We think we have at last done the business with the malcontents in Hungary, and shall clap up a peace there. "What the neutrality army is to do, or what the army in Flanders, and what two or three other princes, is not yet fully determined among us; and we wait impatiently for the coming in of the next Dyer's, who you must know is our authentic intelligence, our Aristotle in politics. And, indeed, it is but fit there should be some dernier resort, the absolute decider of controversies. 66 We were lately informed, that the gallant trained-bands had patrolled all night long about the streets of London. We indeed, could not imagine any occasion for it, we guessed not a tittle on it aforehand, we were in nothing of the secret; and that city tradesmen, or their apprentices, should do duty or work during the holidays, we thought absolutely impossible. But Dver being positive in it, and some letters from other people, who had talked with some who had it from those who should know, giving some countenance to it, the chairman reported from the committee appointed to examine into that affair. that it was possible there might be something in it. I have much more to say to you, but my two good friends and neighbors, Dominic and Sly. boots are just come in, and the coffee is ready. I am, in the meantime, Mr. Spectator, "Your admirer and humble servant, "ABRAHAM FROTH." |