INTRODUCTION. TH HE end of tragedy is to please and instruct; the means, by which that end is to be obtained, are terror and pity: these only are productive of the true pathetic, these only can inspire that sympathetic diftrefs, that delicate melancholy which we feel for the misfortunes of others, more pleafing to a fenfible mind than the noifier and more tranfient joys of mirth. To laugh at the foibles and abfurdities of others is common to all mankind; but to feel for the woes of others is the glorious prerogative of the huTo awaken this tender paffion, the tragedian must place before mane. us us the representation of actions, that have, or that might have happened: fiction must put on the air of truth, for to feel we must first believe, and to what we refuse our credit, to that likewife fhall we refufe our tears. Improbabilities we can never approve, impoffibilities must neceffarily offend. It is the duty therefore of the tragic poet to adhere ftrictly to verefimilitude, not only in the fubject of the drama, but in the conduct of it. His characters must be fuch as exift in nature, or owe their supposed existence to fuperftition, or fear, or credulity. The action fhould be one, and fuch as may be prefumed to have happened, if not in the time of the reprefentation, at least in the space of twenty four hours, that it may have fome refemblance to truth. Ficta voluptatis caufâ fint proxima veris Neu quodcunque volet pofcat fibi fabula credi, Hor. de Arte Poet. The unity of place is to be observed, for the tragic poet and the magician are different; the latter modo me Thebis modo ponat Athenis, to the former that power is not given. Qu'en un lieu, qu'en un jour un feul fait accompli Tienne jufqu'à la fin le theatre rempli. Boileau. But from this opinion a certain * critic will be found to diffent, for he affirms that the unities are not effentially neceffary. "Time, fays he, may be extended. If in the "first act preparations for war are "made * Vide Dr. Johnfon's preface to Shakespear.. "made against Mithridates, the " event of that war may without abfurdity be represented in the catastrophe; for we know that there is neither war nor prepa"rations for war. But the quef " tion is not about the reality, but the feeming poffibility of the action reprefented. Now it is poffible that fome preparations for war might be made in the space of three hours; but it is not poffible that the preparations for war, and that the event of the war fhould take place in fo limited a time. It is poffible for me to conceive that a perfon might appear at this instant with an army on his march to Poland ; but it is not poffible for me to conceive that he should return victorious from that country in the space of an hour and a half. He must |