CHAP. III. ment. PART II. not; and in that which is not, there can be neither mode nor degree. In the Electra of SophoOf Judg- cles, the most perfect piece, perhaps, extant of the Greek theatre, a conspiracy of the most secret and dangerous nature is carried on against a bloody and suspicious usurper, at the door of his own palace, in the public street, and in the presence of a multitude of persons; all which incongruities are heaped together to preserve the unity of the place; the sacrifice of which would, surely, have been a much less important sacrifice of probability. Had Aristotle known no other great epic poem than the Iliad, his sagacity would have discovered, and his ingenuity proved that unity of place was as necessary to epic as to dramatic poetry; and all succeeding critics would have repeated, exemplified, and explained the dictates of their oracle: but the Odyssey luckily saved epic poetry from any such limitation; and allowed the taste and genius of Virgil to display itself in those various changes of scenery, which he was so eminently qualified to describe and embellish; but which, nevertheless, the natural cautiousness and modesty of his disposition would not have allowed him to introduce contrary to the established rules of criticism; though those rules were nothing more than general deductions from the particular, and, in many instances, accidental practice of CHAP. III. ment. such poets as himself. The authors of the Iliad PART II. and Odyssey (for I have no doubt that they were two) would probably have laughed at the Of Judgrestrictions, which their modes of treating their respective fables, had imposed upon all succeeding epic poets; and have been as much amazed, as the most ignorant of their audience, at hearing of the systematic principles of profound philosophy, in which critics, after the lapse of many ages, discovered their practice to be founded. 18. Unity of action has been held to be a still more essential requisite both of epic and dramatic poetry, than either unity of time or identity of place; and here it is asserted, the venerable authority of the father of poctry, is decisive and unquestionable; the action, in each of the two poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey, being simply one; namely, the anger of Achilles, and the restoration of Ulysses. 19. But is it quite certain that any precise and determinate idea is here attached to the word action; or whether it is not used, sometimes to signify the subject of the poem, which is the cause of the actions described in it, and sometimes the actions themselves, which are the effects of that cause? 20. Questions of this kind are always best answered by examples; which at once explain the CHAP. II. Of Judg. ment. PART II. matter, and solve the doubts if they admit of solution. I shall therefore briefly compare the action of the Iliad with that of the tragedy of Macbeth; not because these two poems are justly esteemed to be the highest efforts of human genius; but because, in the one, unity of action is supposed to be most strictly preserved; and in the other, most openly violated. 21. In the tragedy of Macbeth, there are evidently two distinct principal actions, the usurpation of Macbeth by the murder of Duncan, and the destruction of the usurper by the restoration of Malcolm; besides many subordinate or episodical actions; such as the murder of Banquo, of Macduff's family, &c. &c. 22. But are the actions of the Iliad at all less distinct, or less numerous? Is not the quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles one, the defeat and blockade of the Greeks another, the return of the Myrmidons and death of Hector another, besides innumerable subordinate actions, which result from these? Had the anger of Achilles with Agamemnon been the action of the poem, it must have ceased with their reconciliation; and then how lame and defective would have been the conclusion! The mighty and all-accomplished hero would have been introduced, with so much pomp of poetry, merely to wrangle with his CHAP. III. Of prince, weep for his mistress, and carve a supper PART II. for three of his friends. Yet a German critic of more sense and learning, than feeling or senti- of Judg ment, thinks that the orginal poem must have ended thus, since the unity of action requires it *. 23. Strict unity of action, indeed, requires that the whole poem should be confined to the quarrel and reconciliation: for the defeat and blockade of the Greeks are as much distinct actions, as the death and funeral of Hector, and are not at all more connected with the principal subject. It is true that all the distinct actions, both principal and subordinate, are connected. with each other; and arise, in the most natural gradation, from the anger of Achilles, which is the subject of the poem, and the cause of them all. But are not they equally connected in the tragedy? and do not all arise, in a gradation equally just and natural, from the ambition of Lady Macbeth, which is the subject of the one, as the anger of Achilles is of the other? It is this ambi * Walfii Prolegom. in Homer. Among Milton's hints for tragedies, it is proposed to render the action of Macbeth one, by throwing all that relates to the murder and usurpation into narrative. Not only in his hands, but even in those of Shakspeare, it would thus have become a very cold and tedious piece. ment. CHAP. III. Of Judg ment. PART II. tion, instigated by the prophecies of the witches, that rouses the aspiring temper of her husband, and urges him to the commission of a crime, the consciousness of which embitters the remainder of his life, and makes him suspicious, ferocious, and cruel; whence new crimes excite new enemies, and his destruction naturally follows. 24. This unity of subject, and consequent connection of events, is the leading principle of all epic and dramatic fiction; and that, by which it is chiefly enabled to fix and rivet the attention to transactions avowedly fabulous and unreal: for, where the events, described or represented, spring, in their natural order of succession, from one source, the sentiments of sympathy, which they excite, will all verge to one centre, and be connected by one chain. But if new sources are introduced, new and distinct trains of ideas will, of course, arise; which will distract the attention, and divide the interest; which happens in most of the French tragedies (as well as in the Cato of Addison, written upon the French model) where one plot of love and another of ambition are carried on at the same time, and often in alternate scenes *. * χρη τα μερη συνεστάναι των πραγμάτων ὅτως, ώςτε μετατιθεμενα τινος μέρες, η αφαιρεμένα, |