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cause_n	body_n	great_a	whole_a	1,463	5	4.3473	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26187	The whole art of the stage containing not only the rules of the drammatick art, but many curious observations about it, which may be of great use to the authors, actors, and spectators of plays : together with much critical learning about the stage and plays of the antients / written in French by the command of Cardinal Richelieu by Monsieur Hedelin, Abbot of Aubignac, and now made English.; Pratique du théâtre. English. 1684.	Aubignac, François-Hédelin, abbé d', 1604-1676.	1684 (1684)	Wing A4185; ESTC R16044	179,268	322

some difference according to which they take more or less Subjects full of Plot and Intrigue are extreme agreeable at first but being once known they do not the second time please us so well because they want the graces of Novelty which made them charm us at first all our delight consisting in being surpriz'd which we cannot be twice The Subjects full of Passions last longer and affect us more because the Soul which receives the impression of them does not keep them so long nor so strongly as our Memory does the Events of things nay often it happens that they please us more at second seeing because that the first time we are employed about the Event and Disposition of the Play and by consequent do less enter into the Sentiments of the Actors but having once no need of applying our thoughts to the Story we busie them about the things that are said and so receive more Impressions of grief of fear But it is out of doubt that the mix'd or compound are the most excellent sort for in them the Incidents grow more pleasing by the Passions which do as it were uphold them and the Passions seem to be renew'd and spring afresh by the variety of the unthought of Incidents so that they are both lasting and require a great time to make them lose their Graces We are not to forget here and I think it one of the best Observations that I have made upon this Subject that if the Subject is not conformable to the Customs and Manners as well as Opinions of the Spectators it will never take what pains soever the Poet himself take and whatsoever Ornaments he employs to set his Play off For all Dramatick Poems must be different according to the People before whom they are represented and from thence often proceeds that the success is different though the Play be still the same Thus the Athenians delighted to see upon their Theatre the Cruelties of Kings and the Misfortunes befalling them the Calamities of Illustrious and Noble Families and the Rebellion of the whole Nation for an ill Action of the Prince because the State in which they liv'd being Popular they lov'd to be perswaded that Monarchy was always Tyrannical hoping thereby to discourage the Noble Men of their own Commonwealth from the attempt of seizing the Soveraignty out of fear of being expos'd to the the fury of a Commonalty who would think it just to murther them Whereas quite contrary among us the respect and love which we have for our Princes cannot endure that we should entertain the Publick with such Spectacles of horrour we are not willing to believe that Kings are wicked nor that their Subjects though with some appearance of ill usage ought to Rebel against their Power or touch their Persons no not in Effigie and I do not believe that upon our Stage a Poet could cause a Tyrant to be murder'd with any applause except he had very cautiously laid the thing As for Example that the Tyrant were an Usurper and the right Heir should appear and be own'd by the People who should take that occasion to revenge the injuries they had suffer'd from the Tyrant but Usurpation alone against the will of the People would not justifie without horrour the death of the Soveraign by the hands of his rebellious Subjects We have seen the tryal of it in a Play call'd Timoleon whom no consideration of State or common Good no love nor generosity towards his Country could hinder from being considered as the Murderer of his Brother and his Prince and for my part I esteem that Author who avoided to have Tarquin kill'd upon the Stage after the violence he had offer'd to Lucretia The cruelty of Alboin inspir'd horrour into the whole French Court though otherwise it were a Tagedy full of noble Incidents and lofty Language We have had upon our Stage the Esther of Mr. Du Ryer adorn'd with great Events fortified with strong Passions and compos'd in the whole with great Art but the success was much unluckier at Paris than at Roüen and when the Players at their teturn to Paris told us the good fortune they had had at Roüen every body wondred at it without being able to guess the cause of it but for my part I think that Roüen being a Town of great Trade is full of a great Number of Jews some known and some conceal'd and that by that reason they making up a good part of the Audience took more delight in a piece which seem'd entirely Jewish by the Conformity it had to their Manners and Customs We may say the same thing of Comedies for the Greeks and Romans with whom the Debauches of young People with Curtizans was but a laughing matter took pleasure to see their Intrigues represented and to hear the discourses of those publick Women with the tricks of those Ministers of their Pleasures countenanc'd by the Laws They were also delighted to see old covetous men over-reach'd and cheated of their money by the circumvention of their Slaves in favonr of their young Masters they were sensible to all these things because they were subject to them one time or another but amongst us all this would be ill received for as Christian Modesty does not permit persons of Quality to approve of those Examples of Vice so neither do the Rules by which we govern our Families allow of those slights of our Servants nor do we need to defend our selves against them 'T is for the same Reason that wee see in the French Court Tragedies take a great deal better than Comedies and that on the contrary the People are more affected with the latter and particularly with the Farces and Buffooneries of the Stage for in this Kingdom the persons of good Quality and Education have generous thoughts and designs to which they are carried either by the Motives of Vertue or Ambition so that their life has a great Conformity with the Characters of Tragedy but the people meanly born and durtily bred have low Sentiments and are thereby dispos'd to approve of the meaness and filthiness represented in Farces as being the Image of those things which they both use to say and do and this ought to be taken notice of not only in the principal part of the Poem but in all its parts and particularly in the Passions as we shall say more amply in a Chapter about them for if there be any Act or Scene that has not that conformity of manners to the Spectators you will suddenly see the applause cease and in it's place a discontent succeed though they themselves do not know the cause of it For the Stage and Eloquence are alike in this that their Perfections and Faults are equally perceiv'd by the Ignorant and by the Learned though the cause is not equally known to them CHAP. II. Of Probability and Decency HEre is the bottom and ground work of all Dramatick Poems many talk of it but few understand it

would have few Spectators The Second fault of Narrations is when they are taedious and they are always taedious when they do not contain things necessary or agreeable as also when they are made with weak and faint Expressions such as do not captivate the Spectators favour or attention which by consequent must pall and make him give over minding the Play and this happens likewise when they are too long for variety being the life of the Stage and that being wanting the best things grow dull and weigh upon the Spectator who takes it ill to be fix'd to one Subject without diversity for so long a time and though it may be the capacity of some would carry them thorow to comprehend it all yet being come for diversion they will not take the pains to do it which joyn'd with the incapacity of others to hearken to so long a Story causes at last a general disgust in the whole Audience We may moreover make this distinction upon the length of Narrations for they may be so either for the matter when they are fill'd with too great a number of Incidents and Persons of Names and Places or they may be so out of the form for the many words they contain as when the circumstances of an Action are too much exaggerated and particulariz'd in minute and insignificant things and when the Expressions are too full of Epithets Adverbs or other unnecessary terms with Repetitions of the same thing though in a different way And indeed to examine the difference of these two sorts of lengths in Narrations we may say that the first is vicious in any place of the Play wheresoever it is plac'd For first at the opening of the Stage the Spectator who thinks all that Recital necessary for the understanding of the Play endeavours to retain it all in his memory but finding his Imagination confounded and his Memory distracted with so many things he is first vex'd with himself and then with the Poet and at last gives out without minding any more of the whole Poem These long Narrations are not better plac'd in the course of the Action for those things which come to pass after the opening of the Stage because it will never be thought probable that so many things should have come to pass in so little a time as for Example the Interval of an Act seems to be not but that it is ordinary to suppose in that time a Battle a Conspiracy or some such other Event but to do it with probability the Poet deceives the Spectator and busies him with something else that is agreeable that so he may be insensibly persuaded that there has been time enough for all the rest but that which is particularly to be heeded in that place is that at that time the Stage is in all the hurry of Action and in the turns of Incidents which these long Narrations do cool and pall whereas a true Narration ought to quicken the Stage and lay the foundation of some new passion which to obtain it must be short pithy and full of life and warmth The contrary of this appears in that Narration which the Rich in Imagination makes in the Play call'd the Visionaires When these long Narrations happen towards the Catastrophe they are then absolutely insupportable for the Spectator who is impatient to see which way the Intrigue turns has all his pleasure spoil'd just in the time when he ought to receive the most which is so much the more dangerous for the success of the Play because the Audience is already tir'd and dispos'd to give out In a word I think it may be a kind of General Rule that Narrations may be longer at the opening of the Stage than any where else because the Spectator is fresh and willing to give attention and his memory receives agreeably all those new Idaa's in hopes they are to contribute to the pleasure which is prepar'd for him and also that they are as much to be avoided at the Catastrophe where they do so chock the Audience who is then impatient to know the Event that no Figures of Rhetorick can make him amends See amongst others how dexterous Plautus is in the Narration of the knowing of Planesia at the end of the Curculio 't is one of the most regular Narrations that he has Besides these Cautions it will not be amiss to observe that these Narrations may be made in two manners either all of a piece where a Story is told that is to give a foundation to all the Plot of the Play though they that among the Poets do it best have some Pathetick or other ingenious Interruptions as the Orestes of Euripides and in the Comical kind the Hecyra of Terence and the Pseudolus of Plautus in the first Acts do sufficiently illustrate Or else these Narrations are made by piece-meals according as the Poet thinks fit to hide or discover any part of his Subject to frame the different Acts with more Ornament as one may see in the Sphigenia of Euripides and in the Oedypus Tyrannus of Sophocles where the Story is told by different Persons and at different times which may be perform'd when he that makes part of a Narration knows not all the Story or when for some other necessary reason which must appear so to the Audience he will not tell all he knows or when he is interrupted by some body else which must be done with great Art and not by bringing on a purpose a man who has nothing else to do in the rest of the Play but to interrupt that Actor Or lastly when those things that are necessary to be known are not yet come to pass as Corneille has most ingeniously practised in his Horatius for by opening his Stage after the Truce concluded he has found a way to bring uriatius to Rome and there has reserv'd to himself to make different Narrations of the Combate of the three Brothers in such places of his Play as he thinks the fittest to change the state of Affairs upon his Stage I may assure our Poets that a Narration thus ingeniously divided requires great Art and Meditatution to consider how far one may carry each part of it and to give all the necessary grounds and colours to the Audience for leaving off in such a place and beginning again in such another and indeed such a Narration well managed produces an admirable Effect for leaving the Spectator always in the expectation of some Novelty it warms his desire and entertains his impatience and then the new discoveries that are made in the rest of the Narration furnish the Stage with Subjects to vary all the Motions and Passions of the Actors Narrations may besides be considered as simply and plainly telling the Tale or as exaggerating pathetically the circumstances of the Adventure In the first case they ought to be short because they are without motion or ornament and yet they are often necessary as when some important Advice is to

answer 't is every ones natural judgment and it may happen that a Drama may be so luckily contriv'd that the preparation of the Incidents and the variety of the Passions shall correct the defect of the abundance of them and that the Art of the Machines shall be so well understood that they may easily be made use of in every Act as I formerly propounded to Cardinal Richelieu but hitherto they are little in use in our ordinary Theatres 'T is besides most commonly ask'd here how far the Poet may venture in the alterations of a true Story in order to the fitting of it for the Stage Upon which we find different Opinions among both the Ancient and Modern Criticks but my Opinion is that he may do it not only in the Circumstances but in the Principal Action it self provided he make a very good Play of it For as the Dramatick Poet does not much mind the time because he is no Chronologist no more does he nor the Epick Poet much mind the true Story because they are no Historians they take out of Story so much as serves their turn and change the rest not expecting that any body should be so ridiculous as to come to the Theatres to be instructed in the truth of History The Stage therefore does not present things as they have been but as they ought to be for the Poet must in the Subject he takes reform every thing that is not accommodated to the Rules of his Art as a Painter does when he works up on an imperfect Model 'T was for this Reason that the death of Camilla by the hands of her Brother Horatius was never lik'd of upon the Stage though it be a true Adventure and I for my part gave my Opinion that to save in some measure the truth of the Story and yet not to offend against the decency of the Stage it would have been better that that Unfortunate Maid seeing her Brother come towards her with his Sword drawn had run upon it of her self for by that means she would still have dyed by the hand of Horatius and yet he might have deserved some compassion as unfortunate but innocent and so the Story and the Stage would have been agreed In a word The Historian ought to recite matter of Fact and if he judges of it he does more than he ought to do the Epick Poet is to magnifie all Events by great Fictions where truth is as it were sunk and lost and the Dramatick Poet ought to shew all things in a state of decency probability and pleasingness 'T is true that if Story is capable of all the Ornaments of Dramatick Poetry the Poet ought to preserve all the true Events but if not he is well grounded to make any part of it yield to the Rules of his Art and to the Design he has to please Many against this do alledge the Authority of Horace who sayes that he ought in Story to follow the common receiv'd Opinion or at least to invent things that may be as conformable to it as possible But I answer that Horace in that place does not treat of the Subject of the Play but of the Customs and Morals that ought to be given the Actors who ought not to be represented different from what they were believed as it would be to make Caesar a Coward or Messalina chaste and this Vossius has well observ'd in his Poetick Art and I wonder that people should be abus'd by Citations applyed quite contrary to the Sense of the Author and yet I am not of opinion that a known Story yet fresh in the minds of the People can suffer to be considerably chang'd without great caution but in such a case I should advise the Poet rather to abandon such a subject than to make an ill Play of it out of a humour of following truth or at least to manage it so as to check directly the receiv'd Opinion among the Vulgar If we examine well the Sense of Aristotle I believe he will be found to be of this Opinion and as for the Ancient Poets they have always taken that Liberty the same Story having hardly ever been treated the same way by different Poets As for example The Adventures of Polydorus are very different in Euripides and Virgil. Sophocles kills Emon and Antigone but Euripides who has made the same Story in two Plays marrys them together in one contrary to what he himself had done before in the other call'd The Phaenician Ladies The same Sophocles in Oedipus makes Jocasta strangle her self and Euripides makes her live 'till the combat of her Sons Eteocles and Polynices and then kill her self upon their dead bodies Orestes and Electra are very different in many Circumstances though both Works of the same Poet. In a word the four Tragick Poets of the Greeks whose Works we have are all different in the disposition of the same Stories and I believe that they were the cause of that grand disorder and confusion there is in Story and Chronology in those old times because that they having chang'd both the Times and Events for their own ends they have influenc'd some Historians who thought to pick out of them the truth of Story and so made all things uncertain any body that will read the Electra of Euripides that of Sophocles and the Caephores of Aeschilus will easily see that they made no difficulty of contradicting one another and themselves As for the different kinds of Subjects letting alone those ordinary divisions of Aristotle and his Commentators I here propose three sorts of Subjects The first consists of Incidents Intrigues and new Events when almost from Act to Act there is some sudden change upon the Stage which alters all the Face of Affairs when almost all the Actors have different Designs and the means they take to make them succeed come to cross one another and produce new and unforeseen Accidents all which gives a marvellous satisfaction to the Spectators it being a continual diversion accompanied with an agreeable Expectation of what the Event will be The second sort of Subjects are of those rais'd out of Passions when out of a small Fund the Poet does ingeniously draw great Sentiments and noble Passions to entertain the Auditory and when out of Incidents that seem natural to his Subject he takes occasion to transport his Actors into extraordinary and violent Sentiments by which the Spectators are ravish'd and their Soul continually mov'd with some new Impression The last sort of Subjects are the mixt or compound of Incidents and Passions when by unexpected Events but Noble ones the Actors break out into different Passions and that infinitely delights the Auditory to see at the same time surprizing Accidents and noble and moving Sentiments to which they cannot but yield with pleasure Now 't is certain that in all these three sorts of Subjects the Poet may succeed provided the disposition of his Play be ingenious but yet I have observ'd

probability that any other persons should have been assembled there at that time Nay if the Principal Actors themselves were enough in number they made the Chorus of them as in the Suppliants of Euripides where the seven Princes of Argos that implore Theseus's help to bury the dead bodies of their Husbands before Thebes make the Chorus themselves But if they were put to invent a Chorus they always did it conformably to the nature of their Subject and to the Rules of probability This Aristophanes has ingeniously enough observ'd in Comedy as where he makes a Chorus of Frogs to sing while Bacchus passing the Stix in Carons Bark and another of Wasps in the house of Philocleon whose Son would hinder him from going abroad for though those are very ridiculous Imaginations yet they are Comical well enough invented in mirth and are not against the Rules of his Art From hence we may likewise judg why the Chorus was at last left out in new Comedy and of this I think no body hitherto has given a true reason Horace thinks that the malignity and satyrical humour of the Poets was the cause of it for they made the Chorus's abuse people so severely that the Magistrates forbid them at last to use any at all but I think that if the Rules of probability had not likewise seconded this prohibition the Poets would have preserv'd their Chorus still with conformity to their Subject and that without too much Satyr therefore I imagine the thing came to pass thus Comedy took its model and constitution from Tragedy and when the downright abusing of living persons was prohibited they generally invented feigned Subjects which they govern'd according to the Rules of Tragedy but as they were necessitated to draw Pictures of the life of the Vulgar and were confin'd by consequent to mean Events they generally chose the place of their Scene in some Streets before the houses of those whom they suppos'd concern'd in the Story and it was not very probable that there should be a Troup of people in such a place managing an Intrigue of inconsiderable persons from morning to night Comedy lost of its self insensibly the Chorus which it could not preserve with any probability Comedy therefore having lost its Chorus long before Tragedy that which was called new Comedy receiv'd Dances Musick and Buffoons in the room of the Chorus as more proper for the genius of Comical Poetry Since therefore we are now fully inform'd what the Chorus was let us see how it acted upon the Stage At first it was plac'd a little lower than the Theatre and was seated by it self from whence it rose to sing and dance afterwards it was plac'd upon the Stage it self and at last it came upon the very Scene that is behind the Hangings or Decoration as may be seen in Scaliger Castelvetro and other Authors with many other things which I forbear to repeat here But we may observe besides that the Chorus did not ordinarily appear upon the Stage till after the Prologue that is as we have explain'd it till after one or many Scenes which open'd the Play and were preparatives to the better understanding of the piece not being reckon'd among the Acts or Episods This too is to be understood only in strictness for sometimes there was no Prologue and all that pass'd before the coming on of the Chorus was the first Act and to be reckon'd of the body of the Tragedy as in the Ajax of Sophocles at other times the Chorus its self opened the Stage as in the Rhaesus of Euripides because being compos'd of the Guards which had watch'd all night 't was not probable any should be there before them We must observe besides that when the Chorus once came on in regularity they were not suppos'd to go off till the end of the Play and this appears by all the Greek Tragedys where the Chorus often shews the Pallace or House to strangers complains or seems astonished at sudden noises made within by all which it may be concluded it stayed all along upon the Stage 'T is true that sometimes we may observe it to come in and out but that is extraordinarily and by some remarkable Artifice of the Poet who has a mind that some Action or other should be perform'd upon the Stage without witness As when Sophocles has a mind that Ajax should kill himself upon the Stage he sends out the Chorus under pretext of assisting Tecmessa who is endeavouring to find out Ajax to prevent the Effects of his fury he having just left her with a Sword in his hand Another reason the Poets have of sending out the Chorus is when 't is probable that they who represent the Chorus have done an action which could not naturally have been perform'd upon the Stage So in the Oratrices or pleading Women of Aristophanes the Women which compose the Chorus go out at the end of the first Act in Mens disguise to go to the Council to have it there decreed that the Government of Athens shall be put into their hands and at the end of the second Act they come back upon the Scene to bring their Husbands cloths which they had stolen in the night Where by the by we may take notice of the Ignorance of some of our Pedants in their Latine Tragedys when at the end of each Act they bring on a single Actor to represent the Chorus and declaim some scurvy Verses of Morality bringing him on and driving him off as they please thinking thereby to fulfil Aristotles Rules and perfectly imitate the Antients whereas their Chorus was compos'd of many persons who sung and danced with great Art and were always brought upon the Stage for some good reason nor are we to imagine as some have done that the Chorus sung and danc'd always for that was only when there was need to mark the Intervals of the Acts. In other places the Chorus was considered as any other Actor and the Corypheus or chief of them us'd to hold Discourse for all the rest or else being divided in two as sometimes it was half on one side of the Stage and half on the other the Chiefs of each side discours'd together of the Affairs of the Stage as is to be seen in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus upon the death of that King We see likewise sometimes that the Chorus after some Discourses falls a singing or is commanded to do it by which it appears it did not sing before The Example is precise in the seven before Thebes where Prince Eteocles after having discoursed with the Chorus a good while bids him at last leave off talking and sing to know now whether they all danc'd and whether the same persons danc'd that sung and if they danc'd and played on Instruments together and of what sort is that great diversity of Song we find among the Antients all this I say cannot contribute any thing to the composition of a Drammatick Poem and therefore need