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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41299	A farther defence of dramatick poetry being the second part of the review of Mr. Collier's View of the immorality and profaneness of the stage / done by the same hand.	Settle, Elkanah, 1648-1724.; Settle, Elkanah, 1648-1724. Defence of dramatick poetry.; Filmer, Edward, b. ca. 1657.; Rymer, Thomas, 1641-1713.	1698 (1698)	Wing F906; ESTC R202014	30,686	82

He that would see more upon this Subject may consult Corneille These Unities are no new Stage-Doctrin but what by some of the greatest Modern Brothers of the English Quill has been very often most Learnedly and I much fear as impertinently handled For the strict Observation of these Corneillean Rules are as Dissonant to the English Constitution of the Stage as the French Slavery to our English Liberty 'T is true that strictness may be much more practicable in the French Model of Plays and for this amazing Reason viz. that the French who are the sprightliest Conversation of all People in the World can nevertheless be the dullest of Mankind at their Play-houses can be contented to hear a Play made up of a short-winded Plot and a few long-winded Speeches much about enough for the Argument of one of our Acts and go home as much regaled as from a Misers Feast And the Devils in 't if their Dramatick Authors cannot furnish out so scanty a Banquet with all the foremention'd Unities and pride in it accordingly I shall expatiate a little more then Ordinary upon this Argument not only to answer Mr. Collier but also some Modern woudbe-Criticks that are wonderfully tickl'd with their own nicer Stage performances under this strict Cornelian Model of Unities First then I shall so far joyn with Mr. Collier That concealing the Fiction of the Stage and making the Play appear with the more Air of Reality is a great work of the Poet. For indeed Dramatick Poetry is Supported chiefly by Theft and Delusion The Images we steal or borrow whether Historical or Fictitious must be set out with all that liveliest Art that like Zeuxes his Grapes or Apelles his Curtain the Picture may best deceive For Poetry especially the Dramatick is but Painting only this Picture finds a Tongue and is a speaking Painting I had occasion in a late Copy of Verses to give a little Description of Painting which upon my second Review looks so very applicable to Poetry that not to treat my Reader with all downright Reasoning I 'll give him a few Taggs of Rhime too and venture for once to repeat them If Heav'n-stol'n Fires could animate the Clay What nobler Theft the daring Pencils play So much the bolder Painter does out-fly The old Promethean Petty Larceny Not a poor spark snatch'd from his Chariot Wheels Not steals from Jove but Jove himself he steals Him not the Skies Imperial Rover scapes He hunts him through the Gold Swan Bull all shapes The very God expos'd in all his amorous Rapes Nay the still more Audacious Rifler pryes Into the inmost Chambers of the Skies He steals his very Juno from his Arms And with a Sacrilege ev'n yet more bold Unveils to Humane Eyes the Naked Goddess Charms And gives the Trojan Boy once more the Ball of Gold Illustrious Art whom Ministring Nature all Thy Hand-maid waits on thy commanding Call Like the Great FIAT thou both Day and Night Call'st forth and deck'st in their own Shades and Light Ev'n Heavn's whole Hierarchy the Lords above By thee their whole Triumphant Chariots move From th'Harnest Dragon to the bridled Dove Mercurial Art who captiv'd Eyes to take Thou do'st a Virtue of Delusion make Thou only Honest Cozener Fair Deceit Who can'st ev'n consecrate both Theft and Cheat. But returning to our Argument notwithstanding all this Analogy between the Pencil Draughts and the Poet 's yet there 's one infinite distinction between the Air of reality on the one side and the other For in a Draught of Pencil Painting that Air is the whole Perfection of the Piece A single Rose a half Face the least piece of Life nay an AEsop or a Cripple even Deformity it self well perform'd shall carry an Excellence and consequently this Air of Reality give the whole Delight But in the Dramatick Painting that Air is only the Handmaid to our delight only the Light to set off the Picture 'T is the Charms and Beauties of the Object Painted not the Painting it self that gives the compleat satisfaction and pleasure Here therefore Mr. Collier has layd a little too much stress upon his Air of Reality the Foundation of his Unity Rules as if the Entertainment of the Stage lay only in the well performance in that point when in has a prospect infinitely beyond it Now therefore as the Painter is not so much to please himself but him that buys the Picture so to leave the Allegory and come closer to the point we must examine what sort of Dramatick Entertainment will please an English Audience and that will shew us how far his Unity Rules will bear in England and consequently settle the whole Controversie between us Here the shortest way to tell you what will please an English Audience I think is to look back and see what has pleased them And here let us first take a view of our best English Tragedies as our Hamlet Mackbeth Iulius Caesar Oedipus Alexander Timon of Athens Moor of Venice and all the rest of our most shining Pieces All these and the Rest of their Honourable Brethren are so far from pent up in Corneilles narrower Unity Rules viz. the Business of the Play confined to no longer Time then it takes up in the Playing or his largest Compass of 24 Hours that nothing is so ridiculous as to pretend to it The Subjects of our English Tragedies are generally the whole Revolutions of Governments States or Families or those great Transactions that our Genius of Stage-poetry can no more reach the Heights that can please our Audience under his Unity Shackles then an Eagle can soar in a Hen-coop If the French can content themselves with the sweets of a single Rose-bed and nothing less then the whole Garden and the Field round it will satisfie the English every Man as he likes Corneille may reign Master of his own Revels but he is neither a Rule-maker nor a Play-maker for our Stage And the Reason is plain For as Delight is the great End of Playing and those narrow Stage-restrictions of Corneille destroy that Delight by curtailing that Variety that should give it us every such Rule therefore is Nonsense and Contradiction in its very Foundation Even an Establish'd Law when it destroys its own Preamble and the Benefits design'd by it becomes void and null in it self 'T is true I allow thus far That it ought to be the chief care of the Poet to confine himself into as narrow a Compass as he can without any particular stint in the two First Unities of Time and Place for which end he must observe two Things First upon occasion suppose in such a Subject as Mackbeth he ought to falsifie even History it self For the Foundation of that Play in the Chronicles was the Action of 25 Years But in the Play we may suppose it begun and finish'd in one third of so many Months Young Malcom and Donalbain the Sons of Duncomb are but Children at the Murder of their Father and

such they return with the Forces from England to revenge his Death whereas in the true Historick Length they must have set out Children and return'd Men. Secondly the length of Time and distance of Place required in the Action ought to be never pointed at nor hinted in the Play For example neither Malcomb nor Donalbain must tell us how long they have been in England to raise those Forces nor how long those Forces have been Marching into Scotland nor Mackbeth how far Schone and Dunsinane lay asunder c. By this means the Audience who come both willing and prepar'd to be deceiv'd populus vult decipi c. and indulge their own Delusion can pass over a considerable distance both of Time and Place unheeded and unminded if they are not purposely thrown too openly in their way to stumble at Thus Hamlet Iulius Caesar and those Historick Plays shall pass glibly when the Audience shall be almost quite shockt at such a Play as Henry the 8th or the Dutchess of Malfey And why because here 's a Marriage and the Birth of a Child possibly in two Acts which points so directly to Ten Months length of time that the Play has very little Air of Reality and appears too much unnatural In this case therefore 't is the Art of the Poet to shew all the Peacocks Train but as little as possible of her Foot And as to the second Unity of Place Here our Audience expect a little Variety viz. some change of Scene To continue it all on one spot of Ground in one Chamber or Room would rather disgust then please And an Author that toyls for any such difficiles Nugae such an over-curious Unity only labours to be dull and deserves a success accordingly Now for these two Unities in our Comedies Though that Inferior Walk of Fable may come into a little narrower enclosure of Time and Place then Tragedy however we rarely meet with a good Comedy-plot all fairly lodged under one single Roof and dancing within the Circle of twenty four Hours much less in the Acting Time of the Play 'T is true we have an Adventure of Five Hours in some Quondam Repu scribble of small Reputation that possibly have crampt themselves into much the same Circumference and the Authors perhaps not a little Vain in the wrong place and challenging a Merit for e'en just nothing However the general Cast of all our best Comedies take a great deal larger liberty then these precise Limitations and lose little or no Air of their Reality by that Freedom However our Audience have naturally such a Dispensing Goodness in relation to these Tyrannick Rules that they are never for tying up good Wit and good Plot to so short a Teddar as to pinch and starve them And thus in the case of the Relapse our Audience are so far from angry at Lord Foppingtons or Young Fashion's Travels to Sir Tunbelly's that they rather wish 'em a good Journey and find the whole Entertainment there worth fifty Miles Ramble for and their own Diversion not at all too dear bought for being so far fetch'd To come to our last Unity of Action Here both Corneille and his Voucher are both as down-right dull and as seriously impertinent as to our Stage Regulation as their worst Enemies cou'd wish ' em The contriving the chief Business of our Plays single is so nauseous to an English Audience that they have almost peuk'd at a very good Dish for no other Fault For example Mr. Gildon's Phaeton that almost sunk under that only Disrelish On the contrary here must be Under-plots and considerable ones too possibly big enough to justle the Upper-plot to support a good English Play nay though the Under-plots do not much fight under the great General and consequently the Play splits and the Poem is double as Mr. Collier calls it yet this instead of weakening the Contrivance or Diluting our Pleasure shall rather strengthen the one and double the other For instance in such a Play as the Spanish Fryer Here 's Gomez Elvira and Father Dominick c. so far from marching under the Bannors of Torrismond or Leonora that 't is enough they are Subjects of the same Government and Denizens within the same City Walls to recommend them to so considerable an underwalk in the same Play And though as Mr. Collier very fancifully observes This strangeness of Persons distinct Company and Inconnexion of Affairs destroys the Unity of the Poem And that therefore the Contrivance is just as wise as it would be to cut a Diamond into two Increasing the Number abates the Value and by making it more you make it less Yet suppose the Audience in the same Play of the Spanish Fryer instead of Fancying Mr. Dryden has cut one Diamond into two should be rather of the Opinion that he has joyn'd two Diamonds together and so gives us a Locket instead of a single Jewel and consequently both the Luster and Value increased how will this Diamond-splitter get himself off And will not the World be apt to think him as indifferent a Lapidary as he 's a Critick Now Reader as I have here stated the whole Prowess of Mr. Collier and muster'd all his Forces against the Relapse his Batteries of Immorality and Profaness against it only excepted and upon that Subject the Ingenious Author has taken up a much abler Pen of his own so I hope I have done him all this publick Right as to inform the World that he never deviates from himself His Divinity Lectures and his Critic ones are spoken with the same Oraculous Eloquence He keeps up to his Principles and lapses into no more Intemperance of Reason in the one then the other But some untoward Reflections I cannot forbear viz. upon Mr. Collier's so extraordinary Dudgeon against that Play Has the Author sinn'd more then any of his other prosane Brothers of the Quill that the Divine Spirit of Mr. Collier Tantae animis coelestibus Irae swells so very high against him Or has this singular Critick in all this direct Contradiction to the whole Opinion of the Town concerning the Relapse either the same value of his own Judgment as the Philosopher at his Morality Lecture had of Plato's viz. Plato est mihi pro omnibus And consequently his own single dissenting Authority out-weighs all their whole United Favour to that Play Or rather now I fancy I have hit it as he has all along endeavour'd through his Learned View c. to prove the whole Audience wanted their Christian Senses about them when they can relish the present Profaness and Debauchery of the Stage so he 's resolved to deny 'em their Common Senses too when they can hug so Monstrous a Darling as the Relapse Having in my first Part of my Review already discharg'd a great Load of some of the most Capital Blasphemies from King Arthur Amphytrion c. I should proceed in clearing some more of the Inferiour Rubbish of that kind from the