Causes and Motives; and thofe being the Producers of Actions, are the Causes of Good and Evil to Mankind.

The Imitation of an Action is properly call'd the Fable; that is, the Compofition of all the Parts and Incidents of this Action is the Fable. The Manners diftinguish the Qualities of the Perfons represented; that is, characterize Men, denote their Incli nations either good or bad. The Manners of Achilles were Choler, and Temerity; those of Eneas fweet Temper, and Piety. The Sentiments are the Difcourfes or Speeches of the Dramatick Perfons, discovering their Thoughts, and making known their Actions: by which they speak agreeably to their Manners or Characters, that the Auditors may know their Manners before they see their Actions.

There is no Subject of a Tragedy where these following five Parts are not found, viz. The Fable, the Manners, the Sentiments, the Diction, and the Decoration. Ariftotle adds the Mufick, because the Greek Poets directed that too. But the chief and moft confiderable is the Fable, or the Compofition of the Incidents, which form the Subject of the Tragedy; both in the Opinion of Ariftotle, and of all those who know any thing of the Reason of Things. For Tragedy is in imitation of an Action, not of Men; whence it follows, that Action conftitutes the Tragedy, and that there can be no Tragedy where there is no Action. The good or evil Fortune of Men depends on their Actions, and the End that every Man proposes to himself, is an Action, not a Quality: what Qualities Men purfue, are only as Mediums to fome Action. Thus the general End that Mankind propofe, is to live happily; but to live happily, is an Action, not a Quality. Man being therefore happy or miferable by his Actions, not Manners or Qualities; Tragedy propofes not to imitate the Manners, but adds them for the Production of Actions. So that the Fable (which is the Imitation of the Action) being the End of Tragedy, it must be of the most importance, and chiefly to be confider'd; for fo the End in all things is. Another Proof, which Ariftotle brings for the Preference of the Fable to all the other Parts of the Play, is, That the best and most taking Tragedies (of his

Time) are thofe which have their Peripeties, Revolutions, or Changes of Fortune, and Discoveries, as in the Oedipus of Sophocles But these Discoveries are infeparable from the Subject, and confift intirely in Action. The Fable therefore furnishing the moft efficacious Means of arriving at the End, must necessarily in Reafon be the most important part of Tragedy.

Ariftotle indeed, and his best Commentators, are very large on this Head, to prove that all the fine Diction, the Manners well exprefs'd, and the Sentiments natural and juft, are of no manner of value, if the Fable be faulty, or the Action maim'd. This is,

fuppofe, fufficient to let the Reader fee, that this is not only the first Thing that comes under our Confideration, as fome would without any ground in Reason infinuate; but the moft noble and most important thing that he is to study, if he wou'd ever hope to deserve the Name of a Tragic Poet: to which indeed we have very few of thofe, who have made a confiderable noife in the World for a little time, who have any Pretence. Befides, it is much easier to fucceed in the Stile, or what the leading Fools call fine Diction (which is deriv'd, by the way, from Grammar and Rhetorick, not Poetry) than the forming of the Subject, or Fable juftly, and with Art. Nature enabled Shakefpear to fucceed in the Manners and Diction often to perfection ; but he could never by his Force of Genius, or Nature, vanquish the barbarous Mode of the Times, and come to any Excellence in the Fable; except in the Merry Wives of Windfor, and the Tempest..

Next to the Fable, the Manners are the most confiderable (and in these Shakespear has generally excell'd, as will be feen when we come to his Plays;) for as Tragedy is the Imitation of an Action, fo there are no Actions without the Manners, fince the Manners are the Caufe of Actions. By the Manners we difcover the Inclinations of the Speaker, what Part, Side, or Courfe he will take on any important and difficult Emergence; and know how he will behave himself, before we fee his Actions. Thus we know from the Manners of Achilles, what Anfwer he will give the Ambaffadors of Agamemnon, by what the Poet has told us of VOL. VII.

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his Hero. And when Mercury brings Jove's Orders to Æneas, we know that the Piety of the Hero will prevail over his Love. And the Character of Oedipus makes us expect his extravagant Paffions, and the Exceffes he will commit by his Obftinacy. These Discourses therefore that do not do this, are without the Manners. Character of Coriolanus, in Shakespear, prepares us to expect the Refolution he will take to disoblige the People; for Pride naturally contemns Inferiors, and over-values itself. The fame may be faid of Tybalt, in Romeo and Juliet; and most of the Characters

of this Poet.

The Sentiments are the next in degree of Excellence to the Fable, and the Manners, and justly demand the third place in our Care and Study; for those are for the Manners, as the Manners for the Subject or Fable. The Action can't be justly imitated without the Manners, nor the Manners exprefs'd without the Sentiments. In these we must regard Truth and Verifimilitude; as when the Poet makes a Madman speak exactly as a Madman does, or as 'tis probable he would do. This Shakespear has admirably perform'd in the Madness of King Lear; where the Cause of his Frenzy is ever uppermoft, and mingles with all he fays or does. But Beaumont and Fletcher have perform'd abominably in their Mad-house, in the Pilgrim, and our modern Alterer of that Play, has increas'd the Abfurdities.

The Diction, or Language, obtains but the fourth Place of the effential Parts of a Tragedy, and is of the leaft importance of any of them, in the Opinion of Aristotle, the best of Criticks, and Reafon: tho our modern Poetafters, or vile Pretenders to this noble Poem, have plac'd their chief Excellence in it. But the Reafon of it is, because this was what they thought they could in fome measure obtain, while the reft were intirely above their Reach and Capacity. For the Subject may be well conducted, the Manners well mark'd, and the Sentiments fine, tho ill exprefs'd. It is indeed, as Dryden obferves, the first Beauty that strikes the Ear, and enhances the Value of the Piece, but comes not into Competition with any of the other three.

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The Decoration I have already mention'd, and how far that is to be regarded by the Poet.

Having thus feen the feveral Parts of Tragedy, and their Excellence in regard of each other, I come to give the Directions neceffary for the making each of 'em perfect.

The first and chief of them I have prov'd to be the Fable or Subject; or, as we generally call it in English, the Plot. I fhall begin with that, in the forming of which, the Poet's principal Care ought to be employ'd.

Every Action that is fit for a Tragick Imitation, or that can be made use of in Tragedy, ought not only to be intire, but of a just length; that is, it must have a Beginning, Middle, and End. This distinguishes it from momentaneous Actions, or those that happen in an inftant, without Preparation, or Sequel; which wanting Extenfion, may come into the Incidents, not the Fable. The Cause or Design of undertaking an Action, is the Beginning; and the Effects of that Cause, and the Difficulties we find in the Execution, are the Middle; the unravelling and diffolving these Difficulties, is the End.

The Anger of Achilles is the Action propos'd by Homer in the two firft Verfes of the Ilias. The Quarrel betwixt him and Agamemnon is the Beginning; the Evils. this Quarrel produc'd, are the Middle; and the Death of Hector, giving perfect Satisfaction to Achilles, leads to the unravelling the Action, and difpofing Achilles to relent at the Tears and Prayers of Priam, and restores him to his firft Tranquillity, which is the End. The Departure of Ulyffes from Troy, begins the Action of the Odyffes; the Hardships and Obftacles of his Voyage make the Middle; and his Arrival and Establishment in Ithaca the End.

The true Beginning to an Action, is that which does not neceffarily require or fuppofe any thing before it, as part of that Action. Thus the Beginning of an Epic, or Dramatic Poem may be the Sequel of another Action: for the Quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles, which is the Beginning of the Action of the Ilias, is Agamemnon's Injuftice, which provok'd the Anger of Achil les, when all was quiet before in the Camp; fo we may confider d 2

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this Affair the Sequel of, but not depending neceffarily on any thing precedent, tho it come not to pass without it, and requires fomething elfe to follow it, depending on it, present or remote. The Retreat of Achilles to the Ships, the Trojans routing the Greeks on that Retreat, were the prefent Effects of his Anger; the remote, the Death of Patroclus, Reconcilement of Agamemnon and Achilles, and the Death of Hector, which fatisfies and reftores Tranquillity by the Tears of Priam. The End is juft oppofite to the Beginning; for it neceffarily fuppofes fomething to have gone before, but nothing to follow it: as the End of the Anger of Achilles naturally fuppofes a Beginning of it, but nothing to come after. The Tranquillity of Achilles is reftor'd by the Death of Hector, for then the Action is compleat; and to add any thing farther, would be to begin a new Action.

To inftance in a Dramatic as well as Epic Action, tho they perfectly agree in this, let us confider the Action of the Antigone of Sophocles. The Beginning of this Action has no neceffary Dependence on the Death of her Brother Polynices; for tho as to that, the Decree of Creon might have been or not have been, yet it follow'd that Death, nor could it have happen'd without it. The Action begins with the impious and partial Decree of Creon against the burying the Body of Polynices; the Middle is the Effects produc'd by that Decree in Antigone's Punishment, the Death of Emon and Euridice; which produce the End, in breaking the Obftinacy of Creon, and making him penitent, and miferable.

The Middle is that which neceffarily fuppofes fomething gone before, and fomething to follow: Thus all the Evils that the Anger of Achilles produc'd, neceffarily suppose that Anger as their Cause and Beginning, from whence they did proceed. So these Evils, that is, the Middle producing the Satisfaction and Revenge of Achilles in the Death of Hector, furnifh'd the End, in his relenting at the Mifery of Priam. This is a perfect Example of an Epic and Dramatic Action, and fhews, that the Poet cannot begin or end it where he pleases, if he would manage his Subject with true Oeconomy, and Beauty. For there must be the

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