limited, therefore, to those human events included between a catastrophe and its apparent remote cause, which perfectly, but not superfluously, connect the one with the other. The cause should not be so remote that its connection is not clear to the mind's eye, nor so adjacent as to render the catastrophe imminent. Experience teaches us that the most important play should not exceed three thousand lines in length.

The incidents should be of due proportion to the action they compose; that is, incidents composing a trivial drama should be trivial, and those of which an important drama is composed should be important. For example: if Sir Peter Teazle, in "The School for Scandal," were to kill his wife, as Othello kills Desdemona, the effect would be offensive, such a catastrophe being disproportionate to the rest of the play. If, on the other hand, Othello were to become reconciled to his wife, after the easy fashion of Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, the result would strike us as insignificant.

The parts of the action should be necessary to each other and to the whole. No part should be superfluous, for, however beautiful a thing in itself may be, it becomes displeasing when it is uncalled for by the nature of that to which it pretends to belong. And if any necessary incident be wanting or imperfect, the action must appear incomplete; but, composed of parts indispensable to each other, it will have the quality of cohesion, and nothing can be taken away or added, without injury to the rest and to the whole.

So much for the body of the action.

But now as to its movement. It should have progression, neither resting nor retrograding; and direction, neither diverging nor irresolute. Life is profluent; all human actions are directed to some desired object, and Providence produces what, as they happen, we call accidents, but when past we perceive to be necessary results. And this should be the process of the fictitious providence of which a spectator is the witness, that he may be led to believe that he is watching the accomplishment of a destiny. Progression, ordered by direction, may be called continuity, having which quality no part of an action can be transposed without injury to the whole.

If a complete action possess a proper length, and have

proportion and cohesion in its parts, it is of symmetrical form.

The emotion we commonly call interest is the pleasure we feel while contemplating the gradual production of a complete and symmetrical form. It is composed of expectation, suspense, and reflection.

Expectation is aroused by the beginning, suspense is maintained by the process of development, and reflection is invited by the repose to which the action is conducted. But the feelings must be excited in this order. For the spectator must not be induced to reflect at the beginning, but rather be looking forward with curiosity; nor should the past occupy him while the development is proceeding; but reflection is the proper tribute he pays to the middle and to the beginning when his mind is satisfied with the end. Of these the middle is the most important, that is, the suspense, in which there should not be too much curiosity, for the mind thus projected is removed from a perfect employment in its business, which is, at that place, to be wholly in the development; and when the end arrives, if anything else is expected, that is, if suspense agitate the mind, it is evident that the end has not come, but the poet is still in the middle of his action.

This definition of interest, applied to other arts, such as sculpture, music, painting, and poetic narrative, becomes more clearly exemplified. If we contemplate a shapeless mass of marble, we take no interest in the block: but let a sculptor produce from it a beautiful figure, commencing with the head and bust; when we see the beginning of the production of a complete and symmetrical form, we have a feeling of expectation. As he gradually develops the body, our desire to see the rest increases, but the feeling is not satisfied until we can regard the entire figure, disengaged from the mass and complete.

In music, if one half of a melody be given to us, we desire to hear the remainder; but a number of harmonious chords played in succession, not forming or being part of a melody, will fail to produce a like feeling of expectation, however pleasing in other respects they may be.

And in painting: If a number of figures, or objects, assembled without relation to each other, be presented to us, such

a picture will fail to arouse any interest, however well painted each figure or object may be. But let the same figures or objects be redistributed in such a manner as to form a design, if only one part of such a picture be exhibited, we ardently desire to see the other parts of it, and to comprehend the whole.

And in poetry: The life of David, as narrated in the Holy Scriptures, possesses the charm of interest, because, learning from the first the object of his existence, we become curious to know how his fate will be accomplished; we accompany the narrative with suspense until it is closed, when we reflect on it with satisfaction. But such is not the kind of emotion excited by the Psalms. These possess even greater beauty of diction; but they have not, as a whole, a complete and symmetrical form. reading them the mind is always satisfied with contemplating and enjoying the matter under consideration, not being in suspense, neither entertaining anything that is past, nor desiring what is to come. One may begin this work in the middle, transpose any part of it, or take any chapter away, without injury to the rest or to the whole.

In

If these conclusions be true, they may reasonably account for the charm we feel in certain works of fiction, and in many dramas, wherein the treatment and material are manifestly inferior, but being of shapely design they prove more interesting than works displaying more power and wit, but wanting in the essential symmetrical form. The novels composed by Alexandre Dumas, the elder, may be cited as examples. It is impossible to resist the appetite created by the progress of his story, but we feel none for its treatment by way of diction or character. The reader's mind is projected, anticipating what is coming, but eager to pass over what is doing. French writers and painters excel in the composition of their pictures, being cunning draughtsmen, but they are for the most part inferior to the Germans and the English in sentiment and color.

It may be convenient to distinguish between the terms interest and sympathy. Interest is concerned about events, sympathy about persons. We feel sympathy with a person, but we feel interest in the career of such a person. Or, if a misfortune should entail a series of calamities, we feel interest in the sequence of incidents. But no such interest can arise when the misfortune

is unpregnant; and, when the result of any series of misfortunes arrives, our interest is at end, but our sympathy with the victim is not ended. It will be seen that interest does not depend so much upon invention as upon order, and is most keenly excited when the order of the incidents composing an action is so perfect that the reader or spectator is led to suspect, in some degree, what is coming; in this state he is doubly curious to discover if his anticipations will be fulfilled, and in what manner they will be accomplished. Here invention is of great importance, for it should conduct the action by unexpected incidents to a satisfaction of his desire. Invention may be termed the power of finding what is new, and should not be confounded with the faculty of shaping a given subject into a symmetrical form.

We may now speak of the unities. These celebrated precepts are supposed to have been instituted by the Greek tragic poets, and recognized by them as essential principles of dramatic architecture. The French classic school insist on their observance, with less allowance than the great founders of the drama afforded themselves in this matter.

1. The unity of time restricts the action of a tragedy to the limit of twenty-four hours-that is, one revolution of the sun.

2. The unity of place confines the action to one spot.

3. The unity of action requires the tendency of the incidents to one catastrophe.

There can be no doubt as to the importance and value of the unity of action, but the utility of the other two appears to be questionable. The highest, in truth the only authority on the subject, does not, in his "Poetics," insist on any such rules; he refers casually to the unity of time as an observance, adding that it was not adhered to, and makes no mention whatever of the unity of place. Horace, in his brilliant fragment, the " Ars Poetica," refers to the unity of time, but without insistance; of the others he says nothing.

* The "Ars Poetica" has been severely handled by some eminent critics (Heinsius, Julius Scaliger, and Dacier), who fail to find in it a perspicuous design. It is singular that Horace should commence this poetic essay with ten lines satirizing the lack of unity and propriety with which the poem itself is now charged. As it is an unfinished work, we may fairly surmise it was not published during his lifetime, but more probably was found among his papers after his death, and given to the world by

The Greek tragic poets disregarded these rules when it suited their convenience to do so. Euripides, during the singing of an ode in "The Supplicants," sends an army from Athens to Thebes, fights a battle, and receives news of the engagement. Again, in "The Trachiniæ," Sophocles travels thrice during the play between Euboea and Thessaly. And in "The Eumenides" the scene of the drama is shifted by Eschylus from Delphi to Athens. Again, in the "Ajax" Sophocles changes his scene, the subject requiring it. It is more than probable that the continual presence of the chorus on the Greek stage, and the practical difficulties their theatre opposed to change of scenery, obliged their dramatists to accept conditions which have been mistaken for principles.

If their purpose is to oblige simplicity in the action and perspicuousness in the arrangement of the incidents composing it, it may be admitted that their observance tends to obviate confusion, and encourages symmetry; but the first two circumscribe the drama within narrow limits, and entail monotony of design and coldness of treatment.

The French dramatic academy would have us believe the unities were regarded by the Greek poets (like the principles of perspective in drawing) as essentials in dramatic composition"hors les unités point de salut." But when they point triumphantly to Racine and Corneille, who conformed to the unities, we might reply that this pair became great tragic poets in spite of these trammels, not because of them.

Voltaire goes so far as to declare, "If the dramatist represents a conspiracy, and extends the action to fourteen days, he must give me an account of all that passes in these fourteen days." Surely not of all that has occurred (that is the province of a journalist), but of all that concerns the conspiracy—he must follow the incidents that make up that chain of events.

his executors. It is a collection of maxims, like unset jewels, exquisitely polished, possibly prepared while meditating a comprehensive essay on the drama they were destined to adorn. These disjecta membra of the poet's form may not have been intended by him for publication in this miscellaneous shape. There is food for curious speculation in separating the various subjects assembled in this brief poem, and, thus disjointed and spaced out, the work becomes invested with a new interest; for, if the conjecture be a fair one, we can thus contemplate the process of this most elegant of all poets during the period of his poetic incubation.