We have perceived the sole object in dramatic construction is to attain such an imitation of human actions as to establish perfectly the theatrical illusion in the mind of the spectator. The only useful purpose of the unities is to aid the poet in this matter. May we not substitute the unity of probability for all three? The action in the tragedy of "Othello" violates the unities of time and place, the voyage from Venice to Cyprus taking place between the first and second acts, while the last four acts conform very nearly to the classic precepts, but the mind of the spectator does not reject the first act, because it is a prologue to the action of the other four.

It is rare that an important action, from its remote cause to its catastrophe, is entirely accomplished within the space of twenty-four hours and on one spot. If all dramas had such contracted plots, their monotonous forms would appear artificial. A natural action occurs thus: An incident, which may be called generative, because something comes of it, takes place; it may be immediately followed by its result, or it may not; but, whenever and wherever it does occur, that result is the second incident in the true dramatic series. The sequence, when complete, may have led the spectator from place to place, and have overleaped time; yet, if his illusion have remained unbroken, the unity of probability has been preserved, and more than this he will not appreciate nor desire.

The unities of time and place were not dogmas, pronounced by the Greek poets or critics after the drama was created and perfected as an art; they were the features of the drama at its birth. The source of the Greek tragedy was the declaimed ode. Before the invention of printing and our methods of publication, the poet, taking his stand in some convenient public place, recited his work, precisely as our street-preachers now gather audiences around them to hear a discourse. He was called the rhapsodist. When Homer thus delivered his "Iliad," he personated the characters of Achilles, Ulysses, or Hector, as they spoke. Here was the germ of the drama. In the epic, the action is by-gone; the scene is described and the persons are spoken of as third persons. In the drama, the action is present, the scene is visible, and the persons are the speakers. The sentiments and passions are supposed to be theirs-the poet disap

pears. The Greek tragic poets could never accomplish this sacrifice in their dramas the poet is always audible; he is personified in the chorus; he never forgets the rhapsodist. We know Eschylus better than Clytemnestra; Sophocles and Euripides are more prominent than Antigone and Electra. It is not so with Shakespeare: he is concealed behind Hamlet, Falstaff, Rosalind, and Lear. How is it with Molière? Does he not peep over the shoulder of George Dandin, and hide under the cloak of Tartufe? As dramatists these surpass the Greeks; how they measure with them as poets is not our present concern.

In the first form of the tragedy there was only one actor, and as, of course, he never left the stage, the action was necessarily continuous, and the unities became inevitable. Eschylus added a second personage, and this invented dialogue. Sophocles added a third, and then we find the poets violating the unities of time and place when the nature of their action requires it.

It should not be forgotten that this ancient drama differed in all respects from ours. Music and dancing accompanied the play in such large proportion that the exhibition resembled a grand tragic opera. The dialogue was chanted, the subjects treated were for the most part religious or semi-religious fables, and the performance itself was part of religious exercise. The spectators lent their faith to the representation, as we, at this period, should lend our feelings if we could witness a perfect dramatization of the life and death of our Saviour; for Prometheus, in the eyes of the Greek, was a man-god, who was crucified for the sake of the human race.

In attempting, therefore, imitations of the ancient form of tragedy, we may not omit the most important parts. The French classic poets necessarily omit several elements. They omit the religious character of the exhibition; they omit the chorus and its attendant sympathies; they omit the music and dancing; they write in a language wanting in the delightful but lost quality, prosody-for each Greek word had its notes, and a composition of words formed a melody.

This part of a drama, called the melopaia, is ranged by Aristotle on a level with the diction. The method of the Greek tragedy was proper when applied to such elements; but Racine and Corneille constructed a pseudo-classic form, neither ancient

nor modern, but resembling the incongruous costume of their hero, who usually wore a Greek helmet over a full-bottomed wig.

The essence of a rule is its necessity; it must be reasonable, and always in the right. The unities of time and place do not seem to be reasonable, and have been violated with impunity, therefore are not always in the right. The liberty of imagination should not be sacrificed to arbitrary restrictions and traditions that lead to dullness and formality. Art is not a church; it is the philosophy of pleasure.

DION BOUCICAULT.

IV.

GENERAL AMNESTY.

In this era of pacification between the sections lately engaged in civil strife, the question presses upon public consideration, "Has not the time arrived when all the disabilities imposed upon those who participated in the war against the Union should be removed?"

We have reached a period when each party to that memorable contest may begin to see that honest and brave men did conscientiously differ upon the right and the wrong involved in it. Without deeming it proper or necessary here to state the diverse views of the North and South, few men are now found who do not feel that the natural passions of war, in its progress during four years, tended to blind each to any palliation or excuse for the other for the origin or conduct of it. It was a conflict between the States before the tribunal of last resort among nations-ultima ratio regum. The decision was adverse to the South. It overthrew the claim of the Confederate States to secede from the Union, and brought them back into the Union under the great Constitution of the fathers of 1789. The South bowed to the decree; and in every form the States of that sec tion have evinced their sincere submission to the judgment pronounced by the tribunal of war upon the issue joined between the parties to the strife.

No sound thinking man in the North now dreams of holding the South in subjection to military power, or of treating the Southern States otherwise than as coequal members with the Northern States of the Union, or of not dealing with the citizens of the South as equal before the law with every citizen of the North. Every day witnesses the increasing evidences of the

removal of the bitterness of the conflict, and of the coöperation of men North and South in promoting the common glory and prosperity of the American Union.

Yet there remain upon the statute-book two or more of those enactments which stigmatize American citizens with disabilities, calculated to do no good, and only fitted to awaken the flames of sectional animosity.

Among these, and prominently, is the civil disability created by the fourteenth amendment upon certain persons who, having taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, upon assuming certain offices, Federal or State, "shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof." This disability is to holding certain offices Federal and State, and may be removed in all cases by a vote of two-thirds of each House of Congress.

By an analysis of this provision, it will be seen

1. The power of removal of the disability created by the Constitution is without exception. The constitutional amendment placed no one beyond the pale of amnesty. It regarded no man so guilty above his fellows as to be outside the benefit of congressional action. From Mr. Davis, the Confederate President, to the humblest soldier or citizen engaged in insurrection, this amendment gave power to relieve from the adjudged disability.

2. It was a disability to hold office only, not of suffrage, nor of any other civil or political right or function.

3. It is clear that the disability imposed does not extend to being a member of a State Legislature.

The language of the amendment is very peculiar :

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State," etc.

This amendment, in one clause, points out what positions a person shall be disabled to hold, and, in another, those for his having held which a disability attaches to him. It is drawn