and sublimity of expression, rather than by a train of robes, or a plume of feathers. Another mechanical method of making great men, and adding dignity to kings and queens, is to accompany them with halberts and battle-axes. Two or three shifters of scenes, with the two candle-snuffers, make up a complete body of guards upon the English stage; and, by the addition of a few porters dressed in red coats, can represent above a dozen legions. I have sometimes seen a couple of armies drawn up together upon the stage, when the poet has been disposed to do honour to his generals. It is impossible for the reader's imagination to multiply twenty men into such prodigious multitudes, or to fancy that two or three hundred thousand soldiers are fighting in a room of forty or fifty yards in compass. Incidents of such nature should be told, not represented. -Non tamen intus Digna geri promes in scenam: multaque tolles HOR, Ars Poet. 182. Yet there are things improper for a scene, LD. ROSCOMMON, I should therefore, in this particular, recommend to my countrymen the example of the French stage, where the kings and queens always appear unattended, and leave their guards behind the scenes. I should likewise be glad if we imitated the French in banishing from our stage the noise of drums, trumpets, and huzzas; which is sometimes so very great, that when there is a battle in the Hay-Market theatre, one may hear it as far as Charing-Cross. I have here only touched upon those particulars which are made use of to raise and aggrandize the persons of a tragedy; and VOL. IT.-6 shall shew in another paper the several expedients which are practised by authors of a vulgar genius, to move terror, pity, or admiration, in their hearers. The tailor and the painter often contribute to the success of a tragedy more than the poet. Scenes affect ordinary minds as much as speeches; and our actors are very sensible, that a welldressed play has sometimes brought them as full audiences, as a well-written one. The Italians have a very good phrase to express this art of imposing upon the spectators by appearances : they call it the Furberia della scena, 'The knavery or trickish part of the drama.' But however the show and outside of the tragedy may work upon the vulgar, the more understanding part of the audience immediately see through it, and despise it. A good poet will give the reader a more lively idea of an army or a battle in a description, than if he actually saw them drawn up in squadrons and battalions, or engaged in the confusion of a fight. Our minds should be opened to great conceptions, and inflamed with glorious sentiments, by what the actor speaks, more than by what he appears. Can all the trappings or equipage of a king or hero, give Brutus half that pomp and majesty which he receives from a few lines in Shakespear? C. ** At Drury-Lane, for the benefit of Mrs. Porter, Love's Last Shift, or, The Fool in Fashion: Sir Novelty, Mr. Cibber; Sir W. Wisewould, Mr. Johnson; Loveless, Mr. Wilks; Worthy, Mr. Mills; Snap, Mr. Pinkethman; Sly, Mr. Bullock; Amanda, Mrs. Porter; Narcessa, Mrs. Oldfield; and Hilaria, Mrs. Bicknell. Spect. in fol, AMONG the several artifices which are put in practice by the poets to fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the descending of a god, or the rising of a ghost, at the vanishing of a devil, or at the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell in troduced into several tragedies with good effect; and have seen the whole assembly in a very great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost, especially when he appears in a bloody shirt. A spectre has very often saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage, or rose through a cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the sounding of the clock in Venice Preserved, makes the hearts of the whole audience quake; and conveys a stronger terror to the mind, than it is possible for words to do. The appearance of the ghost of Hamlet is a master-piece in its kind, and wrought up with all the circumstances that can create either attention or horror. The mind of the reader is wonderfully prepared for his reception by the discourses that precede it his dumb behaviour at his first entrance, strikes the imagination very strongly; but every time he enters, he is still more terrifying. Who can read the speech with which young Hamlet accosts him, without trembling? Hor. Look, my Lord, it comes! Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Bring with thee airs from Heav'n, or blasts from Hell; 1 Be thy event wicked or charitable; Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet, I do not therefore find fault with the artifices above mentioned, when they are introduced with skill, and accompanied by proportionable sentiments and expressions in the writing. For the moving of pity, our principal machine is the handkerchief; and indeed in our common tragedies, we should not know very often that the persons are in distress by any thing they say, if they did not from time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Far be it from me to think of banishing this instrument of sorrow from the stage; I know a tragedy could not subsist without it all that I would contend for, is, to keep it from being misapplied. In a word, I would have the actor's tongue sympathize with his eyes. A disconsolate mother, with a child in her hand, has frequently drawn compassion from the audience, and has therefore gained a place in several tragedies. A modern writer, that observed how this had took in other plays, being resolved to double the distress, and melt his audience twice as much as those before For advent, coming or visiting: the common reading is intent.-C. Compare also Addison's reading of another passage of Shakespeare in the Tatler, No. 117, v. vol, 3. p.-G. him had done, brought a princess upon the stage with a little boy in one hand and a girl in the other. This too had a very good effect. A third poet being resolved to out-write all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced three children, with great success: and, as I am informed, a young gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts, has a tragedy by him, where the first person that appears upon the stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning-weeds, with half a dozen fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about the figure of Charity. Thus several incidents that are beautiful in a good writer, become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one. But among all our methods of moving pity or terror, there is none so absurd and barbarous, and what more exposes us to the contempt and ridicule of our neighbours, than that dreadful butchering of one another, which is so very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in seeing men stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled, is certainly the sign of a cruel temper: and as this is often practised before the British audience, several French critics, who think these are grateful spectacles to us, take occasion from them to represent us as a people that delight in blood. It is indeed very odd, to see our stage strowed with carcasses in the last scene of a tragedy; and to observe in the ward-robe of the play-house several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for poison, and many other instruments of death. Murders and executions are always transacted behind the scenes in the French theatre; which in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilized people but as there are no exceptions to this rule on the French stage, it leads them into absurdities almost as ridiculous as that which falls under our present I remember in the famous play of Corneille, written upon the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii; the fierce young hero censure. |