[375] Difficile est proprie communia dicere; tuque Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus, Quam si proferres ignota, indictaque primus.

New Subjects are not easily explain'd, And you had better chuse a well-known Theme, Than trust to an Invention of your own. Roscom.

But not to insist that the Authority of the best of Poets and Criticks is not to supersede Reason and Experience; it is to be observ'd, that dramatical Invention has been much improv'd since the Times in which Horace writ: And had he seen some of our late Tragedies, form'd upon Fiction only, he would, perhaps, have retracted his Opinion. It is a difficult Thing, I allow, to express Common Things in a proper Manner, that is, to change and heighten some noted,[376] stale Subject, so as to give it a new Appearance, and make it the Writer's own; and the Observation is of great Weight: But, all Things consider'd, whether we regard the Difficulty or the Elegance, the Judgment or Ingenuity of each Composition; greater Glory seems to be due to him that produces a new Plan of his own Invention, than that changes, and gives new Life to an old one.

According to the modern Criticks, every regular Play consists of three Unities, viz. of Time, Place, and Action. I have already spoke of the last: The first, I would observe, is very improperly styled an Unity. Place and Action may admit of Number; but Time, howsoever extended, does not cease to be one, with Respect to the Action which is continu'd by it. This Observation, I own, is but of little Moment, since all that make use of the Term, sufficiently understand the Meaning of it, however inaccurately express'd.

As to Time, Aristotle, and after him the great Vossius, and others, will not allow it above the Compass of one Day; for which Reason, the Heautontimoroumenos of Terence is reckon'd faulty, because it takes up an entire Day, and part of another. But if we were to reduce Things to the greatest Exactness, the Action of the Drama ought not to be longer than Representation of it upon the Stage. This, no doubt, would be the compleatest Rule, could it be practis'd. But tho' it will rarely or never pass for a Probability, that so great Events should fall out in so short a Time, yet we ought to come as near to this Maxim as we can. To see the Ten Years Trojan War crowded into the narrow Limits of one Tragedy, about three or four Hours long, appears, at first View, not only improbable, but impossible, and will be rejected by the Audience as a monstrous Imposition on their Understanding.

The Unity of Place ought to be preserv'd, for the same Reason I before alledg'd for the Unity of Time. The one supposes the other; for if Place is varied, Time must be so too. If the Action takes up but a few Hours, it is impossible it should be carried on in Places widely distant. On the other Hand, if it is transacted partly at London, and partly at Oxford, a few Hours will not be sufficient. But there's another Reason, with Regard even to Place itself, why this Rule, concerning the Unity of it, ought to be observ'd. What an Absurdity is it, for a Spectator to suppose himself one Minute at Rome, and the next at Paris? We cannot but despise a Poet, who is such a Bungler at Fiction, as, in a different Sense from that of Horace,

[377] —Modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.

Now places me at Athens, now at Thebes.

It is beyond the Power of any Magic to transport us into different Places, not only at the same Time, but even while we are in the same Place. The usual Limits of the Drama are within the Compass of one Town or City: This some think too great, others too narrow an Extent. Larger it certainly ought not to be: Nor is this probably too large. For tho' it may not seem very natural for the Audience to be carried from one End of the City to the other; yet it may be impossible, perhaps, to represent the Action itself, and some other Circumstances attending it, in less Compass; and, as we said before of Time, when we cannot come up to Truth, it must suffice to come as near to it as possible. For, as Horace says, upon another Occasion,

[378] Est quadam prodire tenus, si non datur ultra.