For further remarks on the narrations of the Andrian, vide Notes. Nos. [89]. [95]. [101]. I shall postpone a continuance of observations on the very obvious inconvenience attendant on narrations; and pursue a remark made in the commencement of this note, respecting the source from which has flowed so many of these narrations, which require all the art and wit of a Terence to prevent them from seeming too prolix.
This source may be found in those irksome unities of time and place, those leaden fetters of dramatic genius, which, by chaining down the imagination and talents of many of the ancient, and even some of the modern, dramatic writers, have deprived the world of more, than the embellishments they may have given to composition can ever repay.
Terence, in all his works, in compliance with the reigning taste of his age, observed the unities of action, time, and place, with the most scrupulous exactness: and this observance is the chief reason that his comedies can never succeed on any modern stage. His plays are crowded with narratives, which, however beautifully written, will never yield that attraction to an audience, which they find in busy and lively action. He cannot bring on the stage what is supposed to happen in the next street, or adjoining house, it must therefore be related. All the story of the piece must be supposed to pass in a very few hours: all those events which cannot be imagined to take place in one day, and which, when represented to the spectators in the modern drama, are often of the greatest interest, must, by the law of the unity of time be related. Of what a scene, to instance one of many, has the unity of place robbed us in Terence’s Eunuch! where Laches (Act 5) rushes into the house of Thais. How many modern plays, in which the unities were preserved, ever kept the stage a month? None: if we except Ben Jonson’s “Silent Woman,” “The Adventures of Five Hours,” and a very few others; and it may well be doubted whether even our immortal Shakspeare himself, if he had shackled his genius with these rules, would not have been generally confined to the closet. The practice of that great poet, and of most of the modern dramatists of all countries; who have observed only (the rule of all stages, ancient and modern,) unity of action, is a tacit condemnation of the other two: and the fiat of Dr. Johnson speaks a yet plainer language. He has decided on the value of the unities in his preface to Shakspeare: and though what he has written respecting them is too long to be inserted here, the following extracts will not be unacceptable, as they shew the grounds on which it is assumed that dramatic writers ought, in general, to dispense with the unities of time and place.
“The critics hold it impossible, that an action of months or years can be possibly believed to pass in three hours. The spectator, who knows that he saw the first act at Alexandria, cannot suppose that he sees the next at Rome; he knows that he has not changed his place, and that the place cannot change itself; that what was a house can never become a plain; that what was Thebes, can never be Persepolis. Such is the triumphant language with which a critic exults over the miseries of an irregular poet; it is time, therefore, to tell him, that he assumes as an unquestionable principle, a position, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his understanding pronounces to be false. It is false, that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatic fable, in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited. The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes that when the play opens, the spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria; and believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. Surely he that can imagine this may imagine more. He that can take the stage at one time for the Palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the promontory of Actium: delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no certain limitation. The truth is, that (judicious) spectators are always in their senses, and know from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players: and by supposition as place is introduced, time may be extended.” Dr. Johnson concludes this subject as follows; “He that, without diminution of any other excellence, shall preserve all the unities unbroken, deserves the like applause with the architect, who shall display all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any deduction from its strength; but the principal beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play are to copy nature, and instruct life.”
It is needless to add any thing to these arguments, as they must be deemed conclusive. The plays of our author are better calculated, perhaps, to please in the closet by his mode of writing, as it adds to perspicuity: Terence is, probably, the greatest practical champion for the three unities that ever did, or ever will, exist. His easy flowing narratives, judiciously divided, and introduced with so much art, as in some places to seem no narratives until they are concluded, remedy as much as possible the inconveniences attendant on this mode of writing.
[NOTE 66.]
When my son Pamphilus arrived at man’s estate.
In the Latin, postquam excessit ex Ephebis, after he was removed from the class of young men called ἔφηβοι.
All the Athenian citizens were publicly registered three several times. 1. In their infancy, on the second day of the festival ἀπατούρια, called ἀνάῤῥυσις. 2. When they were 18 years of age, they were registered on the third day of the ἀπατούρια, called κουρεῶτις, when they received the title of ἔφηβοι. 3. At 20 years of age, they were registered for the last time at the feast called βενδίδεια on the 19th of the month, Thargelion, when they were said to be admitted “among the men.” These ceremonies were used to prevent the intrusion of persons, who had no claim to the title of Athenian citizen, which was an honour, that even foreign kings thought worthy of their pursuit. Having quitted the class of the ἔφηβοι, Pamphilus, at the time mentioned by Simo, must have been 20 years of age.
[NOTE 67.]
The schools of the Philosophers.
Several schools of Philosophy were established at Athens, in which philosophers of different sects presided, and gave instructions to those of Athens, and of other countries, whose fortunes allowed them leisure to pursue studies of this nature. The buildings in which the philosophers delivered their lectures were provided at the public expense: they were called Gymnasia, and built in divisions, some for study called στοαὶ, and others for various exercises, as wrestling, pugilism, dancing, &c.; these were denominated παλαίστρα. The principal Gymnasia in Athens were the Lyceum, where Aristotle taught; the academy, in which Plato presided; and, lastly, the Cynosarges, which gave the name of Cynics to that sect of philosophers, founded in this place by Antisthenes. (vid. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles).