"All Passions may be lively Represented on the Stage, if, to the well writing of them, the Actor supplies a good commanded voice, and limbs that move easily, and without stiffness: but there are many Actions, which can never be Imitated to a just height.
"Dying, especially, is a thing, which none but a Roman gladiator could naturally perform upon the Stage, when he did not Imitate or Represent it, but naturally Do it. And, therefore, it is better to omit the Representation of it. The words of a good writer, which describe it lively, will make a deeper impression of belief in us, than all the Actor can persuade us to, when he seems to fall dead before us: as the Poet, in the description of a beautiful garden, or meadow, will please our Imagination more than the place itself will please our sight. When we see death Represented, we are convinced it is but fiction; but when we hear it Related, our eyes (the strongest witnesses) are wanting, which might have undeceived us: and we are all willing to favour the sleight, when the Poet does not too grossly impose upon us.
"They, therefore, who imagine these Relations would make no concernment in the audience, are deceived, by confounding them with the other; which are of things antecedent to the Play. Those are made often, in cold blood, as I may say, to the audience; but these are warmed with our concernments, which are, before, awakened in the Play.
"What the philosophers say of Motion, that 'when it is once begun, it continues of itself; and will do so, to Eternity, without some stop be put to it,' is clearly true, on this occasion. The Soul, being moved with the Characters and Fortunes of those Imaginary Persons, continues going of its own accord; and we are no more weary to hear what becomes of them, when they are not on the Stage, than we are to listen to the news of an absent mistress.
"But it is objected, 'That if one part of the Play may be related; then, why not all?'
"I answer. Some parts of the Action are more fit to be Represented; some, to be Related. CORNEILLE says judiciously, 'That the Poet is not obliged to expose to view all particular actions, which conduce to the principal. He ought to select such of them to be Seen, which will appear with the greatest beauty, either by the magnificence of the shew, or the vehemence of the passions which they produce, or some other charm which they have in them: and let the rest arrive to the audience, by Narration.'
"'Tis a great mistake in us, to believe the French present no part of the Action upon the Stage. Every alteration, or crossing of a Design; every new sprung passion, and turn of it, is a part of the Action, and much the noblest: except we conceive nothing to be Action, till they come to blows; as if the painting of the Hero's Mind were not more properly the Poet's work, than, the strength of his Body.
"Nor does this anything contradict the opinion of HORACE, where he tells us
"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quae sunt occulis subjecta fidelibus.
"For he says, immediately after,