If the two kinds of dramatick poetry had been defined only by their effects upon the mind, some absurdities might have been prevented, with which the compositions of our greatest poets are disgraced, who, for want of some settled ideas and accurate distinctions, have unhappily confounded tragick with comick sentiments.

His judgment of dramatick pieces, so far as concerns their exhibition on the stage, must be allowed to have considerable weight.

It is not so just between the Greek dramatick writers and Shakspeare.

A dramatick exhibition is a book recited with concomitants that increase or diminish its effect.

The tragedy of Samson Agonistes has been celebrated as the second work of the great author of Paradise Lost, and opposed, with all the confidence of triumph, to the dramatick performances of other nations.

Nothing is more evident than that of every real, and by consequence of every dramatick action, the intervals may be more or fewer than five; and indeed the rule is upon the English stage every day broken in effect, without any other mischief than that which arises from an absurd endeavour to observe it in appearance.

What opinion I have formed of the future excellence of these candidates for dramatick glory, it is not necessary to declare.

PROPOSALS FOR PRINTING THE DRAMATICK WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

In a word, not the enthusiastick Maid of Orleans was more serviceable of old to the French army when the English had distressed them, than this fair Quaker was at the head of that dramatick attempt upon which the support of their weak society depended.

It has long been the complaint of those who frequent the theatres, that all the dramatick art has been long exhausted, and that the vicissitudes of fortune, and accidents of life, have been shown in every possible combination, till the first scene informs us of the last, and the play no sooner opens, than every auditor knows how it will conclude.

Yet when I speak thus slightly of dramatick rules, I cannot but recollect how much wit and learning may be produced against me; before such authorities I am afraid to stand, not that I think the present question one of those that are to be decided by mere authority, but because it is to be suspected, that these precepts have not been so easily received, but for better reasons than I have yet been able to find.

It would certainly be very unbecoming in me to exhibit my honoured father, and my respected friend, as intellectual gladiators, for the entertainment of the publick: and therefore I suppress what would, I dare say, make an interesting scene in this dramatick sketch,this account of the transit of Johnson over the Caledonian Hemisphere[1039].

But any man's reflections will inform him, that every dramatick composition which raises mirth, is comick; and that, to raise mirth, it is by no means universally necessary, that the personages should be either mean or corrupt, nor always requisite, that the action should be trivial, nor ever, that it should be fictitious.

This original of true comedy will be easily admitted, if we take the word of Horace, who must have known, better than us, the true dates of dramatick works.

It is false, that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited.