OF POES Y. 67 remain as an exact model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place and time, the two neceffary companions of all corporal actions. For where the stage fhould always reprefent but one place; and the uttermoft time pre-fuppofed in it, fhould be, both by Ariftotle's precept, and common reason, but one day; there is both many days and many places, inartificially imagined. But if it be fo in Gorboduc, how much more in all the rest? where you shall have Asia of the one fide, and Africk of the other; and fo many other under kingdoms, that the player, when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now, you fhall have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the ftage to be a garden. By-and-by, we hear news of a shipwreck in the fame place, then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that, comes out a hideous monfter with fire and fmoke, and then the miferable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while, in the mean time, two armies fly in, reprefented with fwords and bucklers, and then, what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field? Now of time, they are much more liberal: For ordinary it is, that two young princes fall in love; after many traverses, fhe is got with child; delivered of a fair boy; he is loft, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to F 2 get get another child; and all this in two hours fpace which, how abfurd it is in fenfe, even fenfe may imagine; and Art hath taught, and all antient examples juftified, and at this day, the ordinary players in Italy will not err in. Yet will some bring in an example of the Eunuch in Terence, that containeth matter of two days, yet far fhort of twenty years. True it is; and fo was it to be played in two days, and fo fitted to the time it fet forth. And though Plautus have in one place done amifs, let us hit it with him, and not mifs with him. But they will fay; How then shall we fet forth a story which contains both many places, and many times? And do they not know, That a tragedy is tied to the laws of Poefy, and not of History; not bound to follow the flory, but having liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience? Again, many things may be told, which cannot be fhewed: if they know the difference betwixt reporting and reprefenting. As for example, I may fpeak, though I am here, of Peru, and in fpeech digrefs from that, to the defcription of Calicut: but in action I cannot reprefent it, without Pacolet's horfe. And fo was the manner the antients took by fome Nuntius, to recount things done in former time, or other place. Laftly, Lafly, If they will represent an History, they muft not (as Horace faith) begin ab ovo; but they must come to the principal point of that one action which they will reprefent. By example this will be the best expreffed. I have a ftory of young Polydorus, delivered, for fafety's fake, with great riches by his father Priamus, to Polymnestor king of Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after fome years, hearing of the overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure his own, murthereth the child; the body of the child is taken up; Hecuba, fhe, the fame day, findeth a fleight to be revenged moft cruelly of the tyrant. Where, now, would one of our tragedy-writers begin, but with the delivery of the child? Then fhould he fail over into Thrace, and fo fpend I know not how many years, and travel numbers of places. But where doth Euripides? Even with the finding of the body; leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of Polydorus. This needs no farther to be enlarged; the dulleft wit may conceive it. But befides these grofs abfurdities, how all their plays be neither right Tragedies nor right Comedies, mingling Kings and Clowns, not because the matter fo carrieth, but thrust in the clown by head and fhoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor difcretion; fo as neither the admiration and commiferation, nor the right fportfulness, is by their mongrel F 3 mongrel Tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius did fomewhat fo, but that is a thing recounted with space of time, not reprefented in one moment and I know the antients have one or two examples of Tragi-comedies, as Plautus hath Amphytrio. But if we mark them well, we shall find, that they never, or very daintily, match horn-pipes and funerals. So falleth it out, that having, indeed, no right comedy in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing but fourrility, unworthy of any chafte ears; or some extreme fhew of doltishness, indeed, fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing elfe: where the whole tract of a comedy fhould be full of delight; as the tragedy fhould be still maintained in a well-raifed admiration. But our comedians think there is no delight without laughter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight fhould be the caufe of laughter; but well may one thing breed two together. Nay, in themfelves, they have, as it were, a kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature. Laughter, almost ever cometh of things moft difproportioned to ourselves and nature: Delight hath a joy in it either permanent or prefent: Laughter hath only a fcornful tickling. For example; We are ravifhed with delight delight to fee a fair woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter: We laugh at deformed creatures, wherein, certainly, we cannot delight: We delight in good chances: We laugh at mifchances: We delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at, that would laugh: We shall, contrarily, fometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias; in the mouth of fome fuch men, as for the respect of them, one shall be heartily forry, he cannot chufe but laugh, and fo is rather pained than delighted with laughter. Yet deny I not, but that they may go well together; for, as in Alexander's picture well fet out, we delight without laughter, and in twenty mad anticks we laugh without delight: fo in Hercules, painted with his great beard and furious countenance, in a woman's attire, spinning at Omphale's commandment, it breeds both delight and laughter; for the representing of fo ftrange a power in love, procures delight, and the fcornfulness of the action ftirreth laughter. But I fpeak to this purpose, That all the end of the comical part be not upon such scornful matters as ftir laughter only, but mix with it that delightful teaching, which is the end of Poefy. And the great fault, even in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly by Aristotle, is, That they ftir laughter in finful things, which |