In a word, all extremes are to be avoided. To be a French Puritan in the drama, or an Engliſh Latitudinarian, is taking different paths to be both out of the road. If the Britiſh Muſe is too unruly, the French is too tame: one wants a curb, the other a ſpur.
By pleading for ſome little relaxation from the utmoſt ſeverity of the rules. where the ſubject may ſeem to require it, I am not beſpeaking any ſuch indulgence for the preſent performance: though the Ancients have left us no pattern to follow of this ſpecies of tragedy, I perceive, upon examination, that I have been attentive to their ſtrictest leſſons.
The unities are religiously obſerved; the place is the ſame, varied only into different proſpects by the power of enchantment; all the incidents fall naturally within the very time of repreſentation; the plot is one principal action, and of that kind which introduces variety of turns and changes, all tending to the ſame point; the ornaments and decorations are of a piece with it, ſo that one could not well ſubſiſt without the other; every act concludes with ſome unexpected revolution; and, in the end, vice is puniſhed, virtue rewarded, and the moral is inſtructive.
Rhyme, which I would by no means admit into the dialogue of graver tragedy, ſeems to me the moſt proper ſtyle for repreſentations of this heroic romantic kind, and beſt adapted to accompany muſic. The ſolemn language of a haughty tyrant will by no means
