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other employment for his time , and to leave Melpomene to natures fitly organised to receive her divine influences . But why do we mention Melpomene ? Where is she ? Where
are the bards of elder time the giants of the drama ! the demi-gods of literature , " &c . This is a fair specimen of much of our modern criticism ; and , without doubt , the pernicious influence it exerts is one cause ,
and not a slight one , of the rare appearance of fine dramatic works amongst us . The men capable of producing them being , from the order of their
sympathies and keenness of their perceptions , beyond all others alive to the difficulty of reaching the human heart through such an array of martello towers .
We seldom see the criticism on a tragedy directed to the true points . Very few as yet distinctly know what is tragedy . Very few distinctly know that the accurate embodying of the passions under excitement
which leads to grand and terrible action , is tragedy ; and that from this single principle spring all those rules which are collectively called , the " art of dramatic composition / ' The necessity of strength in the . character on which the main
j action depends ; of unity m the ] passion , because division or i confusion will weaken and ^ suspend action ; of powerful ( delineation and discrimination ( of other characters placed in rrelation with the principal one ; cof circumstances bearing upon
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all of them , and hurrying on the result—all these conditions necessarily spring from the principle we have expressed .
The mind capable of conceiving them in one grand whole , must possess that order of imagination which enables it to throw itself into and become
one with whatever character it is portraying . There will be no confusion , no theory , no doubt of " what is to be the end . " A true dramatist cannot go wrong , for he will follow
the passion to its inevitable result . £ fe works a problem in human nature ; he has conceived the characters ; he has invented their circumstances , and their fate becomes clear to
him . Hence , the high moral tendency of the true drama ; hence , the plays of Shakspeare provide philosophers with illustrations of the laws of mind . The language of strong passion
is always poetical , and from such a conception of it poetical imagery will flow ; and , granting the requisite study of the art , an appropriate style , matter , and manner must perforce proceed . Where the essence of
tragedy is evolved , we have a fine tragedy . The accessaries may be faulty or altogether wanting ; may be out of fashion , out of date , fitted for the taste of one country , and not for that of another ; still we have a fine tragedy . Here is the difference so seldom
understood between the theatrical and the dramatic ; the former varying in every age and country ; the latter unchanging and
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192 Cosmo de Medici .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 1, 1837, page 192, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1835/page/48/
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