in the Exercife of its Faculties. 127 
by their mutual relation to Tome great and im¬ 
portant a&ion. One may introduce, indeed, 
in a poem, feveral fables or plots, and collect in 
it, as it were in a gallery of pictures, a feries 
of portraits. It is what Ovid, Statius , Ariofto , 
Shakefpeare , in his hiftorical plays, and feveral 
others, have done. But, many centuries before 
the oldeft of them, the great genius of Homer 
had conceived, that it would be prefenting a 
fpe&acle far more agreeable to the mind, if a 
multitude of perfons were collected together in 
the fame pidlure, and were made to contribute 
to one and the fame aftion ; and upon that idea 
he formed the plan of the epic poem. 
Many years after him, AEJchylus , the firft who 
gave fome order and fome propriety to the drama, 
took from the epic poem, the plan of tragedy , 
which he made to be, the reprelentation of an 
event unfolded in all its circumftances. That 
great Poet likewife underftood, that this repre- 
fentation w'ould far more pleafe the mind, if all 
the fcenes of it were connected by fome principal 
action, which would help the memory to retain 
them eafily. 
He carried, moreover, this idea (till farther, and 
to the unity of ablion, joined thofe of time and 
place. Sophocles and Euripedes , but efpecially the 
former, followed him pretty ftri&ly, and Arijlotle 
drew his rules from their pra&ice. Sw'ayed by 
the authority of great names, and, perhaps, led 
away 
