On Dramatic Reprefentattons. 99. 
enquiry. It is- therefore incompatible with the 
impreffions of illufion; for, as foon as they are 
examined, they are at an end. We cannot afk 
ourfelyes whether they are true, without difcovering 
them to be falfe. But it is certain we are often fo 
impreffed with a notion, as to entertain no prefent 
doubts about it, though it is no object of our belief, 
but, on the contrary, has repeatedly been detected 
by us as a falfehood. 
Dr. Johnfon himfelf, fpeaking of what he terms 
the extrufion of Glofter’s eyes in Lear, fays, that it, 
** feems an act too horrid to be endured in dramatic 
** exhibition, and fuch as muft always compel the 
‘* mind to relieve its diftrefs by incredulity.” Does 
not this exprefsly imply, that a lefs horrid and 
unnatural action would pafs on the ftage for real; 
and that the ufual affection of the mind in dramatic 
exhibitions is an impreflion of reality? Hiftorical 
incredulity cannot be here meant; for how are we 
fure that the flory was not true? befides, we read 
with tolerable tranquillity of facts ft:ll more fhocking. 
It muft then be the ‘‘ incredulus odi” of Horace,— 
a refolution to difcard and reject what fo much 
pains us. Horace did not difbelieve that Medea 
had murdered her children; but when the fact was 
reprefented to him in a vifible difplay, the horror 
he felt made him refufe to admit it as a true fcene. 
Further to elucidate this idea of the imprejfion of 
reality as diftinct from belief, let us trace the progrefs 
of the imagination from the inftances in which it is 
leaft 
