j 7 2 APPENDIX. 



excellent a Poet, and fo great a Judge. But fince I am in this 

 place, as Virgil fays, " Spatiis exclufus iniquis," that is, fhort- 

 ened in my time, I will give no other reafon than that it is 

 impracticable on our ftage. A new theatre, much more ample, 

 and much deeper, muft be made for that purpofe, beiides the 

 coft- of fometimes forty or fifty habits, which is an expence 

 too large to be fupplied by a company of actors. It is true, I 

 (hould not be forry to fee a Chorus on a theatre, more than as 

 large and as deep again as ours, built and adorned at a King's 

 charges ; and on that condition and another, which is, that 

 my hands were not bound behind me, as now they are, I 

 fhould not defpair of making fuch a 5 ragedy, as might be 

 both inftructive and delightful, according to the manner of 

 the Grecians. 



'* To make a fketch, or a more perfect model of a picture," 

 is, in the language of Poets, to draw up the Scenery of a Play i 

 and the reafon is the fame for both , to guide the undertaking, 

 and to preferve the remembrance of fuch things whofe natures 

 are difficult to retain. 



To avoid abfurdities and incongruities is the fame law efta- 

 blifhed for both Arts. " The Painter is not to paint a cloud at 

 the bottom of a picture, but in the uppermoft parts ;" nor the 

 Poet to place what is proper to the End or Middle in the Be- 

 ginning of a Poem. I might enlarge on this; but there are 

 few Poets or Painters who can be fuppofed to fin fo grofsly 

 againft the Laws of Nature and of Art. I remember only 

 one Play, and for once I will call it by its name, T/je 

 Slighted Maid, where there is nothing in the firft act but 

 what might have been faid or done in the fifth; nor any thing 

 in the Midft which might not have been placed as well in the 

 Beginning or the End. 



"To 



