Page:All for love- or, The world well lost. A tragedy as it is acted at the Theatre-Royal; and written in imitation of Shakespeare's stile. By John Dryden, servant to His Majesty (IA allforloveorworl00indryd).pdf/17



He death of Anthony and Cleopatra, is a Subject which has been treated by the greatest Wits of our Nation, after Shakespeare; and by all so variously, that their Example has given me the confidence to try my self in this Bowe of Ulysses amongst the Crowd of Sutors; and, withal, to take my own measures, in aiming at the Mark. I doubt not but the same Motive has prevailed with all of us in this attempt; I mean the excellency of the Moral: for the chief Persons represented, were famous Patterns of unlawful Love; and their end accordingly was unfortunate. All reasonable Men have long since concluded, That the Heroe of the Poem, ought not to be a Character of perfect Virtue, for, then, he could not, without injustice, be made unhappy; nor yet altogether wicked, because he could not then be pitied: I have therefore steer'd the middle course; and have drawn the character of Anthony as favourably as Plutarch, Appian, and Dion Cassius wou'd give me leave: the like I have observ'd in Cleopatra. That which is wanting to work up the pity to a greater heighth, was not afforded me by the story: for the crimes of Love which they both committed, were not occasioned by any necessity, or fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary; since our passions are, or ought to be, within our power. The Fabrick of the Play is regular enough, as to the inferior parts of it; and the Unities of Time, Place and Action, more exactly observ'd, than, perhaps, the English Theater requires. Particularly, the Action is so much one, that it is the only of the kind without Episode, or Underplot; every Scene in the Tragedy conducing to the main design, and every Act concluding with a turn of it. The greatest error in the contrivance seems to be in the person of Octavia: For, though I might use the privilege of a Poet, to introduce her into Alexandria, yet I had not enough consider'd, that the compassion she mov'd to her self and Children, was destructive to that which I reserv'd for Anthony and Cleopatra; whose mutual love being founded upon vice, must lessen