Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/52

 Narration, employ'd in the Odyssey and Æneid; where the Hero is introduc'd, at first, near the Period of his Designs, and afterwards shows us, as it were in Perspective, the more distant Events and Causes. By this means, the Reader's Curiosity is immediately excited: The Events follow with Rapidity, and in a very close Connexion: And the Concern is preserv'd alive, and continually encreases, by means of the near Relation of the Objects, from the Beginning to the End of the Narration.

same Rule takes place in dramatic Poetry; nor is it ever permitted, in a regular Composition, to introduce an Actor, who has no Connexion, or but a small one, with the principal Personages of the Fable. The Spectator's Concern must not be diverted by any Scenes, disjoin'd and separate from the rest. This breaks the Course of the Passions, and prevents that Communication of the several Emotions, by which one Scene adds Force to another, and transfuses the Pity and Terror it excites upon each succeeding Scene, 'till the whole produces that Rapidity of Movement, which is peculiar to the Theatre. How must it extinguish this Warmth of Affection to be entertain'd, on a sudden, with a new Action and new Personages, no way related to the former; to find so sensible a Breach or Vacuity in the Course of the Passions, by means of this Breach in the Connexion of Ideas; and instead of carrying the Sympathy of one