Page:An Essay of Dramatic Poesy.djvu/11

Rh 2. Whether the existing French school of drama is superior or inferior to the English.

3. Whether the Elizabethan dramatists were in all points superior to those of Dryden's own time.

4. Whether plays are more perfect in proportion as they conform to the dramatic rules laid down by the ancients.

5. Whether the substitution of rhyme for blank verse in serious plays is an improvement.

The first point is considered in the remarks of Crites (Sir Robert Howard), with which the discussion opens. In connexion with it the speaker deals with the fourth point, assuming without proof that regard to the unities of Time and Place, inasmuch as it tends to heighten the illusion of reality, must place the authors who pay it above those who neglect it. Eugenius (Lord Buckhurst) answers him, pointing out the narrow range of the Greek drama, and several defects which its greatest admirers cannot deny. Crites makes a brief reply, and then Lisideius (Sir Charles Sedley) plunges into the second question, and ardently maintains that the French theatre, which was formerly inferior to ours, now,—since it had been ennobled by the rise of Corneille and his fellow-workers,—surpasses it and the rest of Europe. This commendation he grounds partly on their exact observance of the dramatic rules, partly on their exclusion of undue complication from their plots and general regard to the 'decorum of the stage,' partly also on the beauty of their rhyme. Neander (Dryden) takes up the defence of the English stage, and tries to show that it is superior to the