re we speak of the lectures of M. Saint-Marc Girardin, on a
topic which stands at the threshold of dramatic criticism. What is the
nature of that _imitation_ of life at which the drama aims, and of that
_illusion_ which it creates?

Before the time of Dr Johnson, the learned world were accustomed to
insist upon the observance of the _unities_, on the ground that they
were necessary to uphold the illusion of the theatre. The doctor, in his
preface to Shakspeare, demolished this argument, by showing that the
illusion they were declared so necessary to support, does not, in fact,
exist. No man really believes that the stage before him is Rome, or that
he is a contemporary of the Caesars. To insist, therefore, upon the
unities of time and place, is to sacrifice to a grave _make-belief_ the
nobler ends of the drama--the development of character and passion. "The
objection," says Dr Johnson, "arising from the impossibility of passing
the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes that, when
the play opens, the spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and
believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and
that he lives in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. _Surely he that
imagines this may imagine more._ He that can take the stage at one time
for the palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the
promontory of Actium."

If the delusion of the theatre, we will add, should, at certain moments,
reach such a point that we may be said to believe ourselves transported
to the place represented on the stage, this, not being a _continuous_
delusion, cannot be disturbed by the mere changing of the scene; it will
not the less take place at the promontory of Actium, because we had felt
it, five minutes before, in the city of Alexandria.

Since the appearance of the celebrated preface to Shakspeare, it has
been the habit of critics to speak, not of a delusion, but of an
imitation, which is _felt to be_ an imitation, and which pleases us in
great part by this perceived resemblance to an original. "It will be
asked," continues Dr Johnson, "how the drama moves, if it is not
credited? It is credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is
credited wherever it moves, _as a just picture of a real original_--as
representing to the auditor what he would himself feel if he were to do
or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The
reflection that strikes the heart is not th