ays of Shakespeare.
For they are, in the ancient sense, neither tragedies nor comedies, nor
both in one,--but a different _genus_, diverse in kind, and not merely
different in degree. They may be called romantic dramas, or dramatic
romances.

A deviation from the simple forms and unities of the ancient stage is an
essential principle, and, of course, an appropriate excellence, of the
romantic drama. For these unities were to a great extent the natural form
of that which in its elements was homogeneous, and the representation of
which was addressed pre-eminently to the outward senses;--and though the
fable, the language, and the characters appealed to the reason rather than
to the mere understanding, inasmuch as they supposed an ideal state rather
than referred to an existing reality,--yet it was a reason which was
obliged to accommodate itself to the senses, and so far became a sort of
more elevated understanding. On the other hand, the romantic poetry--the
Shakespearian drama--appealed to the imagination rather than to the senses,
and to the reason as contemplating our inward nature, and the workings of
the passions in their most retired recesses. But the reason, as reason, is
independent of time and space; it has nothing to do with them: and hence
the certainties of reason have been called eternal truths. As for
example--the endless properties of the circle:--what connection have they
with this or that age, with this or that country?--The reason is aloof from
time and space; the imagination is an arbitrary controller over both;--and
if only the poet have such power of exciting our internal emotions as to
make us present to the scene in imagination chiefly, he acquires the right
and privilege of using time and space as they exist in imagination, and
obedient only to the laws by which the imagination itself acts. These laws
it will be my object and aim to point out as the examples occur, which
illustrate them. But here let me remark what can never be too often
reflected on by all who would intelligently study the works either of the
Athenian dramatists, or of Shakespeare, that the very essence of the
former consists in the sternest separation of the diverse in kind and the
disparate in the degree, whilst the latter delights in interlacing, by a
rainbow-like transfusion of hues, the one with the other.

And here it will be necessary to say a few words on the stage and on
stage-illusion.

A theatre, in the widest sense