) required of a drama is not that of
actual or historical experience--it is a conditional probability, or in
other words an internal consistency between the course of the action and
the conditions under which the dramatist has chosen to carry it on. As
to the former, he is fettered by no restrictions save those which he
imposes upon himself, whether or not in deference to the usages of
certain accepted species of dramatic composition. Ghosts seldom appear
in real life or in dramas of real life; but the introduction of
supernatural agency is neither enjoined nor prohibited by any general
dramatic law. The use of such expedients is as open to the dramatic as
to any other poet; the judiciousness of his use of them depends upon the
effect which, consistently with the general conduct of his action, they
will exercise upon the spectator, whom other circumstances may or may
not predispose to their acceptance. The Ghost in _Hamlet_ belongs to the
action of the play; the Ghost in the _Persae_ is not intrinsically less
probable, but seems a less immediate product of the surrounding
atmosphere. Dramatic probability has, however, a far deeper meaning than
this. The _Eumenides_ is probable, with all its mysterious commingling
of cults, and so is _Macbeth_, with all its barbarous witchcraft. The
proceedings of the feathered builders of Cloudcuckootown in the _Birds_
of Aristophanes are as true to dramatic probability as are the pranks of
Oberon's fairies in _Midsummer Night's Dream_. In other words, it is in
the harmony between the action and the characters, and in the
consistency of the characters with themselves, in the appropriateness of
both to the atmosphere in which they have their being, that this
dramatic probability lies. The dramatist has to represent characters
affected by the progress of an action in a particular way, and
contributing to it in a particular way, because, if consistent with
themselves, they _must_ be so affected, and _must_ so act.

Characterization.

Advance of the drama in this respect.

Upon the invention and conduct of his characters the dramatist must
therefore expend a great proportion--even a preponderance--of his
labour. His treatment of them will, in at least as high a degree as his
choice of subject, conception of action, and method of construction,
determine the effect which his work produces. And while there are
aspects of the dramatic art under which its earlier phases already
exhibit