ubject to the same passion, or absorbed in the
same purpose, through a period of ten years; so it is equally against
nature that a man should undergo much change of character, or be
occupied by many passions, or get engrossed in many purposes, the same
day. If, therefore, a character is to be represented under various
phases and fluctuations, the nature of the work evidently requires
much length of time, a great variety of objects and influences, and,
consequently, a wide range of place. Thus, in the Gothic Drama, the
complexity of matter, with the implied vicissitudes of character, was
plainly incompatible with the Minor Unities. On the other hand, the
clearness and simplicity of design, which belong to the Classic Drama,
necessarily preclude any great diversity of time and place; since, as
the genius of the thing requires character to be represented mainly
under a single aspect, the time and place of the representation must
needs be limited correspondingly.

* * * * *

Again: It is admitted on all hands that in Shakespeare's works, far
more than in almost any others, every thing appears to come, not from
him, but from the characters; and from these too speaking, not as
authors, but simply as men. The reason of which must be, that the word
is just suited to the character, the character to the word; every
thing exactly fitting into and filling the place. Doubtless there are
many things which, considered by themselves, might be bettered; but it
is not for themselves that the Poet uses them, but as being
characteristic of the persons from whom they proceed; and the fact of
their seeming to proceed from the persons, not from him, is clear
proof of their strict dramatic propriety. Hence it is that in reading
his works we think not of him, but only of what he is describing: we
can hardly realize his existence, his individuality is so lost in the
objects and characters he brings before us. In this respect, he is a
sort of impersonal intelligence, with the power to make every thing
visible but itself. Had he been merely an omniloquent voice, there
could hardly have been less of subjective idiom in his deliverances.
That he should have known so perfectly how to avoid giving too much or
too little; that he should have let out and drawn in the reins
precisely as the matter required;--this, as it evinces an almost
inconceivable delicacy of mind, is also one of the points wherein his
originality is