ings happening in
the Action of a Play, and supposed to be done behind the scenes: and this
is, many times, both convenient and beautiful. For by it, the French avoid
the tumult, which we are subject to in England, by representing duels,
battles, and such like; which renders our Stage too like the theatres
where they fight for prizes [_i.e., theatres used as Fencing Schools, for
Assaults of Arms, &c._]. For what is more ridiculous than to represent an
army, with a drum and five men behind it? All which, the hero on the
other side, is to drive in before him. Or to see a duel fought, and one
slain with two or three thrusts of the foils? which we know are so
blunted, that we might give a man an hour to kill another, in good
earnest, with them.

"I have observed that in all our Tragedies, the audience cannot forbear
laughing, when the Actors are to die. 'Tis the most comic part of the
whole Play.

"All Passions may be lively Represented on the Stage, if, to the well
writing of them, the Actor supplies a good commanded voice, and limbs
that move easily, and without stiffness: but there are many Actions,
which can never be Imitated to a just height.

"Dying, especially, is a thing, which none but a Roman gladiator could
naturally perform upon the Stage, when he did not Imitate or Represent
it, but naturally Do it. And, therefore, it is better to omit the
Representation of it. The words of a good writer, which describe it
lively, will make a deeper impression of belief in us, than all the Actor
can persuade us to, when he seems to fall dead before us: as the Poet, in
the description of a beautiful garden, or meadow, will please our
Imagination more than the place itself will please our sight. When we see
death Represented, we are convinced it is but fiction; but when we hear it
Related, our eyes (the strongest witnesses) are wanting, which might have
undeceived us: and we are all willing to favour the sleight, when the
Poet does not too grossly impose upon us.

"They, therefore, who imagine these Relations would make no concernment
in the audience, are deceived, by confounding them with the other; which
are of things antecedent to the Play. Those are made often, in cold
blood, as I may say, to the audience; but these are warmed with our
concernments, which are, before, awakened in the Play.

"What the philosophers say of Motion, that 'when it is once begun, it
continues of itself; and will do so, to Eternity, without some