I doubt not
but the same motive has prevailed with all of us in this attempt;
I mean the excellency of the moral: For the chief persons
represented were famous patterns of unlawful love; and their end
accordingly was unfortunate. All reasonable men have long since
concluded, that the hero of the poem ought not to be a character of
perfect virtue, for then he could not, without injustice, be made
unhappy; nor yet altogether wicked, because he could not then be
pitied. I have therefore steered the middle course; and have drawn
the character of Antony as favourably as Plutarch, Appian, and Dion
Cassius would give me leave; the like I have observed in Cleopatra.
That which is wanting to work up the pity to a greater height, was
not afforded me by the story; for the crimes of love, which they both
committed, were not occasioned by any necessity, or fatal ignorance,
but were wholly voluntary; since our passions are, or ought to be,
within our power. The fabric of the play is regular enough, as to
the inferior parts of it; and the unities of time, place, and action,
more exactly observed, than perhaps the English theatre requires.
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