“Do you admire the manner in which they are conducted? It is generally so complicated, that it must be a miracle, that so many things should happen in so little time. The ruin or preservation of an empire, the marriage of a princess, the loss of a prince; all this is done with the turn of a hand. Is the subject a conspiracy? It is sketch’d out in the first act; it is connected and strengthened in the second; all the measures are taken, the obstacles removed, the conspirators are quite ready for action in the third; immediately there shall be a revolt, an engagement, perhaps a pitch’d battle; and you will call this conduct, interest, fire, verisimilitude: I can never excuse it, in you especially, who are not ignorant, what it sometimes costs to put an end to a pitiful intrigue; and how much time the smallest political affair absorbs in taking measures, in previous meetings, and in deliberations.”
“I grant, madam,” answered Selim, “that our pieces are a little overcharged; but it is a necessary evil: without the assistance of episodes, the audience would be chill’d.”
“That is to say, that in order to give spirit to the representation of a fact, it must be made such as it neither is, nor ought to be. This is ridiculous in the highest degree; unless it be still more absurd to make the violins play up rigadoons and country-dances, while the audience are in deep concern for a prince, who is on the point of losing his mistress, his throne and his life.”
“Madam, you are are in the right,” said Mangogul: “the music should be mournful on those occasions; and I go to order you some of that kind.” Mangogul rose up, went out, and the conversation was continued between Selim, Ricaric, and the favorite.
“At least, madam,” replied Selim, “you will not deny, that if the episodes draw us out of the illusion, the dialogue leads us back into it. I see none who understand it like our tragic writers.”
“Then, nobody understands it,” resumed Mirzoza. “The emphasis, wit and affected decorations, which predominate in it, are a thousand leagues distant from nature. In vain does the author endeavour to conceal himself, my eyes are penetrating and I discover him incessantly behind the persons of the drama. Cinna, Sertorius, Maximus, and Æmilius, are Corneille’s speaking trumpets in almost every page. This is not the way that people converse in our ancient Sarracen authors. Ricaric will, if you desire it, translate you some scenes out of them; and then you will hear pure nature speaking by their mouths. I could willingly say to the moderns: ‘Gentlemen, instead of dealing out wit to your personages on every occasion, put them into such circumstances as must inspire them with some.’ ”
“After what madam has declared on the management and the dialogue of our dramas; there is no great probability,” says Selim; “that she will show indulgence to the plots.”
“No certainly,” replied the favorite: “there are a hundred bad for one good. This is not brought on properly, that is quite miraculous. Is an author encumbered with a personage, which he has drag’d from scene to scene through five acts, he dispatches him with a stab of a poniard: everybody falls to crying, and I burst into laughter. Besides, did mortals ever speak as we declaim? Do kings and princes walk otherwise than a well-bred man? Have they ever gesticulated like persons possessed or raging mad? Do princesses speak in a shrill squeaking tone? It is generally supposed that we have carried tragedy to a high degree of perfection; and I on the contrary think it is next to demonstration, that of all the kinds of literary works, to which the Africans have applied themselves in these latter ages, this is the most imperfect.”
The favorite was advanced thus far in her sally against our theatrical pieces, when Mangogul returned. “Madam,” said he, “you will oblige me in continuing. You see I have a secret to abridge a poetical subject, when I find it tedious.”
“I suppose,” continued the favorite, “a person just arrived from Angola, who had never heard a play mentioned, but otherwise does not want good sense and breeding, has some acquaintance with the courts of princes, the intrigues of courtiers, the jealousies of ministers, and the double dealings of women; to whom I say in confidence ‘My friend, there are terrible commotions actually in the Seraglio. The prince, dissatisfied with his son, in whom he suspects a passion for the Manimonbanda, is a man capable of taking the most cruel vengeance of them both. This adventure will, in all probability, be attended with dismal consequences. If you choose it, I will make you an eyewitness of all that passes.’ He accepts my offer, and I carry him into a box screen’d by a blind, from whence he sees the stage, which he takes for the Sultan’s palace, Do you believe, notwithstanding the serious air I put on, that this person’s illusion can last a moment? Will you not rather agree with me, that the stiff-affected carriage of the actors, the oddity of their dress, the extravagance of their gestures, the emphasis of a singular language in rhyme and cadence, and a thousand other shocking dissonances, must make him laugh in my face before the first scene is over, and tell me either that I make game of him, or that the prince and all his court are mad.”
“I own,” said Selim, “that this supposition strikes me: but may I not observe to you, that people go to the playhouse, fully persuaded that they are to see the imitation of an event, and not the event itself.”
“And ought that
