ACT
(4*0
ACT
Supercilium, Genac, Rubor. — Nou Mantis folam fed ci> Nu- tus. — Dominetur mitcm maxime Vultus. — §>mn £y in Vtrftu Pallor. — Nates, Labia — Dentes, Cervix, Humeri, Bracbia.
■ Manus vero,fine quibus trunca ejfet ABio. — Quintil. ubi
fv.pra.
The Hand is Matter of a whole Language, or fet of Signs, it felf. — Even every Finger is laid down by the An- tients as having its dittinct Office ; and hence the different Names they {till bear, To/lex, Index, &c. See Finger, £5?c. By fuch a Multitude of Rules and Obfervances, 'tis no wonder fome of the Orators of thofe, as of our Days, were perverted more than profited. — Rules only tend to perfect the ABion, which mutt have its Origin from another Source, viz. Nature, and good Senfe : Where thofe are de- ficient, Rules will fooner make an Ape than an Aclor. E- loquentig, fays Cicero, Jicut gff rel'tquarimi return funda- ?nentwn, fapientia.< — And hence we find the great Matters abovemention'd continually foftning, and even unfaying, and calling People off from the intemperate die of their own Rules. — Nullde arguti<s Digitorum, Non ad numerum Ar- ticulum Cadens. Cicero even afTures us, he was a whole Year in learning to keep his Hand within his Gown. 'Pro CkL — The fame Author, recommending a Motion of the whole Body, fays, the Orator ffiould make more ufe of his Trunk than of his Hand ; Irunco magh toto fe ipfe raode- rans, ££ virili latcrum fexione. Brut.
Walking, inceffus, is fome times recommended as highly de- ferving to be cultivated ; but Cicero will fcarce allow it ro be ufed at all. Itfeems, fome of the active Orators of that Time had render'd it ridiculous ; one of whom was p'eafantly afk'd by Flavins Virginias, How many Miles be had declamed ? CaJJius Severus, when he perceiv'd an Orator given to walking, ufed to cry out for a Line to be drawn round him, to keep him within Bounds. — The Orator T'ltyus im- proved Walking into a fort of Dancing 5 and 'tis hence, as we are told by ^tiintilian, that the Dance Tityus took
its Name. Junius rallied his Father Curio's inceffant
Libration, or toiling from one fide to another, by afking who that was, haranguing in a Ferry-boat ? And to the like Effect was that of C. Sicinius, when Curio having fpoke with his u&al Buflle near OBavittSi who by reafon of his Infirmities, had divers Liniments and Plaif- ters on his Limbs ; Ton can never be enough thankful, Oc- tavius, to your good Collegue, who has faved you this Day from being eaten by the Flies. Demojibenes, being na- turally apt to be too bufy, and efpecially with his Shoulders, is faid to have reform 'd himfelf by fpeaking in a narrow Pulpitum, and hanging a Spear pointed jutt over his Shoul- ders ; that if in the Heat of his Difcourfe he iliould forget himfelf, the Puncture might remind him.
After all, 'tis a Point will bear being controverted, Whe- ther Allien ought to be pra&is'd and encourag'd at all ? A thing that has fo much command over Mankind, 'tis certain, mutt be very dangerous ; fince it is as capable of being turn'd to our Difadvantage, as our Advantage. J Tis putting a Weapon in the Hands of another, which, if he pleafes, he may make ufe of to fubdue and enilave us : And accordingly, Hiftory is full of the pernicious Ufes made thereof.' — For this Reafon, Eloquence and ABion are gene- rally difcourag'd in the modern Policy ; and both the Bar and the Pulpit, are brought to a more frigid way of De- livery.
Perhaps the Foundation of all ABion may be vicious, and immoral.— Voice and Gctture, we know, will affect. Brutes ; not as they have Reafon, but as they have Paffions : So far as thefe are ufed in a Difcourfe, therefore, it does not re- gard an Affembly of Men, more than it would a Herd of Quadrupeds : That is, their whole Effort is fpent not on the Rational Faculties, which are out of theQueition, but on the Animal ones, which alone they endeavour to poffefs and actu- ate, independent of Reafon. — Nay more, our Reafon and Judgment it felf is intended to be byafs'd and inclined by them; ABion being only ufed as an indirectway of coming at the Reafon, where a direct and immediate one was wanting, i. e. where the Judgment cannot be taken by the proper means, Argument ; it is to be taken indirectly, by Circui- tion, and Stratagem.
The natural Order of things, then, is here inverted : Our Reafon, which mould go before, and direct our Paffions is drag'd after 'em : Inflead of coolly confidering, and taking cognizance of things 5 and according to what we perceive therein, raiiing our felves to the Paffions of Grief, Indigna- tion, or the like : We are attack'd the other way : the Im- preffion is to be carried backwards, by Virtue of the natural Connexion there is between the Reafon and the Paffions : And thus the Helm, the Principle of our Anions, is taken out of our own Hand, and given to another.
The Cafe is much the fame here, as in Senfation and Imagination : The natural and regular way of arriving at the Knowledge of Objects, is by Senfe ; an Impreffion be- gun there is propagated forward to the Imagination, wherean Jmage is produced, fimiJar to that which tint ttruck on the
Organ.— -Bur the Procefs is fometimes inverted ; in Hypo* chondriack, Lunatick, and other delirious Cafes 5 the Image is firfl excited in the Imagination; and the Impreffion there- of communicated back to the Organs of Senfe : By which means, Objefts are feeri, which have no Exigence. See Imagination.
To fay no more, ABion does not tend to give the Mind any Information about the Cafe in hand ; is not pretended to convey any Arguments or Ideas which the fimple Ufe of Language would not convey. But is it not that we Iliould form our Judgments upon ? And can any think help us to make a jutt Judgment, befide what fome way enlarges our Under flan ding ? When Cicero made Cafar tremble, turn pale, and let fall his Papers ; he did not apprize him of any new Guilt which CcSfarmA not know of: The Effect had no Dependance on C<efar's Underllanding ; nor was it any thing more than might have been produced by the un- meaning Sounds of a mufical Inttrument duly applied. Logs of Timber and Stone have often trembled on the like Oc- cafions. See Passion, Musicx, &c.
Action, in Poetry, is an Event, cither real or imaginary, which makes the Subject of an Epick or Dramatick Poem. See Epic, Tragedy, ££c.
The ABion of a Poem coincides with the Fable thereof; it being the ufual Practice, not to take any real Tranfaclion of Hiilory, but ro feign or invent one ; or at lcaft, to alter the Hiftorical Fa£t, fo as to render it in good mealure fic- titious. See Fable.
F, Soffit has two Chapters, Of Real ABion, the Re- citals whereof are Fables : and of Fc/gn'd ABion the Re- citals whereof are Hiitorical.
The Criticks lay down four Qualifications, as neceffary to the Epick and the Tragick ABion : The firit, Unity 5 the fecond, Integrity ; the third, Importance ; and the fourth, Duration.
For the Unity of the Epic ABion. See Unity, $$c. This Unity is not only to exitt in the firtt Draught, or Model of the Fable, but in the whole epifodiz'd ABion. See Episode.
In order to the Integrity of the ABion, 'tis neceffary, ac- cording to AriJlorle,th.<it it have a Beginning, Middle,and End. — If the three Parts of a Whole, feem too generally denoted by the Words, Beginning, Middle, and End ; Soffit interprets 'em more exprefiy, thus ; The Caufes and Defigns of a Man's doing an Action, are the Seginning ; the Effects of thefe Caufes, and the Difficulties met withal in the Execution of thofe Defigns, are the Middle of it ; and the unravelling and extricating of thofe Difficulties, the End of the ABion.
The Poet, fays Scffu, fhould fo begin his ABion, that, on one hand, nothing ihould be farther\vanting for the Un- derltanding of what he afterwards delivers ; and, on the other, that what thus begins require after it a neceffary Con- iequence. The End is to be conducied after the like man- ner, only with the two Conditions tranfpos'd ; fo that no- thing be expected after it, and that what ends the Poem be a neceffary Confequcnce of fomething that went belbre it. Laflly, the Beginning is to be join'd to the End by a Mid- dle ; which is the Effect of fomething that went before it, and the Caufe of what follows.
In the Caufes of an ABion, one may obferve two oppoHts Defigns ; the firit, and principal, is that of-' the Hero : The fecond comprehends all their Defigns, who oppofe the Pre- tentions of the Hero. Thefe oppciitc Caufes do alio produce oppofite Effects, viz. the Endeavours of the Hero to accom- plifh. his Deiign, and the Endeavours of thofe who are againft it. — As the Caufes and Defigns are the Beginning of the ABion ; fo thofe contrary endeavours are the Mid'dle of it, and form a Difficulty, Plot, or Intrigue, which makes the greateft Part of the Poem. See Intrigue, Knot, Plot, &c.
The Solution or clearing up of this Difficulty, makes the Unravelling. See Unravelling.
The Unravelling of the Plot or Intrigue, may happen two ways; either with a Difcovery, or without. See Discovery. The^fevera] Effects which the Unravelling produces, and the different States to which it reduces the Perlbns, divides the ABion into fo many Kinds. — If it change the Fortune of the principal Perfon ; it is laid to be with a 'Peripetia ; and the ABion is denominated Implex, or Afix'd : If there be- no Peripetia, but the Unravelling be a mere paffing from Trouble to Repofe; the ABion is Simple. See Peripetiaj fee alfo Catastrophe,
For the Duration of the Epic ABion, Arijlotlc obferves, it is not fo limited as that of the Tragic ABion ; the latter is confined to a natural Day ; but the Epopea, according tu that Critick, has no fix'd Time. — In effect, Tragedy being full of Paffions, and confequently of Violence, which cannot be fuppofed to latt long, requires a ffiorter time : and the Epic Poem, being for the Habits which proceed more flowly, requires a longer time either for 'em to take hold, or to he rooted up : And hence the Difference between the Epic and Dramatic ABiou % in point of Duration.
