Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	best_a	good_a	great_a	1,021	5	2.2429	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26187	The whole art of the stage containing not only the rules of the drammatick art, but many curious observations about it, which may be of great use to the authors, actors, and spectators of plays : together with much critical learning about the stage and plays of the antients / written in French by the command of Cardinal Richelieu by Monsieur Hedelin, Abbot of Aubignac, and now made English.; Pratique du théâtre. English. 1684.	Aubignac, François-Hédelin, abbé d', 1604-1676.	1684 (1684)	Wing A4185; ESTC R16044	179,268	322

the good counsel he gives Sylvio and that which makes me believe it the sooner is that one of our best Modern Plays lost half its due applause by there being a Governour to a young Prince who was giving him Advice in the midst of most violent passions with which he was tormented that being neither the Time nor the Stage the Place for such Instructions We do not see neither that either Astrologers Conjurers High Priests or any of that Character do much take for the very reason that they can hardly speak without pretending to teach or else talk in generals of the power of the Gods the wonderful Effects of Nature and such things which cannot fail of being tedious when they are prolixely expressed Scaliger will not allow them in the very Epick Poems much less can they be receiv'd in the Drammatick but ought to be quite banish'd the Stage We must observe besides that Physical Instructions about Nature and its Effects are yet less welcom than Moral ones because that 't is hard an Actor should speak so long as to explain the nature of a thing without disgusting the Audience which soon grows weary of being ill taught the thing the Poet would have him learn which together with the little concern the no passion of the Stage raises in him makes the whole very disagreeable We have a notable Example of this in Mariamne where a long Discourse is made of the Nature of Dreams the thing is very fine and the nature of them well explain'd but it interrupts an agitation of the Stage begun by Herode's trouble at his waking the Audience would fain know the cause of his disturbance and the particulars of his Dream But instead of that there is a long Discourse of the Nature of Dreams in general to which the Spectator gives but little attention as being thereby disappointed of his chief expectation To all this it may be objected That the Stage is a place of publick Instruction and that the Drammatick Poet is to instruct as well as please and therefore that Didactick Discourses may be proper enough or at least ought not to be condemned I confess that the Stage is a place of Instruction but we must well understand how that is meant The Poet ought to bring his whole Action before the Spectator which ought to be so represented with all its circumstances that the Audience be fully Instructed for as Drammatick Poetry does but imitate humane actions it does it only to instruct us by them and that it does directly and properly But for Moral Maxims which may incite us either to the love of Virtue or stir us up to hate Vice it does it indirectly and by the Entermise of the Actions themselves of which Sentiment Scaliger is so much as I dare quote him for my Warrantee in this Opinion Now this may be done two ways the first when the Action of the Stage is so judiciously managed that it shews the force of Vertue triumphing in the midst of Persecutions after which it is often happily rewarded but if it is totally overwhelmed by them it remains glorious even in its death By this all the deformities of Vice are discovered it is often punish'd but when even it triumphs and overcomes it is in abomination with the Audience who thereupon are apt to conclude with themselves That 't is better to embrace Vertue through the hazard of Persecution than to follow Vice even with hopes of Impunity 'T is thus principally that the Stage ought to be Instructive to the Publick by the knowledg of things represented and I have always observ'd that it is not agreeable to the Audience that a Man who swerves from the way of Vertue should be set right and repent by the strength of Precepts and Sentences We rather desire it should be by some Adventure that presses him and forces him to take up reasonable and vertuous Sentiments We should hardly endure that Herode should recal his Sentence against Mariamne upon a Remonstrance of one of the seven Wise Men of Greece but we are pleas'd to see that after the Death of the Queen his Love becomes his Tormentor and having opened his Eyes drives him into so sincere a Repentance that he is ready to sacrifice his Life to the regret he has for his Crime As for the other way of Teaching Morality it depends much on the ingeniousness of the Poet when he strengthens his Theatral Action with divers pithy and bold Truths which being imperceptibly work'd into his Play are as it were the nerves and strength of it For in a word that which I condemn in common Didacticks is their stile and manner of expression not the things themselves since those great Truths which are as it were the foundation of the conduct of humane actions I am so far from banishing them off the Stage that quite contrary I think them very necessary and ornamental which to attain I give these following Observations First These general Maxims must be so fastened to the Subject and link'd by many circumstances with the Persons acting that the Actor may seem to think more of that concern of his he is about than of saying fine things that is to speak in terms of Rhetorick he must reduce the Thesis to the Hypothesis and of universal Propositions make particular Applications for by this means the Poet avoids the suspicion of aiming to Instruct pedantickly since his Actors do not leave their business which they are about For Example I would not have an Actor spend many words to prove that Vertue is always persecuted but he may say to the Party concern'd Do you think to have better measure than Vertue has always had and can you expect to be priviledg'd from Persecution more than Socrates or Cato And so continue a little speaking still to the Party present and upon the Subject in hand by which means these Discourses seem a little to keep off from being too general Precepts and so disgust the less Secondly In all these occasions the Poet must use figurative Speech either by Interrogation Irony or others that his fancy shall suggest for these Figures by not circumstancing minutely the general Propositions make them more florid and so by ornaments free them from the Didactick Character As for Example if there be a design of advising a young Woman to obey her Parents instead of Preaching downright obedience to her I think an Irony would do better As thus That 's a fine way indeed for a vertuous young Lady to attain the reputation of a good Daughter to be carryed away by her own passions and neglect not only the censure of the best sort of People but break through all the fences of duty and honour My third Observation is That when any of these great Maxims are to be propos'd bluntly and in plain words it be done in as few as may be by that means they do not cool the Stage but add something to the variety of it but