_Nec coram populo natos_ Medea _trucidet_.
_Let not_ Medea _draw her murth'ring Knife, And spill her Children's Blood upon the Stage._
The _French_ have therefore refin'd too much upon _Horace's_ Rule, who never designed to banish all Kinds of Death from the Stage; but only such as had too much Horror in them, and which would have a better Effect upon the Audience when transacted behind the Scenes. I would therefore recommend to my Countrymen the Practice of the ancient Poets, who were very sparing of their publick Executions, and rather chose to perform them behind the Scenes, if it could be done with as great an Effect upon the Audience. At the same time I must observe, that though the devoted Persons of the Tragedy were seldom slain before the Audience, which has generally something ridiculous in it, their Bodies were often produced after their Death, which has always in it something melancholy or terrifying; so that the killing on the Stage does not seem to have been avoided only as an Indecency, but also as an Improbability.
_Nec pueros coram populo_ Medea _trucidet; Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius_ Atreus; _Aut in avem_ Progne _vertatur_, Cadmus _in anguem, Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi_.
Medea _must not draw her murth'ring Knife, Nor_ Atreus _there his horrid Feast prepare._ Cadmus _and_ Progne's _Metamorphosis, (She to a Swallow turn'd, he to a Snake) And whatsoever contradicts my Sense, I hate to see, and never can believe._
I have now gone through the several Dramatick Inventions which are made use of by [the] Ignorant Poets to supply the Place of Tragedy, and by [the] Skilful to improve it; some of which I could wish entirely rejected, and the rest to be used with Caution. It would be an endless Task to consider Comedy in the same Light, and to mention the innumerable Shifts that small Wits put in practice to raise a Laugh. _Bullock_ in a short Coat, and _Norris_ in a long one, seldom fail of this Effect. [5] In ordinary Comedies, a broad and a narrow brim'd Hat are different Characters. Sometimes the Wit of the Scene lies in a Shoulder-belt, and Sometimes in a Pair of Whiskers. A Lover running about the Stage, with his Head peeping out of a Barrel, was thought a very good Jest in King _Charles_ the Second's time; and invented by one of the first Wits of that Age. [6] But because Ridicule is not so delicate as Compassion, and [because] [7] the Objects that make us laugh are infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much greater Latitude for comick than tragick Artifices, and by Consequence a much greater Indulgence to be allowed them.