[Footnote 2: _Timon of Athens_, we have seen, was probably not designed by Shakespeare, but even _Timon_ is no exception to the rule. The sub-plot is concerned with Alcibiades and his army, and Timon himself is treated by the Senate as a man of great importance. _Arden of Feversham_ and _A Yorkshire Tragedy_ would certainly be exceptions to the rule; but I assume that neither of them is Shakespeare's; and if either is, it belongs to a different species from his admitted tragedies. See, on this species, Symonds, _Shakspere's Predecessors_, ch. xi.] [Footnote 3: Even a deed would, I think, be counted an 'accident,' if it were the deed of a very minor person whose character had not been indicated; because such a deed would not issue from the little world to which the dramatist had confined our attention.] [Footnote 4: Comedy stands in a different position. The tricks played by chance often form a principal part of the comic action.] [Footnote 5: It may be observed that the influence of the three elements just considered is to strengthen the tendency, produced by the sufferings considered first, to regard the tragic persons as passive rather than as agents.] [Footnote 6: An account of Hegel's view may be found in _Oxford Lectures on Poetry_.] [Footnote 7: The reader, however, will find considerable difficulty in placing some very important characters in these and other plays. I will give only two or three illustrations. Edgar is clearly not on the same side as Edmund, and yet it seems awkward to range him on Gloster's side when Gloster wishes to put him to death. Ophelia is in love with Hamlet, but how can she be said to be of Hamlet's party against the King and Polonius, or of their party against Hamlet? Desdemona worships Othello, yet it sounds odd to say that Othello is on the same side with a person whom he insults, strikes and murders.] [Footnote 8: I have given names to the 'spiritual forces' in _Macbeth_ merely to illustrate the idea, and without any pretension to adequacy. Perhaps, in view of some interpretations of Shakespeare's plays, it will be as well to add that I do not dream of suggesting that in any of his dramas Shakespeare imagined two abstract principles or passions conflicting, and incorporated them in persons; or that there is any necessity for a reader to define for himself the particular forces which conflict in a given case.] [Footnote 9: Aristotle apparently would exclude them.] [Footnote 10: Richard II. is perhaps an exception, and I must confess that to me he is scarcely a tragic character, and that, if he is nevertheless a tragic figure, he is so only because his fall from prosperity to adversity is so great.] [Footnote 11: I say substantially; but the concluding remarks on _Hamlet_ will modify a little the statements above.]