When I speak of the tender and pathetic, I would not be understood to mean a passion that softens the heart into effeminacy, and which, to our reproach, is almost alone, or at least more than any other passion received upon our stage, though rejected by the ancients, and condemned by the nations around us of greatest reputation for their genius, and taste for the sciences and polite learning. The two great principles for moving the passions amongst the ancients, were terror and pity.(192) And, indeed, as we naturally refer every thing to ourselves, or our own particular interest, when we see persons of exalted rank or virtue sinking under great evils, the fear of the like misfortunes, with which we know that human life is on all sides invested, seizes upon us, and from a secret impulse of self-love we find ourselves sensibly affected with the distresses of others: besides which, the sharing a common nature(193) with the rest of our species, makes us sensible to whatever befalls them. Upon a close and attentive inquiry into those two passions, they will be found the most deeply inherent, active, extensive, and general affections of the soul; including all orders of men, great and small, rich and poor, of whatever age or condition. Hence the ancients, accustomed to consult nature, and to take her for their guide in all things, with reason conceived terror and compassion to be the soul of tragedy; and that those affections ought to prevail in it. The passion of love was in no estimation amongst them, and had seldom any share in their dramatic pieces; though with us it is a received opinion, that they cannot be supported without it. It is worth our trouble to examine briefly in what manner this passion, which has always been deemed a weakness and a blemish in the greatest characters, got such footing upon our stage. Corneille, who was the first who brought the French tragedy to any perfection, and whom all the rest have followed, found the whole nation enamoured with the perusal of romances, and little disposed to admire any thing not resembling them. From the desire of pleasing his audience, who were at the same time his judges, he endeavoured to move them in the manner they had been accustomed to be affected; and, by introducing love in his scenes, to bring them the nearer to the predominant taste of the age for romance. From the same source arose that multiplicity of incidents, episodes, and adventures, with which our tragic pieces are crowded and obscured; so contrary to probability, which will not admit such a number of extraordinary and surprising events in the short space of four-and-twenty hours; so contrary to the simplicity of ancient tragedy; and so adapted to conceal, by the assemblage of so many different objects, the sterility of the genius of a poet, more intent upon the marvellous, than upon the probable and natural.