“But there is another sort of RELATIONS, that is, of things happening in the Action of a Play, and supposed to be done behind the scenes:  and this is, many times, both convenient and beautiful.  For by it, the French avoid the tumult, which we are subject to in England, by representing duels, battles, and such like; which renders our Stage too like the theatres where they fight for prizes [i.e., theatres used as Fencing Schools, for Assaults of Arms, &c.].  For what is more ridiculous than to represent an army, with a drum and five men behind it?  All which, the hero on the other side, is to drive in before him.  Or to see a duel fought, and one slain with two or three thrusts of the foils? which we know are so blunted, that we might give a man an hour to kill another, in good earnest, with them.

“I have observed that in all our Tragedies, the audience cannot forbear laughing, when the Actors are to die.  ’Tis the most comic part of the whole Play.

“All Passions may be lively Represented on the Stage, if, to the well writing of them, the Actor supplies a good commanded voice, and limbs that move easily, and without stiffness:  but there are many Actions, which can never be Imitated to a just height.

“Dying, especially, is a thing, which none but a Roman gladiator could naturally perform upon the Stage, when he did not Imitate or Represent it, but naturally Do it.  And, therefore, it is better to omit the Representation of it.  The words of a good writer, which describe it lively, will make a deeper impression of belief in us, than all the Actor can persuade us to, when he seems to fall dead before us:  as the Poet, in the description of a beautiful garden, or meadow, will please our Imagination more than the place itself will please our sight.  When we see death Represented, we are convinced it is but fiction; but when we hear it Related, our eyes (the strongest witnesses) are wanting, which might have undeceived us:  and we are all willing to favour the sleight, when the Poet does not too grossly impose upon us.

“They, therefore, who imagine these Relations would make no concernment in the audience, are deceived, by confounding them with the other; which are of things antecedent to the Play.  Those are made often, in cold blood, as I may say, to the audience; but these are warmed with our concernments, which are, before, awakened in the Play.

“What the philosophers say of Motion, that ’when it is once begun, it continues of itself; and will do so, to Eternity, without some stop be put to it,’ is clearly true, on this occasion.  The Soul, being moved with the Characters and Fortunes of those Imaginary Persons, continues going of its own accord; and we are no more weary to hear what becomes of them, when they are not on the Stage, than we are to listen to the news of an absent mistress.

“But it is objected, ’That if one part of the Play may be related; then, why not all?’