But Mr. Dennis’s resentment did not terminate here; he attempted to expose a paper in the Spectator upon dramatic conduct, in which the author endeavours to shew that a poet is not always obliged to distribute poetical justice on this very reasonable account, that good and evil happen alike to all men on this side the grave.  To this proposition our critic objects, ’that it is not only a very false, but a dangerous assertion, that we neither know what men really are, nor what they suffer.  Besides, says he, let it be considered, that a man is a creature, who is created immortal, and a creature consequently that will find a compensation in futurity, for any seeming inequality in his destiny here; but the creatures of a poetical creator, are imaginary, and transitory; they have no longer duration than the representation of their respective fables, and consequently if they offend, they must be punished during that representation, and therefore we are very far from pretending, that poetical justice is an equal representation of the justice of the Almighty.’  In support of this opinion our critic produces the example of Euripides, and the best poets amongst the ancients, who practised it, and the authority of Aristole, who established the rule.  But nature, or Shakespear, which is another word for nature, is by no means in favour of this equal distribution.  No character can be represented in tragedy absolutely perfect, as no such character exists; but a character which possesses more virtues than vices, may be upon the whole amiable, and yet with the strictest propriety may be made the chief sufferer in the drama.  If any passion strongly predominates in the heart of man, it will often expose him to such snares, entangle him in such difficulties, and oppress him with such wants, that in the very nature of things, he must sink under the complicated weight of misery.  This may happen to a character extremely amiable, the passion which governs him may be termed unhappy, but not guilty, or if it should partake the nature of guilt, fallible creatures cannot always combat with success against guilty passions.

The drama being an imitation of nature, the poet causes a composition of characters formed in his imagination to be represented by players; these characters charm, or displease, not only for what they do; during the representation of the fable, but we love, or hate them for what they have done before their appearance; and we dread, or warmly expect the consequences of their resolutions after they depart the stage.  The illusion would not be sufficiently strong, if we did not suppose the dramatic persons equally accountable to the powers above us, as we are ourselves.  This Shakespear has taken care forcibly to impress upon his audience, in making the ghost of the murthered king of Denmark, charge his son not to touch his mother’s life, but leave her to heaven; and the reflexions of her own conscience to goad and sting her.

Mr. Dennis’s reasoning, upon the whole amounts to this, that no perfect character should suffer in the drama; to which it may be answered, that no perfect character ever did suffer in the drama; because no poet who draws from nature, ever introduced one, for this very good reason, that there are none in existence.