constitutes its highest recommendation;
for it is this blind force of the affections which the true artist
deprecates--this illusion is what he disdains to excite. If the strokes
which tragedy inflicts on our bosoms followed without respite, the
passion would overpower the action. We should mix ourselves with the
subject-matter, and no longer stand above it. It is by holding asunder
the different parts, and stepping between the passions with its composing
views, that the chorus restores to us our freedom, which would else be
lost in the tempest. The characters of the drama need this intermission
in order to collect themselves; for they are no real beings who obey the
impulse of the moment, and merely represent individuals--but ideal
persons and representatives of their species, who enunciate the deep
things of humanity.

Thus much on my attempt to revive the old chorus on the tragic stage. It
is true that choruses are not unknown to modern tragedy; but the chorus
of the Greek drama, as I have employed it--the chorus, as a single ideal
person, furthering and accompanying the whole plot--if of an entirely
distinct character; and when, in discussion on the Greek tragedy, I hear
mention made of choruses, I generally suspect the speaker's ignorance of
his subject. In my view the chorus has never been reproduced since the
decline of the old tragedy.

I have divided it into two parts, and represented it in contest with
itself; but this occurs where it acts as a real person, and as an
unthinking multitude. As chorus and an ideal person it is always one and
entire. I have also several times dispensed with its presence on the
stage. For this liberty I have the example of Aeschylus, the creator of
tragedy, and Sophocles, the greatest master of his art.

Another license it may be more difficult to excuse. I have blended
together the Christian religion and the pagan mythology, and introduced
recollections of the Moorish superstition. But the scene of the drama is
Messina--where these three religions either exercised a living influence,
or appealed to the senses in monumental remains. Besides, I consider it
a privilege of poetry to deal with different religions as a collective
whole. In which everything that bears an individual character, and
expresses a peculiar mode of feeling, has its place. Religion itself,
the idea of a Divine Power, lies under the veil of all religions; and it
must be permitted to the poet to represent it in