use of angels and visions in his
"Davideis," as well as Tasso in his "Godfrey."

What I have written on this subject will not be thought a digression
by the reader, if he please to remember what I said in the beginning
of this essay, that I have modelled my heroic plays by the rules of an
heroic poem. And if that be the most noble, the most pleasant, and the
most instructive way of writing in verse, and withal the highest
pattern of human life, as all poets have agreed, I shall need no other
argument to justify my choice in this imitation. One advantage the
drama has above the other, namely, that it represents to view what the
poem only does relate; and, _Segnius irritant animum demissa per
aures, quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus_, as Horace tells us.

To those who object my frequent use of drums and trumpets, and my
representations of battles, I answer, I introduced them not on the
English stage: Shakespeare used them frequently; and though Jonson
shews no battle in his "Catiline," yet you hear from behind the scenes
the sounding of trumpets, and the shouts of fighting armies. But, I
add farther, that these warlike instruments, and even their
presentations of fighting on the stage, are no more than necessary to
produce the effects of an heroic play; that is, to raise the
imagination of the audience and to persuade them, for the time, that
what they behold on the theatre is really performed. The poet is then
to endeavour an absolute dominion over the minds of the spectators;
for, though our fancy will contribute to its own deceit, yet a writer
ought to help its operation: And that the Red Bull has formerly done
the same, is no more an argument against our practice, than it would
be for a physician to forbear an approved medicine, because a
mountebank has used it with success.

Thus I have given a short account of heroic plays. I might now, with
the usual eagerness of an author, make a particular defence of this.
But the common opinion (how unjust soever) has been so much to my
advantage, that I have reason to be satisfied, and to suffer with
patience all that can be urged against it.

For, otherwise, what can be more easy for me, than to defend the
character of Almanzor, which is one great exception that is made
against the play? 'Tis said, that Almanzor is no perfect pattern of
heroic virtue, that he is a contemner of kings, and that he is made to
perform impossibilities.

I must therefore avow, in the fi