ABSTRACT
It is a very common Objection, and one which we find frequently insisted upon by most of our Criticks, that POETS are apt to exaggerate all Passions when they come to represent them in Tragedy, and strain them to such a Degree that the Persons they draw, ceasing to be Men distemper’d in their Minds, act like Monsters that by a kind of Enchantment are become Furies. But when we come to consider Things more closely we shall find this a Charge not easily maintained; for when once any Passion gains the despotic Empire of the human Breast there follows such a Series of wild and irrational Actions as, singly taken, would argue the Man absolutely mad that committed them. But because numbers are actuated by their Passions as well as he, it is agreed that a Series of intemperate Actions shall not be esteemed a Proof of Madness, but serve only to shew that a Man has very strong Passions. This is absurd enough indeed, but so it is, as we see and know from daily Experience.
