and am pretty confident I could have vindicated some parts and
excused others; and where there were any plain miscarriages, I would
most ingenuously have confessed 'em. But I have not heard anything
said sufficient to provoke an answer. That which looks most like an
objection does not relate in particular to this play, but to all or
most that ever have been written, and that is soliloquy. Therefore
I will answer it, not only for my own sake, but to save others the
trouble, to whom it may hereafter be objected.

I grant that for a man to talk to himself appears absurd and
unnatural, and indeed it is so in most cases; but the circumstances
which may attend the occasion make great alteration. It oftentimes
happens to a man to have designs which require him to himself, and
in their nature cannot admit of a confidant. Such for certain is
all villainy, and other less mischievous intentions may be very
improper to be communicated to a second person. In such a case,
therefore, the audience must observe whether the person upon the
stage takes any notice of them at all or no. For if he supposes any
one to be by when he talks to himself, it is monstrous and
ridiculous to the last degree. Nay, not only in this case, but in
any part of a play, if there is expressed any knowledge of an
audience, it is insufferable. But otherwise, when a man in
soliloquy reasons with himself, and PRO'S and CON'S, and weighs all
his designs, we ought not to imagine that this man either talks to
us or to himself; he is only thinking, and thinking such matter as
were inexcusable folly in him to speak. But because we are
concealed spectators of the plot in agitation, and the poet finds it
necessary to let us know the whole mystery of his contrivance, he is
willing to inform us of this person's thoughts; and to that end is
forced to make use of the expedient of speech, no other better way