SOLILOQUY, a reasoning or discourse which a man holds with himself; or, more properly, according to Papias, it is a discourse by way of answer to a question that a man proposes to himself.
Soliloquies are become very common things on the modern stage; yet can nothing be more inartificial, or more unnatural, than an actor's making long speeches to himself, to convey his intentions to the audience. Where such discoveries are necessary to be made, the poet should rather take care to give the dramatic persons such confidants as may necessarily share their inmost thoughts; by which means they will be more naturally conveyed to the audience: yet is even this a shift an accurate poet would not be found to have occasion for. The use and abuse of soliloquies is well delivered by the duke of Buckingham in the following lines:
Soliloquies had need be very few.
Extremely short, and spoke in passion too.
Our lovers talking to themselves, for want
Of others, make the pit their confidant:
Nor is the matter mended yet, if thus
They trust a friend, only to tell it us.