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 unnatural, than an actor's making long speeches to himself, to convey his intentions to the audience. Where such discourses are necessary to be made, the poet should rather take care to give the dramatic persons such consolations 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.

SOLITARY, something retired or in private, remote from the company or commerce of others of the same species.