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 on the modern stage; yet nothing can 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 even this is a shift which an accurate poet would not have occasion for. The following lines of the duke of Buckingham concerning the use and abuse of soliloquies deserve attention:

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 us it.