The neceſſity of obſerving the unities of time and place ariſes from the ſuppoſed neceſſity of making the drama credible. The criticks hold it impoſſible, that an action of months or years can be poſſibly believed to paſs in three hours; or that the ſpectator can ſuppoſe himſelf to fit in the theatre, while ambaſſadors go and return between diſtant kings, while armies are levied and towns beſieged, while an exile wanders and returns, or till he whom they ſaw courting his miſtreſs, ſhall lament the untimely fall of his ſon. The mind revolts from evident falſehood, and fiction loſes its force when it departs from the reſemblance of reality.
From the narrow limitation of time neceſſarily ariſes the contraction of place. The ſpectator, who knows that he ſaw the firſt act at Alexandria, cannot ſuppoſe that he ſees the next at Rome, at a diſtance to which not the dragons of Medea could, in ſo ſhort a time, have transported him; he knows with certainty that he has not changed his place; and he knows that place cannot change itſelf; that what was a houſe cannot become a plain; that what was Thebes can never be Perſepolis.
Such is the triumphant language with which a critick exults over the miſery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without reſiſtance or reply. It is time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shakeſpeare, that he aſſumes, as an unqueſtionable principle, a poſition, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his underſtanding pronounces to be falſe. It is falſe, that any repreſentation is miſtaken
