ties of time, be supposed to fall out _between_ the Acts.

"This Rule of TIME, how well it has been observed by the Ancients, most
of their plays will witness. You see them, in their Tragedies (wherein to
follow this Rule is certainly most difficult), from the very beginning of
their Plays, falling close into that part of the Story, which they intend
for the Action or principal Object of it: leaving the former part to be
delivered by Narration. So that they set the audience, as it were, at the
post where the race is to be concluded: and, saving them the tedious
expectation of seeing the Poet set out and ride the beginning of the
course; you behold him not, till he is in sight of the goal, and just
upon you.

"For the Second Unity, which is that of PLACE; the Ancients meant by it,
_That the scene_ [locality] _ought to be continued_, through the Play,
_in the same place, where it was laid in the beginning_. For _the Stage_,
on which it is represented, _being but one, and the same place; it
isunnatural to conceive it many, and those far distant from one another_.
I will not deny but by the Variation of Painted scenes [_scenery was
introduced about this time into the English theatres, by Sir WILLIAM
D'AVENANT and BETTERTON the Actor: see Vol. II. p. 278_] the Fancy which,
in these casts, will contribute to its own deceit, may sometimes imagine
it several places, upon some appearance of probability: yet it still
carries _the greater likelihood of truth_, if those places be supposed so
near each other as in the same town or city, which may all be comprehended
under the larger denomination of One Place; for a greater distance will
bear no proportion to the _shortness of time which is allotted in the
acting_, to pass from one of them to another.

"For the observation of this; next to the Ancients, the French are most
to be commended. They tie themselves so strictly to the Unity of Place,
that you never see in any of their plays, a scene [_locality_] changed in
the middle of an Act. If the Act begins in a garden, a street, or [a]
chamber; 'tis ended in the same place. And that you may know it to be the
same, the Stage is so supplied with persons, that it is never empty all
the time. He that enters the second has business with him, who was on
before; and before the second quits the stage, a third appears, who has
business with him. This CORNEILLE calls _La Liaison des Scenes_,'the
Continuity or Joining of the Scenes': and it is