audience, with a speech of a
hundred or two hundred lines.

"I deny not but this may suit well enough with the French: for as we, who
are a more sullen people, come to be diverted at our Plays; they, who are
of an airy and gay temper, come thither to make themselves more serious.
And this I conceive to be one reason why Comedy is more pleasing to us,
and Tragedy to them.

"But, to speak generally, it cannot be denied that _short_ Speeches and
Replies are more apt to move the passions, and beget concernment in us;
than the other. For it is unnatural for any one in a gust of passion, to
speak long together; or for another, in the same condition, to suffer him
without interruption.

"Grief and Passion are like floods raised in little brooks, by a sudden
rain. They are quickly up; and if the Concernment be poured unexpectedly
in upon us, it overflows us: but a long sober shower gives them leisure
to run out as they came in, without troubling the ordinary current.

"As for Comedy, Repartee is one of its chiefest graces. The greatest
pleasure of the audience is a Chase of Wit, kept up on both sides, and
swiftly managed. And this, our forefathers (if not we) have had, in
FLETCHER's _Plays_, to a much higher degree of perfection, than the
French Poets can arrive at.

"There is another part of LISIDEIUS his discourse, in which he has rather
excused our neighbours, than commended them; that is, _for aiming only_
[simply] _to make one person considerable in their Plays_.

"'Tis very true what he has urged, that one Character in all Plays, even
without the Poet's care, will have the advantage of all the others; and
that the Design of the whole Drama will chiefly depend on it. But this
hinders not, that there may be more shining Characters in the Play; many
persons of a second magnitude, nay, some so very near, so almost equal to
the first, that greatness may be opposed to greatness: and all the persons
be made considerable, not only by their Quality, but their Action.

"'Tis evident that the more the persons are; the greater will be the
variety of the Plot. If then, the parts are managed so regularly, that
the beauty of the whole be kept entire; and that the variety become not a
perplexed and confused mass of accidents: you will find it infinitely
pleasing, to be led in a labyrinth of Design; where you see some of your
way before you, yet discern not the end, till you arrive at it.

"And that all this is practicable; I can