[p. 514] makes for me. "For if Natural Causes be more known now, than in the time of ARISTOTLE, because more studied; it follows that Poesy and other Arts may, with the same pains, arrive still nearer to perfection. And that granted, it will rest for you to prove, that they wrought more perfect Images of Human Life than we. "Which, seeing, in your discourse, you have avoided to make good; it shall now be my task to show you some of their Defects, and some few Excellencies of the Moderns. And I think, there is none amongst us can imagine I do it enviously; or with purpose to detract from them: for what interest of Fame, or Profit, can the Living lose by the reputation of the Dead? On the other side, it is a great truth, which VELLEIUS PATERCULUS affirms, _Audita visis libentius laudamus; et proesentia invidia, proeterita, admiratione prosequimur, et his nos obrui, illis instrui credimus_, 'That Praise or Censure is certainly the most sincere, which unbribed Posterity shall give us.' "Be pleased, then, in the first place, to take notice that the Greek Poesy, which CRITES has affirmed to have arrived to perfection in the reign of the Old Comedy [p. 514], was so far from it, that _the distinction of it into Acts was not known to them_; or if it were, it is yet so darkly delivered to us, that we cannot make it out. "All we know of it is, from the singing of their Chorus: and that too, is so uncertain, that in some of their Plays, we have reason to conjecture they sang more than five times. "ARISTOTLE, indeed, divides the integral parts of a Play into four. "Firstly. The _Protasis_ or Entrance, which gives light only to the Characters of the persons; and proceeds very little into any part of the Action. "Secondly. The _Epitasis_ or Working up of the Plot, where the Play grows warmer; the Design or Action of it is drawing on, and you see something promising, that it will come to pass. "Thirdly. The _Catastasis_ or Counter-turn, which destroys that expectation, embroils the action in new difficulties, and leaves you far distant from that hope in which it found you: as you may have observed in a violent stream, resisted by a narrow passage; it turns round to an eddy, and carries back the waters with more swiftness than it brought them on. "Lastly. The _Catastrophe_, which the Grecians call [Greek: desis]; the French, _Le denoument_; and we, the Discovery or Unravelling of the Plot. There, you see all things settling again upon the first foundations; and the obstacles, which hindered the Design or Action of the Play, once removed, it ends with that Resemblance of Truth