from her parents, brought back unknown to the same city, there got with child by some lewd young fellow, who (by the help of his servant) cheats his father. And when her time comes to cry _JUNO Lucina fer opem!_ one or other sees a little box or cabinet, which was carried away with her, and so discovers her to her friends: if some god do not prevent [_anticipate_] it, by coming down in a machine [_i.e., supernaturally_], and take the thanks of it to himself. "By the Plot, you may guess much [_many_] of the characters of the Persons. An old Father that would willingly, before he dies, see his son well married. His debauched Son, kind in his nature to his wench, but miserably in want of money. A Servant or Slave, who has so much wit [as] to strike in with him, and help to dupe his father, A braggadochio Captain, a Parasite, and a Lady of Pleasure. "As for the poor honest maid, upon whom all the story is built, and who ought to be one of the principal Actors in the Play; she is commonly a Mute in it. She has the breeding of the old ELIZABETH [_Elizabethan_] way, for 'maids to be seen, and not to be heard': and it is enough, you know she is willing to be married, when the Fifth Act requires it. "These are plots built after the Italian mode of houses. You see through them all at once. The Characters, indeed, are Imitations of Nature: but so narrow as if they had imitated only an eye or an hand, and did not dare to venture on the lines of a face, or the proportion of a body. "But in how strait a compass sorever, they have bounded their Plots and Characters, we will pass it by, if they have regularly pursued them, and perfectly observed those three Unities, of TIME, PLACE, and ACTION; the knowledge of which, you say! is derived to us from them. "But, in the first place, give me leave to tell you! that the Unity of PLACE, however it might be practised by them, was never any of their Rules. We neither find it in ARISTOTLE, HORACE, or any who have written of it; till, in our Age, the French poets first made it a Precept of the Stage. "The Unity of TIME, even TERENCE himself, who was the best and most regular of them, has neglected. His _Heautontimoroumenos_ or 'Self Punisher' takes up, visibly, two days. 'Therefore,' says SCALIGER, 'the two first Acts concluding the first day, were acted overnight; the last three on the ensuing day.' "And EURIPIDES, in tying himself to one day, has committed an absurdity never to be forgiven him. For, in one of his Tragedies, he has made THESEUS go from Athens to Thebes, which was about forty English miles; under the walls of it, to give battle; and appear victorious in the next Act: and yet, from the time of his departure, to the return of the _Nuntius_, who gives relation of his victory; _AETHRA_ and the _Chorus_ have but thirty-six verses, that is, not for every mile, a verse.