"The like error is evident in TERENCE his _Eunuch_; when _LACHES_ the old man, enters, in a mistake, the house of _THAIS_; where, between his _Exit_ and the Entrance of _PYTHIAS_ (who comes to give an ample relation of the garboils he has raised within), _PARMENO_ who was left upon the stage, has not above five lines to speak. _C'est bien employe, un temps si court!_ says the French poet, who furnished me with one of the[se] observations. "And almost all their Tragedies will afford us examples of the like nature. "'Tis true, they have kept the Continuity, or as you called it, _Liaison des Scenes_, somewhat better. Two do not perpetually come in together, talk, and go out together; and other two succeeded them, and do the same, throughout the Act: which the English call by the name of 'Single Scenes.' But the reason is, because they have seldom above two or three Scenes, properly so called, in every Act. For it is to be accounted a _new_ Scene, not every time the Stage is empty: but every person _who enters_, though to others, makes it so; because he introduces a new business. "Now the Plots of their Plays being narrow, and the persons few: one of their Acts was written in a less compass than one of our well-wrought Scenes; and yet they are often deficient even in this. "To go no further than TERENCE. You find in the _Eunuch_, _ANTIPHO_ entering, single, in the midst of the Third Act, after _CHREMES_ and _PYTHIAS_ were gone off. In the same play, you have likewise _DORIAS_ beginning the Fourth Act alone; and after she has made a relation of what was done at the soldier's entertainment (which, by the way, was very inartificial to do; because she was presumed to speak directly to the Audience, and to acquaint them with what was necessary to be known: but yet should have been so contrived by the Poet as to have been told by persons of the Drama to one another, and so by them, to have come to the knowledge of the people), she quits the Stage: and _PHAEDRIA_ enters next, alone likewise. He also gives you an account of himself, and of his returning from the country, in monologue: to which unnatural way of Narration, TERENCE is subject in all his Plays. "In his _Adelphi_ or 'Brothers,' _SYRUS_ and _DEMEA_ enter after the Scene was broken by the departure of _SOSTRATA_, _GETA_, and _CANTHARA_; and, indeed, you can scarce look into any of his Comedies, where you will not presently discover the same interruption. "And as they have failed both in [the] laying of the Plots, and managing of them, swerving from the Rules of their own Art, by misrepresenting Nature to us, in which they have ill satisfied one intention of a Play, which was Delight: so in the Instructive part [pp. 513, 582-4], they have erred worse. Instead of punishing vice, and rewarding virtue; they have often shown a prosperous wickedness, and an unhappy piety. They have set before us a bloody Image of Revenge, in _MEDEA_; and given her dragons to