I plainly deny his minor proposition; the force of which, if I mistake
not, depends on this, that the stage being one place cannot be two.
This indeed is as great a secret, as that we are all mortal; but to
requite it with another, I must crave leave to tell him, that though
the stage cannot be two places, yet it may properly represent them
successively, or at several times. His argument is indeed no more than
a mere fallacy, which will evidently appear when we distinguish place,
as it relates to plays, into real and imaginary. The real place is
that theatre, or piece of ground, on which the play is acted. The
imaginary, that house, town, or country where the action of the drama
is supposed to be, or, more plainly, where the scene of the play is
laid. Let us now apply this to that Herculean argument, "which if
strictly and duly weighed, is to make it evident, that there is no
such thing as what they all pretend." 'Tis impossible, he says, for
one stage to present two rooms or houses: I answer, 'tis neither
impossible, nor improper, for one real place to represent two or more
imaginary places, so it be done successively; which, in other words,
is no more than this, that the imagination of the audience, aided by
the words of the poet, and painted scenes, may suppose the stage to
be sometimes one place, sometimes another; now a garden, or wood, and
immediately a camp: which I appeal to every man's imagination, if it
be not true.
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