44.
of my Essay. In few words, my own opinion is this, (and I willingly
submit it to my adversary, when he will please impartially to consider
it) that the imaginary time of every play ought to be contrived into
as narrow a compass, as the nature of the plot, the quality of the
persons, and variety of accidents will allow. In comedy, I would
not exceed twenty-four or thirty hours; for the plot, accidents, and
persons, of comedy are small, and may be naturally turned in a little
compass: But in tragedy, the design is weighty, and the persons great;
therefore, there will naturally be required a greater space of time in
which to move them. And this, though Ben Jonson has not told us, yet
it is manifestly his opinion: For you see that to his comedies
he allows generally but twenty-four hours; to his two tragedies,
"Sejanus," and "Catiline," a much larger time, though he draws both
of them into as narrow a compass as he can: For he shews you only the
latter end of Sejanus's favour, and the conspiracy of Catiline already
ripe, and just breaking out into action.
But as it is an error, on the one side, to make too great a
disproportion betwixt the imaginary time of the play, and the real
time of its representation; so, on the other side, it is an oversight
to compress the accidents of a play into a narrower compass than that
in which they could naturally be produced.
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