persuasion of those things which are most remote from probability:
It is in that case a free-born subject, not a slave; it will
contribute willingly its assent, as far as it sees convenient, but
will not be forced. Now, there is a greater vicinity in nature betwixt
two rooms, than betwixt two houses; betwixt two houses, than betwixt
two cities; and so of the rest: Reason, therefore, can sooner be led,
by imagination, to step from one room into another, than to walk to
two distant houses, and yet rather to go thither, than to fly like
a witch through the air, and be hurried from one region to another.
Fancy and Reason go hand in hand; the first cannot leave the last
behind: And though Fancy, when it sees the wide gulph, would venture
over, as the nimbler, yet it is with-held by Reason, which will refuse
to take the leap, when the distance over it appears too large. If Ben
Jonson himself will remove the scene from Rome into Tuscany in
the same act, and from thence return to Rome, in the scene which
immediately follows, reason will consider there is no proportionable
allowance of time to perform the journey, and, therefore, will choose
to stay at home. So, then, the less change of place there is, the
less time is taken up in transporting the persons of the drama, with
analogy to reason; and in that analogy, or resemblance of fiction to
truth, consists the excellency of the play.

For what else concerns the unity of place, I have already given my
opinion of it in my Essay, that there is a latitude to be allowed to
it, as several places in the same town or city, or places adjacent to
each other in the same country; which may all be comprehended under
the larger denomination of one place; yet with this restriction,
that the nearer and fewer those imaginary places are, the greater
resemblance they will have to truth; and reason, which cannot make
them one, will be more easily led to suppose them so.

What has been said of the unity of place, may easily be applied to
that of time: I grant it to be impossible, that the greater part of
time should be comprehended in the less, that twenty-four hours should
be crowded into three: But there is no necessity of that supposition;
for as _place_, so time relating to a play, is either imaginary
or real: The real is comprehended in those three hours, more or less,
in the space of which the play is represented; the imaginary is that
which is supposed to be taken up in the representation,