ly to the
Characters of the persons; and proceeds very little into any part
of the Action.

"Secondly. The _Epitasis_ or Working up of the Plot, where the Play
grows warmer; the Design or Action of it is drawing on, and you see
something promising, that it will come to pass.

"Thirdly. The _Catastasis_ or Counter-turn, which destroys that
expectation, embroils the action in new difficulties, and leaves
you far distant from that hope in which it found you: as you may
have observed in a violent stream, resisted by a narrow passage; it
turns round to an eddy, and carries back the waters with more
swiftness than it brought them on.

"Lastly. The _Catastrophe_, which the Grecians call [Greek: desis];
the French, _Le denoument_; and we, the Discovery or Unravelling of
the Plot. There, you see all things settling again upon the first
foundations; and the obstacles, which hindered the Design or Action
of the Play, once removed, it ends with that Resemblance of Truth
or Nature, that the audience are satisfied with the conduct of it.

"Thus this great man delivered to us the Image of a Play; and I must
confess it is so lively, that, from thence, much light has been derived
to the forming it more perfectly, into Acts and Scenes. But what Poet
first limited to Five, the number of the Acts, I know not: only we see it
so firmly established in the time of HORACE, that he gives it for a rule
in Comedy.

"_Neu brevier quinto, neu sit productior actu:_

"So that you see, the Grecians cannot be said to have consumated this
Art: writing rather by Entrances than by Acts; and having rather a
general indigested notion of a Play, than knowing how and where to bestow
the particular graces of it.

"But since the Spaniards, at this day, allow but three Acts, which they
call _Jornadas_, to a Play; and the Italians, in many of theirs, follow
them: when I condemn the Ancients, I declare it _is not altogether
because they have not five Acts to every Play; but because they have not
confined themselves to one certain number_. 'Tis building a house,
without a model: and when they succeeded in such undertakings, they ought
to have sacrificed to Fortune, not to the Muses.

"Next, for the Plot, which ARISTOTLE called [Greek: to muthos], and often
[Greek: ton pragmaton sunthesis]; and from him, the Romans, _Fabula_. It
has already been judiciously observed by a late Writer that 'in their
_TRADGEDIES_, it was o