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; as twenty-four hours, more or less.  Now, no man ever could suppose that twenty-four real hours could be included in the space of three:  but where is the absurdity of affirming, that the feigned business of twenty-four imagined hours, may not more naturally be represented in the compass of three real hours, than the like feigned business of twenty-four years in the same proportion of real time?  For the proportions are always real; and much nearer, by his permission! of twenty-four to three, than of 4000 to it.

I am almost fearful of illustrating anything by Similitude; lest he should confute it for an Argument:  yet, I think the comparison of a Glass will discover, very aptly, the fallacy of his argument, both concerning Time and Place.  The strength of his Reason depends on this, “That the less cannot comprehend the greater.”  I have already answered that we need not suppose it does.  I say not, that the less can comprehend the greater; but only that it may represent it; as in a mirror, of half a yard [in] diameter, a whole room, and many persons in it, may be seen at once:  not that it can comprehend that room or those persons, but that it represents them to the sight.

But the Author of The Duke of LERMA is to be excused for his declaring against the Unity of TIME.  For, if I be not much mistaken, he is an interessed [interested] person; the time of that Play taking up so many years as the favour of the Duke of LERMA continued:  nay, the Second and Third Acts including all the time of his prosperity, which was a great part of the reign of PHILIP III.; for in the beginning of the Second Act, he was not yet a favourite, and before the end of the Third, was in disgrace.

I say not this, with the least design of limiting the Stage too servilely to twenty-four hours:  however he be pleased to tax me with dogmatizing in that point.  In my Dialogue, as I before hinted, several persons maintained their several opinions.  One of them, indeed, who supported the cause of the French Poesy, said, how strict they were in that particular [p. 531]; but he who answered in behalf of our nation, was willing to give more latitude to the Rule; and cites the words of CORNEILLE himself, complaining against the severity of it, and observing what beauties it banished from the Stage, page 44, of my Essay.