“Be pleased, then, in the first place, to take notice that the Greek Poesy, which CRITES has affirmed to have arrived to perfection in the reign of the Old Comedy [p. 514], was so far from it, that the distinction of it into Acts was not known to them; or if it were, it is yet so darkly delivered to us, that we cannot make it out.

“All we know of it is, from the singing of their Chorus:  and that too, is so uncertain, that in some of their Plays, we have reason to conjecture they sang more than five times.

“ARISTOTLE, indeed, divides the integral parts of a Play into four.

  “Firstly.  The Protasis or Entrance, which gives light only 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.