“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 only some tale derived from Thebes or Troy; or, at least, something that happened in those two Ages:  which was worn so threadbare by the pens of all the Epic Poets; and even, by tradition itself of the talkative Greeklings, as BEN.  JOHNSON calls them, that before it came upon the Stage, it was already known to all the audience.  And the people, as soon as ever they heard the name of OEDIPUS, knew as well as the Poet, that he had killed his father by a mistake, and committed incest with his mother, before the Play; that they were now to hear of a great plague, an oracle, and the ghost of LAIUS:  so that they sate, with a yawning kind of expectation, till he was to come, with his eyes pulled out, and speak a hundred or two of verses, in a tragic tone, in complaint of his misfortunes.’

“But one OEDIPUS, HERCULES, or MEDEA had been tolerable.  Poor people!  They scaped not so good cheap.  They had still the chapon bouille set before them, till their appetites were cloyed with the same dish; and the Novelty being gone, the Pleasure vanished.  So that one main end of Dramatic Poesy, in its definition [p. 513] (which was, to cause Delight) was, of consequence, destroyed.

“In their COMEDIES, the Romans generally borrowed their Plots from the Greek poets:  and theirs were commonly a little girl stolen or wandered from her parents, brought back unknown to the same city, there got with child by some lewd young fellow, who (by the help of his servant) cheats his father.  And when her time comes to cry JUNO Lucina fer opem! one or other sees a little box or cabinet, which was carried away with her, and so discovers her to her friends:  if some god do not prevent [anticipate] it, by coming down in a machine [i.e., supernaturally], and take the thanks of it to himself.

“By the Plot, you may guess much [many] of the characters of the Persons.  An old Father that would willingly, before he dies, see his son well married.  His debauched Son, kind in his nature to his wench, but miserably in want of money.  A Servant or Slave, who has so much wit [as] to strike in with him, and help to dupe his father, A braggadochio Captain, a Parasite, and a Lady of Pleasure.

“As for the poor honest maid, upon whom all the story is built, and who ought to be one of the principal Actors in the Play; she is commonly a Mute in it.  She has the breeding of the old ELIZABETH [Elizabethan] way, for ‘maids to be seen, and not to be heard’:  and it is enough, you know she is willing to be married, when the Fifth Act requires it.

“These are plots built after the Italian mode of houses.  You see through them all at once.  The Characters, indeed, are Imitations of Nature:  but so narrow as if they had imitated only an eye or an hand, and did not dare to venture on the lines of a face, or the proportion of a body.