“But I dare not take upon me, to commend the Fabric of it; because it is altogether so full of Art, that I must unravel every Scene in it, to commend it as I ought.  And this excellent contrivance is still the more to be admired; because ’tis [a] Comedy where the persons are only of common rank; and their business, private; not elevated by passions or high concernments as in serious Plays.  Here, every one is a proper judge of what he sees.  Nothing is represented but that with which he daily converses:  so that, by consequence, all faults lie open to discovery; and few are pardonable.  ’Tis this, which HORACE has judiciously observed—­

    “Creditur ex medio quia res arcessit habere
    Sudoris minimum, sed habet Comedia tanto
    Plus oneris, quanto venice minus.

“But our Poet, who was not ignorant of these difficulties, had prevailed [? availed] himself of all advantages; as he who designs a large leap, takes his rise from the highest ground.

“One of these Advantages is that, which CORNEILLE has laid down as the greatest which can arrive [happen] to any Poem; and which he, himself, could never compass, above thrice, in all his plays, viz., the making choice of some signal and long expected day; whereon the action of the Play is to depend.  This day was that designed by DAUPHINE, for the settling of his uncle’s estate upon him:  which to compass, he contrives to marry him.  That the marriage had been plotted by him, long beforehand, is made evident, by what he tells TRUE WIT, in the Second Act, that ’in one moment, he [TRUE WIT] had destroyed what he had been raising many months.’

“There is another artifice of the Poet, which I cannot here omit; because, by the frequent practice of it in his Comedies, he has left it to us, almost as a Rule:  that is, when he has any Character or Humour, wherein he would show a coup de maitre or his highest skill; he recommends it to your observation by a pleasant description of it, before the person first appears.  Thus, in Bartholomew Fair, he gives you the picture of NUMPS and COKES; and in this, those of DAW, LAFOOLE, MOROSE, and the Collegiate Ladies:  all which you hear described, before you, see them.  So that, before they come upon the Stage, you have a longing expectation of them; which prepares you to receive them favourably:  and when they are there, even from their first appearance, you are so far acquainted with them, that nothing of their humour is lost to you.

“I will observe yet one thing further of this admirable Plot.  The business of it rises in every Act.  The Second is greater than the First; the Third, than the Second:  and so forward, to the Fifth.  There, too, you see, till the very last Scene, new difficulties arising to obstruct the Action of the Play:  and when the audience is brought into despair that the business can naturally be effected; then, and not before, the Discovery is made.