inferior parts of it; and the unities of time, place, and action, more exactly observed, than perhaps the English theatre requires.  Particularly, the action is so much one, that it is the only of the kind without episode, or underplot; every scene in the tragedy conducing to the main design, and every act concluding with a turn of it.  The greatest error in the contrivance seems to be in the person of Octavia; for, though I might use the privilege of a poet, to introduce her into Alexandria, yet I had not enough considered, that the compassion she moved to herself and children, was destructive to that which I reserved for Antony and Cleopatra; whose mutual love being founded upon vice, must lessen the favour of the audience to them, when virtue and innocence were oppressed by it.  And, though I justified Antony in some measure, by making Octavia’s departure to proceed wholly from herself; yet the force of the first machine still remained; and the dividing of pity, like the cutting of a river into many channels, abated the strength of the natural stream.  But this is an objection which none of my critics have urged against me; and therefore I might have let it pass, if I could have resolved to have been partial to myself.  The faults my enemies have found, are rather cavils concerning little and not essential decencies; which a master of the ceremonies may decide betwixt us.  The French poets, I confess, are strict observers of these punctilios:  They would not, for example, have suffered Cleopatra and Octavia to have met; or, if they had met, there must have only passed betwixt them some cold civilities, but no eagerness of repartee, for fear of offending against the greatness of their characters, and the modesty of their sex.  This objection I foresaw, and at the same time contemned; for I judged it both natural and probable, that Octavia, proud of her new-gained conquest, would search out Cleopatra to triumph over her; and that Cleopatra thus attacked, was not of a spirit to shun the encounter:  And it is not unlikely, that two exasperated rivals should use such satire as I have put into their mouths; for, after all, though the one were a Roman, and the other a queen, they were both women.  It is true, some actions, though natural, are not fit to be represented; and broad obscenities in words, ought in good manners to be avoided:  expressions therefore are a modest clothing of our thoughts, as breeches and petticoats are of our bodies.  If I have kept myself within the bounds of modesty, all beyond it is but nicety and affectation; which is no more but modesty depraved into a vice.  They betray themselves, who are too quick of apprehension in such cases, and leave all reasonable men to imagine worse of them, than of the poet.