whom may pass in an hour the life of a hero, or the revolutions of
an empire.

Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by design,
or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible
to decide, and useless to inquire. We may reasonably suppose, that,
when he rose to notice, he did not want the counsels and admonitions
of scholars and criticks, and that he at last deliberately persisted
in a practice, which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is
essential to the fable, but unity of action, and as the unities
of time and place arise evidently from false assumptions, and,
by circumscribing the extent of the drama, lessen its variety, I
cannot think it much to be lamented, that they were not known by
him, or not observed: Nor, if such another poet could arise, should
I very vehemently reproach him, that his first act passed at Venice,
and his next in Cyprus. Such violations of rules merely positive,
become the comprehensive genius of Shakespeare, and such censures
are suitable to the minute and slender criticism of Voltaire:

Non usque adeo permiscuit imis
Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli
Serventur leges, malint a Caesare tolli.

Yet when I speak thus slightly of dramatick rules, I cannot but
recollect how much wit and learning may be produced against me;
before such authorities I am afraid to stand, not that I think
the present question one of those that are to be decided by mere
authority, but because it is to be suspected, that these precepts
have not been so easily received but for better reasons than I
have yet been able to find. The result of my enquiries, in which it