The lines relate to some action, and an action must he in some place; but the different actions that complete a story may be in places very remote from each other; and where is the absurdity of allowing that space to represent first _Athens_, and then _Sicily_, which was always known to be neither _Sicily_ nor _Athens_, but a modern theatre?
By supposition, as place is introduced, times may be extended; the time required by the fable elapses for the most part between the acts; for, of so much of the action as is represented, the real and poetical duration is the same.

If, in the first act, preparations for war against _Mithridates_ are represented to be made in _Rome_, the event of the war may, without absurdity, be represented, in the catastrophe, as happening in _Pontus_; we know that there is neither war, nor preparation for war; we know that we are neither in _Rome_ nor _Pontus_; that neither _Mithridates_ nor _Lucullus_ are before us.

The drama exhibits successive imitations of successive actions; and why may not the second imitation represent an action that happened years after the first, if it be so connected with it, that nothing but time can be supposed to intervene?
Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours.

In contemplation we easily contract the time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only see their imitation.
It will be asked, how the drama moves, if it is not credited.

It is credited with all the credit due to a drama.