We are agitated in reading the history of _Henry_ the Fifth, yet no man takes his book for the field of _Agencourt_.

A dramatick exhibition is a book recited with concomitants that encrease or diminish its effect.

Familiar comedy is often more powerful in the theatre, than on the page; imperial tragedy is always less.

The humour of _Petruchio_ may be heightened by grimace; but what voice or what gesture can hope to add dignity or force to the soliloquy of _Cato_.
A play read, affects the mind like a play acted.

It is therefore evident, that the action is not supposed to be real; and it follows, that between the acts a longer or shorter time may be allowed to pass, and that no more account of space or duration is to be taken by the auditor of a drama, than by the reader of a narrative, before 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 enquire.