In a word, the former are the flesh and bones, the latter the clothing, of the drama.

But these rules are not written in the treatises on poetry.
Richelet has no idea of their existence.

Genius, which divines rather than learns, devises for each work the general rules from the general plan of things, the special rules from the separate _ensemble_ of the subject treated; not after the manner of the chemist, who lights the fire under his furnace, heats his crucible, analyzes and destroys; but after the manner of the bee, which flies on its golden wings, lights on each flower and extracts its honey, leaving it as brilliant and fragrant as before.
The poet--let us insist on this point--should take counsel therefore only of nature, truth, and inspiration which is itself both truth and nature.

"Quando he," says Lope de Vega, "Quando he de escrivir una comedia, Encierro los preceptos con seis llaves." To secure these precepts "six keys" are none too many, in very truth.

Let the poet beware especially of copying anything whatsoever--Shakespeare no more than Moliere, Schiller no more than Corneille.