happy strokes, secret graces, and even the drapery (which together make the second beauty) I have (I hope) exactly follow'd: and those compositions of second beauty, I observe in the Drama to be the under-walks, interweaving, or correspondence of lesser design in Scenes, not the great motion of the main plot, and coherence of the Acts.
The first Act is the general preparative, by rendering the chiefest characters of persons, and ending with something that looks like an obscure promise of design. The second begins with an introducement of new persons, so finishes all the characters, and ends with some little performance of that design which was promis'd at the parting of the first Act. The third makes a visible correspondence in the under-walks (or lesser intrigues) of persons; and ends with an ample turn of the main design, and expectation of a new. The fourth (ever having occasion to be the longest) gives a notorious turn to all the under-walks, and a counter-turn to that main design which chang'd in the third. The fifth begins with an entire diversion of the main, and dependant Plots; then makes the general correspondence of the persons more discernable, and ends with an easie untying of those particular knots, which made a contexture of the whole; leaving such satisfaction of probabilities with the Spectatour, as may perswade him that neither Fortune in the fate of the Persons, nor the Writer in the Representment, have been unnatural or exorbitant. To these Meanders of the English Stage I have cut out the Walks of my Poem; which in this description may seem intricate and tedious; but will, I hope (when men take pains to visit what they have heard describ'd) appear to them as pleasant as a summer passage on a crooked River, where going about, and turning back, is as delightfull as the delays of parting Lovers.
In placing the Argument (as a Proem) before every Canto, I have not wholly follow'd the example of the Moderns; but averted it from that purpose to which I found it frequently us'd: for it hath been intended by others, asthe
