His argument is, indeed, no more than a mere fallacy: which will evidently appear, when we distinguished Place as it relates to Plays, into Real and Imaginary. The Real place is that theatre or piece of ground, on which the Play is acted. The Imaginary, that house, town, or country, where the action of the Drama is supposed to be; or, more plainly, where the Scene of the Play is laid. Let us now apply this to that Herculean argument, _which if strictly and duly weighed, is to make it evident, that there is no such thing as what they All pretend. 'Tis impossible_, he says, _for one Stage to present two Rooms or Houses_. I answer, "Tis neither impossible, nor improper, for one _real_ place to represent two or more _imaginary_ places: so it be done successively," which, in other words, is no more than this, "That the Imagination of the Audience, aided by the words of the Poet, and painted scenes [_scenery_], nay _suppose_ the Stage to be sometimes one place, sometimes another; now a garden or wood, and immediately a camp;" which I appeal to every man's imagination, if it be not true! Neither the Ancients nor Moderns (as much fools as he is pleased to think them) ever asserted that they could make one place, two: but they might hope, by the good leave of this author! that the change of a Scene might lead the Imagination to suppose the place altered. So that he cannot fasten those absurdities upon this Scene of a Play or Imaginary Place of Action; that it is one place, and yet two. And this being so clearly proved, that 'tis past any shew of a reasonable denial; it will not be hard to destroy that other part of his argument, which depends upon it; that _'tis as impossible for a Stage to represent two Rooms or Houses, as two Countries or Kingdoms_: for his reason is already overthrown, which was, _because both were alike impossible_. This is manifestly otherwise: for 'tis proved that a stage may properly Represent two Rooms or Houses. For the Imagination, being judge of what is represented, will, in reason, be less chocqued [shocked] with the appearance of two rooms in the same house, or two houses in the same city; than with two distant cities in the same country, or two remote countries in the same universe. Imagination in a man or reasonable creature is supposed to participate of Reason; and, when that governs (as it does in the belief of fiction) reason is not destroyed, but misled or blinded. That can prescribe to the Reason, during the time of the representation, somewhat like a weak belief of what it sees and hears; and Reason suffers itself to be so hoodwinked, that it may better enjoy the pleasures of the fiction: but it is never so wholly made a captive as to be drawn headlong into a persuasion of those things which are most remote from probability. 'Tis, in that case, a free born subject, not a slave. It will contribute willingly its assent, as far as it sees convenient: but will not be forced.