Shakespeare rarely cares to draw breath until he has reached the crisis, nor should the reader be expected to do so. And to halt for talk and refreshments on the eve of a crisis is to play havoc with the story. The crisis comes in the "Merchant of Venice" at that part of the play marked in the folio, Act III., Scene i. But it is almost impossible for an actor to be animated in a scene following an _entr'acte_. The story of Macready and the ladder is a well known instance. The pause, if any, should come after the scene and not before it. It cannot be urged too often that Shakespeare invented his dramatic construction to suit his own particular stage. And but for the special conditions of his playhouse, Shakespearian drama could never have come into being; for Shakespeare's genius was not adapted to writing plays with intervals for music, as was done at Court. Unity of design was his aim. "Scene individable" is his motto. The internal evidence of the plays themselves proves this. Dr. Johnson, then, was right to contend that Shakespeare wrote his plays as they were first printed "in one unbroken continuity," but to infer that "they ought now to be exhibited with short pauses interposed as often as the scene is changed, or any considerable time is required to pass," shows that he failed to grasp the real object for which Shakespeare adopted the continuous movement. An Elizabethan audience was absorbed by the story of the play, and thought little about lapse of time or change of place. There was only one locality recognized, and that one was the platform, which projected to the centre of the auditorium, where the story was recited. There was, besides, only one period, and that was "now," meaning the moment at which the events were being talked about or acted. All inconsistencies, then, that are apparent in the text, arising from change of place or break in the time, should be ignored in representing the play. It is no advantage to rearrange the order of the scenes, or to lower the curtain, or to make a pause in the progress of the story in order to call attention to change of place or interval of time. Whatever information Shakespeare wished the audience to have on these matters, he put into the mouths of his characters, and he expected the audience to accept it without any questioning or further illustration by actual presentation. Elizabethan folk-songs are sung without pausing between the verses; in this way attention is fixed on the story, and Shakespeare obtains the same result by dispensing with the empty stage.