praises would choose to be condemned; and the magistrates whom he has elected* would modestly withdraw from their employment, to avoid the scandal of his nomination. The sharpness of his satire, next to himself, falls most heavily on his friends; and they ought never to forgive him for commending them perpetually the wrong way, and sometimes by contraries. If he have a friend whose hastiness in writing is his greatest fault, Horace would have taught him to have minced the matter, and to have called it readiness of thought, and a flowing fancy; for friendship will allow a man to christen an imperfection by the nature of some neighbour virtue; Vellem in amicitiâ sic erraremus, et isti Errori nomen virtus possuisset honestum ; but he would never have allowed him to have called a slow man hasty, or a hasty writer a slow drudge; as Juvenal explains it : * See the concluding lines of Rochester's Imitation of Horace. 4 In Rochester's Imitation of Horace are the following lines, here evidently alluded to: "Of all our modern wits, none.seem to me But hasty Shadwell, and slow Wycherley." This character of Wycherley Mr. Pope remarked to Mr. Spence, "was quite wrong. He was far from being slow in general; and in particular wrote THE PLAIN DEALER in three weeks." Spence's ANECDOTES.-So also Lord Lansdown, who has expressly controverted this notion of Rochester's. - canibus pigris, scabieq; vetustâ Nomen erit, pardus, tigris, leo; si quid adhuc est, Yet Lucretius laughs at a foolish lover, even for excusing the imperfections of his mistress: Nigra μελίχροος est, immunda et fatida άκοσμος, `Balba loqui non quit, τpavníŝa; muta pudens est, &c. But to drive it ad Ethiopem cygnum, is not to be endured. I leave him to interpret this by the benefit of his French version on the other side, and without farther considering him than I have the rest of my illiterate censors, whom I have disdained to answer, because they are not qualified for judges. It remains that I acquaint the reader, that I have endeavoured in this play to follow the practice of the ancients, who, as Mr. Rymer has judiciously observed, are and ought to be our masters. Horace likewise gives it for a rule in his Art of Poetry, Vos exemplaria Græca Nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurnâ. Yet, though their models are regular, they are too little for English tragedy, which requires to be built in a larger compass. I could give an instance in the OEDIPUS TYRANNUS, which was the masterpiece of Sophocles; but I reserve it for a more fit occasion, which I hope to have hereafter. In my style I have professed to imitate the divine Shak speare; which that I might perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme. Not that I condemn my former way, but that this is more proper to my present purpose. I hope I need not to explain myself, that I have not copied my author servilely. Words and phrases must of necessity receive a change in succeeding ages; but it is almost a miracle that much of his language remains so pure; and that he who began dramatick poetry amongst us, untaught by any, and as Ben Jonson tells us, without learning, should, by the force of his own genius, perform so much, that in a manner he has left no praise for any who come after him. The occasion is fair, and the subject would be pleasant to handle the difference of style betwixt him and Fletcher; and wherein, and how far, they are both to be imitated. But since I must not be over confident of my own performance after him, it will be prudence in me to be silent: yet I hope I may affirm, and without vanity, that by imitating him I have excelled myself throughout the play; and particularly, that I prefer the scene betwixt Antony and Ventidius in the first act, to any thing which I have written in this kind. DEDICATION OF LIM BERHAM, OR, THE KIND KEEPER.' TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN, LORD VAUGHAN, &c." MY LORD, I CANNOT easily excuse the printing of a play at so unseasonable a time, when the great plot of the nation, like one of Pharaoh's lean kine, has devoured its younger brethren of the stage. But however weak my defence might be for this, I am sure I should not need any to the 5 This comedy (which has no preface) was acted at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Garden, and was first printed in 1678. 6 John, Lord Vaughan, was at this time the eldest surviving son of Richard, Earl of Carbery; his elder brother, Francis, having been some time dead. He had been made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles the Second, and was for some time Governor of Jamaica.— Nov. 30, 1686, he was elected President of the Royal Society; and filled that office till Nov. 30, 1689, when he was succeeded by Thomas, Earl of Pembroke.- The C 8 VOL. II. |