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greater latitude in characters of wit, than in those of humour; yet that latitude would be of small advantage to such poets, who have too narrow an imagination to write it. And to entertain an audience perpetually with humour, is to carry them from the conversation of gentlemen, and treat them with the follies and extravagancies of Bedlam.

I find I have launched out farther than I intended in the beginning of this preface; and that, in the heat of writing, I have touched at something, which I thought to have avoided. It is time now to draw homeward; and to think rather of defending myself, than assaulting others. I have already acknowledged, that this play is far from perfect: But I do not think myself obliged to discover the imperfections of it to my adversaries, any more than a guilty person is bound to accuse himself before his judges. It is charged upon me that I make debauched persons (such as, they say, my Astrologer and Gamester are) my protagonists, or the chief persons of the drama; and that I make them happy in the conclusion of my play; against the law of comedy, which is to reward virtue, and punish vice. I answer, first, that I know no such law to have been constantly observed in comedy, either by the ancient or modern poets. Chærea is made hapPy in the "Eunuch," after having deflowered a vírgin; and Terence generally does the same through all his plays, where you perpetually see, not only debauched young men enjoy their mistresses, but even the courtezans themselves rewarded and honoured in the catastrophe. The same may be observed in Plautus almost everywhere. Ben Jonson himself, after whom I may be proud to err, has given me more than once the example of it. That in "The Alchemist" is notorious, where Face, after having contrived and carried on the great cozenage

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of the play, and continued in it without repentance to the last, is not only forgiven by his master, but enriched, by his consent, with the spoils of those whom he had cheated. And, which is more, his master himself, a grave man, and a widower, is introduced taking his man's counsel, debauching the widow first, in hope to marry her afterward. In the "Silent Woman," Dauphine (who, with the other two gentlemen, is of the same character with my Celadon in the "Maiden Queen," and with Wildblood in this) professes himself in love with all the collegiate ladies: and they likewise are all of the same character with each other, excepting only Madam Otter, who has something singular: Yet this naughty Dauphine is crowned in the end with the possession of his uncle's estate, and with the hopes of enjoying all his mistresses; and his friend, Mr Truewit, (the best character of a gentleman which Ben Jonson ever made) is not ashamed to pimp for him. As for Beaumont and Fletcher, I need not allege examples out of them; for that were to quote almost all their comedies. But now it will be objected, that I patronise vice by the authority of former poets, and extenuate my own faults by recrimination. I answer, that as I defend myself by their example, so that example I defend by reason, and by the end of all dramatic poesy. In the first place, therefore, give me leave to shew you their mistake, who have accused me. They have not distinguished, as they ought, betwixt the rules of tragedy and comedy. In tragedy, where the actions and persons are great, and the crimes horrid, the laws of justice are more strictly observed; and examples of punishment to be made, to deter mankind from the pursuit of vice. Faults of this kind have been rare amongst the ancient poets: for they have punished in Oedipus, and in his pos

terity, the sin which he knew not he had committed. Medea is the only example I remember at present, who escapes from punishment after murder. Thus tragedy fulfils one great part of its institution; which is, by example, to instruct. But in comedy it is not so; for the chief end of it is divertisement and delight: and that so much, that it is disputed, I think, by Heinsius, before Horace's "Art of Poetry," whether instruction be any part of its employment. At least I am sure it can be but its secondary end: for the business of the poet is to make you laugh: when he writes humour, he makes folly ridiculous; when wit, he moves you, if not always to laughter, yet to a pleasure that is more noble. And if he works a cure on folly, and the small imperfections in mankind, by exposing them to public view, that cure is not performed by an immediate operation: For it works first on the ill-nature of the audience; they are moved to laugh by the representation of deformity; and the shame of that laughter teaches us to amend what is ridiculous in our manners. This being then established, that the first end of comedy is delight, and instruction only the second; it may reasonably be inferred, that comedy is not so much obliged to the punishment of faults which it represents, as tragedy. For the persons in comedy are of a lower quality, the action is little, and the faults and vices are but the sallies of youth, and the frailties of human nature, and not premeditated crimes: such to which all men are obnoxious; not such as are attempted only by few, and those abandoned to all sense of virtue: such as move pity and commiseration; not detestation and horror: such, in short, as may be forgiven; not such as must of necessity be punished. But, lest any man should think that I write this to make libertinism amiable, or that I

cared not to debase the end and institution of comedy, so I might thereby maintain my own errors, and those of better poets, I must further declare, both for them and for myself, that we make not vicious persons happy, but only as Heaven makes sinners so; that is, by reclaiming them first from vice. For so it is to be supposed they are, when they resolve to marry; for then, enjoying what they desire in one, they cease to pursue the love of many. So Charea is made happy by Terence, in marrying her whom he had deflowered: and so are Wildblood and the Astrologer in this play.

There is another crime with which I am charged, at which I am yet much less concerned, because it does not relate to my manners, as the former did, but only to my reputation as a poet: a name of which I assure the reader I am nothing proud; and therefore cannot be very solicitous to defend it. I am taxed with stealing all my plays, and that by some, who should be the last men from whom I would steal any part of them. There is one answer which I will not make; but it has been made for me, by him to whose grace and patronage I owe all things,

Et spes et ratio studiorum in Casare tantum

and without whose command they should no longer be troubled with any thing of mine;-that he only desired, that they, who accused me of theft, would always steal him plays like mine. But though I have reason to be proud of this defence, yet I should wave it, because I have a worse opinion of my own comedies than any of my enemies can have. It is true, that wherever I have liked any story in a romance, novel, or foreign play, I have made no difficulty, nor ever shall, to take the foundation of

it, to build it up, and to make it proper for the English stage. And I will be so vain to say, it has lost nothing in my hands: But it always cost me so much trouble to heighten it for our theatre, (which is incomparably more curious in all the ornaments of dramatic poesy than the French or Spanish,) that when I had finished my play, it was like the hulk of Sir Francis Drake, so strangely altered, that there scarcely remained any plank of the timber which first built it. To witness this, I need go no farther than this play: it was first Spanish, and called "El Astrologo Fingido;" then made French by the younger Corneille; and is now translated into English, and in print, under the name of "The Feigned Astrologer." What I have performed in this will best appear by comparing it with those: You will see that I have rejected some adventures which I judged were not divertising; that I have heightened those which I have chosen; and that I have added others, which were neither in the French nor Spanish. And, besides, you will easily discover, that the walk of the Astrologer is the least considerable in my play: For the design of it turns more on the parts of IVildblood and Jacinta, who are the chief persons in it. I have farther to add, that I seldom use the wit and language of any romance or play, which I undertake to alter : because my own invention (as bad as it is) can furnish me with nothing so dull as what is there. Those who have called Virgil, Terence, and Tasso, plagiaries, (though they much injured them) had yet a better colour for their accusation; for Virgil has evidently translated Theocritus, Hesiod, and Homer, in many places; besides what he has taken from Ennius in his own language. Terence was not only known to translate Menander, (which he avows also in his prologues) but was said also to be

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