foremost rank of tragic authors. The truth seems to be, that the theatre is affected by the change of fashion, which, among other caprices, has assigned late and irregular hours as a test of its votaries adherence to its dictates. Thus, unless on particular nights, the greater part of the audience is composed of persons whose day has been spent in fatiguing occupation, and whose state of mind, not to mention their general taste, seeks relaxation, rather in the amusement of comedy, than from the graver efforts of the tragic author. It were well if this were all. But women of the higher rank, whose taste used formerly to have much influence upon the amusements of the drama, cannot, in the present state of our theatres, easily visit them, without many and inconvenient precautions. A large portion of the house is avowedly abandoned to females of the worst description, whose numbers enable them to outrage decency with insolence and impunity, and to exhibit scenes much fitter for the haunts of low debauchery, than for a place of polished amusement. Late incidents also lead us to complain, that the slightest infraction of the rights of the public, real or supposed, leads to the repetition of tremendous remedies, which irresistibly remind us of the peasant in the fable, who called a squire and a pack of hounds into his garden, to chace out a poor hare, who had eat some of his cabbages. Until the natural good sense of an English audience find some remedy for these growing evils, the taste for this delightful art must become daily more corrupt and degraded. Meanwhile, the Editors may claim some merit, for furnishing the admirers of the drama with an opportunity of deriving from its master-pieces that amusement in their closet, which is now too unfrequently offered to them upon the stage, which GARRICK once trode, and which still boasts of SIDDONS. CONTENTS VOLUME FIRST. The Two Noble Kinsmen,....SHAKESPEARE & FLETCHER, before 1616 The Maid's Tragedy,................DITTO............................................ Thierry and Theodoret,...................DITTO,...................................... THE BRITISH DRAMA. THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. BY SHAKESPEARE AND FLETCHER. PROLOGUE. [Flourish. NEW plays and maidenheads are near akin; And the first sound this child hear be a hiss, "From me the witless chaff of such a writer, "Than Robin Hood !" This is the fear we bring; Content to you!-If this play do not keep [Flourish. THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. SCENE I. ACT I. Enter HYMEN with a torch burning; a Boy, in a white robe, before, singing, and strewing flowers; after HYMEN, a Nymph, encompassed in her tresses, bearing a wheaten garland; then THESEUS, between two other Nymphs, with wheaten chaplets on their heads; then HIPPOLITA, led by PERITHOUS, and another holding a garland over her head, her tresses likewise hanging; after her, EMILIA, holding up her train. SONG. ROSES, their sharp spines being gone, Primrose, first-born child of Ver, All dear Nature's children sweet, Not an angel of the air, Bird melodious, or bird fair, Be absent hence ! The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor May on our bridehouse perch or sing, Thes. Sad lady, rise. Hipp. Stand up. Emi. No knees to me! What woman I May sted, that is distressed, does bind me to her. Thes. What's your request? Deliver you, for all. 1 Queen. We are three Queens, whose sovereigns fell before The wrath of cruel Creon; who endured Of our dead kings, that we may chapel them! |