multitude one way, than a single Atticus the other; for it is easier to descend, than it is to climb. I should have gone ashamed out of the world, if I had not at least attempted this address, which I have long thought owing; and if I had never attempted, I might have been vain enough to think I might have succeeded in it. Now I have made the experiment, and have failed through my own unworthiness, I may rest satisfied, that either the adventure is not to be atchieved, or that it is reserved for some other hand.

Be pleased, therefore, since the family of the Attici is, and ought to be, above the common forms of concluding letters, that I may take my leave in the words of Cicero to the first of them: Me, O Pomponi, valdè pœnitet vivere: tantùm te oro, ut quoniam me ipse semper amàsti, ut eodem amore sis; ego nimirum, idem sum. Inimici mei mea mihi, meipsum, ademerunt. Cura, Attice, ut valeas. Dabam Cal. Jan. 1690. [Jan. 1, 1690-91.]

8

$ Of all our author's Dedications this appears to me to have been the most laboured, and to be the least happy. Having caught the idea of a comparison between Lord Leicester and Atticus, he seems to be so fond of the notion, that he recurs to it again and again, and at last quits it with reluctance. Perhaps indeed, if he had recollected a passage which he quoted on a former occasion from a Spanish historian with great satisfaction, and had wished to preserve consistency, he would have been more moderate in his eulogy of this celebrated Roman There is a third sort, which during the whole wars were

who has perhaps been praised too highly both in ancient and merera times: /

neuters: let them be crushed on all occasions; for their business was their own security. They had neither courage enough to engage on my side, nor conscience enough to help their lawful Sovereign; therefore let them be made examples, as the worst sort of interessed men, which certainly are enemies to both, and would be profitable to neither."

PREFACE

то

DON SEBASTIAN.

WHETHER it happened through a long disuse of writing, that I forgot the usual compass of a play, or that by crowding it with characters and incidents, I put a necessity upon myself of lengthening the main action, I know not; but the first day's audience sufficiently convinced me of my errour; and that the poem was insupportably too long. It is an ill ambition of us poets to please an audience with more than they can bear; and supposing that we wrote as well, as vainly we imagine ourselves to write, yet we ought to consider that no man can bear to be long tickled. There is a nauseousness in a city feast, when we are to sit four hours after we are cloyed. I am therefore, in the first place, to acknowledge with all manner of gratitude, their civility, who were pleased to endure it with so much patience, to be weary with so much good nature and silence, and not to explode an entertainment which was designed to please them; or discourage an author whose misfortunes have once more brought him, against his will, upon the stage. While I con

tinue in these bad circumstances,* (and truly I see very little probability of coming out,) I must be obliged to write; and if I may still hope for the same kind usage, I shall the less repent of that hard necessity. I write not this out of any expectation to be pitied, for I have enemies enow to wish me yet in a worse condition; but give me leave to say, that if I can please by writing, as I shall endeavour it, the town may be somewhat obliged to my misfortunes for a part of their diversion. Having been longer acquainted with the stage than any poet now living, and having - observed how difficult it was to please; that the humours of comedy were almost spent; that love and honour, (the mistaken topicks of tragedy,) were quite worn out; that the theatres could not support their charges; that the audience forsook them; that young men without learning set up for judges, and that they talked loudest who understood the least; all these discouragements had not only weaned me from the stage, but had also given me a loathing of it. But enough of this : the difficulties continue; they increase, and I am still condemned to dig in those exhausted mines.

Whatever fault I next commit, rest assured it shall not be that of too much length. Above twelve hundred lines have been cut off from this tragedy, since it was first delivered to the actors. They

Our author, on the Revolution, had been deptixed of the offices of Poet Laureate, and Historiographer.

conseigne tionsly whed

were indeed so judiciously lopped by Mr. Betterton, to whose care and excellent action I am equally obliged, that the connection of the story was not lost; but on the other side, it was impossible to prevent some part of the action from being precipitated, and coming on without that due preparation which is required to all great events; as in particular, that of raising the mobile, in the beginning of the fourth act, which a man of Benducar's cool character could not naturally attempt, without taking all those precautions which he foresaw would be necessary to render his design successful. On this consideration, I have replaced those lines through the whole poem, poem, and thereby restored it to that clearness of conception, and (if I may dare to say it) that lustre and masculine vigour, in which it was first written. It is obvious to every understanding reader, that the most poetical parts, which are descriptions, images, similitudes, and moral sentences, are those which of necessity were to be pared away, when the body was swollen into too large a bulk for the representation of the stage. But there is a vast difference betwixt a publick entertainment on the theatre, and a private reading in the closet: in the first

• The word mobile [mobile vulgus] was first introduced into our language about this time, and was soon abbreviated into mob. T. Brown, in 1690, uses both the Latin word at length, and the abbreviation; and in the Preface to CLEOMENES, two years afterwards, our author uses mob with a kind of apology," as they call it."