cast of the father; one turn of the countenance goes through all his children. Their folly was born and bred in them; and something of the Elkanah will be visible. Our poet, in writing fools, has very much in him of that sign-post painter, who was famous only for drawing roses : when a vintner desired him to paint a lion, he answered, he would do it to content him, but he was sure it would be like a rose. Yet since the common audience are much of his level, and both the great vulgar and the small (as Mr. Cowley calls them,) are apt to admire what they do not understand, (omne ignotum habent pro magnifico,) and think all which rumbles is heroick, it will be no wonder if he pass for a great author amongst town fools and city wits. With these men, they who laugh at him will be thought envious; for they will be sure to rise up in arms for nonsense, and violently defend a cause in which they are engaged by the ties of nature and education. But it will be for the benefit of mankind hercafter to observe what kind of people they are who frequent this play, that men of common sense may know whom to shun. Yet I dare assure the reader, that one half of the faults and absurdities are not shewn; what is here is only selected fustian, impertinence, and false grammar. There is as much behind, as would reasonably damn as many plays as there are acts; for I am sure there are no four lines together, which are free from some errour, and commonly a gross one. But here is enough to take a taste of him; to have observed all, were to have swelled a volume, and have made you pay as dear for a fool's picture, as you have done for his tragedy with sculptures." 66 As men in incense send up vows to heaven." EMPRESS OF MOROCCO, Act II. As if incense could carry up thoughts, or a thought go up in smoke: he may as well say, he will roast or bake thoughts, as smoke them. And the allusion too is very agreeable and natural: he compares thunder, lightning, and roaring of guns, to incense; and says thus, he expresses his loud joys in a concert of thundering guns, as men send up silent vows in gentle incense. If this description is not plentifully supplied with nonsense, I will refer myself to the reader. No doubt it was worth our poet's pains to cut a river up to Morocco, for the sake of such a description of ships as this. A rare and studied piece it is. The poet has employed his art about every line, that it may be esteemed a curiosity in its kind, and himself a person endowed with a peculiar talent in writing new and exact nonsense. And for this no 7 It contains five prints, (each of them representing a scene in the play, and a view of the stage,) beside the frontispiece, which is curious, as it exhibits the façade of the theatre in Dorset Gardens. 1 8 doubt it was, that our poet was so much courted, This was Settle's first play. It had been acted at the Duke's theatre some years before, and was printed in 1672. what sense is, but also to a people who of all nations in the world pretend to understand best what belongs to shipping, our poet should dare to offer this fustian for sense and a description of ships; a description so ridiculous, that Mulylabas, as errant a fool, and as ignorant of ships as he is, must needs discover that he is abused, and that ships cannot be such things as the poet makes them. But the poet has not only been so impudent to expose all this stuff, but so arrogant to defend it with an Epistle; like a saucy boothkeeper, that when he had put a cheat upon the people, would wrangle and fight with any that would not like it, or would offer to discover it; for which arrogance our poet receives this correction; and to jerk him a little the sharper, I will not transpose his verse, but by the help of his own words trans-nonsense sense, that, by my stuff, people may judge the better what his is: Great Boy, thy tragedy and sculptures done, Their course in ballad-singers' baskets guide; Thy words big bulks of boist'rous bombast bear; • Mulylabas is one of the characters in Settle's play; son to the Emperor of Morocco. With noise they move, and from players' mouths re bound, When their tongues dance to thy words' empty sound. As if that rhyme and bombast lent a soul ; * These lines are a parody on the following passage in THE EMPRESS OF MOROCCO, (act ii. sc. 1.) which, we are told in the Remarks, was much admired. The scene opened, is represented the prospect of a large river, with a glorious fleet of ships, supposed to be the navy of Muly Hamet. After the sound of trumpets, and the discharging of guns, Enter King, young Queen, HAMETALHAZ, and Hamet. Great Sir, your royal father's general |