on till he had wearied the patience of his less enthusiastic reader: he will only therefore remark, that his observations are strictly confined to the dramatic writers: the works of the most natural and impassioned of their poets, using the word in its more limited sense, are but too frequently disfigured by a strange heterogeneous mass of chivalrous fancy, and classical affectation. Neither will it be denied that the drama of that age has its defects: on the contrary, the Editor admits that the reader will not unfrequently discover scenes that might have been wrought up with more skill, and plots that might have been disentangled with less perplexity: incidents in themselves unimportant, sometimes brought prominently forward; but still more frequently important incidents slurred over without their proper force, particularly in the concluding scenes: he will be sometimes fatigued, and sometimes disgusted, with their attempts at humour: but it should be remembered, in favour of the writers, that the great body of the people, the middle classes, where is now perhaps the greatest portion of information, were then, in point of intellect, but triflingly removed from the most ignorant; that the frequenters of the theatre were not of the most respectable classes, and that the manners of the age itself were gross and offensive.

Other objections, which the Editor would not so readily admit, but which the usual limits of a

.

preface, render it impossible for him more than to advert to, have been urged against the general perusal of such dramas as are here brought forward. Their grossness, as it is termed, has perhaps given the greatest and best founded cause of offence: but on this the Editor may be allowed to remark, that though the indelicacy of many particular passages can neither be overlooked nor excused, yet the general tendency of these dramas is (with very few exceptions) to the side of virtue and morality: and it may safely be asserted, that a few such characters as are to be found in the plays of Killegrew, Etherege, Wycherly, Vanburgh, Congreve, &c. are calculated to do more mischief than all the licentious passages in all the English plays before the death of Charles the First. There is a nervous-an unshrinking honesty about these old writers, that may certainly offend the over-delicate and morbid sensibility of people accustomed only to the tameness of modern life and language, but it no more resembles the tricked-up licentiousness and puling immorality of some modern authors, read without scruple, "than the nakedness of an Indian does that of a common prostitute." And what, after all, has this levelling of language done for us? The notorious old vices, it is true, are less frequently heard of, because the vulgarity of such terms secures "an affair of honour," or an "affair of gallantry,"-the murder of a friend, or the seduction of his wife,-from being de

nounced in the wholesome language of the decalogue; but it may well deserve consideration, how far society in general has been benefitted by thus destroying the distinctions of vice and virtue? how far the mask changes the nature of the deformity? and what portion of the sin of transgression is shaken off with the name? Adultery, (the most prevalent vice of the times, and one in which we have made a very hopeful progress), forms the subject of several of our antient dramas; and to the reader it may safely be left to determine whether such representations of this offence as are to be found in the "Woman kill'd with Kindness,' "the English Traveller" of Heywood, and the "Mad World, my Masters," of Middleton, or the reports of many modern trials (where the professed object is the detection and punishment of the offender) afford the strongest moral warnings. As to the indecency of many particular passages, (though it is a charge of which neither Massinger, Fletcher, Jonson, nor Shakspeare can be acquitted), it can only be regretted that the age admitted such license, and no man does so more sincerely than the Editor.

The present publication having now been extended as far as was originally proposed, the Editor is induced to make some observations upon the circumstances under which it was commenced; the disadvantages under which he has laboured in its progress; and which may, he

trusts, (as a first attempt) entitle him to the in-. dulgence of his readers.

It has been observed, that "the lapse of five and thirty years of research and industry unparalleled, has raised the qualifications, whilst it has smoothed the labours of the Editor of a work like this;" but it may be remarked, that this is true only in part; it cannot, for example, fairly be applied (to the extent which is here laid down) to the present publication. In consequence of the lapse of time, and of the vigi·lant research and laudable industry which is mentioned, the copies of our ancient plays, which were formerly (comparatively at least) cheap and common, are now no longer to be met with, or must be purchased at a rate which few are inclined, and fewer can afford, to pay. Theobald, it is well known, had a collection of nearly three hundred of the ancient quartos; and from his pecuniary circumstances, it is not probable that they were collected at any considerable expense. What would be the cost of a similar collection now, must be left to the determination of those who have attempted to form one, though some conjecture may be formed from the prices affixed to them in catalogues. The task of explaining the works of our ancient dramatists is unquestionably become much easier, but a considerable proportion of the works themselves has almost entirely disappeared, or is become inaccessible to common purchasers: the difficulty, therefore,

of settling the text by comparing the different copies is much increased. The Editor has not been able to meet with more than one copy of several of the plays which are now reprinted: it is more than probable, therefore, that conjecture has been sometimes hazarded when certainty might have been adduced from an examination of more editions, or even more. copies of the same edition. This scarcity of the ancient quartos, so much felt and complained of, was what the Editor of the present selection proposed in part to supply, and remedy. His first intention was to confine himself. (almost exclusively) to the republication of some scarce and valuable plays. He trusted he might be able to amend the punctuation, and to correct some of the more gross and obvious errors in the printed copies; but, in general, he proposed to adhere very closely to the text: and, though no person can be more sensible than himself of the superiority of Mr. Reed's edition, yet the first, and not the second edition, of Dodsley's Collection of old Plays, was the example which he originally proposed to follow. With this intention, the work was announced to the Public; but the Editor was soon convinced, in preparing it for the press, that much more than he had proposed was highly desirable, if not necessary; and he was in consequence induced, soon after the commencement of the publication, to deviate considerably from his first plan, and to insert a