The Bloody Brother and The Fair Maid of the Inn, where they began that admirable Banter which the excellent Butler carry'd on exactly in the fame Strain, and which, with fuch a Second, has at laft drove the Bugbears from the Minds of almost all Men of common Understanding. But here was our Authors Disadvantage; the Tafte of their Age call'd aloud for the Affiftance of Ghofts and Sorcery to heighten the Horror of Tragedy; this Horror they had never felt, never heard of but with Contempt, and confequently they had no Arche-types in their own Breafts of what they were call'd on to defcribe. Whereas Shakespear from his low Education had believ'd and felt all the Horrors he painted; for tho' the Univerfities and Inns of Court were in fome degree freed from thefe Dreams of Superftition, the Banks of the Avon were then haunted on every Side.

There tript with printless Foot the Elves of Hills, Brooks, Lakes, and Groves; there Sorcery bedimn'd The Noon-tide Sun, call'd forth the mutinous Winds, And 'twixt the green Sea and the azur'd Vault Set roaring War, &c.

Tempeft.

So that Shakespear can scarcely be faid to create a new World in his Magic; he went but back to his native Country, and only drefs'd their Goblins in poetic Weeds; hence ev'n Thefeus is not attended by his own Deities, Minerva, Venus, the Fauns, Satyrs, &c. but by Oberon and his Fairies: Whereas our Authors however aukwardly they treat of Ghofts and Sorcerers, yet when they get back to Greece (which was as it were their native Soil) they introduce the Claffic Deities with Ease and Dignity, as

Fletcher

Fletcher in particular does in his Faithful Shepherdess, and both of them in their Masks; the laft of which is put in the third Clafs not from any Deficiency in the Compofition, but from the Nature of the allegorical Mask which, when no real Characters are intermix'd, ought in general to rank below Tragedy and Comedy. Our Authors, who wrote them because they were in Fashion, have themselves fhew'd how light they held them.

They must commend their King, and speak in praise
Of the Affembly; blefs the Bride and Bridegroom
In Perfon of fome God; they're ty'd to Rules
of Flattery.

Maid's Tragedy, Act 1. Scene 1.

This was probably wrote by Beaumont with an eye to the Mask at Gray's Inn, as well as Masks in general. The Reader will find a farther Account of our Authors Plays, and what Share Mr. Shirley is fuppos'd to have had in the Completion of fome that were left imperfect in Mr. Sympfon's Lives of the Authors. But before I finish my Account of them, it is neceffary to apologise for a Fault which must shock every modeft Reader: It is their frequent ufe of grofs and indecent Expreffions. They have this Fault in common with Shakespear, who is fometimes more grofs than they ever are; but I think Grofness does not occur quite fo often in him. In the fecond Clafs of Parallel Paffages where the Hands of Shakespear and our Authors were not diftinguishable, I omitted one Inftance for Decency fake, but I will infert it here as proper to the Subject we are now upon. Philafter being violently agitated by Jealousy, and firmly believing his Mistress

to have been loofe, thus fpeaks of a Letter which he has just receiv'd from her,

O, et all Women

That love black Deeds learn to diffemble here!
Here, by this Paper, fhe doth write to me,
As if her Heart were Mines of Adamant
To all the World befide; but unto me,
A Maiden Snow that melted with my Looks.
Vol. 1. Page 131, of this Edit.

Strength and Delicacy are here in perfect Union. In like manner Pofthumus in Cymbeline, Act 2. agitated by as violent a Jealousy of his Wife, thus describes her feeming Modesty :

O Vengeance! Vengeance!

Me of my lawful Pleasure she reftrain'd,
And pray'd me oft Forbearance, did it with
A Pudency fo rofy, the fweet Look on't

Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her

As chafte as unfunn'd Snow.

This is a most amiable Picture of conjugal Delicacy, but it may be jufty objected that it draws the Curtains of the Marriage-bed, and expofes it to the View of the World; and if the Reader turns to the Speech of which it is a Part, he will find much groffer Expreffions in the Sequel. But these. were fo far from offending the Ears of our Ancestors, that Beaumont and Fletcher, tho' fo often guilty of them, are perpetually celebrated by the Writers of their own and of the following Age, as the great Reformers of the Drama from Bawdry

4

and

and Ribaldry. Thus when Fletcher's charming Paftoral, The Faithful Shepherdess, had been damn'd by its first Night's Audience, Jonson says that they damn'd it for want of the vitious and bawdy Scenes which they had been accuftom'd to, and then breaks out in a Rapture worthy of Jonson, worthy of Fletcher.

I that am glad thy Innocence was thy Guilt,
And wish that all the Mufes Blood was spilt
In fuch a Martyrdom, to vex their Eyes
Do crown thy murder'd Poem, &c.

Yet even this Pattern of Chastity is not free from Expreffions which would now be justly deem'd too grofs for the Stage. Sir John Berkenhead, speaking of Fletcher's Works in general, fays,

And as thy Thoughts were clear, fo innocent,
Thy Fancy gave no unfwept Language Vent,
Slander' ft no Laws, prophan'ft no holy Page,
As if thy Father's Crofier rul'd the Stage.

*

Our Poets frequently boast of this Chastity of Language themselves. See the Prologue to The Knight of the Burning Peftle. Lovelace, a Poct of no fmall Eminence, fpeaks of the great Delicacy of Expreffion ev'n in the Custom of the Country.

View here a loofe Thought faid with fuch a Grace,
Minerva might have spoke in Venus' Face,
So well difguis'd, that 'twas conceiv'd'by none,
But Cupid had Diana's Linnen on.

* Fletcher Bishop of London.

d 4

Yet

Yet of this Play Dryden afferts that it contains more Bawdry than all his Plays together. What must we fay of thefe different Accounts? Why 'tis clear as Day, that the Stile of the Age was so chang'd, that what was formerly not efteem'd in the least Degree indecent, was now become very much fo; just as in Chaucer, the very filthieft Words are us'd without Difguife, and fays Beaumont in excuse for him, he gave thofe Expreffions to low Characters, with whom they were then in common Ufe, and whom he could not therefore draw naturally without them. The fame Plea is now neceffary for Beaumont himfelf and all his contemporary Dramatic Poets; but there is this grand and effential Difference between the grofs Expreffions of our old Poets, and the more delicate Lewdness of modern Plays. In the former, grofs Expreffions are generally the Language of low Life, and are giv'n to Characters which are fet in defpicable Lights: In the latter, Lewdness is frequently the Characteristic of the Hero of the Comedy, and fo intended to inflame the Paffions and corrupt the Heart. Thus much is neceffary in Defence, not only of our Authors, but of Mr. Sympfon and myfelf, for engaging in the Publication of Works which contain a great many Indecencies, which we could have wifh'd to have been omitted ; and which, when I began to prepare my Part of the Work for the Prefs, I had actually ftruck off, as far as I could do it without injuring the Connection of the Context; but the Bookfellers press'd, and indeed infifted upon their Restoration: They very fenfibly urged the laft-mentioned Plea, and thought that the bare Notion of a curtail'd Edition would greatly prejudice the Sale of it. We hope therefore that the Reader will not be too fevere on the Editors

of