excellent Actors to Act their Playes, as a Field and Burbidge, of whom we may say that he was a delightful Proteus, so wholly transforming himself into his Part, and putting off himself with his Cloathes, as he never (not so 5 much as in the Tyring-house) assum'd himself again until the Play was done; there being as much difference betwixt him and one of our common Actors, as between a Balladsinger who onely mouths it, and an excellent singer, who knows all his Graces, and can artfully vary and modulate 10 his Voice, even to know how much breath he is to give to every syllable. He had all the parts of an excellent Orator, animating his words with speaking, and Speech with Action; his Auditors being never more delighted then when he spake, nor more sorry then when he held his peace; yet even then he was an excellent Actor still, never falling in his Part when he had done speaking, but with his looks and gesture maintaining it still unto the heighth, he imagining Age quod agis onely spoke to him: so as those who call him a Player do him wrong, no man 20 being less idle then he whose whole life is nothing else but action; with only this difference from other mens, that as what is but a Play to them is his Business, so their business is but a play to him. 15 Now, for the difference betwixt our Theaters and those 25 of former times, they were but plain and simple, with no other Scenes nor Decorations of the Stage, but onely old Tapestry, and the Stage strew'd with Rushes, with their Habits accordingly, whereas ours now for cost and ornament are arriv'd to the heighth of Magnificence; but 30 that which makes our Stage the better makes our Playes the worse perhaps, they striving now to make them more for sight then hearing, whence that solid joy of the interior is lost, and that benefit which men formerly receiv'd from Playes, from which they seldom or never went away but 35 far better and wiser then they came. The Stage being a harmless and innocent Recreation, where the minde is recreated and delighted, and that Ludus Literarum, or School of good Language and Behaviour, that makes Youth soonest Man, and man soonest good and vertuous, by joyning example to precept, 5 and the pleasure of seeing to that of hearing: Its chiefest end is to render Folly ridiculous, Vice odious, and Vertue and Noblenesse so amiable and lovely, as every one shu'd be delighted and enamoured with it; from which when it deflects, as corruptio optimi pessima, of the best it becomes 10 the worst of Recreations. And this his Majesty well understood, when after his happy Restauration he took such care to purge it from all vice and obscenity; and would to God he had found all bodies and humours as apt and easie to be purg'd and reform'd as that. For Scenes and Machines they are no new invention, our Masks and some of our Playes in former times (though not so ordinary) having had as good or rather better then any we have now. 15 They are excellent helps of imagination, most grateful 20 deceptions of the sight, and graceful and becoming Ornaments of the Stage, transporting you easily without lassitude from one place to another, or rather by a kinde of delightful Magick, whilst you sit still, does bring the place to you. Of this curious Art the Italians, this latter 25 age, are the greatest masters, the French good proficients, and we in England onely Schollars and Learners yet, having proceeded no further then to bare painting, and not arriv'd to the stupendious wonders of your great Ingeniers, especially not knowing yet how to place our 30 Lights, for the more advantage and illuminating of the Scenes. And thus much suffices it briefly to have said of all that concerns our Modern Stage, onely to give others occasion to say more. 35. TH SIR ROBERT HOWARD I. PREFACE TO FOUR NEW PLAYS 1665 TO THE READER. HERE is none more sensible than I am, how great a Charity the most Ingenious may need, that expose their private Wit to a publique Judgment; since the same Phansie from whence the Thoughts proceed must probably 5 be kind to its own Issue. This renders Men no perfecter Judges of their own Writings than Fathers are of their own Children, who find out that Wit in them which another discerns not, and see not those Errors which are evident to the unconcern'd. Nor is this self-kindness more fatal to 10 Men in their Writings than in their Actions, every Man being a greater Flatterer to himself than he knows how to be to another; otherwise it were impossible that things of such distant Natures shou'd find their own Authors so equally kind in their affections to them, and Men so 15 different in Parts and Virtues should rest equally contented in their own Opinions. This Apprehension, added to that greater which I have of my own Weakness, may, I hope, incline the Reader to believe me when I assure him that these Follies were 20 made publique as much against my Inclination as Judgment. But being pursu'd with so many Sollicitations of Mr Herringman's, and having received Civilities from him (if it were possible) exceeding his Importunities, I at last yielded to prefer that which he believed his Interest before that which I apprehended my own Disadvantage: Considering withal, That he might pretend it would be a real Loss to him, and could be but an imaginary Prejudice to 5 me; since things of this nature, though never so excellent or never so mean, have seldom prov'd the Foundation of Mens new-built Fortunes or the Ruine of their old; it being the Fate of Poetry, though of no other good Parts, to be wholly separated from Interest; and there are few 10 that know me but will easily believe I am not much concern'd in an unprofitable Reputation. This clear account I have given the Reader of this seeming Contradiction, to offer that to the World which I dislike my self; and in all things I have no greater an ambition than 15 to be believ'd a Person that would rather be unkind to my self than ungrateful to others. I have made this excuse for my self; I offer none for my Writings, but freely leave the Reader to condemn that which has receiv'd my Sentence already. Yet I shall 20 presume to say somthing in the justification of our Nations Plays, though not of my own; since in my Judgment, without being partial to my Country, I do really prefer our Plays as much before any other Nations as I do the best of ours before my own. 25 The manner of the Stage-Entertainments have differ'd in all Ages; and as it has encreas'd in use, it has enlarg'd it self in business. The general manner of Plays among the Ancients we find in Seneca's Tragedies for serious Subjects, and in Terence and Plautus for the Comical, in 30 which latter we see some pretences to Plots, though certainly short of what we have seen in some of Mr Johnson's Plays; and for their Wit, especially Plautus, I suppose it suited much better in those days than it would do in ours, for were their Plays strictly Translated and Presented on 35 our Stage, they would hardly bring as many Audiences as they have now Admirers. The serious Plays were anciently compos'd of Speeches and Choruses, where all things are related, but no matter 5 of Fact presented on the Stage. This Pattern the French do at this time neerly follow, only leaving out the Chorus, making up their Plays with almost entire and discoursive Scenes, presenting the business in Relations. This way has very much affected some of our Nation, who possibly IO believe well of it more upon the account that what the French do ought to be a Fashion than upon the Reason of the thing. It is first necessary to consider why probably the Compositions of the Ancients, especially in their serious Plays, 15 were after this manner; and it will be found that the Subjects they commonly chose drove them upon the necessity, which were usually the most known Stories and Fables: Accordingly, Seneca making choice of Medea, Hyppolitus, and Hercules Oetus, it was impossible to shew 20 Medea throwing old mangled Eson into her Age-renewing Caldron, or to present the scattered Limbs of Hyppolitus upon the Stage, or shew Hercules burning upon his own Funeral Pyle: And this the judicious Horace clearly speaks of in his Arte Poetica, where he says, 25 30 non tamen intus Digna geri promes in Scenam; multaque tolles So that it appears a fault to chuse such Subjects for the Stage, but much greater to affect that Method which those Subjects enforce; and therefore the French seem much 35 mistaken, who without the necessity sometimes commit the |