Slander*st
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lir MR. SEWARD'S PREFACE. Slander*8t no laws, prophan*st no holy page.As if thy '3 father's crosier rul'd the sta^e.'* Our poets frequently boast of this chastity of language themselves. Seethe prologue to The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Lovelace, a poet ofno small eminence, speaks of the great delicacy of expression even in theCustom of the Country. *' View here a loose thought said with such a grace^Minerva might have spoke in Venus' face.So well disguis'd, that 'twas conceiv*d by none.But Cupid had Diana's linen on." Yet of this play Di-yden asserts that it contains more bawdry than all hisplays together. What must we say of these different accounts? Why it i»clear as day, that the stile of the age was so changed, that what wasformerly not esteemed in the least degree indecent, was now become verymuch so; just as in Chaucer, the very filthiest words are used without dis-^ise, and says Beaumont in excuse for him, he gave those expressions tolow characters, with whom they were then in common use, and whom hecould not therefore draw naturally without them. The same plea is nownecessary for Beaumont himself and all his contemporary dramatic poets;but there is this grand and essential difference between the gross expres-sions of our old poets, and the more delicate lewdness of modern plays. Inthe former, gross expressions are generallv the language of low life, andare given to characters which are set in despicable lights : in the latter,lewdness is frequently the characteristic of the hero of the comedy, and sointended to inflame the passions and corrupt the heart. Thus much isnecessary in defence, not only of our authors, but of Mr. Sympson andmyself, for eneagine in the publication of works which contain a greatmany indecencies, which we could have wished to have been omitted ; andwhich, when I began to prepare my part of the work for the press, I hadactually struck oft, as far as I could do it without injuring the connexionof the context; but the booksellers pressed, and indeed insisted upon theirrestoration : they very sensibly urged the last-mentioned plea, and thoughtthat the bare notion of a curtailed edition would greatly prejudice the saleof it. We hope therefore that the reader will not be too severe on theeditors of works which have great excellencies, and which in general tendto promote virtue and chastity, though the custom of the age made theauthors not entirely abstain from expressions not then esteemed gross, butwhich now must offend every modest ear. Hitherto we have treated of our authors and their merit, somethingmust be added of the attempt of the present editors to clear them fromthat mass of confusion and obscurity flung upon them by the inaccuracyof former editors, or what was worse, by the wilfulness and ignorance ofour old players, who kept most of their plays many years in manuscript asmere play-house properties, to be chaneed and mangled by every newactor's humour and fancy. As this was the case of most of our old plays,the learned Mr. Upton seems strangely mistaken in asserting that no moreJibertj'^ ought to be taken in the correction of the old [mangled] text ofShakespeare, than with the two first [accurate] editions of Paradise Lost.
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