X PREFACE, 17 U.
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ade the two last acts of the Chances almost new. Mr. Hart played the I art of Don John to the highest satisfaction of the audience; the playad a great run, and ever since has been followed as one of the best enter*tainments of the stage. His Grace, after that, bestowed some time inaltering another play of our authors, called Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding : He made very considerable alterations in it, and took it withhim, intending to finish it the last journey he made to Yorkshire, in theyear 1686. I cannot learn what is become of the play with his Grace'salterations, but am very well informed it was since the Revolution in thebauds of Mr. Nevil Payne, who was imprisoned at Edinburgh in the year 1689. The alterations in Valentinian, by the Earl of Rochester, amount to about a third part of the whole; but his lordship died before he had doneall he intended to it. It was acted with very great applause, Mr. Good-man playing Valentinian, Mr. Betterton, ^cius, and Mrs. Barry, Lucina.My lord died in the year 1680, and the play was acted in the year 1684,and the same year published by Mr. Robert Wolsly, with a Preface, S'ving a large account of my lora, and his writings. This play, with theterations, is printed at the end of his lordship's poems in octavo. Mr. Dryden, in his Essay of Dramatic Poetry, page 17, (in the firstvolume of the folio edition of his works) in a comparison of the Frenchand English comedy, says, '^ As for comedy, repartee is one of its chiefestgraces. The greatest pleasure of an audience is a chase of wit kept upon both sides, and swiitly managed : And this our forefathers (if not we)have had in Fletcher's plays, to a much higher degree of perfection thanthe French poets can arrive at." And in the same Essay, page 19, he says, '' Beaumont and Fletcherhad^ with the advantage ot Shakespeare's wit, which was their precedent,great natural gifts, improved by study. Beaumont especially being soaccurate a judge of plays, that Ben Jonson, while he lived, submitted allhis writings to his censure, and 'tis thought used his judgment in correct-ing, if not contriving all his plots What value he had for him appearsby the verses he wrote to him, and therefore I need speak no farther ofit. The first play that brought Fletcher and him in esteem, was Phi-laster; for before that, they had written two or three very unsuccessfully;as the like is reported of Ben Jonson, before he writ Every Man in hisHumour. Their plots were senerally more regular than Shakespeare's,especially those that were made before Beaumont's death. And tney un-derstood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better; whosewild debaucheries, and quickness of wit in repartees, no poet can everpaint as they have done. Humour, which Ben Jonson derived from par-ticular persons, they made it not their business to describe; they repre-*sented all the passions very lively, but above all love. I am apt to believethe English language in them arrived to its highest perfection ; what wordshave since been taken in, are rather superfluous than necessary. Theirplays are now the Inost pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage,two of theirs being acted through the year, for one of Shakespeare's orJonson's ; the reason is, because there is a certain gaiety in their comedies,and pathos in their more serious plays, which suits generally with all menshumour. Shakespeare's language is likewise a little obsolete, and BenJonson's wit comes short of theirs/'
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