A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS: PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY-LANE: WRITTEN BY THE LATE SAMUEL FOOTE, Efq. Be rich in ancient Brafs, tho not in Gold, POPES'S DUNCIAD. LONDON: Printed for W. LOWNDES, J. BAKKER and H. LOWNDES, 1799. Price One Shilling. ΤΟ Francis Delaval, SIR, W Efq. HEN I confider the long Intimacy that has fubfifted betwixt us, the obligations I owe to your generous, difinterested Friendship, and the Protection and Encouagement I received both from you and your Brother, when Neceffity lifted me in the Service of the Public; there is no Man to whom with equal Propriety and Pleasure I can addrefs the following Work. It would be paying a bad Compliment to the Town, where I to trouble you with an Apology for the Inconfiderableness of the prefent. I thought it worthy their Attention, and confequently not beneath the Accptance of my Friend. With the Aid of a Love-plot I could have spun out the Piece to the extent of Five Acts; but be fides that I wanted to confine the Eye to the fingle object of my Satire, I declare myself a Rebel Rebel to this univerfal Tyrant, who, not contented with exciting all that is pitiful or terrible in human Nature, has claimed the privilege of occafioning every thing that is ridiculous or contemptible in it; and thus, from the abject Submiffion of our dramatic Poets, is both Tragedy and Comedy subjected to the Power of Love. It may be thought prefumptuous in me to have dignified fo fhort a Performance with the Name of a Comedy; but when my Reasons why it cannot be called a Farce are confidered, the Critics must indulge me with the Ufe of that Title; at leaft till they can furnish me with a better. As the Follies and Abfurdities of Men are the folé Objects of Comedy, fo the Powers of the Imagination (Plot and Incident excepted) are in this Kind of Writing greatly reftrained. No unnatural Affemblages, no Creatures of the Fancy, can procure the Protection of the Comic Mufe ; Men and Things must appear as they are. It is employed either in debafing lofty Subjects, or in raising humble Ones. Of the two Kinds we have Examples in the Tom Thumb of Mr. F, and a Traveftie of the Uffes, where Penelope keeps an Ale-house, Telemachus is a Tapfter, and the Herse a Recruiting Serjeant. In both these Inftances you fee Nature is reverfed; but as I flatter myself in the following Sheets her Steps have been trod with an undeviating Simplicity, give me leave to hope, that though I have not attained the Togata, yet I have reached the Tabernaria of the Romans. I once intended to have thrown into this Addrefs, the Contents of many of our Conversations on the Subject of Comedy; for in whatever Diffipations the World may fuppofe our Days to have been confumed, many, many Hours have been confecrated to other Subjects than generally employ the Gay and the Giddy. I hope the prefent Occafion will demonstrate, that pleasure has not been always my Pursuit; and unless I am greatly mistaken, it will foon be difcovered, that, joined to the acknowledged beft Heart in the World, Mr. Delaval has a Head capable of directing it. As I am now above the reach of common Obligations, an Acknowledgement of these Qualities, in the Perfon of a Man who has honoured me with his Friendship, is the fole Cause of the Trouble you now receive. Long has been our Union, may it never be divided till the fatal Stroke, that demolishes all fublunary Connections, fhall reach One of us, which One will, I hope, be Your obliged, and affectionate Servant, SAMUEL FOOTE. |