none, but some few old fellows who value themselves on their acquaintance with the Black Friars; who, because they saw their plays, would pretend a right to judge ours.

The memory of these grave gentlemen is their only plea for being wits. They can tell a story of Ben Jonson, and, perhaps, have had fancy enough to give a supper in the Apollo, that they might be called his sons: and because they were drawn in to be laughed at in those times, they think themselves now sufficiently entitled to laugh at ours. Learning I never saw in any of them; and wit no more than they could remember. In short, they were unlucky to have been bred in an unpolished age, and more unlucky to live in a refined one. They have lasted beyond their own, and are cast behind ours; and, not contented to have known little at the age of twenty, they boast of their ignorance at threescore.

Now, if they ask me, whence it is that our conversation is so much refined? I must freely, and without flattery, ascribe it to the court and in it, particularly to the King, whose example gives a law to it. His own misfortunes, and the nation's, afforded him an opportunity, which is rarely allowed to sovereign princes, I mean of travelling, and being conversant in the most polished courts of Europe; and, thereby, of cultivating a spirit which was formed by nature to receive the impressions of a gallant and generous education. At his return, he found a nation lost as much in barbarism as in rebellion: and, as the excellency of his nature forgave the one, so the excellency of his manners reformed the other. The desire of imitating so great a pattern first awakened the dull and heavy spirits of the English from their native reservedness; loosened them from their stiff forms of conversation, and made them easy and pliant to each other in discourse. Thus, insensibly, our way of living became more free; and the fire of the English wit, which was before stifled under a constrained, melancholy way of breeding, began first to display its force by mixing the solidity of our nation with the air and gaiety of our neighbours. This being granted to be true, it would be a wonder if the poets, whose work is imitation, should be the only persons in three kingdoms who should not receive advantage by it; or, if they should not more easily imitate the wit and conversation of the present age than of the past.

Let us therefore admire the beauties and the heights of Shakespeare, without falling after him into a carelessness, and, as I may call it, a lethargy of thought, for whole scenes together. Let us imitate, as we are able, the quickness and easiness of Fletcher

without proposing him as a pattern to us, either in the redundancy of his matter, or the incorrectness of his language. Let us admire his wit and sharpness of conceit; but let us at the same time acknowledge, that it was seldom so fixed, and made proper to his character, as that the same things might not be spoken by any person in the play. Let us applaud his scenes of love; but let us confess, that he understood not either greatness or perfect honour in the parts of any of his women. In fine, let us allow, that he had so much fancy, as when he pleased he could write wit; but that he wanted so much judgment, as seldom to have written humour, or described a pleasant folly. Let us ascribe to Jonson, the height and accuracy of judgment in the ordering of his plots, his choice of characters, and maintaining what he had chosen to the end. But let us not think him a perfect pattern of imitation, except it be in humour; for love, which is the foundation of all comedies in other languages, is scarcely mentioned in any of his plays: and for humour itself, the poets of this age will be more wary than to imitate the meanness of his persons. Gentlemen will now be entertained by the follies of each other; and, though they allow Cobb and Tibb to speak properly, yet they are not much pleased with their tankard, or with their rags and surely their conversation can be no jest to them on the theatre, when they would avoid it in the street.

To conclude all, let us render to our predecessors what is their due, without confining ourselves to a servile imitation of all they writ; and, without assuming to ourselves the title of better poets, let us ascribe to the gallantry and civility of our age the advantage which we have above them, and, to our knowledge of the customs and manners of it, the happiness we have to please beyond them. (From Defence of the Epilogue.)

THE WITS OF KING CHARLES II'S DAYS

CERTAINLY the poets of that age enjoyed much happiness in the conversation and friendship of one another. They imitated the best way of living, which was, to pursue an innocent and inoffensive pleasure, that which one of the ancients called eruditam voluptatem. We have, like them, our genial nights, where our discourse is neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant,

and for the most part, instructive; the raillery, neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious on the absent; and the cups only such as will raise the conversation of the night, without disturbing the business of the morrow. And thus far not only the philosophers, but the fathers of the Church have gone, without lessening their reputation of good manners or of piety. For this reason, I have often laughed at the ignorant and ridiculous descriptions which some pedants have given of the wits, as they are pleased to call them; which are a generation of men as unknown to them as the people of Tartary or the Terra Australis are to us. And therefore, as we draw giants and anthropophagi in those vacancies of our maps, where we have not travelled to discover better; so those wretches paint lewdness, atheism, folly, ill-reasoning, and all manner of extravagancies amongst us, for want of understanding what we are. Oftentimes it so falls out, that they have a particular pique to some one amongst us, and then they immediately interest heaven in their quarrel; as it is an usual trick in courts, when one designs the ruin of his enemy, to disguise his malice with some concernment of the king's, and to revenge his own cause, with pretence of vindicating the honour of his master. Such wits as they describe, I have never been so unfortunate as to meet in your company; but have often heard much better reasoning at your table, than I have encountered in their books. The wits they describe are the fops we banish. For blasphemy and atheism, if they were neither sin nor illmanners, are subjects so very common, and worn so threadbare, that people who have sense avoid them, for fear of being suspected to have none. It calls the good name of their wit in question, as it does the credit of a citizen when his shop is filled with trumperies and painted titles, instead of wares; we conclude them bankrupt to all manner of understanding; and that to use blasphemy, is a kind of applying pigeons to the soles of the feet; it proclaims their fancy, as well as judgment, to be in a desperate condition. I am sure, for your own particular, if any of these judges had once the happiness to converse with you, to hear the candour of your opinions; how freely you commend that wit in others of which you have so large a portion yourself; how unapt you are to be censorious; with how much easiness you speak so many things, and those so pointed, that no other man is able to excel, or perhaps to reach by study, they would, instead of your accusers, become your proselytes. They would reverence so much sense

and so much good nature in the same person; and come, like the satyr, to warm themselves at that fire, of which they were ignorantly afraid when they stood at a distance. But you have too great a reputation to be wholly free from censure; it is a fine which fortune sets upon all extraordinary persons, and from which you should not wish to be delivered until you are dead.

(From Epistle Dedicatory to The Assignation.)

AN APOLOGY FOR THE DUKE OF GUISE

To the Right Honourable, LAWRENCE, EARL OF ROCHESTER, etc. My Lord-The authors of this poem present it humbly to your lordship's patronage, if you shall think it worthy of that honour. It has already been a confessor, and was almost made a martyr for the royal cause; but having stood two trials from its enemies, one before it was acted, another in the representation, and having been in both acquitted, it is now to stand the public censure in the reading; where since of necessity it must have the same enemies, we hope it may also find the same friends; and therein we are secure, not only of the greater number, but of the more honest and loyal party. We only expected bare justice in the permission to have it acted; and that we had, after a severe and long examination from an upright and knowing judge, who, having heard both sides and examined the merits of the cause, in a strict perusal of the play, gave sentence for us, that it was neither a libel, nor a parallel of particular persons. In the representation itself, it was persecuted with so notorious malice by one side, that it procured us the partiality of the other; so that the favour more than recompensed the prejudice. And it is happier to have been saved (if so we were) by the indulgence of our good and faithful fellow-subjects, than by our own deserts; because thereby the weakness of the faction is discovered, which, in us, at that time attacked the government and stood combined, like the members of the rebellious league, against the lawful sovereign authority. To what topic will they have recourse, when they are manifestly beaten from their chief post, which has always been popularity and majority of voices? They will tell us, that the voices of a people are not to be gathered in a playhouse; and yet, even there, the enemies as well as friends, have

ous.

a free admission; but while our argument was serviceable to their interests, they could boast that the theatres were true Protestant; and came insulting to the plays, when their own triumphs were represented. But let them now assure themselves that they can make the major part of no assembly, except it be of a meeting-house. Their tide of popularity is spent; and the natural current of obedience is, in spite of them, at last prevalent. In which, my Lord, after the merciful providence of God, the unshaken resolution, and prudent carriage of the King, and the inviolable duty, and manifest innocence of his Royal Highness, the prudent management of the ministers is also most conspicuI am not particular in this commendation, because I am unwilling to raise envy to your lordship, who are too just, not to desire that praise should be communicated to others, which was the common endeavour and co-operation of all. It is enough, my lord, that your own part was neither obscure in it nor unhazardous. And if ever this excellent government, so well established by the wisdom of our forefathers, and so much shaken by the folly of this age, shall recover its ancient splendour, posterity cannot be so ungrateful as to forget those who, in the worst of times, have stood undaunted by their king and country, and, for the safeguard of both, have exposed themselves to the malice of false patriots, and the madness of an headstrong rabble. But since this glorious work is yet unfinished, and though we have reason to hope well of the success, yet the event depends on the unsearchable providence of Almighty God; it is no time to raise trophies, while the victory is in dispute; but every man, by your example, to contribute what is in his power to maintain so just a cause, on which depends the future settlement and prosperity of three nations. The pilot's prayer to Neptune was not amiss in the middle of the storm: "Thou mayest do with me, O Neptune, what thou pleasest, but I will be sure to hold fast the rudder." We are to trust firmly in the Deity, but so as not to forget, that he commonly works by second causes, and admits of our endeavours with his concurrence. For our own parts we are sensible, as we ought, how little we can contribute with our weak assistance. The most we can boast of is, that we are not so inconsiderable as to want enemies, whom we have raised to ourselves on no other account than that we are not of their number; and since that is their quarrel, they shall have daily occasion to hate us more. It is not, my lord, that any man delights to see himself