quality in town these twenty years; and 'tis very hard I should not know when a shoe hurts, and when it don't.

ness.

Lord Foppington - Well, prithee, begone about thy busi[Exit Shoemaker. [To the Hosier] Mr. Mend Legs, a word with you; the calves of the stockings are thicken'd a little too much. They make my legs look like a chairman's

Mend Legs - My lord, my thinks they look mighty well.

Lord Foppington — Ay, but you are not so good a judge of those things as I am, I have study'd them all my life; therefore pray let the next be the thickness of a crawnpiece less. [Aside] If the town takes notice my legs are fallen away, 'twill be attributed to the violence of some new intrigue. [To the Periwig Maker] Come, Mr. Foretop, let me see what you have done, and then the fatigue of the morning will be over.

Foretop- My lord, I have done what I defy any prince in Europe to outdo; I have made you a periwig so long, and so full of hair, it will serve you for a hat and cloak in all weathers.

Lord Foppington - Then thou hast made me thy friend to eternity. Come, comb it out.

Young Fashion-Well, Lory, what do'st think on't? A very friendly reception from a brother after three years' absence!

Lory - Why, sir, 'tis your own fault; we seldom care for those that don't love what we love: if you wou'd creep into his heart, you must enter into his pleasures. Here you have stood ever since you came in, and have not commended any one thing that belongs to him.

Young Fashion-Nor never shall, while they belong to a coxcomb.

Lory-Then, sir, you must be content to pick a hungry

bone.

Young Fashion-No, sir, I'll crack it, and get to the marrow before I have done.

Lord Foppington - Gad's curse! Mr. Foretop, you don't intend to put this upon me for a full periwig?

Foretop Not a full one, my lord! I don't know what your lordship may please to call a full one, but I have cramm'd twenty ounces of hair into it.

Lord Foppington-What it may be by weight, sir, I shall not dispute; but by tale, there are not nine hairs on a side.

Foretop-O Lord! O Lord! O Lord! Why, as God shall judge me, your honor's side face is reduc'd to the tip of your

nose.

Lord Foppington - My side face may be in an eclipse for aught I know; but I'm sure my full face is like the full moon.

Foretop- Heaven bless my eyesight. [Rubbing his eyes.] Sure I look thro' the wrong end of the perspective; for by my faith, an't please your honor, the broadest place I see in your face does not seem to me to be two inches' diameter.

Lord Foppington - If it did, it would just be two inches too broad; for a periwig to a man should be like a mask to a woman, nothing should be seen but his eyes

Foretop My lord, I have done; if you please to have more hair in your wig, I'll put it in.

Lord Foppington - Passitively, yes.

Foretop-Shall I take it back now, my lord?

Lord Foppington-No: I'll wear it to-day, tho' it show such a manstrous pair of cheeks, stap my vitals, I shall be taken for a trumpeter. [Exit FORETOP. Young Fashion-Now your people of business are gone, brother, I hope I may obtain a quarter of an hour's audience of you.

Lord Foppington-Faith, Tam, I must beg you'll excuse me at this time, for I must away to the House of Lards immediately; my Lady Teaser's case is to come on to-day, and I would not be absent for the salvation of mankind. Hey, page! is the coach at the door?

Page-Yes, my lord.

Lord Foppington - You'll excuse me, brother.
Young Fashion-Shall you be back at dinner?

[Going.

Lord Foppington - As Gad shall jedge me, I can't tell; far 'tis passible I may dine with some of aur hause at Lacket's. Young Fashion-Shall I meet you there? for I must needs talk with you.

Lord Foppington - That, I'm afraid, mayn't be so praper; far the lards I commonly eat with are a people of a nice conversation; and you know, Tam, your education has been a little at large: but if you'll stay here, you'll find a family dinner. Hey, fellow! What is there for dinner? There's beef I suppose my brother will eat beef. Dear Tam, I'm glad to see thee in England, stap my vitals.

[Exit, with his equipage.

Young Fashion - Hell and Furies, is this to be borne ? Lory — Faith, sir, I cou'd almost have given him a knock o' th' pate myself.

A SHORT VIEW OF THE

IMMORALITY AND PROFANENESS OF THE ENGLISH STAGE.

BY JEREMY COLLIER.

[JEREMY COLLIER, reformer, was born in Cambridgeshire, England, in 1650. He was educated at Cambridge, became a clergyman, and was a "nonjuror" after the Revolution; not only refusing the oath, but twice imprisoned, once for a pamphlet denying that James had abdicated, and once for treasonable correspondence. In 1696 he was outlawed for absolving on the scaffold two conspirators hanged for attempting William's life; and though he returned later and lived unmolested in London, the sentence was never rescinded. Besides polemics and moral essays, he wrote a cyclopedia and an "Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain," and translated Moreri's Dictionary. His one still famous and readable set of works are the two here excerpted, with the further replies and rejoinders, lasting for ten years, from 1698 on. They were aimed at the drama in general about as much as at the Restoration drama in particular, Shakespeare receiving harder measure than some of the worst contemporaries; but the living jades were the ones which winced, and the current drama grew cleaner.]

PREFACE.

BEING convinc'd that nothing has gone farther in debauching the age than the stage-poets, and playhouse, I thought I could not employ my time better than in writing against them. These men sure take virtue and regularity for great enemies, why else is the disaffection so very remarkable? It must be said, they have made their attack with great courage, and gained no inconsiderable advantage. But, it seems, lewdness without atheism is but half their business. Conscience might possibly recover, and revenge be thought on; and therefore, like foot-pads, they must not only rob, but murder. To do them right, their measures are politicly taken to make sure work on't, there's nothing like destroying of principles; practice must follow, of course. For to have no good principles, is to have no reason to be good. Now 'tis not to be expected

that people should check their appetites and balk their satisfactions, they don't know why. If virtue has no prospect, 'tis not worth the owning. Who would be troubled with conscience, if 'tis only a bugbear, and has nothing in't but vision and the spleen?

My collection from the English stage is much short of what they are able to furnish. An inventory of their warehouse would have been a large work; but being afraid of overcharging the reader, I thought a pattern might do.

There's one thing more to acquaint the reader with; 'tis that I have ventured to change the terms of mistress and lover for others somewhat more plain, but much more proper. I don't look upon this as any failure in civility. As good and evil are different in themselves, so they ought to be differently marked. To confound them in speech is the way to confound them in practice. Ill qualities ought to have ill names, to prevent their being catching. Indeed, things are in a great measure governed by words: to gild over a foul character serves only to perplex the idea, to encourage the bad, and mislead the unwary. To treat honor and infamy alike is an injury to virtue and a sort of leveling in morality. I confess I have no ceremony for debauchery, for to compliment vice is but one remove from worshiping the devil.

THE IMMODESTY OF THE STAGE.

In treating this head, I hope the reader does not expect that I should set down chapter and page, and give him the citations at length. To do this would be a very unacceptable and foreign employment. Indeed the passages, many of them, are in no condition to be handled; he that is desirous to see these flowers, let him do it in their own soil: 'tis my business rather to kill the root than transplant it. But that the poets may not complain of injustice, I shall point to the infection at a distance, and refer in general to play and person.

Now among the curiosities of this kind we may reckon Mrs. Pinchwife, Horner, and Lady Fidget in the Country Wife; Widow Blackacre and Olivia in the Plain Dealer. These, though not all the exceptionable characters, are the most remarkable. I'm sorry the author should stoop his wit thus low, and use his understanding so unkindly. Some people appear coarse and slovenly out of poverty: they can't well go to the

charge of sense. They are offensive, like beggars, for want of necessaries. But this is none of the Plain-Dealer's case; he can afford his muse a better dress when he pleases. But then, the rule is, where the motive is the less, the fault is the greater. To proceed, Jacinta, Elvira, Dalinda, and Lady Plyant, in the Mock Astrologer, Spanish Fryar, Love Triumphant, and Double Dealer, forget themselves extremely: and almost all the characters in the Old Bachelor are foul and nauseous. Love for Love, and the Relapse, strike sometimes upon this sand, and so likewise does Don Sebastian.

I don't pretend to have read the stage through, neither am I particular to my utmost. Here is quoting enough unless 'twere better. Besides, I may have occasion to mention somewhat of this kind afterwards. But from what has been hinted already, the reader may be over-furnished. Here is a large collection of debauchery; such pieces are rarely to be met with. "Tis sometimes painted at length, too, and appears in great variety of progress and practice. It wears almost all sorts of dresses to engage the fancy, and fasten upon the memory, and keep up the charm from languishing. Sometimes you have it in image and description; sometimes by way of allusion; sometimes in disguise; and sometimes without it. And what can be the meaning of such a representation, unless it be to tincture the audience, to extinguish shame, and make lewdness a diversion? This is the natural consequence, and therefore one would think 'twas the intention too. Such licentious discourse tends to no point but to stain the imagination, to awaken folly, and to weaken the defenses of virtue. It was upon the account of these disorders that Plato banished poets his commonwealth, and one of the Fathers calls poetry vinum dæmonum an intoxicating draught made up of the devil's dispensatory.

I grant the abuse of a thing is no argument against the use of it. However, young people particularly should not entertain themselves with a lewd picture, especially when it is drawn by a masterly hand; for such a liberty may probably raise those passions which can neither be discharged without trouble nor satisfied without a crime. 'Tis not safe for a man to trust his virtue too far, for fear it should give him the slip. But the danger of such an entertainment is but part of the objection; 'tis all scandal and meanness into the bargain. It does in effect degrade human nature, sinks reason into appetite, and breaks down the distinction between man and beast. Goats