partly upon a religious account, partly at the solicitation of Muley-Mahumet, who had been driven out of his dominions by Abdelmelech, or as others call him, Muley-Moluch, his nigh kinsman, who descended from the same family of the Xeriff's, whose fathers, Hamet and Mahomet, had conquered that empire with joint forces, and shared it betwixt them after their victory; that the body of Don Sebastian was never found in the field of battle, which gave occasion for many to believe that he was not slain; that some years after, when the Spaniards, with a pretended title, by force of arms had usurped the crown of Portugal from the house of Braganza, a certain person who called himself Don Sebastian, and had all the marks of his body and features of his face, appeared at Venice, where he was owned by some of his countrymen; but being seized by the Spaniards, was first imprisoned, then sent to the gallies, and at last put to death in private. It is most certain, that the Portuguese expected his return for almost an age together after that battle, which is at least a proof of their extreme love to his memory; and the usage they had from their new conquerors might possibly make them so extravagant in their hopes and wishes for their old master.

This groundwork the history afforded me, and I desire no better to build a play upon it; for where the event of a great action is left doubtful, there the poet is left master. He may raise what he pleases on that foundation, provided he makes

it of a piece, and according to the rule of probability. From hence I was only obliged,, that Sebastian should return to Portugal no more; but at the same time I had him at my own disposal, whether to bestow him in Africk or in any other corner of the world, or to have closed the tragedy with his death; and the last of these was the most easy, but for the same reason, the least artful; because, as I have somewhere said," the poison and the dagger are still at hand to butcher, a hero, when a poet wants the brains to save him. It being therefore only necessary, according to the laws of the drama, that Sebastian should no more be seen upon the throne, I leave it for the world to judge whether or no I have disposed of him according to art, or have bungled up the conclusion of his adventure. In the drawing of his character I forgot not piety, which any one may observe to be one principal ingredient of it, even so far as to be a habit in him; though I shew him once to be transported from it by the violence of a sudden passion, to endeavour a self-murder. This being presupposed-that he was religious, the horrour of his incest, though innocently committed, was the best reason which the stage could give for hindering his return. It is true I have no right to blast his memory with such a crime; but declaring it to be fiction, I desire my audience

60.

See the Dedication of THE SPANISH FRYAR, p.

to think it no longer true, than while they are seeing it represented; for that once ended, he may be a saint for aught I know; and we have reason to presume he is. On this supposition, it was unreasonable to have killed him; for the learned Mr. Rymer has well observed, that in all punishments we are to regulate ourselves by poetical justice; and according to those measures, an involuntary sin deserves not death; from whence it follows, that to divorce himself from the beloved object, to retire into a desert, and deprive himself of a throne, was the utmost punishment which a poet could inflict, as it was also the utmost reparation which Sebastian could make.

For what relates to Almeyda, her part is wholly fictitious. I know it is the surname of a noble family in Portugal, which was very instrumental in the restoration of Don John de Braganza, father to the most illustrious and most pious Princess, our Queen Dowager. The French author of a novel called DON SEBASTIAN, has given that name to an African lady of his own invention, and makes her sister to Muley-Mahumet; but I have wholly changed the accidents, and borrowed nothing but the supposition-that she was beloved by the King of Portugal. Though, if I had taken the whole story, and wrought it up into a play, I might have done it exactly according to the practice of almost all the Ancients; who were never accused of being plagiaries for building their

tragedies on known fables. Thus Augustus Cæsar wrote an AJAX, which was not the less his own, because Euripides had written a play before him on that subject. Thus of late years Corneille writ an OEDIPUS after Sophocles, and I have designed one after him, which I wrote with Mr. Lee; yet neither the French poet stole from the Greek, nor we from the Frenchman. It is the contrivance, the new turn, and new characters, which alter the property, and make it ours. The Materia Poetica is as common to all writers, as the Materia Medica to all physicians. Thus, in our Chronicles, Daniel's History is still his own, though Matthew Paris, Stowe, and Hollinshead writ before him; otherwise we must have been content with their dull relations, if a better pen had not been allowed to come after them, and write his own account after a new and better manner.

I must farther declare freely, that I have not exactly kept to the three mechanick rules of unity. I knew them, and had them in my eye, but followed them only at a distance; for the genius of the English cannot bear too regular a play: we are given to variety, even to a debauchery of pleasure. My scenes are therefore sometimes broken, because my under-plot required them so to be, though the general scene remains of the same castle; and I have taken the time of two days, because the variety of accidents which are here represented could not naturally be supposed

to arrive in one: but to gain a greater beauty, it is lawful for a poet to supersede a less.

I must likewise own, that I have somewhat deviated from the known history in the death of Muley-Moluch, who, by all relations, died of a fever in the battle, before his army had wholly won the field; but if I have allowed him another day of life, it was because I stood in need of so shining a character of brutality as I have given him; which is indeed the same with that of the present Emperor Muley-Ishmael, as some of our English officers, who have been in his court, have credibly informed me.

I have been listening'what objections had been made against the conduct of the play; but found them all so trivial, that if I should name them, a true critick would imagine that I played booty, and only raised up phantoms for myself to conquer. Some are pleased to say-the writing is

Our author, in various Prefaces, takes notice of objections that had been made by Criticks to his plays; which one naturally expects to find in some of the pamphlets published in his time. But the passage before us inclines me to believe, that most of the criticisms which he has noticed, were made at his favourite haunt, Will's Coffee-House. He had been listening to learn what objections were made by those who were unacquainted with his person; who might there occasionally deliver their sentiments on theatrical subjects, and after they had smoked the second pipe, probably thought themselves at least as wise as any of the poets of the day, not excepting the Laureate himself.