THE

ENGLISH DRAMA

PURIFIED:

BEING A SPECIMEN OF

SELECT PLAYS,

IN WHICH

ALL THE PASSAGES THAT HAVE APPEARED TO THE EDITOR
TO BE OBJECTIONABLE IN POINT OF

MORALITY,

ARE OMITTED OR ALTERED.

WITH

PREFACES AND NOTES.

cc

BY JAMES PLUMPTRE, B. D.

FELLOW OF CLARE-HALL, CAMBRIDGE.

It is very possible, that Plays might be so framed, and governed by such rules,
as not only to be innocently diverting, but instructing and useful, to put
some vices and follies out of countenance, which cannot, perhaps, be so
decently reproved, nor so effectually exposed and corrected any other way.

See Archbp. Tillotson's Sermon on The Evil of Corrupt Communication.

1

GEORGE BARNWELL.
DOUGLAS.

CAMBRIDGE, PRINTED BY F. HUDSON:

And Sold by F. C. and J. RIVINGTON, No. 62, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, and
J. HATCHARD, No. 190, PICCADILLY, LONDON; and J. DEIGHTON, and
J NICHOLSON AND SON, CAMBLINGE.

Dedication.

ΤΟ

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS WILLIAM FREDERICK,

Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, &c. &c.

AND

CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

SIR,

IF I had not considered the following Work as being of great literary and moral importance, I should not have presumed to request for it the patronage of the highest Officer in one of the first Universities in the world. But so extensive and important is the influence of The Stage, that I conceive the due regulation of it to be an object worthy the attention of the most enlightened and the most religious. That your Royal Highness does in some degree consider it in this light,-though you may not as yet, perhaps, have contemplated it in its full extent, and in all its bearings,-is, I trust, the case from