THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

то

THE CUTTER OF COLEMAN-STREET [41.

A

COMEDY, called The Guardian, and made by me when I was very young, was acted formerly at Cambridge; and several times after, privately, during the troubles, as I am told, with good approbation, as it has been lately too at

[u] This comedy has confiderable merit. The dialogue is eafy enough, and many of the scenes pleafant. And, though the subject be farcical, and the plot too much in the Spanish tafte of intrigue, I fhould, perhaps, have inferted the Cutter of Coleman-fireet in the prefent collection, if, agreeably to the plan and purpose of this publication, I could have found room for fo long a work. However, the Preface could by no means be omitted, as it ferves to let us into the writer's character, and is written, throughout, in his own fpirit. Dublin.

Dublin. There being many things in it which I difliked, and finding myself for fome days idle, and alone in the country, I fell upon the changing of it almost wholly, as now it is, and as it was played fince at his Royal Highness's theatre under this new name. It met at the first repre-. fentation with no favourable reception; and I think there was fomething of faction against it, by the early appearance of fome mens difapprobation before they had feen enough of it to build their diflike upon their judgement. Afterwards it got fome ground, and found friends, as well as adverfaries. In which condition I fhould willingly let it die, if the main imputation under which it fuffered had been that only against my wit or art in these matters, and not directed against the tenderet parts of human reputation, good-nature, goodmanners, and piety itself.

THE first clamour, which fome malicious perfons raised, and made a great noise

with,

with, was, that it was a piece intended for abuse and fatire against the King's party. Good God! against the King's party? After having ferved it twenty years, during all the time of their misfortunes and afflictions; I must be a very rafh and imprudent perfon, if I chose out that of their reftitution to begin a quarrel with them. I must be too much a madman to be trusted with such an edged tool as comedy. But first, why should either the whole party (as it was once diftinguished by that name, which I hope is abolished now by univerfal loyalty), or any man of virtue or honour in it, believe themselves injured, or at all concerned, by the reprefentation of the faults and follies of a few, who in the general division of the nation had crouded in among them?. In all mixed numbers (which is the cafe of parties), nay, in the I most entire and continued bodies, there are often fome degenerated and corrupted parts, which may be caft away from that, and even cut off from this unity, with

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out any infection of fcandal to the remaining body. The church of Rome, with all her arrogance, and her wide pretences of certainty in all truths, and exemption from all errors, does not clap on this enchanted armour of infallibility upon all her particular fubjects, nor is offended at the reproof of her greatest doctors. We are not, I hope, become fuch Puritans ourfelves, as to affume the name of the congregation of the fpotlefs. It is hard for any party to be fo ill as that no good, impoffible to be fo good as that no ill, fhould be found among them. And it has been the perpetual privilege of fatire and comedy, to pluck their vices and follies, though not their perfons, out of the fanctuary of any title. A cowardly ranting foldier, an ignorant charlatanical doctor, a foolish cheating lawyer, a filly pedantical scholar, have always been, and ftill are, the principal fubjects of all comedies, without any scandal given to those honourable profeffions, or even taken by their fevereft profeffors.

And,

And, if any good physician or divine should be offended with me here, for inveighing against a quack, or for finding Deacon Soaker too often in the butteries, my respect and reverence to their callings would make me troubled at their difpleafure, but I could not abstain from taking them for very choleric and quarrelfome persons. What does this therefore amount to, if it were true which is objected? But it is far from being fo; for the reprefentation of two fharks about the town (fellows merry and ingenious enough, and therefore admitted into better companies than they deserve, yet withal two very scoundrels, which is no unfrequent character at London), the representation, I fay, of these as pretended officers of the Royal army, was made for no other purpose but to fhow the world, that the vices and extravagances imputed vulgarly to the cavaliers, were really committed by aliens, who only ufurped that name, and endeavoured to cover the reproach of their indigency, or infamy of their

actions,