[ [90] Fielding ("Champion," 6th May, 1740): "Another Observation which I have made on our Author's Similies is, that they generally have an Eye towards the Kitchen. Thus, page 56, Two Play-Houses are like two Puddings or two Legs of Mutton. 224. To plant young Actors is not so easy as to plant Cabbages. To which let me add a Metaphor in page 57, where unprofitable Praise can hardly give Truth a Soup Maigre."
[ [91] "Dramatic Operas" seem to have been first produced about 1672. In 1673 "The Tempest," made into an opera by Shadwell, was played at Dorset Garden; "Pysche" followed in the next year, and "Circe" in 1677. "Macbeth," as altered by Davenant, was produced in 1672, "in the nature of an Opera," as Downes phrases it.
[ [92] Dryden, in his "Prologue on the Opening of the New House" in 1674, writes:—
"'Twere folly now a stately pile to raise,
To build a playhouse while you throw down plays;
While scenes, machines, and empty operas reign——"
and the Prologue concludes with the lines:—
"'Tis to be feared——
That, as a fire the former house o'erthrew,
Machines and Tempests will destroy the new."