A
DIALOGUE
OF
PLAYS and PLAYERS.
Lovewit, Truman.
Lovew. Honest Old Cavalier! well met, 'faith I'm glad to see thee.
Trum. Have a care what you call me. Old, is a Word of Disgrace among the Ladies; to be Honest is to be Poor, and Foolish, (as some think) and Cavalier is a Word as much out of Fashion as any of 'em.
Lovew. The more's the pity: But what said the Fortune-Teller in Ben. Johnson's Mask of Gypsies, to the then Lord Privy Seal,
Honest and Old!
Trum. Ben. Johnson? How dare you name Ben. Johnson in these times? When we have such a crowd of Poets of a quite different Genius; the least of which thinks himself as well able to correct Ben. Johnson, as he could a Country School Mistress that taught to Spell.
Lovew. We have indeed, Poets of a different Genius; so are the Plays: but in my Opinion, they are all of 'em (some few excepted) as much inferior to those of former Times, as the Actors now in being (generally speaking) are, compared to Hart, Mohun, Burt, Lacy, Clun, and Shatterel; for I can reach no farther backward.
Trum. I can; and dare assure you, if my Fancy and Memory are not partial (for Men of my Age are apt to be over indulgent to the Thoughts of their youthful Days) I say the Actors that I have seen before the Wars, Lowin, Tayler, Pollard, and some others, were almost as far beyond Hart and his Company, as those were beyond these now in being.