Notes On Beaumont And Fletcher.
Seward's Preface. 1750.—
“The King and No King, too, is extremely spirited in all its characters; Arbaces holds up a mirror to all men of virtuous principles but violent passions. Hence he is, as it were, at once magnanimity and pride, patience and fury, gentleness and rigour, chastity and incest, and is one of the finest mixtures of virtues and vices that any poet has drawn,” &c.
These are among the endless instances of the abject state to which psychology had sunk from the reign of Charles I. to the middle of the present reign of George III.; and even now it is but just awaking.
Ib. Seward's comparison of Julia's speech in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iv. last scene—
“Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning,” &c.
with Aspatia's speech in the Maid's Tragedy—
“I stand upon the sea-beach now,” &c.—Act ii.—