* Impertinence is a Failing that has its Root in Nature, but is not worth laughing at, till it has received the finishing strokes of Art. A man thro' natural Defects may do abundance of incoherent foolish Actions, yet deserves compassion and Advice rather than derision. But to see Men spending their Fortunes, as well as lives, in a Course of regular Folly, and with an industrious as well as expensive idleness running thro' tedious systems of impertinence, would have split the sides of Heraclitus, had it been his Fortune to have been a Spectator. It's very easie to decide which of these impertinents is the most signal: the Virtuoso is manifestly without a Competitor. For our follies are not to be measured by the Degree of Ignorance that appears in 'em, but by the study, labour and expence they cost us to finish and compleat 'em.
So that the more Regularity and Artifice there appears in any of our Extravagancies, the greater is the Folly of 'em. Upon this score it is that the last mentioned deservedly claim the Preference to all others. They have improved so well their Amusements into an Art, that the credulous and ignorant are induced to believe there is some secret Vertue, some hidden Mystery in those darling Toys of theirs: when all their Bustling amounts to no more than a learned impertinence and all they teach men is but a specious method of throwing away both Time and Money.
"The Illusions of Poetry are fatal to none but the Poets themselves: Sidonius having lately miscarried upon the Stage, gathers fresh Courage and is now big with the Hopes of a Play, writ by an ancient celebrated Author, new-vampt and furbisht up after the laudable Custom of our modern Witlings. He reckons how much he shall get by his third day, nay, by his sixth; how much by the Printing, how much by the Dedication, and by a modest Computation concludes the whole sum, will amount to two hundred Pounds, which are to be distributed among his trusty Duns. But mark the fallacy of Vanity and Self-conceit: The Play is acted, and casts the Audience into such a Lethargy, that They are fain to damn it with Yawning, being in a manner deprived of the Use of their hissing Faculty. Well says, Sidonius, (after having recover'd from a profound Consternation) Now must the important Person stand upon his own Leggs. Right, Sidonius, but when do you come on again, that Covent-Garden Doctors may prescribe your Play instead of Opium?
"The Town is not one jot more diverted by the Division of the Play-houses: the Players perform better 'tis true? but then the Poets write worse; Will the uniting of Drury-Lane and Lincoln's-Inn-Fields mend Matters? No,—for then What the Town should get in writing, they would lose it in Acting."
* A Dramatick Poet has as hard a Task on't to manage, as a passive obedience Divine that preaches before the Commons on the 30th. of January.
To please the Pit and Galleries he must take care to lard the Dialogue with store of luscious stuff, which the righteous call Baudy; to please the new Reformers he must have none, otherwise gruff Jeremy will Lash him in a third View.
* I very much Question, after all, whether Collier would have been at the Pains to lash the immoralities of the stage, if the Dramatick Poets had not been guilty of the abominable Sin of making familiar now and then with the Backslidings of the Cassock.
* The Griping Usurer, whose daily labour and nightly Care and Study is to oppress the Poor, or over-reach his Neighbour, to betray the Trusts his Hypocrisy procured; in short to break all the Positive Laws of Morality, crys out, Oh! Diabolical, at a poor harmless Double Entendre in a Play.
"'Tis preposterous to pretend to reform the Stage before the Nation, and particularly the Town, is reform'd. The Business of a Dramatick Poet is to copy Nature, and represent things as they are; Let our Peers give over whoring and drinking; the Citizens, Cheating; the Clergy, their Quarrels, Covetousness and Ambition; the Lawyers, their ambi-dextrous dealings; and the Women intriguing, and the stage will reform of Course.
"Formerly Poets made Players, but now adays 'tis generally the Player that makes the Poet. How many Plays would have expired the very first Night of their appearing upon the Stage, but for Betterton, Barry, Bracegirdle, or Wilks's inimitable Performance.