The ludicrous light in which the sheriffs are
placed, during the scene with Grillon in the third act, gave great
offence to this active partizan; and he gives vent to his displeasure
in the following attack upon the author, and the performance.
"They have already condemned the charter and city, and have executed
the magistrates in effigy upon the stage, in a play called "The Duke
of Guise," frequently acted and applauded; intended most certainly,
to provoke the rabble into tumults and disorder. The Roman priest
had no success, (God be thanked,) when he animated the people not to
suffer the same sheriffs to be carried through the city to the
Tower, prisoners. Now the poet hath undertaken, for their being
kicked three or four times a-week about the stage to the gallows,
infamously rogued and rascalled, to try what he can do towards
making the charter forfeitable, by some extravagancy and disorder of
the people, which the authority of the best governed cities have not
been able to prevent, sometimes under far less provocations.
"But this ought not to move the citizens, when he hath so
maliciously and mischievously represented the king, and the king's
son, nay, and his favourite the duke too, to whom he gives the worst
strokes of his unlucky fancy.
"He puts the king under the person of Henry III. of France, who
appeared in the head of the _Parisian_ massacre; the king's son
under the person of the Duke of Guise, who concerted it with the
Queen-mother of France, and was slain in that very place, by the
righteous judgment of God, where he and his mother had first
contrived it.
Pages:
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152