A different and totally inconsistent doctrine is
thus to be collected from the action of the piece and the
sentiments expressed by those, whose sentiments are alone marked as
worthy of being attended to. This obvious fault, with many others,
is pointed out in a criticism on the "Lancashire Witches,"
published in the Spectator. The paper is said to have been written
by Hughes, but considerably softened by Addison.
5. Half-a-crown was then the box price.
You visit our plays and merit the stocks,
For paying half-crowns of brass to our box;
Nay, often you swear when places are shewn ye,
That your hearing is thick,
And so by a love trick,
You pass through our scenes up to the balcony.
_Epilogue to_ "The Man's the Master."
The farce, alluded to, seems to have been "The Lancashire Witches."
See Shadwell's account of the reception of that piece, from which
it appears, that the charge of forming a party in the theatre was a
subject of mutual reproach betwixt the dramatists of the contending
parties.
6. This single remark is amply sufficient to exculpate Dryden from
having intended any general parallel between Monmouth and the Duke
of Guise. To have produced such a parallel, it would have been
necessary to unite, in one individual, the daring political courage
of Shaftesbury, his capacity of seizing the means to attain his
object, and his unprincipled carelessness of their nature, with the
fine person, chivalrous gallantry, military fame, and courteous
manners of the Duke of Monmouth.
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