It is an ill ambition of us poets, to please an audience with
more than they can bear; and supposing that we wrote as well as vainly
we imagine ourselves to write, yet we ought to consider, that no man
can bear to be long tickled. There is a nauseousness in a city-feast,
when we are to sit four hours after we are cloyed. I am therefore, in
the first place, to acknowledge, with all manner of gratitude, their
civility, who were pleased to endure it with so much patience; to be
weary with so much good-nature and silence; and not to explode an
entertainment which was designed to please them, or discourage an
author, whose misfortunes have once more brought him, against his
will, upon the stage. While I continue in these bad circumstances,
(and, truly, I see very little probability of coming out) I must be
obliged to write; and if I may still hope for the same kind usage, I
shall the less repent of that hard necessity. I write not this out of
any expectation to be pitied, for I have enemies enow to wish me yet
in a worse condition; but give me leave to say, that if I can please
by writing, as I shall endeavour it, the town may be somewhat obliged
to my misfortunes for a part of their diversion. Having been longer
acquainted with the stage than any poet now living, and having
observed how difficult it was to please; that the humours of comedy
were almost spent; that love and honour (the mistaken topics of
tragedy) were quite worn out; that the theatres could not support
their charges; that the audience forsook them; that young men, without
learning, set up for judges, and that they talked loudest, who
understood the least; all these discouragements had not only weaned me
from the stage, but had also given me a loathing of it.
Pages:
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339