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The theme must govern the style; every thought, every character, every subject of a different nature, muft fpeak a different language. An humble lover's gentle addrefs to his mistress would rumble ftrangely in the Miltonic dialect; and the foft harmony of Mr. Waller's numbers would as ill become the mouths of Lucifer and Belzebub. The terrible and the tender must be fet to different notes of mufic.

To conclude. This dramatic attempt was the first effay of a very infant Mufe, rather aş a task at fuch hours as were free from other exercifes, than any way meant for public entertainment but Mr. Betterton, having had a

:

cafual fight of it many years after it was written, begged it for the ftage, where it found to favourable a reception as to have an uninterrupted run of at least forty days. The feparation of the principal actors, which foon followed, and the introduction of the Italian opera, put a stop to its farther appearance.

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Had it been compofed at a riper time of life the faults might have been fewer: however, upon revifing it now, at fo great a diftance of time, with a cooler judgement than the first conceptions of youth will allow, I cannot abfolutely fay Scripfiffe pudet.

**

A LET

A LETTER

WITH A

CHARACTER OF MR. WY CHERLEY.

MR. WYCHERLEY being the only living author eminent for his writings, with whom it is your misfortune to have no perfonal acquaintance, you defire me to give you fome idea of him, in order to perfect a defign you are about of celebrating fuch of the poets of the present age as you think have deferved any notice.

My partiality to him as a friend might render what I fay of him fufpected, if his merit was not fo well and so publickly established as to fet him above flattery. To do him barely juftice, is an undertaking beyond my fkill: however, fince you defire it, I will do my best, though under the disadvantage of a painter, who, in drawing a lady Sunderland, or a lady * Monthermer,

* Dutchefs of Montagu.

C 3

might

might exprefs a resemblance by which their pictures might be known, but never reach that perfection of beauty, which nothing but an omnipotent hand could form.

My lord Rochester, in his imitation of one of Horace's Epiftles, thus mentions this author;

Of all our modern wits, none feems to me
Once to have touch'd upon true Comedy,
But hafty Shadwell, and flow Wycherley.
Shadwell's unfinish'd works do yet impart
Great proofs of Nature's force, though none
of Art:

But Wycherley earns hard whate'er he gains; He wants no judgement, and he fpares no pains.

The noble author, however juft in other particulars, I am perfuaded was led into that part of the character of a laborious writer, merely for the fake of the verfe. If hafty would have ftood as an epithet for Wycherley, and flow for Shadwell, they would in all probability have. been fo applied; but the verfe would have been

fpoiled,

fpoiled, and to that it was necessary to submit.

Thofe who would form their judgement only from Mr. Wycherley's writings, without any perfonal acquaintance with him, might indeed be apt to conclude that fuch a diverfity of images and characters; fuch strict enquiries into nature; fuch close observations on the feveral humours, manners, and affections of all ranks and degrees of men, and, as it were, fo true. and fo perfect a diffection of human kind, delivered with fo much pointed wit, and force of expreffion; could be no other than the work of extraordinary diligence, labour, and application: but, in truth, we owe the pleasure and advantage of having been fo well entertained' and inftructed by him, to his facility of doing it if it had been a trouble to him to write, I am much mistaken if he would not have spared himself that trouble: what he has performed, would have been difficult for another; but the club which a man of an ordinary fize could not lift, was but a walking-ftaff for Hercules.

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