; 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. But enough of
this: the difficulties continue; they increase; and I am still
condemned to dig in those exhausted mines.

Whatever fault I next commit, rest assured it shall not be that of too
much length: Above twelve hundred lines have been cut off from this
tragedy since it was first delivered to the actors. They were indeed
so judiciously lopped by Mr Betterton, to whose care and excellent
action I am equally obliged, that the connection of the story was not
lost; but, on the other side, it was impossible to prevent some part
of the action from being precipitated, and coming on without that due
preparation which is required to all great events: as, in particular,
that of raising the mobile, in the beginning of the fourth act, which
a man of Benducar's cool character could not naturally attempt,
without taking all those precautions, which he foresaw would be
necessary to render his design successful. On this consideration, I
have replaced those lines through the whole poem, and thereby restored
it to that clearness of conception, and (if I may dare to say it) that
lustre and masculine vigour, in which it was first written. It is
obvious to every understanding reader, that the most poetical parts,
which are descriptions, images, similitudes, and moral sentences, are
those which of necessity were to be pared away, when the body was
swollen into too large a bulk for the representation of the stage. But
there is a vast difference betwixt a public entertainment on the
theatre, and a private reading in the closet: In the first, we are
confined to time; and though we talk not by the hour-glass, yet the
watch often drawn out of the pocket warns the actors that their
audience is weary; in the last, every reader is judge of his own
convenience; he can take up the book and lay it down at his pleasure,
and find out those beauties of propriety in thought and writing, which
escaped him in the tumult and hurry of representing. And I dare boldly
promise for this play, that in the roughness of the numbers and
cadences, (which I assure was not casual, but so designed) you will
see somewhat more masterly arising to your view, than in most, if