found in
"The Merchant Lover," nor yet in "The Friendly Fair Foe," nor in some
others that have been written by certain gifted poets, to their own fame
and renown, and to the profit of those that brought them out;' some
further remarks I added to these, with which, I think, I left him rather
dumbfoundered, but not so satisfied or convinced that I could disabuse
him of his error."

"You have touched upon a subject, senor canon," observed the curate here,
"that has awakened an old enmity I have against the plays in vogue at the
present day, quite as strong as that which I bear to the books of
chivalry; for while the drama, according to Tully, should be the mirror
of human life, the model of manners, and the image of the truth, those
which are presented now-a-days are mirrors of nonsense, models of folly,
and images of lewdness. For what greater nonsense can there be in
connection with what we are now discussing than for an infant to appear
in swaddling clothes in the first scene of the first act, and in the
second a grown-up bearded man? Or what greater absurdity can there be
than putting before us an old man as a swashbuckler, a young man as a
poltroon, a lackey using fine language, a page giving sage advice, a king
plying as a porter, a princess who is a kitchen-maid? And then what shall
I say of their attention to the time in which the action they represent
may or can take place, save that I have seen a play where the first act
began in Europe, the second in Asia, the third finished in Africa, and no
doubt, had it been in four acts, the fourth would have ended in America,
and so it would have been laid in all four quarters of the globe? And if
truth to life is the main thing the drama should keep in view, how is it
possible for any average understanding to be satisfied when the action is
supposed to pass in the time of King Pepin or Charlemagne, and the
principal personage in it they represent to be the Emperor Heraclius who
entered Jerusalem with the cross and won the Holy Sepulchre, like Godfrey
of Bouillon, there being years innumerable between the one and the other?
or, if the play is based on fiction and historical facts are introduced,
or bits of what occurred to different people and at different times mixed
up with it, all, not only without any semblance of probability, but with
obvious errors that from every point of view are inexcusable? And the
worst of it is, there are ignorant people who say that this is
p