uch pleased with
their tankard, or with their rags: And surely their conversation can
be no jest to them on the theatre, when they would avoid it in the
street.

To conclude all, let us render to our predecessors what is their due,
without confining ourselves to a servile imitation of all they writ;
and, without assuming to ourselves the title of better poets, let us
ascribe to the gallantry and civility of our age the advantage which
we have above them, and, to our knowledge of the customs and manners
of it, the happiness we have to please beyond them.

* * * * *

The bold Epilogue, which is here defended with so much animation, and
the censure which it threw on the fathers of the stage, seems to have
given great offence. It is thus severely assailed by Rochester:

But does not Dryden find even Jonson dull?
Beaumont and Fletcher incorrect, and full
Of lewd lines, as he calls them? Shakespeare's style
Stiff and affected? to his own, the while,
Allowing all the justice that his pride
So arrogantly had to these denied:
And may I not have leave impartially
To search and censure Dryden's works, and try
If those gross faults, his choice pen doth commit,
Proceed from want of judgment, or of wit?
Or if his lumpish fancy doth refuse
Spirit and grace to his loose slattern muse?
Five hundred verses, every morning writ,
Prove him no more a poet than a wit.

It is a bold, perhaps a presumptuous task, to attempt to separate the
true from the false criticism in the foregoing essay; for who is
qualified to be umpire betwixt Shakespeare and Dryden? Nevertheless,
our knowledge of the manners of the respective ages which these
extraordinary men adorned, and the remoteness of our own from both,
may enable us, with impartiality at least, to sift the grounds of
Dryden's censure. The nature of the stage in the days of Shakespeare
has been ascertained, by the sedulous exertions of his commentators. A
variety of small theatres, all of them accessible to the lowest of the
people, poor and rude in all the arts of decoration, were dispersed
through London when Shakespeare and Jonson wrote for the stage. It was
a natural consequence, that the writings of these great men were
biassed by the taste of those, for whom they wrote;

For those, who live to please, must please, to live.

Art was not demanded; and when used by Jonson, he complains it was not
duly appreciated. Men of