that the plays were fresh in the public mind
was probably the most effective reason for Jeremy Collier's decision
to include the not very highly respected author among the still living
playwrights to be singled out for attack in "A Short View of the
Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage", which appeared at
Easter time 1698. In July of the same year D'Urfey replied with the
preface to his "smutty" play "The Campaigners". It is this preface
which is given as the first item of the present reprint.

Pope's contemptuous prologue, written many years later and apparently
for a benefit performance of one of D'Urfey's plays, is sufficient
evidence that the playwright was not highly regarded; but he was reputed
to be a good natured man and, by the standards of the time, his twitting
of Collier--whom he accused of having a better nose for smut than a
clergyman should have--is not conspicuously vituperative. Even his
attack on the political character of the notorious Non-Juror is bitter
without being really scurrilous. But like his betters Congreve and
Vanbrugh, D'Urfey both missed the opportunity to grapple with the real
issues of the controversy and misjudged the temper of the public. Had
that public been, as all the playwrights seem to have assumed, ready to
side with them against Collier, there might have been some justification
in resting content as he and Congreve did with the scoring of a few
debater's points. But the public, even "the town", was less interested
in mere sally and rejoinder than it was in the serious question of the
relation of comedy to morality, and hence Collier was allowed to win the
victory almost by default.

Collier's own argument was either confused or deliberately disingenuous,
since he shifts his ground several times. On occasion he argues merely
in the role of a moderate man who is shocked by the extravagances of the
playwrights, and on other occasions as an ascetic to whom all worldly
diversion, however innocent of any obvious offence, is wicked. At one
time, moreover, he accuses the playwrights of recommending the vices
which they should satirize and at other times denies that even the most
sincere satiric intention can justify the lively representation of
wickedness. But none of his opponents actually seized the opportunity
to completely clarify the issues. Vanbrugh, it is true, makes some real
points in his "A Short Vindication of The Relapse and The Provok'd
Wife", and John Dennis,