University of Virginia Library

ADVERTISEMENT.

Pure Poetry unmixt with passion, however admired in the closet, has scarce ever been able to sustain itself on the Stage. In this Abridgment of Milton's Comus, no circumstance of the Drama contained in the Original Masque, is omitted. The divine arguments on temperance and chastity, together with many descriptive passages, are indeed expunged or contracted: But, divine as they are, the most accomplished declaimers have been embarrassed in the recitation of them. The speaker vainly laboured to prevent a coldness and languor in the audience; and it cannot be dissembled that the Masque of Comus, with all its poetical beauties, not only maintained its place on the Theatre chiefly by the assistance of Musick, but the Musick itself, as if overwhelmed by the weight of the Drama, almost sunk with it, and became in a manner lost to the Stage. That Musick, formerly heard

and applauded with rapture, is now restored; and the Masque on the above considerations is curtailed.

As a further argument in favour of the Drama in its present form, it might perhaps be urged, that the festivity of the Character of Comus is heightened by his assisting in the vocal parts, as well as in the dialogue; and that theatrical propriety is no longer violated in the Character of the Lady, who now invokes the Echo in her own person, without absurdly leaving the scene vacant, as heretofore, while another voice warbled out the son which the Lady was to be supposed to execute.

To conclude: It may not be impertinent to observe, That the Faithful Shepherdess of Beaumont and Fletcher, which is esteemed one of the most beautiful compositions in our language, not only afforded our Author the first hint of this Masque, but that several brilliant passages of Comus are imitated

from that excellent performance. Yet it is remarkable, that the Play of the Faithful Shepherdess, being merely poetical, was condemned on its first representation; for which hard fate though succeeding Criticks have reprehended the barbarism of that age, yet no attempt has ever been hazarded to restore the hapless Drama to the Stage.