PREFACE.
It is now near three years since the Play, which
the following sheets present to the Public, was
represented at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
The fate which it underwent, and the decision
of the audience, are well known. Notwithstanding
that decision, the Editor has at length,
agreeably to his promise, made at the time of
that representation, again laid it before the public,
which if it exposes it to the test of a more accurate
criticism, will give it the opportunity of a
more unbiassed and temperate examination.
They, who are at all conversant with dramatic
concerns, must know that the opinion of large
assemblies, promiscuously composed of all orders
and classes, must depend on a variety of circumstances,
local, temporary and accidental.
Where no stronger or worse motives interfere,
fashion and caprice too often give the direction;
but spleen and interest are made more powerful
agents; and by their industry and activity, even
the master puppet, be he in sock or buskin, may
be gained, and the public may be too easily and
unwarily led by premature and precipitate conclusions.
No man who recollects what was said and written
in the public prints concerning this piece, on the
eve of its representation, and the ludicrous manner
in which the principal character was sustained,
can deny, that the Editor has a right to complain
of the most illiberal and injurious treatment.
Every undue stratagem, and every mean and
petty artifice, was resorted to within doors and
without, to prejudice the public mind; and one
more deeply interested than had then, or has yet
appeared, though a professed trader on the subject
of Shakespeare, on the day before the representation,
under the title of “An Enquiry into
the Authenticity of certain miscellaneous Papers,
&c. &c.” with this view, and the further
expectation of helping off a few copies, sent into
the world a volume long before promised, and
long since forgotten.
This mass of dulness and self-conceit, consisting
of about 430 pages, established nothing; and was
built on principles (if it is not an abuse to apply
to such trash a term so respectable) that could not
possibly establish any thing. In every one of the
instances which, with such a weak and overweening
confidence, he so very idly brought forward,
he has been exposed; and in some of them
has been himself the author and detector of his
own childishness, incapacity and ignorance.
Neither the index-lore, or the alphabetical,
lexicographical, labours of this sagacious discoverer,
or his congenial followers or associates, nor
any declaration since made from a quarter once
domestic to the Editor, through which something
like genuine information might naturally have
been expected, can induce him to believe that
great part of the mass of papers in his possession
are the fabrication of any individual, or set of men
of the present day.
A fruitless expectation, that Time, the discoverer
of Truth, might ere this have withdrawn
that veil of mystery which yet involves this
transaction, has alone given occasion to delay in
this publication. The Editor had been happy
to have been able to have penetrated it; and to
have assigned to its proper owner each fragment
and each whole.
As to the merits or demerits of the play now before
the public, the Editor does not in the smallest
degree consider himself responsible any where, or
in any way. He sold the piece with “all its
imperfections on its head,” after various cool
and deliberate readings, and stated candidly all
he had been told relative to it; all that, which
from various circumstances, he had at that time
no reason to doubt or discredit.
After the play was contracted for, some alterations
were deemed necessary to fit it for representation.
It was much too long, and consequently
many passages were expunged; and in one historical
fact, thought too gross for the public ear,
viz. the incestuous passion of the king towards
his daughter, it underwent some further alterations;
but excepting these particulars, it stands
nearly as in the original.
In this state it was delivered to the Theatre,
with a request, or rather intreaty, that all further
alteration, deemed necessary, should be made by
the acting manager, or any other person competent
to the business: to this request he received the
following official answer from Mr. Kemble:—
“That the play would be acted faithfully from
the copy sent to the theatre;” and it was accordingly
acted, literally from the Manuscript
delivered to the house. This conduct was, as
the Editor believes, unprecedented in the management
of a Theatre, and must warrant him in concluding
that in the judgment of the acting manager,
the play wanted no aid or alteration.
Be these matters as they may, this piece is laid
before the public with such interpolations by
the Editor, as he presumes it was the duty of
the acting manager to have made previous to its
representation.
The lines printed within the inverted commas
were not in the play-house copy, and consequently
were not spoken.
The Editor feels, and here begs leave to acknowledge,
his obligations to his friend William
Linley, Esq. for his skill in composing the three
songs in this piece, in which he is universally allowed
to have shewn much taste and judgment;
he likewise professes himself much indebted to Mrs.
Jordan and Mrs Powell, for their very spirited
exertions, and excellent acting on this occasion;
and could he with truth or justice make the
smallest acknowledgement to Mr. Kemble and
his fellow tragedian Mr. Phillimore, he has little
doubt, but that, whoever may have been the
author of the piece, it might still have been received,
and might have promoted the interests
of the Theatre.
Norfolk-street, Strand, 1799.
