Читать книгу Thomas Otway - Thomas Otway - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Reader,

'Tis not that I have any great affection to scribbling, that I pester thee with a preface; for, amongst friends, 'tis almost as poor a trade with poets, as it is with those that write hackney under attorneys; it will hardly keep us in ale and cheese. Honest Ariosto began to be sensible of it in his time, who makes his complaint to this purpose:

I pity those who in these latter days

Do write, when bounty hath shut up her gate:

Where day and night in vain good writers knock,

And for their labour oft have but a mock.

Thus I find it according to Sir John Harington's translation; had I understood Italian, I would have given it thee in the original, but that is not my talent; therefore to proceed: this Play was the second that ever I writ, or thought of writing. I must confess, I had often a titillation to poetry, but never durst venture on my muse, till I got her into a corner in the country; and then, like a bashful young lover, when I had her in private, I had courage to fumble, but never thought she would have produced anything; till at last, I know not how, ere I was aware, I found myself father of a dramatic birth, which I called Alcibiades; but I might, without offence to any person in the play, as well have called it Nebuchadnezzar; for my hero, to do him right, was none of that squeamish gentleman I make him, but would as little have boggled at the obliging the passion of a young and beautiful lady as I should myself, had I the same opportunities which I have given him. This I publish to antedate the objections some people may make against that play, who have been (and much good may it do them!) very severe, as they think, upon this. Whoever they are, I am sure I never disobliged them: nor have they (thank my good fortune) much injured me. In the meanwhile I forgive them, and, since I am out of the reach on't, leave them to chew the cud on their own venom. I am well satisfied I had the greatest party of men of wit and sense on my side; amongst which I can never enough acknowledge the unspeakable obligations I received from the Earl of R.,[7] who, far above what I am ever able to deserve from him, seemed almost to make it his business to establish it in the good opinion of the King and his Royal Highness; from both of whom I have since received confirmation of their good liking of it, and encouragement to proceed. And it is to him, I must in all gratitude confess, I owe the greatest part of my good success in this, and on whose indulgency I extremely build my hopes of a next. I dare not presume to take to myself what a great many, and those (I am sure) of good judgment too, have been so kind to afford me—viz., that it is the best heroic play that has been written of late; for, I thank Heaven, I am not yet so vain. But this I may modestly boast of, which the author[8] of the French Berenice has done before me, in his preface to that play, that it never failed to draw tears from the eyes of the auditors; I mean, those whose hearts were capable of so noble a pleasure: for it was not my business to take such as only come to a playhouse to see farce-fools, and laugh at their own deformed pictures. Though a certain writer that shall be nameless[9] (but you shall guess at him by what follows), being asked his opinion of this play, very gravely cocked, and cried, "I'gad, he knew not a line in it he would be author of."[10] But he is a fine facetious witty person, as my friend Sir Formal has it; and to be even with him, I know a comedy of his, that has not so much as a quibble in it that I would be author of. And so, Reader, I bid him and thee Farewell.