Essays on the Stage | Page 2

none of them really discusses adequately fundamental premises concerning the nature, method, and function of comedy had serious consequences for the English stage. The situation was further complicated by the rise of sentimental comedy and the fact that the theories supposed to justify it were expounded with all the completeness and clarity which were so conspicuously lacking in the case of those who undertook halfheartedly to defend what we call "high" or "pure", as opposed to both sentimental and satiric comedy. Steele's epilogue to "The Lying Lover", which versified Hobbes' comments on laughter and then rejected laughter itself as unworthy of a refined human being, is a triumphant epitaph inscribed over the grave of the comic spirit.
The second item included in the present reprint, namely the anonymous preface to a translation of Bossuet's "Maxims and Reflections Upon Plays", belongs to a different phase of the Collier controversy. It serves as an illustration of the fact that Collier was soon joined by men who were, somewhat more frankly than he had himself admitted he was, open enemies of the stage as such. He had begun with arguments supported by citations from literary critics and he called in the support of ascetic religious writers after his discourse was well under way. But the direct approach by way of religion was soon taken up by others, of whom Arthur Bedford was probably the most redoubtable as he was certainly the most long winded, since his "Evil and Danger of Stage Plays" (1706) crowds into its two hundred and twenty-seven pages some two thousand instances of alleged profaneness and immorality with specific references to the texts of scripture which condemn each one. But Bedford had not been the first to treat the issue as one to be decoded by theologians rather than playwrights or critics. Somewhat unwisely, perhaps, Motteux had printed before his comedy "Beauty in Distress" a discourse "Of the Lawfulness and Unlawfulness of Plays" (1698), written by the Italian monk Father Caffaro, who was professor of divinity at the Sorbonne. Unfortunately Caffaro had, some years before this English translation appeared, already retracted his mild opinion that stage plays were not, per se, unlawful, and it was possible not only to cite his retraction but also to offer the opinions of the Bishop of Meux, who was better known to English readers than Father Caffaro. The anonymous author of the preface to "Maxims and Reflections" grants that dramatic poetry might, under certain circumstances, be theoretically permissible, but rather more frankly than Collier he makes it clear that his real intention is to urge the outlawing of the theater itself, since all efforts to reform it are foredoomed to failure. "But if", he writes, "the Reformation of the Stage be no longer practicable, reason good that the incurable Evil should be cut off". That lets the cat out of the bag.
Both pieces reprinted here are from copies owned by the University of Michigan.
Joseph Wood Krutch Columbia University
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The Campaigners: or, the Pleasant Adventures at Brussels.
A COMEDY
As it is Acted at the _Theatre-Royal_.
with a Familiar Preface upon _A Late Reformer of the STAGE._
Ending with a Satyrical Fable of the DOG and the OTTOR.
Written by Mr. _D'urfey_.
LONDON,
Printed for _A. Baldwin_, near the Oxford Arms Inn in Warwick lane. MDCXCVIII.

PREFACE.
I Must necessarily inform the Partial, as well as Impartial Reader, that I had once design'd another kind of Preface to my Comedy than what will appear in the following sheets; but having in the interim been entertain'd with a Book lately Printed, full of Abuses on all our Antient as well as Modern Poets, call'd _A view of the Immorality and Prophaness of the English Stage_; and finding the Author, who, no doubt, extreamly values himself upon his Talent of _Stage-reforming_, not only (to use his own Ironical words) particular in his Genius and Civilities, but indecently, unmanner'd, and scurrilous in his unjust Remarks on me, and two of my Plays, _viz._ the first and second parts of the Comical History of Don Quixote. [Footnote: Collier, p. 196.] I thought I cou'd not do better, first as a Diversion to the Town, and next to do a little Iustice to my self, than (instead of the other) to print a short Answer to this very Severe and Critical Gentleman; and at the same time give him occasion to descant upon the following Comick Papers, and my self the opportunity of vindicating the other; with some familiar Returns (_en Raillere_) upon his own Extraordinary Integrity, and Justness of the Censure.
But first, lest I should plunge my self out of my depth, or like an unskilful Swimmer, endanger my self by a too precipitate Rashness, let me warily consider the Office and Habit of this unchristianlike Critick before I Attack him: He has, or had the