MISCELLANEOUS PLAYS, BY JOANNA BAILLIE. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATER. 1804. TO THE READER. THOUGH I have already met with so much indulgence from the public for a work obfcured with many faults, and might venture, without great mistrust, to bring before it the Plays which I now offer, unaccompanied by any previous demand upon the attention of my reader, which is generally an unwelcome thing, I must nevertheless beg for a few minutes to trefpafs upon his patience.-It has been and still is, my strongest desire to add a few pieces to the stock of what may be called our national or permanently acting plays, how unequal foever my abilities may be to the object of my ambition. I have, therefore, in the "Series of Plays," though pursuing a particular plan, endeavoured fully to delineate the character of the chief person of each drama, independently of his being the subject of a particular paffion; fo that we might have an idea of what kind of a man he would have been had no See page 58. of the introduction to the "Series of Plays." |