As the writer for the stage is a writer to the passions, I hold it matter of conscience and duty in the dramatic poet to reserve his brightest colouring for the best characters, to give no false attractions to vice and immorality, but to endeavour, as far as is consistent with that contrast, which is the very essence of his art, to turn the fairer side of human nature to the public, and, as much as in him lies, to contrive so as to put men in good humour with one another. Let him therefore in the first place strive to make worthy characters amiable, but take great care not to make them insipid; if he does not put life and spirit into his man or woman of virtue, and render them entertaining as well as good, their morality is not a whit more attractive than the morality of a Greek chorus. He had better have let them alone altogether.

Congreve, Farquhar, and some others have made vice and villany so playful and amusing, that either they could not find in their hearts to punish them, or not caring how wicked they were, so long as they were witty, paid no attention to what became of them: Shadwell's comedy is little better than a brothel. Poetical

justice, which has armed the tragic poet with the weapons of death, and commissioned him to wash out the offence in the blood of the offender, has not left the comic writer without his instruments of vengeance; for surely, if he knows how to employ the authority that is in him, the scourge of ridicule alone is sharp enough for the chastisement of any crimes, which can fall within his province to exhibit. A true poet knows that unless he can produce works, whose fame will outlive him, he will outlive both his works and his fame; therefore every comic author who takes the mere clack of the day for his subject, and abandons all his claim upon posterity, is no true poet; if he dabbles in personalities, he does considerably worse. When I began therefore, as at this time, to write for the stage, my ambition was to aim at writing something that might be lasting and outlive me; when temporary subjects were suggested to me, I declined them: I formed to myself in idea what I conceived to be the character of a legitimate comedy, and that alone was my object, and though I did not quite aspire to attain, I was not altogether in despair of approaching it. I perceived that I had

fallen upon a time, when great eccentricity of character was pretty nearly gone by, but still I fancied there was an opening for some originality, and an opportunity for shewing at least my good will to mankind, if I introduced the characters of persons, who had been usually exhibited on the stage, as the butts for ridicule and abuse, and endeavoured to present them in such lights, as might tend to reconcile the world to them, and them to the world. I thereupon looked into society for the purpose of discovering such as were the victims of its national, professional or religious prejudices; in short for those suffering characters, which stood in need of an advocate, and out of these I meditated to select and form heroes for my future dramas, of which I would study to make such favourable and reconciliatory delineations, as might incline the spectators to look upon them with pity, and receive them into their good opinion and esteem.

With this project in my mind, and nothing but the turf-stack to call off my attention, I took the characters of an Irishman and a West Indian for the heroes of my plot, and began to work it out into the shape of a comedy. To

the West Indian I devoted a generous spirit, and a vivacious giddy dissipation; I resolved he should love pleasure much, but honour more; but as I could not keep consistency of character without a mixture of failings, when I gave him charity, I gave him that, which can cover a multitude, and thus protected, thus recommended, I thought I might send him out into the world to shift for himself.

For my Irishman I had a scheme rather more complicated; I put him into the Austrian service, and exhibited him in the livery of a foreign master, to impress upon the audience the mélancholy and impolitic alternative, to which his religious disqualification had reduced a gallant and a loyal subject of his natural king: I gave him courage, for it belongs to his nation; I endowed him with honour, for it belongs to his profession, and I made him proud, jealous, susceptible, for such the exiled veteran will be, who lives by the earnings of his sword, and is not allowed to draw it in the service of that country, which gave him birth, and which of course he was born to defend : for his phraseology I had the glossary ready at my hand; for his mistakes and trips, vulgarly called bulls, I

did not know the Irishman of the stage then existing, whom I would wish to make my model: their gross absurdities, and unnatural contrarieties have not a shade of character in them. When his imagination is warmed, and his ideas rush upon him in a cluster, 'tis then the Irishman will sometimes blunder; his fancy having supplied more words than his tongue can well dispose of, it will occasionally trip. But the imitation must be delicately conducted; his meaning is clear, he conceives rightly, though in delivery he is confused; and the art, as I conceive it, of finding language for the Irish character on the stage consists not in making him foolish, vulgar or absurd, but on the contrary, whilst you furnish him with expressions, that excite laughter, you must graft them upon sentiments, that deserve applause.

In all my hours of study it has been through life my object so to locate myself as to have little or nothing to distract my attention, and therefore brilliant rooms or pleasant prospects I have ever avoided. A dead wall, or, as in the present case, an Irish turf-stack, are not attractions, that can call off the fancy from its pursuits; and whilst in those pursuits it can