Transcribed from the 1895 Methuen and Co. edition by DavidPrice,
Interdum tamen et vocem Comœdiatollit.—Hor. Ar.Po.
Huic equidem consilio palmam do: hic memagnifice
effero, qui vim tantam in me et potestatemhabeam
tantæ astutiæ, vera dicendo ut eos ambosfallam.Syr. in Terent. Heaut.
Sir,—I heartily wish this play were as perfect as Iintended it, that it might be more worthy your acceptance, andthat my dedication of it to you might be more becoming thathonour and esteem which I, with everybody who is so fortunate asto know you, have for you. It had your countenance when yetunknown; and now it is made public, it wants your protection.
I would not have anybody imagine that I think this playwithout its faults, for I am conscious of several. Iconfess I designed (whatever vanity or ambition occasioned thatdesign) to have written a true and regular comedy, but I found itan undertaking which put me in mind of Sudet multum,frustraque laboret ausus idem. And now, to makeamends for the vanity of such a design, I do confess both theattempt and the imperfect performance. Yet I must take theboldness to say I have not miscarried in the whole, for themechanical part of it is regular. That I may say with aslittle vanity as a builder may say he has built a house accordingto the model laid down before him, or a gardener that he has sethis flowers in a knot of such or such a figure. I designedthe moral first, and to that moral I invented the fable, and donot know that I have borrowed one hint of it anywhere. Imade the plot as strong as I could because it was single, and Imade it single because I would avoid confusion, and was resolvedto preserve the three unities of the drama. Sir, thisdiscourse is very impertinent to you, whose judgment much bettercan discern the faults than I can excuse them; and whose goodnature, like that of a lover, will find out those hidden beauties(if there are any such) which it would be great immodesty for meto discover. I think I don’t speak improperly when Icall you a lover of poetry; for it is very well known shehas been a very kind mistress to you: she has not denied you thelast favour, and she has been fruitful to you in a most beautifulissue. If I break off abruptly here, I hope everybody willunderstand that it is to avoid a commendation which, as it isyour due, would be most easy for me to pay, and too troublesomefor you to receive.
I have since the acting of this play harkened after theobjections which have been made to it, for I was conscious wherea true critic might have put me upon my defence. I wasprepared for the attack, and am pretty confident I could havevindicated some parts and excused others; and where there wereany plain miscarriages, I would most ingenuously have confessed’em. But I have not heard anything said sufficient toprovoke an answer. That which looks most like an objectiondoes not relate in particular to this play, but to all or mostthat ever have been written, and that is soliloquy. Therefore I will answer it, not only for my own sake, but to saveothers the trouble, to whom it may hereafter be objected.
I grant that for a man to talk to himself appears absurd andunnatural, and indeed it is so in most cases; but thecircumstances which may attend the occasion make greatalteration. It oftentimes happens to a man to have designswhich require him to himself, and in their nature cannot admit ofa confidant. Such for certain