E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
(http://www.pgdpcanada.net)
The travels of an Englishman throughoutEurope, and even in some parts of Asia,to soften the sorrows of the Prisoner, excitedin the mind of the Author the subject ofthe following pages, which, formed into adramatic story, have produced from theTheatre a profit far exceeding the usualpecuniary advantages arising from a successfulComedy.
The uncertainty in what part of the Eastthe hero of the present piece was (at thetime it was written) dispensing his benevolence,caused the Writer, after many researchesand objections, to fix the scene onthe island of Sumatra, where the Englishsettlement, the system of government, andevery description of the manners of the people,reconcile the incidents of the Play tothe strictest degree of probability.
| How say you, critic Gods1, and you below2; | |
| Are you all friends?—or here—and there—a foe? | |
| Come to protect your literary trade, | |
| Which Mrs. Scribble dares again invade— | |
| But know you not—in all the fair ones do, | |
| 'Tis not to please themselves alone—but you. | |
| Then who so churlish, or so cynic grown, | |
| Would wish to change a simper for a frown? | |
| Or who so jealous of their own dear quill, | |
| Would point the paragraph her fame to kill? | |
| Yet such there are, in this all-scribbling town, | } |
| And men of letters too—of some renown, | |
| Who sicken at all merit but their own. | |
| But sure 'twere more for Wit's—for Honour's sake, | |
| To make the Drama's race—the give and take. | |
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