Cutter of Coleman-street/Preface

by Abraham Cowley

PREFACE.

Comedy, called the Guardian, and made by me when I was very Young, was Acted formerly at Camebridge, and several times after privately during the troubles, as I am told, with good approbation, as it has been lately too at Dublin There being many things in it which I disliked, and finding my self for some dayes idle, and alone in the Countrey, I fell upon the changing of it almost wholly, as now it is, and as it was play'd since at his Royal Highness's Theatre under this New name. It met at the first representation with no favourable reception, and I think there was something of Faction against it, by the early appearance of some mens disapprobation before they had seen enough of it to build their dislike upon their Iudgment. Afterwards it got some ground, and found Friends as well as Adversarys. In which condition I should willingly let it dye, if the main imputations under which it suffered, had been shot only against my Wit or Art in these matters, and not directed against the tenderest parts of human reputation, good Nature, good Manners, and Piety it self. The first clamour which some malitious persons raised, and made a great noise with, was, That it was a piece intended for abuse and Satyre against the Kings party. Good God! Against the Kings party? After having served it twenty years during all the time of their misfortunes and afflictions, I must be a very rash and imprudent person if I chose out that of their Restitution to begin a Quarrel with them. I must be too much a Madman to be trusted with such an Edg'd Tool as Comedy. But first, why should either the whole party (as it was once distinguisht by that name, which I hope is abolisht now by Universal Loyalty) or any man of virtue or honour in it, believe themselves injured or at all concerned, by the representation of the faults and follies of a few who in the General division of the Nation had crowded in among them? In all mixt numbers (which is the case of Parties) nay, in the most entire and continued Bodies there are often some degenerate and corrupted parts, which may be cast away from that, and even cut off from this Unity, without any infection of scandal to the remaining Body. The Church of Rome with all her arrogance, and her wide pretences of certainty in all truths, and exemption from all Errors, does not clap on this enchanted Armour of Infallibility upon all her particular Subjects, nor is offended at the reproof even of her greatest Doctors. We are not, I hope, become such Puritans our selves as to assume the Name of the Congregation of the Spotless. It is hard for any Party to be so Ill as that no Good, Impossible to be so Good as that no Ill should be found among them. And it has been the perpetual privilege of Satyre and Comedy to pluck their vices and follies though not their Persons out of the Sanctuary of any Title. A Cowardly ranting Souldier, an Ignorant Charlatanical Doctor, a foolish Cheating Lawyer, a silly Pedantical Scholar, hav, alwayes been, and still are the Principal Subjects of all Comedye without any scandal given to those Honourable Professions, or ever taken by their severest Professors; And, if any good Physician or Divine should be offended with me here for inveighing against a Quack, or for finding Deacon Soaker too often in the Butteryes, my respect and reverence to their callings would make me troubled at their displeasure, but I could not abstain from taking them for very Cholerique and Quarrelsome persons. What does this therefore amount to, if it were true which is objected? But it is far from being so; for the representation of two Sharks about the Town (fellows merry and Ingenious enough, and therefore admitted into better companyes than they deserve, yet withall too very scoundrels, which is no unfrequent Character at London) the representation I say of these as Pretended Officers of the Royal Army, was made for no other purpose but to show the World, that the vices and extravagancies imputed vulgarly to the Cavaliers, were really committed by Aliens who only usurped that name, and endeavoured to cover the reproach of their Indigency or Infamy of their Actions with so honourable a Title. So that the business was not here to correct or cut off any natural branches, though never so corrupted or Luxuriant, but to separate and cast away that vermine which by sticking so close to them had done great and considerable prejudice both to the Beauty and Fertility of the Tree; And this is as plainly said, and as often inculcated as if one should write round about a Signe, This is a Dog, this is a Dog, out of over-much caution lest some might happen to mistake it for a Lyon, Therefore when this Calumny could not hold (for the case is cleer, and will take no colour) Some others sought out a subtiler hint to traduce me upon the same score, and were angry that the person whom I made a true Gentleman, and one both of considerable Quality and Sufferings in the Royal party, should not have a fair and noble Character throughout, but should submit in his great extremities to wrong his Niece for his own Relief. This is a refined exception, such as I little foresaw, nor should with the dulness of my usual Charity, have found out against another man in twenty years. The truth is, I did not intend the Character of a Hero, one of exemplary virtue, and as Homer often terms such men, Unblameable, but an ordinary jovial Gentleman, commonly called a Good Fellow, one not so conscientious as to sterve rather than do the least Injury, and yet endowed with so much sense of Honour as to refuse when that necessity was removed, the gain of five thousand pounds which he might have taken from his Niece by the rigour of a Forfeiture; And let the frankness of this latter generosity so expiate for the former frailty, as may make us not ashamed of his Company, for if his true Metal be but equal to his Allay, it will not indeed render him one of the Finest sorts of men, but it will make him Current, for ought I know, in any party that ever yet was in the World. If you be to choose parts for a Comedy out of any noble or elevated rank of persons, the most proper for that work are the worst of that kind. Comedy is humble of her Nature, and has alwayes been bred low, so that she knows not how to behave her self with the great or the accomplisht. She does not pretend to the brisk and bold Qualities of Wine, but to the Stomachal Acidity of Vinegar, and therefore is best placed among that sort of people which the Romans call The Lees of Romulus. If I had designed here the celebration of the Virtues of our Friends, I would have made the Scene nobler where I intended to erect their Statues. They should have stood in Odes, and Tragedies, and Epique Poems, (neither have I totally omitted those greater testimonies of my esteem of them) Sed nunc non erat his Locus, &c. And so much for this little spiny objection which a man cannot see without a Magnifying Glass. The next is enough to knock a man down, and accuses me of no less than Prophaness. Prophane, to deride the Hypocrisie of those men whose skuls are not yet bare upon the Gates since the publique and just punishment of it? But there is some imitation of Scripture Phrases; God forbid; There is no representation of the true face of Scripture, but only of that Vizard which these Hypocrites (that is, by interpretation Actors with a Vizard) draw upon it. It is Prophane to speak of Harrisons return to Life again, when some of his friends really profest their belief of it, and he himself had been said to promise it? A man may be so imprudently scrupulous as to find prophaness in any thing either said or written by applying it under some similitude or other to some expressions in Scripture. This nicety is both vain and endless. But I call God to witness, that rather than one tittle should remain among all my writings which according to my severest judgment should be found guilty of the crime objected, I would myself burn and extinguish them all together. Nothing is so detestably lewd and rechless as the derision of things sacred, and would be in me more unpardonable than any man else, who have endeavoured to root out the ordinary weeds of Poetry, and to plant it almost wholly with Divinity. I am so far from allowing any loose or irreverent expressions in matters of that Religion which I believe, that I am very tender in this point even for the grossest errors of Conscientious persons, They are the properest object (me thinks) both of our pitty and Charity too; They are the innocent and white Sectaries, in comparison of another kind who engraft Pride upon Ignorance, Tyranny upon Liberty, and upon all their Heresies, Treason and Rebellion. These are Principles so destructive to the Peace and Society of Mankind that they deserve to be persued by our serious Hatred, and the putting a Mask of Sanctity upon such Devils is do Ridiculous, that it ought to be exposed to contempt and laughter. They are indeed Prophane, who counterfeit the softness of the voyce of Holiness to disguize the roughness of the hands of Impiety, and not they who with reverence to the thing which the others dissemble, deride nothing but their Dissimulation. If some piece of an admirable Artist should be ill Copyed even to ridiculousness by an ignorant hand, and another Painter should undertake to draw that Copy, and make it yet more ridiculous, to shew apparently the difference of the two works, and deformity of the latter, will not every man see plainly that the abuse is intended to the foolish Imitation, and not to the Excellent Original? I might say much more to confute and confound this very false and malitious accusation, but this is enough I hope to cleer the matter, and is I am afraid too much for a Preface to a work of so little consideration. As for all other objections which have been or may be made against the Invention or Elocution, or any thing else which comes under the Critical Jurisdiction, let it stand or fall as it can answer for it self, for I do not lay the great stress of my Reputation upon a Structure of this Nature, much less upon the slight Reparations only of an Old and unfashionable Building. There is no Writer but may fail sometimes in point of Wit, and it is no less frequent for the Auditors to fail in point of Judgment. I perceive plainly by dayly experience that Fortune is Mistris of the Theatre, as Tully sayes it is of all popular Assemblies. No man can tell sometimes from whence the Invisible winds arise that move them. There are a multitude of people who are truly and onely Spectators at a play, without any use of their Understanding, and these carry it sometimes by the strength of their Number. There are others who use their Understanding too much, who think it a sign of weakness or stupidity to let any thing pass by them unattaqued, and that the Honour of their Judgment (as some Brutals imagine of their Courage) consists in Quarrelling with every thing. We are therefore wonderfull wise men, and have a fine business of it, we who spend our time in Poetry, I do sometimes laugh, and am often angry with my self when I think on it, and if I had a Son inclined by Nature to the same folly, I believe I should bind him from it, by the strictest conjurations of a paternal Blessing. For what can be more ridiculous than to labour to give men delight, whilst they labour on their part more earnestly to take offence? to expose ones self voluntarily and frankly to all the dangers of that narrow passage to unprofitable Fame, which is defended by rude multitudes of the Ignorant, and by armed Troops of the Malitious? If we do ill many discover it and all despise us, if we do well but few men find it out, and fewer entertain it kindly. If we commit errors there is no parson, if we could do wonders there would be but little thanks, and that too extorted from unwilling Givers. But some perhaps may say, Was it not alwayes thus? Do you expect a particular privilege that was never yet enjoyed by any Poet? were the ancient Græcian, or noble Roman Authors, was Virgil himself exempt from this Passibility, Qui melior multis quam tu fuit, Improbe, rebus, Who was in many things thy better far, Thou impudent Pretender? As was said by Lucretius to a person who took it ill that he was to Dye, though he had seen so many do it before him who better deserved Immortality; and this is to repine at the natural condition of a Living Poet, as he did at that of a Living Mortal. I do not only acknowledge the Præ-eminence of Virgil (whose Footsteps I adore) but submit to many of his Roman Brethren, and I confess that even they in their own times were not secure from the assaults of Detraction (though Horace brags at last, Jam dente minùs mordeor invido) but then the Barkings of a few were drown'd in the Applause of all the rest of the World, and the Poison of their Bitings extiguisht by the Antidote of great rewards, and great encouragements, which is a way of curing now out of use, and I really profess that I neither expect, nor think I deserve it. Indolency would serve my turn instead of Pleasure; But the case is not so well; for though I comfort my self with some assurance of the favour and affection of very many candid and good natured (and yet too judicious and even Critical) persons, yet this I do affirm, that from all which I have written I never received the least benefit, or the least advantage, but on the contrary have felt sometimes the effects of Malice and Misfortune.

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