Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/71

INTRODUCTION Ixvii ���directions in the tragedy give rise to a violent discussion. Clinket reads aloud: �The scene opens, and discovers the heavens cloudy. A prodi- gious shower of rain, at a distance appears the top of the moun- tain, Parnassus, all the fields beneath are overflowed, there are seen cattle and men swimming. The tops of the steeples rise above the flood, with men and women perching on their weather- cocks. �The bone of contention here is whether the use of weather- cocks must not be regarded as an anachronism ; and whether, indeed, according to the latest theories concerning the flood, the stones were not all dissolved, in which case the steeples themselves, being without foundations, could not support men and women. Plotwell carelessly abandons stones, steeples, weather-cocks, and all to the learning of the critics ; but Phcebe declares that this cavil is leveled at the whole drama, for the theory of dissolved stones would make the reparation of the human race by Deucalion and Pyrrha an impossibility. Portions of the opening passage of the tragedy are defended with spirit by Clinket as having the fire of Lee and the tenderness of Otway. But as the criticism grows in severity, she exclaims in angry protest: " Were the play mine, you should gash my flesh, mangle my face, anything, sooner than scratch my play." And when finally the diction, the metaphors, whole speeches, the fable, the characters are de- clared "monstrous," "abominable," "execrable," her agony overcomes her prudence, and crying out, "I'm butcher'd! I'm massacred!" she falls in a faint. But the crisis of her misery does not come until her uncle flings her papers into the fire, declaring that thus only can she be cured of the poetical itch. �Clink. Ah ! I am an undone woman. �Plotw. Has he burned any bank-bills, or a new Mechlin head- dress ? �Clink. My works! My works! ��� �