And not only wise and sober Men have declar’d their detestation of the Immorality of the Stage, but eminent Poets themselves, who have written the most applauded Comedies, have own’d, that the Theatre stands in great need of Restraints and Regulation, and wish’d that Plays were compil’d in such an inoffensive Manner, that not only discreet and vertuous Persons of the Laity, but a Bishop himself, without being shock’d, might be present while they were acted.  Mr. Dryden has, up and down in his Prefatory Discourses and Dedications, freely aeknowledg’d the Looseness of our Dramatick Entertainments, which sometimes he charges upon the Countenance given to it by the dissolute Court of King Charles the Second, and sometimes upon the vitiated Taste of the People.  In his Dedication of Juvenal, made English, to the late famous Earl of Dorset, he thus bespeaks him; “As a Counsellor bred up in the Knowledge of the Municipal and Statute Laws may honestly inform a just Prince how far his Prerogative extends, so I may be allow’d to tell your Lordship, who by an indisputed Title are the King of Poets, what an Extent of Power you have, and how lawfully you may exercise it over the petulant Scriblers of the Age.  As Lord Chamberlain, you are absolute by your Office, in all that belongs to the Decency and good Manners of the Stage; You can banish thence Scurrility and Profaneness, and restrain the licentious Insolence of the Poets and their Actors, in all things that shock the publick Quiet or the Reputation of private Persons, under the Notion of Humour.”  Hence it evidently appears, that Mr Dryden look’d on the Decency of the Stage to be violated in his Time, by licentious and insolent Poets; and I wish I could say, that there is less Reason of Complaint in ours; In a Copy of Verses, publish’d in one of the Volumes of the Miscellany Poems, the same celebrated Author inveighs against the Lewdness and Pollutions of the Stage in the strongest Expressions that can be conceiv’d; and in his latter days, when his Judgment was more Mature, he condemns all his loose and profane Writings to the Flames, which, he says, they justly deserve:  Which is not only a free and ingenious Confession of his Fault, but a considerable Mark of Repentance, and worthy to be imitated by his Successors, who have broken in upon the Rules of Vertue and Modesty in the like manner.

Tho all Men of Vertue, who wish well to Mankind, and are zealous for the Happiness of their Country, cannot but observe the mischievous Effects of these licentious Dramatick Compositions, yet they will find it very difficult to suggest an effectual Remedy for the Cure of so obstinate an Evil.  The ingenious Spaniard mention’d before, for stopping the Progress of this contagious Lewdness in his Country, propos’d to the Government, that an Officer or Inspector might be establish’d, with Authority to peruse and correct the Poet’s Writings, and that no Comedies should be presented to the Publick without his Licence and Approbation.