2.  This looks as if there had been some ground for Dryden’s censure
   upon the actors.

3.  A flat parody on the lines in Dryden’s prologue, referring to
   Mamamouchi: 

     Grimace and habit sent you pleased away: 
     You damned the poet, but cried up the play.

4.  It is somewhat remarkable, that the censure contained in what is
   above printed like verses, recoils upon the head of the author, who
   never wrote a single original performance.  Langbaine, the
   persecutor of all plagiarism, though he did not know very well in
   what it consisted, threatens to “pull off Ravenscroft’s disguise,
   and discover the politic plagiary that lurks under it.  I know,”
   continues the biographer, “he has endeavoured to shew himself
   master of the art of swift writing, and would persuade the world,
   that what he writes is extempore wit, and written currente
   calamo.  But I doubt not to shew, that though he would be thought
   to imitate the silk-worm, that spins its web from its own bowels,
   yet I shall make him appear like the leech, that lives upon the
   blood of other men, drawn from the gums; and, when he is rubbed
   with salt, spews it up again.”

5.  Sir Martin Mar-all we are acquainted with.  Sir Arthur Addle is a
   similar character, in a play called “Sir Solomon, or, The Cautious
   Coxcomb,” attributed to one John Caryll.

TO

MY MOST HONOURED FRIEND,

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, BART[1].

SIR,

The design of dedicating plays is as common and unjust, as that of desiring seconds in a duel.  It is engaging our friends, it may be, in a senseless quarrel where they have much to venture, without any concernment of their own[2].  I have declared thus much beforehand, to prevent you from suspicion, that I intend to interest either your judgment or your kindness, in defending the errors of this comedy.  It succeeded ill in the representation, against the opinion of many of the best judges of our age, to whom you know I read it, ere it was presented publicly.  Whether the fault was in the play itself, or in the lameness of the action, or in the number of its enemies, who came resolved to damn it for the title, I will not now dispute.  That would be too like the little satisfaction which an unlucky gamester finds in the relation of every cast by which he came to lose his money.  I have had formerly so much success, that the miscarriage of this play was only my giving Fortune her revenge; I owed it her, and she was indulgent that she exacted not the payment long before.  I will therefore deal more reasonably with you, than any poet has ever done with any patron:  I do not so much as oblige you for my sake, to pass two ill hours in reading of my play.  Think, if you please, that this dedication is only an occasion I have taken, to do myself the