“Though I pay great deference to Cibber’s judgment, yet I am not sure whether Booth was not in the right.  And I cannot help approving the answer which this actor gave to one, who told him, he was surprised, that he neglected to give a spirited turn to the passage in question: 

  Nour. ’Twill not be safe to let him live an hour.
  Mor. I’ll do it to shew my arbitrary power.

“‘Sir,’ said Booth, ’it was not through negligence, but by design, that I gave no spirit to that ludicrous bounce of Morat.  I know very well, that a laugh of approbation may be obtained from the understanding few, but there is nothing more dangerous than exciting the laugh of simpletons, who know not where to stop.  The majority is not the wisest part of the audience, and therefore I will run no hazard.’

“The court greatly encouraged the play of ‘Aureng-Zebe.’  The author tells us, in his dedication, that Charles II. altered an incident in the plot, and pronounced it to be the best of all Dryden’s tragedies.  It was revived at Drury-Lane about the year 1726, with the public approbation:  The Old Emperor, Mills; Wilkes, Aureng-Zebe; Booth, Morat; Indamora, Mrs Oldfield; Melesinda, the first wife of Theophilus Cibber, a very pleasing actress, in person agreeable, and in private life unblemished.  She died in 1733.”—­Vol.  I. p. 157.

The introduction states all that can be said in favour of the management of the piece; and it is somewhat amusing to see the anxiety which Dryden uses to justify the hazardous experiment, of ascribing to emperors and princesses the language of nature and of passion.  He appears with difficulty to have satisfied himself, that the decorum of the scene was not as peremptory as the etiquette of a court.  “Aureng-Zebe” was received with the applause to which it is certainly entitled.  It was acted and printed in 1676.

Footnote: 
1.  Voyages de Tavernier, seconde partie; livre seconde.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN,

EARL OF MULGRAVE,

GENTLEMAN OF HIS MAJESTY’S BED-CHAMBER,

AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER

OF THE GARTER[1].

MY LORD,

It is a severe reflection which Montaigne has made on princes, that we ought not, in reason, to have any expectations of favour from them; and that it is kindness enough, if they leave us in possession of our own.  The boldness of the censure shows the free spirit of the author:  And the subjects of England may justly congratulate to themselves, that both the nature of our government, and the clemency of our king, secure us from any such complaint.  I, in particular, who subsist wholly by his bounty, am obliged to give posterity a far other account of my royal master, than what Montaigne has left of his.  Those accusations had been more reasonable, if they had been placed on inferior persons:  For in all