so much beyond my expectation.  But my malignant adversaries are the more excusable for this coarse method of breaking in upon truth and good manners, because it is the only way they have to gratify the genius and the interest of the faction together; and never so much pains taken neither, to so very, very little purpose.  They decry the play, but in such a manner, that it has the effect of a recommendation.  They call it “a dull entertainment;” and that is a dangerous word, I must confess, from one of the greatest masters in human nature, of that faculty.  Now I can forgive them this reproach too, after all the rest; for this play does openly discover the original and root of the practices and principles, both of their party and cause; and they are so well acquainted with all the trains and mazes of rebellion, that there is nothing new to them in the whole history.  Or what if it were a little insipid, there was no conjuring that I remember in “Pope Joan;” and the “Lancashire Witches” were without doubt the most insipid jades that ever flew upon a stage; and even these, by the favour of a party, made a shift to hold up their heads.[4] Now, if we have out-done these plays in their own dull way, their authors have some sort of privilege to throw the first stone; but we shall rather chuse to yield the point of dulness, than contend for it, against so indisputable a claim.

But “matters of state (it seems) are canvassed on the stage, and things of the gravest concernment there managed;” and who were the aggressors, I beseech you, but a few factious, popular hirelings, that by tampering the theatres, and by poisoning the people, made a play-house more seditious than a conventicle; so that the loyal party crave only the same freedom of defending the government, which the other took beforehand of exposing and defaming it.  There was no complaint of any disorders of the stage, in the bustle that was made (even to the forming of a party) to uphold a farce of theirs.[5] Upon the first day, the whole faction (in a manner) appeared; but after one sight of it, they sent their proxies of serving-men and porters, to clap in the right of their patrons; and it was impossible ever to have gotten off the nonsense of three hours for half-a-crown, but for the providence of so congruous an audience.  Thus far, I presume, the reckoning is even, for bad plays on both sides, and for plays written for a party.  I shall say nothing of their poets’ affection to the government; unless upon an absolute and an odious necessity.  But to return to the pretended Parallel.

I have said enough already to convince any man of common sense, that there neither was, nor could be, any Parallel intended; and it will farther appear, from the nature of the subject; there being no relation betwixt Henry the Third and the Duke of Guise, except that of the king’s marrying into the family of Lorraine.  If a comparison had been designed, how easy had it been either to have found a story,