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foremost rank of tragic authors. The truth seems to be, that the theatre is affected by the change of fashion, which, among other caprices, has assigned late and irregular hours as a test of its votaries adherence to its dictates. Thus, unless on particular nights, the greater part of the audience is composed of persons whose day has been spent in fatiguing occupation, and whose state of mind, not to mention their general taste, seeks relaxation, rather in the amusement of comedy, than from the graver efforts of the tragic author. It were well if this were all. But women of the higher rank, whose taste used formerly to have much influence upon the amusements of the drama, cannot, in the present state of our theatres, easily visit them, without many and inconvenient precautions. A large portion of the house is avowedly abandoned to females of the worst description, whose numbers enable them to outrage decency with insolence and impunity, and to exhibit scenes much fitter for the haunts of low debauchery, than for a place of polished amusement. Late incidents also lead us to complain, that the slightest infraction of the rights of the public, real or supposed, leads to the repetition of tremendous remedies, which irresistibly remind us of the peasant in the fable, who called a squire and a pack of hounds into his garden, to chace out a poor hare, who had eat some of his cabbages. Until the natural good sense of an English audience find some remedy for these growing evils, the taste for this delightful art must become daily more corrupt and degraded. Meanwhile, the Editors may claim some merit, for furnishing the admirers of the drama with an opportunity of deriving from its master-pieces that amusement in their closet, which is now too unfrequently offered to them upon the stage, which GARRICK once trode, and which still boasts of SIDDONS.

THE

BRITISH DRAMA.

THE

TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.

BY

SHAKESPEARE AND FLETCHER.

PROLOGUE.

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NEW plays and maidenheads are near akin;
Much followed both, for both much money gi'n,
If they stand sound and well: and a good play
(Whose modest scenes blush on his marriage-day,
And shake to lose his honour) is like her
That after holy tie, and first night's stir,
Yet still is modesty, and still retains
More of the maid to sight, than husband's pains.
We pray our play may be so; for I'm sure
It has a noble breeder, and a pure,
A learned, and a poet never went
More famous yet 'twixt Po, and silver Trent:
Chaucer (of all admired) the story gives;
There constant to eternity it lives!
If we let fall the nobleness of this,

And the first sound this child hear be a hiss,
How will it shake the bones of that good man,
And make him cry from under-ground, “Oh, fan

"From me the witless chaff of such a writer,
"That blasts my bays, and my famed works makes
lighter

"Than Robin Hood !" This is the fear we bring;
For, to say truth, it were an endless thing,
And too ambitious, to aspire to him.
Weak as we are, and almost breathless swim
In this deep water, do but you hold out
Your helping hands, and we shall tack about,
And something do to save us; you shall hear
Scenes, though below his art, may yet appear
Worth two hours travel.-To his bones sweet
sleep!

Content to you!-If this play do not keep
A little dull time from us, we perceive
Our losses fall so thick, we must needs leave.

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THE

TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.

SCENE I.

ACT I.

Enter HYMEN with a torch burning; a Boy, in a white robe, before, singing, and strewing flowers; after HYMEN, a Nymph, encompassed in her tresses, bearing a wheaten garland; then THESEUS, between two other Nymphs, with wheaten chaplets on their heads; then HIPPOLITA, led by PERITHOUS, and another holding a garland over her head, her tresses likewise hanging; after her, EMILIA, holding up her

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train.

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ROSES, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone,
But in their hue;
Maiden-pinks, of odour faint;
Daisies smell-less, yet more quaint,
And sweet thyme true.

Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
Merry spring-time's harbinger,
With her bells dim;
Oxlips in their cradles growing,
Marigolds on death-beds blowing,
Lark-heels trim.

All dear Nature's children sweet,
Lye 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,
Blessing their sense! [Strew flowers.

Not an angel of the air,

Bird melodious, or bird fair,

Be absent hence !

The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor
The boding raven, nor chough hoar,
Nor chatt'ring pie,

May on our bridehouse perch or sing,
Or with them any discord bring,
But from it fly!

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Thes. Sad lady, rise.

Hipp. Stand up.

Emi. No knees to me! What woman I May sted, that is distressed, does bind me to her. Thes. What's your request? Deliver you, for all. 1 Queen. We are three Queens, whose sovereigns fell before

The wrath of cruel Creon; who endured
The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites,
And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes.
He will not suffer us to burn their bones,
To urn their ashes, nor to take the offence
Of mortal loathsomeness from the blest
eye
Of holy Phoebus, but infects the winds
With stench of our slain lords. Oh, pity, duke!
Thou purger of the earth, draw thy fear'd sword,
That does good turns to the world; give us the
bones

Of our dead kings, that we may chapel them!
And, of thy boundless goodness, take some note,
That for our crowned heads we have no roof
Save this, which is the lion's and the bear's,
And vault to every thing!

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