The reader of this comedy will scarcely conceive the great entertainment which it can bestow in representation. But it requires peculiar powers of comic acting to make it please even on the stage, and therefore it is seldom performed.

Don John² is the character, which, most of any in the piece, must be assisted with the actor's skill, or the whole drama sinks into insipidity.

The second Constantia³ ranks as a first comic character, but is too little seen to be of any high importance.

The Landlady to Don John is most excellently portrayed, but is one of those characters, however admirable, not sufficiently pleasing to be impressive. Old women, however well described by an author, or performed by an actress, have seldom more attractions on the stage than in real life.

The continual bustle, the contrivances, the hurry of intrigue, and the mistakes, in this comedy, are its best claims to the attention of an audience—in these occurrences a reader cannot so well partake; and, as humour is more its quality than wit, of that, again, the reader is denied his equal share with an auditor. Wit is ster-b 2[Page 4]ling coin, that passes for its genuine value in a book, as well as in a theatre; whilst humour depends upon a hundred accidents to make it current.

Garrick was perfectly humorous in Don John, and made the play a favourite, when he performed the part. So did Henderson. Elliston can do the same at present.

"The Chances" was the production of the noted friends, Beaumont and Fletcher, and was brought forth in the year 1643—its fable was taken from a novel, by Cervantes, called "Lady Cornelia."⁴ —Becoming, in about forty years, somewhat old fashioned, the Duke of Buckingham undertook its alteration and improvement. Again, outliving the mode, Garrick, in 1773, new dressed it for the public, and, most efficacious service of all, performed the first character himself.⁵

The task which Garrick had in his alteration of this comedy, was, no doubt, to curtail its wit; for never dramatists had greater fame for being witty, than both Fletcher and Buckingham, though, chiefly, in all the ancient indecorum of comic genius. That Garrick, to the delicacy of improved taste, was compelled to sacrifice much of their libertine dialogue, may be well suspected, by the remainder which he spared.

As, in a former preface to "Rule a Wife and have a Wife," some account has been given of the lives and friendship of Beaumont and Fletcher, the biographical article before this play must be assigned to the noble peer, who, having altered and amended "The Chances," published it under his own name.⁶

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was born in Wallingford House, in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields, in 1624, just a year previous to the death of that great statesman, his father, by the hand of the assassin, Felton.⁷

The young Duke obtained the first part of his education from private tutors: he was afterwards sent to the university of Cambridge; and, on the commencement of civil wars, being presented to his Majesty, Charles the First, was received most graciously, as the son of his beloved and lamented minister.⁸

The court residing at this time in Oxford, the Duke completed his studies there, in the college of Christ Church.—Upon the decline of the royal cause, he attended Prince Charles to Scotland, returned and fought with him at the battle of Worcester, and afterwards, making his escape from England, rejoined the heir apparent, in a foreign land.⁹

Besides the festive accomplishments of Buckingham, there were other, and stronger, ties, to bind his royal master firmly to him, when he ascended the throne.¹⁰ The Duke had been the companion of Charles the Second, in battle and in exile; was endeared to him by the regard the late King had for his deceased father; and, though his brilliant wit and inspiring mirth might augment the partiality which his sovereign evinced, yet surely it was his early attachment to the royal cause and person of the Prince which mitigated the monarch's justice, when the dissolute life, and flagrant crimes, of the of-b 3[Page 6]fender, made him a proper object of royal indignation.¹¹

This nobleman lived at court the joy and hatred of his common associates—the delight and disgrace of his royal master—the envy of all bad, and the contempt of all good men.

The Duke possessed an estate of nearly fifty thousand pounds a year; he was Knight of the Garter, Master of the Horse, Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire; holding besides many other places, from the bounty of his grateful monarch. With all this cause to be satisfied, he was malicious towards his neighbours, and treacherous to the King.

Charles forgave his offences, and left his punishment to Heaven—Heaven inflicted it, by poverty and ignominy. Bereft of his only benefactor, by the sudden decease of his Majesty, his fortune squandered, health impaired, and character detested, the Duke sought shelter from a scornful nation, in a dreary house, situated in the Wolds of Yorkshire.¹² Some accident having cast him on a bed of sickness, at a little inn, in the same country; of the miserable death of this great nobleman, and celebrated genius, Pope has given the following well-known description:— In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw,With tape-ty'd curtains, never meant to draw,The George and Garter¹³ dangling from that bed,Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,[Page 7]Great Villiers lies—Alas! how chang'd from him,That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's¹⁴ proud alcove,The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;Or just as gay in council, in the ringOf mimick'd statesmen, and their merry king.No wit to flatter left of all his store!No fool to laugh at, which he valued more;There, victor of his health, his fortune, friends,And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.¹⁵ space between stanzas