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LONDON:

Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES,
Stamford Street.

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THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE, K. G.,

LORD CHAMBERLAIN OF HIS MAJESTY'S HOUSEHOLD,

THIS WORK,

TO THE COMPLETION OF WHICH HIS GRACE'S MATCHLESS DRAMATIC LIBRARY HAS SO IMPORTANTLY CONTRIBUTED, IS, WITH

PERMISSION, INSCRIBED BY

HIS GRACE'S

MOST OBEDIENT, DEVOTED, AND VERY GRATEFUL

SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

ENGLISH Dramatic Poetry stands alone in the history of letters *; but while in Germany it has been enthusiastically admired and diligently studied, in this country, as if satisfied with our acknowledged preeminence, it has attracted comparatively little attention. Excepting only as far as was necessary for the illustration of the text of Shakespeare, the origin and progress of that art, in which he had many precursors and rivals, seem to have been thought scarcely worth inquiry.

We are therefore without any history of English dramatic poetry; for although Warton, in his progress through other departments, has touched upon

*If there be any just exception to this remark, it can apply only to the dramatic poetry of Spain. Even France might have possessed a 'romantic drama,' had the unaided and popular exertions of Hardie been followed up by other poets. That author, who for so many years, and while our Shakespeare and Spain's Lope de Vega were yet living, was the sole support of the French stage, could never have been so prolific had he checked the luxuriance of his fancy by the observance of the unities. He is said to have produced not less than eight hundred pieces of different descriptions.

that subject cursorily and incidentally, he has not attempted to trace its development and improvement to the period to which his work extends. The field of English poetry was too wide for him to dwell even upon its most remarkable productions.

This deficiency I have attempted to supply; and, as far as zeal and industry merit success, I claim to have deserved it. Thus far every man has a right to speak of his own qualifications, though I am well aware how many others are necessary for the completion of such an undertaking. To a large mass of facts that are quite new, I have been careful to add the valuable, but scattered information furnished by Warton; but it seemed to me that the dramatic poetry of this country formed of itself a department so important and interesting, as to demand to be separately and systematically examined. For England to possess the greatest dramatic poets of the world, and to be without a history of her dramatic poetry, seemed an extraordinary solecism in letters.

The present work consists of three divisións:-
I. Annals of the Stage.

II. A History of Dramatic Poetry.

·

III. An Account of Theatres and their Appur

tenances.

In point of novelty and interest, I ought first to have treated the second of these branches; but I

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