This is very significant expostulation: and contains very good Rules for the Trial of the _Muses_: But if the English _Stage_, should be obliged to this Test; _Aristophanes_ must set fire to it, and that with much more reason than to _Socrates_ his _School_. Now that _Æschylus_ spoke _Aristophanes_'s Sense is pretty plain: For first; As to the Business of Love, _Aristophanes_ always declines it; He never patches up a _Play_ with _Courtship_, and _Whining_, tho' he wrote nothing but _Comedy_. In the next place the _Chorus_ which is usually the _Poets_ Interpreter, speaks honourably of _Æschylus_ even to a Preference;[94] And at last Judge _Bacchus_ gives Sentence for him.
Thus we see _Aristophanes_ Confutes his own Lewdness, and comes in Evidence against himself. This with the other two Exceptions I have made good against him, are sufficient to take off the Force of the _Precedent_, and make him an insignificant Authority.
To what I have observ'd from the _Stage_ of the Antients, I could add the Authorities of _Aristotle_, and _Quintilian_, both extraordinary Persons, but I shall reserve their Testimony till Afterwards.
To come Home, and near our own Times: The English Theatre from Queen _Elizabeth_ to King _Charles_ II. will afford us something not inconsiderable to our purpose.
As for _Shakespear_, he is too guilty to make an Evidence: But I think he gains not much by his Misbehaviour; He has commonly _Plautus's Fate_, where there is most Smut, there is least Sense.
_Ben. Johnson_ is much more reserv'd in his _Plays_, and declares plainly for Modesty in his _Discoveries_, some of his Words are these.
A just Writer whom he calls a _True Artificer_, will avoid _Obscene_ and _Effeminate Phrase. Where Manners and Fashions are Corrupted, Language is so too.[95] The excess of Feasts and Apparel, are the Notes of A Sick State, and the Wantonness of Language of a sick Mind_.[96] A little after he returns to the Argument, and applies his Reasoning more particularly to the Stage. _Poetry_, (says he) _and Picture, both behold Pleasure, and profit, as their common Object, but should abstain from all base Pleasures, least they should wholly Err from their End; And while they seek to better Men's Minds, Destroy their Manners, Insolent and obscene Speeches, and Jests upon the best Men, are most likely to excite Laughter. But this is truly leaping from the Stage to the Tumbrill again, reducing all Wit to the Original Dung-Cart_.[97] More might be cited to this purpose, but that may serve for an other Occasion: In the mean time I shall go on to _Beaumont_ and _Fletcher_.