While the Actors were in this Condition, I think I may very well be excused in my presuming to write Plays: which I was forced to do for the Support of my encreasing Family, my precarious Income as an Actor being then too scanty to supply it with even the Necessaries of Life.
It may be observable, too, that my Muse and my Spouse were equally prolifick; that the one was seldom the Mother of a Child, but in the same Year the other made me the Father of a Play: I think we had a Dozen of each Sort between us; of both which kinds, some died in their Infancy, and near an equal Number of each were alive when I quitted the Theatre--But it is no Wonder, when a Muse is only call'd upon by Family Duty, she should not always rejoice in the Fruit of her Labour. To this Necessity of writing, then, I attribute the Defects of my second Play, which, coming out too hastily the Year after my first, turn'd to very little Account. But having got as much by my first as I ought to have expected from the Success of them both, I had no great Reason to complain: Not but, I confess, so bad was my second, that I do not chuse to tell you the Name of it; and that it might be peaceably forgotten, I have not given it a Place in the two Volumes of those I publish'd in Quarto in the Year 1721.[289] And whenever I took upon me to make some dormant Play of an old Author to the best of my Judgment fitter for the Stage, it was honestly not to be idle that set me to work; as a good Housewife will mend old Linnen when she has not better Employment: But when I was more warmly engag'd by a Subject entirely new, I only thought it a good Subject when it seem'd worthy of an abler Pen than my own, and might prove as useful to the Hearer as profitable to my self: Therefore, whatever any of my Productions might want of Skill, Learning, Wit, or Humour, or however unqualify'd I might be to instruct others who so ill govern'd my self: Yet such Plays (entirely my own) were not wanting, at least, in what our most admired Writers seem'd to neglect, and without which I cannot allow the most taking Play to be intrinsically good, or to be a Work upon which a Man of Sense and Probity should value himself: I mean when they do not, as well _prodesse_ as _delectare_,[290] give Profit with Delight! The _Utile Dulci_[291] was, of old, equally the Point; and has always been my Aim, however wide of the Mark I may have shot my Arrow. It has often given me Amazement that our best Authors of that time could think the Wit and Spirit of their Scenes could be an Excuse for making the Looseness of them publick. The many Instances of their Talents so abused are too glaring to need a closer Comment, and are sometimes too gross to be recited. If then to have avoided this Imputation, or rather to have had the Interest and Honour of Virtue always in view, can give Merit to a Play, I am contented that my Readers should think such Merit the All that mine have to boast of--Libertines of meer Wit and Pleasure may laugh at these grave Laws that would limit a lively Genius: But every sensible honest Man, conscious of their Truth and Use, will give these Ralliers Smile for Smile, and shew a due Contempt for their Merriment.