_Tho’ round my Bed the Furies plant their Charms, I’ll break ’em, with ~Jocasta~ in my Arms: Claspt in the Folds of Love, I’ll wait my Doom, And act my Joys, tho’ Thunder shakes the Room._ Act 2.
_Nor shall I need a Violence to wound, The Storm is here that drives me on the Ground, Sure Means to make the Soul and Body part, A burning Fever, and a broken Heart._ Act 5. Scene 2.
In which Lines abovesaid may be seen the Lover pursuing his Amours in Defiance of Heaven; and _Varanes_ dying a natural Death, or else he had been so wicked, as to have laid violent hands on himself. Neither are the _Greek_ and _Latin_ Dramatists without their prophane Flights, and wicked Rants: Nay, hear how _Augustin_, that great Father of the Church, in these Words, _Non omnino per hanc turpitudinem verba ista commodius discuntur, sed per hæc verba turpitudo ista confidentius perpetratur_. Confes. lib. 1. cap. 16. condemns the following Lines of _Terence_’s Eunuch, Act 3. Scene 5.
_Suspectans tabulam quandam pictam, ubi inerat pictura hæc, Jovem Quo pacto Danaæ misisse aiunt quondam in gremium imbrem aureum Egomet quoque id spectare cœpi, &c._
In short, no good Manners can be acquir’d on the _English_ Stage, by seeing an Actor going a Tiptoe, in Derision of mincing Dames; sometimes speaking full-mouth’d, to mock the Country Clowns; and sometimes upon the Tip of the Tongue, to scoff the Citizen? that thus, by the Imitation of all ridiculous Gestures, or Speeches, in all Kinds of Vocations, they may provoke Laughter. When Stages were first set up in _Rome_, it was accounted infamous to frequent them; and in _England_, Players, both Men and Women, are reckon’d so scandalous, that tho’ they stile themselves his Majesty’s Servants, yet the Statute Law terms them Vagabonds: “Indeed they are so infamously wicked, that one who never saw them in this Life, may nevertheless at the Resurrection, know their Bodies and Souls are Fellows; insomuch that as the Play-House in _Drury-Lane_ has been burnt once already, it would be a Mercy rather than a Judgment, if God vouchsafed to smite them once again.”