The Conscious Lovers
By Richard Steele.
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To
the King.
May it please your Majesty,
After having aspired to the highest and most laudable ambition, that of following the cause of liberty, I should not have humbly petitioned your Majesty for a direction of the theatre, had I not believed success in that province an happiness much to be wished by an honest man, and highly conducing to the prosperity of the commonwealth. It is in this view I lay before your Majesty a Comedy which the audience, in justice to themselves, has supported and encouraged, and is the prelude of what, by your Majesty’s influence and favour, may be attempted in future representations.
The imperial mantle, the royal vestment, and the shining diadem are what strike ordinary minds; but your Majesty’s native goodness, your passion for justice, and her constant assessor mercy, is what continually surrounds you in the view of intelligent spirits, and gives hope to the suppliant, who sees he has more than succeeded in giving your Majesty an opportunity of doing good. Our King is above the greatness of royalty, and every act of his will which makes another man happy has ten times more charms in it than one that makes himself appear raised above the condition of others. But even this carries unhappiness with it; for calm dominion, equal grandeur, and familiar greatness do not easily affect the imagination of the vulgar, who cannot see power but in terror; and as fear moves mean spirits, and love prompts great ones to obey, the insinuations of malcontents are directed accordingly; and the unhappy people are ensnared, from want of reflection, into disrespectful ideas of their gracious and amiable sovereign, and then only begin to apprehend the greatness of their master when they have incurred his displeasure.
As your Majesty was invited to the throne of a willing people, for their own sakes, and has ever enjoyed it with contempt of the ostentation of it, we beseech you to protect us who revere your title as we love your person. ’Tis to be a savage to be a rebel, and they who have fallen from you have not so much forfeited their allegiance as lost their humanity. And, therefore, if it were only to preserve myself from the imputation of being amongst the insensible and abandoned, I would beg permission in the most public manner possible to profess myself, with the utmost sincerity and zeal,
The Preface1
This Comedy has been received with universal acceptance, for it was in every part excellently performed; and there needs no other applause of the actors but that they excelled according to the dignity and difficulty of the character they represented. But this great favour done to the work in acting renders the expectation still the greater from the author, to keep up the spirit in the representation of the closet, or any other circumstance of the reader, whether alone or in company; to which I can only say that it must be remembered, a play is to be seen, and is made to be represented with the advantage of action, nor can appear but with half the spirit without it. For the greatest effect of a play in reading is to excite the reader to go to see it; and when he does so, it is then a play has the effect of example and precept.
The chief design of this was to be an innocent performance, and the audience have abundantly shown how ready they are to support what is visibly intended that way. Nor do I make any difficulty to acknowledge that the whole was writ for the sake of the scene of the Fourth Act, wherein Mr. Bevil evades the quarrel with his friend, and2 hope it may have some effect upon the Goths and Vandals that frequent the theatres, or a more polite audience may supply their absence.
But this incident, and the case of the father and daughter, are esteemed by some people no subjects of comedy; but I cannot be of their mind, for anything that has its foundation in happiness and success must be allowed to be the object of comedy; and sure it must be an improvement of it to introduce a joy too exquisite for laughter, that can have no spring but in delight, which is the case of this young lady. I must, therefore, contend that the tears which were shed on
