Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	city_n	great_a	people_n	1,556	5	4.4120	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36655	Notes and observations on The empress of Morocco, or, Some few errata's to be printed instead of the sculptures with the second edition of that play	Dryden, John, 1631-1700.; Shadwell, Thomas, 1642?-1692.; Crown, Mr. (John), 1640?-1712.	1674 (1674)	Wing D2320; ESTC R414	67,090	90

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE EMPRESS OF MOROCCO OR Some few ERRATA'S to be Printed instead of the SCULPTURES with the Second Edition of that PLAY Nunquamne reponam Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri Iuvenal LONDON Printed in the Year 1674. THE PREFACE WHen I first saw the Empress of Morocco though I found it then to be a Rapsody of non-sense I was very well contented to have let it pass that the Reputation of a new Authour might not be wholly damn'd but that he might be encourag'd to make his Audience some part of amends another time In order to this I strain'd a point of Conscience to cry up some passages of the Play which I hop'd would recommend it to the liking of the more favourable Judges But the ill report it had from those that had seen it at Whitehall had already done its Buisness with Iudicious Men. It was generally dislik'd by them and but for the help of Scenes and Habits and a Dancing Tree even the Ludgate Audience had forsaken it After this ill success one would have thought the Poet should have been sufficiently mortified and though he were not naturally modest should at least have deferr'd the showing of his Impudence till a fitter season But instead of this he has written before his Play the most arrogant calumniating ill manner'd and senseless Preface I ever saw This upstart illiterate Scribler who lies more open to censure then any writer of the Age comes amongst the Poets like one of the Earth-born Brethren and his first buisness in the World is to Attack and Murder all his Fellows This I confess rais'd a little Indignation in me as much as I was capable of for so contemptible a Wretch and made me think it somewhat necessary that he should be made an Example to the discouragement of all such petulant Ill Writers and that he should be dragg'd out of that Obscurity to which his own Poetry would for ever have condemn'd him I knew indeed that to Write against him was to do him too great an Honour But I consider'd Ben. Johnson had done it before to Deeker our Authors Pred●cessor whom he chastis'd in his Poet aster under the Character of Crispinus and brought him in Vomiting up his Fustian and Non-sense Should our Poet have been introduc'd in the same manner he must have disgorg'd his whole Play ere he had been cleans'd Never did I see such a confus'd heap of false Grammar improper English strain'd Hyperboles and downright Bulls His Plot is incoherent and full of absurdities and the Characters of his Persons so ill chosen that they are all either Knaves or Fools only his Knaves are Fools into the Bargain and so must be of necessity while they are in his Management They all speake alike and without distinction of Character That is every one Rants and Swaggers and talks Non-sense abundantly He steals notoriously from his Contemporaries but he so alters the property by disguising his Theft in ill English and ●ad Applications that he makes the Child his own by deforming it Male dum re●citas incipit esse tuus A Poet when he sees his thoughts in so ill a dress is asham'd to confess they ever belong'd to him For the Latine and Greek Authors he had certainly done them the same injurie he has done the English but that he has the excuse of Aretine for not railing against God he Steals not from them because he never knew them In short he 's an Animal of a most deplor'd understanding without Reading Conversation his being is in a twilight of Sence and some glimmering of thought which he can never fashion either into Wit or English His Stile is Boisterous and Rough Hewen his Rhyme incorrigibly lewd and his numbers perpetually harsh and ill sounding That little Talent which he has is Fancy He sometimes labours with a thought but with the Pudder he makes to bring it into the World 't is commonly Still-born so that for want of Learning and Elocution he will never be able to express any thing either naturally or justly This subjects him on all occasions to false allusions and mistaken points of Wit As for Iudgment he has not the least grain of it and therefore all his Plays will be a mere confusion What a beastly Pattern of a King whom he intends vertuous has he shown in his Muley Labas Yet he is the only person who is kept to his Character for he is a perpetual Fool and I dare undertake that if he were Play'd by Nokes who Acted just such another Monarch in Mackbeth it would give new life to the Play and do it more good then all its Devils But of all Women the Lord Bless us from his Laula no body can be safe from her she is so naturally mischievous that she kills without the least occasion for the mere Letchery of Blood-shed I suspect he took her Character from the poisoning Woman who they say makes almost as little ceremony of a Murder as that Queen It were endless to run over the rest but they are all of the same S●amp He has a heavy hand at Fools and a great felicity in writing Non-sense for them Fools they will be in spight of him His King his two Empresses his Villain and his Sub-villain nay his Heroe have all a certain natural cast of the Father one turn of the Countenance goes through all his Children Their Folly was born and bred in 'em and something of the Elkanah will be visible Our Poet in writing Fools has very much in him of that Sign-post Painter who was famous only for drawing Roses when a Vintner desir'd him to paint him a Lyon he answer'd he would do it to content him but he was sure it would be like a Rose Yet since the common Audience are much of his levell and both the great Vulgar and the small as Mr. Cowly calls them are apt to admire what they do not understand omne ignotum habent pro magnifico and think all which rumbles is Heroick It will be no wonder if he pass for a great Authour amongst Town Fools and City Wits With these Men they who laugh at him will be thought envious for they will be sure to rise up in Arms for Non-sense and violently defend a cause in which they are engag'd by the tyes of Nature and Education But it will be for the benefit of Mankind hereafter to observe what kind of People they are who frequent this Play that Men of common sense may know whom to shun Yet I dare assure the Reader that one half of the faults and absurdities are not shown what is here is only Selected Fustian Impertinence and false Grammar There is as much behind as would reasonably damn as many Plays as there are Acts for I am sure there are no four Lines together which are free from some errour and commonly a gross one But here is enough to take a tast of him to have observ'd all were to have swell'd