Mar. jun. Did you ever write, Sir?
Wit. No, Sir, I thank Heav’n.
Mar. jun. Oh! your humble Servant—your very humble Servant, Sir. When you write yourself you will find the Necessity of Alterations. Why, Sir, wou’d you guess that I had alter’d Shakespear?
Wit. Yes, faith, Sir, no one sooner.
Mar. jun. Alack-a-day! Was you to see the Plays when they are brought to us—a Parcel of crude, undigested Stuff. We are the Persons, Sir, who lick them into Form, that mould them into Shape—The Poet make the Play indeed! The Colour-man might be as well said to make the Picture, or the Weaver the Coat: My Father and I, Sir, are a Couple of poetical Tailors; when a Play is brought us, we consider it as a Tailor does his Coat, we cut it, Sir, we cut it: And let me tell you, we have the exact Measure of the Town, we know how to fit their Taste. The Poets, between you and me, are a Pack of ignorant—
Wit. Hold, hold, sir. This is not quite so civil to Mr. Luckless: Besides, as I take it, you have done the Town the Honour of writing yourself.
Mar. jun. Sir, you are a Man of Sense; and express yourself well. I did, as you say, once make a small Sally into Parnassus, took a sort of flying Leap over Helicon: But if ever they catch me there again— Sir, the Town have a Prejudice to my Family; for if any Play you’d have made them ashamed to damn it, mine must. It was all over Plot. It wou’d have made half a dozen Novels: Nor was it cram’d with a pack of Wit-traps, like Congreve and Wycherly, where every one knows when the Joke was coming. I defy the sharpest Critick of ’em all to know when any Jokes of mine were coming. The Dialogue was plain, easy, and natural, and not one single Joke in it from the Beginning to the End: Besides, Sir, there was one Scene of tender melancholy Conversation, enough to have melted a Heart of Stone; and yet they damn’d it: And they damn’d themselves; for they shall have no more of mine.
Wit. Take pity on the Town, Sir.
Mar. jun. I! No, Sir, no. I’ll write no more. No more; unless I am forc’d to it.
