Amenities of Literature, Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature Vol. II

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1841 Excerpt: ... and dispersions, and some possibly may still lie unsunned in their manuscript state. We have only the titles of many which were popular; while the names of some of these artificers have come down to us without any of their workmanship. In a private collection, Langbaine had gathered about a thousand plays, beside interludes and drolls; and yet these were but a portion of those plays, for many never passed through the press; the list of anonymous authors is not only considerable, but some of these are not inferior in invention and style to the best.f We may judge of the prolific production of these authors by Thomas Heywood, a fluent and natural writer, who never allowed himself time to cross out a line, and who has casually informed us, that he had either an entire hand, or, at least, a main finger, in two hundred and twenty plays. The intercourse of the proprietors or managers of the theatres and these writers has been only incidentally, Not many years ago Isaac Reed printed The Witch of Middleton. Recently another manuscript play appeared, The Second Maiden's Tragedy. To the personal distresses of the actors in the days of the Commonwealth we owe several dramas, which they published, drawn out of the wrecks of some theatrical treasury; such was The WildGoose Chase of Fletcher, which they assured us was the poet's favorite. It is said that more than sixty of these plays, in manuscript, were collected by Warburton, the herald) and from the utter neglect of the collector had all gone to singe his fowls. When Theobald solemnly declared that his play, The Double Falsehood, was written by Shakespeare, it was probably one of these old manuscript plays. This drama was not unsuccessful; nor had Theobald shot far wide of the mark, since Farmer ascribed...