substitute words for things, and art for nature; and hence arose in this country all which has been since understood as verse distinguished from poetry.

And here might be discerned the real poetical corruption, of which the critics afterwards complained, and which they confounded with every species of exuberant fancy. Masks, which though of a lawless nature in their incidents referred their feelings and expressions to nature, were the exuberance of an age of real poets; it was conceits that first marked the reverse; and the introduction of satire, of declamation, and of what has been called the reasoning spirit in poetry, has maintained the perversion more or less ever since, or at least till within a very late period.

But not to lose sight of the main subject.—It is obvious from what has been seen of the nature of Masks, that they contained a good deal of real poetry, and might have been very entertaining to those who nevertheless knew how to set a proper value on the more regular works of imagination. It is equally obvious, however,

at the same time, that from the nature of their object in general, they ran a chance of not living beyond their day, or at any rate of passing unnoticed by the great mass of readers among the larger and more ambitious works of their authors. This has accordingly been the case. The only way to secure them a better fate, was to contrive such additional touches of description and human nature, as should supply the loss of the particular interest by what was universally and perpetually engag ing. We have seen what prevented the writers in most instances from having sufficient zeal for the composition, and what approaches it made to the chance of vitality in proportion as the object of the panegyric was respectable, the subject capable of natural embellishment, or the writer freed from the trammels of a particular allusion. The want of choice and inclination however usually prevailed over the ambition of the author, who was most likely employed in works of more general interest; and while we can trace the best pieces of this description to the circumstances above-mentioned, as in the instances of Beaumont and Browne, yet there is an air, it must be confessed, of constraint

and imperfection in all; and we must still return to Comus, which was evidently written chearfully and ambitiously, as the only, and at the same time the least specific production of the kind, that can be truly be said to have outlived it's occasion.

The piece now presented to the reader would endeavour to supply this deficiency in the actual character of the Mask, by keeping the scenic and fanciful part of it predominant, while it would still exhibit something more of regularity and human interest, than is posBessed by Masks in general. But enough of this is suggested by the Preface. It may seem strange to some readers, that a drama professedly full of machinery should be written expressly for the closet, and not even › have made an attempt at being performed. In the first instance, the author's intention was otherwise; and an eminent person, who relieves his attention to public business by looking after the interests of a theatre, and to whom an application was made on the subject, gave him reason to expect every politeness, had he offered it to the stage. As he proceeded, however, he

found himself making so many demands upon the machinist, besides hazarding, perhaps, in one or two instances, the disturbance of an unanimity which, above all others, ought to have attended the representation of such a piece, that he soon gave up the wish, and set himself, with no diminution of self-indulgence, to make a stage of his own in the reader's fancy. It is the most suitable one, he is convinced, for the very drainas which appear most to demand a machinist. When a storm blows on the stage without disturbing the philosophy of the trees,-when instead of boiling up a waste of waters it sets in painful motion a dozen asthmatic pieces of tin,-when Ariel, instead of breaking out of the atmosphere with ready eagerness at his master's ear, comes walking in with his wand like a premature common-councilman,-in short, when the lightning lingers, the rain leaves dry, the torrent has a hitch in the gait, and one flat piece of carpeted board performs the eternal part of lawn, meadow, and lea, of overgrown wild and finished garden, who, that has any fancy at all, does not feel that he can raise much better pictures in his own mind than he finds in the theatre ?

The author is far from intending to ridicule the stage, the truest office of which (and a noble one it is) is the representation of manners. The stage does a good deal, and perhaps cannot afford to do more. He would merely remind the reader of what must have struck himself whenever he went to see a play like the Tempest. When Masks were in fashion, the Machinist was an important person, and used the utmost efforts of his art; but it was chiefly in still life and architectural decorations, and even for these no expense seems to have been spared. The rest of the shew, however novel and rich, was of as easy a nature as it could be rendered, and subservient rather to the parade of the actors than to the fancy of the poet.

In a word, as the present piece was written part. ly to indulge the imagination of one who could realize no sights for himself, so it is more distinctly addressed to such habitual readers of poetry, as can yield him a ready mirror in the liveliness of their own apprehensions. There is a good deal of prose intermixed, but the nature of a Mask requires it; and if the rea