Playes written by the thrice noble, illustrious and excellent princess, the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle.

Scene 22.

Enter the Ladies and Grave Matroness; The Lady Speaker takes the Chair.

MAtronesse.

Lady, let the Theam of your discourse to day be of a Theatre.

Lady Speaker.

A Theatre is a publick place for publick Actions, Orations, Disputations, Presentations, whereunto is a publick resort; but there are only two Theatres, which are the chief, and the most frequented; the one is of War, the other of Peace; the Theatre of Warr is the Field; and the Battels they sight, are the Plays they Act, and the Souldiers are the Trage∣dan••s, and the Theatre of Peace is the stage, and the Plays there Acted are the Humours, Manners, Dispositions, Natures, Customes of men thereon descri∣bed and acted, whereby the Theatres are as Schools to teach Youth good Principles, and instruct them in the Nature and Customes of the World and Mankind, and learn men to know themselves better than by any other way of instruction; and upon these Theatres•• they may learn what is noble and good, what base and wicked, what is ridiculous and misbecoming, what gracefull and best becoming, what to avoid and what to imitate; the Ge∣nius that belongs to the Theatre of Warr is Valour, and the Genius that

belongs to the Theatre of Peace is Wit: the designer of the rough Plays of Warr, is a General or Councel; the designer of the smooth Plays of Peace is a Poet, or a chief Magistrate; but the difference of these Plays Acted on each Theatre, is, the one is real, the other feigned, the one in earnest, the other in jest; for a Poet only feigns Tragedies, but the Souldiers do truly act Tragedies; on the Poetical Theatre I will only insist, for this Theatre be∣longs more to our persons, and is a more fitter Subject for the discourse of our Sex, than Warr is; for we delight more in Scenes than in Battels: I will begin first with Poets, who are the Authors and makers of these kind of Plays; Fame hath spoke loud, both of antient and modern Poets; as for the antient Poets, they are a length out of the reach of my Judgement, so as my opinion will hardly reach so far; but as for our Modern Poets, that have made Plays in our Modern times, although they deserve praise, yet not so much nor so high Applause as is given them; for most of their Plors, or Foundation of their Plays, were taken out of old Authors, as from the Greeks and Romans, Historians and Poets, also all the Modern Romances are taken out of these Stories, and many Playes out of these Ro∣mances.

Matron.

Lady, give me leave a little while to instruct you, as to tell you, that all Romances should be so; for the ground of a right Romance is a true story, only falshood is intermixt therein, so that a Romance is a compound of Truth and Falshood.

Lady Speaker.

Give me leave to answer you, that in my opinion, a right Romance is Poetical Fictions put into a Historical Stile; but for Plays, the true Comedy is pure Love and Humours, also the Customes, Manners, and the Habits, and inbred qualities of mankind; And right Tragi-Comedies are the descriptions of the Passions which are created in the Soul; And a right Tragedy is intermixt with the Passions, Appetites, and Humours of men, with the influence of outward actions, accidents, and misfortunes: but as I said, some Poets take the Plots out of true History, others out of feigned Historie, which are Romances, so as their Plots (for the most part) are meer Translations, and oft times the VVit is also but a translated VVit, only metamorphosed after their own way; but the truth is, that some of them their VVit is their own, and their Plots were stoln, or plainly taken, and some their Plots are their own, but the VVit stoln; but of all theft, VVit is never confest; and some neither the Plot nor Wit is their own, and other; both Plots and VVit are truly their own; These last Poets (although but very few) are the true Sons of Nature, the other but as adulterate issues; But for the most part, our Modern Plays, both Plots and VVit, are meer translations, and yet come out as boldly upon the Stage, as if the Translators were the Original Authors, thinking, or at least hoping that the alteration of the Language conceals the theft, which to the unlearned it doth, but the learned soon find them out, and see all their Bodies, VVings, Leggs, Tail, and Feathers, although they hide their head in the Bush of Ignorance. I speak not in discommendation of these Translations, nor Translators, for Translations are so far from being condemned, as they ought to be much, nay very much commended, and highly praised, if it be such as is praise worthy, for old Authors may in some expressions be more profitable and good, both for VVit and Examples, than the modern; and the Translators may be commended both for their Judgement and Learning; besides, very good Translators must have a sympathetical Genius, with the Original

Author, but their Condemnation proceeds from the Translators unjust own∣ing of it, upon themselves, or in translating it to the Authors preju∣dice.

Matron.

Lady, let me interrupt you once again, to ask your opinion how you like the Italian and French Plays.

Lady Speaker.

As well as I can like any thing that is a strain beyond Na∣ture, or as I may say, Natures Constraint: for the truth is, in their discourse or rehearsals, they do not only raise their Voice a Note or two too high, but many Notes too high, and in their actions they are so forced, as the Spectators might very easily believe the Actors would break their Sinew-strings; and in their Speech they fetch their breath so short and thick, and in such painfull fetches and throws, as those Spectators that are Strangers, might verily believe that they were gasping for life.

Matron.

But Lady, all know Love, which is the Theam or Subject of Plays, is a violent passion, which forces the Players to an Elevation of Action and Speech.

Lady Speaker.

Most Reverend Matron, my opinion is, that though it be commendable and admirable for the Poet to be elevated with a Poetical Di∣vine Inspiration to outdo Nature; yet for the Actors, their best grace is to Play or Act in the Tracts or Paths of Nature, and to keep within Natures bounds; and whensoever they go awry, or transgresse therefrom, they are to be condemned, and to be accounted ill Actors; and as for the Passions of Love, certainly the strongest Love is like the deepest VVater, which is most silent, and least unnecessarily active; they may sometimes mur∣mur, with winds of sighs, but never roar; they neither foam nor froth with violence, but are composed into a heavy body, with a setled sadnesse: But in short, the Italian and French Players act more Romantical than Natural, which is feign'd and constrain'd: but to conclude with the Poet, he delights the Ear and the Understanding with the variety of every thing that Nature, hath made, or Art invented; for a Poet is like a Bee, that gathers the sweet of every Flower, and brings the Hony to his Hive, which are the Ears and Memory of the Hearers, or Readers, in whose Head his VVit swarms; but as Painters Draw to the life, so Poets should VVrite to the life, and Players Act to the life.

Exeunt.