The imposture defeated, or, A trick to cheat the devil a comedy, as it was acted by His Majesties servants, at the Theatre in Drury-lane.
About this Item
- Title
- The imposture defeated, or, A trick to cheat the devil a comedy, as it was acted by His Majesties servants, at the Theatre in Drury-lane.
- Author
- Powell, George, 1658?-1714.
- Publication
- London :: Printed for Richard Wellington ...,
- 1698.
- Rights/Permissions
-
To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
- Link to this Item
-
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A55542.0001.001
- Cite this Item
-
"The imposture defeated, or, A trick to cheat the devil a comedy, as it was acted by His Majesties servants, at the Theatre in Drury-lane." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A55542.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 27, 2025.
Pages
Page [unnumbered]
TO THE READER.
AS this triffle of a Comedy, was only a slight piece of Scribble, purely design'd for the Introduction of a little Musick, being no more than a short weeks work, to serve the wants of a thin Playhouse, and Long Vacation; under those little cir∣cumstances it needs no Apology for either the Plot or the Writing part of it: It neither sets up for a Play, nor the Author for a Poet: Such as it is, it has served a present Exigence, and so gain'd the Point. I have no Appeal therefore to the Mercy either of the Auditors, or the Reader. 'Tis true, I thrust it into the World; for 'tis the fashion to be in Print. A Play that sees not three Days, however shall meet with some kind Bookseller, that in spight of the Paper Tax, shall take the naked thing into Mercy, and this hasty Brat is however a little longer liv'd, had the Honour of keeping the Stage for five Days Reign, and is not yet under the Fear of Abdication.
Yet as indifferent as I am to the merit of the Comedy (and my Reader I suppose as indifferent) it has one Capital Argument lyes against it; for I stand impeacht (at least the Publick Cry is loud upon that Subject) that I have stolen a Character from a Comedy of Mrs. P—t's, being the Humour of Bondi the pretended blind Man.—I would not willingly be thought so poor a Plagiary, and am far from being guilty of this accusation. For, in the first place, I had that hint from a Novel, and that Play of her's that has such a Character I declare I never Read. 'Tis true, such a one she brought into the House, and made me a Solicitor to the Company to get it Acted, which when I had obtain'd, she very mannerly carry'd the Play to the other House; and had I really taken the Character from her, I had done her no more than a piece of Justice.