The reader of this comedy will scarcely conceive the great entertainment which it
can
bestow in representation. But it requires peculiar powers of comic acting to make
it
please even on the stage, and therefore it is seldom performed.

Don John² is the character, which, most of any in the piece, must be
assisted with the actor's skill, or the whole drama sinks into insipidity.

The second Constantia³ ranks as a first comic character, but is too little
seen to be of any high importance.

The Landlady to Don John is most excellently portrayed, but is one of those
characters, however admirable, not sufficiently pleasing to be impressive. Old women,
however well described by an author, or performed by an actress, have seldom more
attractions on the stage than in real life.

The continual bustle, the contrivances, the hurry of intrigue, and the mistakes, in
this comedy, are its best claims to the attention of an audience—in these
occurrences a reader cannot so well partake; and, as humour is more its quality than
wit, of that, again, the reader is denied his equal share with an auditor. Wit is
ster-b 2[Page 4]ling coin,
that passes for its genuine value in a book, as well as in a theatre; whilst humour
depends upon a hundred accidents to make it current.

Garrick was perfectly humorous in Don
John, and made the play a favourite, when he performed the part. So did Henderson. Elliston can do the same at present.

"The Chances" was the production of the noted friends, Beaumont and Fletcher, and was brought forth in the
year 1643—its fable was taken from a novel, by Cervantes, called "Lady
Cornelia."⁴ —Becoming, in about
forty years, somewhat old fashioned, the Duke of Buckingham undertook its
alteration and improvement. Again, outliving the mode, Garrick, in 1773, new dressed it for the
public, and, most efficacious service of all, performed the first character
himself.⁵

The task which Garrick had in his
alteration of this comedy, was, no doubt, to curtail its wit; for never dramatists
had greater fame for being witty, than both Fletcher and Buckingham, though, chiefly, in all the ancient indecorum of comic genius.
That Garrick, to the delicacy of
improved taste, was compelled to sacrifice much of their libertine dialogue, may be
well suspected, by the remainder which he spared.

As, in a former preface to "Rule a Wife and have a Wife," some account
has been given of the lives and friendship of Beaumont and Fletcher, the biographical article before
this play must be assigned to the noble peer, who, having altered and amended
"The Chances," published it under his own name.⁶

[Page 5]

George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, was born in Wallingford House, in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields,
in 1624, just a year previous to the death of that great statesman, his father, by the hand
of the assassin, Felton.⁷

The young Duke obtained the
first part of his education from private tutors: he was afterwards sent to the
university of Cambridge; and, on the commencement of civil wars, being presented to
his Majesty, Charles the First,
was received most graciously, as the son of his beloved and lamented
minister.⁸

The court residing at this time in Oxford, the Duke completed his studies there,
in the college of Christ Church.—Upon the decline of the royal cause, he attended
Prince Charles to Scotland,
returned and fought with him at the battle of Worcester, and afterwards, making his
escape from England, rejoined the heir apparent, in a foreign land.⁹

Besides the festive accomplishments of Buckingham, there were other, and
stronger, ties, to bind his royal master firmly to him, when he ascended the
throne.¹⁰ The Duke
had been the companion of Charles
the Second, in battle and in exile; was endeared to him by the regard the
late King had for his deceased
father; and, though his brilliant wit and inspiring mirth might augment the
partiality which his sovereign evinced, yet surely it was his early attachment to
the
royal cause and person of the Prince which mitigated the monarch's justice, when the dissolute life, and
flagrant crimes, of the of-b 3[Page 6]fender, made him a proper object of royal indignation.¹¹

This nobleman lived at court the joy and hatred of his common associates—the
delight and disgrace of his royal master—the envy of all bad, and the contempt
of all good men.

The Duke possessed an estate of
nearly fifty thousand pounds a year; he was Knight of the Garter, Master of the
Horse, Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire; holding besides many other places, from the
bounty of his grateful monarch. With all this cause to be satisfied, he was malicious
towards his neighbours, and treacherous to the King.

Charles forgave his offences,
and left his punishment to Heaven—Heaven inflicted it, by poverty and ignominy.
Bereft of his only benefactor, by the sudden decease of his Majesty, his fortune squandered,
health impaired, and character detested, the Duke sought shelter from a
scornful nation, in a dreary house, situated in the Wolds of Yorkshire.¹² Some accident
having cast him on a bed of sickness, at a little inn, in the same country; of the
miserable death of this great nobleman, and celebrated genius, Pope has given the following well-known
description:— In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw,With tape-ty'd curtains, never meant to draw,The George and Garter¹³ dangling from that bed,Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,[Page 7]Great Villiers
lies—Alas! how chang'd from him,That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's¹⁴ proud alcove,The bower of wanton Shrewsbury
and love;Or just as gay in council, in the ringOf mimick'd statesmen, and their merry king.No wit to flatter left of all his store!No fool to laugh at, which he valued more;There, victor of his health, his fortune, friends,And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.¹⁵ space between stanzas