The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II by Theophilus Cibber
page 91 of 368 (24%)
page 91 of 368 (24%)
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this extraordinary affair are related in the life of Milton.
Sir William Davenant continued at the head of his company of actors, and at last transferred them to a new and magnificent theatre built in Dorset-Gardens, where some of his old plays were revived with very singular circumstances of royal kindness, and a new one when brought upon the stage met with great applause. The last labour of his pen was in altering a play of Shakespear's, called the Tempest, so as to render it agreeable to that age, or rather susceptible of those theatrical improvements he had brought into fashion. The great successor to his laurel, in a preface to this play, in which he was concerned with Davenant, 'says, that he was a man of quick and piercing imagination, and soon found that somewhat might be added to the design of Shakespear, of which neither Fletcher nor Suckling had ever thought; and therefore to put the last hand to it, he designed the counterpart to Shakespear's plot, namely, that of a man who had never seen a woman, that by this means, these two characters of innocence and love might the more illustrate and commend each other. This excellent contrivance he was pleased to communicate to me, and to defire my assistance in it. I confess that from the first moment it so pleased me, that I never wrote any thing with so much delight. I might likewise do him that justice to acknowledge that my writing received daily amendments, and that is the reason why it is not so faulty, as the rest that I have done, without the help or correction of so judicious a friend. The comical parts of the sailors were also of his invention and Writing, as may easily be discovered from the stile.' This great man died at his house in little Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, April |
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