Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/110

100 The firſt ſtep our author made into life, was in the character of an enſign in the army. He was poſſeſſed of a very ready wit, and an agreeable elocution. He happened ſomewhere in his winter quarters, to contract an acquaintance with Sir Thomas Skipwith, and received a particular obligation from him. He had very early diſcovered a taſte for dramatic writing, to improve which he made ſome attempts in that way, and had the draft or out-lines of two plays lying by him, at the time his acquaintance commenced with Sir Thomas. This gentleman poſſeſſed a large ſhare in a Theatrical Patent, though he very little concerned himſelf in the conduct of it; but that he might not appear altogether remiſs, he thought to procure ſome advantage to the ſtage, by having our author’s play, called the Relapſe, to be acted upon it. In this he was not diſappointed, for the Relapſe ſucceeded beyond the warmeſt expectation, and raiſed Vanbrugh’s name very high amongſt the writers for the ſtage.

Tho’ this play met with greater applauſe, than the author expected, yet it was not without its enemies. Theſe were people of the graver fort, who blamed the looſeneſs of the ſcenes, and the unguarded freedom of the dialect. Theſe complaints induced Vanbrugh to make ſome obſervations upon them in his preface, which he thus begins, ‘To go about to excuſe half the defects this abortive brat is come into the world with, would be to provoke the town with a long uſeleſs preface, when ’tis, I doubt, ſufficiently ſour’d already, by a tedious play.

‘I do therefore, with all the humility of a repenting ſinner, confeſs it wants every thing—but length, and in that I hope the ſevereſt critics will be pleaſed to acknowledge, I have not been wanting.