Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/130

120 without emotion; that is, no man of feeling and humanity, who has experienced the delicate ſolicitudes of love and affection, can do it. Sir Richard has told us, that when one of the players told Mr. Wilks, that there was a General weeping for Indiana; he politely obſerved, that he would not fight the worſe for that; and indeed what a noble ſchool of morality would the ſtage be, if all thoſe who write for it would obſerve ſuch delicate chaſtity; they would then inforce an honourable and virtuous deportment, by the moſt inſinuating and eaſy means; they would ſo allure the audience by the amiable form of goodneſs repreſented in her native lovelineſs, that he who could reſiſt her charms, muſt be ſomething more than wicked.

When Sir Richard finiſhed this Comedy, the parts of Tom and Phillis were not then in it: He read it to Mr. Cibber, who candidly told him, that though he liked his play upon the whole, both in the caſt of the characters and execution of them; yet, that it was rather too grave for an Engliſh audience, who want generally to laugh at a Comedy, and without which in their opinion, the end is not anſwered. Mr. Cibber then propoſed the addition of ſome comic characters, with which Sir Richard agreed, and ſaw the propriety and force of the obſervation. This comedy (at Sir Richard’s requeſt) received many additions from, and were greatly improved by Mr. Cibber.——Our author dedicated this work to the king, who made him a preſent of 500 l.

Some years before his death, he grew paralytic, and retired to his ſeat at Langunner, near Caermarthen in Wales, where he died September the 1ſt, 1729; and was privately interred according to his own deſire, in the church of Caermarthen.

Beſides his writings above-mentionened, he began on Saturday the 17th of December, a weekly paper in quarto, called the Town-Talk, in a letter to a lady