Nature be Wits and _Beaus_; then scatter it for Authentick all over the Town and Court, poysoning of others Judgments with their false Notions, condemning it to worse than Death, Loss of Fame. And to fortifie their Detraction, charge me with all the Plays that have ever been offensive; though I wish with all their Faults I had been the Author of some of those they have honour’d me with. For the farther Justification of this Play; it being a Comedy of Intrigue Dr. _Davenant_ out of Respect to the Commands he had from Court, to take great Care that no Indecency should be in Plays, sent for it and nicely look’t it over, putting out anything he but imagin’d the Criticks would play with. After that, Sir Roger _L’Estrange_ read it and licens’d it, and found no such Faults as ‘tis charg’d with: Then Mr. _Killigrew_, who more severe than any, from the strict Order he had, perus’d it with great Circumspection; and lastly the Master Players, who you will I hope in some Measure esteem Judges of Decency and their own Interest, having been so many Years Prentice to the Trade of Judging. I say, after all these Supervisors the Ladys may be convinc’d, they left nothing that could offend, and the Men of their unjust Reflections on so many Judges of Wit and Decencys. When it happens that I challenge any one, to point me out the least Expression of what some have made their Discourse, they cry, _That Mr_. Leigh _opens his Night Gown, when he comes into the Bride-chamber_; if he do, which is a Jest of his own making, and which I never saw, I hope he has his Cloaths on underneath? And if so, where is the Indecency? I have seen in that admirable Play of _Oedipus_, the Gown open’d wide, and the Man shown, in his Drawers and Waist coat, and never thought it an Offence before. Another crys, _Why we know not what they mean, when the Man takes a Woman off the Stage, and another is thereby cuckolded_; is that any more than you see in the most Celebrated of your Plays? as the _City Politicks_, the _Lady Mayoress_, and the _Old Lawyers Wife_, who goes with a Man she never saw before, and comes out again the joyfull’st Woman alive, for having made her Husband a Cuckold with such Dexterity, and yet I see nothing unnatural nor obscene: ‘tis proper for the Characters. So in that lucky Play of the _London Cuckolds_, not to recite Particulars. And in that good Comedy of _Sir Courtly Nice_, the _Taylor to the young Lady_--in the fam’d Sir _Fopling Dorimont and Bellinda_, see the very Words--in _Valentinian_, see the Scene between the _Court Bawds_. And _Valentinian_ all loose and ruffld a Moment after the Rape, and all this you see without Scandal, and a thousand others The _Moor of Venice_ in many places. The _Maids Tragedy_--see the Scene of undressing the Bride, and between the _King_ and _Amintor_, and after between the _King_ and _Evadne_--All these I Name as some of the best Plays I know; If I should repeat the Words exprest in these Scenes I mention, I might