that it is the best heroic play that has been written of late; for, I thank Heaven, I am not yet so vain. But this I may modestly boast of, which the author[8] of the French _Berenice_ has done before me, in his preface to that play, that it never failed to draw tears from the eyes of the auditors; I mean, those whose hearts were capable of so noble a pleasure: for it was not my business to take such as only come to a playhouse to see farce-fools, and laugh at their own deformed pictures. Though a certain writer that shall be nameless[9] (but you shall guess at him by what follows), being asked his opinion of this play, very gravely cocked, and cried, "I'gad, he knew not a line in it he would be author of."[10] But he is a fine facetious witty person, as my friend Sir Formal has it; and to be even with him, I know a comedy of his, that has not so much as a quibble in it that I would be author of. And so, Reader, I bid him and thee Farewell. FOOTNOTES: [5] To gain by honourable ways A great man's favour is no vulgar praise.--_Conington._ [6] James, Duke of York, afterwards James II. [7] Rochester, whose motive in patronising Otway at this time was solely a desire to mortify Dryden. [8] Racine. [9] Dryden. [10] It will be remembered that _I'gad_ is an expression frequently used by Bayes in the _Rehearsal_; a character written in ridicule of Davenant, Dryden, the Howards, &c, by the Duke of Buckingham (Dryden's Zimri), Butler, and others. [Illustration: _PROLOGUE_]