to the several characters. Four
of these characters are entirely new, yet general and important, drawn
truly, and graphically and artfully opposed to each other, Surly to Sir
Courtly, and Hot-head to Testimony: those extremes of behaviour, the
one of which is the grievance, and the other the plague of society and
conversation; excessive ceremony on the one side, and on the other
rudeness, and brutality are finely exposed in Surly and Sir Courtly:
those divisions and animosities in the two great parties of England,
which have so long disturbed the public quiet, and undermined the
general interest, are happily represented and ridiculed in Testimony and
Hot-head. Mr. Dennis, speaking of this comedy, says, 'that though he
has more than twenty times read it, yet it still grows upon him, and he
delivers it as his opinion, that the greatest comic poet, who ever lived
in any age, might have been proud to have been the author of it.'

The play was now just ready to appear to the world. Every one that had
seen it rehearsed, was highly pleased with it. All who had heard of it
conceived great expectations, and Mr. Crowne was delighted with the
flattering hope of being made happy for the remaining part of his life,
by the performance of the King's promise: But upon the very last day of
the rehearsal, he met Underhill coming from the playhouse, as he himself
was going towards it, upon which the poet reprimanding the player for
neglecting so considerable a part as he had in the comedy, and on a day
of so much consequence, as the very last of the rehearsal. Oh Lord, says
Underhill, we are all undone! how! says Crowne, is the Playhouse on
fire? the whole nation, replies the player, will quickly be so, for
the King is dead; at the hearing of which dismal words, the author
was thrown almost into distraction; for he who the moment before was
ravished with the thought of the pleasure he was about to give the King,
and the favours which he was afterwards to receive from him, this moment
found, to his unspeakable sorrow, that his Royal patron was gone for
ever, and with him all his hopes. The King indeed revived from this
apoplectic fit, but three days after died, and Mr. Crowne by his death
was replunged into the deepest melancholly.

Thus far Mr. Dennis has traced the life of Crowne; in the same letter
he promises a further account of him upon another occasion, which, it
seems, never occurred, for we have not been able to find that he has