"Preface" to The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island (1670)

The writing of prefaces to plays was probably invented by some very ambitious poet who never thought he had done enough: perhaps by some ape of the French eloquence, which uses to make a business of a letter of gallantry, an examen of a farce; and, in short, a great pomp and ostentation of words on every trifle. This is certainly the talent of that nation, and ought not to be invaded by any other. They do that out of gaiety which would be an imposition upon us.

We may satisfy ourselves with surmounting them in the scene, and safely leave them those trappings of writing and flourishes of the pen with which they adorn the borders of their plays, and which are indeed no more than good landskips to a very indifferent picture. I must proceed no farther in this argument, lest I run myself beyond my excuse for writing this. Give me leave therefore to tell you, Reader, that I do it not to set a value on any thing I have written in this play, but out of gratitude to the memory of Sir WilIiam Davenant, who did me the honour to join me with him in the alteration of it.

It was originally Shakespeare's: a poet for whom he had particularly a high veneration, and whom he first taught me to admire. The play itself had formerly been acted with success in the Blackfriars; and our excellent Fletcher had so great a value for it that he thought fit to make use of the same design, not much varied, a second time. Those who have seen his Sea-Voyage may easily discern that it was a copy of Shakespeare's Tempest: the storm, the desert island, and the woman who had never seen a man, are all sufficient testimonies of it. But Fletcher was not the only poet who made use of Shakespeare's plot: Sir John Suckling, a professed admirer of our author, has followed his footsteps in his Goblins, his Reginella being an open imitation of Shakespeare's Miranda; and his spirits, though counterfeit, yet are copied from Ariel. But Sir William Davenant, as he was a man of quick and piercing imagination, soon found that somewhat might be added to the design of Shakespeare of which neither Fletcher nor Suckling had ever thought: and therefore to put the last hand to it, he designed the counterpart to Shakespeare's plot, namely that of a man who had never seen a woman, that by this means those two characters of innocence and love might the more illustrate and commend each other. This excellent contrivance he was pleased to communicate to me, and to desire my assistance in it. I confess that from the very first moment it so pleased me that I never writ anything with more delight. I must likewise do him that justice to acknowledge that my writing received daily his amendments, and that is the reason why it is not so faulty as the rest, which I have done without the help or correction of so judicious a friend. The comical parts of the sailors were also his invention and for the most part his writing, as you will easily discover by the style. In the time I writ with him, I had the opportunity to observe somewhat more nearly of him than I had formerly done when I had only a bare acquaintance with him: I found him then of so quick a fancy that nothing was proposed to him on which he could not suddenly produce a thought extremely pleasant and surprising; and those first thoughts of his, contrary to the old Latin proverb, were not always the least happy. And as his fancy was quick, so likewise were the products of it remote and new. He borrowed not of any other; and his imaginations were such as could not easily enter into any other man. His corrections were sober and judicious: and he corrected his own writings much more severely than those of another man, bestowing twice the time and labour in polishing which he used in invention. It had perhaps been easy enough for me to have arrogated more to myself than was my due in the writing of this play, and to have passed by his name with silence in the publication of it, with the same ingratitude which others have used to him, whose writings he hath not only corrected, as he has done this, but has had a greater inspection over them, and sometimes added whole scenes together, which may as easily be distinguished from the rest as true gold from counterfeit by the weight. But besides the unworthiness of the action which deterred me from it (there being nothing so base as to rob the dead of his reputation) I am satisfied I could never have received so much honour in being thought the author of any poem, how excellent soever, as I shall be from the joining my imperfections with the merit and name of Shakespeare and Sir WiIliam Davenant.

 


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