I never saw the play breed all this tumult.
What was there in it could so deeply offend,
And stir so many hornets?
The author replies:
------------I never writ that piece
More innocent, or empty of offence;
Some salt it had, but neither tooth nor gall.
------------Why, they say you tax'd
The law and lawyers, captains, and the players,
By their particular names.
------------It is not so:
I used no names. My books have still been taught
To spare the persons, and to speak the vices.
And he proceeds to tell us, that to obviate this accusation he had
placed his scenes in the age of Augustus.
To show that Virgil, Horace, and the rest
Of those great master-spirits, did not want
Detractors then, or practisers against them:
And by this line, although no parallel,
I hoped at last they would sit down and blush.