Providential Justice and English Comedy 1660-1700: A Review of the External EvidenceAuthor(s): Derek HughesSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp. 273-292Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3729695Accessed: 30/10/2010 11:01

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PROVIDENTIAL JUSTICE AND ENGLISH COMEDY

I66o-I700: A REVIEW OF THE

EXTERNAL EVIDENCE

'We live in an age not over prone to admire and take notice of any remarkable instances of Divine Providence either in our preservation from dangers or deliver- ances out of them.' So lamented Edward Stillingfleet in a sermon preached in 678.1 For Stillingfleet, as for so many other Anglican divines, the late seventeenth century was an age of flagrant ungodliness, and one symptom of the decline of piety was Restoration comedy. He urged in one sermon that religion should not be 'made the sport of Entertainments, nor the common subject of Plays and Comedies' and in another asked whether man's calling was 'meerly to see Plays and read Romances, and to be great admirers of that vain and frothy discourse which all persons account wit but those which have it'.2 Elsewhere he dwelt pointedly on Aristophanes's treatment of Socrates in The Clouds: He brings him upon the Stage, and represents his grave instructions after such a manner, as turn'd all into a matter of laughter to the people of Athens.... This is the method which men take, when they set their wits against Vertue and Goodness; they know it is impossible to argue men out of it; but it is very easie by ridiculous postures, and mimical gestures, and profane similitudes, to put so grave and modest a thing as vertue is out of Countenance.3

Recently, however, we have been asked to take a view of Restoration culture that is very different from Stillingfleet's.4 Had the future Bishop of Worcester bothered to familiarize himself with current Anglican thought (as represented, for example, in the Origines Sacra of Edward Stillingfleet), he would have discovered that all clergymen believed in Divine Providence and continually exhorted their congrega- tions to share their belief.5 From the fact that the clergy so frequently and zealously sought to vindicate Providence it self-evidently follows that belief in Providence was securely and widely established. And since belief in Providence was widespread it follows that a dramatist writing a comedy would normally do so with the intention of displaying Providential justice. As Restoration preachers reiterated nothing more commonly than John Wilkins's confidence in 'Rewards and Punishments in this Life', so writers both of tragedy and of comedy tirelessly foreshadowed or echoed the

A Sermon Preached... . November 13. i678 (London, 1678), p. 2. In giving the titles of seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century works, I standardize capitalization into conformity with modern practice. 2 Twelve Sermons Preached on Several Occasions (London, 1696), pp. 77, 198. 3 Ten Sermons Preached on Several Occasions (London, I697), pp. 134-35. 4 See, for example, Aubrey L. Williams, An Approach to Congreve (New Haven and London, I979); J. Douglas Canfield, 'Religious Language and Religious Meaning in Restoration Comedy', SEL, 20 (1980), 385-406; W. Gerald Marshall, 'Wycherley's Love in a Wood and the Designs of Providence', Restoration, 3 (I979), 8-16. For opposition to Providential readings, see, for example, Maximillian E. Novak, William Congreve, Twayne's English Authors Series, 112 (New York, I971); Harriett Hawkins, Likenesses of Truth in Elizabethan and Restoration Drama (Oxford, I972), pp. 79-I 4, and her 'The "Example Theory" and the Providentialist Approach to Restoration Drama: Some Questions of Validity and Applicability', The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, 24 (1983), I03-I4; Harold Love, 'Was Congreve a Christian?', in Themes in Drama, 5, edited by James Redmond (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 293-309.

Aubrey Williams cites Origines Sacrt on page 20. This work is one of the leading Restoration attacks on atheism, and in the Dedication and Preface Stillingfleet laments the growth of impiety and infidelity: see Origines Sacre; or, a Rational Account of the Grounds of the Christian Faith, third edition (London, I666), sigs (a)-[(b3')].

10

2 74 Providential Justice and English Comedy i660-1700

conclusion of Nahum Tate's The History of King Lear (I68I), with its resonant proclamation 'that Truth and Virtue shall at last succeed'.6

It is easy to pick out Restoration tragedies which explicitly contradict the concluding sentiments ofTate's King Lear revision: the same author's adaptation of Coriolanus, produced only a few months later, conspicuously fails to reward Truth and Virtue; the death of Orrery's Mustapha demonstrates 'the dang'rous state even of great vertue'; and Thomas Southerne's The Spartan Dame (1719) concludes:

The guilty Wretch so does the Thunder tear: The Innocent, involv'd by being near, Are blasted, and the spreading Ruin share.7

In Restoration comedies, however, explicit and clearly authorial statements about the cosmic condition of virtue are far less frequent, though happy endings are naturally common enough because of the nature of the genre. But the very infrequency of explicit Providential statement has given free rein to the proponents of Providential implication, especially those who will not admit that religious imagery may be used jocularly or even blasphemously, and their reinterpretations have proved so startling that most of the opposition to the Providentialist school has understandably been directed at contentious readings of particular dramatic texts. In the course of the debate some scholars have documented aspects of Restoration religious scepticism, but no one has challenged the primary assumptions about Restoration theology on which the Providentialist case rests: assumptions which are principally contained in the review of late seventeenth-century Providential teaching which opens Aubrey Williams's study of Congreve (pp. 1-36).

My main aim in this article is to re-examine the nature and range of such teaching, and its value as an index of late seventeenth-century piety. Of necessity this re- examination will at times involve detailed disagreement with Aubrey Williams's account, but my intention is not merely or primarily to mount a destructive polemic. The varied and conflicting attempts of Restoration divines tojustify the ways of God are interesting in their own right, and they do provide a helpful context for the reading of Restoration tragedies: both those that celebrate the earthly triumph of virtue and those (more numerous) that do not. Moreover, the Christian apologetics provide glimpses of Restoration libertinism that should interest drama scholars, and it is clear that many clerics resembled Stillingfleet in seeing Restoration comedy as one of the most worrying features of a worryingly profane age. The Restoration divines have much to say about Restoration comedy and its intellectual context, and their comments (largely neglected) are of great interest, but they offer no comfort to the Providentialist critic. To complete the picture I shall more briefly consider the other, better-known, external evidence that bears upon our reading of the comedies: the more or less explicit statements about Providential belief provided by the tragedies written while Congreve was active as a playwright, discussions of comedy by the playwrights and their contemporaries, and first-hand or second-hand evidence of audience reaction to plays. The evidence from these sources to a great extent complements that from the pulpit: neither permits us to see either Restoration

6 John [Wilkins], Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion: Two Books (London, 1675), p. 85; N[ahum] Tate, The History of King Lear (London, I68I), Act v (p. 67). See Williams, pp. 4, 5.

7 Mustapha, v.6.420, The Dramatic Works of.Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, edited by William Smith Clark, I, 2 vols (Cambridge, Massachusetts, I937), I; The Spartan Dame (London, I 7 9), Actv (p. 70).

DEREK HUGHES

comedy or Restoration society as unanimously Christian, and neither permits us to conclude that Restoration Christians predominantly believed in 'Rewards and Punishments in this Life'.

Aubrey Williams does cite a variety of Providential doctrines, for he quotes divines who, admitting the earthly suffering of the virtuous, argued that earthly life is a state of trial and that the denouement of God's drama is reserved for the Day of Judgement (pp. 22-27, 34-36, 47-54). His aim, however, is not to make distinctions but to blur them: for him, the important point is not that the divines differed about the interpretation of Providence but that they all believed in it, and he explicitly asserts the predominance of belief in the earthly administration of celestial justice. But, even though his evidence sometimes undermines his conclusions, it does not truly represent the full range and emphasis of Restoration Providential teaching, for Williams omits the gloomiest statements about the earthly condition of virtue and ignores the considerable qualifications with which his authorities often accompany their celebrations of triumphant righteousness. In addition he underestimates the variety of emphasis to be found even in the work of a single author. A voluminous writer, or an intellectually confused one, may not always be perfectly consistent, and a preacher may understandably alter his emphasis according to his occasion or his theme. Furthermore, leading and influential preachers explicitly vary their explica- tions of Providence according to the nature and scale of the human events under consideration, and it is important to take their remarks in context. When context is considered, some of the sermons which have been used to explicate the events portrayed in Restoration comedy turn out to be quite unsuitable for this purpose.

Sermons celebrating the Providential preservation of nations, for example, should not be invoked as commentaries on the fictitious love affairs of private individuals. For some leading divines argued that Providence dealt differently with societies and individuals, since societies, having no immortal soul, must receive temporal justice, whereas the proper tribunal for individuals is at the Day ofJudgement. According to Stillingfleet it is no great disparagement to the Justice of Gods Providence for good men to suffer, or for wicked men to escape punishment in this Life, because the great day ofrecompence is to come, wherein there will be a Revelation of the Righteous judgement of God: But that will not hold as to Nations, who shall not suffer in communities then as they have sinned here. (A Sermon Preached . . . November 13. 1678, p. 14)

The same distinction was drawn by Philip Falle, and by Tillotson, who argues that, whereas communities 'can only be rewarded and punished in this world', 'no man can certainly conclude GoD's love or hatred to any person, by any thing that befals him in this life'; indeed, 'GoD many times suffers the most grievous sins of particular persons to go unpunished in this world'.8 The distinction is also observed in practice by other divines: for Richard Allestree, for example, the expectation that religion guarantees earthly prosperity as well as eternal happiness is fit only for Turks, but he does believe that uncorrupted churches are almost always divinely preserved.9

8 Falle, Of the Impunity of Bad Men in the World (London, 1965), pp. 7-9; The Works of the Most Reverend Dr John Tillotson, I2 vols (London, 1757), I, 96-97 (page references to Works in parenthesis hereafter).

9 Allestree, Forty Sermons (Oxford, 1684), Part ii, pp. 83, 59-62. For the view that Providence is particularly concerned with societies, see The Works of. .. Dr. William Beveridge, 2 vols (London, 1720), 1n, 492-500; Robert South, Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, 7 vols (Oxford, 1823), II, 547-75.

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In listing authorities who assert God's enforcement of temporal justice, Aubrey Williams gives special attention to two sermons by Isaac Barrow and George Hickes, preached respectively on 5 November 1673 and 29 May 1684 (the anniversary of the Restoration). Both list the distinguishing features of Providential intervention, and the Barrow sermon is frequently cited to support interpretations ofCongreve and his fellow writers.10 As their dates of delivery should lead us to expect, however, these sermons are clearly concerned with public and national events, and they should not be applied to the amorous and financial pursuits of a Valentine or a Mirabell. It is also important to distinguish between the different kinds of Providential interven- tion described by Restoration divines. As Samuel Barton explains, Providence normally works through second causes, which seem to inconsiderate men 'as if they were left to themselves'.1l Occasionally there are miraculous providences, such as the parting of the Red Sea (pp. 7-8), and in between these two extremes come 'Signal and Remarkable Providences' (p. 6): these are 'of a Middle Sort, not plainly Miraculous, nor yet Common and Ordinary, but carrying in 'em very peculiar Marks and Characters of the Divine Power ... And these we call Special and Signal Providences' (p. 8). According to Barton, such providences are 'frequently ... brought to pass' (p. 8), but it is important to notice the scale of the events that illustrate this frequent phenomenon: the careers ofJoseph and David, the execution of Haman, the Reformation, and the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot (pp. 8-i ). Much of Aubrey Williams's evidence (including that from the Barrow and Hickes sermons mentioned above) comes from discussions of occasional signal or special providences, and they concern events of a scale and nature quite foreign to the world of Restoration comedy.

A good number of Restoration divines did believe that Providence normally blessed innocence with earthly protection or even reward, and some other divines, though more guarded about the earthly prospects of virtue, felt that sin would normally be punished in this life.12 Such views are certainly an important part of Providential doctrine, but they do not represent a general consensus or even a majority opinion. Moreover, even those clerics who were most optimistic about the earthly lot of the virtuous could be quite complex in their views. For example, although Tillotson believed that Providence usually protected and sometimes

10 Williams, pp. 8, 27-29, 55-56, io6, I49, I87-88, I91, citing Barrow, Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions (London, I678), pp. 403-60, and Hickes, A Collection ofSermons, 2 vols (London, 1713), II, I-49. I have used the same edition of Hickes (Volume I of which is entitled Sermons on Several Subjects) but use the separate edition of the Barrow sermon: A Sermon Preached on the Fifth of November, MDCLXXIII (London, 1679). For a similar discussion of Providence, see Nicholas Brady, A Sermon Preach'd ... the Twenty Ninth Day of May, I738 (London, 1738), pp. I-I I (like Hickes's sermon, Brady's was preached on the anniversary of the Restoration). Williams's documentation of Barrow (p. 35, n. 64) contains errors: the second edition of his works has four volumes, not three, and its dates are i686-87, not 1687-92; page references are also wrong: Il, 144 should read in, 160, but I have not discovered the correct pagination for the remainder of the citation. 11 A Sermon Preach'd ... i6th ofApril, I696 (London, 1696), p. 8. For a similarly detailed exposition of this

common distinction, see Symon [Patrick], A Sermon Preached . . 5th of November, z696 (London, i696), pp. I4-I7.

For belief in the reward of the good, see William Outram, Sermons upon Faith and Providence (London, I680), pp. 122-24; Edward Pelling, A Sermon Preacht ... Septemb. 27. I685 (London, I685), pp. 7-9; John [Sharp], Fifteen SermonsPreach 'don Several Occasions (London, 1700), pp. 48-49,66-67,189-204. For stress on the punishment of the wicked, see William Sherlock, A Discourse concerning the Divine Providence, second edition (London, i694), pp. 149-50; [Thomas Smith], A Discourse concerning Divine Providence (London, 1683), passim. The Outram volume was an unauthorized and slapdash publication from shorthand notes: see the Preface to William Owtram [sic], Twenty Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions (London, I682).

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DEREK HUGHES

rewarded innocence, and thatjustice was 'the surest art of thriving in this world', he was also aware that the statistics of human experience were so overwhelmingly large as to support different generalizations simultaneously.13 Professor Williams notes that Tillotson conceded the 'very promiscuous' dealings of Providence but that he went on to affirm 'particular and remarkable' instances of Providential justice (pp. 24-25). Significantly, however, we are not given Tillotson's subsequent remarks: 'But notwithstanding all these particular and remarkable instances of the divine justice, yet considering how unequal and promiscuous the greatest part of GoD's providences are in this world, it is highly requisite, that there should be a general judgment, for a more clear and full manifestation ofthejustice and equity of the divine providence.'14 (This passage further shows the caution with which we must use discussions of'remarkable' providences.) In another sermon Tillotson propounded a similar view: 'Ifthe wicked suffer and are afflicted, so are the righteous; if the righteous sometimes flourish, so do the wicked.. .. Or if there be any inequality, it is usually the wrong way; the wicked do, many times, prosper more in the world, and the righteous are frequently more afflicted.' Elsewhere he warned against seeing misfortune as a Providential judgement because of 'some fanciful parallel betwixt the sin and the punishment' (Works, VIII, 195 (my italics); xII, 295).

Another divine who drew varying generalizations from the vast statistics of human history wasJohn Scott. He did argue that 'Providence doth generally and not universally bless and prosper good Men', that 'God very often interposes ... for the rewarding of good and punishing of bad men', and that though the prosperous wicked outnumber the prosperous righteous this is only because there are far more wicked men in the world; if we were to examine the ratios we should find that a higher proportion of good men prospered.15 These statements form important aspects of Scott's Providential theory and should not be disguised or explained away, but they do not represent the whole of it. Continuing his statistical speculations he concedes that there have been 'Millions of Millions' of prosperous sinners and 'infinite instances' of unequal distribution in this life (pp. 291, 290). When pondering this side of the question, moreover, he becomes so carried away that his views become very hard to reconcile with his more optimistic statements about the earthly condition of virtue. [God] thinks the best things of this World to be bad enough to be thrown away upon the most despicable persons; and therefore to express his Scorn of these admired Vanities, he many times scatters them with a careless hand, as not thinking it worth the while to be so exact in the Distribution of them, as to put them in Gold Scales and weigh them out to Mankind by Grains and Scruples. (p. 92)

Scott repeats the argument later, adding that we consider Caligula ridiculous for

collecting sea shells as trophies, but that even he did not distribute them to his

13 Works, vi, 312. See also i, I I 7; X, 51, 56-57. Or was hejust inconsistent? Irene Simon notes 'Tillotson's habit to simplify problems and treat different aspects of them separately rather than in conjunction' (Three Restoration Divines: Barrow, South, Tillotson, Bibliotheque de la Faculte de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Universit6 de Liege, Fascicule 181, 2 vols (Paris, 1967-76), I, I39). Many other Restoration divines had the same habit. 14 Works, IX, 391-93 (italics added). Aubrey Williams's citation is to Tillotson, Sermons on Several Subjects

and Occasions, 12 vols (London, 1748), IX, 31 -I2. 15 The Christian Life, 5 parts (London, I681-99), Part n, Volume I, second edition (I686), 247; A Sermon

Preached ... September the Second, I686 (London, i686), p. 8; The Christian Life, In, i, 248, 250. The Christian Life is praised in Saducismus Triumphatus, to which Scott contributed a narrative: seeJoseph Glanvil [sic], Saducismus Triumphatus: or, Full and Plain Evidence concerning Witches andApparitions, second edition (London, 1682), Part i, p. 262.

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followers according to their merits (p. 254). Nor are earthly sufferings more impor- tant: God 'many times suffers them to befall his own Favourites, as not thinking it of Moment enough to interpose his Providence to shield them against their impotent Impressions' (p. 92). Later he provides a yet more emphatic statement of this view: For though sometimes in this life God rewards Good men, and punishes Bad with such signal and Remarkable Goods and Evils as are sufficient Indications of the vast Distinction he makes between them, yet this is Extraordinary and besides the Constant and Regular Course of his Providence, which for wise and excellent ends and purposes doth ordinarily scatter Good and Evil among men with an open and undistinguishing hand. (p. 277)

Another divine whose views on Providence are easily misrepresented by selective quotation is Isaac Barrow (one of Aubrey Williams's chief authorities). Barrow could at times equal the bleakest views of Scott. Reflecting on the oppression of virtue and the triumph of vice, he confessed that 'we can hardly from appearances here descry any conspicuous marks of God's favour, or his displeasure', and observed it frequently to happen, that most innocent and vertuous persons do conflict all their days with hardships and crosses; and sometime after all dye sadly in paint, and under ignominy, while persons most outragious in lewdness and iniquity do flourish and rant it out in a long and undisturbed course of prosperity, and in the end depart hence fairly and quietly.16

Like Scott, he concluded 'that God plainly doth mean to vilify these present things, appearing to our sense good or evil, by scattering them abroad with an indifferent hand; so that his friends taste as little good, and as much evil, as his enemies' (Works, I, 463). In other sermons, too, he stressed the incomprehensibility of Providence, the unequal conditions of the sinful and the virtuous, and the affliction that is the Christian's due: 'Tribulation is our lot', he declares.17 God will not exert his miraculous power 'otherwise than upon singular occasions, and for most weighty causes', and in ordinary circumstances 'the influences of Heaven, and of inferiour causes' are very hard to distinguish (Works, III, 265, 263).

Barrow's stress is not always on the tribulation of the righteous, but even when he is confident that God will protect his servants he still maintains that worldly success is the prerogative of worldly men. If we are displeased 'that innocence and modesty are trampled upon' and that corruption triumphs, we should remember that 'there have never been good men enough to sway the world, nor will the few good men that are, be so active in promoting publick good, as bad are in driving on their private designs. ... God is engaged competently to provide for us; that should satisfie us'.18 In the following sermon he again urges pious men not to be surprised if the Maskwells and Fainalls grab more earthly success than they: 'Shall such a supersti- tious fop, such a conscientious simpleton, such a bashfull sneaksby, so phantastick a philosopher pretend to any thing here? . .. This world is for worldlings to possess, and enjoy.... They are best qualified to thrive in it, who can finely cog and gloze' (Of Contentment, p. 127). As mentioned above (note IO), Aubrey Williams frequently cites Barrow's 5 November sermon of 1673, and here Barrow does indeed deal with the divine vindication of righteousness, listing the 'distinctive marks or characters' of special and signal providences (p. I I). By the very nature of his topic, however, he

16 The Works of the Learned Isaac Barrow, D.D., second edition, 4 vols (London, I686-87), I, 450, 458. 17 Works, II, 33. See also I, 471, 484; II, 27, 32; II, 259, 266. 18 Of Contentment, Patience and Resignation to the Will of God (London, I685), pp. 82-83.

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is concerned not with the day-to-day manifestations of Providence but with extra- ordinary interpositions on behalf of great causes. One of the distinguishing charac- ters is 'the great Utility and Beneficialness of Occurrences, especially in regard to the publick state of things, and to great personages, in whose welfare the publick is much concerned', and Barrow goes on to add a caution: 'To entitle every petty chance that arriveth to special Providence, may signifie lightness' (p. I8). (Critics who feel empowered to interpret every literary reference to chance as a reference to Providence should note Barrow's willingness to use the term in its everyday sense.) In discussing God's signal interventions Barrow makes use of a dramaturgic metaphor, describing God as appearing 'ar6b TXctavfg' (ex machina), and a marginal citation of Horace both continues the dramaturgic metaphor and emphasizes once again that we must not expect signal providences to solve commonplace difficulties: 'Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus inciderit' (p. I8).19 Clearly Barrow would have been astonished to find his analysis of signal providences invoked as a commentary upon events in the households of Lord Touchwood or Lady Wishfort. 'In this great drama', he believed, God within certain limits lets 'men go on, playing their parts undisturbedly, according to their inclinations and humours.. . . It is not therefore fit now by open significations, either of approbation or dislike, often to interrupt the process of humane actions' (Works, II, 462).

Though Tillotson, Scott, and Barrow give ample emphasis to the promiscuous early dispensations of Providence, they are more optimistic about the temporal rewards of virtue than many other divines. In a sermon on the anniversary fast for Charles I's execution Thomas Sprat reflected on the incomprehensibility of Provi- dence as illustrated by the terrible sufferings of the King and his family, concluding that 'success, and prosperity in this World, is rather a Turkish, than a Christian Proof of Gods favor: and adversity the like of his displeasure'.20 Richard Allestree and Robert South also scorned the theory of Providential earthly reward as fitter for Turks than Christians, the target of thesejibes being the Puritans, who during their ascendancy had interpreted their triumph as a sign of divine approval.21 Moreover, although South did sometimes argue that sin will meet with earthly punishment,22 at other times he portrayed the temporal workings of Providence as being com- pletely unaccountable. In a sermon maintaining that affliction and prosperity are no signs of God's anger or favour, South (like Sprat) sees the execution of Charles I as evidence that the workings of Providence defy human interpretation (Sermons, vi, 3 -32). 'He that shall make God's outward, promiscuous providences the marks of his inward affections', he argues in the same sermon, 'will spell that meaning out of

19 Horace, De Arte Poetica, 11. 191-92. Barrow quotes the same passage, with the same purpose, in Works, II, 138. 20 A Sermon Preached .. .January3oth 1677/8 (London, 1678), p. 25. 21 Allestree, Forty Sermons, Part ii, p. 83; South, Sermons, iv, 5. In this sermon South attacks at length the

Puritans' former identification of success with Providential favour. For similar attacks, see [Samuel Stone], Deceivers Deceiv'd: . . . a Sermon at St. Paul's, October 2oth i66i (London, 1661), pp. I9-22; Adam Littleton, A Sermon ... Preached on Febr. 29. i679/8o (London, I680), p. 15; [Thomas Smith], A Discourse concerning Divine Providence, pp. 28-29. Aubrey Williams achieves a Providentialist reading of Dryden's Limberham by taking seriously an outrageous invocation of Providence by a hypocritical and lecherous Puritan (pp. I3-I7), and indeed fails to warn his readers when the religious works he is citing are by Puritans: John Arrowsmith and Anthony Tuckney mingle indiscriminately with Anglican churchmen as formative influences on Restoration comedy (pp.8, 27-29, 55-56, io6, 149, 187-88, 191) (the page reference for the Tuckney sermon quoted on pages 29 and Io6 is incorrect, and I have not been able to trace the passage). 22 Sermons, 1, 97-123; v, 217-I8; vI, x26-I7.

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them, that neither they signify, nor God intends' (p. Io). Elsewhere, in a sermon praising the goodness of God, South also argues that the prosperity of the wicked indicates 'that the benignity of Providence seems to be promiscuous and universal, and as undistinguishing as the air and the elements, which equally dispense themselves to the necessities of all' and, dwelling on the earthly lot of the wicked, exclaims 'How many are the casual, unforeseen dangers, that the hand of Provi- dence rescues them from!' (Sermons, v, 330-31).23

Stillingfleet also asserts that Providential judgement is not normally to be expected on earth, and further illustrates that 'remarkable' providences are by definition rarities: 'Although Gods judgements even in this world be sometimes so remarkable, that we cannot but see a hand of Providence in them, yet they are but few whom God doth so remarkably punish here to make us more firmly believe a day of judgement to come' (Origines Sacre, p. 529). In one of his sermons Robert Sanderson extensively explains the worldly success of evil men (though Aubrey Williams manages to invert the sense of his argument).24 Anthony Horneck meditates evocatively on the prosperous life and death of Cromwell ('as if Heaven had applauded the Heroick Sin') and consoles himself by asserting that the triumphant usurper had a bad conscience.25 Philip Falle similarly admits that, though some sinners receive earthly punishment, many evil men 'live in great Prosperity and Affluency', though with some 'inward Trouble of Mind' (Of the Impunity of Bad Men, p. I2). Thomas Smith notes that, while the saints have been tormented in life, 'we see daily, how the laws of God are violated, and that the violators of them oftentimes escape unpunished in this life'.26 How many cruel tyrants, he asks (expecting the answer 'many'), 'have left the world without any mark of the divine vengeance upon them?' (p. 46). Charles Gildon, recently converted to Christianity from Deism, argues that 'the Success of the Wicked, and the Peaceful Ends of the Impious' necessitate a future judgement.27 And Thomas Heskith, John Moore, and others concede that general calamities such as floods and earthquakes must involve the righteous as well as the wicked.28

Particularly striking are the Providential views ofJoseph Glanvill. 'The passages of the present world are a very Chaos', he declares. Villainy triumphs, and 'persecuted Vertue swims in a Sea of blood to the Tomb without other ceremony, than the tears and groans of a ruin'd Family: there is no answer here to the cries of the Fatherless and the Widow:... Providence seems now by glorious successes to countenance the Alchoran, and the Tyrant Ottoman spreads his victorious Arms, and is flesh'd in

23 See also Sermons, Im, 370; v, 440. 24 Sanderson, XXXVI Sermons, eighth edition (London, I689), pp.571-72; Williams, p. 128 (page numbers for Sanderson being inaccurately given as 371-72). Similarly, a passage in which Owen Felltham argues merely that human actions have unforeseen consequences is transformed into an assertion that evil men will be 'hoisted with their own petards': Resolves, fifth edition (London, 1634), pp.242-43; Williams, p.29 (in Williams's accompanying footnote, 'pp. 244-45' should read 'pp. 242-45'). 25 Gods Providence in the Midst of Confusions (London, 1682), pp. 12-14, 36 (p. I4). 26 Two Compendious Discourses ... Published in Opposition to the Growing Atheism and Deism of the Age (London, 1699), pp. 46, 45. This work was dedicated to Samuel Pepys. 27 The Deist's Manual: or, a Rational Enquiry into the Christian Religion (London, 1705), p. 227. 28 John Moore, Of the Wisdom and Goodness of Providence (London, I690), pp. 28-29; Tho[mas] Heskith, A

Sermon Preach'd at the Funeral of the Honourable Col. Francis Collingwood, and of his Lady (London, I700), pp. 15-I6. See also Allestree, Forty Sermons, Part In, 220; Walter Charleton, The Darknes ofAtheism Dispelled by the Light ofNature (London, 1652), pp. 155-56; John Scott, The Christian Life, 11.i, 252-53, and compare the conclusion of Southerne's The Spartan Dame (p. 274 above).

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Triumphs'.29 Asserting the existence of witchcraft, and countering the argument that Providence would not allow witches to harm innocents, he retorts that 'Providence hath not secur'd them from other violences they are obnoxious to, from cruelty and accident; and yet we accuse It not, when a whole Townful of Innocents fall a Victim to the rage and ferity of barbarous Executioners in Wars and Massacres'.30 Indeed, Glanvill could explain the sufferings of earthly life only by arguing, in Lux Orientalis, that our souls had sinned in a former state. In view of this it is hardly surprising that he does not believe in a world subject to daily divine intervention: God, he believes, had 'constituted the great machine of the world that the infinite variety of motions therein, should effect nothing but what in his eternal wisdom he had concludedfit and decorous. ... to engage gods absolute and extraordinary power, in all events and occurrences of things, is me seems to think meanly of his wisdome'. 'We need not', he continues, 'suppose him to be immediately engaged in every event and all distributions of things in the world, or upon all occasions to exercise his power in extraordinary actions, but that he leaves such managements to the Oeconomy of second causes.'31

Even Glanvill's Providence, however, is more accessible to human sensibilities than that depicted by Richard Lucas in a sermon preached before the King and Queen in I693 and entitled The Incomprehensibleness of God. In his other sermons Lucas justified the affliction of the good in familiar and well-tried ways, similar to those which have been illustrated above. Preaching, however, on Job I .7 ('Canst thou by searching find out God?'), he allowed his text to carry him to extremes. Reflecting on the normal sign of God's incomprehensibility, 'the promiscuous Dispensation of Good and Evil', he concedes that 'a Judgment to come, solves this Difficulty'.32 But such ajudgement, while consistent with God's justice, is harder to reconcile with his 'Love and Zeal for Virtue' (p. I7). Moreover, grace seems to 'be dispersed as unaccountably as temporal Favours': Christ entered the world late, and untimely death surprises 'well inclined Persons in their first Debauches, and pious ones in their first Revolts and Relapses, when others desperately and irrecoverably wicked, sin out Life to the last, fullest and ripest Period' (p. I8). Lucas also (quite exceptionally) feels unable to reconcile the prevalence of sin in the world with God's

29 Some Discourses, Sermons and Remains of the Reverend Mr. Jos. Glanvil (London, I68 ), pp. 275-76. 30 'Against Modern Sadducism in the Matter of Witches and Apparitions', p. 14, Essay 6 in Essays on

Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion (London, I676). All but the first two essays are paginated separately. The same passage occurs in Some Philosophical Considerations touching the Being of Witches and Witchcraft (London, 1667), p. 24; A Blow at Modern Sadducism (London, I668), p. 27; and Saducismus Triumphatus, Part I, pp. 22-23. 31 Lux Orientalis, pp. 126-27. Similar sentiments occur in R[obert] B[oyle], A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly

Receiv'd Notion of Nature (London, 1685/6), pp. 10-14. Boyle did, however, assert the occurrence of Providential punishment and reward (pp. 231, 239-43). 32 (London, 1694), p. 1 7. For other, less remarkable, discussions of Providence in Lucas's sermons, see The Christian Race, A Sermon Preach'd. . . 3sst ofjuly, I692 (London, 1692); Twelve Sermons Preached on Several Occasions (London, I699), pp. 308-15; Twelve Sermons Preached on Several Occasions (London, 1702),

pp. 310-1 ; Fifteen Sermons on Death and Judgment, and a Future State (London, I716), pp. 31-52, 7I-9I, 238-39; Sixteen Sermons (London, I716), pp. 142-43, 159-61; Twenty-four Sermons Preached on Several Occasions, second edition, 2 vols (London, I7Io), I, 333-63. This volume is the second edition of Twelve Sermons (I699), the Bodleian copy of which lacks pages 319-53. The i699 volume contains all the Lucas sermons which had previously been published separately. Lucas was one of the Restoration divines to treat CharlesII and his courtiers to a forthright denunciation of sin: see Twelve Sermons (1702), pp.298-339.

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perfection and foreknowledge (pp. 8-i9) .33 For incomprehension on so extraordin- ary a scale, he can only propose the solace commended by so many of his more confident colleagues: the assurance that the 'well laid Dramatick Plot' would ultimately be made plain (p. 20). Even if we accept (and I do not) that the sermon was a potent influence upon Restoration comedy, there seems no reason to assume that a dramatist would be more likely to espouse the views of Wilkins than those of Lucas or Glanvill.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that Restoration divines believed in Providence, however they interpreted its workings, and that they indefatigably sought to explain and vindicate their belief. Does, therefore, the vast amount of Providential literature indicate that belief in Providence was securely established in the minds of Englishmen? It of course indicates the very reverse. It should hardly need saying that the religious literature of this period is dominated by the conviction that atheism and libertinism are rampant, and by abhorrence of the fashion for impious wit and blasphemous burlesquing of the scriptures.34 Allestree deplored that such fashions should be especially in vogue among men 'of the better sort', but John Scott believed that the fashion had spread from the top to the bottom of society: 'Now adays to scorn and despise Religion is no longer the Prerogative of Wits and Vertuosoes, but the Infection is spread and propagated into Shops and Stalls, and the Rabble are become Professors of Atheism.'35 Many vindications of Providence explicitly combat atheistic denials of its existence, and George Hickes confirms what common sense would in any case have deduced: that without the atheist threat constant vindica- tions of Providence would not have been necessary: "Tis long since become fashionable and genteel to question Principles and deny all those fundamental Truths of natural and revealed Divinity, which neither Heathens nor Christians ever Questioned before', he complains, adding that it is now necessary to 'preach up such Doctrins as sober Men, not acquainted enough with the iniquity of the Times, have judged at first hearing, to need no proof: Such as the being and providence of God, the immortality of the Soul, and the necessity ofgood works'.36

33 Lucas does not feel the same doubts elsewhere: see Twelve Sermons (I702), pp. 330-36; Sixteen Sermons (London, I71 6), pp. 33-5 ; Several Discourses upon Repentance, the Severity and the Goodness of God (London, 171 7), pp. I 15-33. I do not, therefore, claim that The Incomprehensibleness of God is typical, even of Lucas. I simply draw attention to the fact that a respected clergyman could discuss Providence in this way. 34 A number of counterblasts to atheism are cited elsewhere in this article. Tillotson's chief sermons on the subject are in Works, I, 1-173; II, 269-93; vII, 145-237. South argues against atheism in Sermons, vi, I68-86. Other rebuttals of atheism include the Boyle lectures of Richard Bentley (I692) andJohn Harris (1698); William Talbot, The Unreasonableness and Mischief of Atheism (London, i694); [Sir Charles Wolseley], The Unreasonablenesse of Atheism Made Manifest (London, 1669) and The Reasonableness of Scripture Beleif[sic] (London, 1672). Extensive discussions of profane wit, in addition to those discussed in my text, occur in Tho[mas] Mannyngham, A Sermon Preached ... Feb. i6. I685/6 (London, i686), pp. 20-24; Scott, The Christian Life, n1, i, 99-104; Tillotson, Works, I, 74-93. See also Allestree, Forty Sermons, I, 239; Charles Hickman, Fourteen Sermons Preach'd, at St. James's Church in Westminster (London, 1700), pp. 226-27, 238-39; Mannyngham, A Sermon at the Funeral of Sir John Norton (London, I687), p. 22, and A Sermon Preach'd . .. December 7. 1679 (London, i680), p. 30; South, Sermons, i, i68, 237, 374; IV, 95-96,; vi, 135-36; Wilkins, Of the -Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, p. I. For denunciations of libertine sexual doctrine, see W[illiam] B[arlow], A Treatise of Fornication (London, I690); George Hickes, A Discourse to Prove that the Strongest Temptations are Conquerable by Christians (London, 1683); [Charles Leslie], A Letter ... upon the Modern Argument of the Lawfulness of Simple Fornication (London, I696); John Turner, A Discourse of Fornication (London, I698). Restoration and eighteenth-century attacks on atheism are discussed inJohn Redwood, Reason and Ridicule: The Age of Enlightenment in England (London, 1976). 35 Allestree, Forty Sermons, Part i, p. 54; Scott, The Christian Life, I, i, o09. 36 A Discourse to Prove that the Strongest Temptations . ., p. 22.

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No doubt the divines indulged in some scaremongering, and quite clearly they attached the stigma of atheism to any unorthodoxy, real or imagined. But to assume that Tillotson, South, Stillingfleet, and a host of other intelligent Christians entirely misrepresented their age is dangerous, and to turn them into witnesses of a unanimously pious age is more dangerous still. Statistical speculation about the number of practising libertines is fruitless, but the works of Christian apologists assure us (what no one until recently doubted) that the atheism of Rochester, the profane drollery of Sedley and Buckingham, and the anti-Christian sniping of Charles Blount were not isolated exceptions. As is well known, the repentant Rochester admitted to frequenting an atheistic circle and being corrupted by Hobbes, and a later Christian convert, Charles Gildon, also confessed to repeated conversation with speculative and practical atheists.37 Perhaps Gildon's acquaint- ances were those mentioned byJohn Woodward in a letter toJohn Moore, in which he wrote that The Oracles of Reason 'is not licensed, but handed about privately, and makes a noise amongst some People'.38 Our knowledge of the non-publishing members of such circles is inevitably scanty, though occasionally an individual drifts into our view (such as Mr M.S., the foul-mouthed and blaspheming deist to whom William Assheton addressed his A Discourse against Blasphemy).39 But the testimony of Rochester and Gildon does confirm Richard Lucas's complaint about 'Clubs and Combinations of Wretches, who believe either no God at all, or none but such a one whose being and Attributes consist well enough with the worst of vices' (Twelve Sermons (London, 1699), p. 269).

Moreover, the clerics' fears were shared by empirical observers such as Robert Boyle and John Locke. Boyle believed that there were few speculative atheists, but he was nevertheless troubled by the advance of profaneness and libertinism: he referred to London as 'this Libertine City' and complained that religion was 'now more furiously assaulted and studiously undermin'd than ever, not only by the vicious Lives of Men, but by their licentious Discourses'. Aware of the danger of idealizing a nonexistent past, he was careful to base his complaints on his own experience: 'The Times, to which our memory can reach, have been less guilty, than the present Time is, of a spreading and bold Profaneness.' Men certainly drank and whored in the past, but they knew that they were doing wrong; now, however, men 'question the Truth, and despise the very Name of [Religion]'.40 Locke's view of the period was much the same. Denying that the human mind had any innate notion of God, he listed accounts of exotic atheistic cultures and went on to observe: 'If we should, with attention, mind the Lives, and Discourses of People not so far off, we should have too much Reason to fear. . . that the Complaints of Atheism, made from the Pulpit, are not without Reason.'41

37 Robert Parsons, A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of the Right Honourable John Earl of Rochester, in Gilbert Burnet, Some Passages in the Life and Death of ohn, Earl of Rochester (London, I8Io), pp. I07-44 (pp. I22,

125); The Deist's Manual, sigs. [ASr5'-]. See also Love, 'Was Congreve a Christian?', pp. 300-o0, 308, n. 20. 38 Bodleian MS Tanner 25, f. 229. I am grateful to the Curators of the Bodleian Library for permission to

quote from this manuscript. 9A Discourse against Blasphemy (London, 1694), Dedication and pp. 1-2. In his biography of Assheton

Thomas Watts records the origin of the work: 'To this he was provok'd (as himself told me) by a vaunting prophane Wit at a Gentleman's Table' (The Christian Indeed, and Faithful Pastor (London, I714), p. 60). 40 R[obert], B[oyle], The Christian Virtuoso (London, I690), p. 10; [Rober]T. [Boyl]E, Some Considerations

about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion (London, I675), pp. i-ii. 41 An Essay concerning Human Understanding, edited by Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford, 1975), p. 88.

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Challenges to traditional Christian vindications of Providence can be exemplified in the works of La Mothe le Vayer, Spinoza, Rochester, and Charles Blount. Adopting his usual ploy of attacking paganism in order to attack Christianity, for instance, Charles Blount satirized catch-all interpretations of Providence: if events happen to conform to a man's prayer, he is bound to thank God; if they do not, the explanation lies in his wickedness; if a manifestly pious man is disappointed, he must 'acknowledge the mercy of the Gods, who chastise in this life those whom they Love'; and, if the suppliant dies, there is no one left to raise any objections. Pyrrhus and Dionysius both plundered the same sanctuary: but whereas Pyrrhus was ship- wrecked, Dionysius 'sail'd with a prosperous Gale'.42 Indeed, even the moralistic Sir George Mackenzie suggested (without mockery or disapproval) that some of the pulpit fulminations about Providential judgement were pious frauds. Recommen- ding chastity, and urging the drawbacks of being even a king's whore, he points out that one of the disadvantages of the job is denunciation from the pulpit: 'And when ever anyJudgement is poured out upon the Kingdom, or misfortune overtakes these Minions, then all is ascribed by Divines, to their looseness; and it is one of the allowablest Cheats in Devotion, to invent miraculous resentments from Heaven upon their failours' (Moral Gallantry (Edinburgh, 1667), p. 8 ).

Works of Providential apology, of course, vastly outnumber works proposing impious or libertine doctrines, but it would be hazardous to assume that the ratio of published piety to published impiety indicates the standing of Christianity with mathematical precision. As Locke went on to say, 'though only some profligate Wretches own [atheism] too barefacedly now', more would do so but for 'the fear of the Magistrate's Sword, or their Neighbour's Censure' (p. 88). Certainly the Christian apologists did not take comfort from outpublishing the atheists and libertines. Deploring the flood of sin that had overwhelmed the nation, and fearing imminent divine vengeance, Simon Patrick contrasted the ratio of pious and impious teaching with that of pious and impious practice: all the clergy have given due warning, and there is not 'above one impious Writer of any note (and he not pretending to the Ministry) that hath laid down Principles to incourage men in wickedness and irreligion'; yet wickedness and irreligion abound (A Sermon Preached . . . November 13 (London, 1678), p. 2 ). A similar point is made in a letter written by Richard Bentley while he was engaged in the preparation of his Boyle lectures. Writing to the unworldly Edward Bernard at Oxford, who had evidently been unable to believe reports about the scale of the atheist problem, Bentley assured him that the problem really was serious: Atheism is so much the worse that it is not buried in Books; but is gotten eit rov f3iov; that taverns and coffee-houses, nay Westminster-hall and the very churches, are full of it.. . . But are the Atheists of your mind, that they have no books written for them? Not one of them but believes Tom Hobbes to be a rank one; and that his corporeal God is a meer sham to get his book printed ... I know it to be true by the conversation I have had with them. There may be some Spinosists, or immaterial Fatalists, beyond seas. But not one English Infidel in a

42 The Two First Books ofPhilostratus, concerning the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus: . .. with Philological Notes . . By Charles Blount, Gent. (London, I680), p. I 13. See also 'Oratius Tubero' [Francois de la Mothe le VayerJ, Cincq dialoguesfaits l'imitation des anciens (Frankfurt, 1716), pp. 369-77; Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics, I, Appendix; iv, Preface (The Chief Works ofBenedict de Spinoza, translated by R. H. M. Elwes, 2 vols (London, 1883; reprinted New York, 955), n, 76-8 I, 188); Valentinian (Collected Works ofJohn Wilmot Earl ofRochester, edited byJohn Hayward (London, 1926), p. 215 (Act iv) ).

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hundred is any other than a Hobbist; which I know to be rank Atheism in the private study and select conversation of those men; whatever it appears to be abroad.43

But a far greater problem was ignorance, negligence, and (in London) lack of resources. According to Richard Baxter, writing in 1679, 'it is known to all Faithful Ministers and others, who converse with the common sort of men, that a great part of the people of England are ignorant of the very Essentials of Christianity'. He went on to observe that, since the Fire, London had only enough churches to accommo- date a quarter of its population.44

The writings of Christian apologists, then, do not suggest a unanimously Christian society. Convinced speculative atheists may indeed have been rare, but it would be rash to dismiss all concern about worrying deviations from Christianity, about profane drollery, and about rakes who not only committed adultery but offered quasi-philosophical justifications for their conduct. Rochester's and Gil- don's recantations, and Woodward's and Bentley's letters, clearly indicate a

flourishing subculture of various kinds of religious scepticism, no doubt small in relation to the whole population (among whom ignorance was the chief problem), but sufficiently fashionable and noticeable to be taken seriously. Moreover, although hostility to Christianity rarely receives discursive exposition, it finds an obvious enough outlet in libertine poems and broadsides. When poetasters praise unfettered instinct, deriding marriage as a 'religious Cheat' or 'a Nooze to catch

Religious Wood-cocks in', and when a pamphleteer argues that a betrayed wife has a natural right to cuckold her husband, we may hesitate to conclude that the apparent sympathy for sexual freedom in some Restoration comedies is bound to be Christian condemnation in disguise.45

Certainly the Restoration divines did not interpret Restoration comedy in this

way; on the contrary, they made repeated and contemptuous denunciations of its

immorality. Attacks on Restoration comedy can be found in the works of Glanvill, South, Tillotson, Horneck, and Stillingfleet (whose views have already been quoted) and there are slighting references to it in the works of other divines.46 In an extensive attack on libertinism, atheism, and blasphemous wit, Glanvill suggests that the atheist has no argument but facetiousness, some of it exercised upon the stage:

43 The Correspondence of Richard Bentley, D.D., edited by Christopher Wordsworth, 2 vols (London, 1842), I, 39-40. My attention was drawn to this letter by Redwood, p. 4I. For a larger estimate of Spinoza's influence in England, see Richard Baxter, The Second Part ofthe Nonconformists Pleafor Peace (London, i680), pp. 2-8, 63-64, I I.

44 See The Nonconformist's Pleafor Peace (London, I679), pp. 229-30. See also Richard Baxter's Answer to Dr. Edward Stillingfleet's Charge of Separation (1680), pp. 8-9. 45 [Thomas Sawyer], Antigamus [Oxford, 1691?]; A Poem against Marriage [London?, i690?]; The Lively Character ofa Contented andDiscontented Cuckold (London, I 700), p. 2. For a note about Sawyer and his poem, see Fasti Oxonienses, col. 213, in Anthony [a] Wood, Athena Oxonienses, 2 vols (London, I 72 I). A Poem against Marriage was first published as A Broad-Side against Marriage ([London], 1675) and was also printed as Against Marriage (London, 1690?). It was answered by A Vindication ofa Marriage Life (London?, 1675) and A Satyr against Whoring (1682). 46 For slighting references to plays, see Scott, The Christian Life, 11, i, o6; Barlow, A Treatise of Fornication,

p. 59; A.M. of the Church of England, The Reformed Gentleman (London, I693), p. 84; William Nicholls, An Essay on the Contempt of the World (London, 1694), pp. 99-00; [Charles Leslie], The Charge of Socinianism against Dr. Tillotson Considered (Edinburgh, I695), p. 14; [Gilbert Burnet], Burnet's History of My Own Time ... Part i, The Reign of Charles the Second, edited by Osmund Airy, 2 vols (Oxford, 1897-I900), I, 487. Anthony Horneck's lengthy attack on stage immorality appears in his Delight andJudgment; or, a Prospect of the Great Day of Judgement (London, 1684), pp. 205-73. Aubrey Williams does mention Horneck's views (p. 6I), but he does not face up to the fact that some of his leading exponents of Providential theory flatly contradict his reading of Restoration comedy.

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'Spiritual substance! Immortal souls! Authority of Scripture! Fictions, Ideas, Phantomes, Jargon: Here is demonstration against the spiritual Trade, and spiritual men. The rest of the work is for Songs and Plays; for the wit and humour of agreeable conversa- tion.'47 South refers to 'the provoking of a lustful, incontinent person, by filthy discourse, wanton books and pictures, and, that which equals and exceeds them all, the incentives of the stage', lists theatres among 'those spiritual pest-houses, where scarce anything is to be heard or seen, but what tends to the corruption of good manners', and glances disapprovingly at the stage on a number of other occasions.48 Tillotson laments that many plays 'are neither fit to be seen or heard by modest persons and those who pretend to religion and virtue' and complains that men will 'attend for several hours to a lewd extravagant play, and sit not only with patience, but with delight to hear things spoken, which are neither fit to be spoken nor heard'.49 Moreover, in a sermon on 'The Evil of Corrupt Communication' he provided an extremely detailed denunciation of the Restoration stage: though plays could be 'instructing and useful, to put some vices and follies out of countenance', as the stage now is, they are intolerable, and not fit to be permitted in a civilized, much less in a christian nation. They do most notoriously minister both to infidelity and vice. By the profaneness of them, they are apt to instil bad principles into the minds of men, and to lessen the awe and reverence which all men ought to have for GOD and religion; and by their lewdness they teach vice, and are apt to infect the minds of men, and dispose them to lewd and dissolute practices.50

If we are to see Tillotson, South, and Stillingfleet as spokesmen of a religious culture reflected in Restoration comedy, such passages must be explained away.

As Aubrey Williams reminds us, dramatic critics of Congreve's time repeatedly asserted the need for poetic justice in drama and still more repeatedly asserted that the function of comedy was to discountenance vice and encourage virtue. There is little to quarrel with in these statements, once we have replaced 'drama' by 'tragedy', noted that critics did not maintain that comedy always lived up to its didactic function, and observed that these modified statements, true though they are, do not represent the whole picture. In Professor Williams's view, the opinions of the critics perfectly harmonize with those of the divines and complete the picture of cultural unanimity on which he bases his reading of Congreve. In fact, if the picture were as simple as he suggests there would be a clear discrepancy between the views of critics and what we have seen to be those of divines, both on the interpretation of Providence and the moral evaluation of Restoration comedy. But the picture is less simple.

First, no contemporary witness of Restoration comedy in fact suggests that it celebrates Providential justice. A few comedies do, with varying degrees of convic- tion, ascribe their happy endings to Providential agency, but we have no explicit

47 Some Discourses, Sermons, and Remains, p. 193. 48 Sermons, ii, 36; vnI, 167; II, 82, 382; VII, 59. 49 Works, Iv, 12; xI, 72. See also Iv, 63; vi, 291. 50 Works, xi, Iio. This sermon is mentioned in Joseph Wood Krutch, Comedy and Conscience after the Restoration, second edition (New York, 1949), PP.94-95. Dennis ignorantly denied that Tillotson condemned plays, and quickly had to retract his denial: see The Person of Quality's Answer to Mr. Collier's Letter (The Critical Works ofJohn Dennis, edited by Edward Niles Hooker, 2 vols (Baltimore, I939-43), I,

303-04, 319).

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warrant for regarding comic theodicy as a general practice.51 Theorists who assert the currency of poetic justice are describing tragedy, and one such theorist, James Drake, excludes the punishment of vice and reward of virtue from the province of

comedy, even though he sees comedy as morally didactic; conversely, while Elkanah Settle and Edward Filmer do urge the observance of poetic justice in comedy, they do not claim that it is in fact generally observed.52 When the role of Divine Providence in comedy is discussed, the discussion is flippant and dismissive. Collier had attacked Congreve, Vanbrugh, and D'Urfey for profane and jocular references to Providence, and all three playwrights replied to his accusations. Congreve scarcely revealed a profound interest in the topic, for his reply merely mocked the

syntax of Collier's accusation,53 but Vanbrugh and D'Urfey were considerably more enlightening. Both argued that it was general practice to use the word

'providence' loosely, and that to interpret it inflexibly in a strict theological sense was to violate common sense and common usage. Vanbrugh had been reproved for

Young Fashion's 'Providence ... takes care of men of merit', and he replied: Every body knows the word Providence in Common Discourse goes for Fortune. If it be answer'd, Let it go for what it will, it is in strictness God Almighty; I answer again, That if you go to strictness, Fortune is God Almighty as much as Providence, and yet no one ever thought it Blasphemy to say, Fortune's blind, or Fortune favours Fools: And the reason why it is not thought so, is because 'tis known it is not meant so.54

A little later he sarcastically reverts to the same topic: 'Fate (here's Blasphemy again) so disposes things, that the Temptation's brought home to his Door, and his Wife has the misfortune to invite it into his House' (p. 2 I 2). The point ofVanbrugh's joke is clear: he here uses 'Fate' as a loose and convenient synonym for the kinds of coincidence and contrivance that are necessary to move along almost any dramatic

plot, and thejoke is on those who insist on a theologically literal interpretation of the term. In A Farther Defence ofDramatick Poetry (London, 1698) Settle defended Young Fashion in the same terms, arguing that 'had he said Fortune, Fate, Destiny, or the Kind Stars had took such care of Merit, it had been much at one; so little is the Divinity pointed at, or touch'd in this Expression' (p. 9). Vanbrugh's views also met with the entire approval of D'Urfey. A song in the first part of The Comical History of Don Quixote had complained that Providence made women outwardly fair but 'never look'd within', and D'Urfey had accordingly been denounced for 'direct blasphem- ing the Creation, and a Satir upon God Almighty'. Providence, he replied, is

51 For example, D'Urfey's The Marriage-Hater Match'd ( 692) and Cibber's Womans Wit (I697). But even if such ascriptions are more than convenient methods of explaining away authorial contrivance, it would be begging the question to see such 'new' comedies (to use Robert D. Hume's terminology) as typical of all Restoration comedy. 52 [James Drake], The Antient and Modern Stages Survey'd (London, I699), p. 241; [Elkanah Settle], A

Farther Defence of Dramatick Poetry (London, 1698), p. 63; Edward Filmer, A Defence of Plays (London, 1707), p. 25. Aubrey Williams labours Drake's advocacy of poetic justice (pp. 42-47) but nowhere mentions that Drake excluded this principle from comedy. 53 Jeremy Collier, A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage (London, 1698), p. 64;

Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations (The Complete Works of William Congreve, edited by Montague Summers, 4 vols (London, 1923), II, 83-84). 54 The Relapse, edited by Curt A. Zimansky, Regents Restoration Drama Series (London, I970),

1.3.278-79; Collier, A Short View, p. 2I I; A Short Vindication of 'The Relapse' and 'The Provok'd Wife', from Immorality and Prophaneness (The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh, edited by Bonamy Dobree and G. Webb, 4 vols (London, 1927), I, 201).

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'generally intended in Lyrical Poetry for Goddess Nature, or Fortune, as Mr Vanbrooke notes; but never apply'd seriously to the true Deity, but only by Dr. Crambo'.55

Even in tragedy, earthly reward of virtue was by no means the norm during the

period in which Congreve was active as a dramatist, and the question of poetic justice shows with particular clarity the peril of describing dramatic practice on the basis of dramatic theory. For example, the Preface to Charles Gildon's Phaeton

(1698) asserts that 'unfortunate Perfection is the Crime of Providence' and that the poet has 'a duty of Rewarding the Innocent, and punishing the Guilty' (p. 40) .56 Yet The Roman Bride's Revenge (1697), Gildon's previous tragedy, kills off its heroic lovers with only the most adventitious and unconvincing attempt at finding a tragic flaw tojustify the

slaughter, and Phaeton itself depicts the murder of innocent children and concludes with reflections on the inscrutability of Providence, some of them derived from a

pagan source (Actv (pp. 32-33)); indeed, in the Preface to Love's Victim (1701) Gildon denies that the poet is obliged to observe poetic justice.57

A brief statistical analysis of the surviving tragedies known to have been first

performed in the seasons 1689-90 to 1699-1700 (that is, from the drafting of The Old Batchelour to the premiere of The Way of the World) will confirm the perils of taking Restoration tragedy on trust from Restoration critics:58 A. In 9 tragedies justice is finally asserted. B. In 7 tragedies the predominant triumph of justice is marred by at least one dead or

suffering innocent. C. In 15 tragedies leading virtuous characters die, but with hopes of bliss in the afterlife. D. In 6 tragedies leading virtuous characters simply die. E. In 7 tragedies noble characters are destroyed through a flaw. F. In 3 tragedies villains remain unpunished (for historical reasons). G. 2 tragedies are too complicated to fit any of these categories.59

55 [Thomas] D'Urfey, The Comical History of Don Quixote, Part I (London, 1694), Act II (p. 20); Collier, A Short View, p. I97; [Thomas] D'Urfey, The Campaigners (London, 1698), p. 17. Such testimony forbids us to share J. Douglas Canfield's astonishment at Maximillian E. Novak's refusal 'to read a religious meaning into Congreve's frequent references to Providence' (Canfield, 'Religious Language and Religious Meaning', p. 385, n. i; Novak, 'Congreve's Incognita and the Art of the Novella', Criticism, I I (1969), 329-42 (p. 34I, n. I5)). 56 [Charles Gildon], Phaeton; or, the Fatal Divorce (London, 1698), sig. [(b)2]; cited by Williams, p. 40. 57 Phaeton is based on the Medea story, and its concluding lines are inspired by the reflections on man's

helplessness before the gods that conclude five of Euripides's tragedies. 58 Eric Rothstein concludes that 'poetic justice was never a real issue' in Restoration tragic practice (Restoration Tragedy: Form and the Process of Change (Madison, Wisconsin, 1967; reprinted Westport, Connecticut, 1978), p. 158, n. I ). Aubrey Williams disagrees (p. 37), but his disagreement is based on Restoration criticism and he shows little acquaintance with the tragedies themselves. A subtle and well- informed account of poetic justice in theory and practice is provided in Helmut Klingler, "'Poetic Justice": Uses and Abuses of a Critical Term, i66-I 737', Wiener Beitriige zur Englischen Philologie, 78, I7-38. 59 A: Powell, The Treacherous Brothers ( 690); Anon., King Edward the Third (1690); Norton, Pausanias, the

Betrayer ofhis Country (I696); Congreve, The Mourning Bride (1697); Walker, Victorious Love (1698); Philips, The Revengeful Queen (1698); Smith, The Princess of Parma (1699); Dennis, Iphigenia (1699); Boyer, Achilles (1699). B: Brady, The Rape (1692); Scott, The Unhappy Kindness (1696); Anon., The Unnatural Mother (1697); George Granville, Heroick Love (1698); Motteux, Beauty in Distress (1698); D'Urfey, The Famous History of the Rise and Fall of Massaniello (1699); Hopkins, Friendship Improv 'd (1699). C: Behn, The Widow Ranter (1689); Settle, Distressed Innocence (1690); Powell, Alphonso King of Naples (1690); Crowne, Regulus (1692); Settle, The Ambitious Slave (1694); Hopkins, Pyrrhus King ofEpirus (1695); Gould, The Rival Sisters (1695); Southerne, Oroonoko (1695); Anon., Neglected Virtue (1696); Pix, Ibrahim the Thirteenth Emperor of the Turks (1696); Gildon, The Roman Bride's Revenge (1696); Filmer, The Unnatural Brother (1697); Anon., The Fatal Discovery (1698); Crowne, Caligula (1698); Cibber, The Tragical History of King Richard III (I 700).

DEREK HUGHES

As these figures show, only a minority of the tragedies premiered during Congreve's dramaturgic career portray a world in which Providence bestows earthly rewards upon virtue. Many playwrights do consider the workings of Providence, but many do so in the manner of Stillingfleet or Lucas rather than that of the more optimistic divines: plays regularly include reflections on the incomprehensibility of Providence in allowing the innocent to suffer and die, and they also portray virtuous characters who are mistaken in their belief that Providence will afford them earthly protection.60 But many of the tragedies cannot convincingly be seen as expressions of any Christian Providential theory. For example, in some of the plays in group E (Boadicea, Fatal Friendship, The False Friend, and Xerxes) the alleged tragic flaw is a contrived excuse tojustify a bloody ending. Furthermore, although group C, with its stress on the death and salvation of the virtuous, may seem consistent with much Providential theory, the deaths are often portrayed in ways that bear little relation,to Christian orthodoxy. Many of them, for example, are suicides, and in many cases (including many cases of suicide) eternal happiness is to consist of eternal reunion with the loved one. Such views of heaven are a time-honoured literary convention, but they have no place in the Anglican sermon.

Plainly, then, the theoretical defences of poetic justice have to be handled with caution, and their limited reliability should make us wary of placing implicit faith in other theoretical propositions, such as those proclaiming the didactic function of comedy.61 Our caution is all the more warranted in view of the abundant evidence that critics, audiences, and rival or repentant playwrights found some Restoration comedies morally distasteful. As is well known, Shadwell attacked Dryden and others for glamorizing whores and ruffians and rewarding vice, and less prominent dramatists made similar complaints; conversely, Aphra Behn bluntly denied the

D: Southerne, The Fatal Marriage (I694); Powell, Bonduca (1695); Trotter, Agnes de Castro (1695); Banks, Cyrus the Great (1695); Manley, The Royal Mischief (I696); Gildon, Phaeton ( 698). E: D'Urfey, Bussy D'Ambois (1691); Anon., Henry the Second (1692); Hopkins, Boadicea (1697); Ravenscroft, The Italian Husband (1697); Trotter, Fatal Friendship (1698); Gibber, Xerxes (1699); Pix, The False Friend (1699). F: Lee, The Massacre of Paris (1689; written 1679-81), Dryden, Cleomenes, the Spartan Heroe (1692); Pix, Queen Catharine (1698). G: Dryden, Don Sebastian (1689); Southerne, The Fate of Capua (I700). For the sake of brevity I have omitted the subtitles of plays. 60 George Powell, Alphonso King of Naples (London, I69I), Act II (p. 25); [Nicholas Brady], The Rape (London, 1692), Act in (pp. 24, 32), Activ (p. 33); E[lkanah] Settle, The Ambitious Slave (London, 1694), Act n (p. 8), Actv (p. 47); [Catherine Trotter], Agnes de Castro (London, 1696), Act iv (sig. F2V); [Mary] Manley, The Royal Mischief (London, I696), Act in (p. 24), Act v (p. 43); Mary Pix, Ibrahim, The Thirteenth Emperour of the Turks (London, 1696), Act II (p. 19); [Robert] Gould, The Rival Sisters (London, 1696), Act v (p. 54); [Edward Filmer], The Unnatural Brother (London, 1697), Act II (p. 22); [Charles Gildon], The Roman Brides Revenge (London, 1697), Act II (pp. 26, 3I), Activ (p. 37); Phaeton, Actv (pp. 32-33); William Philips, The Revengeful Queen (London, 1698), Act v (p. 33); [Thomas] D'Urfey, The Famous History of the Fall of Massainello [sic] ... The Second Part (London, I699), Actv (. 43). The most memorable assertion of divine incomprehensibility in Restoration drama occurs in the Dryden-Lee Oedipus (1678): see The Dramatick Works ofJohn Dryden, Esq., 6 vols (London, 1735), IV, 422 (Act III). 61 On the discrepancy of comic theory and practice, see Robert D. Hume, The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1976), pp. 32-62.

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290 Providential Justice and English Comedy 1660-I700

didactic function of comedy.62 Dramatists occasionally record audience complaints about obscenity, the most common authorial response being not that the com- plainants had missed the Providential message but that they had applauded far dirtier plays in the past; Aphra Behn, for instance, simply retorted that audiences flocked to bawdy plays by men (and elsewhere joked about the irreligion of playwrights and audiences).63 First-hand expression of audience disapproval can be found in the works of Evelyn and Pepys: Evelyn found An Evening's Love 'very prophane', symptomatic of a stage 'degenerated and poluted by the licentious times', and Pepys found the same play offensively 'smutty', and in the I69os was complaining about the immorality of the stage.64 (Remarkably, Aubrey Williams sees An Evening's Love as exemplifying a pattern of Providential trial and declares that Pepys would agree with his view of Restoration comedy (pp. 5I, I 6- 7).)

The prime example of the repentant playwright is obviously Dryden, whose views should properly be too familiar to need repetition; but, since the Providentialist case must disregard or distort Dryden's sentiments, repetition is necessary. As early as 1685 Dryden had lamented 'the steaming Ordures of the Stage' during his commemoration of Anne Killigrew, and in the Preface to Fables Ancient and Moder (1700) he admitted that Collier had at times justly accused him of 'Obscenity, Profaneness, or Immorality'.65 In his final poem, the Epilogue to The Pilgrim (1700), he dealt more fully with the question of stage immorality. Contesting Collier's claim that drama had corrupted the morals of the nation, he argued rather that the morals of the nation had corrupted the stage:

62 Preface to The Sullen Lovers, Preface and Prologue to The Royal Shepherdesse (The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell, edited by Montague Summers, 6 vols (London, I927; reprinted New York, I968), I, I I, IOO,

O I); the complimentary poem by M.C. in Sir William Killigrew, FourNew Playes (Oxford, I666), [p. xii]; [Edward Howard], Preface to The Six Days Adventure (London, 167I), sig. A3; [Joseph Arrowsmith], The Reformation (London, 1673), Activ (p. 48); Henry Higden, Preface to The Wary Widow (London, 1693); Anon., Prologue to The Triumphs of Virtue (London, I697). In the anti-libertine satire Gallantry A-la-mode (London, 1674) a successful seducer softens up his lady by taking her to the premiere of Marriage a la Mode (pp. 78-84). Behn challenges the didactic view of comedy in the Preface to The Dutch Lover (The Works of Aphra Behn, edited by Montague Summers, 6 vols (London, 1915), I, 222-23). 63 For responses to audience complaints, see Behn, Preface to Sir Patient Fancy (Works, IV, 7), Preface to The Lucky Chance (Works, II, 185); Wycherley, Dedication of The Plain-Dealer (The Plays of William Wycherley, edited by Arthur Friedman (Oxford, 1979), pp. 365-72), The Plain-Dealer, 11.I.384-469; Otway, Dedi- cation of The Souldiers Fortune (The Works of Thomas Otway, edited byJ. C. Ghosh, 2 vols (Oxford, I932), II, 91-92); Edward Ravenscroft, Prologue to Dame Dobson (London, I684); Sir Charles Sedley, Preface to Bellamira (The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Sir Charles Sedley, edited by V. da Sola Pinto, 2 vols (London, 1928), II, 5); Thomas Dogget, Preface and Prologue to The Country-Wake (London, 1696); Anon., Preface to The Cornish Comedy (London, i696). John Crowne was able to rebut complaints about the indecency of The Married Beau by asserting a Christian purpose: see The Dramatic Works of ohn Crowne, edited byJames Maidment and W. H. Logan, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1872-74; reprinted New York, 1967), IV, 238. For Behn's comments on bawdry and irreligion in the playhouse, see Preface to The Dutch Lover, p. 222; Prologue to The Young King (Works, ii, Io6-07). 64 The Diary ofJohn Evelyn, edited by E. S. de Beer, 6 vols (Oxford, 1955), mI, 5Io-I I (I9June I668); see

also Evelyn's condemnation of immoral plays in III, 465 (i8 October i666) and iv, 422 (I4 March I685), and his possible reference in v, I21 (20 November 1692) to a denunciation of'lewd Comedies' by William Stringfellow; The Diary of Samuel Pepys, edited by R.C. Latham and W. Matthews, I vols (London, 1970-83), ix (I976), 247 (20 June I668). Pepys's comments on drama in the I69os are contained in a memorandum listed as Lot 944 in the Sotheby's sale catalogue for I I April 1919 (fourth day of the sale commencing 8 April). The memorandum is mentioned in The Diary ofSamuel Pepys, x (1983), 352-53, and the staff of the Pepys Library (for whose assistance I am grateful) inform me that its present location is unknown. According to the catalogue, the memorandum concerns 'Publique depravity of manners' and complains, among other things, of'profane plays and neglected religion'. 65 'To the Pious Memory of... Mrs. Anne Killigrew', 1. 65 (The Works of John Dryden, Volume III, edited

by Earl Miner and others (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969)); Preface to Fables Ancient and Modem (London, 1700), sig. [D 2].

DEREK HUGHES

The Poets, who must live by Courts or starve, Were proud, so good a Government to serve; And mixing with Buffoons and Pimps profain Tainted the Stage, for some small Snip of Gain. For they, like Harlots under Bauds profest, Took all th' ungodly pains, and got the least.66

As Dryden's late comments reveal, dramatists did not simply respond to assaults on the stage by unanimously asserting the moral function of drama. In the late 69gos a number of playwrights respond to Blackmore and Collier not by denying their

specific charges but by dissociating themselves from the vices under attack. In the Preface to Caligula (1698) Crowne commends Blackmore's 'design of reforming the

stage from obscenity, immorality, and profaneness' but points out that 'many of my plays have been very successful, and yet clean'. One of the commendatory poems prefixed to Catherine Trotter's Fatal Friendship (1698) complains of'Reigning Vice, that has debauch'd the Stage' and another urges poets to 'Reward and punish; awfully dispence | Heav'ns Judgments, and declare a Providence!'. The Prologue to

Joseph Harris's Love's a Lottery ( 1699) boasts that 'The Stage Reform'd, shall nothing bear that's rude' and that vice will 'no longer shine, but be disgrac't'. The Prologue to Mary Pix's The False Friend (1699) declares that the author is helping the cause of

stage reformation with 'a Moral play', and the Prologue to Henry Smith's The Princess of Parma ( 699) prays:

Let Wit redeem the Scandals of our Age, And Virtue Reign Triumphant on the Stage; Then will the Muse's Golden Age return, When Sense, and Decency our Scenes Adorn.

But the Prologue to Cibber's Xerxes (1699) comically complains that reform is being thwarted by the unregeneracy of audiences: even when vice is portrayed with condemnation, it is beheld with approval, and indeed even Collier's book can serve the interests of vice: 'Girls may read him, not for the truth he says, I But to be pointed to the bawdy plays.'67

Most significantly, the very theorists who oppose Collier frequently concede that the stage has been corrupted and needs reform. Many, certainly, defend Congreve, but their testimony does not permit us to propose interpretations of his work that are based on generalizations about the Christian nature of Restoration comedy. Admis- sions of stage corruption are made by Charles Gildon, Peter Motteux, Elkanah Settle, John Dennis, John Oldmixon, and Edward Filmer, both Oldmixon and Dennis finding Dryden's Limberham particularly objectionable (though more

recently we have been asked to see it as another vindication of Providential

66 Dramatick Works (1735), vi, [526]. By omitting this passage Aubrey Williams manages to include the Epilogue amongst testimony that the stage represents the vices of life for the purposes of moral instruction (p. 6). 67 Crowne, Dramatic Works, Iv, 353; Fatal Friendship (London, 1698), sigs. [A4V], [A5V]; Prologue, Love's a Lottery (London, 1699); The False Friend (London, 1699); Prologue, The Princess of Parma (London, I699); The Dramatick Works ofColley Gibber, Esq., 5 vols (London, 1777; reprinted New York, 1966), v, sig. G. See also Peter Motteux's Prologue to Mary Pix's The Innocent Mistress (London, 1697).

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292 ProvidentialJustice and English Comedy I66o-I700

justice) 68 Most striking are the concessions made by Edward Filmer in I 707. Earlier opponents ofCollier, he concedes, have tried to wash a blackamore, for many modern poets 'seem to have made Choice of Characters only for their Lewdness, and have very frequently crown'd Vice with the reward of Virtue' (p. 4); he therefore suggests that plays should be reformed so that the virtuous and vicious are appropriately punished or rewarded (p. 25). Although smut is appropriate in some dramatic contexts, many playwrights have employed it 'wantonly and lavishly' (p. 3). Moreover, although some passages which Collier condemns for profanity are misrepresented, 'yet many of them are indeed extremely scandalous, impious, and wicked' (p. 39). Nevertheless, like many other forthright witnesses to the immorality of Restoration comedy, Filmer has boldly been cited to support the Providentialist cause.69

To some extent, then, the evidence of playwrights and critics does complement that of the Providential apologists. The whole range of Providential theology is reflected in Restoration tragedy, and tragedies which portray the destruction of innocence often meditate on the incomprehensibility of Providence in terms similar to those of the divines. Men of the theatre echoed the churchmen's concern with the immorality of the stage and the irreligion of contemporary life, and Tillotson echoed the critics in urging that drama should fulfil a moral function. Of course, neither the exactness nor the extent of the parallel should be laboured. It is one thing for a clergyman to attack immoral plays and another for a playwright to accuse a competitor of writing such plays. And, though many Restoration tragedies reflect contemporary Providential teaching, many others use moral platitudes to dignify sensationalism or a prurient portrayal of sexual violence. What both the ecclesiastical and the theatrical writings reveal, however, is a religious and literary culture that is divided, sometimes deeply. In their vindications of Providence, Anglican clergymen contradicted each other and occasionally themselves, and the tragedians followed suit, to the extent that Tate within a single year asserted and overturned the thesis 'that Truth and Vertue shall at last succeed'. The vast body of Providential literature is prompted not by a unanimous beliefin Divine Providence but by the derision which godless wits were heaping on this and other fundamental Christian doctrines. Indeed, it is clear that leading church- men saw Restoration sex-comedy as one of the most offensive expressions of the fashion for lewdness and profane drollery, and (for whatever motives) a number of playwrights expressed similar views. No one would suggest that the majority of comedies treated Christianity and chastity with frivolity, but most people have believed that some do, and the evidence of seventeenth-century divines, critics, and playwrights is on their side. We may legitimately debate whether particular plays or bodies of plays (such as Congreve's) are libertine in character, but we cannot adopt the axiom that the nature of late seventeenth-century culture obliges us to expect that a writer of comedies will be a Christian moralist, still less a Christian moralist who believed in Providential 'Rewards and Punishments in this Life'.

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK DEREK HUGHES

68 Gildon, Preface to Phaeton, sig. C; The Deist's Manual, pp. 141-42; Peter Motteux, Preface to Beauty in Distress (London, 1698), [p. vii]; A Farther Defence ofDramatick Poetry, p. 63; John Oldmixon], Reflections on the Stage, and Mr Collyer's Defence of the Short View (London, I699), sigs [A5V-A6], pp. 24, 97, I00, 121--22, 158, I6I, 170;John Dennis, The Usefulness of the Stage (Critical Works, I, I46-47, 154) and The Stage Defended (Critical Works, II, 313); Edward Filmer, A Defence of Plays (London, 1707), sigs A3-A4V, pp. 4, 13, 26-27, 39, 42-43. For Aubrey Williams's discussion of Limberham, see pp. 13-15 (see also above, note 21). 9 Williams, pp. 68-69, 71-74, 79.