A SONNET.

WEEPING, murmuring, complaining,

Lost to every gay delight;

Myra, too sincere for feigning,

Fears th' approaching bridal night.

Yet why impair thy bright perfection!
Or dim thy beauty with a tear?
Had Myra follow'd my direction,
She long had wanted cause of fear

THE

GOOD-NATUR'D MAN:

COMEDY.

AS PERFORMED AT THE

THEATRE-ROYAL, COVENT-GARDEN:

FIRST PRINTED IN M,DCC,LXVIII.

PREFACE.

WHEN I undertook to write a comedy, I confess I was strongly prepossessed in favour of the poets of the last age, and strove to imitate them. The term, genteel comedy, was then unknown amongst us, and little more was desired by an audience, than nature and humour, in whatever walks of life they were most conspicuous. The Author of the following scenes never imagined that more would be expected of him, and therefore to delineate character has been his principal aim. Those who know any thing of composition, are sensible, that, in pursuing humour, it will sometimes lead us into the recesses of the mean; I was even tempted to look for it in the master of a spunging-house: but in deference to the public taste, grown of late, perhaps, too delicate, the scene of the bailiffs was retrenched in the representation. In deference also to the judgment of a few friends, who think in a particular way, the scene is here restored. The author submits it to the reader in his closet; and hopes that too much refinement will not banish humour and character from ours, as it has already done from the French theatre.

Indeed