with a portion of cautious civility, which, in the management of the greedy and credulous clerk, it is not thought necessary to assume. Of Subtle, Face and Dol it is almost superfluous to speak: they are not more known than admired. Face seems to be the author's favourite, and he has furnished him with language well suited to the forth-right spirit and daring of his action: it is easy and unembarrassed, and has much of the comic flow of Fletcher, with more than his fullness and freedom. As if to confound the poet's detractors, who maintain that, when he deserts the ancients, he is nothing, this play, which is strictly original in all its parts, has in it a richness and raciness, which are not found where he is supposed to be a copyist; and which those, from whom he is said to derive the whole of his reputation, do not always exhibit. It was said by the critics of the last century, at the head of whom we may place Dryden, that the Silent Woman preserved the unities of time and place more strictly than any drama on the English stage: with the exception of the present play, the remark may be just; for it occupies no more time than the representation demands; and the plot, notwithstanding the amazing vigour and variety of the action, is confined to a single spot, without the slightest sacrifice of probability, while the action of the Silent Woman is extended to three or four, as occasion required. In a word, if a model be sought of all that is regular in design and perfect in execution in the English drama, it will be found (if found at all) in The Alchemist.
