Because of their nastiness, often combined with stupidity, the
Restoration dramas will never be resurrected. There is another reason.
The glorious Elizabethan era and spirit were gone; the eighteenth
century was coming on fast. Dryden and his fellows had noble rules for
the construction of plays, and nobler ones for the language that might
or might not be used. They derived all their rules, if you please, from
"the ancients." Like Voltaire, they reckoned Shakespeare a barbarian
with native wood-notes wild. They took his plays and "made them into
plays." They improved _The Tempest_, _Timon of Athens_, _The Midsummer
Night's Dream_, and goodness knows how many more. Davenant, in search of
material for entertainments, began it; Dryden continued it; even
Shadwell had his dirty fingers in it. And this matters to us, for some
of Purcell's most glorious songs, choruses and instrumental pieces were
composed for these desecrations, and can never again be listened to
under the conditions he had in his mind.
According to some authorities ("The Dictionary of National Biography"
amongst them), the first play handled by Purcell was Lee's _Sophonisba;
or, The Overthrow of Hannibal_; according to others, the first was
_Theodosius; or, The Force of Love_.
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