TO MR KILLIGREW,[1] UPON HIS ALTERING HIS PLAY, 'PANDORA,' FROM A TRAGEDY INTO A COMEDY, BECAUSE NOT APPROVED ON THE STAGE.
Reading edition
TO MR KILLIGREW,[1] UPON HIS ALTERING HIS PLAY, 'PANDORA,' FROM A TRAGEDY INTO A COMEDY, BECAUSE NOT APPROVED ON THE STAGE.
Sir, you should rather teach our age the way Of judging well, than thus have changed your play; You had obliged us by employing wit, Not to reform Pandora, but the pit; For as the nightingale, without the throng Of other birds, alone attends her song, While the loud daw, his throat displaying, draws The whole assemblage of his fellow-daws; So must the writer, whose productions should Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould; Whilst nobler fancies make a flight too high For common view, and lessen as they fly.
[1] 'Mr. Killigrew': a gentleman usher to Charles II., and one of the playwrights of the period.