Note 458 — Vol. II.—47.
Reading edition
The Plague: in which times, the acting of Plays appears to have been discountenanced.
[459] He damns the Town: the Town before damn’d him.—Ed.
We can almost be not sorry for the ill dramatic success of this Play, which brought out such spirited apologies; in particular, the masterly definitions of Pastoral and Tragi-Comedy in this Preface.
[460] So I point it; instead of the line, as it stands in this unique copy—
Nor instance nor excuse for what they do.
The sense I take to be, what the common playwrights do (or shew by action—the “inexplicable dumb show” of Shakspeare—), our Chorus relates. The following lines have else no coherence.