Another remarkable feature in the comedies which succeeded the
Restoration is the structure of their plot, which was not, like that of
the tragedies, formed upon the Parisian model. The English audience had
not patience for the regular comedy of their neighbours, depending upon
delicate turns of expression, and nicer delineation of character. The
Spanish comedy, with its bustle, machinery, disguise, and complicated
intrigue, was much more agreeable to their taste. This preference did
not arise entirely from what the French term the phlegm of our national
character, which cannot be affected but by powerful stimulants. It is
indeed certain, that an Englishman expects his eye, as well as his ear,
to be diverted by theatrical exhibition; but the thirst of novelty was
another and separate reason which affected the style of the revived
drama. The number of new plays represented every season was incredible;
and the authors were compelled to have recourse to that mode of
composition which was most easily executed. Laboured accuracy of
expression, and fine traits of character, joined to an arrangement of
action, which should be at once pleasing, interesting, and probable,
require sedulous study, deep reflection, and long and repeated
correction and revision. But these were not to be expected from a
playwright, by whom three dramas were to be produced in one season; and
in their place were substituted adventures surprises, rencounters,
mistakes, disguises, and escapes, all easily accomplished by the
intervention of sliding panels, closets, veils, masks, large cloaks, and
dark lanthorns. If the dramatist was at a loss for employing these
convenient implements, the fifteen hundred plays of Lope de Vega were at
hand for his instruction; presenting that rapid succession of events,
and those sudden changes in the situation of the personages, which,
according to the noble biographer of the Spanish dramatist, are the
charms by which he interests us so forcibly in his plots.[7] These
Spanish plays had already been resorted to by the authors of the earlier