kind keepers of Covent Garden, to please the cuckolds of Cheapside;
and drolled on the city Do-littles, to tickle the Covent-Garden
Limberhams[1]." Even Langbaine, relentless as he is in criticism,
seems to have considered the condemnation of Limberham as the
vengeance of the faction ridiculed.

"In this play, (which I take to be the best comedy of his) he so much
exposed the keeping part of the town, that the play was stopt when it
had but thrice appeared on the stage; but the author took a becoming
care, that the things that offended on the stage, were either altered
or omitted in the press. One of our modern writers, in a short satire
against keeping, concludes thus:

"Dryden, good man, thought keepers to reclaim,
Writ a kind satire, call'd it Limberham.
This all the herd of letchers straight alarms;
From Charing-Cross to Bow was up in arms:
They damn'd the play all at one fatal blow,
And broke the glass, that did their picture show."

Mr Malone mentions his having seen a MS. copy of this play, found by
Lord Bolingbroke among the sweepings of Pope's study, in which there
occur several indecent passages, not to be found in the printed copy.
These, doubtless, constituted the castrations, which, in obedience to
the public voice, our author expunged from his play, after its
condemnation. It is difficult to guess what could be the nature of the
indecencies struck out, when we consider those which the poet deemed
himself at liberty to retain.

The reader will probably easily excuse any remarks upon this comedy.