ENGLISH DRAMA PURIFIED: BEING A SPECIMEN OF SELECT PLAYS, IN WHICH ALL THE PASSAGES THAT HAVE APPEARED TO THE EDITOR MORALITY, ARE OMITTED OR ALTERED. WITH PREFACES AND NOTES. BY JAMES PLUMPTRE, B. D. FELLOW OF CLARE-HALL, CAMBRIDGE. It is very possible, that Plays might be so framed, and governed by such rules, decently reproved, See Archbp. Tillotson's Sermon on The Evil of Corrupt Communication. nor so effectually exposed and corrected any other way. CAMBRIDGE, PRINTED BY F. HUDSON: And Sold by F. C. and J. RIVINGTON, No. 62, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, and J NICHOLSON AND SON, CABLINGE. 1812. P Dedication. ΤΟ HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS WILLIAM FREDERICK, AND CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. SIR, I had not considered the following Work as being of great literary and moral importance, I should not have presumed to request for it the patronage of the highest Officer in one of the first Universities in the world. But so extensive and important is the influence of The Stage, that I conceive the due regulation of it to be an and the most religious. That your Royal Highness does object worthy the attention of the most enlightened in some degree consider it in this light,—though you may not as yet, perhaps, have contemplated it in its full ex tent, and in all its bearings,-is, I trust, the case from |