Event Comment: Gift for ye Sufferers by ye fire in
Cornhill (
Cross). [A column and a half "Letter to the Author" appeared in the
General Advertiser this day, laying historical background for
Ford's
Lover's Melancholy]. The history of the stage before the Restoration is like a Foreign Land, in which no
Englishman had ever travelled; we know there were such things as Playhouses, and one
Shakespear a great writer, but the historical traces of them are so imperfect, that the manner in which they existed is less known to us, than that of
Eschylus or the theatres of
Greece. For
this reason, 'tis hoped that the following Gleaning of Theatrical History will readily obtain a place in your paper. 'Tis taken from a Pamphlet written in the reign of
Charles I, with
this quaint title, "Old Ben's Light Heart made heavy by young John's
Melancholly Lover"; and as it contains some historical anecdotes and altercations concerning
Ben Johnson,
Ford,
Shakespear, and the
Lover's Melancholy it is imagined that a few extracts from it at
this juncture, will not be unentertaining to the
Public. [The substance of the remainder retails
Jonson's critical cantankerousness and his wounded pride at the failure of the
New Inn, quoting some epigrams made at Jonson's expense on his allegation that Ford was a plagiary.
This second "puff" for the play, presumably also written by
Macklin, formed the basis for a
Steevens-
Malone controversy late in the century, centering on the existence or nonexistence of the pamphlet referred to by Macklin as "Old Ben's Light Heart made Heavy, &c." A summary account of the evidence appears in the
Dramatic Works of John Ford, by
Henry Weber (
Edinburgh, 1811) I, Intro. XVI, XXXI.] Receipts: #210 (
Cross); #208 1s. (
Powel)