Yet this has been often acted on the stage in my remembrance.

Are the times so much more reform'd now than they were five and twenty years ago?
If they are, I congratulate the amendment of our morals.

But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow poets, tho' I abandon my own defense: they have some of them answer'd for themselves, and neither they nor I can think Mr.Collier so formidable an enemy that we should shun him.

He has lost ground at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too far, like the Prince of Conde at the battle of Seneffe: from immoral plays to no plays, _ab abusu ad usum, non valet consequentia_[36].

But being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge.