Book Description

"[...]strongly affecting, whilst they are strictly consonant to nature and probability. The whole of the fable is authorized by the circumstances of the times, in which the action of the piece is laid. The era of Cromwell's usurpation, when many loyal subjects, sharing the misfortunes of their exiled sovereign, were stripped of their estates, and then left to the neglect and desolation of forfeiture; the necessity under which those unhappy sufferers often lay, of leaving their infant progeny under the charge of some humble but attached dependant, till better days should dawn upon their fortunes; the criminal advantages taken by false friends in usurping the rights of the sufferers, and securing themselves against future question by deeds of guilt; these circumstances, too well founded in truth, and nature, are sufficient to account for every particular in this most interesting drama, and give it perfect verisimilitude. The fables of the Aminta and Pastor Fido, drawn from a state of society which never had an existence, are, for that reason, incapable of exciting any high degree of interest; and the mind cannot for a moment remain under the influence of that deception, which it is the great purpose of the drama to produce.[...]".