ia6 Effay on Majfingeri 



mit J attention is never difgufted by anticipation, 

 nor tortured with unneceffary delay. Thefe 

 charaAers are applicable to moft of Maflinger's 

 own produdlions ; but in thofe which he wrote 

 jointly with other dramatifts, the intereft is often 

 weakened, by incidents, which that age permit- 

 ted, but which the prefent would not endure. 

 Thus, in the Renegado*, the honour of Paulina 

 is preferved from the brutality of her Turkifh 

 mafter, by the influence of a relic, which Ibe 

 wears on her breaft : in the Virgin Martyr, the 

 heroine is attended, through all her fufferings, 

 by an angel difguifed as her page ; her perfecutor 

 is urged on to deftroy her, by an attendant fiend, 

 alfo in difguifef. Here our anxiety for the dif- 

 trefled, and our hatred of the wicked, are com- 

 pletely ftifled, and we are more eafily affefted by 

 fome burlefque paflages which follow, in the 

 fame legendary ftrain. In the laft quoted play, the 



• This Play was written by Maflinger alone. 



f The idea of devil- fervants is not new in Englifli litera- 

 ture. Giraldus Cambrenfis, in his Defcription of Wales, 

 mentions a gentleman, named Stakepool, in the county of 

 Pembroke, who had a demon in difguife for his fteward. 

 He was a faithful, diligent devil (bonus aconomus) and his 

 only peculiarity was that he never went to church. Ano- 

 ther demon, lefs confcientious, attached hiirifelf to an 

 Archbiftiop (in Dacia, faith Giraldus, nojiris diebus) 

 under the form of a clergyman, and was a particular 

 favourite of th." good Prelate, till he accidentally betrayed 

 himfelf. Cambdeni Angl. Nermann. &c. Hift. p. 835. 



attendant 



