Excerpt from Marciano; Or the Discovery: A Tragi-Comedy In adopting such a subject it may be he had found that, even during the days of the merry Monarch, dramatic literature could not obtain a footing in Scotland so as to render it an acceptable or remunerative pursuit, and that deeming it more expedient and to his better interest to assume a Virtue though he had it not had attempted to glorify him self in the eyes of the strict adherents of the Church, who regarded stage-plays as a device of the evil one, by turning his attention to more ghostly subjects, and seizing upon a theme more consonant with the prevailing current of their thoughts. In poetry and romance he is the most successful author who does not attempt to convey instruction, but who can place in a judicious light such pictures and imagery as his readers are already familiar with. Alexander Campbell thus remarks in his Introduction to the History of Poetry in Scotland, Edin. 1798, 4to. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.