Chapter 56

p. 200, l. 22 _Feth. Hah— my Lady Monster!_ 4to 1681 omits to mark at change of scene Feth. again as speech-prefix.

p. 203, l. 13 _Ex. all._ 1724 omits ‘all’.

p. 203, l. 31 _out of hand. [Aside._ 4to 1681 omits ‘Aside’.

p. 205, l. 27 _Ariadne!— How vain is all._ 1724 give this speech as prose. I have followed the metrical division of the 4to 1681 with some slight rearrangement of the lines.

433 p. 208, l. 23 _John Potages._ 1724. ‘Jean Potages’.

p. 208, l. 26 _thou foul filthy Synagogue._ 1724. ‘foul-filthy’.

p. 209, l. 23 _d’ye see._ 4to 1681 ‘de see’.

p. 209, l. 24 _Myrmidons._ 4to 1681 ‘Mermidons’.

p. 209, l. 28 _wiser than your other Men._ 1724 omits ‘your’,

p. 210, l. 21 _Gets from her._ 1724 omits this stage direction.

p. 211, l. 14 _They lay hold on him._ 4to 1681 ‘of him’.

Epilogue

p. 212, l. 26 _nobly throw away._ 1724 ‘throw a Way’.

p. 213, ll. 3-22 _All this won’t do._ The concluding twenty lines of the Epilogue are only given in 4to 1681. All subsequent editions omit them.

_442_ Notes: Critical And Explanatory.

Rover II.

Dedication

p. 113 _The Duke._ James, Duke of York, for whom Mrs, Behn, a thorough Tory, entertained sentiments of deepest loyalty. The ‘absence’, ‘voluntary Exile’, ‘new Exiles’, mentioned in the Dedication all refer 443 to James’ withdrawal from England in 1679, at the time of the seditious agitation to pass an illegal Exclusion Bill. The Duke left on 4 March for Amsterdam, afterwards residing at the Hague. In August he came back, Charles being very ill. Upon the King’s recovery he retired to Scotland 27 October. In March, 1682, he paid a brief visit to the King, finally returning home June of the same year.

p. 114. _young Cesar in the Field._ During the Commonwealth and his first exile James had joined Turenne’s army, 24 April, 1652, and was frequently in the field. He distinguished himself by conspicuous bravery. In 1656, at the wish of Charles, he joined the Spanish army.

p. 114 _Some of Oliver’s Commanders at Dunkirk._ During the Flanders campaign of 1657, Reynolds, the commander of the English at Dunkirk, sought and obtained an interview with James, whom he treated with the most marked respect and honour. This was reported to Cromwell, much to the Protector’s chagrin and alarm.

p. 115. _City Pope._ An allusion to the exploits of Elkanah Settle, who was so notorious at that time for violent Whiggism that in 1680 he had presided over the senseless city ceremony of ‘Pope-burning’ on 17 November. This annual piece of ridiculous pageantry is smartly described by Dryden in his Prologue to Southerne’s _The Loyal Brother_ (1682); and in the Epilogue to _Oedipus_, (1679), after enumerating the attractions of the play, he ends—

We know not what you can desire or hope To please you more, but burning of a Pope.

There are many contemporary references to Settle and his ‘fireworks’. Otway, in _The Poet’s Complaint_ (4to, 1680), speaks of Rebellion cockering the silly rabble with ‘November squibs and burning pasteboard Popes’, canto xi. Duke, in the Epilogue to the same author’s _The Atheist_ (1683), says that the poet never ‘made one rocket on Queen Bess’s night’. In Scott’s _Dryden_, Vol. VI (1808) is given a cut representing the tom-fool procession of 1679, in which an effigy of the murdered Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey had a chief place. There were ‘ingenious fireworks’ and a bonfire. A scurrilous broadside of the day, with regard to the shouting, says that ‘’twas believed the echo ... reached Scotland [the Duke was then residing in the North], France, and even Rome itself damping them all with a dreadfull astonishment.’ The stage at this juncture of fierce political strife had become a veritable battle-ground of parties, and some stir was caused by Settle’s blatant, but not ineffective, melodrama on the subject of that mythical dame _The Female Prelate, being the History of the Life and Death of Pope Joan_, produced at the Theatre Royal, 1680. This play itself is often referred to, and there are other allusions to Pope Joan about this time, e.g., in the Epilogue to Lee’s _Cæsar Borgia_ (1679), where the author says a certain clique could not have been more resolute to damn his play

Had he the Pope’s Effigies meant to burn, ....... Nay, conjur’d up Pope Joan to please the age, And had her breeches search’d upon the stage.

444 cf. also Mrs. Behn in her own Epilogue when she speaks of ‘fat Cardinals, Pope Joans, and Fryers’; and Lord Falkland’s scoff in his Prologue to Otway’s _The Soldier’s Fortune_ (1680):—

But a more pow’rful Saint enjoys ye now ....... The fairest Prelate of her time, and best.

Lord Falkland of course points at the play.

Prologue

p. 116 _lofty Tire._ The Upper Gallery, the price of admission to which was one shilling. It was the cheapest part of the theatre, and is often alluded to in Prologue and Epilogue, but generally with abuse or sarcasm. Dryden, in his Prologue to Tate’s _The Loyal General_ (1680), caustically advises:—

Remove your benches, you apostate pit, And take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit; Go back to your dear dancing on the rope, Or see what’s worse, the Devil and the Pope.

Dramatis Personæ

p. 117 _Harlequin, Willmore’s Man._ Although no actor’s name is printed for Harlequin, the part was undoubtedly played by Shadwell’s brother-in-law, Tom Jevon, who, at the age of twenty-one, had joined the company in 1673. Originally a dancing-master (Langbaine notes his ‘activity’), he became famous in low comedy and particularly for his lithe and nimble Harlequins. In Otway’s _Friendship in Fashion_ (1677) Malagene, a character written for and created by Jevon, says, ‘I’m a very good mimick; I can act Punchinello, Scaramuchio, Harlequin, Prince Prettyman, or any thing.’

Harlequin does not appear in Killigrew’s _Thomaso._ Mrs. Behn’s mime plays pranks and speaks Italian and Spanish. No doubt she derived the character from the Italian comedians who had been at the Royal Theatre, Whitehall, in 1672-3, as Dryden, in an Epilogue (spoken by Hart) to _The Silent Woman_ when acted at Oxford, after a reference to a visit of French comedians, has:—

The Italian Merry-Andrews took their place, And quite debauched the stage with lewd grimace, Instead of wit and humours, your delight Was there to see two hobby-horses fight, Stout Scaramoucha with rush lance rode in, And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin.

They were acting again in July, 1675, and remained some months in England. cf. Evelyn, 29 September this same year, writes: ‘I saw the Italian Scaramuccio act before the King at Whitehall, people giving money to come in, which was very scandalous and never so before at Court-diversions. Having seen him act before in Italy many years past, I was not averse from seeing the most excellent of that kind of folly.’ Duffett in his Prologue to _Ev’ry Man out of his Humour_, ‘spoken by Mr. Hayns’, July, 1675, who refers to this second visit—

The Modish Nymphs now ev’ry heart will win With the surprizing ways of Harlequin 445 O the fine motion and the jaunty mene While you Gallants— Who for dear Missie ne’er can do too much Make Courtships à la mode de Scarramouch.

and a little later he writes:—

Religion has its Scarramouchys too Whose hums and has get all the praise and pence.

This Italian troop evidently returned in the following year or in 1677, as we have allusions to Dominique Biancolelli and Fiurelli, ‘the Fam’d Harlequin & Scaramouch’, in the Prologue to Ravenscroft’s _Scaramouch a Philosopher, Harlequin a School-Boy, Bravo, Merchant, and Magician_, a Comedy after the Italian Manner, produced at the Theatre Royal in 1677, with the migratory Joe Haines as Harlequin, and again in _Friendship in Fashion_, Act iii, 1, when Lady Squeamish cries: ‘Dear Mr. Malagene, won’t you let us see you act a little something of Harlequin? I’ll swear you do it so naturally, it makes me think I am at the Louvre or Whitehall all the time.’ [Malagene acts.]

p. 117. _Lucia... Mrs. Norris._ In the quarto the name of this actress is spelled Norice. Even if the two characters Lucia and Petronella Elenora were not so entirely different, one being a girl, the second a withered crone, it is obvious that as both appear on the stage at one and the same time Mrs. Norris could not have doubled these rôles. The name Mrs. Norice, however, which is cast for Lucia is undoubtedly a misprint for Mrs. Price. This lady may possibly have been the daughter of Joseph Price, an ‘Inimitable sprightly Actor’, who was dead in 1673. We find Mrs. Price cast for various rôles of no great consequence, similar to Lucia in this play. She sustained Camilla in Otway’s _Friendship in Fashion_ (1678), Violante in Leanerd’s _The Counterfeits_ (1679), Sylvia in _The Soldier’s Fortune_ (1683), Hippolita in D’Urfey’s _A Commonwealth of Women_ (1685), and many more, all of which belong to the ‘second walking-lady’.

Mrs. Norris, who acted Petronella Elenora, was a far more important figure in the theatre. One of those useful and, indeed, indispensable performers, who, without ever attaining any prominent position, contribute more essentially than is often realized to the success of a play, she became well known for her capital personations of old women and dowagers. Wife of the actor Norris, she had been one of the earliest members of Davenant’s company, and her son, known as Jubilee Dicky from his superlative performance in Farquhar’s _The Constant Couple_ (1699), was a leading comedian in the reigns of Anne and the first George. Amongst Mrs. Norris’ many rôles such parts as Lady Dupe, the old lady in Dryden’s _Sir Martin Mar-All_ (1667), Goody Rash in Crowne’s _The Country Wit_ (1675), Nuarcha, an amorous old maid, in Maidwell’s _The Loving Enemies_ (1680), Mother Dunwell, the bawd in Betterton’s _The Revenge; or, A Match in Newgate_ (1680), all sufficiently typify her special line, within whose limits she won considerable applause.