The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10
PART III.
Note I.
_And mother Hubbard, in her homely dress, Has sharply blamed a British Lioness; That queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep, Exposed obscenely naked, and asleep._--P. 197.
The poet, in the beginning of this canto, anticipates the censure of those who might blame him for introducing into his fables animals not natives of Britain, where the scene was laid. He vindicates himself by the example of Æsop and Spenser. The latter, in "Mother Hubbard's Tale," exhibits at length the various arts by which, in his time, obscure and infamous characters rose to eminence in church and state. This is illustrated by the parable of an Ape and a Fox, who insinuate themselves into various situations, and play the knaves in all. At length,
Lo, where they spied, how, in a gloomy glade, The Lion, sleeping, lay in secret shade; His crown and sceptre lying him beside, And having doft for heat his dreadful hide.
The adventurers possess themselves of the royal spoils, with which the Ape is arrayed; who forthwith takes upon himself the dignity of the monarch of the beasts, and, by the counsels of the Fox, commits every species of oppression, until Jove, incensed at the disorders which his tyranny had introduced, sends Mercury to awaken the Lion from his slumber:
Arise! said Mercury, thou sluggish beast, That here liest senseless, like the corpse deceast; The whilst thy kingdom from thy head is rent, And thy throne royal with dishonour blent.
The Lion rouses himself, hastens to court, and avenges himself of the usurpers.--There is no doubt, that, under this allegory, Spenser meant to represent the exorbitant power of Lord Burleigh; and he afterwards complains, that his verse occasioned his falling into a "mighty peer's displeasure." The Lion, therefore, whose negligence is upbraided by Mercury, was Queen Elizabeth. Dryden calls her,
The queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep;
because the tumultuous pope-burnings of 1680 and 1681 were solemnized on Queen Elizabeth's night. The poet had probably, since his change of religion, laid aside much of the hereditary respect with which most Englishmen regard Queen Bess; for, in the pamphlets of the Romanists, she is branded as "a known bastard, who raised this prelatic protestancy, called the church of England, as a prop to supply the weakness of her title."[264]
Spenser's authority is only appealed to by Dryden as justifying the introduction of lions and other foreign animals into a British fable. But I observed in the introduction, that it also furnishes authority, at least example, for those aberrations from the character and attributes of his brute actors, with which the critics taxed Dryden; for nothing in "The Hind and the Panther" can be more inconsistent with the natural quality of such animals, than the circumstance of a lion, or any other creature, going to sleep without his skin, on account of the sultry weather.
Note II.
_You know my doctrine, and I need not say I will not, but I cannot, disobey. On this firm principle I ever stood; He of my sons, who fails to make it good, By one rebellious act renounces to my blood._--P. 202.
The memorable judgment and decree of the university of Oxford, passed in the Convocation 21st July, 1683, condemns, as heretical, all works which teach or infer the lawfulness of resistance to lawful governors, even when they become tyrants, or in case of persecution for religion, or infringement on the laws of the country, or, in short, in any case whatever; and after the various authorities for these and other tenets have been given and denounced as false, seditious, heretical, and impious, the decree concludes with the following injunctions:
"Lastly, we command and strictly enjoin all and singular readers, tutors, catechists, and others, to whom the care and trust of institution of youth is committed, that they diligently instruct and ground their scholars in that most necessary doctrine, which in a manner is the badge and character of the church of England, of submitting to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him, for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well: Teaching, that this submission and obedience is to be clear, absolute, and without exception of any state or order of men."
Note III.
_Your sons of latitude, that court your grace,} Though most resembling you in form and face, } Are far the worst of your pretended race. } And, but I blush your honesty to blot, Pray God you prove them lawfully begot! For in some Popish libels I have read, The Wolf has been too busy in your bed._--P. 202.
During the latter years of the reign of Charles the Second, the dissensions of the state began to creep into the church. By far the greater part of the clergy, influenced by the ancient union of church and king, were steady in their adherence to the court interest. But a party began to appear, who were distinguished from their brethren by the name of _Moderate Divines_, which they assumed to themselves, and by that of Latitudinarians, which the high churchmen conferred upon them. The chief amongst these were Tillotson, Stillingfleet, and Burnet. They distinguished themselves by a less violent ardour for the ceremonies, and even the government, of the church; for all those particulars, in short, by which she is distinguished from other Protestant congregations. Stillingfleet carried these condescensions so far, as to admit in his tract, called _Irenicum_, that, although the original church was settled in a constitution of bishops, priests, and deacons, yet as the apostles made no positive law upon this subject, it remained free to every Christian congregation to alter or to retain that form of church government. In conformity with this opinion, he, in conjunction with Tillotson and others, laid a plan for an accommodation with the Presbyterians, in 1668; and, in order to this comprehension, he was willing to have made such sacrifices in the point of ordination, &c. that the House of Commons took the alarm, and passed a vote, prohibiting even the introduction of a bill for such a purpose. As, on the one hand, the tenets of the moderate clergy approximated those of the Calvinists; so, on the other, their antipathy and opposition to the church of Rome was more deeply rooted, in proportion to the slighter value which they attached to the particulars in which that of England resembled her. It flowed naturally from this indulgence to the Dissenters, and detestation of the Romanists, that several of the moderate clergy participated deeply in the terrors excited by the Roman Catholic plot, and looked with a favourable eye on the bill which proposed to exclude the Duke of York from the throne as a professor of that obnoxious religion. Being thus, as it were, an opposition party, it cannot be supposed that the low church divines united cordially with their high-flying brethren in renouncing the right of resisting oppression, or in professing passive obedience to the royal will. They were of opinion, that there was a mutual compact between the king and subject, and that acts of tyranny, on the part of the former, absolved the latter from his allegiance. This was particularly inculcated by the reverend Samuel Johnson (See Vol. IX. p. 369.) in "Julian the Apostate," and other writings which were condemned by the Oxford decree. As the dangers attending the church, from the measures of King James, became more obvious, and the alternative of resistance or destruction became an approaching crisis, the low church party acquired numbers and strength from those who thought it better at once to hold and assert the lawfulness of opposition to tyranny, than to make professions of obedience beyond the power of human endurance to make good.
This party was of course deeply hated by the Catholics, and hence the severity with which they are treated by Dryden, who objects to them as the illegitimate offspring of the Panther by the Wolf, and traces to their Presbyterian origin their indifference to the fasts and ascetic observances of the more rigid high-churchmen, and their covert disposition to resist regal domination. Their adherence to the English communion he ascribes only to the lucre of gain, and endeavours, if possible, to draw an odious distinction between them and the rest of the church. Stillingfleet, whom this motive could not escape, had already complained of Dryden's designing any particular class of the clergy by a party name. "From the common people, we come to churchmen, to see how he uses them. And he hath soon found out a faction among them, whom he charges with juggling designs: but romantic heroes must be allowed to make armies of a field of thistles, and to encounter windmills for giants. He would fain be the instrument to divide our clergy, and to fill them with suspicions of one another. And to this end he talks of men of latitudinarian stamp: for it goes a great way towards the making divisions, to be able to fasten a name of distinction among brethren; this being to create jealousies of each other. But there is nothing should make them more careful to avoid such names of distinction, than to observe how ready their common enemies are to make use of them, to create animosities by them; which hath made this worthy gentleman to start this different character of churchmen among us; as though there were any who were not true to the principles of the church of England, as by law established: If he knows them, he is better acquainted with them than the answerer is; for he professes to know none such. But who then are these men of the latitudinarian stamp? To speak in his own language, they are a sort of ergoteerers, who are for a _concedo_ rather than a _nego_. And now, I hope, they are all well explained; or, in other words of his, they are, saith he, for drawing the nonconformists to their party, _i.e._ they are for having no nonconformists. And is this their crime? But they would take the headship of the church out of the king's hands: How is that possible? They would (by his own description) be glad to see differences lessened, and all that agree in the same doctrine to be one entire body. But this is that which their enemies fear, and this politician hath too much discovered; for then such a party would be wanting, which might be played upon the church of England, or be brought to join with others against it. But how this should touch the king's supremacy, I cannot imagine. As for his desiring loyal subjects to consider this matter, I hope they will, and the more for his desiring it; and assure themselves, that they have no cause to apprehend any juggling designs of their brethren; who, I hope, will always show themselves to be loyal subjects, and dutiful sons of the church of England."--_Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers_, p. 104.
Note IV.
_Think you, your new French proselytes are come To starve abroad, because they starved at home?_
* * * * *
_Mark with what management their tribes divide, Some stick to you, and some to t'other side, That many churches may for many mouths provide._ P. 203.
The Huguenot clergy, who took refuge in England after the recal of the edict of Nantes, did not all adhere to the same Protestant communion. There had been long in London what was called the Walloon church, exclusively dedicated to this sort of worship. Many conformed to the church of England; and, having submitted to new ordination, some of them obtained benefices: others joined in communion with the Presbyterians, and dissenters of various kinds. Dryden insinuates, that had the church of England presented vacancies sufficient for the provision of these foreign divines, she would probably have had the honour of attracting them all within her pale. The reformed clergy of France were far from being at any time an united body. "It might have been expected," says Burnet, "that those unhappy contests between Lutherans, Calvinists, Arminians, and Anti-Arminians, with some minuter disputes that have enflamed Geneva and Switzerland, should have been at least suspended while they had a common enemy to deal with, against whom their whole force united was scarce able to stand. But these things were carried on rather with more eagerness and sharpness than ever." _History of his Own Times_, Book IV.
Note V.
_Some sons of mine, who bear upon their shield Three steeples argent, in a sable field, Have sharply taxed your converts, who, unfed, Have followed you for miracles of bread._ P. 203.
The three steeples argent obviously alludes to the pluralities enjoyed, perhaps by Stillingfleet, and certainly by some of the divines of the established church, who were not on that account less eager in opposing the intrusion of the Roman clergy, and stigmatising those who, at this crisis, thought proper to conform to the royal faith. These converts were neither numerous nor respectable; and, whatever the Hind is pleased to allege in the text, posterity cannot but suspect the disinterestedness of their motives. Obadiah Walker, and a very few of the university of Oxford, embraced the Catholic faith, conforming at the same time to the forms of the church of England, as if they wished to fulfil the old saying, of having two strings to one bow.--The Earls of Perth and Melfort, with one or two other Scottish nobles, took the same step. Of the first, who must otherwise have failed in a contest which he had with the Duke of Queensberry, it was wittily said by Halifax, that "his faith had made him whole." And, in general, as my countrymen are not usually credited by their brethren of England for an extreme disregard to their own interest, the Scottish converts were supposed to be peculiarly attracted to Rome by the miracle of the loaves and fishes.[265] But it may be said for these unfortunate peers, that if they were dazzled by the momentary sunshine which gleamed on the Catholic church, they scorned to desert her in the tempest which speedily succeeded. Whereas, we shall do a kindness to Lord Sunderland, if we suppose that he became a convert to Popery, merely from views of immediate interest, and not with the premeditated intention of blinding and betraying the monarch, who trusted him. Dryden must be supposed, however, chiefly interested in the vindication of his own motives for a change of religion.
Note VI.
_Such who themselves of no religion are, Allured with gain, for any will declare; Bare lies with bold assertions they can face, But dint of argument is out of place; The grim logician puts them in a fright, 'Tis easier far to flourish than to fight._ P. 203.
Dryden here puts into the mouth of the Panther some of the severe language which Stillingfleet had held towards him in the ardour of controversy. He had, in direct allusion to our author, (for he quotes his poetry,) expressed himself thus harshly:
"If I thought there were no such thing in the world as true religion, and that _the priests of all religions are alike_,[266] I might have been as nimble a convert, and as early a defender of the royal papers, as any one of these champions. For why should not one who believes no religion, declare for any? But since I do verily believe, that not only there is such a thing as true religion, but that it is only to be found in the books of the Holy Scripture, I have reason to inquire after the best means of understanding such books, and thereby, if it may be, to put an end to the controversies of Christendom."[267]
"But our _grim logician_ proceeds from immediate and original to concomitant causes, which he saith were revenge, ambition, and covetousness. But the skill of logicians used to lie in proving; but this is not our author's talent, for not a word is produced to that purpose. If bold sayings, and confident declarations, will do the business, he is never unprovided; but if you expect any reason from him, he begs your pardon. He finds how ill the character of a grim logician suits with his inclination."[268] Again, "But if I will not allow his affirmations for proofs for his part, he will act the grim logician; no, and in truth it becomes him so ill, that he doth well to give it over."[269] And in the beginning of his "Vindication," alluding to a term used by the defender of the king's papers, Stillingfleet says: "But lest I be again thought to have a mind to flourish before I offer to pass, as the champion speaks in his proper language, I shall apply myself to the matter before us."[270]
Note VII.
_Thus our eighth Henry's marriage they defame; Divorcing from the church to wed the dame: Though largely proved, and by himself professed, That conscience, conscience would not let him rest._
* * * * *
_For sundry years before he did complain, And told his ghostly confessor his pain._ P. 204.
This is a continuation of the allusion to Stillingfleet's "Vindication," who had attempted to place Henry VIII.'s divorce from Catherine of Arragon to the account of his majesty's tender conscience. A herculean task! but the readers may take it in the words of the Dean of St Paul's:
"And now this gentleman sets himself to _ergoteering_;[271] and looks and talks like any grim logician, of the causes which produced it, and the effects which it produced. 'The schism led the way to the Reformation, for breaking the unity of Christ's church, which was the foundation of it: but the immediate cause of this, which produced the separation of Henry VIII. from the church of Rome, was the refusal of the pope to grant him a divorce from his first wife, and to gratify his desires in a dispensation for a second marriage.'
"_Ergo_: The first cause of the Reformation, was the satisfying an inordinate and brutal passion. But is he sure of this? If he be not, it is a horrible calumny upon our church, upon King Henry the Eighth, and the whole nation, as I shall presently show. No; he confesses he cannot be sure of it: for, saith he, no man can carry it so high as the original cause with any certainty. And at the same time, he undertakes to demonstrate the immediate cause to be Henry the Eighth's inordinate and brutal passion; and afterwards affirms, as confidently as if he had demonstrated it, that our Reformation was erected on the foundations of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation: Yet, saith he, the king only knew whether it was conscience or love, or love alone, which moved him to sue for a divorce. Then, by his favour, the king only could know what was the immediate cause of that which he calls the schism. Well! but he offers at some probabilities, that lust was the true cause. Is Ergoteering come to this already? 'But this we may say, if Conscience had any part in it, she had taken a long nap of almost twenty years together before she awakened.' Doth he think, that Conscience doth not take a longer nap than this in some men, and yet they pretend to have it truly awakened at last? What thinks he of late converts? Cannot they be true, because conscience hath slept so long in them? Must we conclude in such cases, that some inordinate passion gives conscience a jog at last? 'So that it cannot be denied, he saith, that an inordinate and brutal passion had a great share at least in the production of the schism.' How! cannot be denied! I say from his own words it ought to be denied, for he confesses none could know but the king himself; he never pretended that the king confessed it: How then cannot it be denied? Yea, how dare any one affirm it? Especially when the king himself declared in a solemn assembly, in these words, saith Hall, (as near, saith he, as I could carry them away,) speaking of the dissatisfaction of his conscience,--"For this only cause, I protest before God, and in the word of a prince, I have asked counsel of the greatest clerks in Christendom; and for this cause I have sent for this legat, as a man indifferent, only to know the truth, and to settle my conscience, and for none other cause, as God can judge." And both then and afterwards, he declared, that his scruples began upon the French ambassador's making a question about the legitimacy of the marriage, when the match was proposed between the Duke of Orleans and his daughter; and he affirms, that he moved it himself in confession to the Bishop of Lincoln, and appeals to him concerning the truth of it in open court."--_Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers_, p. 109.
Note VIII.
_They say, that, look the Reformation round, No treatise of humility is found; But if none were, the gospel does not want, Our Saviour preached it, and I hope you grant, The sermon on the mount was Protestant._--P. 204.
Stillingfleet concludes his "Vindication" with this admonition to Dryden: "I would desire him not to end with such a bare-faced assertion of a thing so well known to be false, viz. that there is not one original treatise written by a Protestant, which hath handled distinctly, and by itself, that Christian virtue of humility. Since within a few years (besides what hath been printed formerly) such a book hath been published in London. But he doth well to bring it off with, 'at least that I have seen or heard of;' for such books have not lain much in the way of his inquiries. Suppose we had not such particular books, we think the Holy Scripture gives the best rules and examples of humility of any book in the world; but I am afraid he should look on his case as desperate if I send him to the Scripture, since he saith, 'Our divines do that as physicians do with their patients whom they think uncurable, send them at last to Tunbridge-waters, or to the air of Montpellier."
Dryden, in the Introduction, says, that the author of this work was called Duncombe; but he is charged with inaccuracy by Montague, who says his name is Allen. It seems to be admitted, that his work is a translation from the Spanish. The real author may have been Thomas Allen, rector of Kettering, in Northamptonshire, and author of "The Practice of a Holy Life, 8vo. 1716;" in the list of books subjoined to which, I find "The Virtue of Humility, recommended to be printed by the late reverend and learned Dr Henry Hammond," which perhaps may be the book in question. A sort of similarity of sound between Duncombe and Hammond may have led to Dryden's mistake. Alonzo Rodriguez, of the Order of the Jesuits, wrote a book called "_Exercicio de perfecion y virtudes Christianas, Sevilla, 1609_," which seems to be the work from which the plagiary was taken.
Note IX.
_Unpitied Hudibras, your champion friend, Has shown how far your charities extend; This lasting verse shall on his tomb be read,_ "_He shamed you living, and upbraids you dead._" P. 205.
Our author, in the preceding lines, had employed himself in repelling the charge of his having changed his religion for the sake of interest. His loaves, he says, had not been increased by the change, nor had his assiduity at court intimated any claim upon royal favour: and in reference to her neglect of literary merit, he charges on the church of England the fate of Butler, a brother poet. Of that truly original genius we only know, that his life was spent in dependence, and embittered by disappointment. But unless Dryden alludes to some incident now unknown, it is difficult to see how the church of England could have rewarded his merit. Undoubtedly she owed much to his forcible satire against her lately triumphant rivals, the Presbyterians and Independents; but, unless Butler had been in orders, how could the church have recompensed his poetical talents? The author of the most witty poem that ever was written had a much more natural and immediate claim upon the munificence of the wittiest king and court that ever was in England; nor was his satire less serviceable to royalty than to the established religion. The blame of neglecting Butler lay therefore on Charles II. and his gay courtiers, who quoted "Hudibras" incessantly, and left the author to struggle with obscurity and indigence. The poet himself has, in a fragment called "Hudibras at Court," set forth both the kind reception which Charles gave the poem, and his neglect of the author:
Now you must know, Sir Hudibras With such perfections gifted was, And so peculiar in his manner, That all that saw him did him honour. Among the rest, this prince was one, Admired his conversation: This prince, whose ready wit and parts Conquered both men and women's hearts, Was so o'ercome with Knight and Ralph, That he could never claw it off; He never eat, nor drank, nor slept, But Hudibras still near him kept; Nor would he go to church, or so, But Hudibras must with him go; Nor yet to visit concubine, Or at a city feast to dine, But Hudibras must still be there, Or all the fat was in the fire. Now after all, was it not hard, That he should meet with no reward, That fitted out this knight and squire, This monarch did so much admire? That he should never reimburse The man for th' equipage, or horse, Is sure a strange ungrateful thing, In any body but a king. But this good king, it seems, was told, By some that were with him too bold, If e'er you hope to gain your ends, Caress your foes, and trust your friends. Such were the doctrines that were taught, Till this unthinking king was brought To leave his friends to starve and die, A poor reward for loyalty!
Note X.
_With odious atheist names you load your foes; Your liberal clergy why did I expose? It never fails in charities like those._--P. 205.
Our author here complains of the personal reflections which Stillingfleet had cast upon him, particularly in the passage already quoted in Note VII., where he is expressly charged with disbelieving the existence of "such a thing as true religion." The second and third lines of the triplet are somewhat obscure. The meaning seems to be, that Dryden, conscious of having given the first offence, which we shall presently see was the case, justifies his having done so, from personal abuse being the never-failing resort of the liberal clergy. The application of the neuter pronoun _it_ to the liberal clergy, is probably in imitation of Virgil's satirical construction:
_Varium et mutabile semper fæmina._
It happened in this controversy, as in most others, that both parties, laying out of consideration the provocation which they themselves had given, complained bitterly of the illiberality of their antagonists. Stillingfleet expatiates on the unhandsome language contained in Dryden's Defence, and the passages which he quotes are those which contain the exposure of the liberal clergy mentioned in the text:
"Yet as if I had been the sole contriver or inventor of all, he bestows those civil and obliging epithets upon me, of _disingenuous_, _foul-mouthed_, and _shuffling_; one of a _virulent genius_, of _spiteful diligence_, and _irreverence to the royal family_; of _subtle calumny_, and _sly aspersion_; and he adds to these ornaments of speech, that I have a _cloven-foot_, and my name is _Legion_; and that my Answer is an _infamous libel_, a _scurrilous saucy pamphlet_. Is this indeed the spirit of a new convert? Is this the meekness and temper you intend to gain proselytes by, and to convert the nation? He tells us in the beginning, that truth has a language peculiar to itself: I desire to be informed, whether these be any of the characters of it? And how the language of reproach and evil-speaking may be distinguished from it? But zeal in a new convert is a terrible thing; for it not only burns, but rages, like the eruptions of Mount Ætna; it fills the air with noise and smoke, and throws out such a torrent of liquid fire, that there is no standing before it. The Answer alone was too mean a sacrifice for such a Hector in controversy. All that standeth in his way must fall at his feet. He calls me Legion, that he may be sure to have number enough to overcome. But he is a great proficient indeed, if he be such an exorcist, to cast out a whole legion already. But he hopes it may be done without fasting and prayer."--_Vindication of the Answer_, p. 1.
Note XI.
_It now remains for you to school your child, And ask why God's anointed he reviled; A king and princess dead! Did Shimei worse?_ P. 207.
The Hind having shewn that her influence over Dryden was such as to induce him to submit patiently, and without vengeance, to injury and reproach, now calls upon the Panther to exert her authority in turn over Stillingfleet, for his irreverend attack upon the royal papers in favour of the Catholic religion. Upon a careful perusal of the Answers and Vindication of that great divine, it is impossible to find any grounds for the charge of his having _reviled_ Charles II. or the Duchess of York; on the contrary, their names are always mentioned with great respect, and the controversy is conducted strictly in conformity with the following spirited advertisement prefixed to the Answer:
"If the papers, here answered, had not been so publicly dispersed through the nation, a due respect to the name they bear, would have kept the author from publishing any answer to them. But because they may now fall into many hands, who, without some assistance, may not readily resolve some difficulties started by them, he thought it not unbecoming his duty to God and the king, to give a clearer light to the things contained in them. And it can be no reflection on the authority of a prince, for a private subject to examine a piece of coin as to its just value, though it bears his image and superscription upon it. In matters that concern faith and salvation, we must prove all things, and hold fast that which is good."--_Advertisement to Answer to the Royal Papers._
Dryden, however, like the other Catholics, was pleased to interpret the impugning and confuting the arguments used by the king and duchess, into contempt and disrespect for their persons. It was this forced construction on which was founded the prosecution of Sharpe and of the Bishop of London before the ecclesiastical commissioners. Sharpe having been defied to a polemical contest, by a paper handed into his pulpit, took occasion to preach on the arguments contained in it; and mentioned, with some contempt, persons who could be influenced by such weak reasoning. This was interpreted as a reflection on the new converts, and particularly on the king himself; and a mandate was issued to the Bishop of London, commanding that the obnoxious preacher should be suspended. The issue of this matter has been noticed in the notes on "Absalom and Achitophel," Vol. IX. p. 302.
Note XII.
_Your son was warned, and wisely gave it o'er; But he, who counselled him, has paid the score._ P. 207.
Dryden here triumphs in the conquest he pretends to have gained over Stillingfleet. In the beginning of the controversy, the Dean of St Paul's had spoken dubiously of the authenticity of the paper ascribed to the Duchess. In his Vindication, he fully admitted that point, and insisted only upon the weakness of the reasons which she alleged for her conversion. This Dryden compares to a defeated vessel, bearing away under the smoke of her last broadside.
The person, whom he states to have counselled Stillingfleet, is probably Burnet; and the score which he paid, is the severe description given of him under the character of the Buzzard. Dryden always seems to have viewed the Answer to the Royal Papers as the work of more than one hand. In his "Defence," he affirms, that the answerer's "name is Legion; but though the body be possessed with many evil spirits, it is but one of them that talks." In the introduction to the "Hind and Panther," he says, he is informed both of the "author and supervisors of this pamphlet." He conjectured, as was probably the truth, that a controversy of such importance, and which required to be managed with such peculiar delicacy, was not entrusted to a single individual. Besides Burnet, it is probable that Tillotson, Tennison, and Patrick, all of whom mingled in the polemical disputes of that period, were consulted by Stillingfleet on this important occasion.
Note XIII.
_Perhaps you think your time of triumph near, But may mistake the season of the year; The Swallow's fortune gives you cause to fear._--P. 210.
The general application of the fable of the Swallows to the short gleam of Catholic prosperity during the reign of James II. is sufficiently manifest. But it is probable, that a more close and intimate allusion was intended to an event which took place in 1686, when the whole nation was in confusion at the measures of King James, so that the alarm had extended even to the Catholics, who were the objects of his favour. We are told, there was a general meeting of the leading Roman Catholics at the Savoy, to consult how this favourable crisis might be most improved to the advantage of their cause. Father Petre had the chair; and at the very opening of the debates, it appeared, that the majority were more inclined to provide for their own security, than to come to extremities with the Protestants. Notwithstanding the King's zeal, power, and success, they were afraid to push the experiment any farther. The people were already alarmed, the soldiers could not be depended upon, the very courtiers melted out of their grasp. All depended on a single life, which was already on the decline; and if that life should last yet a few years longer, and continue as hitherto devoted to their interest and service, they foresaw innumerable difficulties in their way, and anticipated disappointments without end. Upon these considerations, therefore, some were for a petition to the king, that he would only so far interpose in their favour, that their estates might be secured to them by act of parliament, with exemption from all employments, and liberty to worship God in their own way, in their own houses. Others were for obtaining the king's leave to sell their estates, and transport themselves and their effects to France. All but Father Petre were for a compromise of some sort or other; but he disdained whatever had a tendency to moderation, and was for making the most of the voyage while the sea was smooth, and the wind prosperous. All these several opinions, we are farther told, were laid before the king, who was pleased to answer, "That before their desires were made known to him, he had provided a sure retreat and sanctuary for them in Ireland, in case all those endeavours which he was making for their security in England should be blasted, and which as yet gave him no reason to despair."[272]
It will hardly, I think, be disputed, that the fable of the Swallows about to cross the seas refers to this consultation of the Catholics; and it is a strong instance of Dryden's prejudice against priests of all persuasions, that, in the character of the Martin, who persuaded the Swallows to postpone the flight, he decidedly appears to have designed Petre, the king's confessor and prime adviser in state matters, both spiritual and temporal. The name of Martin may contain an allusion to the parish of St Martin's, in which Whitehall, and the royal chapel, are situated. But should this be thought fanciful, it is certain, that the portrait of this vain, presumptuous, ambitious, bigotted Jesuit, who was in keen pursuit of a cardinal's cap, is exactly that of the Martin:
A church begot, and church believing bird, Of little body, but of lofty mind, Round-bellied, for a dignity designed.
Two marked circumstances of resemblance conclude the inuendo,--his noble birth, and superficial learning;
But little learning needs in noble blood.[273]
It may be doubted, whether the reverend father was highly pleased with this sarcastic description, or whether he admitted readily the apology, that the poet, speaking in the character of the heretical church, was obliged to use Protestant colouring.
The close correspondence of the fable with the real events may be farther traced, and admit of yet more minute illustration:
The Raven, from the withered oak, Left of their lodging,----
may be conjectured to mean Tennison, within whose parish Whitehall was situated, and who stood in the front of battle during all the Roman Catholic controversy. As Petre is the Martin who persuaded the Catholics not to leave the kingdom, his preparations for maintaining their ground there are also noticed:
He ordered all things with a busy care, And cells and refectories did prepare, And large provisions laid of winter fare.
This alludes to the numerous schools and religious establishments which the Jesuits prepared to establish throughout England.[274] The chapel which housed them is obviously the royal chapel, where the priests were privileged to exercise their functions even during the subsistence of the penal laws. The transient gleam of sunshine which invited the Swallows forth from their retirement, is the Declaration of Indulgence, in consequence of which the Catholics assumed the open and general exercise of their religion. The Irish Catholics, with the sanguine Talbot at their head, may be the first who hailed the imaginary return of spring: they are painted as
----Swifts, the giants of the Swallow kind, Large limbed, stout hearted, but of stupid mind.
I cannot help thinking, that our author, still speaking in the character of the English church, describes himself as the "foolish Cuckow," whose premature annunciation of spring completed the Swallow's delusion. Perhaps he intended to mitigate the scornful description of Petre, by talking of himself also as a Protestant would have talked of him. The foreign priests and Catholic officers, whom hopes of promotion now brought into England, are pointed out by the "foreign fowl," who came in flocks,
To bless the founder, and partake the cheer.
The fable concludes in a prophetic strain, by indicating the calamities which were likely to overwhelm the Catholics, as soon as the death of James, or any similar event, should end their temporary prosperity. It is well known, how exactly the event corresponded to the prophecy; even the circumstance of the rabble rising upon the Catholic priests was most literally verified. In most of the sea-port towns, they watched the coasts to prevent their escape; and when King James was taken at Feversham, the fishermen, by whom he was seized, were employed in what they called by the cant phrase of "priest-codding," that is, lying in wait for the fugitive priests.
Note XIV.
_But most in Martin's character and fate, She saw her slandered sons, the Panther's hate, The people's rage, the persecuting state._--P. 217.
The conclusion of the fable naturally introduces a discussion of the penal laws, which unquestionably were extremely severe towards Catholics. By the fourteenth of Queen Elizabeth, it was enacted, that whoever, by bulls of the pope, should reconcile any one to Rome, should, together with the person reconciled, be guilty of high treason; that those, who relieved such reconcilers, should be liable in the penalties of a _premunire_, and those who concealed them in misprision of treason. A still more severe law passed in the twenty-eighth of the same queen, upon discovery of Parry's conspiracy against her life, to which he had been stirred up by a book of Allen, or Parsons the Jesuit, written for the express purpose. It was thereby enacted, that all Jesuits and Popish priests should depart the kingdom within forty days; and that those who should afterwards return into the kingdom, should be guilty of high treason; and all who relieved and maintained them, of felony. There were other enactments of a similar nature made upon the discovery of the gun-powder plot. Samuel Johnson (I mean the divine) gives an odd justification of these laws, saying, that the priests are hanged, not as priests, but as traitors. But, as their being priests was the sole reason for their being held traitors, it does not appear, that the Protestant divine can avail himself of this distinction.
Note XV.
_No church reformed can boast a blameless line, Such Martins build in yours, and more than mine; Or else an old fanatic author lies, Who summed their scandals up by centuries._--P. 218.
The fanatic author is John White, commonly called Century White. He was born in Pembrokeshire in 1590, was educated for the bar, and made a considerable figure in his profession. As he was a rigid puritan, he was chosen one of the trustees which that sect appointed to purchase impropriations to be bestowed upon fanatic preachers. This design was checked by Archbishop Laud; and White, among others, received a severe censure in the Star-Chamber. In the Long Parliament, White was member for Southwark, and distinguished himself by his vindictive severity against the bishops and Episcopal clergy, saying openly in a committee, he hoped to live to see the day, when there should be neither bishop nor cathedral priest in England. He was very active in the ejectment of the clergy, by which upwards of eight thousand churchmen are said to have lost their cures in the course of four or five years. In order to encourage and justify these violent measures, he published his famous treatise, entitled, "The First Century of Scandalous Malignant Priests, made and admitted into benefices by the Prelates, London, 1643;" a tract which contains, as may be inferred from its name, an hundred instances of unworthiness, which had been either proved to have existed among the clergy of the church of England, or had been invented to throw a slander upon them. When this satire was shown to Charles I., it was proposed to answer it by a similar exposition of the scandalous part of the puritanical teachers; but that monarch would not consent to give countenance to a warfare in which neither party could gain, and religion was sure to be a loser between them. Similar considerations are said to have prevented White himself from publishing "A Second Century," in continuation of his work. He wrote another tract, entitled, "The Looking Glass;" in which he attempted to prove, that the sin against the Holy Ghost was the bearing arms for the king in the civil war. His own party bestow on White a high character for religion and virtue; but the cavaliers alleged, that although he had two wives of his own, a large proportion of matrimony, he did not forbear to visit three belonging to his neighbours in the White Friars. He died in January 1644, and is said, in his last illness, to have bitterly lamented the active share which he had taken in ejecting so many guiltless ministers, and their families. This, however, may be a fiction of the royalists; for the death-bed repentance of an enemy is amongst the most common forgeries of party. White's body was attended to the grave by most of the members of Parliament, and the following distich inscribed on his tomb:
"Here lyeth a JOHN, a burning shining light, His name, life, actions, all were WHITE."
_See Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses._
Note XVI.
_The Lion, studious of our common good, Desires (and kings' desires are ill withstood) To join our nations in a lasting love; The bars betwixt are easy to remove, For sanguinary laws were never made above._--P. 218.
When James II. ascended the throne, deceived by the general attachment of the church of England for his person, and the little jealousy which they seemed to entertain of his religion, he conceived there would be no great difficulty in procuring a reconciliation between the national church and that of Rome. With this view he made a favourable declaration of his intentions to maintain the church of England as by law established, and certainly expected, that, in return, they would consent to the repeal of the test act and penal laws;[275] and this, it was conceived, might pave the way for uniting the churches. An extraordinary pamphlet, already quoted, recommends such an union, founded upon the mutual attachment of both communions to King James, upon their success in resisting the Bill of Exclusion, and their common hatred of the dissenters. "This very stone, which was once rejected by the architects, is now become the chief stone in the corner. We may truly see in it the hand of God, and look upon it with admiration; and may expect, if fears and jealousies hinder not, the greatest blessings we can wish for. An union betwixt these two walls, which have been thus long separated, and now in a fair way to be united and linked together by this corner stone; after which, how glorious a structure may we hope for on such foundations!" A plan is therefore laid down, containing the following heads, of which it may be observed, that the very first is the abrogation of these penal laws, which Dryden states to be the principal bar between the alliance of the Hind and the Panther.
"First, that it may be provided, That those who are known to be faithful friends to the king and kingdom's good, may equally with us enjoy those favours and blessings we may hope for under so great and so just a king, without being liable to the sanguinary penal laws, for holding opinions noways inconsistent with loyalty, and the peace and quiet of the nation; and that they may not be obliged, by oaths and tests, either to renounce their religion, which they know they cannot do without sacrilege, or else to put themselves out of capacity of serving their king and country.
"Secondly, That, for healing our differences, it be appointed, that neither side, in their sermons, touch upon matters of controversy with animating reflections; but that those discourses may wholly tend to peace and piety, religion and sound morality; and that, in all public catechisms, the solid grounds and principles of religion may be solely explicated and established, all reflecting animosities being laid aside.
"Thirdly, That some learned, devout, and sober persons, may be made choice of on both sides, who may truly state matters of controversy betwixt us; to the end, each one may know others pretensions, and the tenets they cannot abandon, without breaking the chain of apostolic faith; which, if it be done, we shall, it may be, find that to be true, which the Papists often tell us, that the difference betwixt them and us is not so great as many make it; nor their tenets so pernicious, but if we saw them naked, we should, if not embrace them as truths, yet not condemn them as errors, much less as pernicious doctrines. Yet if, notwithstanding all this, we cannot perfectly agree in some points, let us, however, endeavour to live together in the bonds of love and charity, as becomes good Christians and loyal subjects, and join together to oppugn those known maxims, and pernicious errors, which destroy the essence of religion, loyalty, and good government."--_Remonstrance, by way of Address, to the Church of England_, 1685.
Note XVII.
_Yet still remember, that you wield a sword, Forged by your foes against your sovereign lord; Designed to hew the imperial cedar down, Defraud succession, and dis-heir the crown._--P. 219.
The Test-act was passed in the year 1678, while the popish plot was in its vigour, and the Earl of Shaftesbury was urging every point against the Catholics, with his eyes uniformly fixed upon the Bill of Exclusion as his crowning measure. It imposed on all who should sit in parliament, a declaration of their abhorrence of the doctrine of transubstantiation. The Duke of York, with tears in his eyes, moved for a proviso to exempt himself, protesting, that he cast himself upon the House in the greatest concern he could have in the world; and that whatever his religion might be, it should only be a private thing between God and his own soul. Notwithstanding this pathetic appeal, he carried his point but by two votes. With seven other peers he protested against the bill. Dryden therefore, and probably with great justice, represents this test as a part of his machinations against the Duke of York, whose party was at that time, and afterwards, warmly espoused by the church of England. But though the Test-act was devised by a statesman whom they hated, and carried by a party whom they had opposed, the high-church clergy were not the less unwilling to part with it when they found the advantages which it gave them against the Papists in King James's reign. Hence they were loaded with the following reproaches: "My business is to set forth, in its own colours, the extraordinary loyalty of those men, who obstinately maintain a test contrived by the faction to usher in the Bill of Exclusion: And it is much admired, even by some of her own children, that the grave and matron-like church of England, which values herself so much for her antiquity, should be over-fond of a new point of faith, lately broached by a famous act of an infallible parliament, convened at Westminster, and guided by the holy spirit of Shaftesbury. But I doubt there are some parliaments in the world which will not so easily admit this new article into their creed, though the church of England labours so much to maintain it as a special evidence of her singular loyalty."--_New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty._
Note XVIII.
_The first reformers were a modest race; Our peers possessed in peace their native place, And when rebellious arms o'erturned the state, They suffered only in the common fate; But now the sovereign mounts the regal chair, And mitred seats are full, yet David's bench is bare._--P. 221.
This passage regards the situation of the Roman Catholic peers. Notwithstanding their religion, they had been allowed to retain their seats and votes in the House of Lords. So jealous were they, (as was but natural,) of this privilege, that, in 1675, when Danby proposed a test oath upon all holding state employments and benefices, the object of which was to acknowledge the doctrine of non-resistance, and disown all attempts at an alteration of government, the Roman Catholic peers, to the number of twenty, who had hitherto always voted with the crown, united, on this occasion, with the opposition, and occasioned the loss of the bill. This North imputes to the art of Shaftesbury, who dinned into their ears, "that this test (by mentioning the maintenance of the Protestant religion, though that of the royal authority was chiefly proposed) tended to deprive them of their right of voting, which was a birth-right so sacrosanct and radically inherent in the peerage, as not to be temerated on any account whatsoever." When the earl had heated the Catholic lords with this suggestion, he secured them to the opposition, by proposing, and carrying through, an order of the House, that no bill should be received, tending to deprive any of the peerage of their right. But when the Test-act of 1678 was moved, which had, for its direct purpose, that exclusion which that of 1675 was supposed only to convey by implication, Shaftesbury laughed at the order which he himself had proposed, saying, _leges posteriores priores abrogant_. And by this test, which required the renunciation of their religion as idolatrous, the Catholic peerage were effectually, and for ever, excluded from their seats in the House of Lords. Dryden intimates, in the following lines, that this test applied to the Papists alone, and complains heavily of this odious distinction, betwixt them and other non-conformists.
Note XIX.
_When first the Lion sat with awful sway, Your conscience taught your duty to obey._--P. 223.
James II. and the established church set out on the highest terms of good humour with each other. This, as the king afterwards assured the dissenters, was owing to the professions made to him by some of the churchmen, whom he named, who had promised favour to the Catholics, provided he would abandon all idea of general toleration, and leave them their ancient authority over the fanatics. Moved, as he said, by these promises, the Declaration in council, issued upon his accession, had this remarkable clause: "I know the principles of the church of England are for monarchy, and the members of it have shewn themselves good and loyal subjects, therefore I shall always take care to defend and support it." This explicit declaration gave the greatest satisfaction to the kingdom in general, and particularly to the clergy. "All the pulpits of England," says Burnet, "were full of it, and of thanksgivings for it. It was magnified as a security far greater than any that laws could give. The common phrase was, _We have now the word of a king, and a word never yet broken_. This general feeling of gratitude led to a set of addresses, full of the most extravagant expressions of loyalty and fidelity to so gracious a sovereign. The churchmen led the way in these expressions of zeal; and the university of Oxford, in particular, promised to obey the king without limitations or restrictions." The king's promise was reckoned so solemn and inviolable, that those addresses were censured as guilty at least of ill-breeding, who mentioned in their papers the "religion _established by law_;" since that expression implied an obligation on the king to maintain it, independently of his royal grace and favour. But the scene speedily changed, as the king's intentions began to disclose themselves. Then, as a Catholic pamphleteer expresses himself, "My loyal gentlemen were so far out of the right bias, that, in lieu of taking off the tests and penal laws, which all people expected from them in point of gratitude and good manners, they made a solemn address to his majesty, that none be employed who were not capacitated by the said laws and tests to bear offices civil and military."[276]
If James, had viewed with attention the incidents of the former reign, he might have recollected, that, however devoted the clergy had then shown themselves to the crown, his brother's attempt at his present measure of a general indulgence had at once alarmed the whole church. This sensibility, when the interest of the church is concerned, is severely contrasted with the general indifference to the cause of freedom, into which they relapsed when the indulgence was recalled, in a party pamphlet of the year 1680-1. "You may easily call to mind, a late instance of the humanity and conscience of this race of men here in England: For when his majesty, not long since, attempted to follow his own inclinations, and emitted a declaration of indulgence to tender consciences, the whole _posse cleri_ seemed to be raised against him: Every reader and Gibeonite of the church could then talk as saucily of their king, as they do now of the late honourable Parliament; nay, they began to stand upon their terms, and delivered it out as orthodox doctrine, that the king was to act according to law, and, therefore, could not suspend a penal statute; that the subjects' obedience was a legal obedience; and, therefore, if the king commanded any thing contrary to law, the subject was not bound to obey; with so many other honest positions, that men wondered in God how such knaves should come by them. But wherefore was all this wrath, and all this doctrine? merely because his majesty was pleased for a time to remove the sore backs of dissenters from under the ecclesiastical lash; the bloody exercise of which is never denied to holy church, but the magistrate is immediately assaulted with the noise and clamour of Demetrius and his craftsmen.
"But now, the tables being turned, the same mercenary tongues are again all Sibthorp, and all Manwaring; not a bit of law, or conscience either, is now to be had for love or money; not any limits to be put to the king's commands, or our obedience. It is a gospel truth with these men, that all which we have is the king's; and if he should command our estates, our wives and children, yea, and our religion too, we ought to resign them up, submit, and be silent."--_The Freeholders' Choice, or, A Letter of Advice concerning Elections._
Note XX.
_Possess your soul with patience, and attend; A more auspicious planet may ascend; Good fortune may present some happier time, With means to cancel my unwilling crime._--P. 224.
The first expression in these lines seems to have been a favourite with Dryden. In the Introduction to the Translation of Juvenal, he makes it his glory, "that, being naturally vindicative, he had suffered in silence, and _possessed his soul in quiet_."
The arguments used by the Panther in this passage seem to have more weight than her antagonist allows them. It was surely reasonable, that the church of England should rest upon her penal statutes and test act, as the sole mode of preventing the encroachments of her rival during a Catholic reign, and at the same time that she should look forward with pleasure to a future period, when such severe enactments might be no longer necessary for her safety; a time, of which it has been our good fortune to witness the arrival.
The argument of the Panther, in this speech, is, with the simile of the inundation, literally versified from an answer to Penn's pamphlet. "The penal laws cannot prejudice the Papists in this king's reign, seeing he can connive at the non-execution of them, and the repeal of them now cannot benefit the Papists when he is gone; because, if they do not behave themselves modestly, we can either re-establish them, or enact others, which they will be as little fond of. But their abrogation at this time would infallibly prejudice us, and would prove to be the pulling up of the sluices, and the throwing down the dikes, which stem the deluge that is breaking in upon us, and which hinder the threatening waves from overflowing us." _Some reflections on a discourse, entitled_, "Good Advice to the Church of England."--_State Tracts_, Vol. I. p. 368.
Note XXI.
_Your care about your banks infers a fear Of threatening floods and inundations near; If so, a just reprise would only be Of what the land usurped upon the sea._--P. 225.
This conveys a perilous insinuation, which perhaps it would, at the time, have been prudent to suppress; since it goes the length of preparing a justification of the resumption of the power, authority, lands, and revenues, of the church of England, upon the footing of their having originally belonged to that of Rome. It cannot be supposed that this hint could be passed over at the time, without a strong feeling of a meditated revolution in church government and property.
Note XXII.
_Behold how he protects your friends oppressed, Receives the banished, succours the distressed! Behold, for you may read an honest open breast._--P. 225.
Burnet, in the "History of his Own Times," gives the following account of the relief which James, either from inclination or policy, extended to the French Protestants, who were exiled by the recal of the edict of Nantes.
"But now the session of Parliament drew on, and there was a great expectation of the issue of it. For some weeks before it met, there was such a number of refugees coming over every day, who set about a most dismal recital of the persecution in France; and that in so many instances that were crying and odious, that, though all endeavours were used to lessen the clamour this had raised, yet the king did not stick openly to condemn it as both unchristian and unpolitic. He took pains to clear the Jesuits of it, and laid the blame of it chiefly on the king, on Madame de Maintenon, and the Archbishop of Paris. He spoke often of it with such vehemence, that there seemed to be an affectation in it. He did more: He was very kind to the refugees; he was liberal to many of them; he ordered a brief for a charitable collection over the nation for them all; upon which great sums were sent in. They were deposited in good hands, and well distributed. The king also ordered them to be denizen'd, without paying fees, and gave them great immunities. So that, in all, there came over, first and last, between forty and fifty thousand of that nation. There was such real argument of the cruel and persecuting spirit of popery, wheresoever it prevailed, that few could resist this conviction; so that all men confessed, that the French persecution came very seasonably to awaken the nation, and open men's eyes in so critical a conjunction; for upon this session of Parliament all did depend."--BURNET, Book IV.
Note XXIII.
_A plain good man, whose name is understood, (So few deserve the name of plain and good.)_--P. 226.
These, and the following lines, contain a character of James II. most exquisitely drawn, though, it must be owned, with a flattering pencil. Bravery, economy, integrity, are the ingredients which Dryden has mixed for his colours. Without attempting a character of this unfortunate monarch, we may say a few words on each of the attributes ascribed to him. Bravery he unquestionably possessed; but it was of that ordinary kind, which, though unshaken by mere personal danger, is unable to sustain its possessor in great and embarrassing political emergencies. The economy of James, being one great engine by which he hoped to carry on his projects, was so rigid as sometimes to border upon avarice. His upright integrity, the virtue upon which he chiefly prided himself, and which was the usual theme of courtly panegyric, frequently deviated into obstinacy. When he had once resolved upon a measure, he often announced his resolution with imprudence, and almost always pressed it with an open disregard of consequences. No fault can be more fatal to an English king; because the stream of popular opinion, which would subside if unopposed, becomes irresistible when the obstinacy of a monarch persists in attempting to stem it.
Note XXIV.
_A sort of Doves were housed too near their hall, Who cross the proverb, and abound with gall._--P. 228.
The virulent and abusive character which our author here draws of the clergy, and particularly those of the metropolis, differs so much from his description of the church of England, in the person of the Panther, that we may conclude it was written after the publishing of the Declaration of Indulgence, when the king had decidedly turned his favour from the established church. Their quarrel was now irreconcileable, and at immediate issue; and Dryden therefore changes the tone of conciliation, with which he had hitherto addressed the heretic church, into that of bitter and unrelenting satire. Dryden calls them doves, in order to pave the way for terming them, as he does a little below, "birds of Venus;" as disowning the doctrine of celibacy. The popular opinion, that a dove has no gall, is well known. In Scotland, this is averred to be owing to the dove which Noah dismissed from the ark having flown so long, that his gall broke; since which occurrence, none of the species have had any.
Note XXV.
_An hideous figure of their foes they drew, Nor lines, nor looks, nor shades, nor colours true; And this grotesque design exposed to public view._--P. 231.
The Roman Catholic pamphlets of the time are filled with complaints, that their principles were misrepresented by the Protestant divines; and that king-killing tenets, and others of a pernicious or absurd nature, were unjustly ascribed to them. A tract, which is written on purpose to explain their real doctrine, says, "Is it not strange and severe, that principles, and those pretended of faith too, should be imposed upon men which they themselves renounce and detest? If the Turks' Alcoran should, in like manner, be urged upon us, and we hanged up for Mahometans, all we could do or say, in such a case, would be, to die patiently, with protestations of our own innocence. And this is the posture of our condition; we abhor, we renounce, we abominate, such principles; we protest against them, and seal our protestations with our dying breath. What shall we say, what can we do more? To accuse men as guilty in matters of faith, which they never owned, is the same thing as to condemn them for matters of fact which they never did."[277] Another author, speaking in the assumed character of the established church, says, that the Catholic controvertists have often told us, that "we behave ourselves like persons diffident of our cause, decline disputes on equal terms, and either misrepresent their tenets, as appears manifestly in their doctrines of justification and merit, satisfaction and indulgences; or else play the buffoons, joking, scoffing, and relating stories, which, if true, would not touch religion."--_A Remonstrance, by way of Address_, &c.
Note XXVI.
_No Holland emblem could that malice mend._--P. 231.
Emblems, like puns, being the wit of a heavy people, the Dutch seem to have been remarkable for them; of which, their old-fashioned prints, and figured pan-tiles, are existing evidence. Prior thus drolls upon the passage in the text:
"_Bayes._ Oh! dear Sir, you are mighty obliging: but I must needs say at a fable, or an emblem, I think no man comes near me; indeed I have studied it more than any man. Did you ever take notice, Mr Johnson, of a little thing that has taken mightily about town, a cat with a top-knot?[278]
_John._ Faith, Sir, 'tis mighty pretty; I saw it at the coffee-house.
_Bayes._ 'Tis a trifle hardly worth owning. I was t'other day at Will's, throwing out something of that nature; and, i'gad, the hint was taken, and out came that picture; indeed the poor fellow was so civil to present me with a dozen of 'em for my friends. I think I have one here in my pocket; would you please to accept it, Mr Johnson?
_John._ Really 'tis very ingenious.
_Bayes._ Oh, Lord, nothing at all! I could design twenty of 'em in an hour, if I had but witty fellows about me to draw 'em. I was proffered a pension to go into Holland and contrive their emblems; but, hang 'em, they are dull rogues, and would spoil my invention."--_Hind and Panther Transprosed._
Note XXVII.
_The noble Buzzard ever pleased me best._--P. 233.
Gilbert Burnet, well known as an historian, was born of a good family in Scotland, in 1643. He went through his studies with success; and, being ordained by the Bishop of Edinburgh, obtained the living of Salton, in East Lothian, in 1665. While in this living, he drew up a memorial of the abuses of the Scotch bishops, and was instrumental in procuring the induction of Presbyterian divines into vacant churches; a step which he afterwards condemned as imprudent.[279] To measures so unfavourable for Episcopacy, Dryden seems to allude, in these lines:
I know he hates the Pigeon-house and Farm, And more, in time of war, has done us harm; But all his hate on trivial points depends, Give up our forms, and we shall soon be friends.
Burnet's opinion, or rather indifference, concerning forms, may be guessed at, from the applause with which he quotes a saying of Dr Henry More; "None of them are bad enough to make men bad, and I am sure none of them are good enough to make men good." He was next created professor of divinity at Glasgow; but as his active temper led him to mingle much in political life, he speedily distinguished himself rather as a politician than a theologian. In 1672 he was made one of the king's chaplains, and was in high favour both with Charles and his brother. He enjoyed much of the countenance of the Duke of Lauderdale; but a quarrel taking place between them, the duke represented Burnet's conduct in such terms, that he was deprived of his chaplainry, and forced to resign his professor's chair, and abandon Scotland. He had an opportunity of revenging himself upon Lauderdale, as will be noticed in a subsequent note. During the time of the Popish plot, he again received a portion of the royal countenance. He was then preacher at the Rolls Chapel, under the patronage of Sir Harbottle Grimstone, master of the rolls, as also lecturer at St Clement's, and enjoyed a high degree of public consideration. Having, as he conceived, a fit opportunity to awaken the conscience of Charles, he ventured upon sending him a letter, where he treated his personal vices, and the faults of his government, with great severity,[280] and by which he forfeited his favour for ever. This freedom, with his low-church tenets, gave also offence to the Duke of York, who was, moreover, offended with him for some interference in the affair of the Exclusion, in which, if he did not go all the length of Shaftesbury, he recommended the appointment of a prince-regent; a measure scarcely more palatable to the successor. At length, his regard for Lord Russell, and the share which he took in penning, or circulating, his dying declaration, drew upon him the full resentment of both brothers. To this, a whimsical accident, in the choice of a text for the day of the gun-powder plot, happened to contribute. The preacher _chanced_ (for we must believe what he assures us, _ex verbo sacerdotis_) to pitch on these words: "Save me from the _lion's_ mouth; thou hast delivered me from the horns of the _unicorn_." This was interpreted as referring to the supporters of the royal arms; and Burnet was discharged, by the king's command, both from lecturing at St Clement's, and preaching at the Rolls Chapel. After this final breach with the court he went abroad, and, having travelled through France and Italy, settled in Holland at the court of the Prince of Orange. Here he did not fail, with that ready insinuation which seems to have distinguished him, to make himself of consequence to the prince, and especially to the princess, afterwards Queen Mary. From this place of refuge he sent forth several papers, in single sheets, relating to the controversy in England; and the clergy, who had formerly looked upon him with some suspicion, began now to treat with great attention and respect a person so capable of serving their cause. He was consulted upon every emergency; which confidence was no doubt owing partly to his situation near the person of the Prince of Orange, the Protestant heir of the crown. He stood forward as the champion of the church of England, in the controversy with Parker concerning the Test.[281] In the "History of his Own Times," the bishop talks with complacency of the sway which circumstances had given him among the clergy, and of the important matters which fell under his management; for, by express command of the Prince of Orange, he was admitted into all the secrets of the English intrigues. These insinuations of Burnet's importance, although they afterwards drew the ridicule of Pope, and the Tory wits of Queen Anne's reign, may, from the very satire of Dryden, be proved to have been well founded. This acquired importance of Burnet is the alliance between the Pigeon-house and Buzzard, which Dryden reprobates, believing, or wishing to make others believe, that Burnet held opinions unfavourable to Episcopacy. James considered this divine as so formidable an enemy, that he wrote two very severe letters to his daughter against him, and proceeded so far as to insist that he should be forbidden the court; a circumstance which did not prevent his privately receiving a double degree of countenance. A prosecution for high treason was next commenced against Burnet, and a demand was made that he should be delivered up; which the States evaded, by declaring that he was naturalized, by marrying a Dutch lady. The court of England were then supposed to have formed some plan, as they had attempted in the case of Peyton, of seizing, or perhaps assassinating him, and a reward of L. 3000 was offered for the service. Burnet, however, confident in the protection of the prince and states of Holland, answered, replied, and retorted, and carried on almost an immediate controversy with his sovereign, dated from the court of his son-in-law. This active politician had a very important share in the Revolution, and reaped his reward, by being advanced to the see of Salisbury. He died on the 17th of March, 1714-15.
His writings, theological, political, and polemical, are very numerous; but he is most remarkable as an historian. The "History of the Reformation," but more especially that of "His Own Times," raises him to a high rank among our English historians.
Note XXVIII.
_A portly prince, and goodly to the sight, He seemed a son of Anach for his height; Like those whom stature did to crowns prefer, Black-browed, and bluff, like Homer's Jupiter; Broad-backed, and brawny built, for love's delight, A prophet formed to make a female proselyte._--P. 234.
The following song, which is preserved in the "State Poems," gives a similar account of Burnet's personal appearance:
_A new Ballad, called, The Brawny Bishop's Complaint._
To the Tune of--_Packington's Pound._
I.
When B----t perceived the beautiful dames, Who flocked to the chapel of hilly St James, On their lovers the kindest looks did bestow, And smiled not on him while he bellowed below; To the princess he went, With pious intent, This dangerous ill in the church to prevent: O, Madam! quoth he, our religion is lost, If the ladies thus ogle the knights of the toast.
II.
Your highness observes how I labour and sweat, Their affections to raise, and new flames to beget; And sure when I preach, all the world will agree, That their ears and their eyes should be pointed on me: But now I can't find, One beauty so kind, As my parts to regard, or my presence to mind; Nay, I scarce have a sight of any one face, But those of old Oxford, and ugly Arglas.
III.
These sorrowful matrons, with hearts full of truth, Repent for the manifold sins of their youth; The rest with their tattle my harmony spoil; And Bur--ton, An--say, K--gston, and B--le, Their minds entertain, With thoughts so profane, 'Tis a-mercy to find that at church they contain; Even Hen--ham's shapes their weak fancies entice, And rather than me they will ogle the Vice.[282]
IV.
These practices, madam, my preaching disgrace; Shall laymen enjoy the just rights of my place? Then all may lament my condition for hard, To thresh in the pulpit without a reward. Then pray condescend, Such disorders to end, And from the ripe vineyards such labourers send; Or build up the seats, that the beauties may see The face of no brawny pretender but me.
V.
The princess, by rude importunities pressed, Though she laughed at his reasons, allowed his request; And now Britain's nymphs, in Protestant reign, Are locked up at prayers like the virgins in Spain; And all are undone, As sure as a gun, Whenever a woman is kept like a nun, If any kind man from bondage will save her, The lass, in gratitude, grants him the favour.
The jest of his being "a prophet, formed to make a female proselyte," was more cutting, as he had just acquired a right of naturalization in Holland, by marrying Mrs Mary Scott, a Dutch lady, but of Scottish extraction, being descended of the noble house of Buccleuch.
Note XXIX.
_The hero and the tyrant change their style, By the same measure that they frown or smile._--P. 235.
It must be owned, that, with all Bishop Burnet's good qualities, there are particulars in his history which give colour for this accusation. His opinions were often hastily adopted, and of course sometimes awkwardly retracted, and his patrons were frequently changed. Thus, he vindicated the legality of divorce for barrenness on the part of the wife, and even that of polygamy, in his resolution of two important cases of conscience. These were intended to pave the way for Charles divorcing his barren wife Catherine, or marrying another; and so raising a family of his own to succeed him, instead of the Duke of York. These opinions he formally retracted. Notwithstanding his zeal for liberty, his first work is said by Swift to have been written in defense of arbitrary power. Above all, his great intimacy with the Dukes of Hamilton and Lauderdale, the King and the Duke of York, the Pope and the Prince of Orange; in short, his having the address to attach himself for a time to almost every leading character, whom he had an opportunity of approaching, gives us room to suspect, that if Burnet did not change his opinions, he had at least the art of disguising such as could not be accommodated to those of his immediate patron. When the king demanded that Burnet should be delivered up by the States, he threatened, in return, to justify himself, by giving an account of the share he had in affairs for twenty years past; in which he intimated, he might be driven to mention some particulars, which would displease the king. This threat, as he had enjoyed a considerable share of his confidence when Duke of York, may seem, in some degree, to justify Dryden's heavy charge against him, of availing himself of past confidence to criminate former patrons. It is remarkable, also, that even while he was in the secret of all the intrigues of the Revolution, and must have considered it as a near attempt, he continued to assert the doctrine of passive obedience; and in his letter to Middleton, in vindication of his conduct against the charge of high treason, there is an affectation of excessive loyalty to the reigning monarch. Against these instances of dissimulation, forced upon him perhaps by circumstances, but still unworthy and degrading, we may oppose many others, in which, when his principles and interest were placed at issue, he refused to serve the latter at the expence of the former.
Note XXX.
_His praise of foes is venomously nice; So touched, it turns a virtue to a vice._--P. 235.
This applies to the sketches of characters introduced by Burnet in his controversial tracts. But long after the period when Dryden wrote, the publication of the History of his Own Times confirmed, to a certain extent, the censure here imposed. It is a general and just objection to the bishop's historical characters, that they are drawn up with too much severity, and that the keenness of party has induced him, in many cases, to impose upon the reader a caricature for a resemblance. Yet there appears to have been perfect good faith upon his own part; so that we may safely acquit him of any intention to exaggerate the faults, or conceal the virtues, of his political enemies. He seems himself to have been conscious of a disposition to look upon the dark side of humanity. "I find," says he, "that the long experience I have had of the baseness, the malice, and the falsehood of mankind, has inclined me to be apt to think generally the worst of men, and of parties." Burnet therefore candidly puts the reader upon his guard against this predominant foible, and expressly warns him to receive what he advances with some grains of allowance.
But whatever was Burnet's private opinion of the conduct of others, and however much he might be misled by prejudice in drawing their characters, it should not be forgotten, that, in the moments of triumph which succeeded the Revolution, he not only resisted every temptation to revenge for personal injuries, but employed all his influence to recommend mild and conciliating conduct to the successful party. Some, who had suffered under the severity of James's reign, were extremely indignant at what seemed to them to argue too much feeling for their discomfited adversaries, and too little sympathy with their own past distresses. Samuel Johnson, in particular, reprobates the Scottish bishop's exhortations to forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries. "And, besides, we have Scotch doctors, to teach us the art of forgetfulness. Pray you have _gude_ memories, _gude_ memories; do not remember bad things, (meaning the murders and oppressions of the last reigns,) but keep your memories for _gude_ things, have _gude_ memories." To this mimicry of the bishop's dialect, in which, however, he seems to have conveyed most wholesome and sound council, Johnson adds, that, during the sitting of King William's first parliament, while his complaints were before them, the bishop sent to him his advice, "Not to name persons." "I gave, says he, an English reply to that message; 'Let him mind his business, I will mind mine.' His bookseller, Mr Chiswell, by whom I had the message, seemed loth to carry him that blunt answer. Oh! said I, he has got the title of a Lord lately, I must qualify my answer: 'Let him _please_ to mind his own business, I will mind mine."--This was very natural for one smarting under sufferings, who complains, that "while a certain traveller," meaning Burnet, "was making his court to the cardinals at Rome, he got such an almanack in his bones, (from scourging,) as to incapacitate him from learning this Scotch trick of a _gude_ memory."[283] But it is the very character of moderate councils to be disgusting to those who have been hurried beyond their patience by oppression; and Johnson's testimony, though given with a contrary view, is highly honourable to the bishop's prudence.
Note XXXI.
_But he, uncalled, his patron to controul, Divulged the secret whispers of his soul; Stood forth the accusing Satan of his crimes, And offered to the Moloch of the times._--P. 235.
In 1675, the House of Commons being resolved to assail the Duke of Lauderdale, and knowing that Burnet, in whom he had once reposed much confidence, could bear witness to some dangerous designs and expressions, appointed the doctor to attend and be examined. His own account of this delicate transaction is as follows:
"In April 1675, a session of parliament was held, as preparatory to one that was designed next winter, in which money was to be asked; but none was now asked, it being only called to heal all breaches, and to beget a good understanding between the king and his people. The House of Commons fell upon Duke Lauderdale; and those who knew what had passed between him and me, moved, that I should be examined before a committee. I was brought before them. I told them how I had been commanded out of town; but though that was illegal, yet since it had been let fall, it was not insisted on. I was next examined concerning his design of arming the Irish Papists. I said, I, as well as others, had heard him say, he wished the Presbyterians in Scotland would rebel, that he might bring over the Irish Papists to cut their throats. I was next examined concerning the design of bringing a Scottish army into England. I desired to be excused, as to what had passed in private discourse; to which I thought I was not bound to answer, unless it were high treason. They pressed me long, and I would give them no other answer; so they all concluded, that I knew great matters; and reported this specially to the House. Upon that I was sent for, and brought before the House. I stood upon it as I had done at the committee, that I was not bound to answer; that nothing had passed that was high treason; and as to all other things, I did not think myself bound to discover them. I said farther, I knew the Duke Lauderdale was apt to say things in a heat, which he did not intend to do; and, since he had used myself so ill, I thought myself the more obliged not to say any thing that looked like revenge, for what I had met with from him. I was brought four times to the bar; at last I was told, the House thought they had a right to examine into every thing that concerned the safety of the nation, as well as into matters of treason; and they looked on me as bound to satisfy them, otherwise they would make me feel the weight of their heavy displeasure, as one that concealed what they thought was necessary to be known. Upon this I yielded, and gave an account of the discourse formerly mentioned. They laid great weight on this, and renewed their address against Duke Lauderdale.
"I was much blamed for what I had done. Some, to make it look the worse, added, that I had been his chaplain, which was false; and that I had been much obliged to him, though I had never received any real obligation from him, but had done him great services, for which I had been very unworthily requited: Yet the thing had an ill appearance, as the disclosing of what had passed in confidence; though I make it a great question, how far even that ought to bind a man when the designs are very wicked, and the person continued still in the same post and capacity of executing them. I have told the matter as it was, and must leave myself to the censure of the reader. My love to my country, and my private friendship, carried me, perhaps, too far; especially since I had declared much against clergymen's meddling in secular affairs, and yet had run myself so deep in them."--_History of his Own Times_, Vol. I. p. 375.
The discourse to which Burnet refers was of the following dangerous tendency, and took place in September 1673.
"_Duke._ If the king should need an army from Scotland, to tame those in England, might the Scots be depended upon?
"_Burnet._ Certainly not. The commons in the southern parts are all Presbyterians. The nobility thought they had been ill used, were generally discontented, and only waited for an opportunity to show it.
"_Duke._ I am of another mind. The hope of the spoil of England will bring them all in.
"_Burnet._ The king is ruined if he trusts to that; for even indifferent persons, who might otherwise have been ready enough to push their fortunes without any anxious enquiries into the grounds they went upon, will not now trust the king, since he has so lately said, he would stick to his declaration,[284] and yet has so soon given it up.
"Duke. _Hinc illæ lacrymæ._ The king was forsaken in that matter, and none sticks to him but Lord Clifford and myself."--_Ralph, with the Authorities he quotes_, Vol. I. p. 275.
James II. afterwards revived the plan of maintaining a Scottish standing army, to bridle his English subjects.
Note XXXII.
_And runs an Indian muck at all he meets._--P. 235.
To run a-muck, is a phrase derived from a practice of the Malays. When one of this nation has lost his whole substance by gaming, or sustained any other great and insupportable calamity, he intoxicates himself with opium; and, having dishevelled his hair, rushes into the streets, crying _Amocca_, or _Kill_, and stabbing every one whom he meets with his creeze, until he is cut down, or shot, like a mad dog.
Note XXXIII.
_Such was, and is, the Captain of the Test._--P. 236.
Burnet may have been thus denominated, from having written the following pamphlets, in the controversy respecting the Test, against Parker, the apostate bishop of Oxford:
"An Enquiry into the Reasons for Abrogating the Test imposed on all Members of Parliament, offered by Dr Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford."
"A Second Part of the Enquiry into the Reasons offered by Doctor Samuel Parker, bishop of Oxford, for Abrogating the Test; or an Answer to his plea for Transubstantiation, and for Acquitting the Church of Rome of Idolatry."
"A Continuation of the Second Part of the Enquiry into the Reasons offered by Dr Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford, for Abrogating the Test relating to the Idolatry of the Church of Rome."
These two last pamphlets were afterwards thrown together in one tract, entitled, "A Discourse concerning Transubstantiation and Idolatry, being an Answer to the Bishop of Oxford's plea relating to these two points."
Burnet himself admits, that his papers, in this controversy with Parker, were written with an acrimony of style which nothing but such a time and such a man could excuse. His papers were so bitter, that nobody durst offer them to the bishop of Oxford, till the king himself sent them to him, in hopes to stimulate him to an answer.
Several of these pieces seem to have been published after "The Hind and the Panther;" but it must have been generally known at the time, that Burnet had placed himself in the front of this controversy.
And much the Buzzard in their cause did stir, Though naming not the patron, to infer, _With all respect_, he was a gross idolater.
The passage particularly referred to in these lines occurs in a tract, entitled, "Reasons against repealing the Act of Parliament, concerning the Test," which is the first of six papers published by Dr Burnet when in Holland, and reprinted at London in 1689. His words are these:
"IX. I am told some think it very indecent to have a test for our parliaments, in which the king's religion is accused of idolatry; but if this reason is good in this particular, it will be full as good against several of the articles of our church, and many of the homilies. If the church and religion of this nation is so formed by law, that the king's religion is declared over and over again to be idolatrous, what help is there for it? It is no other than it was when his majesty was crowned, and swore to maintain our laws.
"I hope none will be wanting in all possible respect to his sacred person; and as we ought to be infinitely sorry to find him engaged in a religion which we must believe idolatrous, so we are far from the ill manners of reflecting on his person, or calling him an idolater: for as every man that reports a lie, is not for that to be called a liar; so that, though the ordering the intention, and the prejudice of a mis-persuasion, are such abatements, that we will not rashly take on us to call every man of the church of Rome an idolater; yet, on the other hand, we can never lay down our charge against the church of Rome as guilty of idolatry, unless at the same time we part with our religion."
We cannot suppose that Burnet was insensible to the poignancy of Dryden's satire; for, although he attempts to treat the poem with contempt, in the defence of his "Reflections on Varillas' History," his coarse and virulent character of the poet plainly shows his inward feelings. "I have been informed from England, that a gentleman, who is known both for poetry and other things, had spent three months in translating M. Varillas's History; but that, as soon as my Reflections appeared, he discontinued his labour, finding the credit of his author was gone. Now, if he thinks it is recovered by his Answer, he will perhaps go on with his translation; and this may be, for aught I know, as good an entertainment for him as the conversation that he had set on between the Hinds and Panthers, and all the rest of animals, for whom M. Varillas may serve well enough for an author: and this history and that poem are such extraordinary things of their kind, that it will be but suitable to see the author of the worst poem, become likewise the translator of the worst history, that the age has produced. If his grace and his wit improve both proportionably, he will hardly find that he has gained much by the change he has made, from having no religion to choose one of the worst. It is true, he had something to sink from, in matter of wit; but as for his morals, it is scarce possible for him to grow a worse man than he was. He has lately wreaked his malice on me for spoiling his three months' labour; but in it he has done me all the honour that any man can receive from him, which is to be railed at by him. If I had ill-nature enough to prompt me to wish a very bad wish for him, it should be, that he would go on and finish his translation. By that it will appear, whether the English nation, which is the most competent judge in this matter, has, upon the seeing our debate, pronounced in M. Varillas's favour, or in mine. It is true, Mr D. will suffer a little by it; but at least it will serve to keep him in from other extravagancies; and if he gains little honour by this work, yet he cannot lose so much by it, as he has done by his last employment."
Note XXXIV.
_They long their fellow-subjects to enthral, Their patron's promise into question call, And vainly think he meant to make them lords of all._ P. 236.
Part of the controversy which now raged, turned on the precise meaning of the king's promise, to maintain the church of England as by law established. The church party insisted, that the Declaration of Indulgence was a breach of this promise, as it suspended their legal safeguards, the test and penal laws. The advocates for the toleration answered, that the promise was conditional, and depended on the church consenting to the abrogation of these laws. This was stated by Penn, in his "Good Advice;" to which the following indignant answer is made by a champion of the church, perhaps Burnet himself:
"And if there be no other way of giving the king an opportunity of keeping his word with the church of England, in preserving her, and maintaining our religion, but the repealing of the penal and test laws, as he intimates unto us, (Good Advice, p. 50.) we have not found the royal faith so sacred and inviolable in other instances, as to rob ourselves of a legal defence and protection, for to depend upon the precarious one of a base promise, which his ghostly fathers, whensoever they find it convenient, will tell him it was unlawful to make, and which he can have a dispensation for the breaking of, at what time he pleaseth. Nor do we remember, that when he pledged his faith unto us, in so many promises, that the parting with our laws was declared to be the condition upon which he made, and undertook to perform them. Neither can any have the confidence to allege it, without having recourse to the Papal doctrine of mental reservation. Which being one of the principles of that order, under whose conduct he is, makes us justly afraid to rely upon his word without further security. However, we do hereby see, with what little sincerity Mr Penn writes; and what small regard he hath to his majesty's honour, when he tells the church of England, that if she please, and like the terms of giving up the penal and test laws against Papists, that then the king will perform his word with her; (Good Advice, p. 17.) but that otherwise, it is she who breaks with him, and not he with her." (_Ibid._ p. 44.)
Note XXXV.
_Then, all maturely weighed, pronounced a doom Of sacred strength for every age to come. By this the Doves their wealth and state possess, No rights infringed, but license to oppress._--P. 237.
The declaration for liberty of conscience was a strange and incongruous, as well as most impolitic performance. It set out with declaring, that although the king heartily wished that all his subjects were members of the Catholic church, (which they returned, by heartily wishing that he were a Protestant,) yet he abhorred all idea of constraining conscience; and therefore, _making no doubt of the concurrence of Parliament_, declared, 1. That he would protect and maintain the bishops, &c. of the church of England, as by law established, in the free exercise of their religion, and quiet enjoyment of their possessions. 2. That all execution of penal laws against non-conformists be suspended. 3. That all his majesty's subjects should be at liberty to serve God after their own way, in public and private, so nothing was preached against the royal authority. 4. That the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and the tests made in the 25th and 30th years of Charles II., be discontinued. 5. That all non-conformists be pardoned for former offences against the penal laws and test. 6. That abbey and church lands be assured to the possessors.
Such were the contents of this memorable Declaration, in which a bigotted purpose was cloaked under professions of the highest liberality; and prevarication and falsehood were rendered more disgusting, by being mingled with very unseasonable truth.
Note XXXVI.
_Concluding well within his kingly breast, His fowls of nature too unjustly were opprest; He therefore makes all birds, of every sect, Free of his farm._--P. 237.
When the king had irreconcileably quarrelled with the church, he began to affect a great favour for the dissenters; and, as has been often hinted, endeavoured to represent the measure of universal toleration to be intended as much for the benefit of the Protestant dissenters as of the Catholics. He dwelt upon the rigour of the church courts, and directed an inquiry to be made into all the vexatious suits which had been instituted against the dissenters, and the compositions which had been exacted from them, under pretence of enforcing the laws. In short, Burnet assures us, that the royal bed-chamber and drawing-room were as full of stories to the prejudice of the clergy, as they used formerly to abound with declamations against the fanatics.
Note XXXVII.
_'Tis said, the Doves repented, though too late, Become the smiths of their own foolish fate; Nor did their owner hasten their ill hour, But, sunk in credit, they decreased in power; Like snows in warmth that mildly pass away, Dissolving in the silence of decay._--P. 238.
In the preceding lines, the poet had intimated the increase of trade and wealth; an effect of toleration, much dwelt upon in James's proclamation for liberty of conscience, and, indeed, the ostensible cause of its being issued. But Dryden, as every one else, further augured from the Declaration of Indulgence, under the circumstances of the time, the speedy downfall of the church of England, though he is willing to spare the king the odium of hastening what he represents as the natural consequence of her own ambition and intolerance. A writer of his party is less scrupulous in expressing the king's intentions: "So, on the whole matter, the loyal church of England must either change her old principles of loyalty, and take example by her Catholic neighbours, how to behave herself towards a prince who is not of her persuasion, or she must give his majesty leave not to nourish a snake in his own bosom, but rather to withdraw his royal protection, which was promised on account of her constant fidelity: For it is an approved axiom in philosophy, _Cessante causa, tollitur effectus_; and we have a common saying of our own, _No longer_ _pipe, no longer dance_. And now let us leave the holy mother church at liberty to consult what new measures of loyalty she ought to take for her own dear interest, and, for aught I know, it may be worth her serious consideration."--_New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty._
Note XXXVIII.
_But each have separate interests of their own; Two Czars are one too many for a throne. Nor can the usurper long abstain from food; Already he has tasted Pigeon's blood, And may be tempted to his former fare._--P. 239.
Dryden insinuates the improbability, that the high and low church party would long continue in union, since the authority assumed by Burnet, their present advocate, was inconsistent with that of Sancroft the primate, Compton bishop of London, and other leaders of the high church party among the clergy. He resumes the theme of Burnet's alleged disinclination for episcopacy. In fact, although his lot cast him into the church of England, the bishop of Sarum, in many parts of his writings, expresses an unfavourable opinion of her clergy, whom in one place he calls the most remiss of any in Europe. Even this harsh expression is nothing to the following account of the controversy between the clergy and dissenters, as it stands in the MS. of his history; for it is greatly softened in the printed copy:
"Many books came out likewise against the church of England. This alarmed the bishops and clergy much; so that they set up to preach against rebellion, and the late times, in such a strain, that it was visible they meant a parallel between these and the present time. And this produced at last that heat and rage into which the clergy has run so far, that it is like to end very fatally. They, on their part, should have shewed more temper, and more of the spirit of the gospel; whereas, for the greatest part, they are the worst natured, the fiercest, indiscreetest, and most persecuting sort of people that are in the nation. There is a sort of them do so aspire to preferment, that there is nothing so mean and indecent that they will not do to compass it; and when they have got into preferments, they take no care, either of themselves, or of the flocks committed to their charge, but do generally neglect their parishes. If they are rich enough, they hire some pitiful curate, at as low a price as they can, and turn all over on him; or, if their income will not bear out that, they perform the public offices in the slightest manner they can, but take no care of their people in the way of private instruction or admonition; and so do nothing to justify the character of pastors or watchmen, that feed the souls of their people, or watch over them. And they allow themselves in many indecent liberties, of going to taverns and ale-houses, and of railing scurrilously against all that differ from them: and they cherish the profaneness of their people, if they but come to church, and rail with them against the dissenters; and are implacably set on the ruin of all that separate from them, if the course of their lives were otherwise ever so good and unblameable. In a word, many of them are a reproach to Christianity and to their profession; and are now, perhaps, one of the most corrupt bodies of men in the nation."--_Somers' Tracts_, p. 116.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 264: A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty.]
[Footnote 265:
Blue bonnet lords, a numerous store, Whose best example is, they're poor; Merely drawn in by hope of gains, And reap their scandal for their pains; Half-starved at court with expectation, } Forced to return to their Scotch station,} Despised and scorned by every nation. }
_The New Converts._ ]
[Footnote 266:
This put the heathen priesthood in a flame, For priests of all religions are the same.
_Absalom and Achitophel_, Part I. ]
[Footnote 267: A Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers.]
[Footnote 268: A Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers, p. 116.]
[Footnote 269: _Ibidem_, p. 117.--Stillingfleet plays on this expression of the _grim logician_, in allusion to a passage of our author's "Defence of the Duchess of York's Paper;" where he says, "That the kingdom of heaven is not only for the wise and learned," and that "our Saviour's disciples were but poor fishermen; and we read but of one of his apostles who was bred up at the feet of Gamaliel, and that poor people have souls to save, as precious in the sight of God as the _grim logician's_." Dryden retorts it upon him in the text.]
[Footnote 270: A Vindication, &c. p. 1.]
[Footnote 271: _Ergoteering_ was a phrase used by Dryden in his "Defence of the Duchess's Paper," and which Stillingfleet harps upon throughout his "Vindication."]
[Footnote 272: Ralph's History, Vol. I. p. 933.--Secret Consults, &c. of the Roman Party, p. 59.]
[Footnote 273: "One Petre, descended from a noble family; a man of no learning, nor any way famed for his virtue, but who made up all in boldness and zeal, was the Jesuit of them all, that seemed animated with the most courage."--BURNET.]
[Footnote 274: "We have," says one of the order, "a good while begun to get footing in England. We teach humanity at Lincoln, Norwich, and York. At Warwick, we have a public chapel secured from all injuries by the king's soldiers; we have also bought some houses of the city of Wiggorn, in the province of Lancaster. The Catholic cause very much increaseth. In some Catholic churches, upon holidays, above 1500 are always numbered present at the sermon. At London, likewise, things succeed no worse. Every holiday, or preaching, people are so frequent, that many of the chapels cannot contain them. Two of our fathers, Darmes and Berfall, do constantly say mass before the king and queen. Father Edmund Newill, before the queen-dowager, Father Alexander Regnes in the chapel of the ambassador aforesaid, others in other places. Many houses are bought for the college in the Savoy, as they call it, nigh Somerset-house, London, the palace of the queen-dowager, to the value of about eighteen thousand florins; in making of which, after the form of a college, they labour very hard, that the schools may be opened before Easter." A Letter from a Jesuit at Liege. _Somers' Tracts_, p. 248. About this letter, see Burnet's History, Vol. I. p. 711. The king also granted the manor of York to Lawson, a priest, for thirty years, as a seminary for the education of youth in the Catholic faith; to the great displeasure of Sir John Reresby, the governor of the city, who had fitted it up for his own residence. See his _Memoirs_, pp. 245, 246.]
[Footnote 275: So says the memorable "Test of the Church of England's Loyalty."]
[Footnote 276: New Test, &c.]
[Footnote 277: Roman Catholic Principles, 1680.]
[Footnote 278: There is a copy of this old caricature print in Luttrell's Collection.]
[Footnote 279: History of his Own Times, Vol. I. p. 280.]
[Footnote 280: See Burnet's Life, by his Son, p. 686.]
[Footnote 281: See Dr Flexman's catalogue of his works, under the head "Tracts, Political, Polemical, and Miscellaneous."]
[Footnote 282: Mr B--ty, vice-chamberlain.]
[Footnote 283: Notes on the Phœnix Pastoral Letter, _Johnson's Works_, pp. 317, 318.]
[Footnote 284: The Declaration of Indulgence. See Vol. IX. p. 447.]
BRITANNIA REDIVIVA:
A POEM
ON
THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE,
(BORN 10TH JUNE, 1688.)
_Di patrii indigetes, et Romule, Vestaque mater, Quæ Tuscum Tyberim et Romana palatia servas, Hunc saltem everso puerum succurrere sæclo Ne prohibete! satis jampridem sanguine nostro Laomedonteæ luimus perjuria Trojæ._
VIRG. GEORG. 1.
BRITANNIA REDIVIVA.
The remarkable incident, which gave rise to the following poem, was hailed by the Catholics with the most unbounded joy. That party, whose transient prosperity depended upon the declining life of James II., could hardly enjoy their present power, embittered as it was by the reflection, that it must end with the reign of the king and the succession of the Princess of Orange. Many circumstances seemed to render the hopes of the king having a male heir of his body extremely precarious. His system was said to have been injured by early dissipation, and he was now advanced in life. The queen, also, had been in a bad state of health; had lost all her children soon after they were born; and had now, for several years, ceased to have any. Amidst these discouraging considerations, the queen's pregnancy was announced in 1687; and even before his birth, addressers and panegyrists in verse hailed the future prince, as a pledge for the maintenance of liberty of conscience, and the security of the royal line.[285]
But the Catholics were so transported with this unexpected happiness, that they could not refrain from spreading an hundred follies, tending to connect the queen's pregnancy with the efficacy of the king's faith. Some said, that the queen's conception took place at the very time when her mother made a vow to the Lady of Loretto, that her daughter might by her means have a son: Others attributed it to the queen's personal influence with Saint Xavier: Others to the intercessions of the Jesuits, among whom the king had enrolled himself: All ascribed so happy and unhoped an event to something more than mere natural causes, and ventured to presage, that the joyful fruit of the queen's conception would prove a son, since otherwise, it was said, God would have done his work by halves.[286] It is dangerous for a religious sect to cry, a miracle! for it is always echoed by their adversaries, shouting out, an imposture! The same circumstances which induced the Catholics to believe that this happy event was owing to a peculiar divine interposition, led the nation to ascribe so unexpected and opportune an occurrence to artifice and imposition; and they were prepared to pronounce a birth spurious, which their adversaries had incautiously pushed to the verge of miraculous.
On the 10th of June, 1688, the prince was born, under circumstances which ought to have removed all suspicion of imposture. But these suspicions were too deeply rooted in party prejudices and fears; and it became a distinguishing mark of a true Protestant, to hold for spurious the birth of a prince, which took place in the presence of more people than is either consistent with custom or decency.
In the mean while, public rejoicings, of the most splendid kind, were solemnized at home and abroad;[287] and the poets flocked with their addresses of congratulation[288] on the birth of a Prince of Wales, who was doomed shortly to be distinguished through the English dominions by the ignominious appellation of Pretender, and abroad, by the dubious title of Chevalier de St George. It was peculiarly the part of our author, as poet-laureat, and a good Catholic, to solemnize an event of so much importance to the king, and those of his religion, and to bear down, if possible, the popular prejudice by the exertion of his poetical powers. "Britannia Rediviva" was written, nine days after the event celebrated, and published accordingly. It is licensed on the 19th of June.
In this poem, our author assumes the tone and feeling which we have described as general among the Catholics, upon this happy and unexpected event. It is less an address of congratulation than a solemn devotional hymn; and, even considered as such, abounds with expressions of awful gratitude, rather for a miraculous interposition of heaven and the blessed saints, than for a blessing conferred through the ordinary course of nature. Dryden, who knew how to assume every style that fitted the occasion, writes here in the character of a devout and grateful Catholic, with much of the _unction_ which marks the hymns of the Roman church. In English poetry, we have hardly another example of the peculiar tone which the invocation of saints, and an enthusiastic faith in the mystic doctrines of the Catholic faith, can give to poetry. To me, I confess, that communion seems to offer the same facilities to the poet, which it has been long famous for affording to the painter; and the "Britannia Rediviva," while it celebrates the mystic influence of the sacred festivals of the Paraclete and the Trinity, and introduces the warlike forms of St Michael and St George, has often reminded me of one of the ancient altar pieces, which it is impossible to regard without reverence, though presenting miracles which never happened, or saints who never existed. These subordinate divinities are something upon which the imagination, dazzled and overwhelmed by the contemplation of a single Omnipotent Being, can fairly rest and expand itself. They approach nearer to humanity and to comprehension; yet are sufficiently removed from both, to have the full effect of sublime obscurity. Dryden has undoubtedly reaped considerable advantage from religion in the present poem. It must, however, be owned, that the effect of these passages is much injured by the frequent allusion to the deities of classical mythology; and that Dryden has ranked the gods and goddesses of ancient Rome with the saints of her modern church, in the same indiscriminate order in which they are classed in the Pantheon. We have the Giants' War immediately preceding the miracle wrought on the Shunamite's son; and the serpents of the infant Hercules are classed in the very sentence with the dragons of the Apocalypse. On one occasion he has stooped yet lower, and condescended to pun upon the child's being born on Trinity Sunday, as promising at least a _trine_ of infant princes.
Still, however, the strain of the poem is, upon the whole, grave and exalted. Besides the general tone of "Britannia Rediviva," there are many passages in it deserving the reader's attention. The address to the queen, beginning, "But you, propitious queen," has all the smoothness with which Dryden could vary the masculine character of his general poetry, when he addressed the female sex, and forms a marked contrast to the more majestic tone of the rest of the piece. It may indeed be said of Dryden, as he himself says of Virgil, that though he is smooth where smoothness is required, yet he is so far from affecting that general character, that he seems rather to disdain it.
The original edition of the "Britannia Rediviva" is in quarto, printed, as usual, for Tonson, with a motto from the first book of the Georgics, which is now restored. The concluding lines refer to the death of so many Catholics by the perjured evidences of Oates and Bedlow:
---- _satis jampridem sanguine nostro Laomedonteæ luimus_ perjuria _Trojæ._
The word _perjuria_, as well as _Puerum_, in the preceding passage, are marked by a difference of type; a mode of soliciting the attention of the reader to a pointed remark or inuendo, which was first used in Charles II.'s time, and seems to have been introduced by L'Estrange, who carried it to a most extravagant degree, chequering his Observators with all manner of characters, from the Roman to the Anglo-Saxon.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 285: The addresses of the grand juries of the counties of Monmouth, Stafford, Glocester, Yorkshire, &c. &c., all pressed forward upon this occasion, and are all positive that the blessed hope of the queen's womb must necessarily prove a son, since the king seemed to have very little occasion for more daughters. Edmund Arwaker is of the same opinion, in his poem humbly dedicated to the queen, on occasion of her majesty's happy conception.]
[Footnote 286: "That which does us most harm with the lords and great men, is the apprehension of a heretic successor: For as a lord told me lately, assure me of a Catholic successor, and I assure you I and my family will be so too. To this purpose the queen's happy delivery will be of very great moment. Our zealous Catholics do already lay two to one that it will be a prince. God does nothing by halves, and every day masses are said upon this very occasion."--_Letter from Father Petre to Father La Chaise._ This letter is a forgery, but it distinctly expresses the hopes and apprehensions of both parties.]
[Footnote 287: The most remarkable were celebrated at the Hague, by the Marquis of Abbeville, his majesty's ambassador there. On one side of a triumphal arch were the figures of Truth and Justice, with this inscription: _Veritas et Justitia fulcimentum throni Patris et erunt mei_: On the other side were Religion and Liberty embracing, with this motto, _Religio et Libertas amplexatæ erant_. On the portico was painted the conquest of the dragon by St George, and the delivery of St Margaret, explained to allude to the liberty of conscience procured by James's abolition of the test and penal laws. These decorations, remarkable for their import, and the place in which they were exhibited, were accompanied with the discharge of fire-works, and other public rejoicings. There are particular accounts of the splendid rejoicings at Ratisbon and Paris, &c. &c. in the Gazettes of the period.]
[Footnote 288: As for example, the poets of Isis, in a collection called "_Strenæ Natalitiæ in Celsissimum principem.--Oxoni; E Theatro Shedoniano, 1688_." Consisting of Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Turkish, pastoral, heroic, and lyrical pieces, on this happy topic.
The following poems are in the Luttrell Collection:
"_Votum pro Principe._
"To the King, upon the Queen's being delivered of a Son; by John Baber, Esq.
"To the King, on ditto; by William Niven, late master of the music school of Inverness, in Scotland." Surely the very _ultima_ Thule of poetry.
"A Congratulatory Poem on ditto, by Mrs Behn.
"A Pindarique Ode on ditto, by Calib Calle." ]
BRITANNIA REDIVIVA.
Our vows are heard betimes, and heaven takes care To grant, before we can conclude the prayer; Preventing angels met it half the way, And sent us back to praise, who came to pray. Just on the day, when the high-mounted sun Did farthest in its northern progress run,[289] He bended forward, and even stretched the sphere Beyond the limits of the lengthened year, To view a brighter sun in Britain born; } That was the business of his longest morn; } The glorious object seen, 'twas time to turn.} Departing spring could only stay to shed} Her gloomy beauties on the genial bed, } But left the manly summer in her stead, } With timely fruit the longing land to cheer, And to fulfil the promise of the year. Betwixt two seasons comes the auspicious heir, This age to blossom, and the next to bear. Last solemn Sabbath[290] saw the church attend, The Paraclete in fiery pomp descend; But when his wonderous octave[291] rolled again, He brought a royal infant in his train: So great a blessing to so good a king, None but the Eternal Comforter could bring. Or did the mighty Trinity conspire, As once in council to create our sire? It seems as if they sent the new-born guest, To wait on the procession of their feast; And on their sacred anniverse decreed To stamp their image on the promised seed. Three realms united, and on one bestowed, An emblem of their mystic union showed; The Mighty Trine the triple empire shared, As every person would have one to guard. Hail, son of prayers! by holy violence Drawn down from heaven;[292] but long be banished thence, And late to thy paternal skies retire! To mend our crimes, whole ages would require; To change the inveterate habit of our sins, And finish what thy godlike sire begins. Kind heaven, to make us Englishmen again, No less can give us than a patriarch's reign. The sacred cradle to your charge receive, Ye seraphs, and by turns the guard relieve; Thy father's angel, and thy father join, To keep possession, and secure the line; But long defer the honours of thy fate; Great may they be like his, like his be late, That James this running century may view, And give this son an auspice to the new. Our wants exact at least that moderate stay; } For, see the dragon[293] winged on his way, } To watch the travail,[294] and devour the prey: } Or, if allusions may not rise so high, } Thus, when Alcides raised his infant cry,} The snakes besieged his young divinity; } But vainly with their forked tongues they threat, For opposition makes a hero great. To needful succour all the good will run, And Jove assert the godhead of his son. O still repining at your present state, Grudging yourselves the benefits of fate; Look up, and read in characters of light A blessing sent you in your own despite! The manna falls, yet that celestial bread, Like Jews, you munch, and murmur while you feed. May not your fortune be, like theirs, exiled, Yet forty years to wander in the wild! Or, if it be, may Moses live at least, To lead you to the verge of promised rest! Though poets are not prophets, to foreknow What plants will take the blight, and what will grow, By tracing heaven, his footsteps may be found; Behold, how awfully he walks the round! God is abroad, and, wondrous in his ways, The rise of empires, and their fall, surveys; More, might I say, than with an usual eye, } He sees his bleeding church in ruins lie, } And hears the souls of saints beneath his altar cry.} Already has he lifted high the sign, Which crowned the conquering arms of Constantine.[295] The moon[296] grows pale at that presaging sight, And half her train of stars have lost their light. Behold another Sylvester,[297] to bless The sacred standard, and secure success; Large of his treasures, of a soul so great, As fills and crowds his universal seat. Now view at home a second Constantine;[298] (The former too was of the British line,) Has not his healing balm your breaches closed, Whose exile many sought, and few opposed?[299] O, did not heaven, by its eternal doom, Permit those evils, that this good might come? So manifest, that even the moon-eyed sects See whom and what this Providence protects. Methinks, had we within our minds no more Than that one shipwreck on the fatal Ore,[300] That only thought may make us think again, What wonders God reserves for such a reign. To dream, that chance his preservation wrought, Were to think Noah was preserved for nought; Or the surviving eight were not designed To people earth, and to restore their kind. When humbly on the royal babe we gaze, The manly lines of a majestic face Give awful joy; 'tis paradise to look On the fair frontispiece of nature's book: If the first opening page so charms the sight, Think how the unfolded volume will delight! See how the venerable[301] infant lies In early pomp; how through the mother's eyes The father's soul, with an undaunted view, Looks out, and takes our homage as his due! See on his future subjects how he smiles, Nor meanly flatters, nor with craft beguiles; But with an open face, as on his throne, Assures our birthrights, and assumes his own Born in broad day-light, that the ungrateful rout May find no room for a remaining doubt;[302] Truth, which itself is light, does darkness shun, And the true eaglet safely dares the sun. Fain[303] would the fiends have made a dubious birth, Loth to confess the godhead clothed in earth; But, sickened, after all their baffled lies, To find an heir apparent in the skies, Abandoned to despair, still may they grudge, And, owning not the Saviour, prove the judge. Not great Æneas stood in plainer day,[304] When the dark mantling mist dissolved away; He to the Tyrians showed his sudden face, Shining with all his goddess mother's grace; For she herself had made his countenance bright, Breathed honour on his eyes, and her own purple light. If our victorious Edward,[305] as they say, Gave Wales a prince on that propitious day, Why may not years revolving with his fate Produce his like, but with a longer date; One, who may carry to a distant shore The terror that his famed forefather bore? But why should James, or his young hero, stay For slight presages of a name or day? We need no Edward's fortune to adorn That happy moment when our prince was born; Our prince adorns this day, and ages hence Shall wish his birth-day for some future prince. Great Michael,[306] prince of all the etherial hosts, And whate'er inborn saints our Britain boasts; And thou, the adopted patron[307] of our isle, With cheerful aspects on this infant smile! The pledge of heaven, which, dropping from above, Secures our bliss, and reconciles his love. Enough of ills our dire rebellion wrought,[308] When to the dregs we drank the bitter draught; Then airy atoms did in plagues conspire, } Nor did the avenging angel yet retire, } But purged our still-increasing crimes with fire.[309]} Then perjured plots,[310] the still impending test,[311] And worse--[312] but charity conceals the rest. Here stop the current of the sanguine flood; Require not, gracious God! thy martyrs' blood; But let their dying pangs, their living toil, Spread a rich harvest through their native soil; A harvest ripening for another reign, Of which this royal babe may reap the grain. Enough of early Saints one womb has given, Enough increased the family of heaven;[313] Let them for his and our atonement go, And, reigning blest above, leave him to rule below. Enough already has the year foreslowed His wonted course, the sea has overflowed, The meads were floated with a weeping spring, And frightened birds in woods forgot to sing; The strong-limbed steed beneath his harness faints, And the same shivering sweat his lord attaints.[314] When will the minister of wrath give o'er? Behold him at Araunah's threshing-floor! He stops, and seems to sheath his flaming brand, Pleased with burnt incense from our David's hand;[315] David has bought the Jebusite's abode, And raised an altar to the living God. Heaven, to reward him, makes his joys sincere;} No future ills nor accidents appear, } To sully and pollute the sacred infant's year. } Five months to discord and debate were given;[316] He sanctifies the yet remaining seven. Sabbath of months! henceforth in him be blest, And prelude to the realms perpetual rest! Let his baptismal drops for us atone;[317] Lustrations for offences not his own: Let conscience, which is interest ill disguised,[318] In the same font be cleansed, and all the land baptized. Unnamed[319] as yet; at least unknown to fame; Is there a strife in heaven about his name, Where every famous predecessor vies, And makes a faction for it in the skies? Or must it be reserved to thought alone? Such was the sacred Tetragrammaton.[320] Things worthy silence must not be revealed; Thus the true name of Rome[321] was kept concealed, To shun the spells and sorceries of those, Who durst her infant majesty oppose. But when his tender strength in time shall rise To dare ill tongues, and fascinating eyes, This isle, which hides the little Thunderer's fame, Shall be too narrow to contain his name: The artillery of heaven shall make him known; Crete[322] could not hold the god, when Jove was grown. As Jove's increase,[323] who from his brain was born, Whom arms and arts did equally adorn, Free of the breast was bred, whose milky taste Minerva's name to Venus had debased; So this imperial babe rejects the food, That mixes monarch's with plebeian blood:[324] Food that his inborn courage might controul, Extinguish all the father in his soul, And for his Estian race, and Saxon strain, Might reproduce some second Richard's reign. Mildness he shares from both his parents' blood; But kings too tame are despicably good: Be this the mixture of this regal child, By nature manly, but by virtue mild. Thus far the furious transport of the news Had to prophetic madness fired the muse; Madness ungovernable, uninspired, Swift to foretel whatever she desired. Was it for me the dark abyss to tread, And read the book which angels cannot read? How was I punished, when the sudden blast[325] The face of heaven, and our young sun, o'ercast! Fame, the swift ill increasing as she rolled, Disease, despair, and death, at three reprises told: At three insulting strides she stalked the town, And, like contagion, struck the loyal down. Down fell the winnowed wheat; but, mounted high, The whirlwind bore the chaff, and hid the sky. Here black rebellion shooting from below, } (As earth's gigantic brood by moments grow,) } And here the sons of God are petrified with woe:} An apoplex of grief! so low were driven The saints, as hardly to defend their heaven. As, when pent vapours run their hollow round, Earthquakes, which are convulsions of the ground, Break bellowing forth, and no confinement brook, Till the third settles what the former shook; Such heavings had our souls, till, slow and late, Our life with his returned, and faith prevailed on fate. By prayers the mighty blessing was implored, To prayers was granted, and by prayers restored. So, ere the Shunamite a son conceived, The prophet promised, and the wife believed; A son was sent, the son so much desired, But soon upon the mother's knees expired. The troubled seer approached the mournful door, Ran, prayed, and sent his pastoral staff before, Then stretched his limbs upon the child, and mourned, Till warmth, and breath, and a new soul returned.[326] Thus mercy stretches out her hand, and saves Desponding Peter, sinking in the waves. As when a sudden storm of hail and rain Beats to the ground the yet unbearded grain, Think not the hopes of harvest are destroyed On the flat field, and on the naked void; The light, unloaded stem, from tempest freed, Will raise the youthful honours of his head; And, soon restored by native vigour, bear The timely product of the bounteous year. Nor yet conclude all fiery trials past, For heaven will exercise us to the last; Sometimes will check us in our full career, With doubtful blessings, and with mingled fear, That, still depending on his daily grace, His every mercy for an alms may pass; With sparing hands will diet us to good, Preventing surfeits of our pampered blood. So feeds the mother bird her craving young With little morsels, and delays them long. True, this last blessing was a royal feast; But where's the wedding-garment on the guest? Our manners, as religion were a dream, Are such as teach the nations to blaspheme. In lusts we wallow, and with pride we swell, And injuries with injuries repel; Prompt to revenge, not daring to forgive, Our lives unteach the doctrine we believe. Thus Israel sinned, impenitently hard, And vainly thought the present ark their guard;[327] But when the haughty Philistines appear, } They fled, abandoned to their foes and fear; } Their God was absent, though his ark was there.} Ah! lest our crimes should snatch this pledge away, And make our joys the blessings of a day! For we have sinned him hence, and that he lives, God to his promise, not our practice, gives. Our crimes would soon weigh down the guilty scale, But James and Mary, and the church prevail. Nor Amalek[328] can rout the chosen bands, While Hur and Aaron hold up Moses' hands. By living well, let us secure his days, Moderate in hopes, and humble in our ways. No force the free-born spirit can constrain, But charity, and great examples gain. Forgiveness is our thanks for such a day; 'Tis godlike God in his own coin to pay. But you, propitious queen, translated here, } From your mild heaven, to rule our rugged sphere,} Beyond the sunny walks, and circling year; } You, who your native climate have bereft Of all the virtues, and the vices left; Whom piety and beauty make their boast, Though beautiful is well in pious lost; So lost as star-light is dissolved away, And melts into the brightness of the day; Or gold about the royal diadem, Lost, to improve the lustre of the gem,-- What can we add to your triumphant day? Let the great gift the beauteous giver pay; For should our thanks awake the rising sun, } And lengthen, as his latest shadows run, } That, though the longest day, would soon, too soon be done.} Let angels' voices with their harps conspire, But keep the auspicious infant from the choir; Late let him sing above, and let us know No sweeter music than his cries below. Nor can I wish to you, great monarch, more Than such an annual income to your store; The day, which gave this unit, did not shine For a less omen, than to fill the trine. After a prince, an admiral beget; The Royal Sovereign wants an anchor yet. Our isle has younger titles still in store, } And when the exhausted land can yield no more,} Your line can force them from a foreign shore.} The name of great your martial mind will suit; But justice is your darling attribute: Of all the Greeks, 'twas but one hero's due,[329] And, in him, Plutarch prophesied of you. A prince's favours but on few can fall, But justice is a virtue shared by all. Some kings the name of conquerors have assumed, Some to be great, some to be gods presumed; But boundless power, and arbitrary lust, Made tyrants still abhor the name of just; They shunned the praise this godlike virtue gives, And feared a title that reproached their lives. The power, from which all kings derive their state, Whom they pretend, at least, to imitate, Is equal both to punish and reward; For few would love their God, unless they feared. Resistless force and immortality Make but a lame, imperfect deity; Tempests have force unbounded to destroy, And deathless being even the damned enjoy; And yet heaven's attributes, both last and first, One without life, and one with life accurst; But justice is heaven's self, so strictly he, That could it fail, the godhead could not be. This virtue is your own; but life and state Are, one to fortune subject, one to fate: Equal to all, you justly frown or smile; } Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile; } Yourself our balance hold, the world's our isle.}
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 289: The 10th of June.]
[Footnote 290: Whitsunday.]
[Footnote 291: Trinity Sunday, the octave of Whitsunday.]
[Footnote 292: Note I.]
[Footnote 293: Alluding only to the commonwealth party here, and in other parts of the poem. DRYDEN.--See Note II.]
[Footnote 294: Rev. xii. v. 4.]
[Footnote 295: The Cross.]
[Footnote 296: The Crescent, which the Turks bear for their arms. DRYDEN. Note III.]
[Footnote 297: The Pope, in the time of Constantine the Great; alluding to the present Pope. DRYDEN.--See Note IV.]
[Footnote 298: King James II.]
[Footnote 299: Bill of Exclusion.]
[Footnote 300: The Lemmon Ore, on which the vessel of King James was lost in his return from Scotland. The crew perished, and he himself escaped with difficulty. See Vol. IX. p. 401.]
[Footnote 301: Venerable is here used in its original sense, as deserving of veneration. But the epithet has been so commonly connected with old age, that a modern poet would hardly venture to apply it to an infant.]
[Footnote 302: Note V.]
[Footnote 303: Alluding to the temptation in the wilderness.]
[Footnote 304:
_Restitit Æneas, clarâque in luce refulsit, Os, humerosque deo similis; namque ipsa decoram Cæsariem nato genetrix, lumenque juventæ Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflarat honores._
Æneid, Lib. I. ]
[Footnote 305: Edward the Black Prince, born on Trinity Sunday.]
[Footnote 306: The motto of the poem explained.]
[Footnote 307: St George.]
[Footnote 308: The great Civil War.]
[Footnote 309: The Fire of London.]
[Footnote 310: The Popish plot.]
[Footnote 311: The Test-act.]
[Footnote 312: The death of the Jesuits, executed for the Plot.]
[Footnote 313: All the queen's former children died in infancy.]
[Footnote 314: The year 1688, big with so many events of importance, commenced very unfavourably with stormy weather, and an epidemical distemper among men and cattle.]
[Footnote 315: 1 Kings, chap, xxxiv.]
[Footnote 316: Note VI.]
[Footnote 317: Original sin, supposed to be washed off by baptism.]
[Footnote 318: See "The Hind and the Panther," p. 224.]
[Footnote 319: The prince christened, but not named.]
[Footnote 320: Jehovah, or the name of God, unlawful to be pronounced by the Jews. DRYDEN.]
[Footnote 321: Some authors say, that the true name of Rome was kept a secret, _ne hostes incantamentis deos elicerent_. DRYDEN.]
[Footnote 322: Candia, where Jupiter was born and lived secretly. DRYDEN.]
[Footnote 323: Pallas, or Minerva, said by the poets to have been bred up by hand. DRYDEN.]
[Footnote 324: The prince had no wet nurse.]
[Footnote 325: The sudden false report of the prince's death. See Note VII.]
[Footnote 326: 2 Kings, chap. iv.]
[Footnote 327: 1 Samuel, chap. iv. v. 10.]
[Footnote 328: Exodus, chap. xvii. v. 8.]
[Footnote 329: Aristides. See his Life in Plutarch.]
NOTES
ON
BRITANNIA REDIVIVA.
Note I.
_Hail, son of prayers! by holy violence Drawn down from heaven!_----P. 290.
We have noticed, in the introduction, that the birth of a Prince of Wales, at a time of such critical importance to the Catholic faith, was looked upon, by the Papists, as little less than miraculous. Some talked of the petition of the Duchess of Modena to Our Lady of Loretto; and Burnet affirms, that, in that famous chapel, there is actually a register of the queen's conception, in consequence of her mother's vow. But, in that case, the good duchess's intercession must have been posthumous; for she died upon the 19th July, and the queen's time run from the 6th of October. Others ascribed the event to the king's pilgrimage to St Winifred's Well; and others, among whom was the Earl of Melfort, suffered their zeal to hurry them into profaneness, and spoke of the angel of the Lord moving the Bath waters, like the Pool of Bethsaida. But the Jesuits claimed to their own prayers the principal merit of procuring this blessing, which, indeed, they had ventured to prophecy; for, among other devices which that order exhibited to the English ambassador from James to the Pope, there was, according to Mr Misson, one of a lily, from whose leaves distilled some drops of water, which were once supposed, by naturalists, to become the seed of new lilies: the motto was--_Lachrimor in prolem_--"I weep for children." Beneath which was the following distich:
_Pro natis, Jacobe, gemis, flos candide regum! Hos natura tibi si neget, astra dabunt._
For sons, fair flower of kings, why melts thine eye? The heavens shall grant what nature may deny.
Note II.
_For, see the dragon winged on his way, To watch the travail, and devour the prey._--P. 291.
"And the dragon stood before the woman, who was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child, as soon as it was born,"--Revel. xii. 4. Dryden is at pains, by an original marginal note, which, with others, is restored in this edition, to explain, that, by this allusion here, and in other parts of the poem, he meant "the commonwealth's party." The acquittal of the bishops, on the 17th of June, two days before the poem was licensed, must have excited a prudential reverence for the church of England in the moment of her triumph. The poet fixes upon this commonwealth party therefore, exclusively, the common reports which had been circulated during the queen's pregnancy, and which are thus noticed in the (supposititious) letter to Father La Chaise: "As to the queen's being with child, that great concern goes as well as we could wish, notwithstanding all the satirical discourses of the heretics, who content themselves to vent their poison in libels, which, by night, they disperse in the street, or fix upon the walls. There was one lately found upon a pillar of a church, that imported, that such a day thanks should be given to God for the queen's being great with a cushion. If one of these pasquil-makers could be discovered, he would but have an ill time on't, and should be made to take his last farewell at Tyburn."
The usual topics of wit, during the queen's pregnancy, were, allusions to a cushion, a tympany, &c. &c.; and Partridge, the Protestant almanack-maker, utters the following predictions:--"That there was some bawdy project on foot, either about buying, selling, or procuring, a child or children, for some pious uses." And, again, "Some child is to be topped upon the lawful heirs, to cheat them out of their right and estate."--"God preserve the kingdom of England from invasion! for about this time I fear it in earnest, and keep the Protestants there from being dragooned."
One single circumstance is sufficient to rout all suspicions thus carefully infused into the people. It is well known, and is noticed in one of L'Estrange's papers at the time, that a similar outcry was raised during a former pregnancy of the queen; but the child proving a female, there was no use for pushing the calumny any further upon that occasion.
Note III.
_Already has he lifted high the sign, Which crowned the conquering arms of Constantine; The moon grows pale at that presaging sight, And half her train of stars have lost their light._--P. 292.
The public exercise of the Catholic religion in England is compared to the miraculous display of the cross, with the motto, _In hoc signo vinces_; which is said to have appeared to Constantine on the eve of his great victory.
The war against the Turks, which was now raging in Hungary, seems to have occupied much of James's attention. He amused himself with anxiety about the fate of this holy warfare, as he probably thought it, while his own crown was tottering on his head. In all his letters to the Prince of Orange, he expresses his wishes for the peace of Christendom, that the emperor and the Venetians might have leisure to prosecute the war against the Turks; and conjectures about the taking of Belgrade, and the progress of the Duke of Lorraine, are very gravely sent, as interesting matter to the prince, who was anticipating the conquest of England, and the dethronement of his father-in-law. There may be something of affectation in this; but, as Dryden takes up the same tone, it may be supposed to have forwarded James's general conversation, as well as his letters to the Prince of Orange.--_See_ DALRYMPLE'S _Memoirs_. _Appendix to Book V._
Note IV.
_Behold another Sylvester, to bless The sacred standard, and secure success; Large of his treasures, of a soul so great, As fills and crowds his universal seat._--P. 292.
Dryden talks of the Pope with the respect of a good Catholic. Nevertheless it happened, by a very odd chance, that, while the throne of England was held by a Catholic, for the first time during the course of a century, the chair of St Peter was occupied by Innocent XI. who acquired the uncommon epithet of the Protestant Pope. He received, with great coldness, the Earl of Castlemain, whom James sent to Rome as his ambassador, and refused the only two requests which a king of England had made to Rome since the days of Henry VIII., although they were only a dispensation to Petre the king's confessor, to hold a bishopric, and another to the Mareschal D'Humier's daughter to marry within the prohibited degrees. Nay, the Pope is said to have privately admitted the Prince of Orange's envoy to his confidence, while he treated Castlemaine with so much contempt. The cause of this coldness was the Pope's quarrel with James's ally, Louis, and his dislike to the order of Jesuits, by whom the king of England was entirely ruled. In truth, Innocent XI. was much more anxious to maintain the privileges of the Roman see against those princes who retained her communion, than to add England to a flock which was become so mutinous and untractable. He was, besides, a man of no extended views, and chiefly concerned himself with managing the papal revenue, involved in debt by a succession of wasteful pontificates. To this the conversion of England promised no immediate addition, and, with the narrowness of view natural to his pursuits, Innocent XI. thought it better to employ his exertions in realizing an immediate income, than in endeavouring to extend the faith and authority of the church, by embarking in a design of great doubt and hazard. He was, therefore, but a very poor representative of Pope Sylvester. As for the last two lines, they contain, what we seldom meet with in Dryden's poetry, a compliment not only bombastic, but unappropriate, and even unmeaning.
Note V.
_Born in broad day-light, that the ungrateful rout May find no room for a remaining doubt._--P. 293.
In these lines, and the following, where the poet, with indecent freedom, compares the suspicions entertained of a spurious birth to the devil's doubts concerning our Saviour's godhead, he alludes to those circumstances of publicity, which one would have supposed might have rendered the birth of the prince indisputable. It took place at ten o'clock in the morning; and eighteen privy counsellors, besides a number of ladies, were present at the delivery. But the party violence of the period was so extravagant, as to receive and circulate a variety of reports, inconsistent with each other, and agreeing only in the general conclusion, that the child was an imposition upon the nation. The reasoning of the Bishop of Salisbury, on this point, is admirably summed up by Smollet.
"On the 10th of June, 1688, the queen was suddenly seized with labour-pains, and delivered of a son, who was baptized by the name of James, and declared Prince of Wales. All the Catholics and friends of James were transported with the most extravagant joy at the birth of this child; while great part of the nation consoled themselves with the notion, that it was altogether supposititious. They carefully collected a variety of circumstances, upon which this conjecture was founded; and though they were inconsistent, contradictory, and inconclusive, the inference was so agreeable to the views and passions of the people, that it made an impression which, in all probability, will never be totally effaced. Dr Burnet, who seems to have been at uncommon pains to establish this belief, and to have consulted all the Whig nurses in England upon the subject, first pretends to demonstrate, that the queen was not with child; secondly, that she was with child, but miscarried; thirdly, that a child was brought into the queen's apartment in a warming-pan; fourthly, that there was no child at all in the room; fifthly, that the queen actually bore a child, but it died that same day; sixthly, that it had the fits, of which it died at Richmond; therefore, the Chevalier de St George must be the fruit of four different impostures."
Note VI.
_Five months to discord and debate were given._--P. 295.
During the five months preceding the birth of the Chevalier de St George, James was wholly engaged by those feuds and dissensions which tended to render irreparable the breach between him and his subjects. The arbitrary attacks upon the privileges of Magdalen College, and of the Charter-House, fell nearly within this period. Above all, the petition of the seven bishops against reading the Declaration of Indulgence, their imprisonment, their memorable trial and acquittal, had all taken place since the month of April; and it is well known to what a state of violent opposition the nation had been urged by a train of arbitrary acts of violence, so imprudently commenced, and perversely insisted in. Dryden, like other men of sense, probably began to foresee the consequences of so violent and general irritation; and expresses himself in moderate and soothing language, both as to the past and future. Nothing is therefore dropt which can offend the church of England. Perhaps they may have been spared by the royal command; for it seems, as is hinted by a letter from Halifax to the Prince of Orange, that, not finding his expectations answered by the dissenters, whom he had so greatly favoured of late, James entertained thoughts of returning to his old friends, the High-churchmen; "but the truth is," his lordship adds, "the Papists have of late been so hard and fierce upon them, that the very species of those formerly mistaking men is destroyed; they have so broken that loom in pieces, that they cannot now set it up again to work upon it."--DALRYMPLE'S _Memoirs_. Appendix to Book V.
Note VII.
----_When the sudden blast, The face of heaven, and our young sun, o'ercast, Fame, the swift ill increasing as she rolled, Disease, despair, and death, at three reprises told._--P. 297.
There was, Dryden informs us, a report of the prince's death, to which he alludes. James, in a letter to the Prince of Orange, dated June 12, mentions the birth of his son on the Sunday preceding, and adds, "the child was somewhat ill this last night, of the wind, and some gripes, but is now, blessed be God, very well, and like to have no returns of it, and is a strong boy." About this illness, Burnet tells the following gossipping story: "That night, one Hemings, a very worthy man, an apothecary by his trade, who lived in St Martin's Lane, the very next door to a family of an eminent Papist, (Brown, brother to the Viscount Montacute, lived there;) the wall between his parlour and their's being so thin, that he could easily hear any thing that was said with a louder voice, he (Hemings) was reading in his parlour late at night, when he heard one come into the neighbouring parlour, and say, with a doleful voice, the Prince of Wales is dead: Upon which a great many that lived in the house came down stairs very quick. Upon this confusion he could not hear any thing more; but it was plain they were in a great consternation. He went with the news next morning to the bishops in the Tower. The Countess of Clarendon came thither soon after, and told them, she had been at the young prince's door, but was denied access: she was amazed at it; and asked, if they knew her: they said, they did; but that the queen had ordered, that no person whatsoever should be suffered to come in to him. This gave credit to Hemings' story; and looked as if all was ordered to be kept shut up close, till another child was found. One, that saw the child two days after, said to me, that he looked strong, and not like a child so newly born."
The poem of Dryden plainly proves, that such a report was so far from being confined among the Catholics, that it was spread over all the town; and what the worthy Mr Hemings over-heard in his next neighbour's, the Papist's, might probably have been heard in any company in London that evening, although the mode of communication would doubtless have been doleful or joyous, according to the party and religion of the news-bearer.
PROLOGUES
AND
EPILOGUES.
PROLOGUES AND EPILOGUES.
The prologue of the English drama was originally, like that of the ancients, merely a kind of argument of the play, instructing the audience concerning those particulars of the plot, which were necessary in order to understand the opening of the piece. That this might be done more artificially, it was often spoken in the character of some person connected with the preceding history of the intrigue, though not properly one of the _dramatis personæ_. But when increasing refinement introduced the present mode of opening the action in the course of the play itself, the prologue became a preliminary address to the audience, bespeaking their attention and favour for the piece. The epilogue had always borne this last character, being merely an extension of the ancient "_valete et plaudite_;" an opportunity seized by the performers, after resigning their mimic characters, to pay their respects to the public in their own, and to solicit its approbation of their exertions. By degrees it assumed a more important shape, and was indulged in descanting upon such popular topics as were likely to interest the audience, even though less immediately connected with the actor's address of thanks, or the piece they had been performing. Both the prologue and epilogue had assumed their present character so early as the days of Shakespeare and Jonson.
With the revival of dramatic entertainments, after the Restoration, these addresses were revived also; and a degree of consequence seems to have been attached to them in that witty age, which they did not possess before, and which has not since been given to them. They were not only used to propitiate the audience; to apologize for the players, or poet; or to satirize the follies of the day, which is now their chief purpose; but they became, during the collision of contending factions, vehicles of political tenets and political sarcasm, which could, at no time, be insinuated with more success, than when clothed in nervous verse, and delivered with all the advantages of elocution to an audience, whose numbers rendered the impression of poetry and eloquence more contagious.
It is not surprising that Dryden soon obtained a complete and absolute superiority in this style of composition over all who pretended to compete with him. While the harmony of his verse gave that advantage to the speaker, which was wanting in the harsh, coarse, broken measure of his contemporaries, his powers of reasoning and of satire left them as far behind in sense as in sound. This superiority, and the great influence which he had in the management of the theatre, made it usual to invoke his assistance in the case of new plays; many of which he accordingly furnished either with prologues or epilogues. The players also had recourse to him upon any remarkable occasion; as, when a new house was opened; when the theatre was honoured by a visit from the king or duke; when they played at Oxford, during the public acts; or, in short, in all cases when an occasional prologue was thought necessary to grace their performance.
The collection of these pieces, which follows, is far from being the least valuable part of our author's labours. The variety and richness of fancy which they indicate, is one of Dryden's most remarkable poetical attributes. Whether the theme be, the youth and inexperience or the age and past services, of the author; the plainness or magnificence of a new theatre; the superiority of ancient authors, or the exaltation of the moderns; the censure of political faction, or of fashionable follies; the praise of the monarch, or the ridicule of the administration; the poet never fails to treat it with the liveliness appropriate to verses intended to be spoken, and spoken before a numerous assembly. The manner which Dryden assumes, varies also with the nature of his audience. The prologues and epilogues, intended for the London stage, are written in a tone of superiority, as if the poet, conscious of the justice of his own laws of criticism, rather imposed them upon the public as absolute and undeniable, than as standing in need of their ratification. And if he sometimes condescends to solicit, in a more humble style, the approbation of the audience, and to state circumstances of apology, and pleas of favour, it is only in the case of other poets; for, in the prologues of his own plays, he always rather demands than begs their applause; and if he acknowledges any defects in the piece, he takes care to intimate, that they are introduced in compliance with the evil taste of the age; and that the audience must take the blame to themselves, instead of throwing it upon the writer. This bold, style of address, although it occasionally drew upon our author the charge of presumption, was, nevertheless, so well supported by his perception of what was just in criticism, and his powers of defending even what was actually wrong, that a miscellaneous audience was, in general, fain to submit to a domination, as successfully supported as boldly claimed. In the Oxford prologues, on the other hand, the audience furnished by that seat of the Muses, as of more competent judgment, are addressed with more respectful deference by the poet.[330] He seems, in these, to lay down his rules of criticism, as it were under correction of superior judges; and intermingles them with such compliments to the taste and learning of the members of the university, as he disdains to bestow upon the motley audience of the metropolis. In one style, the author seems dictating to scholars, whose conceit and presumption must be lowered by censure, to make them sensible of their own deficiencies, and induce them to receive the offered instruction; in the other, he seems to deliver his opinions before men, whom he acknowledges as his equals, if not his superiors, in the arts of which he is treating. And although Brown has very grossly charged Dryden with having affected, for the university, an esteem and respect, which he was far from really feeling; and with having exposed its members, in their turn, to the ridicule of the London audience, whom he had stigmatized in his Oxford prologues as void of taste and judgment; it is but fair to state, that nothing can be produced in proof of such an accusation.[331] In another respect, the reader may remark a pleasing difference between the London prologues and epilogues, and those spoken at Oxford. The licence of the times permitted, and even exacted from an author, in these compositions, the indulgence of an indelicate vein of humour; which, however humiliating, is, in general, successful in a vulgar or mixed audience, as turning upon subjects adapted to the meanest capacity. This continued even down to our times; for, till very lately, it was expected by the mobbish part of the audience, that they should be indemnified for the patience with which they had listened to the moral lessons of a tragedy, by the indecency of the epilogue. In Dryden's time, this coarse raillery was carried to great excess; but our author, however culpable in other compositions, is, generally speaking, more correct than his contemporaries in his prologues and epilogues. In the Oxford pieces, particularly, where the decorum of manners, suited to that mother of learning, required him to abstain from all licentious allusion, Dryden has given some excellent specimens of how little he needed to rely upon this obvious and vulgar aid, for the amusement of his audience. Upon the whole, it will be difficult to find pieces of this occasional nature so interesting and unexceptionable as those spoken at Oxford. They are, as they ought to be, by far the most laboured and correct which our author gave to the stage. It may not be improper to add, that the players were only permitted to visit Oxford during the Public Acts, which were frequently celebrated on occasions of public rejoicing. They acted, it would appear, in a Tennis-court, fitted up as an occasional theatre; and the prologues and epilogues of Dryden tended doubtless greatly to conciliate the favour of an audience, consisting of all that was learned in the generation then mature, and all that was hopeful in that which was rising to succeed it.
The more miscellaneous prologues and epilogues of Dryden are not without interest. In ridiculing the vices or follies of the age, they often touch upon circumstances illustrative of manners; and certainly, though the modern theatres of the metropolis are so ill regulated, as nearly to exclude modest females from all the house, except the private boxes, their decorum is superior to that of their predecessors. If we conceive the boxes filled with women, whose masks levelled all distinction between the woman of fashion and the courtezan; the galleries crowded with a rabble, more ferocious and ignorant than its present inmates; the pit occupied by drunken bullies, whose quarrels perpetually interrupted the performers, and often ended in bloodshed, and even murder, upon the spot; we shall have occasion to congratulate ourselves upon being at least in the way of reformation. These enormities of his time, Dryden has pointed out, and censured in his strong and nervous satire. It is to be regretted, that his painting is often coarse, and sometimes intentionally licentious; although, as has been already observed, more seldom so than that of most of his contemporaries. The historical antiquary may also glean some observations on the state of parties, from those pieces which turn upon the politics of the day; and there occur numerous hints, which may be useful to an historian of the drama. Thus the Prologues and Epilogues form no improper supplement to Dryden's historical poetry.
It remains to say, that all these prologues and epilogues were, according to the custom of that time, printed on single leaves, or broadsides, as they are called, and sold by the hawkers at the door of the theatres. Some of these, but very few, have been preserved by Mr Luttrell, in the collection belonging to Mr Bindley. If a set of them existed, I think it probable they would be found to contain many variations from those editions, which the more mature reflection of the author gave to the world in the Miscellanies. But the loss is the less to be lamented, as, in general, the original editions which I have seen are not only more inaccurate, but coarser and more licentious, than those which Dryden finally adopted. In the original prologue of Circe, which is printed in this edition, for example, the reader will find, that, in place of the well-known apology for an author's first production, by an appeal to those of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson, his youth is only made the subject of some commonplace raillery. Indeed, so little value did Dryden himself set upon these occasional effusions before they were collected, and so little did he consider them as entitled to live in the recollection of the public, that, on one occasion at least, but probably upon several, he actually transferred the same prologue from one new play to another. Thus he reclaimed, from his adversary Shadwell's play of "The True Widow," the prologue which he had furnished, and affixed it to the "Widow Ranter" of Mrs Behn. Sometimes also he laid under contribution former publications of his own, which he supposed to be forgotten, in order to furnish out one of these theatrical prefaces. Thus the satire against the Dutch furnishes the principal part of the prologue and epilogue to "Amboyna."
Inaccurate as they seem to have been, the original editions might have proved useful in arranging the prologues and epilogues according to their exact dates, which, where they are not attached to any particular play, can now only be assigned from internal evidence. But absolute accuracy in this point, though no doubt desirable if it can be obtained, does not appear to be a point of any serious moment; and, after having bestowed considerable pains, the Editor will neither be much ashamed, nor inconsolably sorry, to find, that some of the prologues and epilogues have been misplaced in the order which he has adopted.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 330: Our author's several modes of coaxing or bullying the audience in the prologues, are ridiculed in the "Rehearsal;" where Bayes says, "You must know there is in nature but two ways of making very good prologues;--the one is, by civility, by insinuation, good language, and all that to ---- a ---- in a manner steal your plaudit from the courtesy of the auditors: the other, by making use of some certain personal things, which may keep a hank upon such censuring persons as cannot otherwise, egad, in nature, be hindered from being too free with their tongues."]
[Footnote 331: The following is the statement of the accusation in Tom's peculiar style, being a sort of cant jargon, not void of low humour:
"_Bayes._ Now, there being but three remarkable places in the whole island; that is, the two universities, and the great metropolitan city; I shall, consequently, confine my discourse only to them: But, first of all, I must tell you, that I am altogether of my Lord Plausible's opinion in the "Plain Dealer;" if I chance to commend any place, or order of men, out of pure friendship, I choose to do it before their faces; and if I have occasion to speak ill of any person or place, out of a principle of respect and good manners, I do it behind their backs. You cannot imagine, Mr Crites, when I visit either of the two universities, in my own person, or by my commissioners of the playhouse, how much I am taken with a college life: Oh, there's nothing like a cheese cut out into farthings! and my Lord Mayor, amidst all his brutal city luxury, does not dine half so well as a student upon a single chop of rotten roasted mutton; nay, I can scarce prevail with myself, for a month or two after, to eat my meat on a plate, so great a respect have I for a university trencher; and then their conversation is so learned, and withal so innocent, that I could sit a whole day together at a coffee-house to hear them dispute about _actus perspicui_, and _forma misti_. From this beginning I naturally fall a railing at London, with as much zeal as a Buckingham-shire grazier, who had his pocket picked at a Smithfield entertainment; or a country lady, whose obsequious knight has spent his estate among misses, vintners, and linen-drapers; and then I tell my audience, that a man may walk farther in the city to meet a true judge of poetry, than ride his horse on Salisbury Plain to find a house.
London likes grossly, but this nicer pit Examines, fathoms, all the depths of wit.
You see here, Mr Crites, that scholars won't take Alderman Duncomb's leaden halfpence for Irish half crowns, while dull Londoner swallows every thing; and takes it with as little consideration, as a true Romanist takes a spiritual dose of relicts, that are sealed up with the council of Trent's coat-of-arms.
_Eugen._ How was that, Mr Bayes, about the council of Trent? Pray, let us hear it again.
_Bayes._ Gad forgive me for't!--it dropt from me ere I was aware; but I shall in time wear off this hitching in my gait, and walk in Catholic trammels as well as the best of them; nature, I must confess, is not overcome on the sudden--But let me see, gentlemen, whether I have any more lines to our last purpose; oh, here they are!
Poetry, which is in Oxford made An art, in London only is a trade. Our poet, could he find forgiveness here, Would wish it rather than a plaudit there.
You are sensible, without question, how little beholden the city is to me, when I am upon my progress elsewhere. But 'tis a comfort that this peremptory humour does not continue long upon me; for, as I have the grace to disown my mother-university, with a jug in one hand, and a link in the other, when I am at Oxford,--
Thebes did his green unknowing years engage; He chuses Athens in his riper age.
So, when I am got amongst my honest acquaintance here in Covent-Garden, I disown both the sisters, and make myself as merry as a grig, with their greasy trenchers, rusty salt-sellers, and no napkins, with their everlasting drinking, and no intervals of fornication to relieve it. In fine, I make a great scruple of it, whether it be possible for a man to write sound heroics, and make an accomplished thorough-paced wit, unless he comes to refine and cultivate himself at London; unless be knows how many stories high the houses are in Cheapside and Fleet-street; is acquainted with all the gaming ordinaries about town, and the rates of porters and hackney-coachmen; has shot the bridge; seen the tombs at Westminster; heard the Wooden-head speak; can tell you where the insuring-office is kept; and which of the twelve companies has the honour of precedence."
_The Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion_, p. 10. ]
PROLOGUE
SPOKEN
THE FIRST DAY OF THE KING'S HOUSE ACTING AFTER THE FIRE.
_In January_, 1671-2, _the play-house in Drury-Lane_, _occupied by the King's company_, _took fire_, _and was entirely destroyed_, _with fifty or sixty adjoining houses_, _which were either involved in the conflagration_, _or blown up to stop its progress_. _During the rebuilding of this theatre, the King's servants acted in the old house in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. The following Prologue announces the distressed situation of the company on their retreat to this temporary asylum. The sixth couplet alludes to the recent desertion of the Lincoln's-Inn theatre, by the rival company, called the Duke's, who were now acting at one in Dorset Gardens, splendidly fitted up under the direction of Sir William D'Avenant._
So shipwrecked passengers escaped to land, So look they, when on the bare beach they stand, Dropping and cold, and their first fear scarce o'er, Expecting famine on a desart shore. From that hard climate we must wait for bread, Whence even the natives, forced by hunger, fled. Our stage does human chance present to view, But ne'er before was seen so sadly true: You are changed too, and your pretence to see Is but a nobler name for charity. Your own provisions furnish out our feasts, While you, the founders, make yourselves the guests. Of all mankind beside, fate had some care, } But for poor Wit no portion did prepare, } 'Tis left a rent-charge to the brave and fair.} You cherished it, and now its fall you mourn, Which blind unmannered zealots make their scorn, Who think that fire a judgment on the stage, Which spared not temples[332] in its furious rage. But as our new-built city rises higher, } So from old theatres may new aspire, } Since fate contrives magnificence by fire.} Our great metropolis does far surpass Whate'er is now, and equals all that was: Our wit as far does foreign wit excel, And, like a king, should in a palace dwell. But we with golden hopes are vainly fed, Talk high, and entertain you in a shed: Your presence here, for which we humbly sue, Will grace old theatres, and build up new.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 332: St Paul's, and other churches, were consumed in the great fire, then a recent event.]
PROLOGUE
FOR
THE WOMEN, WHEN THEY ACTED AT THE OLD THEATRE, LINCOLN'S-INN-FIELDS.
_Female performers were first introduced after the Restoration. They became speedily acceptable to the court and the public. The dramatic poets were in so many ways indebted to them, that occasional exertions, dedicated to their benefit, as I presume the following to have been, were but a suitable return for various favours received. Our author's intimacy with the beautiful Mrs Reeves particularly called forth his talents in behalf of these damsels, distressed as they must have been by the unlucky burning of the theatre in Drury-Lane. The Prologue occurs in the Miscellanies; but is, I know not why, omitted by Derrick in his edition of Dryden's poems._
Were none of you, gallants, e'er driven so hard, As when the poor kind soul was under guard, And could not do't at home, in some by-street To take a lodging, and in private meet? Such is our case; we can't appoint our house, The lovers' old and wonted rendezvous, But hither to this trusty nook remove; The worse the lodging is, the more the love. For much good pastime, many a dear sweet hug, Is stolen in garrets, on the humble rug. Here's good accommodation in the pit; The grave demurely in the midst may sit, And so the hot Burgundian[333] on the side, Ply vizard mask, and o'er the benches stride: Here are convenient upper boxes too, } For those that make the most triumphant show;} All that keep coaches, must not sit below. } There, gallants, you betwixt the acts retire, And, at dull plays, have something to admire: We, who look up, can your addresses mark, And see the creatures coupled in the ark: So we expect the lovers, braves, and wits; The gaudy house with scenes[334] will serve for cits.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 333: That is, the consumer of Burgundy, or drunken bully of the day.]
[Footnote 334: Dorset-Garden theatre, where the Duke's company acted various shewy pieces, directed by D'Avenant.]
PROLOGUE
SPOKEN AT
THE OPENING OF THE NEW HOUSE,
MARCH 26, 1674.
_The Drury-Lane theatre, after being burned in_ 1671-2, _was rebuilt upon a plan furnished by Sir Christopher Wren_, _who superintended the execution_. _It is said to have been most admirably planned, but spoiled by some injudicious alterations in the course of building. The following Prologue informs us, that the exterior decorations were plain and simple in comparison to those of the rival house in Dorset Gardens, which, as repeatedly noticed, had been splendidly fitted up under the direction of D'Avenant, noted for his attachment to stage pomp and shew. It appears that Charles II., who was possessed of considerable taste, and did not disdain to interest himself in the affairs of the drama, had himself recommended to the King's company, the simplicity and frugality of scenery and ornament to which the poet alludes. The other house were not unapt to boast of the superior splendour which is here conceded to them. In the epilogue to_ "_Psyche_" _the actors boast_,
----Gallants, you can tell, No foreign stage can ours in pomp excel; And here none e'er shall treat you half so well. Poor players have this day such splendour shown, Which yet but by great monarchs has been done.
_D'Avenant, by whom the Duke's company were long directed, was the first who introduced regular scenery upon a public stage. His drama of the "Siege of Rhodes" seems to have been the first exhibited with these decorations._--See MALONE'S Account of the English Stage."
A plain-built house, after so long a stay, Will send you half unsatisfied away; When, fallen from your expected pomp, you find A bare convenience only is designed. You, who each day can theatres behold, Like Nero's palace, shining all with gold, Our mean ungilded stage will scorn, we fear, And, for the homely room, disdain the chear. Yet now cheap druggets to a mode are grown, } And a plain suit, since we can make but one, } Is better than to be by tarnished gawdry known.} They, who are by your favours wealthy made, With mighty sums may carry on the trade; We, broken bankers, half destroyed by fire, } With our small stock to humble roofs retire;} Pity our loss, while you their pomp admire. } For fame and honour we no longer strive; We yield in both, and only beg--to live; Unable to support their vast expence, Who build and treat with such magnificence, That, like the ambitious monarchs of the age, They give the law to our provincial stage. Great neighbours enviously promote excess, While they impose their splendour on the less; But only fools, and they of vast estate, } The extremity of modes will imitate, } The dangling knee-fringe, and the bib-cravat,} Yet if some pride with want may be allowed, We in our plainness may be justly proud; Our Royal Master willed it should be so; Whate'er he's pleased to own, can need no show: That sacred name gives ornament and grace, And, like his stamp, makes basest metal pass. 'Twere folly now a stately pile to raise, To build a playhouse while you throw down plays; While scenes, machines, and empty operas reign, And for the pencil you the pen disdain; While troops of famished Frenchmen hither drive, And laugh at those upon whose alms they live: Old English authors vanish, and give place To these new conquerors of the Norman race. More tamely than your fathers you submit; You're now grown vassals to them in your wit. Mark, when they play, how our fine fops advance } The mighty merits of their men of France, } Keep time, cry, _Bon!_ and humour the cadence.} Well, please yourselves; but sure 'tis understood, That French machines have ne'er done England good.[335] I would not prophecy our house's fate; But while vain shows and scenes you over-rate, 'Tis to be feared---- That, as a fire the former house o'erthrew, Machines and tempests[336] will destroy the new.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 335: St André, the famous ballet dancer, composed dances for many operas about this time, which were probably performed by his light-footed countrymen, at Dorset-Gardens.]
[Footnote 336: "In 1673, the 'Tempest, or the Enchanted Island,' made into an opera by Mr Shadwell, having all new in it, as scenes, machines, &c.: one scene painted with myriads of ærial spirits; and others flying away with a table furnished with fruits, sweetmeats, and all sorts of viands, just when Duke Trinculo and his company were going to dinner. All things were performed so admirably well, that not any succeeding opera could get any money."--_Roscius Anglicanus_, p. 34. Shadwell had also, about this time, produced his opera of "Psyche," which, with the "Tempest" and other pieces depending chiefly upon shew and scenery, were acting in Dorset-Garden, when this Prologue was written. In order to ridicule these splendid exhibitions, the company at Drury-Lane brought forward parodies on them, such as the "Mock Tempest," "Psyche Debauched," &c. These pieces, though written in the meanest style by one Duffet, a low buffoon, had a transient course of success.]
EPILOGUE
ON
THE SAME OCCASION.
Though what our Prologue said was sadly true,} Yet, gentlemen, our homely house is new, } A charm that seldom fails with wicked you. } A country lip may have the velvet touch; } Though she's no lady, you may think her such: } A strong imagination may do much. } But you, loud sirs, who through your curls look big, Critics in plume and white vallancy wig, Who, lolling, on our foremost benches sit, And still charge first, the true forlorn of wit; Whose favours, like the sun, warm where you roll, Yet you, like him, have neither heat nor soul; So may your hats your foretops never press, Untouched your ribbons, sacred be your dress; So may you slowly to old age advance, And have the excuse of youth for ignorance; So may fop-corner full of noise remain, And drive far off the dull, attentive train; So may your midnight scourings happy prove, And morning batteries force your way to love; So may not France your warlike hands recal, But leave you by each others swords to fall,[337] As you come here to ruffle vizard punk, When sober rail, and roar when you are drunk. But to the wits we can some merit plead, And urge what by themselves has oft been said: Our house relieves the ladies from the frights Of ill-paved streets, and long dark winter nights; The Flanders horses from a cold bleak road, Where bears in furs dare scarcely look abroad;[338] The audience from worn plays and fustian stuff, Of rhime, more nauseous than three boys in buff.[339] Though in their house the poets' heads[340] appear, We hope we may presume their wits are here. The best which they reserved they now will play, } For, like kind cuckolds, though we've not the way } To please, we'll find you abler men who may. } If they should fail, for last recruits we breed } A troop of frisking monsieurs to succeed: } You know the French sure cards at time of need. }
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 337: This seems to be an allusion to the recent death of Mr Scroop; a man of fortune, who, about this time, was stabbed in the theatre at Dorset-Gardens by Sir Thomas Armstrong, afterwards the confidential friend of the Duke of Monmouth. Langbaine says, he witnessed this real tragedy, which happened during the representation of "Macbeth," as altered and revised by D'Avenant in 1674. Mr Scroop died immediately after his removal into a neighbouring house.]
[Footnote 338: Alluding to the recent establishment in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, then separated from the city by a large vacant space.]
[Footnote 339: "The three boys in buff," were, I believe, the three Bold Beauchamps in an old ranting play:
"The three bold Beauchamps shall revive again, And, with the London Prentice, conquer Spain." ]
[Footnote 340: Some part of the ornaments of D'Avenant's scenes probably presented the portraits of dramatic writers.]
PROLOGUE
TO
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1674.
SPOKEN BY MR HART.
_Hart, who had been a captain in the civil wars, belonged to the King's company. He was an excellent actor, and particularly celebrated in the character of Othello. He left the stage, according to Cibber, on the union of the companies in_ 1686. _But it appears from a paper published in a note on the article_ "_Betterton_" _in the_ Biographia, _that he retired in_ 1681, _upon receiving a pension from Dr D'Avenant_, _then manager of the Duke's company_, _who in this manner bought off both Hart and Kynaston_, _and greatly weakened the opposite set_.
Poets, your subjects, have their parts assigned, To unbend, and to divert their sovereign's mind; When tired with following nature, you think fit To seek repose in the cool shades of wit, And, from the sweet retreat, with joy survey What rests, and what is conquered, of the way. Here, free yourselves from envy, care, and strife, You view the various turns of human life; Safe in our scene, through dangerous courts you go, And, undebauched, the vice of cities know. Your theories are here to practice brought, As in mechanic operations wrought; And man, the little world, before you set, As once the sphere of crystal[341] shewed the great. Blest sure are you above all mortal kind, If to your fortunes you can suit your mind; Content to see, and shun, those ills we show, And crimes on theatres alone to know. With joy we bring what our dead authors writ, And beg from you the value of their wit: That Shakespeare's, Fletcher's, and great Jonson's claim, May be renewed from those who gave them fame. None of our living poets dare appear; For muses so severe are worshipped here, That, conscious of their faults, they shun the eye, } And, as profane, from sacred places fly, } Rather than see the offended God, and die. } We bring no imperfections, but our own; Such faults as made are by the makers shown; And you have been so kind, that we may boast, The greatest judges still can pardon most. Poets must stoop, when they would please our pit, Debased even to the level of their wit; Disdaining that, which yet they know will take, Hating themselves what their applause must make. But when to praise from you they would aspire, Though they, like eagles, mount, your Jove is higher. So far your knowledge all their power transcends, As what should be, beyond what is, extends.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 341: Its properties are thus described by Spenser:
It vertue had to show in perfect sight Whatever thing was in the world contained, Betwixt the lowest earth and heaven's height, So that it to the looker appertained. Whatever foe had wrought, or friend designed, Therein discovered was ne ought mote pass, Ne ought in secret from the same remained, Forthy it round, and hollow-shaped was, Like to the world itself, and seemed a world of glass.
Such was the glassy globe that Merlin made, And gave unto King Ryence for his guard.
_Fairy Queen_, Book iii. Canto 2. ]
EPILOGUE
SPOKEN
AT OXFORD, BY MRS MARSHALL.
_The date of this Epilogue is fixed by that of Bathurst's vice-chancellorship_, _which lasted from 3d October_, 1673, _to 9th October_ 1675.
Oft has our poet wished, this happy seat Might prove his fading muse's last retreat: I wondered at his wish, but now I find He sought for quiet, and content of mind; Which noiseful towns, and courts, can never know, And only in the shades, like laurels, grow. Youth, ere it sees the world, here studies rest, And age, returning thence, concludes it best. What wonder if we court that happiness Yearly to share, which hourly you possess, Teaching e'en you, while the vext world we show, Your peace to value more, and better know? 'Tis all we can return for favours past, Whose holy memory shall ever last, For patronage from him whose care presides O'er every noble art, and every science guides;[342] Bathurst, a name the learned with reverence know, And scarcely more to his own Virgil owe; Whose age enjoys but what his youth deserved, To rule those muses whom before he served. His learning, and untainted manners too, We find, Athenians, are derived to you; Such antient hospitality there rests } In yours, as dwelt in the first Grecian breasts, } Whose kindness was religion to their guests. } Such modesty did to our sex appear, } As, had there been no laws, we need not fear, } Since each of you was our protector here. } Converse so chaste, and so strict virtue shown, As might Apollo with the muses own. Till our return, we must despair to find Judges so just, so knowing, and so kind.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 342: Ralph Bathurst, thus highly distinguished by our author, was a distinguished character of the age. He was uncle to Allen, the first Lord Bathurst. He was born in 1620, and bred to the church, but abandoned divinity for the pursuit of medicine, which he practised until the Restoration, when he resumed his clerical character. In 1663 he became head of Trinity college, Oxford, into the court and chapel of which he introduced the beauties of classical architecture, to rival, if it were possible, the magnificence of the Gothic edifices by which it is surrounded. In 1673, he had the honour to be appointed vice-chancellor; an office which he retained for two years. During his execution of this duty he is said to have reformed many abuses which had crept into the university; and by liberal benefactions added considerably to the prosperity of literature. Anthony Wood, who had some private reason for disliking him, and who, moreover, was as determined an enemy to the fair sex as ever harboured in a cloister, picked a quarrel with Bathurst's wife, as he could find no reasonable fault with the vice-chancellor himself. "Dr Bathurst took his place of vice-chancellor; a man of good parts, and able to do good things; but he has a wife that scorns that he should be in print; a scornful woman! scorns that he was dean of Wells: no need of marrying such a woman, who is so conceited, that she thinks herself fit to govern a college, or university."--Perhaps the countenance given by Bathurst to the theatre, for which Dryden here expresses his gratitude, might not tend to conciliate the good will of Anthony, who quarrelled with his sister-in-law by refusing to treat her to the play. But it agreed well with the character of Bathurst, who was not only a patron of literature in all its branches, but himself an excellent Latin poet, as his verses prefixed to Hobbes' "Leviathan," fully testify; and as good an English poet as most of his contemporaries. He died in his eighty-fourth year, 1704. Warton has given us the following character of his Latin compositions, for which Dryden has celebrated him so highly: "His Latin orations are wonderful specimens of wit and antithesis, which were the delight of his age. They want, upon the whole, the purity and simplicity of Tully's eloquence, but even exceed the sententious smartness of Seneca, and the surprising turns of Pliny. They are perpetually spirited, and discover an uncommon quickness of thought. The manner is concise and abrupt, but yet perspicuous and easy: His allusions are delicate, and his observations sensible and animated; his sentiments of congratulation, or indignation, are equally forcible: his compliments are most elegantly turned, and his satire is most ingeniously severe. These compositions are extremely agreeable to read, but, in the present improvement of classical taste, not so proper to be imitated."--_Life of Bathurst, prefixed to his Literary Remains, published under the inspection of Mr Warton._]
ORIGINAL
PROLOGUE TO CIRCE,
BY
DR CHARLES D'AVENANT, 1675.
_Dr Charles D'Avenant, the author of "Circe," was son of the Rare Sir William D'Avenant, whom he succeeded as manager of the Duke's company. He practised physic in Doctor's Commons, which he afterwards abandoned for politics. He became a member of Parliament, and inspector of the exports and imports, of which office he died possessed in_ 1714. _He wrote many tracts upon political subjects, especially those connected with the revenue. "Circe," his only drama, is an opera, to which Bannister composed the music. Besides the Prologue by our author, it was honoured by an Epilogue by the famous Rochester, and thus graced was received favourably. It contains some good writing, considering it was composed at the age of nineteen; a circumstance alluded to in the following Prologue. The original Prologue is from the 4to edition of "_Circe_," _London_, 1677. _It was afterwards much improved, or rather entirely re-written, by our author._
Were you but half so wise as you're severe, Our youthful poet should not need to fear; To his green years your censures you would suit, Not blast the blossom, but expect the fruit. The sex, that best does pleasure understand, Will always chuse to err on t'other hand. They check not him that's aukward in delight, But clap the young rogue's cheek, and set him right. Thus heartened well, and fleshed upon his prey, The youth may prove a man another day. For your own sakes, instruct him when he's out, You'll find him mend his work at every bout. When some young lusty thief is passing by, } How many of your tender kind will cry,-- } "A proper fellow! pity he should die! } He might be saved, and thank us for our pains, There's such a stock of love within his veins." These arguments the women may persuade, But move not you, the brothers of the trade, Who, scattering your infection through the pit, } With aching hearts and empty purses sit, } To take your dear five shillings worth of wit. } The praise you give him, in your kindest mood, Comes dribbling from you, just like drops of blood; And then you clap so civilly, for fear The loudness might offend your neighbour's ear, That we suspect your gloves are lined within, For silence sake, and cotton'd next the skin. From these usurpers we appeal to you, The only knowing, only judging few; You, who in private have this play allowed, Ought to maintain your suffrage to the crowd. The captive, once submitted to your bands, You should protect from death by vulgar hands.
PROLOGUE TO CIRCE,
AS CORRECTED BY DRYDEN.
Were you but half so wise as you're severe, Our youthful poet should not need to fear; To his green years your censures you would suit, Not blast the blossom, but expect the fruit. The sex, that best does pleasure understand, Will always choose to err on t'other hand. They check not him that's aukward in delight, But clap the young rogue's cheek, and set him right. Thus heartened well, and fleshed upon his prey, The youth may prove a man another day. Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight, Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces write;[343] But hopped about, and short excursions made } From bough to bough, as if they were afraid, } And each was guilty of some Slighted Maid.[344] } Shakespeare's own muse her Pericles first bore;[345] The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor: 'Tis miracle to see a first good play; All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmas-day.[346] A slender poet must have time to grow, And spread and burnish as his brothers do. Who still looks lean, sure with some pox is curst, But no man can be Falstaff-fat at first. Then damn not, but indulge his rude essays, Encourage him, and bloat him up with praise, That he may get more bulk before he dies; He's not yet fed enough for sacrifice. Perhaps, if now your grace you will not grudge, He may grow up to write, and you to judge.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 343: Characters in Jonson's "Volpone," and Fletcher's "King and no King," which plays are justly held the master-pieces of these authors.]
[Footnote 344: The "Slighted Maid" was a contemporary drama, written by Sir Richard Stapylton, of which Dryden elsewhere takes occasion to speak in terms of contempt. See the _Parallel betwixt Poetry and Painting_.]
[Footnote 345: This opinion seems to be solely founded on the inferiority of "Pericles," to the other plays of Shakspeare; an inferiority so great, as to warrant very strong doubts of its being the legitimate offspring of his muse at all.]
[Footnote 346: Alluding to the legend of the Glastonbury thorn, supposed to bloom on Christmas day.]
EPILOGUE
INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN BY
THE LADY HEN. MAR. WENTWORTH.
WHEN CALISTO WAS ACTED AT COURT, IN 1675.
"_Calisto, or the Chaste Nymph_," _was a masque written by John Crowne, who, by the interference of Rochester, was employed to compose such an entertainment to be exhibited at court, though this was an encroachment on the office of Dryden, the poet laureat. The principal characters were represented by the daughters of the Duke of York, and the first nobility. The Lady Mary, afterwards Queen, to whom the masque was dedicated, acted Calisto; Nyphe was represented by the Lady Anne, who also succeeded to the throne; Jupiter, by Lady Harriot Wentworth; Psecas, by Lady Mary Mordaunt; Diana, by Mrs Blague, and Mercury by Mrs Sarah Jennings, afterwards Duchess of Marlborough. Among the attendant nymphs and dancers were the Countesses of Pembroke and of Derby, Lady Catharine Herbert, Mrs Fitzgerald, and Mrs Fraser. The male dancers were the Duke of Monmouth, Viscount Dunblaine, Lord Daincourt, and others of the first quality. Although the exhibition of this masque, which it was the privilege of his office to have written, must have been somewhat galling to Dryden, we see that he so far suppressed his feelings as to compose the following Epilogue, which, to his farther mortification, was rejected, through the interference of Rochester._
_The Lady Henrietta Maria Wentworth, Baroness of Nettlested, who acted the part of Jupiter on the present occasion, afterwards adapted her conduct to that of Calisto, and became the mistress of the Duke of Monmouth. He was so passionately attached to her, that upon the scaffold he vindicated their intercourse by some very warm and enthusiastic expressions, and could by no means be prevailed on to express any repentance of it as unlawful. This lady died about a year after the execution of her unfortunate lover_, _in_ 1685. _Her mother, Lady Wentworth, ordered a monument of L._ 2000 _value to be erected over her in the church of Teddington, Bedfordshire._
As Jupiter I made my court in vain; I'll now assume my native shape again. I'm weary to be so unkindly used, And would not be a God, to be refused. State grows uneasy when it hinders love; A glorious burden, which the wise remove. Now, as a nymph, I need not sue, nor try The force of any lightning but the eye. Beauty and youth, more than a god command; No Jove could e'er the force of these withstand. 'Tis here that sovereign power admits dispute; Beauty sometimes is justly absolute. Our sullen Cato's, whatsoe'er they say, Even while they frown and dictate laws, obey. You, mighty sir, our bonds more easy make, And, gracefully, what all must suffer, take; Above those forms the grave affect to wear, For 'tis not to be wise to be severe. True wisdom may some gallantry admit, And soften business with the charms of wit. These peaceful triumphs with your cares you bought, And from the midst of fighting nations brought.[347] You only hear it thunder from afar, And sit, in peace, the arbiter of war: Peace, the loathed manna, which hot brains despise, You knew its worth, and made it early prize; And in its happy leisure, sit and see The promises of more felicity; Two glorious nymphs of your own godlike line, Whose morning rays, like noontide, strike and shine;[348] Whom you to suppliant monarchs shall dispose, To bind your friends, and to disarm your foes.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 347: The war between France and the confederates was now raging on the Continent.]
[Footnote 348: The glorious nymphs, afterwards Queens Anne and Mary, both lived to exclude their own father and his son from the throne. Derrick, I suppose, alluded to this circumstance, when in the next line he read _supplant_ for _suppliant_ monarchs.]
EPILOGUE
TO THE
MAN OF MODE; OR SIR FOPLING FLUTTER.
BY
SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE, 1676.
_This play, which long maintained a high degree of reputation on the stage, presents us with the truest picture of what was esteemed good breeding and wit in the reign of Charles II. All the characters, from Dorimant down to the Shoemaker, were either really drawn from the life, or depicted so accurately according to the manners of the times, that each was instantly ascribed to some individual. Sir Fopling Flutter, in particular, was supposed to represent Sir George Hewit, mentioned in the Essay on Satire, and who seems to have been one of the most choice coxcombs of the period. A very severe criticism in the_ Spectator, _pointing out the coarseness as well as the immorality of this celebrated performance, had a great effect in diminishing its popularity. The satire being in fact personal, it followed as a matter of course, that the Prologue should disclaim all personality, that being an attribute to be discovered by the audience, but not avowed by the poet. Dryden has accomplished this with much liveliness, and enumerates for our edification the special fopperies which went to make up a complete fine gentleman in_ 1676--_differing only in form from those required in_ 1806, _excepting that the ancient beau needed, to complete his character, a slight sprinkling of literary accomplishment, which the modern has discarded with the "_sacred periwig_."_
Most modern wits such monstrous fools have shown, They seem not of heaven's making, but their own. Those nauseous Harlequins in farce may pass; But there goes more to a substantial ass: Something of man must be exposed to view, That, gallants, they may more resemble you. Sir Fopling is a fool so nicely writ, The ladies would mistake him for a wit; And, when he sings, talks loud, and cocks, would cry, I vow, methinks, he's pretty company! So brisk, so gay, so travelled, so refined, As he took pains to graff upon his kind. True fops help nature's work, and go to school, To file and finish God Almighty's fool. Yet none Sir Fopling him, or him can call; He's knight o' the shire, and represents ye all. From each he meets he culls whate'er he can; Legion's his name, a people in a man. His bulky folly gathers as it goes, And, rolling o'er you, like a snow-ball, grows. His various modes from various fathers follow; One taught the toss, and one the new French wallow; His sword-knot this, his cravat that designed; And this the yard-long snake he twirls behind. From one the sacred periwig he gained, Which wind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat profaned. Another's diving bow he did adore, Which with a shog casts all the hair before, Till he, with full decorum, brings it back, And rises with a water-spaniel shake. As for his songs, the ladies' dear delight, These sure he took from most of you who write. Yet every man is safe from what he feared; For no one fool is hunted from the herd.
EPILOGUE
TO
MITHRIDATES, KING OF PONTUS.
BY
MR N. LEE, 1678.
_This, as appears from the Prologue preserved in the Luttrell collection, was the first play acted in the season_, 1698-9. _It has, like all Lee's productions, no small share of bombast, with some strikingly beautiful passages._
You've seen a pair of faithful lovers die; } And much you care; for most of you will cry, } 'Twas a just judgment on their constancy. } For, heaven be thanked, we live in such an age, When no man dies for love, but on the stage: And e'en those martyrs are but rare in plays; A cursed sign how much true faith decays. Love is no more a violent desire; 'Tis a mere metaphor, a painted fire. In all our sex, the name examined well, 'Tis pride to gain, and vanity to tell. In woman, 'tis of subtle interest made; Curse on the punk, that made it first a trade! She first did wit's prerogative remove, And made a fool presume to prate of love. Let honour and preferment go for gold, But glorious beauty is not to be sold; Or, if it be, 'tis at a rate so high, That nothing but adoring it should buy. Yet the rich cullies may their boasting spare; They purchase but sophisticated ware. 'Tis prodigality that buys deceit, Where both the giver and the taker cheat. Men but refine on the old half-crown way; And women fight, like Swissers, for their pay.
PROLOGUE
TO
THE TRUE WIDOW, 1679.
At this period Shadwell and our author were on such good terms, that Dryden obliged him with the following Prologue to the "True Widow;" a play intended to display the humours of various men of the town. Thus we have in the Dramatis Personæ,--
"_Selfish._ A coxcomb, conceited of his beauty, wit, and breeding, thinking all women in love with him, always admiring and talking to himself.
_Old Maggot._ An old, credulous fellow; a great enemy to wit, and a lover of business for business-sake.
_Young Maggot._ His nephew: an inns-of-court man, who neglects law, and runs mad after wit, pretending much to love, and both in spite of nature, since his face makes him unfit for one, and his brains for the other.
_Prig._ A coxcomb, who never thinks or talks of any thing but dogs, horses, hunting, hawking, bowls, tennis, and gaming; a rook, a most noisy jockey.
_Lump._ A methodical coxcomb, as regular as a clock, and goes as true as a pendulum; one that knows what he shall do every day of his life by his almanack, where he sets down all his actions before-hand; a mortal enemy to wit."
* * * * *
So many characters, so minutely described, lead us to suppose, that some personal satire lay concealed under them; and, accordingly, the Prologue seems to have been written with a view of deprecating the resentment which this idea might have excited in the audience. We learn, however, by the Preface, that the piece was unfavourably received, "either through the calamity of the time (during the Popish plot), which made people not care for diversions, or through the anger of a great many who thought themselves concerned in the satire." The piece is far from being devoid of merit; and the characters, though drawn in Shadwell's coarse, harsh manner, are truly comic. That of the jockey, since so popular, seems to have been brought upon the stage for the first time in the "True Widow." It is remarkable, that, though Dryden writes the Prologue, the piece contains a sly hit at him. Maggot, finding himself married to a portionless jilt, says, "I must e'en write hard for the play-house; I may get the reversion of the poet-laureat's place." This, however, might be only meant as a good-humoured pleasantry among friends.
After the deadly quarrel with Shadwell, our author seems to have resumed his property in the Prologue, as it is prefixed to "The Widow Ranter, or The History of Bacon in Virginia," a tragi-comedy by Mrs Behn, acted in 1690.
PROLOGUE
TO
THE TRUE WIDOW.
BY
THOMAS SHADWELL, 1679.
Heaven save ye, gallants, and this hopeful age! Y'are welcome to the downfall of the stage. The fools have laboured long in their vocation, And vice, the manufacture of the nation, O'erstocks the town so much, and thrives so well, That fops and knaves grow drugs, and will not sell. In vain our wares on theatres are shown, When each has a plantation of his own. His cause ne'er fails; for whatsoe'er he spends, There's still God's plenty for himself and friends. Should men be rated by poetic rules, Lord, what a poll would there be raised from fools! Meantime poor wit prohibited must lie, As if 'twere made some French commodity. Fools you will have, and raised at vast expence; And yet, as soon as seen, they give offence. Time was, when none would cry,--That oaf was me; But now you strive about your pedigree. Bauble and cap[349] no sooner are thrown down, But there's a muss[350] of more than half the town. Each one will challenge a child's part at least; A sign the family is well encreased. Of foreign cattle there's no longer need, When we're supplied so fast with English breed. Well! flourish, countrymen; drink, swear, and roar; Let every free-born subject keep his whore, And wandering in the wilderness about, At end of forty years not wear her out. But when you see these pictures, let none dare To own beyond a limb, or single share; For where the punk is common, he's a sot, Who needs will father what the parish got.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 349: The fool's cap and bauble, with which the ancient jester was equipped.]
[Footnote 350: A scramble.]
PROLOGUE
TO
CÆSAR BORGIA.
BY MR N. LEE, 1680.
_This play of Nathaniel Lee's was first acted at the Duke's theatre, in_ 1680. _It is founded on the history of the natural son of Pope Alexander VI. The play fell soon into disrepute; for Cibber tells us, that when Powel was jealous of his fine dress in Lord Foppington, and complained bitterly, that he had not so good a suit to play "Cæsar Borgia," this bouncing play could do little more than pay candles and fiddles._--Apology.
The unhappy man, who once has trailed a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good. What praise soe'er the poetry deserve, Yet every fool can bid the poet starve. That fumbling letcher to revenge is bent, Because he thinks himself, or whore, is meant: Name but a cuckold, all the city swarms; From Leadenhall to Ludgate is in arms. Were there no fear of Antichrist, or France, In the blest time poor poets live by chance. Either you come not here, or, as you grace } Some old acquaintance, drop into the place, } Careless and qualmish with a yawning face: } You sleep o'er wit,--and by my troth you may; Most of your talents lie another way. You love to hear of some prodigious tale, The bell that tolled alone, or Irish whale.[351] News is your food, and you enough provide, Both for yourselves, and all the world beside. One theatre there is, of vast resort, Which whilome of Requests was called the Court[352]; But now the great exchange of news 'tis hight, And full of hum and buzz from noon till night. Up stairs and down you run, as for a race, And each man wears three nations in his face. So big you look, though claret you retrench, That, armed with bottled ale, you huff the French. But all your entertainment still is fed By villains in your own dull island bred. Would you return to us, we dare engage To shew you better rogues upon the stage. You know no poison but plain ratsbane here; Death's more refined, and better bred elsewhere. They have a civil way in Italy, } By smelling a perfume to make you die; } A trick would make you lay your snuff-box by. } Murder's a trade, so known and practised there, That 'tis infallible as is the chair. But mark their feast, you shall behold such pranks! The pope says grace, but 'tis the devil gives thanks.[353]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 351: In Dryden's days, as in our own, there were provided by the hawkers a plentiful assortment of wonders and prodigies to captivate the people; with this difference, that, in that earlier period, the readers and believers of these wonders were more numerous, and of higher rank. I cannot point out the particular prodigies referred to; but I suppose they were of the same description as "The wonderful blazing star; with the dreadful apparition of two armies in the air; the one out of the north, the other out of the south, seen on the 17th December, 1680, betwixt four and five o'clock in the evening, at Ottery, ten miles eastward of Exon;" or as "The strange and dreadful relation of a horrible tempest of thunder and lightning, and of strange apparitions in the air, accompanied with whirlwinds, gusts of hail and rain, which happened the 10th of June, 1680, at a place near Weatherby, in the county of York: with the account how the top of strong oak, containing one load of wood, was taken off by a sheet of fire, wrapped in a whirlwind, and carried through the air, half a mile distant from the place, &c. As, likewise, another strange relation of a monstrous child with two heads, four arms, four legs, and all things thereunto belonging; born at a village, called Ill-Brewers, in the county of Somerset, on the 19th of May last, with several other circumstances and curious observations, to the wonder of all that have beheld it."]
[Footnote 352: The court of Requests was a general rendezvous for the news-mongers, politicians, and busy bodies of the time. North says, "It was observable of Oates, that while he had his liberty, as in King Charles's time and King William's, especially the latter, he never failed to give his attendance in the court of Requests, and in the lobbies, to solicit hard in all points under deliberation that might terminate in the prejudice of the church, crown, or of any gentlemen of the loyal, or church of England party." Swift, in his journal to Stella, makes frequent mention of the Court of Requests as a scene of political bustle and intrigue.]
[Footnote 353: The Popish plot being now in full force and credit, our author here, as in the "Spanish Friar," flatters the universal prejudice entertained against the Catholics.]
PROLOGUE
TO
SOPHONISBA; SPOKEN AT OXFORD,
1680.
_Sophonisba was play of N. Lee, first acted about_ 1676. _It is in the taste of the French stage, and of the romances of Calprenede and Scuderi. Hannibal and Massinissa are introduced in the character of whining love-sick adorers of relentless beauty. This prevailing taste is admirably ridiculed by Boileau, in a dialogue where a scene is laid in the infernal regions. In the prologue spoken at Oxford, which was always famous for Tory principles, our author ventures to ridicule the Popish Plot, and to predict the consequences of the predominance of fanatical principles to the studies cultivated in the University._
Thespis, the first professor of our art, At country wakes, sung ballads from a cart. To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass, _Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis._ But Æschylus, says Horace in some page, Was the first mountebank that trod the stage: Yet Athens never knew your learned sport, Of tossing poets in a tennis-court[354]. But 'tis the talent of our English nation, Still to be plotting some new reformation; And few years hence, if anarchy goes on, Jack Presbyter shall here erect his throne, Knock out a tub with preaching once a day, And every prayer be longer than a play. Then all your heathen wits shall go to pot, For disbelieving of a Popish-plot; Your poets shall be used like infidels, And worst, the author of the Oxford bells;[355] Nor should we 'scape the sentence, to depart, Even in our first original, a cart; No zealous brother there would want a stone, To maul us cardinals, and pelt pope Joan. Religion, learning, wit, would be supprest, Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast; Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin,[356] must go down, As chief supporters of the triple crown; And Aristotle's for destruction ripe; Some say, he called the soul an organ-pipe, Which, by some little help of derivation, Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 354: Apparently, a tennis-court was the place where the temporary stage was erected at Oxford.]
[Footnote 355: Probably some pasquinade against the Whigs, then current in the university.]
[Footnote 356: Noted school divines, whose works (the greater was the pity) were then in high esteem in the university.]
A PROLOGUE.
_This Prologue was obviously spoken in_ 1680-1, _from its frequent reference to the politics of that period: but upon what particular occasion I have not discovered._
If yet there be a few that take delight } In that which reasonable men should write, } To them alone we dedicate this night. } The rest may satisfy their curious itch With city-gazettes, or some factious speech,[357] Or whate'er libel, for the public good, Stirs up the shrove-tide crew to fire and blood. 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.[358] The plays, that take on our corrupted stage, Methinks, resemble the distracted age; Noise, madness, all unreasonable things, That strike at sense, as rebels do at kings. The style of forty-one our poets write, And you are grown to judge like forty-eight.[359] Such censures our mistaking audience make, That 'tis almost grown scandalous to take. They talk of fevers that infect the brains; But nonsense is the new disease that reigns. Weak stomachs, with a long disease opprest, Cannot the cordials of strong wit digest; Therefore thin nourishment of farce ye choose, Decoctions of a barley-water muse. A meal of tragedy would make ye sick, Unless it were a very tender chick. Some scenes in sippets would be worth our time; Those would go down; some love that's poached in rhime: If these should fail---- We must lie down, and, after all our cost, Keep holiday, like watermen in frost; While you turn players on the world's great stage, And act yourselves the farce of your own age.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 357: The City Gazettes were such publications as the Petition of the City, Mayor, and Aldermen, for the sitting of parliament on the 13th January, 1680, which is printed with the city arms prefixed, by a solemn order of the common council, and an appointment by the Lord Mayor, that Samuel Roycroft, printer to the city, do print the same, pursuant to order, and that no other person presume to do so. The "factious speech" was probably that of Shaftesbury, which was burned by the hands of the common hangman.]
[Footnote 358: The Pope-burning, so often mentioned.]
[Footnote 359: The meaning is, that the poets rebel against sense and criticism, like the parliament, in 1641, against the king; and that the audience judge as ill as those, who, in 1648, condemned Charles to the block. The parallel between the political disputes in 1680, and 1681, and those which preceded the great civil war, was fashionable among the Tories. A Whig author, who undertakes "to answer the clamours of the malicious, and to inform the ignorant on this subject," complains, "It hath been all the clamour of late, _forty-one_, _forty-one_ is now coming to be acted over again; we are running in the very same steps, in the same path and road, to undo the nation, and to ruin kingly government, as our predecessors did in _forty_, _and forty-one_. We run the same courses, we take the same measures; _latet anguis in herba_; beware of the Presbyterian serpent, who lurks in the affairs of _eighty_, being the very same complexion, form, and shape, as that of forty and forty one."--_The Disloyal Forty and Forty-one, and the Loyal Eighty, presented to public view._ Folio 1680.]
EPILOGUE
SPOKEN AT
MITHRIDATES, KING OF PONTUS,
THE FIRST PLAY ACTED AT THE THEATRE ROYAL, 1681.
_This Epilogue, which occurs in Luttrell's collection with many marginal corrections, seems to have been spoken by Goodman, who is mentioned with great respect by Cibber in his "Apology." It is now for the first time received into Dryden's poems._
Pox on this playhouse! 'tis an old tired jade, 'Twill do no longer, we must force a trade. What if we all turn witnesses o' th' plot?-- That's overstockt, there's nothing to be got. Shall we take orders?--That will parts require, } And colleges give no degrees for hire; } Would Salamanca were a little nigher! } Will nothing do?--O, now 'tis found, I hope; Have not you seen the dancing of the rope? When André's[360] wit was clean run off the score, And Jacob's capering tricks could do no more, A damsel does to the ladder's top advance, And with two heavy buckets drags a dance; The yawning crowd perk up to see the sight, And slaver'd at the mouth for vast delight. Oh, friend, there's nothing, to enchant the mind, Nothing like that sweet sex to draw mankind: The foundered horse, that switching will not stir, Trots to the mare afore, without a spur. Faith, I'll go scour the scene-room, and engage Some toy within to save the falling stage. [_Exit._
_Re-enters with Mrs_ Cox.
Who have we here again? what nymph's i' th' stocks? Your most obedient slave, sweet madam Cox. You'd best be coy, and blush for a pretence; For shame! say something in your own defence!
_Mrs Cox._ What shall I say? I have been hence so long, I've e'en almost forgot my mother-tongue; If I can act, I wish I were ten fathom Beneath----
_Goodman._ O Lord! pray, no swearing, madam!
_Mrs Cox._ If I had sworn, yet sure, to serve the nation, I could find out some mental reservation. Well, in plain terms, gallants, without a sham, Will you be pleased to take me as I am? Quite out of countenance, with a downcast look, Just like a truant that returns to book: Yet I'm not old; but, if I were, this place Ne'er wanted art to piece a ruined face. When greybeards governed, I forsook the stage; You know 'tis piteous work to act with age. Though there's no sense among these beardless boys, There's what we women love, that's mirth and noise. These young beginners may grow up in time, And the devil's in't, if I am past my prime.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 360: Alluding to St André, the famous dancing master, and Jacob Hall, the performer on the slack rope.]
EPILOGUE
TO A
TRAGEDY CALLED TAMERLANE, 1681.
BY CHARLES SAUNDERS.
_This play was highly applauded at its first representation. Langbaine, following perhaps this epilogue, tells us, that the genius of the author budded as early as that of the incomparable Cowley; and adds, in evidence of farther sympathy, that Saunders was, like him, a king's scholar. The play is said to be taken from a novel called "Tamerlane and Asteria," and was complimented with a copy of commendatory verses by Mr Banks. It does not appear that Saunders wrote any thing else._
Ladies, the beardless author of this day Commends to you the fortune of his play. A woman-wit has often graced the stage, But he's the first boy-poet of our age. Early as is the year his fancies blow, Like young Narcissus peeping through the snow. Thus Cowley[361] blossomed soon, yet flourished long; This is as forward, and may prove as strong. Youth with the fair should always favour find, Or we are damned dissemblers of our kind. What's all this love they put into our parts? 'Tis but the pit-a-pat of two young hearts. Should hag and grey-beard make such tender moan, } Faith, you'd even trust them to themselves alone, } And cry, "Let's go, here's nothing to be done." } Since love's our business, as 'tis your delight, The young, who best can practise, best can write. What though he be not come to his full power? He's mending and improving every hour. You sly she-jockies of the box and pit, Are pleased to find a hot unbroken wit; By management he may in time be made, But there's no hopes of an old battered jade; Faint and unnerved, he runs into a sweat, And always fails you at the second heat.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 361: Cowley published in his sixteenth year, a book called "Poetical Blossoms."]
PROLOGUE
TO THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1681.
_This Prologue appears to have been spoken at Oxford shortly after the dissolution of the famous Parliament held there, March, 1680-1. From the following couplet, it would seem that the players had made an unsuccessful attempt to draw houses during the short sitting of that Parliament:_
We looked what representatives would bring, But they served us just as they did the king.
_At that time a greater stage was opened for the public amusement, and the mimic theatre could excite little interest._
_Dryden seems, though perhaps unconsciously, to have borrowed the two first lines of this Prologue from Drayton:_
The Tuscan poet doth advance The frantic Paladin of France.
_Nymphidia._
The famed Italian muse, whose rhimes advance Orlando, and the Paladins of France, Records, that, when our wit and sense is flown, 'Tis lodged within the circle of the moon, In earthern jars, which one, who thither soared, Set to his nose, snuffed up, and was restored. Whate'er the story be, the moral's true; The wit we lost in town, we find in you. Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence, And fill their windy heads with sober sense When London votes[362] with Southwark's disagree, Here may they find their long lost loyalty. Here busy senates, to the old cause inclined, May snuff the votes their fellows left behind; Your country neighbours, when their grain grows dear, May come, and find their last provision here; Whereas we cannot much lament our loss, Who neither carried back, nor brought one cross. We looked what representatives would bring, But they helped us--just as they did the king. Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth The Sibyl's books to those who know their worth; And though the first was sacrificed before, These volumes doubly will the price restore. Our poet bade us hope this grace to find, To whom by long prescription you are kind. He, whose undaunted Muse, with loyal rage, Has never spared the vices of the age, Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise, Is forced to turn his satire into praise.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 362: The city of London had now declared against petitioning for parliament.]
PROLOGUE
TO THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
_This Prologue must have been spoken at Oxford during the residence of the Duke of York in Scotland, in 1681-2. The humour turns upon a part of the company having attended the Duke to Scotland, where, among other luxuries little known to my countrymen, he introduced, during his residence at Holy Rood House, the amusements of the theatre. I can say little about the actors commemorated in the following verses, excepting, that their stage was erected in the tennis-court of the palace, which was afterwards converted into some sort of manufactory, and finally, burned down many years ago. Besides these deserters, whom Dryden has described very ludicrously, he mentions a sort of strolling company, composed, it would seem, of Irishmen, who had lately acted at Oxford._
Discord, and plots, which have undone our age, With the same ruin have o'erwhelmed the stage. Our house has suffered in the common woe, We have been troubled with Scotch rebels too. Our brethren are from Thames to Tweed departed, } And of our sisters, all the kinder-hearted } To Edinburgh gone, or coached, or carted. } With bonny bluecap there they act all night For Scotch half-crown, in English three-pence hight. One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff's lean, There with her single person fills the scene. Another, with long use and age decayed, Dived here old woman, and rose there a maid. Our trusty door-keepers of former time There strut and swagger in heroic rhime. Tack but a copper-lace to drugget suit, And there's a hero made without dispute; And that, which was a capon's tail before, Becomes a plume for Indian emperor. But all his subjects, to express the care Of imitation go, like Indians, bare; Laced linen there would be a dangerous thing; } It might perhaps a new rebellion bring; } The Scot, who wore it, would be chosen king. } But why should I these renegades describe, When you yourselves have seen a lewder tribe? Teague has been here, and, to this learned pit, With Irish action slandered English wit; You have beheld such barbarous Macs appear, As merited a second massacre;[363] Such as, like Cain, were branded with disgrace, And had their country stamped upon their face. When strollers durst presume to pick your purse, We humbly thought our broken troop not worse. How ill soe'er our action may deserve, Oxford's a place where wit can never starve.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 363: Alluding to the Irish massacre.]
AN
EPILOGUE
FOR
THE KING'S HOUSE
_From the date of the various circumstances referred to, this Epilogue seems to have been spoken in 1681-2._
We act by fits and starts, like drowning men, But just peep up, and then pop down again. Let those who call us wicked change their sense, For never men lived more on Providence. Not lottery cavaliers[364] are half so poor, Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore; Not courts, nor courtiers living on the rents Of the three last ungiving parliaments;[365] So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine, } He might have spared his dream of seven lean kine, } And changed his vision for the muses nine. } The comet, that, they say, portends a dearth, Was but a vapour drawn from playhouse earth; Pent there since our last fire, and, Lilly says,[366] Foreshows our change of state, and thin third-days. 'Tis not our want of wit that keeps us poor; For then the printer's press would suffer more. Their pamphleteers each day their venom spit; They thrive by treason, and we starve by wit. Confess the truth, which of you has not laid Four farthings out to buy the Hatfield Maid?[367] Or, which is duller yet, and more would spite us, Democritus his wars with Heraclitus?[368] Such are the authors, who have run us down, And exercised you critics of the town. Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhimes, Ye abuse yourselves more dully than the times. Scandal, the glory of the English nation, Is worn to rags, and scribbled out of fashion; Such harmless thrusts, as if, like fencers wise, They had agreed their play before their prize. Faith, they may hang their harps upon their willows; 'Tis just like children when they box with pillows. Then put an end to civil wars, for shame! Let each knight-errant, who has wronged a dame, Throw down his pen, and give her, as he can, The satisfaction of a gentleman.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 364: The lottery cavaliers were the loyal indigent officers, to whom the right of keeping lotteries was granted by patent in the reign of Charles II. There are many proclamations in the gazettes of the time against persons encroaching upon this exclusive privilege.]
[Footnote 365: The "three ungiving parliaments" were that convoked in 1679, and dissolved on the 10th July in the same year; that which was held at Westminster 21st October, 1680, and dissolved on the 18th January following; and, finally, the Oxford parliament, assembled 21st March, 1680-1, and dissolved on the 28th of the same month. All these parliaments refused supplies to the crown, until they should obtain security, as they termed it, for the Protestant religion.]
[Footnote 366: The famous astrologer Lilly is here mentioned ironically. In his "Strange and wonderful prophecy, being a relation of many universal accidents that will come to pass in the year 1681, according to the prognostications of the celestial bodies, as well in this our English nation, as in parts beyond the seas, with a sober caution to all, by speedy repentance, to avert the judgments that are impendent," I find "an account of the great stream of light, by some termed a blazing star, which was seen in the south-west on Saturday and Sunday, the 11th and 12th of this instant December, between six and seven in the evening, with several judicial opinions and conjectures on the same." But the comet, mentioned in the text, may be that which is noticed in "A strange and wonderful Trinity, or a Triplicity of Stupendous Prodigies, consisting of a wonderful eclipse, as well as of a wonderful comet, and of a wonderful conjunction, now in its second return; seeing all these three prodigious wonders do jointly portend wonderful events, all meeting together in a strange harmonious triangle, and are all the three royal heralds successively sent from the King of Heaven, to sound succeeding alarms for awakening a slumbering world. _Beware the third time._" 4to. London, 1683. This comet is said to have appeared in October 1682. Various interpretations were put upon these heavenly phenomena, by Gadbury, Lilly, Kirkby, Whalley, and other Philo-maths, who were chiefly guided in their predictions by their political attachments. Some insisted they meant civil war, others foreign conquest; some that they presaged the downfall of the Turk, others that of the Pope and French king; some that they foretold dearth on the land, and others, the fertility of the king's bed, by the birth of a son, to the exclusion of the Duke of York.]
[Footnote 367: This was one of the numerous devices used by the partizans of Monmouth to strengthen his interest: "A relation was published, in the name of one Elizabeth Freeman, afterwards called the Maid of Hatfield, setting forth, That, on the 24th of January, the appearance of a woman all in white, with a white veil over her face, accosted her with these words: 'Sweetheart, the 15th day of May is appointed for the royal blood to be poisoned. Be not afraid, for I am sent to tell thee.' That on the 25th, the same appearance stood before her again, and she having then acquired courage enough to lay it under the usual adjuration, in the name, &c. it assumed a more glorious shape, and said in a harsher tone of voice: 'Tell King Charles from me, and bid him not remove his parliament, and stand to his council:' adding, 'do as I bid you.' That on the 26th it appeared to her a third time, but said only, 'do your message.' And that on the next night, when she saw it for the last time, it said nothing at all.
"Those who depend upon the people for support, must try all manners of practices upon them; and such fooleries as these sometimes operate more forcibly than expedients of a more rational kind. Care was, besides, taken, to have this relation attested by Sir Joseph Jordan, a justice of the peace, and the rector of Hatfield, Dr Lee, who was one of the king's chaplains: Nay, the message was actually sent to his majesty, and the whole forgery very officiously circulated all over the kingdom."--RALPH'S _Review of the Reigns of Charles II. and James II._ Vol. I. p. 562.
The Tories, according to the custom of that time, endeavoured to turn this apparition against those who invented it, and published an ironical account of its appearance to Lady Gray, the supposed mistress of the Duke of Monmouth.--See RALPH, _ibid._ and this Work, Vol. IX. p. 276.]
[Footnote 368: "Heraclitus Ridens" was a paper published weekly, by L'Estrange, on the part of the court, and answered by one called "Democritus" on that of the Whigs.]
PROLOGUE
TO HIS
ROYAL HIGHNESS,
UPON HIS
FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE'S THEATRE AFTER HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND.
SPOKEN BY MR SMITH, 21st APRIL, 1682.
_The Duke's return from Scotland, and the shock which it gave to the schemes of Shaftesbury and the Exclusionists, has been mentioned at length in the Notes to the Second Part of "Absalom and Achitophel,"_ Vol. ix. p. 402. _The passage upon which the note is given, agrees with this Prologue, in representing the secret enemies of the Duke of York as anxiously pressing forwards to greet his return:_
While those that sought his absence to betray, Press first, their nauseous false respects to pay; Him still the officious hypocrites molest, And with malicious duty break his rest.
Vol. ix. p. 344.
_The date of the Prologue, and the name of the speaker, are marked on a copy in Mr Luttrell's collection._
In those cold regions which no summers cheer, Where brooding darkness covers half the year, To hollow caves the shivering natives go, Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of snow. But when the tedious twilight wears away, And stars grow paler at the approach of day, The longing crowds to frozen mountains run, Happy who first can see the glimmering sun; The surly savage offspring disappear, And curse the bright successor of the year. Yet, though rough bears in covert seek defence, } White foxes stay, with seeming innocence; } That crafty kind with day-light can dispense. } Still we are thronged so full with Reynard's race, That loyal subjects scarce can find a place; Thus modest truth is cast behind the crowd, Truth speaks too low, hypocrisy too loud. Let them be first to flatter in success; Duty can stay, but guilt has need to press. Once, when true zeal the sons of God did call, To make their solemn show at heaven's Whitehall, The fawning Devil appeared among the rest, And made as good a courtier as the best. The friends of Job, who railed at him before, Came cap in hand when he had three times more. Yet late repentance may, perhaps, be true; Kings can forgive, if rebels can but sue: A tyrant's power in rigour is exprest; The father yearns in the true prince's breast. We grant, an o'ergrown Whig no grace can mend, But most are babes, that know not they offend; The crowd, to restless motion still inclined, Are clouds, that rack according to the wind. Driven by their chiefs, they storms of hailstones pour, Then mourn, and soften to a silent shower. O welcome to this much-offending land, The prince that brings forgiveness in his hand! Thus angels on glad messages appear, Their first salute commands us not to fear; Thus heaven, that could constrain us to obey, } (With reverence if we might presume to say,) } Seems to relax the rights of sovereign sway; } Permits to man the choice of good and ill, And makes us happy by our own free-will.
PROLOGUE
TO THE EARL OF ESSEX.
BY MR J. BANKS, 1682.
SPOKEN TO THE KING AND THE QUEEN AT THEIR COMING TO THE HOUSE.
When first the ark was landed on the shore, And heaven had vowed to curse the ground no more; When tops of hills the longing patriarch saw, And the new scene of earth began to draw; The dove was sent to view the waves decrease, And first brought back to man the pledge of peace. 'Tis needless to apply, when those appear, Who bring the olive, and who plant it here. We have before our eyes the royal dove, Still innocence is harbinger of love: The ark is opened to dismiss the train, And people with a better race the plain. Tell me, ye powers, why should vain man pursue, } With endless toil, each object that is new, } And for the seeming substance leave the true? } Why should he quit for hopes his certain good, And loath the manna of his daily food? Must England still the scene of changes be, } Tost and tempestuous, like our ambient sea? } Must still our weather and our wills agree? } Without our blood our liberties we have; Who, that is free, would fight to be a slave? Or, what can wars to after-times assure, Of which our present age is not secure? All that our monarch would for us ordain, Is but to enjoy the blessings of his reign. Our land's an Eden, and the main's our fence, While we preserve our state of innocence: That lost, then beasts their brutal force employ, And first their lord, and then themselves destroy. What civil broils have cost, we know too well; Oh! let it be enough that once we fell! And every heart conspire, and every tongue, Still to have such a king, and this king long.
PROLOGUE
TO THE
LOYAL BROTHER, OR THE PERSIAN PRINCE.
The "Loyal Brother, or the Persian Prince," was the first play of Southerne, afterwards so deservedly famous as a tragic poet. It is said to be borrowed from a novel, called, "Tachmas, Prince of Persia." The character of the Loyal Brother is obviously designed as a compliment to the Duke of York, whose adherents and opponents now divided the nation. Southerne was at this time but three-and-twenty. It is said, that, upon offering Dryden five guineas for the following prologue, which had hitherto been the usual compliment made him for such favours, the bard returned the money; and added, "not that I do so out of disrespect to you, young man, but the players have had my goods too cheap. In future, I must have ten guineas." Southerne was the first poet who drew large profit from the author's nights; insomuch, that he is said to have cleared by one play seven hundred pounds; a circumstance that greatly surprised Dryden, who seldom gained by his best pieces more than a seventh part of the sum. From these circumstances, Pope, in his verses to Southerne on his birth-day, distinguishes him as
----Tom, whom heaven sent down to raise The price of prologues and of plays.
The prologue, as might be expected, is very severe upon the Whigs; and alludes to all the popular subjects of dispute between the factions. The refusal of supplies, and the petition against the king's guards, are slightly noticed, but the great pope-burning is particularly dwelt upon; and probably the reader will be pleased with an opportunity of comparing the account in the prologue with that given by Roger North, who seems to have entertained the same fear with Dryden, that the rabble might chuse to cry, God save the king, at Whitehall.
"But, to return to our tumults.--After it was found that there was to be a reinforcement at the next anniversary, which was in 1682, it is not to be thought that the court was asleep, or that the king would not endeavour to put a stop to this brutal outrage. His majesty thought fit to take the ordinary regular course; which was, to send for the lord mayor, &c. and to charge him to prevent riots in the city. So the lord mayor and sheriffs attended the king in council; and there they were told, that dangerous tumults and disorders were designed in the city upon the 17th of November next, at night, on pretence of bonfires; and his majesty expected that they, who were entrusted with the government of the city, for keeping the peace, should, by their authority, prevent all such riotous disorders, which, permitted to go on, was a misdemeanour of their whole body. Then one of them came forward, and, in a whining tone, told the king, that they did not apprehend any danger to his majesty, or the city, from these bonfires; there was an ardour of the people against popery, which they delighted to express in that manner, but meant no harm: And, if they should go about to hinder them, it would be taken as if they favoured popery; and, considering the great numbers, and their zeal, it might make them outrageous, which, let alone, would not be; and perhaps they themselves might not be secure in resisting them, no not in their own houses; and they hoped his majesty would not have them so exposed, so long as they could assure his majesty that care should be taken, that, if they went about any ill thing, they should be prevented: or to this purpose, as I had it from undoubted authority. This was the godly care they had of the public peace, and the repose of the city; by which the king saw plainly what they were, and what was to be expected from them. There wanted not those who suggested the sending regiments into the city; but the king (always witty) said, he did not love to play with his horse. But his majesty ordered that a party of horse should be drawn up, and make a strong guard on the outside of Temple-Bar; and all the other guards were ordered to be in a posture at a minute's warning; and so he took a middle, but secure and inoffensive way; and these guards did not break up till all the rout was over.
"There were not a few in the court who either feared or favoured these doings; it may be both; the former being the cause of the latter. This puts me in mind of a passage told me by one present. It was of the Lord Archbishop of York, Dolben, who was a goodly person, and corpulent; he came to the Lord Chief-Justice North, and, my lord, said he, (clapping his hand upon his great self,) what shall we do with these tumults of the people? They will bear all down before them. My lord, said the Chief Justice, fear God, and don't fear the people. A good hint from a man of law to an archbishop. But when the day of execution was come, all the show-fools of the town had made sure of places; and, towards the evening, there was a great clutter in the street, with taking down glass-windows, and faces began to show themselves thereat; and the hubbub was great, with the shoals of people come there, to take or seek accommodation. And, for the greater amazement of the people, somebody had got up to the statue of Elizabeth, in the nich of Temple-Bar, and set her out like an heathen idol. A bright shield was hung upon her arm, and a spear put in, or leaned upon, the other hand; and lamps, or candles, were put about, on the wall of the nich, to enlighten her person, that the people might have a full view of the deity that, like the goddess Pallas, stood there as the object of the solemn sacrifice about to be made. There seemed to be an inscription upon the shield, but I could not get near enough to discern what it was, nor divers other decorations; but whatever they were, the eyes of the rout were pointed at them, and lusty shouts were raised, which was all the adoration could be paid before the grand procession came up. I could fix in no nearer post than the Green-Dragon Tavern, below in Fleet-Street; but, before I settled in my quarters, I rounded the crowd, to observe, as well as I could, what was doing, and saw much, but afterwards heard more of the hard battles and skirmishes, that were maintained from windows and balconies of several parties with one and the other, and with the floor, as the fancy of Whig and Tory incited. All which were managed with the artillery of squibs, whereof thousands of vollies went off, to the great expence of powder and paper, and profit to the poor manufacturer; for the price of ammunition rose continually, and the whole trade could not supply the consumption of an hour or two.
"When we had posted ourselves at windows, expecting the play to begin, it was very dark, but we could perceive the street to fill, and the hum of the crowd grew louder and louder; and, at length, with help of some lights below, we could discern, not only upwards towards the Bar, where the squib war was maintained, but downwards towards Fleet-Bridge, the whole street was crowded with people, which made that which followed seem very strange; for, about eight at night, we heard a din from below, which came up the street, continually increasing, till we could perceive a motion; and that was a row of stout fellows, that came, shouldered together, cross the street, from wall to wall, on each side. How the people melted away, I cannot tell; but it was plain these fellows made clear board, as if they had swept the street for what was to come after. They went along like a wave; and it was wonderful to see how the crowd made way: I suppose the good people were willing to give obedience to lawful authority. Behind this wave (which, as all the rest, had many lights attending) there was a vacancy, but it filled a-pace, till another like wave came up; and so four or five of these waves passed, one after another; and then we discerned more numerous lights, and throats were opened with hoarse and tremendous noise; and, with that, advanced a pageant, borne along above the heads of the crowd, and upon it sat an huge Pope, in _pontificalibus_, in his chair, with a reasonable attendance for state; but his premier minister, that shared most of his ear, was, Il Signior Diavolo, a nimble little fellow, in a proper dress, that had a strange dexterity in climbing and winding about the chair, from one of the pope's ears to the other.
"The next pageant was of a parcel of Jesuits; and after that (for there was always a decent space between them) came another, with some ordinary persons with halters, as I took it, about their necks; and one with a stenterophonic tube, sounded--Abhorrers! Abhorrers! most infernally; and, lastly, came one, with a single person upon it, which, some said, was the pamphleteer Sir Roger L'Estrange, some the King of France, some the Duke of York; but, certainly, it was a very complaisant civil gentleman, like the former, that was doing what every body pleased to have him, and, taking all in good part, went on his way to the fire; and however some, to gratify their fancy, might debase his character, yet certainly he was a person of high quality, because he came in the place of state, which is last of all. When these were passed, our coast began to clear, but it thickened upwards, and the noise increased; for, as we were afterwards informed, these stately figures were planted in a demilune about an huge fire, that shined upon them; and the balconies of the club were ready to crack with their factious load, till the good people were satiated with the fine show; and then the hieroglyphic monsters were brought condignly to a new light of their own making, being, one after another, added to increase the flames: all which was performed with fitting salvos of the rabble, echoed from the club, which made a proper music to so pompous a sacrifice. Were it not for the late attempts to have renewed these barbarities,[369] it had been more reasonable to have forgot the past, that such a stain might not have remained upon the credit of human kind, whom we would not have thought obnoxious to any such; but, as it is now otherwise, all persons, that mean humanely, ought to discourage them; and one way is, to expose the factious brutality of such unthinking rabble sports, by showing, as near as we can, how really they were acted; the very knowledge of which, one would think, should make them for ever to be abhorred and detested of all rational beings."--NORTH'S _Examen_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 369: Probably alluding to the pope-burning, meditated by the Whigs during the administration of Harley. Swift, in his journal to Stella, mentions the figures intended for the procession having been seized by government.]
PROLOGUE
TO THE
LOYAL BROTHER, OR THE PERSIAN PRINCE.
BY MR SOUTHERNE, 1682.
Poets, like lawful monarchs, ruled the stage, Till critics, like damned Whigs, debauched our age. Mark how they jump! critics would regulate } Our theatres, and Whigs reform our state; } Both pretend love, and both (plague rot them!) hate.} The critic humbly seems advice to bring, The fawning Whig petitions to the king; But one's advice into a satire slides, T'other's petition a remonstrance hides. These will no taxes give, and those no pence; Critics would starve the poet, Whigs the prince. The critic all our troops of friends discards; Just so the Whig would fain pull down the guards. Guards are illegal, that drive foes away, As watchful shepherds, that fright beasts of prey. Kings, who disband such needless aids as these, Are safe--as long as e'er their subjects please; And that would be till next Queen Bess's night, Which thus grave penny chroniclers indite.[370] Sir Edmondbury first, in woful wise, Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes. There's not a butcher's wife but dribs her part, And pities the poor pageant from her heart; Who, to provoke revenge, rides round the fire, And, with a civil congé, does retire: But guiltless blood to ground must never fall; There's Antichrist behind, to pay for all. The punk of Babylon in pomp appears, A lewd old gentleman of seventy years; Whose age in vain our mercy would implore, For few take pity on an old cast whore. The devil, who brought him to the shame, takes part; } Sits cheek by jowl, in black, to cheer his heart, } Like thief and parson in a Tyburn-cart. } The word is given, and with a loud huzza The mitred poppet from his chair they draw: On the slain corpse contending nations fall-- Alas! what's one poor pope among them all! He burns; now all true hearts your triumphs ring; And next, for fashion, cry, "God save the king!" A needful cry in midst of such alarms, When forty thousand men are up in arms. But after he's once saved, to make amends, } In each succeeding health they damn his friends: } So God begins, but still the devil ends. } What if some one, inspired with zeal, should call, Come, let's go cry, "God save him at Whitehall?" His best friends would not like this over-care, Or think him e'er the safer for this prayer. Five praying saints[371] are by an act allowed, But not the whole church-militant in crowd; Yet, should heaven all the true petitions drain } Of Presbyterians, who would kings maintain, } Of forty thousand, five would scarce remain. }
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 370: See a copy of the penny chronicle alluded to, containing a minute account of this celebrated procession, with a cut illustrative of the description, Vol. VI. p. 222.]
[Footnote 371: Only five dissenters were allowed to meet together by the penal statutes.]
EPILOGUE
TO
THE SAME.
A virgin poet was served up to-day, Who, till this hour, ne'er cackled for a play. He's neither yet a Whig nor Tory boy; } But, like a girl, whom several would enjoy, } Begs leave to make the best of his own natural toy. } Were I to play my callow author's game, The King's House would instruct me by the name.[372] There's loyalty to one; I wish no more: A commonwealth sounds like a common whore. Let husband or gallant be what they will, One part of woman is true Tory still. If any factious spirit should rebel, Our sex, with ease, can every rising quell. Then, as you hope we should your failings hide, An honest jury for our play provide. Whigs at their poets never take offence; They save dull culprits, who have murdered sense. Though nonsense is a nauseous heavy mass, The vehicle called Faction makes it pass; Faction in play's the commonwealth-man's bribe; The leaden farthing of the canting tribe: Though void in payment laws and statutes make it, The neighbourhood, that knows the man, will take it.[373] 'Tis faction buys the votes of half the pit; Their's is the pension-parliament[374] of wit. In city-clubs their venom let them vent; For there 'tis safe, in its own element. Here, where their madness can have no pretence, Let them forget themselves an hour of sense. In one poor isle, why should two factions be? } Small difference in your vices I can see: } In drink and drabs both sides too well agree. } Would there were more preferments in the land! If places fell, the party could not stand. Of this damned grievance every Whig complains, They grunt like hogs till they have got their grains. Mean time, you see what trade our plots advance; We send each year good money into France; And they that know what merchandize we need, Send o'er true Protestants[375] to mend our breed.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 372: Where the play was acted.]
[Footnote 373: Alluding to the tokens issued by tradesmen in place of copper money, which, though not a legal tender of payment, continued to be current by the credit of the individual whose name they bore. Tom Brown mentions Alderman Buncombe's leaden halfpence.]
[Footnote 374: The Parliament, which sat from the Restoration till 1678, bore this ignominious epithet among the Whigs.]
[Footnote 375: Alluding to the emigration of the French Huguenots, which the intolerance of Louis XIV. and his ministers began to render general. Many took refuge in England. See Vol. X. p. 264.]
PROLOGUE
TO
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
SPOKEN BY MR HART
AT THE ACTING OF THE SILENT WOMAN.
What Greece, when learning flourished, only knew, Athenian judges, you this day renew. Here, too, are annual rites to Pallas done, And here poetic prizes lost or won. Methinks I see you, crowned with olives, sit, And strike a sacred horror from the pit. A day of doom is this of your decree, } Where even the best are but by mercy free; } A day, which none but Jonson durst have wished to see. } Here they, who long have known the useful stage, Come to be taught themselves to teach the age. As your commissioners our poets go, To cultivate the virtue which you sow; In your Lycæum first themselves refined, And delegated thence to human kind. But as ambassadors, when long from home, For new instructions to their princes come, So poets, who your precepts have forgot, Return, and beg they may be better taught: Follies and faults elsewhere by them are shown, But by your manners they correct their own. The illiterate writer, emp'ric-like, applies To minds diseased, unsafe chance remedies: The learned in schools, where knowledge first began, Studies with care the anatomy of man; Sees virtue, vice, and passions in their cause, And fame from science, not from fortune, draws; So Poetry, which is in Oxford made An art, in London only is a trade. There haughty dunces, whose unlearned pen Could ne'er spell grammar, would be reading men.[376] Such build their poems the Lucretian way; So many huddled atoms make a play; And if they hit in order by some chance, They call that nature, which is ignorance. To such a fame let mere town-wits aspire, And their gay nonsense their own cits admire. Our poet, could he find forgiveness here, Would wish it rather than a plaudit there. He owns no crown from those Prætorian bands,[377] But knows that right is in the senate's hands. Not impudent enough to hope your praise, } Low at the Muses' feet his wreath he lays, } And, where he took it up, resigns his bays. } Kings make their poets whom themselves think fit, But 'tis your suffrage makes authentic wit.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 376: An allusion to Shadwell; who boasted, that he drew his characters from nature, in contempt of regular criticism.]
[Footnote 377: Alluding to the mode in which the emperors were chosen during the decline of the empire, when the soldiers of the Prætorian guards were the electors, without regard to the legal rights of the senate.]
EPILOGUE,
SPOKEN BY THE SAME.
No poor Dutch peasant, winged with all his fear, Flies with more haste, when the French arms draw near, Than we, with our poetic train, come down, For refuge hither, from the infected town: Heaven, for our sins, this summer has thought fit To visit us with all the plagues of wit. A French troop first swept all things in its way; But those hot Monsieurs were too quick to stay: Yet, to our cost, in that short time, we find They left their itch of novelty behind. 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. For love you heard how amorous asses brayed, And cats in gutters gave their serenade. Nature was out of countenance, and each day Some new-born monster shown you for a play. But when all failed, to strike the stage quite dumb, Those wicked engines, called machines, are come. Thunder and lightning now for wit are played, And shortly scenes in Lapland will be laid: Art magic is for poetry profest,[378] And cats and dogs, and each obscener beast, To which Egyptian dotards once did bow, Upon our English stage are worshipped now. Witchcraft reigns there, and raises to renown Macbeth[379] and Simon Magus of the town. Fletcher's despised, your Jonson's out of fashion, And wit the only drug in all the nation. In this low ebb our wares to you are shown, } By you those staple authors' worth is known, } For wit's a manufacture of your own. } When you, who only can, their scenes have praised, We'll back, and boldly say, their price is raised.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 378: This and the following lines refer to the success of Shadwell's comedy of "The Lancashire Witches," in which a great deal of machinery is introduced; the witches flying away with the clown's candles, and the priest's bottle of holy water, and converting a country-fellow into a horse upon the stage. Not content with this, the author has introduced upon the stage all that writers upon Dæmonology have rehearsed of the Witches' Sabbath, or Festival, with their infernal master; and has thus, very clumsily, mixed the horrible with the ludicrous. As for the cats and dogs, we have, in one place,--"Enter an Imp, in the shape of a black Shock;" and, in another,
"Enter Mother Hargrave, Mother Madge, and two Witches more; they mew, and spit, like cats, and fly at them, and scratch them.
_Young Hartford._ What's this? we're set on by cats.
_Sir Timothy._ They're witches in the shape of cats; what shall we do?
_Priest._ Phaat will I do? cat, cat, cat! oh, oh! _Conjuro vobis! fugite, fugite, Cacodæmones_; cats, cats! (They scratch all their faces, till the blood runs about them.)
_Tom Shacklehead._ Have at ye all! (he cuts at them.) I ha' mauled some of them, by the mass! they are fled, but I am plaguily scratched. (The Witches shriek, and run away.)"
Besides the offence which Shadwell gave, in point of taste, by the introduction of these pantomimical absurdities, Dryden was also displeased by the whole tenor of the play, which was directed against the High-Churchmen and Tories.--_See Dedication of the Duke of Guise_, Vol. VII. p. 15.]
[Footnote 379: This has no reference to any recent representation of the tragedy of "Macbeth." Shadwell, from the witchcraft introduced in his play, is ironically termed, "Macbeth and Simon Magus."]
PROLOGUE
TO
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
Though actors cannot much of learning boast, Of all who want it, we admire it most: We love the praises of a learned pit, As we remotely are allied to wit. We speak our poet's wit, and trade in ore, Like those who touch upon the golden shore; Betwixt our judges can distinction make, Discern how much, and why our poems take; Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice; Whether the applause be only sound or voice. When our fop gallants, or our city folly, Clap over loud, it makes us melancholy: We doubt that scene which does their wonder raise, And, for their ignorance, contemn their praise. Judge, then, if we who act, and they who write, Should not be proud of giving you delight. London likes grossly; but this nicer pit Examines, fathoms, all the depths of wit; The ready finger lays on every blot; Knows what should justly please, and what should not. Nature herself lies open to your view; You judge, by her, what draught of her is true, Where outlines false, and colours seem too faint, Where bunglers daub, and where true poets paint. But by the sacred genius of this place, By every muse, by each domestic grace, Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well, And, where you judge, presumes not to excel! Our poets hither for adoption come, As nations sued to be made free of Rome: Not in the suffragating tribes[380] to stand, But in your utmost, last, provincial band. If his ambition may those hopes pursue, Who, with religion, loves your arts and you, Oxford to him a dearer name shall be Than his own mother-university. Thebes[381] did his green, unknowing, youth engage; He chooses Athens in his riper age.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 380: Alluding to the Roman citizens, who had the right of voting, denied to the lower, or provincial orders.]
[Footnote 381: Our author was educated at Cambridge. Whether the sons of Cam relished this avowed preference of Oxford, may be doubted.]
EPILOGUE
TO
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.
BY MR N. LEE, 1684.
_The play, to which this is the prologue, is but a second-rate performance. It is founded on the story of Faustina and Crispus, which the learned will find in Ammianus Marcellinus, and the English reader in Gibbon. Arius, the heretic, is the villain of the piece, which concludes fortunately._
Our hero's happy in the play's conclusion; The holy rogue at last has met confusion: Though Arius all along appeared a saint, The last act showed him a True Protestant.[382] Eusebius,--for you know I read Greek authors,-- Reports, that, after all these plots and slaughters, The court of Constantine was full of glory, And every Trimmer turned addressing Tory. They followed him in herds as they were mad: When Clause _was_ king, then all the world was glad.[383] Whigs kept the places they possest before, And most were in a way of getting more; Which was as much as saying, Gentlemen, Here's power and money to be rogues again. Indeed, there were a sort of peaking tools, Some call them modest, but I call them fools; Men much more loyal, though not half so loud, But these poor devils were cast behind the crowd; For bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, But good men starve for want of impudence. Besides all these, there were a sort of wights, (I think my author calls them Tekelites,) Such hearty rogues against the king and laws, They favoured e'en a foreign rebel's cause, When their own damned design was quashed and awed; At least they gave it their good word abroad. As many a man, who, for a quiet life, Breeds out his bastard, not to noise his wife, Thus, o'er their darling plot these Trimmers cry, } And, though they cannot keep it in their eye, } They bind it 'prentice to Count Tekely.[384] } They believe not the last plot; may I be curst, If I believe they e'er believed the first! No wonder their own plot no plot they think,-- The man, that makes it, never smells the stink. And, now it comes into my head, I'll tell Why these damned Trimmers loved the Turks so well. The original Trimmer,[385] though a friend to no man, Yet in his heart adored a pretty woman; He knew that Mahomet laid up for ever Kind black-eyed rogues for every true believer; And,--which was more than mortal man e'er tasted,-- One pleasure that for threescore twelvemonths lasted. To turn for this, may surely be forgiven; Who'd not be circumcised for such a heaven?
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 382: Alluding to the Whigs, who called themselves so. See Vol. IX. p. 211.]
[Footnote 383: Alluding to the gratulating speech of Orator Higgins to Clause, when elected King of the Beggars:
Who is he here that did not wish thee chosen, Now thou _art_ chosen? Ask them; all will say so, Nay, swear't--'tis for the king,--but let that pass.
_Beggars' Bush_, Act II. Scene I. ]
[Footnote 384: The severity of the Austrian government, in Hungary particularly, towards those who dissented from the Roman Catholic faith, occasioned several insurrections. The most memorable was headed by Count Teckeli, who allied himself with the sultan, assumed the crown of Transylvania, as a vassal of the Porte, and joined, with a considerable force, the large army of Turks which besieged Vienna, and threatened to annihilate the Austrian empire. A similarity of situation and of interest induced the Whig party in England to look with a favourable eye upon this Hungarian insurgent, as may be fully inferred from the following passage in De Foe's "Appeal to Honour and Justice:"
"The first time I had the misfortune to differ with my friends, was about the year 1683, when the Turks were besieging Vienna, and the Whigs in England, generally speaking, were for the Turks taking it; which I, having read the history of the cruelty and perfidious dealings of the Turks in their wars, and how they had rooted out the name of the Christian religion in above threescore and ten kingdoms, could by no means agree with; and, though then but a young man, and a younger author, I opposed it, and wrote against it, which was taken very unkindly indeed."
The incongruity of the opinion combated by De Foe, with the high pretences of religion set up by the Whigs, was the constant subject of ridicule to the Tory wits. In a poem, entitled, "The Third Part of Advice to the Painter," dated by Luttrell 28th May, 1684, we find the following passage:
Paint me that mighty powerful state a shaking, And their great prophet, Teckely, a quaking; Who for religion made such bustling work, That, to reform it, he brought in the Turk. Next, paint our English muftis of the tub, Those great promoters of the Teckelites' club. Draw me them praying for the Turkish cause, And for the overthrow of Christian laws.
Another Tory poet prophecies of the infant son of James II.,--
His conquering arm shall soon subdue Teckelite Turks and home-bred Jew, Such as our great forefathers never knew.
_Pindaric Ode on the Queen's Delivery, by Caleb Calle._
Another ballad, written shortly after the defeat of Monmouth, is entitled, "A Song upon the Rendezvous on Hounsley-heath, with a Parallel of the Destruction of our English Turks in the West, and the Mahometans in Hungary." The expression occurs also in the Address of the Carlisle Citizens on the Declaration of Indulgence, who "thank his majesty for his royal army, which is really both the honour and safety of the nation, let the Teckelites think and say what they will." An indignant Whig commentator on this effusion of loyalty, says, "What the good men of Carlisle mean by Teckelites, we know not any more than they know themselves. However, the word has a pretty effect at a time when the Protestant Hungarians, under Count Teckely, were well beaten by the Popish standing army in Hungary." _History of Addresses_, p. 161.]
[Footnote 385: The _original Trimmer_ was probably meant for Lord Shaftesbury, once a member of the Cabal, and a favourite minister, though afterwards in such violent opposition. His lordship's turn for gallantry was such as distinguished him even at the court of Charles.--See Vol. IX. p. 446. The party of Trimmers, properly so called, only comprehended the followers of Halifax; but our author seems to include all those who, professing to be friends of monarchy, were enemies of the Duke of York, and who were as odious to the court as the fanatical republicans. Much wit, and more virulence, was unchained against them. Among others, I find in Mr Luttrell's Collection, a poem, entitled, "The Character of a Trimmer," beginning thus:
Hang out your cloth, and let the trumpet sound, Here's such a beast as Afric never owned: A twisted brute, the satyr in the story, That blows up the Whig heat, and cools the Tory; A state hermaphrodite, whose doubtful lust Salutes all parties with an equal gust. Like Ireland shocks, he seems two natures joined; Savage before, and all betrimmed behind; And the well-tutored curs like him will strain, Come over for the king, and back again, &c. ]
PROLOGUE
TO THE
DISAPPOINTMENT, OR THE MOTHER IN FASHION.
BY MR SOUTHERNE, 1684.
SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON.
_This play is founded on the novel of the Impertinent Curiosity, in Don Quixote. It possesses no extraordinary merit. The satire of the Prologue, though grossly broad, is very forcibly expressed; and describes what we may readily allow to have been the career of many, who set up for persons of wit and honour about town._
How comes it, gentlemen, that, now a-days, When all of you so shrewdly judge of plays, Our poets tax you still with want of sense? All prologues treat you at your own expence. Sharp citizens a wiser way can go; They make you fools, but never call you so. They in good manners seldom make a slip, But treat a common whore with--ladyship: But here each saucy wit at random writes, And uses ladies as he uses knights. Our author, young and grateful in his nature, Vows, that from him no nymph deserves a satire: Nor will he ever draw--I mean his rhime, Against the sweet partaker of his crime; Nor is he yet so bold an undertaker, To call men fools--'tis railing at their Maker. Besides, he fears to split upon that shelf; He's young enough to be a fop himself: And, if his praise can bring you all a-bed, He swears such hopeful youth no nation ever bred. Your nurses, we presume, in such a case, } Your father chose, because he liked the face, } And often they supplied your mother's place. } The dry nurse was your mother's ancient maid, Who knew some former slip she ne'er betrayed. Betwixt them both, for milk and sugar-candy, Your sucking bottles were well stored with brandy. Your father, to initiate your discourse, } Meant to have taught you first to swear and curse, } But was prevented by each careful nurse. } For, leaving dad and mam, as names too common, They taught you certain parts of man and woman. I pass your schools; for there, when first you came, You would be sure to learn the Latin name. In colleges, you scorned the art of thinking, But learned all moods and figures of good drinking; Thence come to town, you practise play, to know The virtues of the high dice, and the low.[386] Each thinks himself a sharper most profound: He cheats by pence; is cheated by the pound. With these perfections, and what else he gleans, } The spark sets up for love behind our scenes, } Hot in pursuit of princesses and queens. } There, if they know their man, with cunning carriage, Twenty to one but it concludes in marriage. He hires some homely room, love's fruits to gather, And, garret high, rebels against his father: But, he once dead---- Brings her in triumph, with her portion, down-- A toilet, dressing-box, and half-a-crown.[387] Some marry first, and then they fall to scowering, Which is refining marriage into whoring. Our women batten well on their good nature; All they can rap and rend for the dear creature. But while abroad so liberal the dolt is, Poor spouse at home as ragged as a colt is. Last, some there are, who take their first degrees Of lewdness in our middle galleries; The doughty bullies enter bloody drunk, Invade and grubble one another's punk: They caterwaul, and make a dismal rout, Call sons of whores, and strike, but ne'er lug out: Thus, while for paltry punk they roar and stickle, They make it bawdier than a conventicle.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 386: Loaded dice, contrived some for high, and others for low throws.]
[Footnote 387: Our author seems to copy himself in this passage. "His old father, in the country, would have given him but little thanks for it, to see him bring down a fine-bred woman, with a lute and a dressing-box, and a handful of money to her portion."--_The Wild Gallant_, Vol. II. p. 66.]
PROLOGUE
TO
THE KING AND QUEEN,
UPON THE
UNION OF THE TWO COMPANIES, IN 1686.
_The two rival Companies, so long known by the names of the King's and the Duke's players, after exhausting every effort, both of poetry and machinery, to obtain a superiority over each other, were, at length, by the expence of these exertions, and the inconstancy of the public, reduced to the necessity of uniting their forces, in order to maintain their ground. "Taste and fashion," says Colley Cibber, "with us, have always had wings, and fly from one public spectacle to another so wantonly, that I have been informed, by those who remember it, that a famous puppet-show, in Salisbury-change, then standing where Cecil-street now is, so far distressed these two celebrated companies, that they were reduced to petition the king for relief against it. Nor ought we, perhaps, to think this strange, when, if I mistake not, Terence himself reproaches the Roman auditors of his time with the like fondness for the_ funambuli, _the rope-dancers. Not to dwell too long, therefore, upon that part of my history, which I have only collected from oral tradition, I shall content myself with telling you, that Mohun and Hart now growing old, (for above thirty years before this time, they had severally borne the king's commission of major and captain in the civil wars,) and the younger actors, as Goodman, Clark, and others, being impatient to get into their parts, and growing intractable, the audiences too of both houses then falling off, the patentees of each, by the king's advice, (which, perhaps, amounted to a command,) united their interests, and both companies into one, exclusive of all others, in the year_ 1684. _This union was, however, so much in favour of the Duke's company, that Hart left the stage upon it, and Mohun survived not long after."_[388] Apology, p. 58.
_It appears, that the king and queen honoured with their presence the first performance under the union they had recommended. Dryden's prologue abounds with those violent expressions of loyalty with which James loved to be greeted._
Since faction ebbs, and rogues grow out of fashion, Their penny scribes take care t' inform the nation, How well men thrive in this or that plantation:[389]
How Pennsylvania's air agrees with Quakers, And Carolina's with Associators; Both e'en too good for madmen and for traitors.[390]
Truth is, our land with saints is so run o'er, And every age produces such a store, That now there's need of two New Englands more.
What's this, you'll say, to us, and our vocation? Only thus much, that we have left our station, And made this theatre our new plantation.
The factious natives never could agree; But aiming, as they called it, to be free, Those play-house Whigs set up for property.[391]
Some say, they no obedience paid of late; But would new tears and jealousies create, Till topsy-turvy they had turned the state.
Plain sense, without the talent of foretelling, Might guess 'twould end in downright knocks and quelling; For seldom comes there better of rebelling.
When men will, needlessly, their freedom barter For lawless power, sometimes they catch a Tartar;-- There's a damned word that rhimes to this, called Charter.[392]
But, since the victory with us remains, You shall be called to twelve in all our gains, If you'll not think us saucy for our pains.
Old men shall have good old plays to delight them; And you, fair ladies and gallants, that slight them, We'll treat with good new plays, if our new wits can write them.
We'll take no blundering verse, no fustain tumor, No dribbling love, from this or that presumer; No dull fat fool shammed on the stage for humour:[393]
For, faith, some of them such vile stuff have made, As none but fools or fairies ever played; But 'twas, as shopmen say, to force a trade.
We've given you tragedies, all sense defying, And singing men, in woful metre dying; This 'tis when heavy lubbers will be flying.
All these disasters we will hope to weather; We bring you none of our old lumber hither; Whig poets and Whig sheriffs[394] may hang together.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 388: In this last point Colley is, however, mistaken. See p. 328.]
[Footnote 389: The American colonies, from the time of the first troubles in the reign of Charles I., continued to be the place of refuge to all who were discontented with the government of the time, or experienced oppression under it. The settlers did not fail to excite their countrymen to emigration, by exaggerated accounts of the fertility and advantages of their places of refuge, which were circulated by the hawkers.]
[Footnote 390: The settlement of Pennsylvania, under the famous Penn, had just taken place; and the design of a Scottish insurrection, at the time of the Rye-house plot, was carried on by Baillie of Jerviswood, under pretence of being agent for some gentlemen of the south of Scotland, who proposed to leave their country, and make a settlement in Carolina.]
[Footnote 391: This seems to allude to the mutiny of the younger actors against Hart and Mohun, mentioned by Cibber. The performers were also anxious to emancipate themselves from the thraldom of the patentees, which they did not accomplish till after the Revolution. They were emancipated by King William, who considered them, says Cibber, as the only subjects he had not yet relieved from arbitrary power. Dryden seems to allude to some ineffectual struggles made for this purpose, which he compares to those of the Whigs in the latter end of the reign of Charles II.]
[Footnote 392: Alluding to the forfeiture of the city charter, by the process of _Quo Warranto_.]
[Footnote 393: Our author, who writes in all the exultation of triumphant Toryism, does not forget to bestow a passing sarcasm upon his political and personal enemy, Shadwell. In the observations on "Mac-Flecnoe," and elsewhere, we have noticed Shadwell's affectation of treading in the paths of Ben Jonson, by describing what he calls _humours_; a word as great a favourite with the fat bard as with Corporal Nym. The following passage in the dedication of "The Virtuoso," may serve to explain what he means by the phrase:
"I have endeavoured in this play, at humour, wit, and satire, which are the three things (however I may have fallen short in my attempt) which your grace has often told me are the life of a comedy. Four of the humours are entirely new; and, without vanity, I may say I never produced a comedy that had not some natural humour in it, not represented before, nor, I hope, ever shall. Nor do I count those humours which a great many do; that is to say, such as consist in using one or two by-words; or in having a fantastic extravagant dress, as many pretended humours have; nor in the affectation of some French words, which several plays have shown us. I say nothing of impossible, unnatural, farce fools, which some intend for comical; who think it the easiest thing in the world to write a comedy, and yet will sooner grow rich upon their ill plays than write a good one: Nor is downright silly folly a humour, as some take it to be, for it is a mere natural imperfection; and they might as well call it a humour of blindness in a blind man, or lameness in a lame one; or as a celebrated French farce has the humour of one who speaks very fast, and of another who speaks very slow: But natural imperfections are not fit subjects for comedy, since they are not to be laughed at, but pitied. But the artificial folly of those who are not coxcombs by nature, but, with great art and industry, make themselves so, is a proper object of comedy; as I have discoursed at large in the Preface to "The Humourists," written five years since. Those slight circumstantial things, mentioned before, are not enough to make a good comical humour; which ought to be such an affectation as misguides men in knowledge, art, or science; or that causes defection in manners and morality, or perverts their minds in the main actions of their lives: And this kind of humour, I think, I have not improperly described in the Epilogue to "The Humourists."
"But your grace understands humour too well not to know this, and much more than I can say of it. All I have now to do, is, humbly to dedicate this play to your grace, which has succeeded beyond my expectation; and the humours of which have been approved by men of the best sense and learning. Nor do I hear of any professed enemies to the play, but some women, and some men of feminine understandings, who like slight plays only that represent a little tattle-sort of conversation like their own: but true humour is not liked or understood by them; and therefore even my attempt towards it is condemned by them: but the same people, to my great comfort, damn all Mr Jonson's plays, who was incomparably the best dramatic poet that ever was, or, I believe, ever will be; and I had rather be author of one scene in his best comedies, than of any play this age has produced."]
[Footnote 394: This inhuman jest turns on the execution of Henry Cornish, who, with Slingsby Bethel, was sheriff in 1680, and distinguished himself in opposition to the court.--See Note on "Absalom and Achitophel," Part I. vol. ix. p. 280. He was condemned as accessary to the Rye-house plot, and executed accordingly on 23d October, 1685; probably a short time before this prologue was spoken, which might be in January 1686.]
EPILOGUE
ON
THE SAME OCCASION.
New ministers, when first they get in place, Must have a care to please; and that's our case: Some laws for public welfare we design, If you, the power supreme, will please to join. There are a sort of prattlers in the pit, Who either have, or who pretend to wit; These noisy sirs so loud their parts rehearse, That oft the play is silenced by the farce. Let such be dumb, this penalty to shun, Each to be thought my lady's eldest son. But stay; methinks some vizard mask I see, Cast out her lure from the mid gallery: About her all the fluttering sparks are ranged; The noise continues, though the scene is changed: Now growling, sputtering, wauling, such a clutter! 'Tis just like puss defendant in a gutter: Fine love, no doubt; but ere two days are o'er ye, The surgeon will be told a woful story. Let vizard mask her naked face expose, On pain of being thought to want a nose: Then for your lacqueys, and your train beside, By whate'er name or title dignified, They roar so loud, you'd think behind the stairs Tom Dove,[395] and all the brotherhood of bears: They're grown a nuisance, beyond all disasters; We've none so great but--their unpaying masters. We beg you, Sirs, to beg your men, that they Would please to give you leave to hear the play. Next, in the play-house, spare your precious lives; Think, like good Christians, on your bearns and wives: Think on your souls; but, by your lugging forth,[396] It seems you know how little they are worth. If none of these will move the warlike mind, Think on the helpless whore you leave behind. We beg you, last, our scene-room to forbear, And leave our goods and chattels to our care. Alas! our women are but washy toys, And wholly taken up in stage employs: Poor willing tits they are; but yet, I doubt, This double duty soon will wear them out. Then you are watched besides with jealous care; What if my lady's page should find you there? My lady knows t' a tittle what there's in ye; No passing your gilt shilling for a guinea. Thus, gentlemen, we have summed up in short Our grievances, from country, town, and court: Which humbly we submit to your good pleasure; But first vote money, then redress at leisure.[397]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 395: A Bear so called, which was a favourite with the courtly audience of the Bear Garden.]
[Footnote 396: See Note, p. 237.]
[Footnote 397: This was the course which Charles usually recommended to Parliament, who generally followed that which was precisely opposite.]
PROLOGUE
TO
THE PRINCESS OF CLEVES.
BY MR N. LEE, 1689.
_This play is one of the coarsest which ever appeared upon the stage. The author himself seems to be ashamed of it, and gives, for the profligacy of his hero, the Duke of Nemours, the odd reason of a former play on the subject of the Paris massacre having been prohibited, at the request, I believe, of the French ambassador._ See Vol. VII. p. 188.
Ladies! (I hope there's none behind to hear) I long to whisper something in your ear: A secret, which does much my mind perplex,-- There's treason in the play against our sex. A man that's false to love, that vows and cheats, And kisses every living thing he meets; A rogue in mode,--I dare not speak too broad,-- One that--does something to the very bawd. Out on him, traitor, for a filthy beast! Nay, and he's like the pack of all the rest: None of them stick at mark; they all deceive. } Some Jew has changed the text, I half believe; } There Adam cozened our poor grandame Eve. } To hide their faults they rap out oaths, and tear; Now, though we lie, we're too well-bred to swear. So we compound for half the sin we owe, But men are dipt for soul and body too; And, when found out, excuse themselves, pox cant them, With Latin stuff, _Perjuria ridet Amantûm_. I'm not book-learned, to know that word in vogue, But I suspect 'tis Latin for a rogue. I'm sure, I never heard that screech-owl hollowed In my poor ears, but separation followed. How can such perjured villains e'er be saved? Achitophel's not half so false to David.[398] With vows and soft expressions to allure, They stand, like foremen of a shop, demure: No sooner out of sight, but they are gadding, And for the next new face ride out a padding. Yet, by their favour, when they have been kissing, We can perceive the ready money missing. Well! we may rail; but 'tis as good e'en wink; Something we find, and something they will sink. But, since they're at renouncing, 'tis our parts To trump their diamonds, as they trump our hearts.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 398: Alluding to Shaftesbury and Charles II. in his own admirable satire.]
EPILOGUE
TO
THE SAME.
A qualm of conscience brings me back again, To make amends to you bespattered men. We women love like cats, that hide their joys, By growling, squalling, and a hideous noise. I railed at wild young sparks; but, without lying, Never was man worse thought on for high-flying. The prodigal of love gives each her part, And, squandering, shows at least a noble heart. I've heard of men, who, in some lewd lampoon, Have hired a friend to make their valour known. That accusation straight this question brings,-- What is the man that does such naughty things? The spaniel lover, like a sneaking fop, Lies at our feet:--he's scarce worth taking up. 'Tis true, such heroes in a play go far; But chamber-practice is not like the bar. When men such vile, such faint petitions make, We fear to give, because they fear to take; Since modesty's the virtue of our kind, Pray let it be to our own sex confined. When men usurp it from the female nation, 'Tis but a work of supererogation. We shewed a princess in the play, 'tis true, Who gave her Cæsar[399] more than all his due; Told her own faults; but I should much abhor To choose a husband for my confessor. You see what fate followed the saint-like fool, For telling tales from out the nuptial school. Our play a merry comedy had proved, Had she confessed so much to him she loved. True Presbyterian wives the means would try; But damned confessing is flat Popery.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 399: The Princess of Cleves, in the play, confesses to her husband her love for Nemours.]
PROLOGUE
TO
ARVIRAGUS AND PHILICIA.
BY LODOWICK CARLELL, ESQ.
SPOKEN BY MR HART.
_Lodowick Carlell, according to Langbaine, was an ancient courtier, being gentleman of the bows to King Charles I., groom of the king and queen's privy chamber, and servant to the queen-mother many years. His plays, the same author adds, were well esteemed of, and acted chiefly at the private house in Blackfriars. They were seven in number. "Arviragus and Philicia" consisted of two parts, and was first printed in 8vo, 1639. The prologue, which was spoken upon the revival of the piece, turns upon the caprice of the town, in preferring, to the plays of their own poets, the performances of a troop of French comedians, who, it seems, were then acting both tragedies and comedies in their own language._
With sickly actors, and an old house too, We're matched with glorious theatres, and new; And with our alehouse scenes, and clothes bare worn, Can neither raise old plays, nor new adorn. If all these ills could not undo us quite, A brisk French troop is grown your dear delight; Who with broad bloody bills call you each day, To laugh and break your buttons at their play; Or see some serious piece, which, we presume, Is fallen from some incomparable _plume_; "And therefore, Messieurs, if you'll do us grace, Send lacquies early to preserve your place." We dare not on your privilege intrench, Or ask you, why you like them?--they are French. Therefore, some go with courtesy exceeding, Neither to hear nor see, but show their breeding; Each lady striving to outlaugh the rest, To make it seem they understood the jest. Their countrymen come in, and nothing pay, To teach us English were to clap the play: Civil, egad! our hospitable land Bears all the charge for them to understand: Mean time we languish, and neglected lie, Like wives, while you keep better company; And wish for your own sakes, without a satire, You'd less good breeding, or had more good nature.
PROLOGUE
TO
THE PROPHETESS.
BY
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
REVIVED
By DRYDEN.
SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON.
_"The Prophetess" of Beaumont and Fletcher, even in its original state, required a good deal of machinery; for it contains stage directions for thunder-bolts brandished from on high, and for a chariot drawn through mid air by flying dragons; but it was now altered into an opera, with the addition of songs and scenical decorations, by Betterton, in 1690. Our author wrote the following prologue, to introduce it upon the stage in its altered state. The music was by Henry Purcell, and is said to have merited applause. Rich, whose attachment to scenery and decoration is ridiculed by Pope, revived this piece, and piqued himself particularly upon a set of dancing chairs, which he devised for the nonce._
_The prologue gave offence to the court, and was prohibited by the Earl of Dorset, Lord Chamberlain, after the first day's representation. It contains, Cibber remarks, some familiar metaphorical sneers at the Revolution itself; and as the poetry is good, the offence was less pardonable. King William was at this time prosecuting his campaigns in Ireland; and the author not only ridicules the warfare in which he was engaged, and the English volunteers who attended him, but even the government of Queen Mary in his absence._
What Nostradame, with all his art, can guess The fate of our approaching Prophetess? A play, which, like a perspective set right, Presents our vast expences close to sight; But turn the tube, and there we sadly view Our distant gains, and those uncertain too; A sweeping tax, which on ourselves we raise, And all, like you, in hopes of better days. When will our losses warn us to be wise? Our wealth decreases, and our charges rise. Money, the sweet allurer of our hopes, Ebbs out in oceans, and comes in by drops. We raise new objects to provoke delight, But you grow sated ere the second sight. False men, even so you serve your mistresses; They rise three stories in their towering dress; And, after all, you love not long enough To pay the rigging, ere you leave them off. Never content with what you had before, But true to change, and Englishmen all o'er. Now honour calls you hence; and all your care Is to provide the horrid pomp of war. In plume and scarf, jack-boots, and Bilbo blade, Your silver goes, that should support our trade. Go, unkind heroes! leave our stage to mourn, Till rich from vanquished rebels you return; And the fat spoils of Teague in triumph draw, His firkin butter, and his usquebaugh. Go, conquerors of your male and female foes; Men without hearts, and women without hose. Each bring his love a Bogland captive home; Such proper pages will long trains become; With copper collars, and with brawny backs, Quite to put down the fashion of our blacks.[400] Then shall the pious Muses pay their vows, And furnish all their laurels for your brows; Their tuneful voice shall raise for your delights; We want not poets fit to sing your flights. But you, bright beauties, for whose only sake Those doughty knights such dangers undertake, When they with happy gales are gone away, } With your propitious presence grace our play, } And with a sigh their empty seats survey; } Then think,--On that bare bench my servant sat! I see him ogle still, and hear him chat; Selling facetious bargains, and propounding That witty recreation, called dum-founding.[401]-- Their loss with patience we will try to bear, And would do more, to see you often here; That our dead stage, revived by your fair eyes, Under a female regency may rise.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 400: It was the fashion, at this time, to have black boys in attendance, decorated with silver collars. See the following advertisement: "A black boy, about fifteen years of age, named John White, ran away from Colonel Kirke, the 15th inst.; he has a silver collar about his neck, upon which is the Colonel's arms and cipher." Gazette, March 18th, 1685.]
[Footnote 401: _Selling bargains_, a species of wit common, according to Swift, among Queen Anne's maids of honour, consisted in leading some innocent soul to ask a question, which was answered by the bargain-seller's naming his, or her, sitting part, by its broadest appellation. _Dum-founding_ is explained by a stage direction in Bury-fair, where "Sir Humphrey dum-founds the Count with a rap betwixt the shoulders." The humour seems to have consisted in doing this with such dexterity, that the party dum-founded should be unable to discover to whom he was indebted for the favour.]
PROLOGUE
TO
THE MISTAKES.
_This play was brought forward by Joseph Harris, a comedian, as his own, although it is said to have been chiefly written by another person. It was acted in_ 1690.
_Enter_ MR BRIGHT.
Gentlemen, we must beg your pardon; here's no prologue to be had to-day. Our new play is like to come on, without a frontispiece; as bald as one of you young beaux without your periwig. I left our young poet, snivelling and sobbing behind the scenes, and cursing somebody that has deceived him.
_Enter_ MR BOWEN.
Hold your prating to the audience; here's honest Mr Williams just come in, half mellow, from the Rose-Tavern.[402] He swears he is inspired with claret, and will come on, and that extempore too, either with a prologue of his own, or something like one. O here he comes to his trial, at all adventures; for my part, I wish him a good deliverance.
[_Exeunt Mr_ BRIGHT _and Mr_ BOWEN.
_Enter Mr_ WILLIAMS.
Save ye, sirs, save ye! I am in a hopeful way. } I should speak something, in rhyme, now, for the play } But the deuce take me, if I know what to say. } I'll stick to my friend the author, that I can tell ye, To the last drop of claret in my belly. So far I'm sure 'tis rhyme--that needs no granting; And, if my verses' feet stumble--you see my own are wanting. Our young poet has brought a piece of work, } In which though much of art there does not lurk, } It may hold out three days--and that's as long as Cork.[403] } But, for this play--(which till I have done, we show not) What may be its fortune--by the Lord--I know not. This I dare swear, no malice here is writ; 'Tis innocent of all things----even of wit. He's no high-flyer----he makes no sky-rockets, His squibs are only levelled at your pockets; And if his crackers light among your pelf, You are blown up; if not, then he's blown up himself. By this time, I'm something recovered of my flustered madness; And now, a word or two in sober sadness. Ours is a common play; and you pay down A common harlot's price--just half a crown. You'll say, I play the pimp, on my friend's score; } But since 'tis for a friend your gibes give o'er, } For many a mother has done that before. } How's this? you cry: an actor write?--we know it; But Shakespeare was an actor, and a poet. Has not great Jonson's learning often failed? But Shakespeare's greater genius still prevailed. Have not some writing actors, in this age, Deserved and found success upon the stage? To tell the truth, when our old wits are tired, Not one of us but means to be inspired. Let your kind presence grace our homely cheer; } Peace and the butt[404] is all our business here; } So much for that--and the devil take small beer. }
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 402: This was quite in character. Cibber says of Williams, that his industry was not equal to his capacity, for he loved his bottle better than his business. _Apology_, p. 115.]
[Footnote 403: The taking of Cork was one of the first exploits of the renowned Marlborough. The besieging army was disembarked on the 23d September, 1690, and the garrison, amounting to four thousand men, surrendered on the 28th of the same month.]
[Footnote 404: A phrase in the "Tempest" as altered by Dryden, which seems to have become proverbial.]
EPILOGUE
TO
HENRY II.
BY JOHN BANCROFT,
AND PUBLISHED BY MR MOUNTFORT, 1693.
SPOKEN BY MRS BRACEGIRDLE.
_This play is founded on the amours of Henry II. and the death of fair Rosamond. John Bancroft, the author, was a surgeon, and wrote another play called "Sertorius." He gave both the reputation and the profits of "Henry II." to Mountfort, the comedian; and probably made him no great compliment in the former particular, though, as the piece was well received, the latter might be of some consequence. Mountfort was an actor of great eminence. Cibber says, that he was the most affecting lover within his memory._
Thus you the sad catastrophe have seen, Occasioned by a mistress and a queen. Queen Eleanor the proud was French, they say; But English manufacture got the day. Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver; Fair Rosamond was but her _nom de guerre_. Now tell me, gallants, would you lead your life With such a mistress, or with such a wife? If one must be your choice, which d'ye approve, The curtain lecture, or the curtain love? Would ye be godly with perpetual strife, Still drudging on with homely Joan, your wife Or take your pleasure in a wicked way, Like honest whoring Harry in the play? I guess your minds; the mistress would be taken, And nauseous matrimony sent a packing. The devil's in you all; mankind's a rogue; You love the bride, but you detest the clog. After a year, poor spouse is left i'the lurch, And you, like Haynes,[405] return to mother-church. Or, if the name of Church comes cross your mind, Chapels-of-ease behind our scenes you find. The playhouse is a kind of market-place; One chaffers for a voice, another for a face; Nay, some of you,--I dare not say how many,-- Would buy of me a pen'worth for your penny. E'en this poor face, which with my fan I hide,} Would make a shift my portion to provide, } With some small perquisites I have beside. } Though for your love, perhaps, I should not care, I could not hate a man that bids me fair. What might ensue, 'tis hard for me to tell; } But I was drenched to-day for loving well, } And fear the poison that would make me swell.}
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 405: The facetious Joe Haynes became a Catholic in the latter part of James the Second's reign. But after the Revolution, he read his recantation of the errors of Rome in a penitentiary prologue, which he delivered in a suit of mourning.]
A
PROLOGUE.
Gallants, a bashful poet bids me say, He's come to lose his maidenhead to-day. Be not too fierce; for he's but green of age, And ne'er, till now, debauched upon the stage. He wants the suffering part of resolution, And comes with blushes to his execution. Ere you deflower his Muse, he hopes the pit Will make some settlement upon his wit. Promise him well, before the play begin; For he would fain be cozened into sin. 'Tis not but that he knows you mean to fail; } But, if you leave him after being frail, } He'll have, at least, a fair pretence to rail; } To call you base, and swear you used him ill, And put you in the new Deserters' bill. Lord, what a troop of perjured men we see; Enow to fill another Mercury! But this the ladies may with patience brook; Theirs are not the first colours you forsook. He would be loth the beauties to offend; But, if he should, he's not too old to mend. He's a young plant, in his first year of bearing; But his friend swears, he will be worth the rearing. His gloss is still upon him; though 'tis true He's yet unripe, yet take him for the blue. You think an apricot half green is best; There's sweet and sour, and one side good at least. Mangos and limes, whose nourishment is little, Though not for food, are yet preserved for pickle. So this green writer may pretend, at least, To whet your stomachs for a better feast. He makes this difference in the sexes too; He sells to men, he gives himself to you. To both he would contribute some delight; A meer poetical hermaphrodite. Thus he's equipped, both to be wooed, and woo; } With arms offensive, and defensive too; } 'Tis hard, he thinks, if neither part will do. }
PROLOGUE
TO
ALBUMAZAR.
_The old Play, to which this prologue was prefixed upon its revival, was originally acted in_ 1634, _three or four years after the appearance of Jonson's_ "_Alchemist;_" _to which, therefore, it could not possibly afford any hint. Dryden, observing the resemblance between the plays, took the plagiarism for granted, because the style of "Albumazar" is certainly the most antiquated. This appearance of antiquity is, however, only a consequence of the vein of pedantry which runs through the whole piece. It was written by ---- Tomkins, a scholar of Trinity College, and acted before King James VI. by the gentlemen of that house, 9th March_, 1614. _It is, upon the whole, a very excellent play; yet the author, whether consulting his own taste, or that of our British Solomon, before whom it was to be represented, has contrived to give it an air of such learned stiffness, that it much more resembles the translation of a play from Terence or Plautus, than an original English composition. By this pedantic affectation, the humour of the play is completely smothered; and although there are several very excellent comic situations in the action_, _yet neither the attempt to revive it in Dryden's time_, _nor those which followed in_ 1748 _and_ 1773, _met with any success_.
_As Dryden had imputed, very rashly, however, and groundlessly, the guilt of plagiarism to Jonson, he made this supposed crime the introduction to a similar slur on Shadwell, who at that time seems to have been possessed of the laurel; a circumstance which ascertains the date of the prologue to be posterior to the Revolution._
To say this comedy pleased long ago, Is not enough to make it pass you now. Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit, When few men censured, and when fewer writ. And Jonson, of those few the best, chose this, As the best model of his master-piece: Subtle was got by our Albumazar, That Alchymist by this Astrologer; Here he was fashioned, and we may suppose, He liked the fashion well, who wore the clothes. But Ben made nobly his what he did mould; What was another's lead, becomes his gold: Like an unrighteous conqueror he reigns, Yet rules that well, which he unjustly gains. But this our age such authors does afford, As make whole plays, and yet scarce write one word; Who, in this anarchy of wit, rob all, And what's their plunder, their possession call; Who, like bold padders, scorn by night to prey, But rob by sun-shine, in the face of day: Nay, scarce the common ceremony use Of, "Stand, Sir, and deliver up your Muse;" But knock the poet down, and, with a grace, Mount Pegasus before the owner's face. Faith, if you have such country Toms abroad,[406] 'Tis time for all true men to leave that road. Yet it were modest, could it but be said, They strip the living, but these rob the dead; Dare with the mummies of the Muses play, And make love to them the Egyptian way; Or, as a rhiming author would have said, Join the dead living to the living dead. Such men in poetry may claim some part, They have the license, though they want the art; And might, where theft was praised, for laureats stand;[407] Poets, not of the head, but of the hand. They make the benefits of others studying, Much like the meals of politic Jack-Pudding, Whose dish to challenge no man has the courage; 'Tis all his own, when once he has spit i'the porridge. But, gentlemen, you're all concerned in this; You are in fault for what they do amiss; For they their thefts still undiscovered think, And durst not steal, unless you please to wink. Perhaps, you may award by your decree, They should refund,--but that can never be; For, should you letters of reprisal seal, These men write that which no man else would steal.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 406: This seems to have been a cant name for highwaymen. Shadwell's christian name was Thomas.]
[Footnote 407: Shadwell succeeded to our author's post of laureat, after the Revolution. I am not able to discover, if Shadwell had given any very recent cause for this charge of plagiarism. In the "Libertine," "The Miser," "Bury-fair," and "The Sullen Lovers," he has borrowed, or rather translated, from Moliere. The "Squire of Alsatia" contains some imitations of Terence's "Adelphi." "Psyche" is taken from the French, and "Timon of Athens" from Shakespeare, although Shadwell has the assurance to claim the merit of having made it into a play. He was also under obligations to his contemporaries. The "Royal Shepherdess" was originally written by one Mr Fountain of Devonshire. Dryden, in "Mac-Flecnoe," intimates, that Sedley "larded with wit" his play of "Epsom Wells;" and in the Dedication to the "True Widow," Shadwell himself acknowledges obligations to that gentleman's revision of some of his pieces. Langbaine, who hated Dryden, and professed an esteem for Shadwell, expresses himself thus, on the latter's claim to originality:
"But I am willing to say the less of Mr Shadwell, because I have publicly professed a friendship for him; and though it be not of so long date as some former intimacy with others, so neither is it blemished with some unhandsome dealings I have met with from persons where I least expected it. I shall therefore speak of him with the impartiality that becomes a critic, and own I like his comedies better than Mr Dryden's, as having more variety of characters, and those drawn from the life; I mean men's converse and manners, and not from other men's ideas, copied out of their public writings: though indeed I cannot wholly acquit our present laureat from borrowing; his plagiaries being in some places too bold and open to be disguised, of which I shall take notice, as I go along; though with this remark, that several of them are observed to my hand, and in great measure excused by himself, in the public acknowledgment he makes in his several prefaces, to the persons to whom he was obliged for what he borrowed."
Shadwell in the following lines, which occur in the prologue to the "Scowerers," seems to retort on Dryden the accusation here brought against him:
You have been kind to many of his plays, And should not leave him in his latter days. Though loyal writers of the last two reigns,} Who tired their pens for Popery and chains, } Grumble at the reward of all his pains; } They would, like some, the benefit enjoy Of what they vilely laboured to destroy. They cry him down as for his place unfit, } Since they have all the humour and the wit; } They must write better e'er he fears them yet.} 'Till they have shewn you more variety } Of natural, unstolen comedy than he, } By you at least he should protected be.} 'Till then, may he that mark of bounty have,} Which his renowned and royal master gave, } Who loves a subject, and contemns a slave; } Whom heaven, in spite of hellish plots, designed To humble tyrants, and exalt mankind. ]
AN
EPILOGUE.
You saw our wife was chaste, yet throughly tried, And, without doubt, you are hugely edified; For, like our hero, whom we showed to-day, You think no woman true, but in a play. Love once did make a pretty kind of show; } Esteem and kindness in one breast would grow;} But 'twas heaven knows how many years ago. } Now some small chat, and guinea expectation, Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation. In comedy your little selves you meet; 'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges-street. Smile on our author then, if he has shown A jolly nut-brown bastard of your own. Ah! happy you, with ease and with delight, Who act those follies, poets toil to write! The sweating Muse does almost leave the chace; She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean vices pace. Pinch you but in one vice, away you fly To some new frisk of contrariety. You roll like snow-balls, gathering as you run, And get seven devils, when dispossessed of one. Your Venus once was a Platonic queen, Nothing of love beside the face was seen; But every inch of her you now uncase, And clap a vizard-mask upon the face; For sins like these, the zealous of the land, With little hair, and little or no band, Declare how circulating pestilences Watch, every twenty years, to snap offences. Saturn, e'en now, takes doctoral degrees;[408] He'll do your work this summer without fees. Let all the boxes, Phœbus, find thy grace, And, ah, preserve the eighteen-penny place![409] But for the pit confounders, let them go, And find as little mercy as they show! The actors thus, and thus thy poets pray; For every critic saved, thou damn'st a play.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 408: Perhaps our author had in view the three oppositions of Saturn and Jupiter in June and December 1692, and in April 1693, which are thus feelingly descanted upon by John Silvester: "It hath been long observed, that the most remarkable mutations of a kingdom, or nation, have chiefly depended on the conjunctions or aspects of those two superior planets, Saturn and Jupiter; and by their effects past, we perceive that the most wise Creator first placed them higher than all the other planets, that they should respect, chiefly, the highest and most durable affairs and concerns of men on earth.
"And if one opposition of Saturn and Jupiter produceth much, how then can those three oppositions to come do any less than cause some remarkable changes and alterations of laws, or religious orders, in England's chief and most renowned city? because Saturn then will be stronger than Jupiter, who also, at his second opposition, will be near unto the body of Mars, (the planet of war;) and having took possession of religious Jupiter, should contend with him, (with a frowning lofty countenance,) in London's ascendant, from whence I fear some religious disturbances, if not some warlike violence, by insurrections, or otherwise, occasioned by some frowning dissatisfied minds, which will then happen in some part of Britain, or take its beginning there to the purpose in those years.
"Ah poor Jupiter in Gemini! (London,) I fear thou wilt then be so much humbled against thy will, that thou wilt think thou hast a sufficient occasion to bewail thy condition; and if so, God will suffer this, that thou mayest humbly endeavour to forsake thy accustomed sins, and that thou mayest know power is not in thee to help thyself. But yet I think thou wilt then have no need to fear that God hath wholly forsaken thee; for look but a little back unto the years 1682 and 1683, where Jupiter was three times in conjunction with Saturn, in a sign of his own triplicity, and consider, was not he then stronger than Saturn, and hast not thou been victorious ever since, throughout all those great changes and alterations? And when thou hast thus considered, perhaps thou wilt believe, that that which begins well will end well; and indeed perhaps it may so happen; but be not too proud of this, a word is enough to the wise."--_Astrological Observations and Predictions for the year of our Lord 1691, by John Silvester._ London, 1690, 4to.]
[Footnote 409: The Gallery.]
EPILOGUE
TO THE
HUSBAND HIS OWN CUCKOLD.
_This play was written by John Dryden, Junior, son to our poet. See the preface among our author's prose works. It was dedicated to Sir Robert Howard, and acted in_ 1696.
Like some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit, So trembles a young poet at a full pit. Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear, And wonders how the devil he durst come there; Wanting three talents needful for the place, Some beard, some learning, and some little grace. Nor is the puny poet void of care; } For authors, such as our new authors are, } Have not much learning, nor much wit to spare; } And as for grace, to tell the truth, there's scarce one, But has as little as the very parson: Both say, they preach and write for your instruction; But 'tis for a third day, and for induction. The difference is, that though you like the play, The poet's gain is ne'er beyond his day; But with the parson 'tis another case, He, without holiness, may rise to grace; The poet has one disadvantage more, } That if his play be dull, he's damn'd all o'er, } Not only a damn'd blockhead, but damn'd poor. } But dulness well becomes the sable garment; I warrant that ne'er spoiled a priest's preferment; Wit's not his business, and as wit now goes, } Sirs, 'tis not so much yours as you suppose, } For you like nothing now but nauseous beaux. } You laugh not, gallants, as by proof appears, } At what his beauship says, but what he wears; } So 'tis your eyes are tickled, not your ears. } The tailor and the furrier find the stuff, The wit lies in the dress, and monstrous muff. The truth on't is, the payment of the pit Is like for like, clipt money for clipt wit. You cannot from our absent author[410] hope, He should equip the stage with such a fop. Fools change in England, and new fools arise; } For, though the immortal species never dies, } Yet every year new maggots make new flies. } But where he lives abroad, he scarce can find One fool, for million that he left behind.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 410: Young Dryden was then in Rome with his brother Charles, who was gentleman-usher to the Pope.]
MAC-FLECNOE,
A SATIRE
AGAINST
THOMAS SHADWELL.
MAC-FLECNOE.
The enmity between Dryden and Shadwell at first probably only sprung from some of those temporary causes of disgust, which must frequently divide persons whose lives are spent in a competition for public applause. That they were occasionally upon tolerable terms is certain, for Dryden has told us so; and Shadwell, in 1676, when expressing his dissent from one of our author's rules of theatrical criticism, industriously and anxiously qualifies his opinion, with the highest compliments to our author's genius.[411] They had formerly even joined forces, and called in the aid of another wit, to overwhelm the reputation of no less a person than Elkanah Settle.[412] But, between the politics of the stage and of the nation, the friendship of these bards, which probably never had a very solid foundation, was at length totally overthrown. It is not very easy to discover who struck the first blow; but it may be suspected, that Dryden was displeased to see Shadwell not only dispute his canons of criticism in print, but seem to establish himself as an imitator of the old school of dramatic composition, and particularly of Jonson, on whom Dryden had thrown some censure in his epilogue to "The Conquest of Grenada," and in the Defence of these verses. It seems certain, that the feud had broke out in 1675-6; for Shadwell has not only made some invidious allusions to the success of "Aureng-Zebe," which was represented that season, but has plainly intimated, that he needed only a pension to enable him to write as well as Dryden himself.[413] This assault, however, seems to have been forgiven; for Dryden obliged Shadwell with an epilogue to the "True Widow," acted in 1678. But their precarious reconcilement did not long subsist, when political animosity was added to literary rivalry. Shadwell not only wrote the "Lancashire Witches," in ridicule of the Tory party, but entered into a personal contest with our author on the subject of "The Medal," which he answered by a clumsy, though venomous, retort, called "The Medal of John Bayes." In the preface he asserts, that no one can think Dryden "hardly dealt with, since he knows, and so do all his old acquaintance, that there is not one untrue word spoke of him." Neither was this a single offence; for Dryden, in his "Vindication of the Duke of Guise," says, that Shadwell has repeatedly called him Atheist in print. These reiterated insults at length drew down the vengeance of our poet, who seems to have singled Shadwell from the herd of those who had libelled him, to be gibbetted in rhyme while the English language shall last. Neither was Dryden satisfied with a single attack upon this obnoxious bard; but, having divided his poetical character from that which he held as a political writer, he discussed the first in the satire which follows, and the last, with equal severity, in the Second Part of "Absalom and Achitophel." These two admirable pieces of satire appeared within less than a month of each other; and leave it a matter of doubt, whether the bitter ridicule of the anointed Prince of Dulness, or the sarcastic description of Og, the seditious poetaster, be most cruelly severe.
"Mac-Flecnoe" must be allowed to be one of the keenest satires in the English language. It is what Dryden has elsewhere termed a Varronian satire;[414] that is, as he seems to use the phrase, one in which the author is not contented with general sarcasm upon the object of attack, but where he has woven his piece into a sort of imaginary story, or scene, in which he introduces the person, whom he ridicules, as a principal actor. The position in which Dryden has placed Shadwell is the most mortifying to literary vanity which can possibly be imagined, and is hardly excelled by the device of Pope in the "Dunciad," who has obviously followed the steps of his predecessor. Flecnoe, who seems to have been universally acknowledged as the very lowest of all poetasters, and whose name had passed into a proverb for doggrel verse and stupid prose, is represented as devolving upon Shadwell that pre-eminence over the realms of Dulness, which he had himself possessed without a rival. The spot chosen for this devolution of empire is the Barbican, an obscure suburb, in which it would seem that there were temporary theatrical representations of the lowest order, among other receptacles of vulgar dissipation, for the amusement of the very lowest of the vulgar. Here the ceremony of Shadwell's coronation is supposed to be performed with an inaugural oration by Flecnoe, his predecessor, in which all his pretensions to wit and to literary fame are sarcastically enumerated and confuted, by a counter-statement of his claims to distinction by pre-eminent and unrivalled stupidity. In this satire, the shafts of the poet are directed with an aim acutely malignant. The inference drawn concerning Shadwell's talents is general and absolute; but in the proof, Dryden appeals with triumph to those parts only of his literary character which are obviously vulnerable. He reckons up among his titles to the throne of Flecnoe, his desperate and unsuccessful attempts at lyrical composition, in the opera of "Psyche;" the clumsy and coarse limning of those whom he designed to figure as fine gentlemen in his comedies; the false and florid taste of his dedications; his presumptuous imitation of Jonson in composition, and his absurd resemblance to him in person. But the satirist industriously keeps out of view those points, in which perhaps he internally felt some inferiority to the object of his wrath. He mentions nothing that could recal to the reader's recollection that insight into human life, that acquaintance with the foibles and absurdities displayed in individual pursuits, that bold though coarse delineation of character, which gave fame to Shadwell's comedies in the last century, and renders them amusing even at the present day. This discrimination is an excellent proof of the exquisite address with which Dryden wielded the satirical weapon, and managed the feelings of his readers. We never find him attempting a desperate or impossible task; at least in a way which seems, in the moment of perusal, desperate or impossible. He never wastes his powder against the impregnable part of a fortress, but directs all his battery against some weaker spot, where a breach may be rendered practicable. In short, by convincing his reader that he is right in the examples which he quotes, he puts the question at issue upon the ground most disadvantageous for his antagonist, and renders it very difficult for one who has been proved a dunce in one instance to establish his credit in any other.
I have had so frequently to call the attention of my reader to the sonorous and emphatic effect of Dryden's versification, that it is almost ridiculous to repeat epithets which apply to every poem which succeeded his _Annus Mirabilis_; yet I cannot but remark, that the mock heroic may be said to have owed its rise to our author, and that there is hardly any poem, before "Mac-Flecnoe," in which it has been employed with all its qualities of grave and pompous irony, expressed in solemn and sounding verse.
It is no inconsiderable part of the merit of "Mac-Flecnoe," that it led the way to the "Dunciad:" yet, while we acknowledge the more copious and variegated flow of Pope's satire, we must not forget, that, independent of the merit of originality, always inestimable, Dryden's poem claims that of a close and more compact fable, of a single and undisturbed aim. Pope's ridicule and sarcasm is scattered so wide, and among such a number of authors, that it resembles small shot discharged at random among a crowd; while that of Dryden, like a single well-directed bullet, prostrates the individual object against whom it was directed. Besides, the reader is apt to sympathise with the degree of the satirist's provocation, which, in Dryden's case, cannot be disputed; whereas Pope sometimes confounds those, from whom he had received gross incivility, with others who had given him no offence, and with some whose characters were above his accusation. To posterity, the "Mac-Flecnoe" possesses a decided superiority over the "Dunciad," for a very few facts make us master of the argument; while that of the latter poem, excepting the Sixth Book, where the satire is more general, requires a note at every tenth line to render it even intelligible.
Mr Malone has given us the title of the first edition of "Mac-Flecnoe," which the present Editor has never seen, as indeed it is of the last degree of rarity. It was published not by Tonson, but by D. Green, and entitled, "Mac-Flecnoe, or a Satire on the True-blue[415] Protestant Poet, T. S.; by the Author of Absalom and Achitophel." It consisted only of one sheet and a half, and was sold for twopence. The satire was too personal, and too poignant, to fail in attracting immediate attention, and accordingly the poem was quickly sold off. It was not republished until it appeared in Tonson's first Miscellany, in 1684, with a few slight alterations, intended either to point particular verses, or to correct errors of the press, or pen. It must have been generally known, that Dryden was the author of this satire, both because it is stated in the title-page to be by the author of "Absalom and Achitophel," and because there existed no contemporary poet to whom so masterly a production could have been ascribed, even with remote probability; yet Shadwell, in his dedication of the tenth satire of Juvenal, (a most miserable performance,) says, that Dryden, when he taxed him with being the author, "denied it with all the execrations he could think of;" an accusation which was echoed by Brown, though apparently upon the authority of Shadwell alone.[416] From this averment, which is probably made far too broadly, we can only infer, that Dryden, like Swift in the same predicament, left his adversary to prove what he had no title to call upon him to confess; for that he seriously meant to disavow a performance, of which he had from the very beginning sufficiently avouched himself the author, can hardly be supposed for a moment. It has indeed been noticed, that our author has omitted this poem, as well as the "Eulogy on Cromwell," in a list of his plays and poems subjoined to one of his plays; but Dryden might not think fit to admit a personal, and what he probably considered as a fugitive satire, into a formal list of his poetry. We know he entertained a conscious sense of his dignity in this respect; for, excepting in a slight and passing sarcasm, he never deigned to answer any of his literary adversaries, excepting Settle and Shadwell; and he might possibly think, on reflection, that he had done the latter too much honour in making him the subject of a separate and laboured poem. Mr Malone also conceives, that he might be with-held from inserting this poem in an authoritative list of his works, by delicacy towards Dorset, his recent benefactor, who had thought Shadwell worthy of the laurel of which our poet had been divested at the Revolution. Be it as it may, he was afterwards so far from disowning the poem, that, in the Essay on Satire, he gives it, with "Absalom and Achitophel," as instances of his own attempts at the Varronian satire.
The purpose and scope of "Mac-Flecnoe" was strangely misconstrued by the object of it, and by our poet's editors. Shadwell took it into his head, that Dryden meant seriously to tax him with being an Irishman; a charge which he seems more anxious to refute than seems necessary. Cibber, or whoever wrote Dryden's Life in the collection bearing his name, supposes, that Flecnoe, who died in 1678, had actually succeeded our author in the office of poet-laureat. Derrick, though he corrects this error, has fallen into another, in which he is followed by Dr Johnson, who considers "Mac-Flecnoe" as written in express ridicule of Shadwell's inauguration as court poet. The scarcity of the first edition of "Mac-Flecnoe" might have been some excuse for these errors, had not the piece been printed in the first Miscellany, in 1684, four years before Dryden's being deposed, and Shadwell succeeding him. Certainly the two events tallied strangely; and the friends of Shadwell might have considered the substantial office which he gained by the downfall of Dryden, as a just compensation for the ludicrous and mock dignity with which his foe had invested him.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 411: See the whole passage, Vol. VII. p. 141. note.]
[Footnote 412: See the Remarks on the Empress of Morocco, written in conjunction by Dryden, Crown, and Shadwell. They were printed in 1674.]
[Footnote 413: These circumstances of offence occur in the prologue, epilogue, and preface to the "Virtuoso," which must have been acted in the same season with "Aureng-Zebe," as the dedication is dated 26th June, 1676. The prologue commences with an irreverend allusion to that play, and to our author's theatrical engagements:
You came with such an eager appetite To a late play, which gave so great delight, Our poet fears, that by so rich a treat Your palates are become too delicate. Yet since you've had rhyme for a relishing bit, To give a better taste to comic wit; But this requires expence of time and pains, Too great, alas! for poets' slender gains. For wit, like china, should long buried lie, Before it ripens to good comedy; A thing we ne'er have seen since Jonson's days, And but a few of his were perfect plays. Now drudges of the stage must oft appear, They must be bound to scribble twice a year.
That these insinuations might not be mistaken, Shadwell, in the epilogue, severely attacks rhyming tragedies in general; the object of which diatribe, considering the late success of "Aureng-Zebe," could not possibly be misinterpreted:
But of those ladies he despairs to-day, Who love a dull romantic whining play; Where poor frail woman's made a deity, } With senseless amorous idolatry, } And snivelling heroes sigh, and pine, and cry.} Though singly they beat armies, and huff kings, Rant at the gods, and do impossible things; Though they can laugh at danger, blood, and wounds, Yet if the dame once chides, the milk-sop hero swoons. These doughty things nor manners have nor wit; We ne'er saw hero fit to drink with yet.
The passage in the Dedication, in which he insinuates that the provision of a pension was all he wanted, to place him on a level with the proudest of his rivals, is as follows: "That there are a great many faults in the conduct of this play, I am not ignorant; but I (having no pension but from the theatre, which is either unwilling, or unable, to reward a man sufficiently for so much pains as correct comedies require) cannot allot my whole time to the writing of plays, but am forced to mind some other business of advantage. Had I as much money, and as much time for it, I might perhaps write as correct a comedy as any of my contemporaries."]
[Footnote 414: See Essay on Satire, Vol. XIII. p. 65.]
[Footnote 415: This epithet preceded the nickname of Whig. See Vol. IX. p. 211.]
[Footnote 416: "I make bold to use his own expression in "Mac-Flecnoe," if it is _his_, I say, for Mr Shadwell, in the preface before his Translation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, has been lately pleased to acquaint the world, that he publicly disowned the writing it with as solemn imprecations as his friend the Spanish Friar did the Cavalier Lorenzo."--_Reasons_, &c.]
MAC-FLECKNOE.
All human things are subject to decay, And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey. This Flecknoe found,[417] who, like Augustus, young Was called to empire, and had governed long; In prose and verse was owned, without dispute, Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute. This aged prince, now flourishing in peace, And blest with issue of a large increase, Worn out with business, did at length debate To settle the succession of the state; And, pondering which of all his sons was fit To reign, and wage immortal war with wit, Cried,--'Tis resolved! for nature pleads, that he Should only rule, who most resembles me. Shadwell alone my perfect image bears, Mature in dulness from his tender years;[418] Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he, Who stands confirmed in full stupidity. The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense; Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through, and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail upon the day. Besides, his goodly fabric fills the eye, And seems designed for thoughtless majesty; Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain, And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign. Heywood and Shirley[419] were but types of thee, Thou last great prophet of tautology! Even I, a dunce of more renown than they, Was sent before but to prepare thy way; And, coarsely clad in Norwich drugget,[420] came To teach the nations in thy greater name. My warbling lute,--the lute I whilom strung, When to king John of Portugal I sung,-- Was but the prelude to that glorious day, When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way, With well-timed oars, before the royal barge,[421] Swelled with the pride of thy celestial charge; And big with hymn, commander of an host,-- The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost.[422] Methinks I see the new Arion sail, The lute still trembling underneath thy nail.[423] At thy well-sharpened thumb, from shore to shore, The trebles squeak for fear, the basses roar; Echoes, from Pissing-Alley, Shadwell call, And Shadwell they resound from Aston-Hall. About thy boat the little fishes throng, As at the morning toast that floats along. Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band, Thou weild'st thy papers in thy threshing hand; St André's[424] feet ne'er kept more equal time, Not even the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme, Though they in number as in sense excel;[425] So just, so like tautology, they fell, That, pale with envy, Singleton[426] forswore } The lute and sword, which he in triumph bore, } And vowed he ne'er would act Villerius more.--} Here stopt the good old sire, and wept for joy, In silent raptures of the hopeful boy. All arguments, but most his plays, persuade, That for anointed dulness he was made. Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind, (The fair Augusta much to fears inclined,[427]) An ancient fabric raised to inform the sight, There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight; A watch-tower once, but now, so fate ordains, Of all the pile an empty name remains; From its old ruins brothel-houses rise, Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys; Where their vast courts the mother-strumpets keep, And, undisturbed by watch, in silence sleep.[428] Near these a nursery erects its head, Where queens are formed, and future heroes bred; Where unfledged actors learn to laugh and cry;} Where infant punks their tender voices try, } And little Maximins the gods defy. } Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear; But gentle Simkin[429] just reception finds Amidst this monument of vanished minds; Pure clinches the suburbian muse affords, And Panton[430] waging harmless war with words. Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known, Ambitiously designed his Shadwell's throne. For ancient Decker[431] prophesied long since, } That in this pile should reign a mighty prince,} Born for a scourge of wit, and flail of sense; } To whom true dulness should some Psyches owe, But worlds of Misers from his pen should flow; Humorists, and Hypocrites, it should produce, Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce.[432] Now empress Fame had published the renown Of Shadwell's coronation through the town. Roused by report of fame, the nations meet, From near Bunhill, and distant Watling-street. No Persian carpets spread the imperial way, But scattered limbs of mangled poets lay; From dusty shops neglected authors come, Martyrs of pies, and relics of the bum; Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay, But loads of Shadwell almost choked the way; Bilked stationers for yeomen stood prepared, And Herringman[433] was captain of the guard. The hoary prince in majesty appeared, High on a throne of his own labours reared. At his right hand our young Ascanius sate, Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state; His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace, And lambent dulness played around his face. As Hannibal did to the altars come, Swore by his sire, a mortal foe to Rome, So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain, That he till death true dulness would maintain; And, in his father's right, and realm's defence, Ne'er to have peace with wit, nor truce with sense. The king himself the sacred unction made, As king by office, and as priest by trade. In his sinister hand, instead of ball, He placed a mighty mug of potent ale; "Love's kingdom"[434] to his right he did convey, At once his sceptre, and his rule of sway; Whose righteous lore the prince had practised young, And from whose loins recorded Psyche sprung. His temples, last, with poppies were o'erspread,[435] That nodding seemed to consecrate his head. Just at the point of time, if fame not lie, On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly;-- So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tyber's brook, Presage of sway from twice six vultures took. The admiring throng loud acclamations make, And omens of his future empire take. The sire then shook the honours of his head, And from his brows damps of oblivion shed Full on the filial dulness: long he stood, } Repelling from his breast the raging god; } At length burst out in this prophetic mood:--} Heavens bless my son! from Ireland let him reign, To far Barbadoes on the western main; Of his dominion may no end be known, And greater than his father's be his throne; Beyond love's kingdom let him stretch his pen!-- He paused, and all the people cried, Amen.-- Then thus continued he: My son, advance Still in new impudence, new ignorance. Success let others teach, learn thou from me Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry. Let Virtuosos in five years be writ, Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.[436] Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage, Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage; Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,[437] And in their folly show the writer's wit; Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence, And justify their author's want of sense. Let them be all by thy own model made Of dulness, and desire no foreign aid; That they to future ages may be known, Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own: Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same, All full of thee, and differing but in name; But let no alien Sedley interpose, To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.[438] And when false flowers of rhetoric thou would'st cull, Trust nature; do not labour to be dull, But write thy best, and top; and, in each line, Sir Formal's oratory will be thine: Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy northern dedications fill.[439] Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name;[440] Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise. Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part: What share have we in nature, or in art? Where did his wit on learning fix a brand, And rail at arts he did not understand? Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein, Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain? Where sold he bargains, "whip-stitch, kiss my arse,"[441] Promised a play, and dwindled to a farce? When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin, As thou whole Etheridge dost transfuse to thine? But so transfused, as oil and waters flow, His always floats above, thine sinks below. This is thy province, this thy wonderous way, New humours to invent for each new play:[442] This is that boasted bias of thy mind, By which one way to dulness 'tis inclined; Which makes thy writings lean on one side still, And, in all changes, that way bends thy will. Nor let thy mountain-belly make pretence Of likeness; thine's a tympany of sense. A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ, But sure thou'rt but a kilderkin of wit. Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep; Thy tragic muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep. With whate'er gall thou sett'st thyself to write, Thy inoffensive satires never bite; In thy felonious heart though venom lies, It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies. Thy genius call thee not to purchase fame In keen iambics, but mild anagram. Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command, Some peaceful province in Acrostic land. There thou may'st wings display, and altars raise,[443] And torture one poor word ten thousand ways; Or, if thou would'st thy different talents suit, Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.-- He said:--but his last words were scarcely heard;} For Bruce and Longvil had a trap prepared, } And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.[444] } Sinking he left his drugget robe behind, Borne upwards by a subterranean wind. The mantle fell to the young prophet's part, With double portion of his father's art.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 417: Note I.]
[Footnote 418: Note II.]
[Footnote 419: Note III.]
[Footnote 420: Note IV.]
[Footnote 421: Note V.]
[Footnote 422: Note VI.]
[Footnote 423: Note VII.]
[Footnote 424: An eminent dancing-master of the period.]
[Footnote 425: Note VIII.]
[Footnote 426: Note IX.]
[Footnote 427: Alluding to the political apprehensions of the period, so universal in the city.]
[Footnote 428: These lines are a parody on a passage in Cowley's _Davideis_, Book I.:
Beneath the dens where unfledged tempests lie, And infant winds their tender voices cry;
* * * * *
Where their vast court the mother waters keep; And, undisturbed by moons, in silence sleep. ]
[Footnote 429: The character of a cobler in an interlude.]
[Footnote 430: A celebrated punster, according to Derrick.]
[Footnote 431: Note X.]
[Footnote 432: Note XI.]
[Footnote 433: Henry Herringman, bookseller, published almost all the poems, plays, and lighter pieces of the day. He was Dryden's original publisher.]
[Footnote 434: A play of Flecknoe's so called. See Note XII.]
[Footnote 435: Perhaps in allusion to Shadwell's frequent use of opium, as well as to his dulness.]
[Footnote 436: Note XIII.]
[Footnote 437: Note XIV.]
[Footnote 438: Note XV.]
[Footnote 439: Note XVI.]
[Footnote 440: Note XVII.]
[Footnote 441: This elegant phrase is the current catch-word of Sir Samuel Hearty in the "Virtuoso," described in the _dramatis personæ_ as "a brisk, amorous, adventurous, unfortunate coxcomb; one that, by the help of humorous, nonsensical bye-words, takes himself to be a great wit."]
[Footnote 442: Alluding, probably, to the following vaunt of Shadwell, in the Dedication to the "Virtuoso:" "Four of the humours are entirely new; and, without vanity, I may say, I ne'er produced a comedy that had not some natural humour in it not represented before, and I hope I never shall."]
[Footnote 443: Note XVIII.]
[Footnote 444: Bruce and Longvil are fine gentlemen in Shadwell's comedy of the "Virtuoso;" who, during a florid speech of Sir Formal Trifle, contrive to get rid of the orator, by letting go a trap-door, upon which he had placed himself during his declamation.]
NOTES
ON
MAC-FLECKNOE.
Note I.
_This Flecknoe found._--P. 433.
Richard Flecknoe, the unfortunate bard whom our author has damned to everlasting fame, was by birth an Irishman, and by profession a Roman Catholic priest. Marvel, who seems to have known him at Rome, describes his person as meagre in the extreme, and his itch for scribbling as incessant. The poem, in which Marvel depicts him, is in the old taste of extravagant burlesque, and the lines are as rugged as Flecknoe could himself have produced. It contains, however, some witty and some humorous description, and the reader may be pleased to see a specimen:
_Flecknoe, an English Priest at Rome._
Obliged by frequent visits of this man, Whom, as a priest, poet, musician, I for some branch of Melchizedec took, Though he derives himself from my Lord Brooke, I sought his lodging, which is at the sign Of the sad Pelican, subject divine For poetry. There, three stair-cases high, Which signifies his triple property, I found at last a chamber, as 'twas said, But seemed a coffin set on the stair's head, Not higher than seven, nor larger than three feet; There neither was a ceiling, nor a sheet, Save that the ingenious door did, as you come, Turn in, and show to wainscot half the room; Yet of his state no man could have complained, There being no bed where he entertained; And though within this cell so narrow pent, He'd stanzas for a whole apartement.
* * * * *
---- ----Nothing now, dinner staid, But till he had himself a body made; I mean till he were dressed; for else, so thin He stands, as if he only fed had been With consecrated wafers; and the host Hath sure more flesh and blood than he can boast. This basso-relievo of a man, Who, as a camel tall, yet easily can The needle's eye thread without any stitch; His only impossible is to be rich. Lest his too subtle body, growing rare, Should leave his soul to wander in the air, He therefore circumscribes himself in rhymes, And, swaddled in's own paper seven times, Wears a close jacket of poetic buff, With which he doth his third dimension stuff. Thus armed underneath, he over all Doth make a primitive sotana fall; And over that, yet casts an antique cloak, Worn at the first council of Antioch, Which, by the Jews long hid and disesteemed, He heard of by tradition, and redeemed; But were he not in this black habit decked, This half transparent man would soon reflect Each colour that he past by, and be seen As the camelion, yellow, blue, or green.
It appears that Flecknoe either laid aside, or disguised, his spiritual character, when he returned to England; but he still preserved extensive connections with the Roman Catholic nobility and gentry.[445] He probably wrote upon many occasional subjects, but his poetry has fallen into total oblivion. I have particularly sought in vain for his verses to King John of Portugal, to which Dryden alludes a little lower. Langbaine mentions four of his plays, namely, "Damoiselles a la Mode," "Erminia," "Love's Dominion," and "Love's Kingdom," (of which more hereafter;) but none of these were ever acted, excepting the last. This gave Flecknoe great indignation, which he thus vents against the players in his preface to "Damoiselles a la Mode." "For the acting of this comedy, those who have the governing of the stage have their humour, and would be entreated; and I have mine, and won't entreat them: and were all dramatic writers of my mind, they should wear their old plays thread-bare before they should have any new, till they better understood their own interest, and how to distinguish betwixt good and bad." Notwithstanding this ill usage, he honoured the players so far, as to prefix to each character, in the _dramatis personæ_ of his pieces, the name of the actor, by whom, had the managers been less inexorable, he meant it should have been performed. But this he did for the sake of the gentle reader, whom he assures, that a lively imagination being thus assisted in bodying forth the character, he may receive as much pleasure from the perusal as from the actual representation of the performance. Flecknoe bore the damnation of the only one of his plays which was represented, with the same valiant indifference with which he supported the rebuffs of the players. In short, he seems to have been fitted for an incorrigible scribbler, by a happy fund of self-satisfaction, upon which neither the censures of criticism, nor the united hisses of a whole nation, could make the slightest impression. When or how Flecknoe died is uncertain, and of very little consequence; I presume, however, that he was dead when this satire was published. I am uncertain whether the reader will think, that this poor poetaster merited mercy at the hands of Dryden, for the following lines which he had written in his praise, and which, at any rate, may serve as a specimen of Flecknoe's poetry:
Dryden, the muses darling and delight, Than whom none ever flew so high a flight: Some have their veins so drossy, as from earth, Their muses only seem to have ta'en their birth. Other but water-poets are, have gone No farther than to the fount of Helicon: And they're but airy ones, whose muse soars up No higher than to mount Parnassus top; Whilst thou, with thine, dost seem to have mounted higher Than he who fetch from heaven celestial fire; And dost as far surpass all others, as Fire does all other elements surpass.
Flecknoe's memory being only preserved by this satire, his very name came to be identified with its title. King, in "A Dialogue in the Shades," introduces him under the name of _Mac_-Flecknoe; and Derrick falls into the same error.
Note II.
_Shadwell alone my perfect image bears, Mature in dulness from his tender years._--P. 433.
Thomas Shadwell was born at Santon-hall, in Norfolk, in which county his father represented a very ancient family. He was educated at Caius College, in Cambridge, and placed in the Middle Temple to study law; but, like many of the inhabitants of these buildings, he preferred the smoother paths of literature. He made several essays in heroic verse, all of which are deplorably bad. They are chiefly occasional pieces; as, an Address to the Prince of Orange on his Landing, another to Queen Mary, and a Translation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal; which, though prefaced by a violent refutation of our author's attacks upon him, is so execrable, as fully to confirm Dryden's censures of the author's poetical talents. But, in comedy, he was much more successful; and, in that capacity, Dryden does him great injustice in pronouncing him a dunce. On the contrary, I think most of Shadwell's comedies may be read with great pleasure. They do not, indeed, exhibit any brilliancy of wit, or ingenuity of intrigue; but the characters are truly dramatic, original, and well drawn; and the picture of manners which they exhibit gives us a lively idea of those of the author's age. As Shadwell proposed Jonson for his model, peculiarity of character, or what was then technically called _humour_, was what he chiefly wished to exhibit; and in this, it cannot be denied that he has often succeeded admirably. His powers, as a dramatist, are highly rated by Rochester, who imputes his coarseness to rapidity of composition:
Of all our modern wits, none seem to me} Once to have touched upon true comedy, } But hasty Shadwell and slow Wycherley. } Shadwell's unfinished works do yet impart Great proofs of force of genius, none of art; With just bold strokes he dashes here and there, Showing great mastery with little care; Scorning to varnish his good touches o'er, To make the fools and women praise them more.
_Allusion to Tenth Satire of Horace._
Shadwell's plays are seventeen in number, and were published, in four volumes, under the inspection of his son, Sir John Shadwell, M. D.
Shadwell's life was chequered with misfortune. As he espoused the party of the Duke of Monmouth, to whom he dedicated "Psyche," and of Shaftesbury, he thought himself obliged to draw the quill in defence of their cause. Accordingly, as we have seen, he attempted to answer "The Medal" on the one hand, and, on the other, accused our author of intending a parallel between Monmouth and the Duke of Guise, in the play so entitled. This zeal seems to have cost Shadwell dear; for, besides undergoing the severe flagellations administered by Dryden, in the "Defence of the Duke of Guise," in "Absalom and Achitophel," and in the present poem, he complains, that his ruin was designed, and his life sought; and that, for near ten years, he was kept from the exercise of that profession which had afforded him a competent subsistence.[446] It is no wonder, therefore, he was among the first to hail the dawn of the Revolution, by the address already mentioned, of which the full title is, "A Congratulatory Poem on his Highness the Prince of Orange his coming into England. Written by T. S. (Thomas Shadwell,) a True Lover of his Country, (10th January) 1689;" and that King William distinguished him by the honours of the laurel. Dorset, who was high chamberlain, answered, to those who remonstrated on Shadwell's lack of poetical talent, that, without pretending to vouch for Mr Shadwell's genius, he was sure he was an honest man. Shadwell did not long enjoy this triumph over his great enemy. He died 19th November, 1692,[447] in the fifty-second year of his age. It is said, this event was hastened by his taking an over dose of opium, to the use of which he was inordinately addicted. "His death," says Dr Nicholas Brady, who preached his funeral sermon, "seized him suddenly; but he could not be unprepared, since, to my certain knowledge, he never took a dose of opium but he solemnly recommended himself to God by prayer." In person, Shadwell was large, corpulent, and unwieldy; a circumstance which our author generally keeps in the eye of the reader. He seems to have imitated his prototype, Ben Jonson, in gross and coarse sensual indulgence, and profane conversation. But, if there be truth in a funeral sermon, he must have corrected these habits before his death; for Dr Brady tells us, "that our author was a man of great honesty and integrity, and inviolable fidelity and strictness in his word; an unalterable friendship wherever he professed it; and however the world may be mistaken in him, he had a much deeper sense of religion than many who pretended more to it. His natural and acquired abilities," continues the Doctor, "made him very amiable to all who knew and conversed with him, a very few being equal in the becoming qualities which adorn and set off a complete gentleman; his very enemies, if he has now any left, will give him this character, at least if they knew him so thoroughly as I did."--CIBBER'S _Lives of the Poets_, Article _Shadwell_, Vol. III.
Note III.
_Heywood and Shirley._--P. 434.
Voluminous dramatic authors, who flourished in the beginning of the 17th century. There were no less than four Heywoods who wrote plays; so that, Winstanley says, the name of Heywood seemed to be destinated to the stage. But he whom Dryden here means, is Thomas Heywood, a person rather to be admired for the facility, than for the excellence of his compositions. Every place and situation was alike to him while composing; and the favourite register of his scenes was the back of a tavern bill. Far the greater part of his labours are now lost; and yet there remain, in the libraries of the curious, twenty-four printed plays by Thomas Heywood. He was an actor by profession, and a good scholar, as is evinced by several of his classical allusions. His plays may be examined with advantage by the antiquary, but afford slender amusement to the lovers of poetry. The following character of him, by an old poet, is preserved by Langbaine:
---- ----Heywood sage, The apologetic Atlas of the stage; Well of the golden age he could entreat, But little of the metal he could get. Threescore sweet babes be fashioned at a lump, For he was christened in Parnassus pump, The muses' gossip to Aurora's bed; And ever since that time his face was red.
If we cannot call Heywood a second Lope de Vega, in point of the extent of his dramatic works, he overtops most English authors; since he assures us, in his preface to the "English Traveller," that it was one reserved among two hundred and twenty plays, in which he had either had "a whole hand, or, at the least, a main finger." It is a pity, as Johnson said of Churchill, so fruitful a tree should have borne only crabs.
James Shirley, whom our author most unjustly couples with Heywood, to whom, as well as to Shadwell, he was greatly superior, was born in 1594, and, although for some time a schoolmaster, appears to have lived chiefly by the stage. When the civil wars broke out, he followed the fortune of William, Earl of Newcastle. During the usurpation, when theatres were prohibited, he returned to his original profession of a schoolmaster. He died of fatigue and distress of mind during the great fire of London, in 1666. He wrote forty-two plays, and there are thirty-nine in print; a complete set of which is much esteemed by collectors. Dr Farmer has traced, to this neglected bard, an idea, which Milton thought not unworthy of adoption.
Shirley is spoken of with contempt in "Mac-Flecknoe," but his imagination is sometimes fine to an extraordinary degree. I recollect a passage in the Fourth Book of the "Paradise Lost," which hath been suspected of imitation, as a prettiness below the genius of Milton: I mean, where Uriel glides backward and forward to heaven on a sun-beam. Dr Newton informs us, that this might possibly be hinted by a picture of Annabal Caracci, in the king of France's cabinet; but I am apt to believe, that Milton had been struck with a portrait in Shirley. Fernando, in the comedy of the "Brothers," 1652, describes Jacinta at vespers:
Her eye did seem to labour with a tear, Which suddenly took birth, but overweighed With its own swelling, dropped upon her bosom; Which, by reflection of her light, appeared As nature meant her sorrow for an ornament': After, her looks grew cheerfull, and I saw A smile shoot graceful upward from her eyes, As if they had gained a victory o'er grief; _And with it many beams twisted themselves, Upon whose golden threads the angels walk To and again from heaven_.
Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare.
Note IV.
_Coarsely clad in Norwich drugget._--P. 434.
This stuff appears to have been sacred to the use of the poorer votaries of Parnassus; and it is somewhat odd, that it seems to have been the dress of our poet himself in the earlier stage of his fortunes. An old gentleman, who corresponded with the "Gentleman's Magazine," says, he remembers our author in this dress. Vol. XV. p. 99.
Note V.
_When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way, With well-timed oars, before the royal barge._--P. 434.
I confess myself, after some research, at a loss to discover the nature of the procession, in which Shadwell seems to have acted as leader of the band. One is at first sight led to consider the whole procession as imaginary, and preliminary to his supposed coronation; but, on closer investigation, it appears, that Flecknoe talks of some real occurrence, on which Shadwell preceded the royal barge, at the head of a boat-load of performers. We may see, in the seventh note, that he professed to understand music, and may certainly have been called upon to assist or direct the band during some entertainment upon the river, an amusement to which King Charles was particularly addicted.
Note VI.
_The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost._--P. 434.
This seems to be in ridicule of the following elegant expression which Shadwell puts in the mouth of a fine lady: "Such a fellow as he deserves to be _tossed in a blanket_." This, however, does not occur in "Epsom-Wells," but in another of Shadwell's comedies, called "The Sullen Lovers."
Note VII.
_Methinks I see the new Arion sail, The lute still trembling underneath thy nail._--P. 434.
Shadwell appears to have been a proficient in music, and to have himself adjusted that of his opera of "Psyche," which Dryden here treats with such consummate contempt. Indeed, in the preface of that choice piece he affected to value himself more upon the music than the poetry, as appears from the following passage in the preface: "I had rather be author of one scene of comedy, like some of Ben Jonson's, than of all the best plays of this kind, that have been, or ever shall be written; good comedy requiring much more wit and judgment in the writer, than any rhiming, unnatural plays can do. This I have so little valued, that I have not altered six lines in it since it was first written, which (except the songs at the marriage of Psyche, in the last scene) was all done sixteen months since. In all the words which are sung, I did not so much take care of the wit or fancy of them, as the making of them proper for music; in which I cannot but have some little knowledge, having been bred, for many years of my youth, to some performance in it.
"I chalked out the way to the composer, (in all but the song of Furies and Devils, in the fifth act,) having designed which line I would have sung by one, which by two, which by three, which by four voices, &c. and what manner of humour I would have in all the vocal music."
Note VIII.
_Not even the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme, Though they in number as in sense excel._--P. 435.
This unfortunate opera was imitated from the French of Moliere, and finished, as Shadwell assures us, in the space of five weeks. The author having no talents for poetry, and no ear for versification, "Psyche" is one of the most contemptible of the frivolous dramatic class to which it belongs. It was, however, _got up_ with extreme magnificence, and received much applause on its first appearance, in 1675. To justify the censure of Dryden, it is only necessary to quote a few of the verses, taken at random as a specimen, of what he afterwards calls "Prince Nicander's vein:"
_Nicander._ Madam, I to this solitude am come, Humbly from you to hear my latest doom.
_Psyche._ The first command which I did give, Was, that you should not see me here; The next command you will receive, Much harsher will to you appear.
_Nic._ How long, fair Psyche, shall I sigh in vain? How long of scorn and cruelty complain? Your eyes enough have wounded me, You need not add your cruelty. You against me too many weapons chuse, Who am defenceless against each you use.
The poet himself seems so conscious of the sad inferiority of his verses, that he makes, in the preface, a half apology, implying a mortifying consciousness, that it was necessary to anticipate condemnation, by pleading guilty. "In a thing written in five weeks, as this was, there must needs be many errors, which I desire true critics to pass by; and which, perhaps, I see myself, but having much business, and indulging myself with some pleasure too, I have not had leisure to mend them; nor would it indeed be worth the pains, since there are so many splendid objects in the play, and such variety of diversion, as will not give the audience leave to mind the writing; and I doubt not but the candid reader will forgive the faults, when he considers, that the great design was to entertain the town with variety of music, curious dancing, splendid scenes, and machines; and that I do not, nor ever did intend, to value myself upon the writing of this play."
Shadwell, however, had no right to plead, that this affected contempt of his own lyric poetry ought to have disarmed the criticism of Dryden; because, in the very same preface, he sets out by insinuating, that he could easily have beaten our author on his own strong ground of rhyme, had he thought such a contest worth winning. So much, at least, may be inferred from the following declaration:
"In a good-natured country, I doubt not but this, my first essay in rhyme, would be at least forgiven, especially when I promise to offend no more in this kind; but I am sensible that here I must encounter a great many difficulties. In the first place, (though I expect more candour from the best writers in rhyme,) the more moderate of them (who have yet a numerous party, good judges being very scarce) are very much offended with me, for leaving my own province of comedy, to invade their dominion of rhyme: but, methinks, they might be satisfied, since I have made but a small incursion, and am resolved to retire. And, were I never so powerful, they should escape me, as the northern people did the Romans; their craggy barren territories being not worth conquering."
Note IX.
_----Pale with envy, Singleton forswore The lute and sword, which he in triumph bore, And vowed he ne'er would act Villerius more._--P. 435.
Singleton was a musical performer of some eminence, and is mentioned as such in one of Shadwell's comedies.--"'Sbud, they are the best music in England: there's the best shawm and bandore, and a fellow that acts Tom of Bedlam to a miracle; and they sing _Charon, oh, gentle Charon!_ and, _Come, my Daphne_, better than Singleton and Clayton did."--_Bury Fair_, Act III. Scene I. Villerius, the grand master of the knights hospitallers, is a principal character in "The Siege of Rhodes," an opera by Sir William D'Avenant, where great part of the dialogue is in a sort of lyrical recitative; in the execution of which Singleton seems to have been celebrated. The first speech of this valorous chief of the order of St John runs thus:
Arm, arm! let our drums beat, To all our outguards, a retreat; And to our main-guards add Files double lined; from the parade Send horse to drive the fields, Prevent what ripening summer yields; To all the foe would save Set fire, or give a secret grave.
The combination of the lute and sword, which Dryden alludes to, is ridiculed in "The Rehearsal," where Bayes informs his critical friends, that his whole battle is to be represented by two persons; "for I make 'em both come forth in armour cap-a-pee, with their swords drawn, and hung with a scarlet ribband at their wrists, (which, you know, represents fighting enough,) each of them holding a lute in his hand.--_Smith._ How, sir; instead of a buckler?--_Bayes._ O Lord, O Lord! instead of a buckler! Pray, sir, do you ask no more questions. I make 'em, sir, play the battle in _recitativo_; and here's the conceit: Just at the very same instant that one sings, the other, sir, recovers you his sword, and puts himself into a warlike posture; so that you have at once your ear entertained with music and good language, and your eye satisfied with the garb and accoutrements of war."--_Rehearsal_, Act V. The adverse generals enter accordingly, and perform a sort of duet, great part of which is a parody upon the lyrical dialogue of Villerius and the Soldan Solyman, in the "Siege of Rhodes."
Note X.
_Ancient Decker._--P. 436.
Decker, who did not altogether deserve the disgraceful classification which Dryden has here assigned to him, was a writer of the reign of James I., and the antagonist of Jonson. I suspect Dryden knew, or at least recollected, little more of him, than that he was ridiculed, by his more renowned adversary, under the character of Crispinus, in "The Poetaster." Indeed, nothing can be more unfortunate to an inferior wit, than to be engaged in controversy with an author of established reputation; since, though he may maintain his ground with his contemporaries, posterity will always judge of him by the character assigned in the writings of his antagonist. Decker was admitted to write in conjunction with Webster, Ford, Brome, and even Massinger; and though he was only employed to fill up the inferior scenes, he certainly displays some theatrical talent. Indeed he was judged, by many of his own time, to have retaliated Jonson's satire with success, in "The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet;" where Ben is designed under the character of Horace Junior. Besides, Decker possessed some tragic powers: "The Honest Whore," which is altogether his own production, has several scenes of great merit.
Note XI.
_But worlds of Misers from his pen should flow; Humorists, and Hypocrites, it should produce, Whole Raymond families, and tribes of Bruce._--P. 436.
Shadwell translated, or rather imitated, Moliere's "L'Avare," under the title of "The Miser." In Langbaine's opinion, he has greatly improved upon his original; but in this, as in other cases, the critic is probably singular. "The Miser" was printed in 1672.
"The Humorists" was a play professedly written to expose the reigning vices of the age; but as it was supposed to contain many direct personal allusions, it was unfavourably received by the audience. Shadwell, by way, I suppose, of insinuating to the readers an accurate notion of the characters, or humours, which he means to represent, is, in this and other pieces, at great pains to give a long and minute account of each individual in the _dramatis personæ_. Thus we have have in "The Humorists,"
"_Crazy,_--One that is in pox, in debt, and all the misfortunes that can be; and, in the midst of all, in love with most women, and thinks most women in love with him.
"_Drybob,_--A fantastic coxcomb, that makes it his business to speak fine things and wit, as he thinks; and always takes notice, or makes others take notice, of any thing he thinks well said.
"_Brisk,_--A brisk, airy, fantastic, singing, dancing coxcomb, that sets up for a well-bred man, and a man of honour; but mistakes in every thing, and values himself only upon the vanity and foppery of gentlemen."
I do not know what to make of the "Hypocrites." Shadwell wrote no play so entitled; nor is it likely he gave any assistance to Medbourne, who translated the famous "Tartuffe" of Moliere, for they were of different opinions in religion and politics. Perhaps Dryden means the characters of the Irish priest and Tory chaplain in "The Lancashire Witches."
Raymond is a character in "The Humorists," described in the _dramatis personæ_ as a "gentleman of wit and honour." Bruce a similar person in "The Virtuoso," characterized as a "gentleman of wit and sense." In these, and in all other characters where wit and an easy style were requisite, Shadwell failed totally. His forte lay in broad, strong comic painting.
Note XII.
_Ogleby._--P. 436.
This gentleman, whose name, thanks to our author and Pope, has become almost proverbial for a bad poet, was originally a Scottish dancing-master, when probably Scottish dancing was not so fashionable as at present, and afterwards master of the revels in Ireland. He translated "The Iliad," "The Odyssey," "The Æneid," and "Æsop's Fables," into verse; and his versions were splendidly adorned with sculpture. He also wrote three epic poems, one of which was fortunately burned in the fire of London. Moreover, he conducted the ceremony of Charles the Second's coronation,[448] and erected a theatre in Dublin.
Note XII.
"_Love's Kingdom._"--P. 437.
This was a play of Flecknoe's. The full title is, "Love's Kingdom, a Pastoral Tragi-Comedy; not as it was acted at the theatre, near Lincoln's-Inn, but as it was written, and since corrected by Richard Flecknoe; with a short treatise of the English stage, &c. by the same author. London, printed by R. Wood for the author, 1664."
The author's account of this piece, in the advertisement, is, "For the plot, it is neat and handsome, and the language soft and gentle, suitable to the persons who speak; neither on the ground, nor in the clouds, but just like the stage, somewhat elevated above the common. In neither no stiffness, and, I hope, no impertinence nor extravagance, into which your young writers are too apt to run, who, whilst they know not well what to do, and are anxious to do enough, most commonly overdo."
THE PROLOGUE.
_Spoken by Venus from the Clouds._
If ever you have heard of Venus' name, Goddess of beauty, I that Venus am; Who have to day descended from my sphere, To welcome you unto "Love's Kingdom" here; Or rather to my sphere am come, since I Am present no where more nor in the sky, Nor any island in the world than this, That wholly from the world divided is: For Cupid, you behold him here in me, (For there where beauty is, Love needs must be,) Or you may yet more easily descry Him 'mong the ladies, in each amorous eye; And 'mongst the gallants may as easily trace Him to their bosoms from each beauteous face. May then, fair ladies, you Find all your servants true; And, gallants, may you find The ladies all as kind, As by your noble favours you declare How much you friends unto "Love's Kingdom" are; Of which yourselves compose so great a part, In your fair eyes, and in your loving heart.
This specimen of "Love's Kingdom" is extracted from the "_Censura Literaria_," No. IX.; to which publication it was communicated by Mr Preston of Dublin. To "Love's Kingdom" Flecknoe subjoined a Discourse on the English Stage, which is sometimes quoted as authority.
Note XIII.
_Let Virtuosos in five years be writ, Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit._--P. 438.
Shadwell's comedy called "The Virtuoso," was first acted in 1676 with great applause. It is by no means destitute of merit; though, as in all his other pieces, it is to be found rather in the walk of coarse humour than of elegance, or wit.
The character of Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, the Virtuoso, whose time was spent in discoveries, although he had never invented any thing so useful as an engine to pare a cream cheese with, is very ludicrous. I cannot, however, but notice, that some of the discoveries, which are ridiculed with so much humour, as the composition of various kinds of air, for example, have been realized by the philosophers of this age. As the whole piece seems intended as a satire on the researches of the Royal Society, its scope could not be very pleasing to Dryden, a zealous member of that learned body; even if he could have forgiven some hits levelled against him personally in the preface and the epilogue, which have been quoted in the introduction to Mac-Flecknoe.
Note XIV.
_Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage, Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage; Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit._--P. 438.
The plays of Sir George Etherege were much admired during the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century, till the refinement of taste condemned their indecency and immorality. Sir George himself was a courtier of the first rank in the gay court of Charles II. Our author has addressed an epistle to him, when he was Resident at Ratisbon. Etherege followed King James to France, according to one account; but others say he was killed at Ratisbon by a fall down stairs, after he had been drinking freely. Sir Fopling Flutter, Dorimant, and Loveit, are characters in his well-known comedy, "The Man of Mode." Cully and Cockwood occur in "Love in a Tub," another of his plays.
Note XV.
_But let no alien Sedley interpose, To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose._--P. 438.
The first edition bears Sydney, which is evidently a mistake. Shadwell's comedy of "Epsom Wells" was very successful; which was imputed by his enemies to the assistance he received from the witty Sir Charles Sedley. This he attempts to refute in the following lines of the second prologue, spoken when the piece was represented before the king and queen at Whitehall:
If this for him had been by others done, After this honour sure they'd claim their own.
But it is nevertheless certain, that Shadwell acknowledges obligations of the nature supposed, in the Dedication of the "True Widow" to Sir Charles Sedley. "No success whatever," he there says, "could have made me alter my opinion of this comedy, which had the benefit of your correction and alteration, and the honour of your approbation. And I heartily wish you had given yourself the trouble to have reviewed all my plays, as they came inaccurately, and in haste, from my hands: it would have been more to my advantage than the assistance of Scipio and Lelius was to Terence; and I should have thought it at least as much to my honour, since, by the effects, I find I cannot but esteem you as much above both of them in wit, as either of them was above you in place of the state."
There was a general opinion current, that Shadwell received assistance in his most successful pieces. A libel of the times, the reference to which I have mislaid, mentions with contempt the dulness of his "unassisted scenes."
Note XVI.
_Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy northern dedications fill._--P. 438.
Sir Formal Trifle is a florid conceited orator in "The Virtuoso," whose character is drawn and brought out with no inconsiderable portion of humour. Dryden intimates, that his coxcomical inflated style attends Shadwell himself upon the most serious occasions, and particularly in his dedications to the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, to whom he has inscribed several of his plays. Hence Dryden, in the "Vindication of the Duke of Guise," calls him the Northern Dedicator. The truth is, that Shadwell's prose was inflated and embarrassed; and his adulation comes aukwardly from him, as appears from the opening of the dedication of that very play, "The Virtuoso," to the Duke of Newcastle.
"So long as your grace persists in obliging, I must go on in acknowledging; nor can I let any opportunity pass of telling the world how much I am favoured by you, or any occasion slip of assuring your grace, that all the actions of my life shall be dedicated to your service; who, by your noble patronage, your generosity and kindness, and your continual bounty, have made me wholly your creature: nor can I forbear to declare, that I am more obliged to your grace than to all mankind. And my misfortune is, I can make no other return, but a declaration of my grateful attachment."
Note XVII.
_Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name._--P. 439.
Shadwell, as appears from many passages of his prologues and prefaces, and as we have had repeated occasion to notice, affected to consider Ben Jonson as the object of his emulation. There were indeed many points of resemblance between them, both as authors and men. In their habits, a life spent in taverns, and in their persons, huge corpulence, probably acquired by habits of sensual indulgence, much coarseness of manners, and an ungentlemanly vulgarity of dialect, seem to have distinguished both the original and the imitator. As a dramatist, although Shadwell falls short of the learned vigour and deep erudition of Ben Jonson, his dry hard comic painting entitles him to be considered as an inferior artist of the same school. Dryden more particularly resented Shadwell's reiterated and affected praises of Jonson, because he had himself censured that writer in the epilogue to the "Conquest of Granada," and in the critical defence of that poem.[449] Hence he considered Shadwell's ranking himself under Jonson's banners as a sort of personal defiance. But Dryden more particularly alludes to the following ebullition of admiration, which occurs in the epilogue to Shadwell's "Humorists:"
The mighty prince of poets, learned Ben, Who alone dived into the minds of men; Saw all their wanderings, all their follies knew, And all their vain fantastic passions drew In images so lively and so true, That there each humorist himself might view. Yet only lashed the errors of the times, And ne'er exposed the persons, but the crimes; And never cared for private frowns, when he Did but chastise public iniquity: He feared no pimp, no pick-pocket, or drab; He feared no bravo, nor no ruffian's stab: 'Twas he alone true humours understood, And with great wit and judgment made them good. A humour is the bias of the mind, By which with violence 'tis one way inclined; It makes our actions lean on one side still, And in all changes that way bends the will. This-------- He only knew and represented right. Thus none, but mighty Jonson, e'er could write. Expect not then, since that most flourishing age Of Ben, to see true humour on the stage. All that have since been writ, if they be scanned, Are but faint copies from that master's hand. Our poet now, amongst those petty things, Alas! his too weak trifling humour brings; As much beneath the worst in Jonson's plays, As his great merit is above our praise. For could he imitate that great author right, He would with ease all poets else outwrite. But to outgo all other men, would be, O noble Ben! less than to follow thee.
Dryden, in the text, turns the idea of bias into ridicule; for its original application being to the leaden weight disposed in the centre of a bowl, which inclines its course in rolling, he alleges, that the only bias which can influence Shadwell is his predominant stupidity.
Note XIX.
_Leave writing plays, and chuse for thy command, Some peaceful province in Acrostic land. There thou may'st wings display, and altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways._--P. 440.
Among other efforts of gentle dulness, may be noticed the singular fashion which prevailed during the earlier period of the 17th century, of writing in such changes of measure, that by the different length and arrangement of the lines, the poem was made to resemble an egg, an altar, a pair of wings, a cross, or some other fanciful figure. This laborious kind of trifling was much akin to the anagrams and acrostics. Those who are curious to read, or rather to see, a specimen of such whimsies, (for they are rather addressed to the eye than the understanding,) may find a dirge of Mr George Withers, arranged into the figure of a rhomboid, in Ellis's "Specimens of the Early English Poets," Vol. III. p. 100. They are mentioned with anagrams, acrostics, rebuses, and other exercises of false wit, in the "Spectator," No. 63.
END OF THE TENTH VOLUME.
Edinburgh, Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 445: An anonymous poet ascribes the estimation in which he was held to his poetical propensities:
Verse the famed Flecknoe raised, the muses' sport, From drudging for the stage to drudge at court. ]
[Footnote 446: Epistle dedicatory to "Bury-fair," addressed to the Earl of Dorset.]
[Footnote 447: See the inscription intended for his monument in Westminster Abbey, by his son Sir John Shadwell, in the Life prefixed to _Shadwell's Works_. But it was altered before it was placed in the Abbey, and a blunder in the date seems to have crept in.--See CIBBER'S _Lives of the Poets_, Vol. III. p. 49.]
[Footnote 448: See Vol. IX. p. 61.]
[Footnote 449: See Vol. IV. p. 211, &c.]
* * * * * +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Transcriber notes: | | | | P.46. 'priciples' chanaged to 'principles', as in other volume. | | P.78. Added footnote after 'manly train' as the anchor is missing | | and seems to go here. | | P.82. Note V, link should be P. 69, not P. 68 changed. | | P.82. Note VI, link should be P. 74, not P. 73 changed. | | Footnote 57: Added 'Note VI.', as the link is missing. | | Footnote 174: 'Note XI.', should read 'Note XII.', changed. | | Footnote 175: 'Note XII.', should read 'Note XIII.', changed. | | Footnote 178: 'Note XIII.', should read 'Note XIV.', changed. | | P.119. 'enequal' is 'unequal' in another volume, changed. | | P.169. 'Rosolving' is 'Resolving' in another volume, changed. | | Footnote 208: Should reaad 'Note XIII', not 'Note XII', changed. | | P.394. Footnote 'Pensylvania' changed to 'Pennsylvania'. | | P.457. Note XIX needs to be XIII, changed. | | Footnote 60: Should read 'Note VII', not 'Note VIII', changed. | | Corrected various punctuation. | | Underscore indicates italics _like this_. | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+