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.
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.
Dryden - Complete
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.
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.
