No More Learning

_Pala. _ Or die with you: No subject e'er can meet
A nobler fate, than at his sovereign's feet. [_Exeunt. _
[_Clashing of swords within, and shouts. _

_Enter_ LEONIDAS, RHODOPHIL, PALAMEDE, EUBULUS, HERMOGENES, _and
their Party, victorious;_ POLYDAMAS _and_ ARGALEON, _disarmed. _

_Leon. _ That I survive the dangers of this day,
Next to the gods, brave friends, be yours the honour;
And, let heaven witness for me, that my joy
Is not more great for this my right restored,
Than 'tis, that I have power to recompense
Your loyalty and valour. Let mean princes,
Of abject souls, fear to reward great actions;
I mean to shew,
That whatsoe'er subjects, like you, dare merit,
A king, like me, dares give.

_Rho. _ You make us blush, we have deserved so little.

_Pala. _ And yet instruct us how to merit more.

_Leon. _ And as I would be just in my rewards,
So should I in my punishments; these two,
This, the usurper of my crown, the other,
Of my Palmyra's love, deserve that death,
Which both designed for me.

_Poly. _ And we expect it.

_Arga. _ I have too long been happy, to live wretched.

_Poly. _ And I too long have governed, to desire
A life without an empire.

_Leon. _ You are Palmyra's father; and as such,
Though not a king, shall have obedience paid
From him who is one. Father, in that name
All injuries forgot, and duty owned. [_Embraces him. _

_Poly. _ O, had I known you could have been this king,
Thus god-like, great and good, I should have wished
To have been dethroned before. 'Tis now I live,
And more than reign; now all my joys flow pure,
Unmixed with cares, and undisturbed by conscience.

_Enter_ PALMYRA, AMALTHEA, ARTEMIS, DORALICE, _and_ MELANTHA.

_Leon. _ See, my Palmyra comes! the frighted blood
Scarce yet recalled to her pale cheeks,
Like the first streaks of light broke loose from darkness,
And dawning into blushes. --Sir, you said [_To_ POLY.
Your joys were full; Oh, would you make mine so!
I am but half restored without this blessing.

_Poly. _ The gods, and my Palmyra, make you happy,
As you make me! [_Gives her hand to_ LEONIDAS.

_Palm. _ Now all my prayers are heard:
I may be dutiful, and yet may love.
Virtue and patience have at length unravelled
The knots, which fortune tyed.

_Mel. _ Let me die, but I'll congratulate his majesty: How admirably
well his royalty becomes him! Becomes! that is _lui sied_, but our
damned language expresses nothing.

_Pala. _ How? Does it become him already? 'Twas but just now you said,
he was such a figure of a man.

_Mel_ True, my dear, when he was a private man he was a figure; but
since he is a king, methinks he has assumed another figure: He looks
so grand, and so august! [_Going to the King. _

_Pala. _ Stay, stay; I'll present you when it is more convenient. I
find I must get her a place at court; and when she is once there, she
can be no longer ridiculous; for she is young enough, and pretty
enough, and fool enough, and French enough, to bring up a fashion
there to be affected.

_Leon. _ [_To_ RHODOPHIL. ]
Did she then lead you to this brave attempt?
[_To_ AMALTHEA. ] To you, fair Amalthea, what I am,
And what all these, from me, we jointly owe:
First, therefore, to your great desert we give
Your brother's life; but keep him under guard
Till our new power be settled. What more grace
He may receive, shall from his future carriage
Be given, as he deserves.

_Arga. _ I neither now desire, nor will deserve it;
My loss is such as cannot be repaired,
And, to the wretched, life can be no mercy.

_Leon. _ Then be a prisoner always: Thy ill fate
And pride will have it so: But since in this I cannot,
Instruct me, generous Amalthea, how
A king may serve you.

_Amal. _ I have all I hope,
And all I now must wish; I see you happy.
Those hours I have to live, which heaven in pity
Will make but few, I vow to spend with vestals:
The greatest part in prayers for you; the rest
In mourning my unworthiness.
Press me not farther to explain myself;
'Twill not become me, and may cause your trouble.

_Leon. _ Too well I understand her secret grief, [_Aside. _
But dare not seem to know it. --Come, my fairest; [_To_ PALMYRA.
Beyond my crown I have one joy in store,
To give that crown to her whom I adore. [_Exeunt. _


EPILOGUE.

Thus have my spouse and I informed the nation,
And led you all the way to reformation;
Not with dull morals, gravely writ, like those,
Which men of easy phlegm with care compose,--
Your poets, of stiff words and limber sense,
Born on the confines of indifference;
But by examples drawn, I dare to say,
From most of you who hear and see the play.
There are more Rhodophils in this theatre,
More Palamedes, and some few wives, I fear:
But yet too far our poet would not run;
Though 'twas well offered, there was nothing done.
He would not quite the women's frailty bare,
But stript them to the waist, and left them there:
And the men's faults are less severely shown,
For he considers that himself is one. --
Some stabbing wits, to bloody satire bent,
Would treat both sexes with less compliment;
Would lay the scene at home; of husbands tell,
For wenches, taking up their wives i' the Mall;
And a brisk bout, which each of them did want,
Made by mistake of mistress and gallant.
Our modest author thought it was enough
To cut you off a sample of the stuff:
He spared my shame, which you, I'm sure, would not,
For you were all for driving on the plot:
You sighed when I came in to break the sport,
And set your teeth when each design fell short.
To wives and servants all good wishes lend,
But the poor cuckold seldom finds a friend.
Since, therefore, court and town will take no pity,
I humbly cast myself upon the city.


Footnotes:
1. _He mocks himself of me_. ] Melantha, like some modern coxcombs,
uses the idiom as well as the words of the French language.

2. _Dangerfield. _] A dramatic bully, whose sword and habit became
proverbial. "This gentleman, appearing with his mustaccios,
according to the Turkish manner, Cordubee hat, and strange
out-of-the-way clothes, just as if one had been dressed up to act
Captain Dangerfield in the play, &c. " _Life of Sir Dudley North. _


* * * * *


THE

ASSIGNATION;

OR,

LOVE IN A NUNNERY.

A

COMEDY.


_Successum dea dira negat_
VIRG.




THE ASSIGNATION.

This play was unfortunate in the representation. It is needless, at
the distance of more than a century, to investigate the grounds of the
dislike of an audience, who, perhaps, could at the very time have
given no good reason for their capricious condemnation of a play, not
worse than many others which they received with applause. The author,
in the dedication, hints at the "lameness of the action;" but, as the
poet and performers are nearly equally involved in the disgrace of a
condemned piece, it is a very natural desire on either side to assign
the cause of its failure to the imperfections of the other; of which
there is a ludicrous representation in a dialogue betwixt the player
and the poet in "Joseph Andrews. " Another cause of its unfavourable
reception seems to have been, its second title of "Love in a Nunnery. "
Dryden certainly could, last of any man, have been justly suspected of
an intention to ridicule the Duke of York and the Catholic religion;
yet, as he fell under the same censure for the "Spanish Friar," it
seems probable that such suspicions were actually entertained. The
play certainly contains, in the present instance, nothing to justify
them. In point of merit, "The Assignation" seems pretty much on a
level with Dryden's other comedies; and certainly the spectators, who
had received the blunders of Sir Martin Mar-all with such unbounded
applause, might have taken some interest in those of poor Benito.
Perhaps the absurd and vulgar scene, in which the prince pretends a
fit of the cholic, had some share in occasioning the fall of the
piece. This inelegant _jeu de theatre_ is severely ridiculed in the
"Rehearsal. "

To one person, the damnation of this play seems to have afforded
exquisite pleasure. This was Edward Ravenscroft, once a member of the
Middle Temple,--an ingenious gentleman, of whose taste it may be held
a satisfactory instance, that he deemed the tragedy of "Titus
Andronicus" too mild for representation, and generously added a few
more murders, rapes, and parricides, to that charnel-house of
horrors[1]. His turn for comedy being at least equal to his success in
the blood-stained buskin, Mr Ravenscroft translated and mangled
several of the more farcical French comedies, which he decorated with
the lustre of his own great name. Amongst others which he thus
appropriated, were the most extravagant and buffoon scenes in
Moliere's "_Bourgeois Gentilhomme_;" in which Monsieur Jourdain is,
with much absurd ceremony, created a Turkish Paladin; and where
Moliere took the opportunity to introduce an _entrée de ballet_,
danced and sung by the Mufti, dervises, and others, in eastern habits.
Ravenscroft's translation, entitled "The Citizen turned Gentleman,"
was acted in 1672, and printed in the same year; the jargon of the
songs, like similar nonsense of our own day, seems to have been well
received on the stage. Dryden, who was not always above feeling
indignation at the bad taste and unjust preferences of the age,
attacked Ravenscroft in the prologue to "The Assignation," as he had
before, though less directly, in that of "Marriage a-la-Mode. " Hence
the exuberant and unrepressed joy of that miserable scribbler broke
forth upon the damnation of Dryden's performance, in the following
passage of a prologue to another of his pilfered performances, called
"The Careless Lovers," acted, according to Langbaine, in the vacation
succeeding the fall of "The Assignation," in 1673:

An author did, to please you, let his wit run,
Of late, much on a serving man and cittern;
And yet, you would not like the serenade,--
Nay, and you damned his nuns in masquerade:
You did his Spanish sing-song too abhor;
_Ah! que locura con tanto rigor! _
In fine, the whole by you so much was blamed,
To act their parts, the players were ashamed[2].
Ah, how severe your malice was that day!
To damn, at once, the poet and his play[3]:
But why was your rage just at that time shown,
When what the author writ was all his own?
Till then, he borrowed from romance, and did translate[4];
And those plays found a more indulgent fate.

Ravenscroft, however, seems to have given the first offence; for, in
the prologue to "The Citizen turned Gentleman," licensed 9th August
1672, we find the following lines, obviously levelled at "The Conquest
of Granada," and other heroic dramas of our author:

Then shall the knight, that had a knock in's cradle,
Such as Sir Martin and Sir Arthur Addle[5],
Be flocked unto, as the great heroes now
In plays of rhyme and noise, with wondrous show:--
Then shall the house, to see these Hectors kill and slay,
That bravely fight out the whole plot of the play,
Be for at least six months full every day.

Langbaine, who quotes the lines from the prologue to Ravenscroft's
"Careless Lovers," is of opinion, that he paid Dryden too
great a compliment in admitting the originality of "The Assignation,"
and labours to shew, that the characters are imitated from
the "Romance Comique" of Scarron, and other novels of the
time. But Langbaine seems to have been unable to comprehend,
that originality consists in the mode of treating a subject, more
than in the subject itself.

"The Assignation" was acted in 1672, and printed in 1673.


Footnotes:

1. In the prologue to this beautified edition, Ravenscroft modestly
tells us:

Like other poets, he'll not proudly scorn
To own, that he but winnowed Shakespeare's corn:
So far was he from robbing him of's treasure,
That he did add his own, to make full measure.

2. This looks as if there had been some ground for Dryden's censure
upon the actors.

3. A flat parody on the lines in Dryden's prologue, referring to
Mamamouchi:

Grimace and habit sent you pleased away:
You damned the poet, but cried up the play.

4. It is somewhat remarkable, that the censure contained in what is
above printed like verses, recoils upon the head of the author, who
never wrote a single original performance. Langbaine, the
persecutor of all plagiarism, though he did not know very well in
what it consisted, threatens to "pull off Ravenscroft's disguise,
and discover the politic plagiary that lurks under it. I know,"
continues the biographer, "he has endeavoured to shew himself
master of the art of swift writing, and would persuade the world,
that what he writes is _extempore_ wit, and written _currente
calamo_. But I doubt not to shew, that though he would be thought
to imitate the silk-worm, that spins its web from its own bowels,
yet I shall make him appear like the leech, that lives upon the
blood of other men, drawn from the gums; and, when he is rubbed
with salt, spews it up again. "

5. Sir Martin Mar-all we are acquainted with. Sir Arthur Addle is a
similar character, in a play called "Sir Solomon, or, The Cautious
Coxcomb," attributed to one John Caryll.




TO

MY MOST HONOURED FRIEND,

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY, BART[1].


SIR,

The design of dedicating plays is as common and unjust, as that of
desiring seconds in a duel. It is engaging our friends, it may be, in
a senseless quarrel where they have much to venture, without any
concernment of their own[2]. I have declared thus much beforehand, to
prevent you from suspicion, that I intend to interest either your
judgment or your kindness, in defending the errors of this comedy. It
succeeded ill in the representation, against the opinion of many of
the best judges of our age, to whom you know I read it, ere it was
presented publicly. Whether the fault was in the play itself, or in
the lameness of the action, or in the number of its enemies, who came
resolved to damn it for the title, I will not now dispute. That would
be too like the little satisfaction which an unlucky gamester finds in
the relation of every cast by which he came to lose his money. I have
had formerly so much success, that the miscarriage of this play was
only my giving Fortune her revenge; I owed it her, and she was
indulgent that she exacted not the payment long before. I will
therefore deal more reasonably with you, than any poet has ever done
with any patron: I do not so much as oblige you for my sake, to pass
two ill hours in reading of my play. Think, if you please, that this
dedication is only an occasion I have taken, to do myself the greatest
honour imaginable with posterity; that is, to be recorded in the
number of those men whom you have favoured with your friendship and
esteem. For I am well assured, that, besides the present satisfaction
I have, it will gain me the greatest part of my reputation with after
ages, when they shall find me valuing myself on your kindness to me; I
may have reason to suspect my own credit with them, but I have none to
doubt of yours. And they who, perhaps, would forget me in my poems,
would remember me in this epistle.

This was the course which has formerly been practised by the poets of
that nation, who were masters of the universe. Horace and Ovid, who
had little reason to distrust their immortality, yet took occasion to
speak with honour of Virgil, Varius, Tibullus, and Propertius, their
contemporaries; as if they sought, in the testimony of their
friendship, a farther evidence of their fame. For my own part, I, who
am the least amongst the poets, have yet the fortune to be honoured
with the best patron, and the best friend. For, (to omit some great
persons of our court, to whom I am many ways obliged, and who have
taken care of me even amidst the exigencies of a war[3]) I can make my
boast to have found a better Mæcenas in the person of my Lord
Treasurer Clifford[4], and a more elegant Tibullus in that of Sir
Charles Sedley. I have chosen that poet to whom I would resemble you,
not only because I think him at least equal, if not superior, to Ovid
in his elegies; nor because of his quality, for he was, you know, a
Roman knight, as well as Ovid; but for his candour, his wealth, his
way of living, and particularly because of this testimony which is
given him by Horace, which I have a thousand times in my mind applied
to you:

_Non tu corpus eras sine pectore: Dii tibi formam,
Dii tibi divitias dederant, artemque fruendi.
Quid voveat dulci nutricula majus alumno,
Quam sapere, et fari possit quæ sentiat, et cui
Gratia, forma, valetudo contingat abunde;
Et mundus victus, non deficiente crumena? _

Certainly the poets of that age enjoyed much happiness in the
conversation and friendship of one another. They imitated the best way
of living, which was, to pursue an innocent and inoffensive pleasure,
that which one of the ancients called _eruditam voluptatem_. We have,
like them, our genial nights, where our discourse is neither too
serious nor too light, but always pleasant, and, for the most part,
instructive; the raillery, neither too sharp upon the present, nor too
censorious on the absent; and the cups only such as will raise the
conversation of the night, without disturbing the business of the
morrow[5]. And thus far not only the philosophers, but the fathers of
the church, have gone, without lessening their reputation of good
manners, or of piety. For this reason, I have often laughed at the
ignorant and ridiculous descriptions which some pedants have given of
the wits, as they are pleased to call them; which are a generation of
men as unknown to them, as the people of Tartary, or the Terra
Australia, are to us. And therefore as we draw giants and
anthropophagi in those vacancies of our maps, where we have not
travelled to discover better; so those wretches paint lewdness,
atheism, folly, ill-reasoning, and all manner of extravagancies
amongst us, for want of understanding what we are. Oftentimes it so
falls out, that they have a particular pique to some one amongst us,
and then they immediately interest heaven in their quarrel; as it is
an usual trick in courts, when one designs the ruin of his enemy, to
disguise his malice with some concernment of the kings; and to revenge
his own cause, with pretence of vindicating the honour of his master.
Such wits as they describe, I have never been so unfortunate as to
meet in your company; but have often heard much better reasoning at
your table, than I have encountered in their books. The wits they
describe, are the fops we banish: For blasphemy and atheism, if they
were neither sin nor ill manners, are subjects so very common, and
worn so threadbare, that people, who have sense, avoid them, for fear
of being suspected to have none. It calls the good name of their wit
in question as it does the credit of a citizen when his shop is filled
with trumperies and painted titles, instead of wares: We conclude them
bankrupt to all manner of understanding; and that to use blasphemy, is
a kind of applying pigeons to the soles of the feet; it proclaims
their fancy, as well as judgment, to be in a desperate condition. I am
sure, for your own particular, if any of these judges had once the
happiness to converse with you,--to hear the candour of your opinions;
how freely you commend that wit in others of which you have, so large
a portion yourself; how unapt you are to be censorious; with how much
easiness you speak so many things, and those so pointed, that no other
man is able to excel, or perhaps to reach by study;--they would,
instead of your accusers, become your proselytes. They would reverence
so much sense, and so much good nature in the same person; and come,
like the satyr, to warm themselves at that fire, of which they were
ignorantly afraid when they stood at a distance. But you have too
great a reputation to be wholly free from censure: it is a fine which
fortune sets upon all extraordinary persons, and from which you should
not wish to be delivered until you are dead. I have been used by my
critics much more severely, and have more reason to complain, because
I am deeper taxed for a less estate. I am, ridiculously enough,
accused to be a contemner of universities; that is, in other words, an
enemy of learning; without the foundation of which, I am sure, no man
can pretend to be a poet. And if this be not enough, I am made a
detractor from my predecessors, whom I confess to have been my masters
in the art. But this latter was the accusation of the best judge, and
almost the best poet, in the Latin tongue. You find Horace
complaining, that, for taxing some verses in Lucilius, he himself was
blamed by others, though his design was no other than mine now, to
improve the knowledge of poetry; and it was no defence to him, amongst
his enemies, any more than it is for me, that he praised Lucilius
where he deserved it; _paginâ laudatur eâdem_. It is for this reason I
will be no more mistaken for my good meaning: I know I honour Ben
Jonson more than my little critics, because, without vanity I may own,
I understand him better[6]. As for the errors they pretend to find in
me, I could easily show them, that the greatest part of them are
beauties; and for the rest, I could recriminate upon the best poets of
our nation, if I could resolve to accuse another of little faults,
whom, at the same time, I admire for greater excellencies. But I have
neither concernment enough upon me to write any thing in my own
defence, neither will I gratify the ambition of two wretched
scribblers, who desire nothing more than to be answered. I have not
wanted friends, even among strangers, who have defended me more
strongly, than my contemptible pedant could attack me[7]. For the
other, he is only like Fungoso in the play, who follows the fashion at
a distance, and adores the Fastidious Brisk of Oxford[8]. You can bear
me witness, that I have not consideration enough for either of them to
be angry. Let Mævius and Bavius admire each other; I wish to be hated
by them and their fellows, by the same reason for which I desire to be
loved by you. And I leave it to the world, whether their judgment of
my poetry ought to be preferred to yours; though they are as much
prejudiced by their malice, as I desire you should be led by your
kindness, to be partial to,

SIR,

Your most humble,
And most faithful servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.


Footnotes:

1. Sir Charles Sedley, noted among "the mob of gentlemen who wrote
with ease," was so highly applauded for his taste and judgment,
that Charles said, "Nature had given him a patent to be Apollo's
viceroy. " Some account has been given of this celebrated courtier,
in the introduction to the Essay on Dramatic Poetry. Dryden was at
this time particularly induced to appeal to the taste of the first
among the gay world, by the repeated censures which had been
launched against him from the groves of Academe. Mr Malone gives
the titles of three pamphlets which had appeared against Dryden.
1. The Censure of the Rota, on Mr Dryden's Conquest of Granada,
printed at Oxford. 2. A Description of the Academy of the Athenian
Virtuoso, with a discourse held there in vindication of Mr Dryden's
Conquest of Granada, against the Author of the Censure of the Rota.
3. A Friendly Vindication of Mr Dryden, from the Author of the
Censure of the Rota, printed at Cambridge. Thus assailed by the
grave and the learned, censured for the irregularities of his gay
patrons, which he countenanced although he did not partake, and
stigmatized as a detractor of his predecessors, and a defamer of
classical learning, it was natural for Dryden to appeal to the most
accomplished of those amongst whom he lived, and to whose taste he
was but too strongly compelled to adapt his productions. Sedley,
therefore, as a man of wit and gallantry, is called upon to support
our author against the censures of pedantic severity. Whatever may
be thought of the subject, the appeal is made with all Dryden's
spirit and elegance, and his description of the attic evenings
spent with Sedley and his gay associates, glosses over, and almost
justifies, their occasional irregularities. We have but too often
occasion to notice, with censure, the licentious manners of the
giddy court of Charles; let us not omit its merited commendation.
If the talents of the men of parts of that period were often
ill-directed, and ill-rewarded, let not us, from whom that
gratitude is justly due, forget that they were called forth and
stimulated to exertion, by the countenance and applause of the
great. We, at least, who enjoy the fruit of these exertions, ought
to rejoice, that the courtiers of Charles possessed the taste to
countenance and applaud the genius which was too often perverted
by the profligacy of their example, and left unrewarded amid their
selfish prodigality.

2. At this period, seconds in a duel fought, as well as principals.

3. The second Dutch war, then raging.

4. To whom the tragedy of "Amboyna" is dedicated.

5.
It is impossible to avoid contrasting this beautiful account of
elegant dissipation with the noted freak of Sir Charles Sedley, to
whom it is addressed. In June 1663, being in company with Lord
Buckhurst and Sir Thomas Ogle, in a tavern in Bowstreet, and having
become furious with intoxication, they not only exposed themselves,
by committing the grossest indecencies in the balcony, in the sight
of the passengers; but, a mob being thus collected, Sedley stripped
himself naked, and proceeded to harangue them in the grossest and
most impious language. The indignation of the populace being
excited, they attempted to burst into the house, and a desperate
riot ensued, in which the orator and his companions had nearly paid
for their frolic with their lives. For this riot they were indicted
in the Court of Common Pleas, and heavily fined; Sedley in the sum
of L. 500. When the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Hyde, to repress
his insolence, asked him if he had ever read the "Complete
Gentleman? " Sedley answered, that he had read more books than his
lordship; a repartee which exhibits more effrontery than wit. The
culprits employed Killigrew and another courtier to solicit a
mitigation of the fine; but, in the true spirit of court
friendship, they begged it for themselves, and extorted every
farthing.

6. Our author here shortly repeats what he has said at more length in
his Defence of the Epilogue to the second part of the Conquest of
Granada.

7. The pedant Mr Malone conjectures to be Matthew Clifford, Master of
the Charter-house, one of the Duke of Buckingham's colleagues in
writing "The Rehearsal. " But the _pedant_ is obviously the same
with the Fastidious Brisk _of Oxford_, mentioned in the following
sentence, which can hardly apply to Clifford, who was educated at
Cambridge. One Leigh is said by Wood to have written the Censure of
the Rota; and as he was educated at Oxford and the book printed
there, he may be "the contemptible pedant," though his profession
was that of a player in the duke's company.

8. Fungoso and Sir Fastidious Brisk are two characters in "Every Man
Out of his Humour;" the former of whom is represented as copying
the dress and manners of the latter. Dryden seems only to mean,
that one of those pamphleteers was the servile imitator of the
other.




PROLOGUE.


Prologues, like bells to churches, toll you in
With chiming verse, till the dull plays begin;
With this sad difference though, of pit and pew,
You damn the poet, but the priest damns you:
But priests can treat you at your own expence,
And gravely call you fools without offence.
Poets, poor devils, have ne'er your folly shown,
But, to their cost, you proved it was their own:
For, when a fop's presented on the stage,
Straight all the coxcombs in the town engage;
For his deliverance and revenge they join,
And grunt, like hogs, about their captive swine.
Your poets daily split upon this shelf,--
You must have fools, yet none will have himself.
Or if, in kindness, you that leave would give,
No man could write you at that rate you live:
For some of you grow fops with so much haste,
Riot in nonsense, and commit such waste,
'Twould ruin poets should they spend so fast.
He, who made this, observed what farces hit,
And durst not disoblige you now with wit.
But, gentlemen, you over-do the mode;
You must have fools out of the common road.
Th' unnatural strained buffoon is only taking;
No fop can please you now of God's own making.
Pardon our poet, if he speaks his mind;
You come to plays with your own follies lined:
Small fools fall on you, like small showers, in vain;
Your own oiled coats keep out all common rain.
You must have Mamamouchi[1], such a fop
As would appear a monster in a shop;
He'll fill your pit and boxes to the brim,
Where, rain'd in crowds, you see yourselves in him.
Sure there's some spell, our poet never knew,
In _Hullibabilah de_, and _Chu, chu, chu_;
But _Marababah sahem_[2] most did touch you;
That is, Oh how we love the Mamamouchi!
Grimace and habit sent you pleased away:
You damned the poet, and cried up the play.
This thought had made our author more uneasy,
But that he hopes I'm fool enough to please ye.
But here's my grief,--though nature, joined with art,
Have cut me out to act a fooling part,
Yet, to your praise, the few wits here will say,
'Twas imitating you taught Haynes to play.


Footnotes:
1. See the introductory remarks on the "Citizen turned Gentleman," of
Ravenscroft, where the jest turns on Jorden's being created a
_Mamamouchi_, or Turkish paladin, as it is interpreted.

2. _Trickman. _ I told him she was woundrous beautiful. Then said he,
_Marababa sahem_, Ah how much in love am I!

_Jorden. _ Marababa sahem, means, how much in love am I?

_Trick. _ Yes.

_Jorden. _ I am beholden to you for telling me, for I ne'er could
have thought that Marababa sahem, should signify, Ah how much in
love am I. Ah this Turkish is an admirable language!
_Citizen turned Gentleman_, Act. IV.

In the same piece, we are presented with a grand chorus of Turks
and Dervises, who sing, "_Hu la baba la chou ba la baba la da. _"




DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.


_Duke of Mantua. _
_Prince_ FREDERICK, _his son. _
AURELIAN, _a Roman Gentleman. _
CAMILLO, _his friend. _
MARIO, _Governor of Rome. _
ASCANIO, _page of honour to the Prince. _
BENITO, _Servant to_ AURELIAN.
VALERIO, _confidant to the Duke. _
FABIO, _Servant to_ MARIO.

SOPHRONIA, _Abbess of the Torr' di Specchì. _
LUCRETIA, _a Lady designed to be a Nun. _
HIPPOLITA, _a Nun. _
LAURA, }
VIOLETTA } _Sisters, nieces to_ MARIO.
FRONTONA, _lets Lodgings. _


_SCENE--Rome. _




THE

ASSIGNATION;

OR,

LOVE IN A NUNNERY.


ACT I.

SCENE I. --_A Room, a great glass placed. _

_Enter_ BENITO, _with a guitar in his hand. _

_Ben. _ [_Bowing to the glass. _] Save you, sweet signior Benito; by my
faith I am glad to see you look so bonnily to-day. Gad, sir, every
thing becomes you to a miracle: your peruke, your clothes, your hat,
your shoe-ties; and, gad, sir, let me tell you, you become every
thing; you walk with such a grace, and you bow so pliantly!

_Aurelian. _ [_Within. _] Benito, where are you, sirrah?

_Ben. _ Sirrah! That my damned master should call a man of my
extraordinary endowments, sirrah! A man of my endowments? Gad, I ask
my own pardon, I mean a person of my endowments; for a man of my parts
and talents, though he be but a _valet de chambre_, is a person; and
let me tell my master--Gad, I frown too, as like a person as any
jack-gentleman of them all; but, gad, when I do not frown, I am an
absolute beauty, whatever this glass says to the contrary; and, if
this glass deny it, 'tis a base lying glass; so I'll tell it to its
face, and kick it down into the bargain.

_Aur. _ [_Within. _] Why, Benito, how long shall we stay for you?

_Ben. _ I come, sir. --What the devil would he have? But, by his favour,
I'll first survey my dancing and my singing. [_He plays on his guitar,
and dances and sings to the glass. _] I think that was not amiss: I
think so. Gad, I can dance [_Lays down the guitar. _] and play no
longer, I am in such a rapture with myself. What a villanous fate have
I! With all these excellencies, and a profound wit, and yet to be a
serving-man!

_Enter_ AURELIAN _and_ CAMILLO.

_Aur. _ Why, you slave, you dog, you son of twenty fathers, am I to be
served at this rate eternally? A pox of your conceited coxcomb!

_Cam. _ Nay, pr'ythee, Aurelian, be not angry.

_Aur. _ You do not know this rogue, as I do, Camillo. Now, by this
guitar, and that great looking-glass, I am certain how he has spent
his time. He courts himself every morning in that glass at least an
hour; there admires his own person, and his parts, and studies
postures and grimaces, to make himself yet more ridiculous than he was
born to be.

_Cam. _ You wrong him, sure.

_Aur. _ I do; for he is yet more fool than I can speak him. I never
sent him on a message, but he runs first to that glass, to practise
how he may become his errand. Speak, is this a lie, sirrah?

_Ben. _ I confess, I have some kindness for the mirror.

_Aur. _ The mirror! there's a touch of his poetry too; he could not
call it a glass. Then the rogue has the impudence to make sonnets, as
he calls them; and, which is greater impudence, he sings them too;
there's not a street in all Rome which he does not nightly disquiet
with his villanous serenade: with that guitar there, the younger
brother of a cittern, he frights away the watch; and for his violin,
it squeaks so lewdly, that Sir Tibert[1] in the gutter mistakes him
for his mistress. 'Tis a mere cat-call.

_Cam. _ Is this true, Benito?

_Ben. _ to _Cam. _ [_Aside. _] My master, sir, may say his pleasure; I
divert myself sometimes with hearing him. Alas, good gentleman, 'tis
not given to all persons to penetrate into men's parts and qualities;
but I look on you, sir, as a man of judgment, and therefore you shall
hear me play and sing. [_He takes up the guitar, and begins. _

_Aur. _ Why, you invincible sot you, will nothing mend you? Lay it
down, or--

_Ben. _ to _Cam. _ Do ye see, sir, this enemy to the muses? he will not
let me hold forth to you. [_Lays down the guitar. _] O envy and
ignorance, whither will you! --But, gad, before I'll suffer my parts to
be kept in obscurity--

_Aur_, What will you do, rascal?

_Ben. _ I'll take up the guitar, and suffer heroically.
[_He plays,_ AUR. _kicks. _

_Aur. _ What? do you mutiny?

_Ben. _ Ay, do, kick till your toes ache; I'll be baffled in my music
by ne'er a foot in Christendom.

_Aur. _ I'll put you out of your tune, with a vengeance to you.
[_As_ AURELIAN _kicks harder,_ BENITO _sings faster, and sometimes
cries out. _

_Cam. _ holding _Aur. _ Nay, then, 'tis time to stickle[2]. Hold,
Aurelian, pr'ythee spare Benito, you know we have occasion for him.

_Aur. _ I think that was well kicked.

_Ben. _ And I think that was well sung too.

_Cam. _ Enough, Aurelian.

_Ben. _ No, sir; let him proceed to discourage virtue and see what will
come on it.

_Cam. _ Now to our business. But we must first instruct Benito.

_Aur. _ Be ruled by me, and do not trust him. I prophesy he'll spoil
the whole affair; he has a worm in his head as long as a conger, a
brain so barren of all sense, and yet so fruitful of foolish plots,
that if he does not all things his own way, yet at least he'll ever be
mingling his designs with yours, and go halves with you; so that, what
with his ignorance, what with his plotting, he'll be sure to ruin you
with an intention to serve you. For my part, I had turned him off long
since, but that my wise father commanded the contrary.

_Cam. _ Still you speak, as if what we did were choice, and not
necessity. You know their uncle is suspicious of me, and consequently
jealous of all my servants; but if we employ yours, who is not
suspected, because you are a stranger, I doubt not to get an
assignation with the younger sister.

_Aur. _ Well, use your own way, Camillo: but if it ever succeed with
his management--

_Cam. _ You must understand then, Benito, that this old Signior Mario
has two nieces, with one of which I am desperately in love, and--

_Ben. _ [_Aside to him. _] I understand you already, sir, and you desire
love reciprocal. Leave your business in my hands; and, if it succeed
not, think me no wiser than my master.

_Cam. _ Pray take me with you. These sisters are great beauties, and
vast fortunes; but, by a clause in their father's will, if they marry
without their uncle's consent, are to forfeit all. Their uncle, who is
covetous and base to the last degree, takes advantage of this clause;
and, under pretence of not finding fit matches for them, denies his
consent to all who love them.

_Ben. _ Denies them marriage! Very good, sir.

_Cam. _ More than this, he refuses access to any suitor, and immures
them in a mean apartment on the garden side, where he barbarously
debars them from all human society.

_Ben. _ Uses them most barbarously! Still better and better.

_Cam. _ The younger of these sisters, Violetta, I have seen often in
the garden, from the balcony in this chamber, which looks into it;
have divers times shot tickets on the point of an arrow, which she has
taken; and, by the signs she made me, I find they were not ill
received.

_Ben. _ I'll tell you now, just such an amour as this had I once with a
young lady, that--

_Aur. _ Quote yourself again, you rogue, and my feet shall renew their
acquaintance with your buttocks.

_Cam. _ Dear Benito, take care to convey this ticket to Violetta; I saw
her just now go by to the next chapel: be sure to stand ready to give
her holy water, and slip the ticket into the hand of her woman
Beatrix; and take care the elder sister, Laura, sees you not, for she
knows nothing of our amour.

_Ben. _ A word to the wise. Have you no service to Laura? [_To_ AUR.

_Aur. _ None that I shall trouble you withal; I'll see first what
returns you make from this voyage, before I put in my venture with
you. Away; begone, Mr Mercury.

_Ben. _ I fly, Mr Jupiter.