No More Learning

A woman-wit has often graced the stage,
But he's the first boy-poet of our age.
Early as is the year his fancies blow,
Like young Narcissus peeping through the snow.
Thus Cowley[361] blossomed soon, yet flourished long;
This is as forward, and may prove as strong.
Youth with the fair should always favour find,
Or we are damned dissemblers of our kind.
What's all this love they put into our parts?
'Tis but the pit-a-pat of two young hearts.
Should hag and grey-beard make such tender moan, }
Faith, you'd even trust them to themselves alone, }
And cry, "Let's go, here's nothing to be done. " }
Since love's our business, as 'tis your delight,
The young, who best can practise, best can write.
What though he be not come to his full power?
He's mending and improving every hour.
You sly she-jockies of the box and pit,
Are pleased to find a hot unbroken wit;
By management he may in time be made,
But there's no hopes of an old battered jade;
Faint and unnerved, he runs into a sweat,
And always fails you at the second heat.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 361: Cowley published in his sixteenth year, a book called
"Poetical Blossoms. "]




PROLOGUE

TO THE

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1681.


_This Prologue appears to have been spoken at Oxford shortly after
the dissolution of the famous Parliament held there, March, 1680-1.
From the following couplet, it would seem that the players had made
an unsuccessful attempt to draw houses during the short sitting of
that Parliament:_

We looked what representatives would bring,
But they served us just as they did the king.

_At that time a greater stage was opened for the public amusement,
and the mimic theatre could excite little interest. _

_Dryden seems, though perhaps unconsciously, to have borrowed the
two first lines of this Prologue from Drayton:_

The Tuscan poet doth advance
The frantic Paladin of France.

_Nymphidia. _

The famed Italian muse, whose rhimes advance
Orlando, and the Paladins of France,
Records, that, when our wit and sense is flown,
'Tis lodged within the circle of the moon,
In earthern jars, which one, who thither soared,
Set to his nose, snuffed up, and was restored.
Whate'er the story be, the moral's true;
The wit we lost in town, we find in you.
Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence,
And fill their windy heads with sober sense
When London votes[362] with Southwark's disagree,
Here may they find their long lost loyalty.
Here busy senates, to the old cause inclined,
May snuff the votes their fellows left behind;
Your country neighbours, when their grain grows dear,
May come, and find their last provision here;
Whereas we cannot much lament our loss,
Who neither carried back, nor brought one cross.
We looked what representatives would bring,
But they helped us--just as they did the king.
Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth
The Sibyl's books to those who know their worth;
And though the first was sacrificed before,
These volumes doubly will the price restore.
Our poet bade us hope this grace to find,
To whom by long prescription you are kind.
He, whose undaunted Muse, with loyal rage,
Has never spared the vices of the age,
Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise,
Is forced to turn his satire into praise.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 362: The city of London had now declared against petitioning
for parliament. ]




PROLOGUE

TO THE

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.


_This Prologue must have been spoken at Oxford during the residence
of the Duke of York in Scotland, in 1681-2. The humour turns upon
a part of the company having attended the Duke to Scotland, where,
among other luxuries little known to my countrymen, he introduced,
during his residence at Holy Rood House, the amusements of the
theatre. I can say little about the actors commemorated in the
following verses, excepting, that their stage was erected in the
tennis-court of the palace, which was afterwards converted into
some sort of manufactory, and finally, burned down many years
ago. Besides these deserters, whom Dryden has described very
ludicrously, he mentions a sort of strolling company, composed, it
would seem, of Irishmen, who had lately acted at Oxford. _

Discord, and plots, which have undone our age,
With the same ruin have o'erwhelmed the stage.
Our house has suffered in the common woe,
We have been troubled with Scotch rebels too.
Our brethren are from Thames to Tweed departed, }
And of our sisters, all the kinder-hearted }
To Edinburgh gone, or coached, or carted. }
With bonny bluecap there they act all night
For Scotch half-crown, in English three-pence hight.
One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff's lean,
There with her single person fills the scene.
Another, with long use and age decayed,
Dived here old woman, and rose there a maid.
Our trusty door-keepers of former time
There strut and swagger in heroic rhime.
Tack but a copper-lace to drugget suit,
And there's a hero made without dispute;
And that, which was a capon's tail before,
Becomes a plume for Indian emperor.
But all his subjects, to express the care
Of imitation go, like Indians, bare;
Laced linen there would be a dangerous thing; }
It might perhaps a new rebellion bring; }
The Scot, who wore it, would be chosen king. }
But why should I these renegades describe,
When you yourselves have seen a lewder tribe?
Teague has been here, and, to this learned pit,
With Irish action slandered English wit;
You have beheld such barbarous Macs appear,
As merited a second massacre;[363]
Such as, like Cain, were branded with disgrace,
And had their country stamped upon their face.
When strollers durst presume to pick your purse,
We humbly thought our broken troop not worse.
How ill soe'er our action may deserve,
Oxford's a place where wit can never starve.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 363: Alluding to the Irish massacre. ]




AN

EPILOGUE

FOR

THE KING'S HOUSE


_From the date of the various circumstances referred to, this
Epilogue seems to have been spoken in 1681-2. _

We act by fits and starts, like drowning men,
But just peep up, and then pop down again.
Let those who call us wicked change their sense,
For never men lived more on Providence.
Not lottery cavaliers[364] are half so poor,
Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore;
Not courts, nor courtiers living on the rents
Of the three last ungiving parliaments;[365]
So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine, }
He might have spared his dream of seven lean kine, }
And changed his vision for the muses nine. }
The comet, that, they say, portends a dearth,
Was but a vapour drawn from playhouse earth;
Pent there since our last fire, and, Lilly says,[366]
Foreshows our change of state, and thin third-days.
'Tis not our want of wit that keeps us poor;
For then the printer's press would suffer more.
Their pamphleteers each day their venom spit;
They thrive by treason, and we starve by wit.
Confess the truth, which of you has not laid
Four farthings out to buy the Hatfield Maid? [367]
Or, which is duller yet, and more would spite us,
Democritus his wars with Heraclitus? [368]
Such are the authors, who have run us down,
And exercised you critics of the town.
Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhimes,
Ye abuse yourselves more dully than the times.
Scandal, the glory of the English nation,
Is worn to rags, and scribbled out of fashion;
Such harmless thrusts, as if, like fencers wise,
They had agreed their play before their prize.
Faith, they may hang their harps upon their willows;
'Tis just like children when they box with pillows.
Then put an end to civil wars, for shame!
Let each knight-errant, who has wronged a dame,
Throw down his pen, and give her, as he can,
The satisfaction of a gentleman.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 364: The lottery cavaliers were the loyal indigent officers,
to whom the right of keeping lotteries was granted by patent in the
reign of Charles II. There are many proclamations in the gazettes of
the time against persons encroaching upon this exclusive privilege. ]

[Footnote 365: The "three ungiving parliaments" were that convoked
in 1679, and dissolved on the 10th July in the same year; that which
was held at Westminster 21st October, 1680, and dissolved on the 18th
January following; and, finally, the Oxford parliament, assembled 21st
March, 1680-1, and dissolved on the 28th of the same month. All these
parliaments refused supplies to the crown, until they should obtain
security, as they termed it, for the Protestant religion. ]

[Footnote 366: The famous astrologer Lilly is here mentioned
ironically. In his "Strange and wonderful prophecy, being a relation
of many universal accidents that will come to pass in the year 1681,
according to the prognostications of the celestial bodies, as well in
this our English nation, as in parts beyond the seas, with a sober
caution to all, by speedy repentance, to avert the judgments that are
impendent," I find "an account of the great stream of light, by some
termed a blazing star, which was seen in the south-west on Saturday
and Sunday, the 11th and 12th of this instant December, between
six and seven in the evening, with several judicial opinions and
conjectures on the same. " But the comet, mentioned in the text, may
be that which is noticed in "A strange and wonderful Trinity, or a
Triplicity of Stupendous Prodigies, consisting of a wonderful eclipse,
as well as of a wonderful comet, and of a wonderful conjunction, now
in its second return; seeing all these three prodigious wonders do
jointly portend wonderful events, all meeting together in a strange
harmonious triangle, and are all the three royal heralds successively
sent from the King of Heaven, to sound succeeding alarms for awakening
a slumbering world. _Beware the third time. _" 4to. London, 1683. This
comet is said to have appeared in October 1682. Various interpretations
were put upon these heavenly phenomena, by Gadbury, Lilly, Kirkby,
Whalley, and other Philo-maths, who were chiefly guided in their
predictions by their political attachments. Some insisted they meant
civil war, others foreign conquest; some that they presaged the
downfall of the Turk, others that of the Pope and French king; some
that they foretold dearth on the land, and others, the fertility of
the king's bed, by the birth of a son, to the exclusion of the Duke of
York. ]

[Footnote 367: This was one of the numerous devices used by the
partizans of Monmouth to strengthen his interest: "A relation was
published, in the name of one Elizabeth Freeman, afterwards called the
Maid of Hatfield, setting forth, That, on the 24th of January, the
appearance of a woman all in white, with a white veil over her face,
accosted her with these words: 'Sweetheart, the 15th day of May is
appointed for the royal blood to be poisoned. Be not afraid, for I am
sent to tell thee. ' That on the 25th, the same appearance stood before
her again, and she having then acquired courage enough to lay it under
the usual adjuration, in the name, &c. it assumed a more glorious
shape, and said in a harsher tone of voice: 'Tell King Charles from
me, and bid him not remove his parliament, and stand to his council:'
adding, 'do as I bid you. ' That on the 26th it appeared to her a third
time, but said only, 'do your message. ' And that on the next night,
when she saw it for the last time, it said nothing at all.

"Those who depend upon the people for support, must try all manners
of practices upon them; and such fooleries as these sometimes operate
more forcibly than expedients of a more rational kind. Care was,
besides, taken, to have this relation attested by Sir Joseph Jordan,
a justice of the peace, and the rector of Hatfield, Dr Lee, who was
one of the king's chaplains: Nay, the message was actually sent to his
majesty, and the whole forgery very officiously circulated all over the
kingdom. "--RALPH'S _Review of the Reigns of Charles II. and James II. _
Vol. I. p. 562.

The Tories, according to the custom of that time, endeavoured to
turn this apparition against those who invented it, and published an
ironical account of its appearance to Lady Gray, the supposed mistress
of the Duke of Monmouth. --See RALPH, _ibid. _ and this Work, Vol. IX. p.
276. ]

[Footnote 368: "Heraclitus Ridens" was a paper published weekly, by
L'Estrange, on the part of the court, and answered by one called
"Democritus" on that of the Whigs. ]




PROLOGUE

TO HIS

ROYAL HIGHNESS,

UPON HIS

FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE'S THEATRE AFTER HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND.

SPOKEN BY MR SMITH, 21st APRIL, 1682.


_The Duke's return from Scotland, and the shock which it gave
to the schemes of Shaftesbury and the Exclusionists, has been
mentioned at length in the Notes to the Second Part of "Absalom and
Achitophel,"_ Vol. ix. p. 402. _The passage upon which the note
is given, agrees with this Prologue, in representing the secret
enemies of the Duke of York as anxiously pressing forwards to greet
his return:_

While those that sought his absence to betray,
Press first, their nauseous false respects to pay;
Him still the officious hypocrites molest,
And with malicious duty break his rest.

Vol. ix. p. 344.

_The date of the Prologue, and the name of the speaker, are marked
on a copy in Mr Luttrell's collection. _

In those cold regions which no summers cheer,
Where brooding darkness covers half the year,
To hollow caves the shivering natives go,
Bears range abroad, and hunt in tracks of snow.
But when the tedious twilight wears away,
And stars grow paler at the approach of day,
The longing crowds to frozen mountains run,
Happy who first can see the glimmering sun;
The surly savage offspring disappear,
And curse the bright successor of the year.
Yet, though rough bears in covert seek defence, }
White foxes stay, with seeming innocence; }
That crafty kind with day-light can dispense. }
Still we are thronged so full with Reynard's race,
That loyal subjects scarce can find a place;
Thus modest truth is cast behind the crowd,
Truth speaks too low, hypocrisy too loud.
Let them be first to flatter in success;
Duty can stay, but guilt has need to press.
Once, when true zeal the sons of God did call,
To make their solemn show at heaven's Whitehall,
The fawning Devil appeared among the rest,
And made as good a courtier as the best.
The friends of Job, who railed at him before,
Came cap in hand when he had three times more.
Yet late repentance may, perhaps, be true;
Kings can forgive, if rebels can but sue:
A tyrant's power in rigour is exprest;
The father yearns in the true prince's breast.
We grant, an o'ergrown Whig no grace can mend,
But most are babes, that know not they offend;
The crowd, to restless motion still inclined,
Are clouds, that rack according to the wind.
Driven by their chiefs, they storms of hailstones pour,
Then mourn, and soften to a silent shower.
O welcome to this much-offending land,
The prince that brings forgiveness in his hand!
Thus angels on glad messages appear,
Their first salute commands us not to fear;
Thus heaven, that could constrain us to obey, }
(With reverence if we might presume to say,) }
Seems to relax the rights of sovereign sway; }
Permits to man the choice of good and ill,
And makes us happy by our own free-will.




PROLOGUE

TO THE EARL OF ESSEX.

BY MR J. BANKS, 1682.

SPOKEN TO THE KING AND THE QUEEN AT THEIR COMING TO THE HOUSE.


When first the ark was landed on the shore,
And heaven had vowed to curse the ground no more;
When tops of hills the longing patriarch saw,
And the new scene of earth began to draw;
The dove was sent to view the waves decrease,
And first brought back to man the pledge of peace.
'Tis needless to apply, when those appear,
Who bring the olive, and who plant it here.
We have before our eyes the royal dove,
Still innocence is harbinger of love:
The ark is opened to dismiss the train,
And people with a better race the plain.
Tell me, ye powers, why should vain man pursue, }
With endless toil, each object that is new, }
And for the seeming substance leave the true? }
Why should he quit for hopes his certain good,
And loath the manna of his daily food?
Must England still the scene of changes be, }
Tost and tempestuous, like our ambient sea? }
Must still our weather and our wills agree? }
Without our blood our liberties we have;
Who, that is free, would fight to be a slave?
Or, what can wars to after-times assure,
Of which our present age is not secure?
All that our monarch would for us ordain,
Is but to enjoy the blessings of his reign.
Our land's an Eden, and the main's our fence,
While we preserve our state of innocence:
That lost, then beasts their brutal force employ,
And first their lord, and then themselves destroy.
What civil broils have cost, we know too well;
Oh! let it be enough that once we fell!
And every heart conspire, and every tongue,
Still to have such a king, and this king long.




PROLOGUE

TO THE

LOYAL BROTHER, OR THE PERSIAN PRINCE.


The "Loyal Brother, or the Persian Prince," was the first play of
Southerne, afterwards so deservedly famous as a tragic poet. It is said
to be borrowed from a novel, called, "Tachmas, Prince of Persia. " The
character of the Loyal Brother is obviously designed as a compliment to
the Duke of York, whose adherents and opponents now divided the nation.
Southerne was at this time but three-and-twenty. It is said, that, upon
offering Dryden five guineas for the following prologue, which had
hitherto been the usual compliment made him for such favours, the bard
returned the money; and added, "not that I do so out of disrespect to
you, young man, but the players have had my goods too cheap. In future,
I must have ten guineas. " Southerne was the first poet who drew large
profit from the author's nights; insomuch, that he is said to have
cleared by one play seven hundred pounds; a circumstance that greatly
surprised Dryden, who seldom gained by his best pieces more than a
seventh part of the sum. From these circumstances, Pope, in his verses
to Southerne on his birth-day, distinguishes him as

----Tom, whom heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays.

The prologue, as might be expected, is very severe upon the Whigs; and
alludes to all the popular subjects of dispute between the factions.
The refusal of supplies, and the petition against the king's guards,
are slightly noticed, but the great pope-burning is particularly dwelt
upon; and probably the reader will be pleased with an opportunity of
comparing the account in the prologue with that given by Roger North,
who seems to have entertained the same fear with Dryden, that the
rabble might chuse to cry, God save the king, at Whitehall.

"But, to return to our tumults. --After it was found that there was to
be a reinforcement at the next anniversary, which was in 1682, it is
not to be thought that the court was asleep, or that the king would
not endeavour to put a stop to this brutal outrage. His majesty thought
fit to take the ordinary regular course; which was, to send for the
lord mayor, &c. and to charge him to prevent riots in the city. So
the lord mayor and sheriffs attended the king in council; and there
they were told, that dangerous tumults and disorders were designed
in the city upon the 17th of November next, at night, on pretence of
bonfires; and his majesty expected that they, who were entrusted with
the government of the city, for keeping the peace, should, by their
authority, prevent all such riotous disorders, which, permitted to
go on, was a misdemeanour of their whole body. Then one of them came
forward, and, in a whining tone, told the king, that they did not
apprehend any danger to his majesty, or the city, from these bonfires;
there was an ardour of the people against popery, which they delighted
to express in that manner, but meant no harm: And, if they should go
about to hinder them, it would be taken as if they favoured popery;
and, considering the great numbers, and their zeal, it might make them
outrageous, which, let alone, would not be; and perhaps they themselves
might not be secure in resisting them, no not in their own houses; and
they hoped his majesty would not have them so exposed, so long as they
could assure his majesty that care should be taken, that, if they went
about any ill thing, they should be prevented: or to this purpose, as
I had it from undoubted authority. This was the godly care they had of
the public peace, and the repose of the city; by which the king saw
plainly what they were, and what was to be expected from them. There
wanted not those who suggested the sending regiments into the city; but
the king (always witty) said, he did not love to play with his horse.
But his majesty ordered that a party of horse should be drawn up, and
make a strong guard on the outside of Temple-Bar; and all the other
guards were ordered to be in a posture at a minute's warning; and so he
took a middle, but secure and inoffensive way; and these guards did not
break up till all the rout was over.

"There were not a few in the court who either feared or favoured these
doings; it may be both; the former being the cause of the latter. This
puts me in mind of a passage told me by one present. It was of the Lord
Archbishop of York, Dolben, who was a goodly person, and corpulent; he
came to the Lord Chief-Justice North, and, my lord, said he, (clapping
his hand upon his great self,) what shall we do with these tumults
of the people? They will bear all down before them. My lord, said
the Chief Justice, fear God, and don't fear the people. A good hint
from a man of law to an archbishop. But when the day of execution was
come, all the show-fools of the town had made sure of places; and,
towards the evening, there was a great clutter in the street, with
taking down glass-windows, and faces began to show themselves thereat;
and the hubbub was great, with the shoals of people come there, to
take or seek accommodation. And, for the greater amazement of the
people, somebody had got up to the statue of Elizabeth, in the nich
of Temple-Bar, and set her out like an heathen idol. A bright shield
was hung upon her arm, and a spear put in, or leaned upon, the other
hand; and lamps, or candles, were put about, on the wall of the nich,
to enlighten her person, that the people might have a full view of the
deity that, like the goddess Pallas, stood there as the object of the
solemn sacrifice about to be made. There seemed to be an inscription
upon the shield, but I could not get near enough to discern what it
was, nor divers other decorations; but whatever they were, the eyes
of the rout were pointed at them, and lusty shouts were raised, which
was all the adoration could be paid before the grand procession came
up. I could fix in no nearer post than the Green-Dragon Tavern, below
in Fleet-Street; but, before I settled in my quarters, I rounded the
crowd, to observe, as well as I could, what was doing, and saw much,
but afterwards heard more of the hard battles and skirmishes, that were
maintained from windows and balconies of several parties with one and
the other, and with the floor, as the fancy of Whig and Tory incited.
All which were managed with the artillery of squibs, whereof thousands
of vollies went off, to the great expence of powder and paper, and
profit to the poor manufacturer; for the price of ammunition rose
continually, and the whole trade could not supply the consumption of an
hour or two.

"When we had posted ourselves at windows, expecting the play to begin,
it was very dark, but we could perceive the street to fill, and the hum
of the crowd grew louder and louder; and, at length, with help of some
lights below, we could discern, not only upwards towards the Bar, where
the squib war was maintained, but downwards towards Fleet-Bridge, the
whole street was crowded with people, which made that which followed
seem very strange; for, about eight at night, we heard a din from
below, which came up the street, continually increasing, till we could
perceive a motion; and that was a row of stout fellows, that came,
shouldered together, cross the street, from wall to wall, on each side.
How the people melted away, I cannot tell; but it was plain these
fellows made clear board, as if they had swept the street for what was
to come after. They went along like a wave; and it was wonderful to
see how the crowd made way: I suppose the good people were willing to
give obedience to lawful authority. Behind this wave (which, as all the
rest, had many lights attending) there was a vacancy, but it filled
a-pace, till another like wave came up; and so four or five of these
waves passed, one after another; and then we discerned more numerous
lights, and throats were opened with hoarse and tremendous noise; and,
with that, advanced a pageant, borne along above the heads of the
crowd, and upon it sat an huge Pope, in _pontificalibus_, in his chair,
with a reasonable attendance for state; but his premier minister,
that shared most of his ear, was, Il Signior Diavolo, a nimble little
fellow, in a proper dress, that had a strange dexterity in climbing and
winding about the chair, from one of the pope's ears to the other.

"The next pageant was of a parcel of Jesuits; and after that (for
there was always a decent space between them) came another, with some
ordinary persons with halters, as I took it, about their necks; and
one with a stenterophonic tube, sounded--Abhorrers! Abhorrers! most
infernally; and, lastly, came one, with a single person upon it,
which, some said, was the pamphleteer Sir Roger L'Estrange, some the
King of France, some the Duke of York; but, certainly, it was a very
complaisant civil gentleman, like the former, that was doing what
every body pleased to have him, and, taking all in good part, went on
his way to the fire; and however some, to gratify their fancy, might
debase his character, yet certainly he was a person of high quality,
because he came in the place of state, which is last of all. When
these were passed, our coast began to clear, but it thickened upwards,
and the noise increased; for, as we were afterwards informed, these
stately figures were planted in a demilune about an huge fire, that
shined upon them; and the balconies of the club were ready to crack
with their factious load, till the good people were satiated with the
fine show; and then the hieroglyphic monsters were brought condignly
to a new light of their own making, being, one after another, added
to increase the flames: all which was performed with fitting salvos
of the rabble, echoed from the club, which made a proper music to so
pompous a sacrifice. Were it not for the late attempts to have renewed
these barbarities,[369] it had been more reasonable to have forgot
the past, that such a stain might not have remained upon the credit
of human kind, whom we would not have thought obnoxious to any such;
but, as it is now otherwise, all persons, that mean humanely, ought
to discourage them; and one way is, to expose the factious brutality
of such unthinking rabble sports, by showing, as near as we can, how
really they were acted; the very knowledge of which, one would think,
should make them for ever to be abhorred and detested of all rational
beings. "--NORTH'S _Examen_.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 369: Probably alluding to the pope-burning, meditated by the
Whigs during the administration of Harley. Swift, in his journal to
Stella, mentions the figures intended for the procession having been
seized by government. ]




PROLOGUE

TO THE

LOYAL BROTHER, OR THE PERSIAN PRINCE.

BY MR SOUTHERNE, 1682.


Poets, like lawful monarchs, ruled the stage,
Till critics, like damned Whigs, debauched our age.
Mark how they jump! critics would regulate }
Our theatres, and Whigs reform our state; }
Both pretend love, and both (plague rot them! ) hate. }
The critic humbly seems advice to bring,
The fawning Whig petitions to the king;
But one's advice into a satire slides,
T'other's petition a remonstrance hides.
These will no taxes give, and those no pence;
Critics would starve the poet, Whigs the prince.
The critic all our troops of friends discards;
Just so the Whig would fain pull down the guards.
Guards are illegal, that drive foes away,
As watchful shepherds, that fright beasts of prey.
Kings, who disband such needless aids as these,
Are safe--as long as e'er their subjects please;
And that would be till next Queen Bess's night,
Which thus grave penny chroniclers indite. [370]
Sir Edmondbury first, in woful wise,
Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes.
There's not a butcher's wife but dribs her part,
And pities the poor pageant from her heart;
Who, to provoke revenge, rides round the fire,
And, with a civil congé, does retire:
But guiltless blood to ground must never fall;
There's Antichrist behind, to pay for all.
The punk of Babylon in pomp appears,
A lewd old gentleman of seventy years;
Whose age in vain our mercy would implore,
For few take pity on an old cast whore.
The devil, who brought him to the shame, takes part; }
Sits cheek by jowl, in black, to cheer his heart, }
Like thief and parson in a Tyburn-cart. }
The word is given, and with a loud huzza
The mitred poppet from his chair they draw:
On the slain corpse contending nations fall--
Alas! what's one poor pope among them all!
He burns; now all true hearts your triumphs ring;
And next, for fashion, cry, "God save the king! "
A needful cry in midst of such alarms,
When forty thousand men are up in arms.
But after he's once saved, to make amends, }
In each succeeding health they damn his friends: }
So God begins, but still the devil ends. }
What if some one, inspired with zeal, should call,
Come, let's go cry, "God save him at Whitehall? "
His best friends would not like this over-care,
Or think him e'er the safer for this prayer.
Five praying saints[371] are by an act allowed,
But not the whole church-militant in crowd;
Yet, should heaven all the true petitions drain }
Of Presbyterians, who would kings maintain, }
Of forty thousand, five would scarce remain. }

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 370: See a copy of the penny chronicle alluded to, containing
a minute account of this celebrated procession, with a cut illustrative
of the description, Vol. VI. p. 222. ]

[Footnote 371: Only five dissenters were allowed to meet together by
the penal statutes. ]




EPILOGUE

TO

THE SAME.


A virgin poet was served up to-day,
Who, till this hour, ne'er cackled for a play.
He's neither yet a Whig nor Tory boy; }
But, like a girl, whom several would enjoy, }
Begs leave to make the best of his own natural toy. }
Were I to play my callow author's game,
The King's House would instruct me by the name. [372]
There's loyalty to one; I wish no more:
A commonwealth sounds like a common whore.
Let husband or gallant be what they will,
One part of woman is true Tory still.
If any factious spirit should rebel,
Our sex, with ease, can every rising quell.
Then, as you hope we should your failings hide,
An honest jury for our play provide.
Whigs at their poets never take offence;
They save dull culprits, who have murdered sense.
Though nonsense is a nauseous heavy mass,
The vehicle called Faction makes it pass;
Faction in play's the commonwealth-man's bribe;
The leaden farthing of the canting tribe:
Though void in payment laws and statutes make it,
The neighbourhood, that knows the man, will take it. [373]
'Tis faction buys the votes of half the pit;
Their's is the pension-parliament[374] of wit.
In city-clubs their venom let them vent;
For there 'tis safe, in its own element.
Here, where their madness can have no pretence,
Let them forget themselves an hour of sense.
In one poor isle, why should two factions be? }
Small difference in your vices I can see: }
In drink and drabs both sides too well agree. }
Would there were more preferments in the land!
If places fell, the party could not stand.
Of this damned grievance every Whig complains,
They grunt like hogs till they have got their grains.
Mean time, you see what trade our plots advance;
We send each year good money into France;
And they that know what merchandize we need,
Send o'er true Protestants[375] to mend our breed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 372: Where the play was acted. ]

[Footnote 373: Alluding to the tokens issued by tradesmen in place of
copper money, which, though not a legal tender of payment, continued to
be current by the credit of the individual whose name they bore. Tom
Brown mentions Alderman Buncombe's leaden halfpence. ]

[Footnote 374: The Parliament, which sat from the Restoration till
1678, bore this ignominious epithet among the Whigs. ]

[Footnote 375: Alluding to the emigration of the French Huguenots,
which the intolerance of Louis XIV. and his ministers began to render
general. Many took refuge in England. See Vol. X. p. 264. ]




PROLOGUE

TO

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

SPOKEN BY MR HART

AT THE ACTING OF THE SILENT WOMAN.


What Greece, when learning flourished, only knew,
Athenian judges, you this day renew.
Here, too, are annual rites to Pallas done,
And here poetic prizes lost or won.
Methinks I see you, crowned with olives, sit,
And strike a sacred horror from the pit.
A day of doom is this of your decree, }
Where even the best are but by mercy free; }
A day, which none but Jonson durst have wished to see. }
Here they, who long have known the useful stage,
Come to be taught themselves to teach the age.
As your commissioners our poets go,
To cultivate the virtue which you sow;
In your Lycæum first themselves refined,
And delegated thence to human kind.
But as ambassadors, when long from home,
For new instructions to their princes come,
So poets, who your precepts have forgot,
Return, and beg they may be better taught:
Follies and faults elsewhere by them are shown,
But by your manners they correct their own.
The illiterate writer, emp'ric-like, applies
To minds diseased, unsafe chance remedies:
The learned in schools, where knowledge first began,
Studies with care the anatomy of man;
Sees virtue, vice, and passions in their cause,
And fame from science, not from fortune, draws;
So Poetry, which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade.
There haughty dunces, whose unlearned pen
Could ne'er spell grammar, would be reading men. [376]
Such build their poems the Lucretian way;
So many huddled atoms make a play;
And if they hit in order by some chance,
They call that nature, which is ignorance.
To such a fame let mere town-wits aspire,
And their gay nonsense their own cits admire.
Our poet, could he find forgiveness here,
Would wish it rather than a plaudit there.
He owns no crown from those Prætorian bands,[377]
But knows that right is in the senate's hands.
Not impudent enough to hope your praise, }
Low at the Muses' feet his wreath he lays, }
And, where he took it up, resigns his bays. }
Kings make their poets whom themselves think fit,
But 'tis your suffrage makes authentic wit.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 376: An allusion to Shadwell; who boasted, that he drew his
characters from nature, in contempt of regular criticism. ]

[Footnote 377: Alluding to the mode in which the emperors were chosen
during the decline of the empire, when the soldiers of the Prætorian
guards were the electors, without regard to the legal rights of the
senate. ]




EPILOGUE,

SPOKEN BY THE SAME.


No poor Dutch peasant, winged with all his fear,
Flies with more haste, when the French arms draw near,
Than we, with our poetic train, come down,
For refuge hither, from the infected town:
Heaven, for our sins, this summer has thought fit
To visit us with all the plagues of wit.
A French troop first swept all things in its way;
But those hot Monsieurs were too quick to stay:
Yet, to our cost, in that short time, we find
They left their itch of novelty behind.
The Italian merry-andrews took their place,
And quite debauched the stage with lewd grimace:
Instead of wit, and humours, your delight
Was there to see two hobby-horses fight;
Stout Scaramoucha with rush lance rode in,
And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin.
For love you heard how amorous asses brayed,
And cats in gutters gave their serenade.
Nature was out of countenance, and each day
Some new-born monster shown you for a play.
But when all failed, to strike the stage quite dumb,
Those wicked engines, called machines, are come.
Thunder and lightning now for wit are played,
And shortly scenes in Lapland will be laid:
Art magic is for poetry profest,[378]
And cats and dogs, and each obscener beast,
To which Egyptian dotards once did bow,
Upon our English stage are worshipped now.
Witchcraft reigns there, and raises to renown
Macbeth[379] and Simon Magus of the town.
Fletcher's despised, your Jonson's out of fashion,
And wit the only drug in all the nation.
In this low ebb our wares to you are shown, }
By you those staple authors' worth is known, }
For wit's a manufacture of your own. }
When you, who only can, their scenes have praised,
We'll back, and boldly say, their price is raised.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 378: This and the following lines refer to the success of
Shadwell's comedy of "The Lancashire Witches," in which a great deal
of machinery is introduced; the witches flying away with the clown's
candles, and the priest's bottle of holy water, and converting a
country-fellow into a horse upon the stage. Not content with this, the
author has introduced upon the stage all that writers upon Dæmonology
have rehearsed of the Witches' Sabbath, or Festival, with their
infernal master; and has thus, very clumsily, mixed the horrible with
the ludicrous. As for the cats and dogs, we have, in one place,--"Enter
an Imp, in the shape of a black Shock;" and, in another,

"Enter Mother Hargrave, Mother Madge, and two Witches more; they mew,
and spit, like cats, and fly at them, and scratch them.

_Young Hartford. _ What's this? we're set on by cats.

_Sir Timothy. _ They're witches in the shape of cats; what shall we do?

_Priest. _ Phaat will I do? cat, cat, cat! oh, oh! _Conjuro vobis!
fugite, fugite, Cacodæmones_; cats, cats! (They scratch all their
faces, till the blood runs about them. )

_Tom Shacklehead. _ Have at ye all! (he cuts at them. ) I ha' mauled some
of them, by the mass! they are fled, but I am plaguily scratched. (The
Witches shriek, and run away. )"

Besides the offence which Shadwell gave, in point of taste, by the
introduction of these pantomimical absurdities, Dryden was also
displeased by the whole tenor of the play, which was directed against
the High-Churchmen and Tories. --_See Dedication of the Duke of Guise_,
Vol. VII. p. 15. ]

[Footnote 379: This has no reference to any recent representation of
the tragedy of "Macbeth. " Shadwell, from the witchcraft introduced in
his play, is ironically termed, "Macbeth and Simon Magus. "]




PROLOGUE

TO

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.


Though actors cannot much of learning boast,
Of all who want it, we admire it most:
We love the praises of a learned pit,
As we remotely are allied to wit.
We speak our poet's wit, and trade in ore,
Like those who touch upon the golden shore;
Betwixt our judges can distinction make,
Discern how much, and why our poems take;
Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice;
Whether the applause be only sound or voice.
When our fop gallants, or our city folly,
Clap over loud, it makes us melancholy:
We doubt that scene which does their wonder raise,
And, for their ignorance, contemn their praise.
Judge, then, if we who act, and they who write,
Should not be proud of giving you delight.
London likes grossly; but this nicer pit
Examines, fathoms, all the depths of wit;
The ready finger lays on every blot;
Knows what should justly please, and what should not.
Nature herself lies open to your view;
You judge, by her, what draught of her is true,
Where outlines false, and colours seem too faint,
Where bunglers daub, and where true poets paint.
But by the sacred genius of this place,
By every muse, by each domestic grace,
Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well,
And, where you judge, presumes not to excel!
Our poets hither for adoption come,
As nations sued to be made free of Rome:
Not in the suffragating tribes[380] to stand,
But in your utmost, last, provincial band.
If his ambition may those hopes pursue,
Who, with religion, loves your arts and you,
Oxford to him a dearer name shall be
Than his own mother-university.
Thebes[381] did his green, unknowing, youth engage;
He chooses Athens in his riper age.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 380: Alluding to the Roman citizens, who had the right of
voting, denied to the lower, or provincial orders. ]

[Footnote 381: Our author was educated at Cambridge. Whether the sons
of Cam relished this avowed preference of Oxford, may be doubted. ]




EPILOGUE

TO

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.

BY MR N. LEE, 1684.


_The play, to which this is the prologue, is but a second-rate
performance. It is founded on the story of Faustina and Crispus,
which the learned will find in Ammianus Marcellinus, and the
English reader in Gibbon. Arius, the heretic, is the villain of the
piece, which concludes fortunately. _

Our hero's happy in the play's conclusion;
The holy rogue at last has met confusion:
Though Arius all along appeared a saint,
The last act showed him a True Protestant. [382]
Eusebius,--for you know I read Greek authors,--
Reports, that, after all these plots and slaughters,
The court of Constantine was full of glory,
And every Trimmer turned addressing Tory.
They followed him in herds as they were mad:
When Clause _was_ king, then all the world was glad. [383]
Whigs kept the places they possest before,
And most were in a way of getting more;
Which was as much as saying, Gentlemen,
Here's power and money to be rogues again.
Indeed, there were a sort of peaking tools,
Some call them modest, but I call them fools;
Men much more loyal, though not half so loud,
But these poor devils were cast behind the crowd;
For bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence.
Besides all these, there were a sort of wights,
(I think my author calls them Tekelites,)
Such hearty rogues against the king and laws,
They favoured e'en a foreign rebel's cause,
When their own damned design was quashed and awed;
At least they gave it their good word abroad.
As many a man, who, for a quiet life,
Breeds out his bastard, not to noise his wife,
Thus, o'er their darling plot these Trimmers cry, }
And, though they cannot keep it in their eye, }
They bind it 'prentice to Count Tekely. [384] }
They believe not the last plot; may I be curst,
If I believe they e'er believed the first!
No wonder their own plot no plot they think,--
The man, that makes it, never smells the stink.
And, now it comes into my head, I'll tell
Why these damned Trimmers loved the Turks so well.
The original Trimmer,[385] though a friend to no man,
Yet in his heart adored a pretty woman;
He knew that Mahomet laid up for ever
Kind black-eyed rogues for every true believer;
And,--which was more than mortal man e'er tasted,--
One pleasure that for threescore twelvemonths lasted.
To turn for this, may surely be forgiven;
Who'd not be circumcised for such a heaven?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 382: Alluding to the Whigs, who called themselves so. See
Vol. IX. p. 211. ]

[Footnote 383: Alluding to the gratulating speech of Orator Higgins to
Clause, when elected King of the Beggars:

Who is he here that did not wish thee chosen,
Now thou _art_ chosen? Ask them; all will say so,
Nay, swear't--'tis for the king,--but let that pass.

_Beggars' Bush_, Act II. Scene I.
]

[Footnote 384: The severity of the Austrian government, in Hungary
particularly, towards those who dissented from the Roman Catholic
faith, occasioned several insurrections. The most memorable was headed
by Count Teckeli, who allied himself with the sultan, assumed the
crown of Transylvania, as a vassal of the Porte, and joined, with a
considerable force, the large army of Turks which besieged Vienna, and
threatened to annihilate the Austrian empire. A similarity of situation
and of interest induced the Whig party in England to look with a
favourable eye upon this Hungarian insurgent, as may be fully inferred
from the following passage in De Foe's "Appeal to Honour and Justice:"

"The first time I had the misfortune to differ with my friends, was
about the year 1683, when the Turks were besieging Vienna, and the
Whigs in England, generally speaking, were for the Turks taking it;
which I, having read the history of the cruelty and perfidious dealings
of the Turks in their wars, and how they had rooted out the name of
the Christian religion in above threescore and ten kingdoms, could by
no means agree with; and, though then but a young man, and a younger
author, I opposed it, and wrote against it, which was taken very
unkindly indeed. "

The incongruity of the opinion combated by De Foe, with the high
pretences of religion set up by the Whigs, was the constant subject
of ridicule to the Tory wits. In a poem, entitled, "The Third Part of
Advice to the Painter," dated by Luttrell 28th May, 1684, we find the
following passage:

Paint me that mighty powerful state a shaking,
And their great prophet, Teckely, a quaking;
Who for religion made such bustling work,
That, to reform it, he brought in the Turk.
Next, paint our English muftis of the tub,
Those great promoters of the Teckelites' club.
Draw me them praying for the Turkish cause,
And for the overthrow of Christian laws.

Another Tory poet prophecies of the infant son of James II. ,--

His conquering arm shall soon subdue
Teckelite Turks and home-bred Jew,
Such as our great forefathers never knew.

_Pindaric Ode on the Queen's Delivery, by Caleb Calle. _

Another ballad, written shortly after the defeat of Monmouth, is
entitled, "A Song upon the Rendezvous on Hounsley-heath, with a
Parallel of the Destruction of our English Turks in the West, and the
Mahometans in Hungary. " The expression occurs also in the Address of
the Carlisle Citizens on the Declaration of Indulgence, who "thank his
majesty for his royal army, which is really both the honour and safety
of the nation, let the Teckelites think and say what they will. " An
indignant Whig commentator on this effusion of loyalty, says, "What the
good men of Carlisle mean by Teckelites, we know not any more than they
know themselves. However, the word has a pretty effect at a time when
the Protestant Hungarians, under Count Teckely, were well beaten by the
Popish standing army in Hungary. " _History of Addresses_, p. 161. ]

[Footnote 385: The _original Trimmer_ was probably meant for Lord
Shaftesbury, once a member of the Cabal, and a favourite minister,
though afterwards in such violent opposition. His lordship's turn
for gallantry was such as distinguished him even at the court of
Charles. --See Vol. IX. p. 446. The party of Trimmers, properly so
called, only comprehended the followers of Halifax; but our author
seems to include all those who, professing to be friends of monarchy,
were enemies of the Duke of York, and who were as odious to the
court as the fanatical republicans. Much wit, and more virulence,
was unchained against them. Among others, I find in Mr Luttrell's
Collection, a poem, entitled, "The Character of a Trimmer," beginning
thus:

Hang out your cloth, and let the trumpet sound,
Here's such a beast as Afric never owned:
A twisted brute, the satyr in the story,
That blows up the Whig heat, and cools the Tory;
A state hermaphrodite, whose doubtful lust
Salutes all parties with an equal gust.
Like Ireland shocks, he seems two natures joined;
Savage before, and all betrimmed behind;
And the well-tutored curs like him will strain,
Come over for the king, and back again, &c.
]




PROLOGUE

TO THE

DISAPPOINTMENT, OR THE MOTHER IN FASHION.

BY MR SOUTHERNE, 1684.

SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON.


_This play is founded on the novel of the Impertinent Curiosity,
in Don Quixote. It possesses no extraordinary merit. The satire of
the Prologue, though grossly broad, is very forcibly expressed;
and describes what we may readily allow to have been the career of
many, who set up for persons of wit and honour about town. _

How comes it, gentlemen, that, now a-days,
When all of you so shrewdly judge of plays,
Our poets tax you still with want of sense?
All prologues treat you at your own expence.
Sharp citizens a wiser way can go;
They make you fools, but never call you so.
They in good manners seldom make a slip,
But treat a common whore with--ladyship:
But here each saucy wit at random writes,
And uses ladies as he uses knights.
Our author, young and grateful in his nature,
Vows, that from him no nymph deserves a satire:
Nor will he ever draw--I mean his rhime,
Against the sweet partaker of his crime;
Nor is he yet so bold an undertaker,
To call men fools--'tis railing at their Maker.
Besides, he fears to split upon that shelf;
He's young enough to be a fop himself:
And, if his praise can bring you all a-bed,
He swears such hopeful youth no nation ever bred.
Your nurses, we presume, in such a case, }
Your father chose, because he liked the face, }
And often they supplied your mother's place. }
The dry nurse was your mother's ancient maid,
Who knew some former slip she ne'er betrayed.
Betwixt them both, for milk and sugar-candy,
Your sucking bottles were well stored with brandy.
Your father, to initiate your discourse, }
Meant to have taught you first to swear and curse, }
But was prevented by each careful nurse. }
For, leaving dad and mam, as names too common,
They taught you certain parts of man and woman.
I pass your schools; for there, when first you came,
You would be sure to learn the Latin name.
In colleges, you scorned the art of thinking,
But learned all moods and figures of good drinking;
Thence come to town, you practise play, to know
The virtues of the high dice, and the low. [386]
Each thinks himself a sharper most profound:
He cheats by pence; is cheated by the pound.
With these perfections, and what else he gleans, }
The spark sets up for love behind our scenes, }
Hot in pursuit of princesses and queens. }
There, if they know their man, with cunning carriage,
Twenty to one but it concludes in marriage.
He hires some homely room, love's fruits to gather,
And, garret high, rebels against his father:
But, he once dead----
Brings her in triumph, with her portion, down--
A toilet, dressing-box, and half-a-crown. [387]
Some marry first, and then they fall to scowering,
Which is refining marriage into whoring.
Our women batten well on their good nature;
All they can rap and rend for the dear creature.
But while abroad so liberal the dolt is,
Poor spouse at home as ragged as a colt is.
Last, some there are, who take their first degrees
Of lewdness in our middle galleries;
The doughty bullies enter bloody drunk,
Invade and grubble one another's punk:
They caterwaul, and make a dismal rout,
Call sons of whores, and strike, but ne'er lug out:
Thus, while for paltry punk they roar and stickle,
They make it bawdier than a conventicle.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 386: Loaded dice, contrived some for high, and others for low
throws. ]

[Footnote 387: Our author seems to copy himself in this passage. "His
old father, in the country, would have given him but little thanks
for it, to see him bring down a fine-bred woman, with a lute and a
dressing-box, and a handful of money to her portion. "--_The Wild
Gallant_, Vol. II. p. 66. ]




PROLOGUE

TO

THE KING AND QUEEN,

UPON THE

UNION OF THE TWO COMPANIES, IN 1686.


_The two rival Companies, so long known by the names of the King's
and the Duke's players, after exhausting every effort, both of
poetry and machinery, to obtain a superiority over each other,
were, at length, by the expence of these exertions, and the
inconstancy of the public, reduced to the necessity of uniting
their forces, in order to maintain their ground. "Taste and
fashion," says Colley Cibber, "with us, have always had wings, and
fly from one public spectacle to another so wantonly, that I have
been informed, by those who remember it, that a famous puppet-show,
in Salisbury-change, then standing where Cecil-street now is, so
far distressed these two celebrated companies, that they were
reduced to petition the king for relief against it.