The Poetical Works of John Dryden

PROLOGUE

TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, UPON HIS FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE'S THEATRE, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND, 1682.

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 throng'd 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, 20
To make their solemn show at heaven's White-
hall,

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 innocent, as harbinger of love:
The ark is open'd 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? 15
Why should he quit for hopes his certain good,
And loathe the manna of his daily food?
Must England still the scene of changes be,
Toss'd 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.

And changed his vision for the Muses nine.
The comet, that, they say, portends a dearth,
Was but a vapour drawn from play-house earth:
Pent there since our last fire, and, Lilly says,
Foreshows our change of state, and thin third-

"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?
Or, which is duller yet, and more would spite us.
Democritus his wars with Heraclitus?

Such are the authors, who have run us down,
And exercised you critics of the town.
Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhymes,
Y'abuse yourselves more dully than the times
Scandal, the glory of the English nation,
Is worn to rags, and scribbled out of fashion.

The critic humbly seems advice to bring;
The fawning Whig petitions to the king:
But one's advice into a satire slides;
Tother'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.

"The Loyal Brother; or, the Persian Prince," Mr. Southerne's first play, was acted at Drury-lane in 1682; a time in which the Tory interest, after long struggles, carried all before it. The character of the Loyal Brother was a compliment intended for the Duke of York. This prologue is a continued invective against the Whigs. DERRICK.

Ver. 18.

queen Bess's night:] At the King's-head tavern, the corner of Chancery-lane, and opposite the InnerTemple-gate, the principal opponents to the court-measures and the chiefs of the Whig party assembled, under the name of the King's-head Club, and afterwards the Greenribbon Club, from ribbons of that colour which they wore in their hats. Here they subscribed a guinea a-piece for a bonfire, in which the effigies of the Pope was to be burnt on the 17th of November, being the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's birth, with more than ordinary pomp; for it it was heretofore an annual ceremony, usually made without any remarkable parade. The procession now consisted of one representing the dead body of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, carried on a horse, with a person preceding it ringing a bell, to remind people of his murder. then followed a mob of fellows, dressed like carmelites, jesuits, bishops, cardinals, &c. and several boys with incense-pots, surrounding an image of the Pope, with that of the devil just behind him,

Like thief and parson in a Tyburn cart.

In this manner they marched from Bishopsgate to the corner of Chancery-lane, where they committed the inoffensive effigies to the flames; while the balconies and windows of the King's-head were filled with people of consequence, who countenanced the túmult; which, the Hon. Roger North says, struck a terror upon people's spirits. The year of acting the play, to which we have here a prologue, great additions, alterations, and expensive improvements, were intended to be made in this procession which

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 are by an act allow'd;
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.

PROLOGUE

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, empiric-like, applies
To minds diseased, unsafe, chance, remedies:
The learn'd 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.
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, *
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.

EPILOGUE,

SPOKEN BY THE SAME.

No poor Dutch peasant, wing'd with all his fear, Flies with more haste, when the French arus 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:

Ver. 25. Studies with care the anatomy of man ;] "Créer un sujet; inventer un noeud et un dénouement; donner a chaque personnage son caractère, et le soutenir; faire en sorte qu'aucun d'eux ne paraisse et ne sorte sans une raison sentie de tous les spectateurs; ne laisser jamais le theatre vuide; faire dire à chacun ce qu'il doit dire; avec neblesse sans enflure, avec simplicitè sans bassesse; faire de besux vers qui ne sentent point le poëte, et tels que le personnage aurait dû en faire, s'il parlait en vers; c'est-là une partie des devoirs que tout auteur d'une tragédie doit remplir." Dr. J. WARTON.

* In a very old French mystery acted at Paris, 1490, in order to render the character of Judas more detestable, the

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 debauch'd 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 bray'd,
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 fail'd, to strike the stage quite
dumb,

Those wicked engines call'd machines are come.
Thunder and lightning now for wit are play'd,
And shortly scenes in Lapland will be laid:
Art magic is for poetry profess'd;

And cats and dogs, and each obscener beast,
To which Ægyptian dotards once did bow,
Upon our English stage are worshipp'd now.
Witchcraft reigns there, and raises to renown
Macbeth 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 boldly back, and say, their price is raised.

EPILOGUE,

SPOKEN AT OXFORD, BY MRS. MARSHALL.

OFT has our poet wish'd, this happy seat
Might prove his fading Muse's last retreat:
I wonder'd at his wish, but now I find
He sought for quiet, and content of mind;
Which noiseful towns, and courts can never know, 5
And only in the shades like laurels grow.
Youth, ere it sees the world, here studies rest,
And age returning thence concludes it best.
What wonder if we court that happiness
Yearly to share, which hourly you possess.
Teaching e'en you, while the vex'd world we show,
Your peace to value more, and better know?
"Tis all we can return for favours past,
Whose holy memory shall ever last,
For patronage from him whose care presides
O'er every noble art, and every science guides:
Bathurst, a name the learn'd with reverence know,
And scarcely more to his own Virgil owe;
Whose age enjoys but what his youth deserved,
To rule those Muses whom before he served.

author affirms, that before he became acquainted with Christ, he had assassinated the son of his king, had afterwards murdered his father, and married his mother. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 11. The Italian] Apostolo Zeno had made a collection of four thousand old Italian tragedies and comedies. I Simillimi of Trissino, wrote in his old age, is an imitation of the Menaechmi of Plautus. See Trissino's fine letter in blank verse prefixed to Sophonisba addressed to Leo X. Dr. J. WARTON.

His learning, and untainted manners too,
We find, Athenians, are derived to you:
Such ancient hospitality there rests

In yours, as dwelt in the first Grecian breasts,
Whose kindness was religion to their guests.
Such modesty did to our sex appear,

As, had there been no laws, we need not fear,
Since each of you was our protector here.
Converse so chaste, and so strict virtue shown,
As might Apollo with the Muses own.
Till our return, we must despair to find
Judges so just, so knowing, and so kind.

PROLOGUE

TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

DISCORD and plots, which have undone our age,
With the same ruin have o'erwhelm'd the stage.
Our house has suffer'd 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 coach'd, 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 decay'd,
Dived here old woman, and rose there a maid.
Our trusty doorkeepers of former time
There strut and swagger in heroic rhyme.
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 slander'd English wit:
You have beheld such barbarous Macs appear,
As merited a second massacre :

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. 10
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, 15
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

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 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 did his green, unknowing, youth engage; He chooses Athens in his riper age.

Satire was once your physic, wit your food;
One nourish'd not, and t'other drew no blood:
We now prescribe, like doctors in despair,
The diet your weak appetites can bear.
Since hearty beef and mutton will not do,
Here's julep-dance, ptisan of song and show:
Give you strong sense, the liquor is too heady;
You're come to farce,-that's asses' milk,-already.
Some hopeful youths there are, of callow wit,
Who one day may be men, if Heaven think fit;
Sound may serve such, ere they to sense are
grown,

Like leading-strings, till they can walk alone.
But yet, to keep our friends in countenance, know,
The wise Italians first invented show;
Thence into France the noble pageant pass'd: 5
'Tis England's credit to be cozen'd last.
Freedom and zeal have choused you o'er and o'er;
Pray give us leave to bubble you once more;
You never were so cheaply fool'd before:

We bring you change, to humour your disease; *0
Change for the worse has ever used to please:
Then, 'tis the mode of France; without whose
rules,

None must presume to set up here for fools
In France, the oldest man is always young,
Sees operas daily, learns the tunes so long,
Till foot, hand, head, keep time with every song:
Each sings his part, echoing from pit and box,
With his hoarse voice, half harmony, half pox.
Le plus grand roi du monde is always ringing,
They show themselves good subjects by their
singing:

On that condition, set up every throat;

You Whigs may sing, for you have changed your

note.

Cits and citesses, raise a joyful strain,

'Tis a good omen to begin a reign;

Voices may help your charter to restoring, And get by singing, what you lost by roaring.

Ver. 8. why, our poems take:] The pleasure properly to be expected from a good tragedy is "the pleasure that arises from pity and terror." Has Pope, in the first lines of his famous prologue to Cato, touched on this pleasure? or made this the essential business of tragedy? It is observable that in Greece the Drama was perfected in half a century; in Europe it took up 400 years to bring it to any perfection. Aristotle, in the Poetics, complains of the effeminacy of the Athenian taste, in forcing their poets to soften some of their most striking catastrophes, and diminishing the terror and re poßigor of their pieces. In the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, Deianira utters a sentiment that was Solon's years before Solon lived. Sophocles also uses the word ou, long before it was framed at Athens. But the description of the chariot-race at the Isthmian games is the greatest anachronism. Dr. J. WARTON.

EPILOGUE

TO" ALBION AND ALBANIUS.'

AFTER our Esop's fable shown to-day,
I come to give the moral of the play.
Feign'd Zeal, you saw, set out the speedier pace;
But the last heat, Plain Dealing won the race:
Plain Dealing for a jewel has been known;
But ne'er till now the jewel of a crown.
When Heaven made man, to show the work divine,
Truth was his image, stamp'd upon the coin:
And when a king is to a god refined,
On all he says and does he stamps his mind:
This proves a soul without alloy, and pure;
Kings, like their gold, should every touch endure.
To dare in fields is valour; but how few
Dare be so throughly valiant,-to be true!
The name of great, let other kings affect:
He's great indeed, the prince that is direct.
His subjects know him now, and trust him more
Than all their kings, and all their laws before.
What safety could their public acts afford?
Those he can break; but cannot break his word "

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The Poetical Works of John Dryden: Containing Original Poems, Tales, and ...