TO THE LADY CASTLEMAINE, UPON HER INCOURAGING HIS FIRST PLAY

[In his preface to The Wild Gallant Dryden says that it had but indifferent success in the action. . . . Yet it was receiv'd at court; and was more than once the divertisement of his Majesty, by his own command." This probably does not refer to the revival of 1667; but, in part at least, to a court performance on February 23, 1663, which Pepys attended, and which may well have been procured for Dryden by the influence of the Countess of Castlemaine, then at the height of her power as the favorite mistress of Charles II. This woman was born Barbara Villiers, daughter of William Villiers, second Viscount Grandison; in 1670 she was created Duchess of Cleveland.

This poem was first printed in Examen Poeticum, 1693.]

As seamen, shipwrack'd on some happy

shore,

[This tragi-comedy, Dryden's first attempt at the poetic drama, was acted late in 1663 or early in 1664. It was entered on the Stationers' Register June 5, 1664 (Malone, I. 1, 57); two separate editions were printed in that year. No epilogue appears in any early edition.]

'Tis much desir'd, you judges of the town Would pass a vote to put all prologues down:

For who can show me, since they first were writ,

They e'er converted one hard-hearted wit? Yet the world's mended well: in former days

Good prologues were as scarce as now good plays.

For the reforming poets of our age,

2.

A second PROLOGUE enters.

Hold; would you admit For judges all you see within the pit?

1. Whom would he then except, or on what score?

2. All who (like him) have writ ill plays before;

For they, like thieves condemn'd, are hangmen made,

To execute the members of their trade.
All that are writing now he would disown,
But then he must except-ev'n all the town;
All chol'ric, losing gamesters, who, in spite,
Will damn to-day, because they lost last
night;

32

All servants, whom their mistress' scorn upbraids;

All maudlin lovers, and all slighted maids;
All who are out of humor, or severe;
All that want wit, or hope to find it here.

PROLOGUE, EPILOGUE, AND SONG FROM THE INDIAN EMPEROR

OR, THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO BY THE SPANIARDS

[This, Dryden's first independent heroic play, was acted late in 1664 or early in 1665. It was entered on the Stationers' Register

TO THE

METROPOLIS OF GREAT BRITAIN,

THE MOST RENOWN'D AND LATE FLOURISHING CITY OF LONDON, IN ITS REPRESENTATIVES THE LORD MAYOR AND COURT OF ALDERMEN, the sheriffs, AND COMMON COUNCIL OF IT

As perhaps I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature to the metropolis of any nation; so it is likewise consonant to justice, that he who was to give the first example of such a dedication should begin it with that city, which has set a pattern to all others of true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy. Other cities have been prais'd for the same virtues, but I am much deceiv'd if any have so dearly purchas'd their reputation; their fame has been won them by cheaper trials than an expensive, tho' necessary war, a consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fire. To submit yourselves with that humility to the judgments of Heaven, and at the same time to raise yourselves with that vigor above all human enemies; to be combated at once from above and from below, to be struck down and to triumph; I know not whether such trials have been ever parallel'd in any nation: the resolution and successes of them never can be. Never had prince or people more mutual reason to love each other, if suffering for each other can indear affection. You have come together a pair of matchless lovers, thro' many difficulties; he, thro' a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and the interposition of many rivals, who violently ravish'd and withheld you from bim: and certainly you have had your share in sufferings But Providence has cast upon yon want of trade, that you might appear bountiful to your country's necessities; and the rest of your afflictions are not more the effects of God's displeasure, (frequent examples of them having been in the reign of the most excellent princes.) than occasions for the manifesting of your Christian and civil virtues. To you, therefore, this Year of Wonders is justly dedieated, because you have made it so. You, who are to stand a wonder to all years and ages, and who have built yourselves an immortal

monument on your own ruins. You are now a Phoenix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity. But Heaven never made so much piety and virtue to leave it miserable. I have heard, indeed, of some virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately, but never of any virtuous nation: Providence is engag'd too deeply, when the cause becomes so general. And I cannot imagine it has resolv'd the ruin of that people at home which it has blest abroad with such successes. I am therefore to conclude that your sufferings are at an end; and that one part of my poem has not been more an history of your destruction, than the other a prophecy of your restoration. The accomplishment of which happiness, as it is the wish of all true Englishmen, so is by none more passionately desir'd than by,

The greatest of your admirers, and
Most humble of your servants,
JOHN DRYDEN.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE ENSUING POEM

IN A LETTER TO THE HONORABLE SIR ROBERT HOWARD

SIR, I AM SO many ways oblig'd to you, and so little. able to return your favors, that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but you have been solicitons of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It is not long since I gave you the trouble of perusing a play for me, and now, instead of an acknowledgment, I have given you a greater, in the correction of a poem. But since you are to bear this persecution, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr ; you could never suffer in a nobler cause. For I have chosen the most heroic subject which any poet could desire; I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes, of a most just and necessary war: in it, the care, management, and prudence of onr king; the conduct and valor of a royal admiral, and of two incomparable generals; the invincible courage of our captains and seamen; and

three glorious victories, the result of all. After this, I have, in the fire, the most deplorable, but withal the greatest, argument that can be imagin'd the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast, and miserable, as nothing can parallel in story. The former part of this poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not serving my king and country in it. All gentlemen are almost oblig'd to it; and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the nobless of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should not have written this but to a person who has been ever forward to appear in all employments whither his honor and generosity have call'd him. The later part of my poem, which describes the fire, I owe first to the piety and fatherly affection of our monarch to his suffering subjects; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both which were so conspicuous, that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. I have call'd my poem historical, not epic, tho' both the actions and actors are as much heroic as any poem can contain. But since the action is not properly one, nor that accomplish'd in the last successes, I have judg'd it too bold a title for a few stanzas, which are little more in number than a single Iliad, or the longest of the Eneids. For this reason (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too severely to the laws of history) I am apt to agree with those who rank Lucan rather among historians in verse, than epic poets: in whose room, if I am not deceiv'd, Silius Italicus, tho' a worse writer, may more justly be admitted. I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judg'd them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us; in which I am sure I have your approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being tied to the slavery of any rhyme; and were less constrain'd in the quantity of every syllable, which they might vary with spondees or dactiles, besides so many other helps of grammatical figures, for the lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the close of that one syllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the sense of all the rest. But in this necessity of our rhymes, I have always found the complet verse most easy, (tho' not so proper for this occasion,) for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labor of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it farther on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the troublesome sense of four lines together. For those

who write correctly in this kind must needs acknowledge that the last line of the stanza is to be consider'd in the composition of the first. Neither can we give ourselves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the sake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using the variety of female rhymes; all which our fathers practic'd: and for the female rhymes, they are still in use amongst other nations; with the Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French alternately; as those who have read the Alarique, the Pucel'e, or any of their later poems, will agree with me. And besides this, they write in Alexandrins, or verses of six feet; such as amongst us is the old translation of Homer, by Chapman; all which, by length'ning of their chain, makes the sphere of their activity the larger. I have dwelt too long upon the choice of my stanza, which you may remember is much better defended in the preface to Gondibert; and therefore I will hasten to acquaint you with my endeavors in the writing. In general I will only say, I have never yet seen the description of any naval fight in the proper terms which are us'd at sea; and if there be any such in another language, as that of Lucan in the third of his Pharsalia, yet I could not prevail myself of it in the English; the terms of art in every tongue bearing more of the idiom of it than any other words. We hear indeed among our poets, of the thund'ring of guns the smoke, the disorder, and the slaughter; but all these are common notions. And certainly as those who, in a logical dispute, keep in general terms, would hide a fallacy, so those who do it in any poetical description would veil their ignorance:

Descriptas servare vices operumque colores, Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, poeta salutor? For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea, yet I have thought it no shame to learn; and if I have made some few mistakes, 't is only, as you can bear me witness, because I have wanted opportunity to correct them; the whole poem being first written, and now sent you, from a place where I have not so much as the converse of any seaman. Yet, tho' the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was more than recompens'd by the pleasure: I found myself so warm in celebrating the praises of military men, two such especially as the prince and general, that it is no wonder if they inspir'd me with thoughts above my ordinary level. And I am well satisfied that, as they are incomparably the best subject I have ever had, excepting only the royal family; so also, that this I have written of them is much better than what I have perfo.m'd on any