PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO THE KING AND QUEEN AT THE OPENING OF THEIR THEATER [These two pieces, with heading on which the above is modeled, were published as a broadside in 1683. They were reprinted in the third edition, 1702, of Miscellany Poems, the First Part, the first of them having the title, A Prologue to the King and Queen, upon the Union of the two Companies in the year 1689 [sic]. In 1682 the King's Company and the Duke's Company, which had been rivals for over twenty years, joined their forces. The articles of union (reprinted in FitzGerald: A New History of the English Stage, 1882; vol. i, pp. 154-158) are dated May 14, 1682; but the united companies did not give their first representation until November 16 (Malone, I, 1, 120, on the authority of a note by Luttrell).] ["In the year of his Majesty's happy Restoration," Dryden writes in his Vindication of The Duke of Guise," the first play I undertook was The Duke of Guise, as the fairest way which the Act of Indemnity had then left us of setting forth the rise of the late rebellion. As this was my first essay, so it met with the fortune of an unfinish'd piece; that is to say, it was damn'd in private, by the advice of some friends to whom I shew'd it; who freely told me that it was an excellent subject, but not so artificially wrought as they could have wish'd." In 1682, at the request of Lee, Dryden accepted his aid in completing this play, which was ready for acting before midsummer, though, owing to objections from the government, the first performance did not take place until November 30 (Malone, I, 1, 120, probably on manuscript authority). As is obvious from the following pieces, The Duke of Guise was a political play, directed against the Whig party. The prologue and the first of the two epilogues are assigned to Dryden in the first edition of the play, 1683. They were also printed in a broadside of the same date, which contains, in addition, the second epilogue. The song occurs early in the second scene of the fifth act, a portion of the play which Dryden claims as his own.] [An advertisement in the Observator (see Scott-Saintsbury edition, xviii, 295) shows that this poem was first published about November 30, 1682. Two different issues of it appeared in that year, and a third in 1683; the variations in text are very minute and are probably not due to Dryden. The present edition follows what is apparently the earlier of the two copies of 1682. The early editions contain frequent italics, which are here generally disregarded; and several words printed in capital letters, which are here represented by small capitals.] THE PREFACE A POEM with so bold a title, and a name prefix'd from which the handling of so serious a subject would not be expected, may reasonably oblige the author to say somewhat in defense both of himself and of his undertaking. In the first place, if it be objected to me that, being a layman, I ought not to have concern'd myself with speculations which belong to the profession of divinity, I could answer that perhaps laymen, with equal advantages of parts and knowledge, are not the most incompetent judges of sacred things; but, in the due sense of my own weakness and want of learning, I plead not this; I pretend not to make myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my own; I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark, but wait on it, with the reverence that becomes me, at a distance. In the next place I will ingenuously confess that the helps I have us'd in this small treatise were many of them taken from the works of our own reverend divines of the Church of England; so that the weapons with which I combat irreligion are already consecrated; tho' I suppose they may be taken down as lawfully as the sword of Goliah was by David, when they are to be employ'd for the common cause, against the enemies of piety. I intend not by this to |