350

Resistless force and immortality Make but a lame, imperfect deity; Tempests have force unbounded to destroy, And deathless being ev'n the damn'd enjoy; And yet Heav'n's attributes, both last and first,

One without life, and one with life accurst; But justice is Heav'n's self, so strictly he, That, could it fail, the Godhead could not be. This virtue is your own; but life and state Are one to fortune subject, one to fate: Equal to all, you justly frown or smile; Nor hopes nor fears your steady hand beguile;

360 Yourself our balance hold, the world's, our isle.

PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO DON SEBASTIAN, KING OF PORTUGAL

[Dryden bestowed much labor upon this tragedy, the first play that he wrote on his (z) Exod. xvii, 8.

return to dramatic work after the Revolution. Though of great literary merit, it seems from the author's preface to have had at first only moderate success on the stage. It was probably acted in the autumn of 1689; it was published in January, 1690. (See reference to the London Gazette in Scott-Saintsbury edition, (a) Aristides. See his life in Plutarch.

xviii, 296.) The book was printed “for Jo. Hindmarsh," instead of for Tonson. The titlepage bears the apt motto:

-Nec tarda senectus

Debilitat vires animi mutatque vigorem. VIRGIL, Eneid, ix, 610, 611.

66

The epilogue is closely connected with the play. The amour of Antonio, a young, noble, amorous Portuguese," and the Mufti's daughter Morayma, who steals her father's jewel casket for her lover's sake, furnishes the secondary, comic intrigue of the drama, of which the love of Sebastian and Almeyda, "a captive queen of Barbary," later discovered to be Sebastian's sister, is the main plot. The true relation of Sebastian and Almeyda is disclosed by "an old counselor," Alvarez. The rest may be understood from hints in the epilogue itself.]

Suppose our poet was your foe before,
Yet now, the bus'ness of the field is o'er;
"T is time to let your civil wars alone,
When troops are into winter quarters gone.
Jove was alike to Latian and to Phrygian;
And you well know, a play 's of no religion.
Take good advice, and please yourselves
this day

No matter from what hands you have the play.

Among good fellows ev'ry health will pass, That serves to carry round another glass: When with full bowls of Burgundy you

dine,

21

Tho' at the mighty monarch you repine, You grant him still Most Christian in his

wine.

Thus far the poet; but his brains grow addle,

And all the rest is purely from this noddle.

You've seen young ladies at the senate door

Prefer petitions, and your grace implore: However grave the legislators were,

Their cause went ne'er the worse for being fair.

Reasons as weak as theirs, perhaps, I

bring;

30

But I could bribe you with as good a thing. I heard him make advances of good nature;

That he, for once, would sheathe his cutting satire.

Sign but his peace, he vows he'll ne'er again

The sacred names of fops and beaus profane.

Strike up the bargain quickly; for I swear,
As times go now, he offers very fair.
Be not too hard on him with statutes
neither;

Be kind; and do not set your teeth together,

To stretch the laws, as cobblers do their leather.

40

and with music by Purcell (see Downes). The date is fixed with some accuracy by the references to King William's campaign in Ireland, from June 4 to September 6, 1690, during which time Queen Mary acted as regent. The prologue gave offense by its political references; and, as Cibber tells us in his Apology, was forbid by the Lord Dorset after the first day of its being spoken." "It must be confessed," Cibber adds, "that this prologue had some familiar, metaphorical sneers at the Revolution itself; and as the poetry of it was good, the offense of it was less pardonable."

This prologue was not printed with The Prophetess on its publication in 1690; it first appeared in the second edition, 1708, of The Annual Miscellany for the Year 1694 (the Fourth Miscellany).]

WHAT Nostradame, with all his art, can

guess

The fate of our approaching Prophetess?
A play, which, like a prospective set right,
Presents our vast expenses close to sight;
But turn the tube, and there we sadly view
Our distant gains; and those uncertain too:
A sweeping tax, .which on ourselves we
raise,

And all, like you, in hopes of better days. When will our losses warn us to be wise? Our wealth decreases, and our charges rise. Money, the sweet allurer of our hopes, Ebbs out in oceans and comes in by drops. We raise new objects to provoke delight, But you grow sated ere the second sight. False men, ev'n so you serve your mistresses:

They rise three stories in their tow'ring dress;

And, after all, you love not long enough To pay the rigging, ere you leave 'em off: Never content with what you had before, But true to change, and Englishmen all

I'm thinking (and it almost makes me mad) How sweet a time those heathen ladies had. Idolatry was ev'n their gods' own trade; They worship'd the fine creatures they had made.

Cupid was chief of all the deities,

And love was all the fashion in the skies. When the sweet nymph held up the lily hand,

Jove was her humble servant at command.
The treasury of heav'n was ne'er so bare,
But still there was a pension for the fair. 10
In all his reign adult'ry was no sin,
For Jove the good example did begin.
Mark, too, when he usurp'd the husband's

CELIA, that I once was blest,
Is now the torment of my breast,
Since, to curse me, you bereave me
Of the pleasures I possess'd:

Cruel creature, to deceive me!
First to love, and then to leave me !

But not for a lip, nor a languishing eye:
She's fickle and false, and there we agree,
For I am as false and as fickle as she.
We neither believe what either can say;
And, neither believing, we neither betray.

II

'Tis civil to swear, and say things of course;
We mean not the taking for better for worse.
When present, we love; when absent, agree:
I think not of Iris, nor Iris of me.
The legend of love no couple can find,
So easy to part, or so equally join'd.

10