The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 07

THE
NOW FIRST COLLECTED
ILLUSTRATED
HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,
AND
PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET, BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.
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In the latter part of Charles the Second's reign, the stage, as well as every other engine which could affect the popular mind, was eagerly employed in the service of the contending factions. Settle and Shadwell had, in tragedy and comedy, contributed their mite to the support of the popular cause. In the stormy session of parliament, in 1680, the famous bill was moved, for the exclusion of the Duke of York, as a papist, from the succession, and accompanied by others of a nature equally peremptory and determined. The most remarkable was a bill to order an association for the safety of his majesty's person, for defence of the protestant religion, for the preservation of the protestant liege subjects against invasion and opposition, and for preventing any papist from succeeding to the throne of England. To recommend these rigid measures, and to keep up that zealous hatred and terror of the catholic religion, which the plot had inspired, Settle wrote his forgotten tragedy of Pope Joan, in which he revives the old fable of a female pope, and loads her with all the crimes of which a priest, or a woman, could possibly be guilty. Shadwell's comedy of the Lancashire Witches was levelled more immediately at the papists, but interspersed with most gross and scurrilous reflections upon the English divines of the high church party. Otway, Lee, and Dryden were the formidable antagonists, whom the court opposed to the whig poets. Thus arrayed and confronted, the stage absolutely foamed with politics; the prologues and epilogues, in particular formed channels, through which the tenets of the opposite parties were frequently assailed, and the persons of their leaders and their poets exposed to scandal and derision.
The historical passages, corresponding in many particulars with such striking accuracy, offered an excellent groundwork for a political play, and the Duke of Guise was composed accordingly; Dryden making use of the scenes which he had formerly written on the subject, and Lee contributing the remainder, which he eked out by some scenes and speeches adopted from the Massacre of Paris, then, lying by him in manuscript. The court, however, considered the representation of the piece as at least of dubious propriety. The parallel was capable of being so extended as to exhibit no very flattering picture of the king's politics; and, on the other hand, it is possible, that the fate of the Duke of Guise, as identified with Monmouth, might shock the feelings of Charles, and the justice of the audience.