And although I dare not be absolute in my Opinion, who is the best of this Age, yet I should be very disingenuous if I should not conclude that the English Stage is much improved and adorned with the several Writings of several persons of Honour; but, in my Opinion chiefly with those of the most accomplished Mr. John Dryden.[16]
For Momus Langbaine did adopt many opinions and much information from the earlier catalogues. In the seven years between his first and second catalogues, however, he began to deal more carefully with bibliographical matters, especially in his attributions to Dryden, and he found a new format which would allow him to present his later catalogues in a more accurate, useful and stimulating manner.
Momus Triumphans was published in November, 1687 (although its titlepage is dated 1688), under two different imprints: the one reproduced here and another "Printed for N. C. and to be Sold by Sam. Holford, at the Crown in the Pall-Mall. 1688." In both issues there is a major press variant on page [7] under Dryden in which "[148] Maximin—T. 4o" is deleted and the note correctly rekeyed to "Tyrannick Love, or Royal Martyr" in the right-hand column. Where this variant occurs both title and note for "[149]Mistaken Husband—C. 4o" are moved from the top of the right-hand column to the bottom of the left-hand column.
In addition to its Preface, Momus is divided into four sections: (1) Authors arranged alphabetically according to surnames, together with their plays, including the genre and format of each (pp. [1]-[26]); (2) "Supposed AUTHOURS" listed by initials with their plays, genre and format (pp. [27]-[28]); (3) "Unknown AUTHOURS" with plays divided alphabetically into groups by first initial of their titles (pp. [29]-[32]); and (4) an Index of plays arranged alphabetically [pp. [33]-[40]]. The alphabetizing is not exact, but the careful and efficient organization by format (with its handy, easily usable cross index)[17] is one of Langbaine's chief contributions to modern catalogue making. Furthermore, the format established in Momus not only supports the enormous expansion which Langbaine himself makes in the Account, but it (in tandem with his marked prejudices) encouraged the copious annotations of later commentators. In other words, Langbaine discovered the form which was not only most useful to his contemporaries, but one which was to make him, in Osborn's phrase, "the chief tool of compilers for more than two generations."[18]
In Momus Langbaine has entries for two hundred and thirty-two authors, of whom twenty-six have "discover[ed] themselves but by halves" ([A3v]) and are listed only by initials. Langbaine claims to "have been Master of above Nine Hundred and Fourscore English Plays and Masques, besides Drolls and Interludes" (A2r), and Momus lists approximately one thousand and forty plays, though the number may actually be slightly higher since a few of these entries represent collections ("Terence's plays," for example) and in footnotes many foreign plays are given as sources for the English ones. Of the total, thirty-five are given to supposed authors and one hundred and sixty-nine are listed alphabetically by title since their authors are unknown to Langbaine even by initial. Although the Account represents a five-hundred page expansion (but in octavo), the enlargement is accomplished within the basic arrangement and largely with the lists of authors and plays established in Momus. Langbaine adds only ten new authors,[19] while he deletes two,[20] and adds about fifty-one new plays, while omitting three.[21] The expansion takes the form, mainly, of added biographical, critical and source material, including discussions of classical authors and of non-dramatic works. The corrections take the form of deletion and reassignment, change of dates and format, and, most interestingly, change of genre designation. There are over one hundred and fifteen genre changes, of which at least three-quarters involve tragi-comedy, and of these nearly one half (about forty) represent a shift in description from comedy to tragi-comedy. These changes suggest that Langbaine was reading or re-reading the plays carefully between the end of 1687 and 1691 and perhaps the critical commentary on genre by the Caroline dramatists as well since many of the conversions occur in describing the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, and Shirley. For bibliographical detail Momus is not entirely superseded by the Account since over sixteen descriptions of format[22] and thirty of genre are not incorporated in the later catalogue. Furthermore, about thirty-eight plays are given sources in Momus which are not carried over into the Account. A large number of the source references in Momus, especially those not transferred to the Account, are general in nature, to national histories or to the compilations of Eusebius and Heylin.
In addition to a history of previous catalogues, his abhorrence of plagiarism and his attack on Dryden, the Preface contains statements of Langbaine's own literary interests and critical principles. He had an obvious "relish of the Dramma" (A2r) which probably dated from the time he was "bound an Apprentice to a Bookseller called Nevil Simmons living in S. Paul's Church Yard in London." This time spent in London, from about 1667 to 1672 was probably his greatest period of play-going.[23] His orientation, however, is not toward the performed play. He sees drama as essentially the history of the printed work and, unlike John Downes in Roscius Anglicanus (1708), he approaches the appreciation of plays through criticism ([a3v]). Like his father, the sometime provost of Queen's College, Oxford, who left behind him "rhapsodies of collections,"[24] he was an antiquarian and bibliographer. He had the bibliographer's delight in the difficulty of the search ([A3v]) and his pleasure in ordering. Momus is designed for those readers who "may possibly be desirous, either to make a Collection, or at least have the curiosity to know in general, what has been Publish't in our Language, as likewise to receive some Remarks on the Writings of particular Men" (A2r-[A2v]). As this statement suggests, his general literary principles are neo-classically sound and standard: "it being nobler to contemplate the general History of Nature, than a selected Diary of Fortune" ([A4v]), as is his unprejudiced attitude toward borrowings and the need for models. For Langbaine the end of literature is moral, "Decency and Probability" ([A4v]), and there is a sense of balanced fairness which extends even to Dryden: