But I have forgot myself; for nothing can be more unnecessary than an attempt to say any thing to your Grace in commendation of the writings of this great poet; since it is only to your knowledge, taste, and approbation of them, that the monument, which you are now about to raise to him, is owing. I will, therefore, my Lord, detain you no longer by this epistle; and only entreat you to believe, that it is addressed to your Grace from no other motive than a sincere regard to the memory of Mr Dryden, and a very sensible pleasure which I take in applauding an action, by which you are so justly and so singularly entitled to a dedication of his labours, though many years after his death, and even though most of them were produced by him many years before you were born. I am, with the greatest respect,
MY LORD,
Your Grace's most obedient,
And most humble servant,
WILLIAM CONGREVE.
THE WILD GALLANT, A COMEDY.
THE WILD GALLANT.
The Editor may be pardoned in bestowing remarks upon Dryden's plays, only in proportion to their intrinsic merit, and to the attention which each has excited, either at its first appearance, or when the public attention has been since directed towards them. In either point of view, little need be said on the "Wild Gallant." It was Dryden's first theatrical production, and its reception by no means augured his future pre-eminence in literature; nor was it more than tolerated, when afterwards revived under the sanction of his increasing fame. It was brought upon the stage in February 1662-3, according to the conjecture of Mr Malone, who observes, that the following lines in the prologue.
It should have been but one continued song;
Or, at the least, a dance of three hours long;
must refer to D'Avenant's opera, called the "Siege of Rhodes," acted in 1662; and that the expression, "in plays, he finds, you love mistakes," alludes to the blunders of Teague, an Irish footman, in Sir Robert Howard's play of the "Committee." The "Wild Gallant" was revived and published in 1669, with a new prologue and epilogue, and some other alterations, not of a nature, judging from the prologue, to improve the morality of the piece. That the play had but indifferent success in the action, the poet himself has informed us, with the qualifying addition, that it more than once was the divertisement of Charles II., by his own command. This honourable distinction it probably acquired by the influence of the Countess of Castlemaine, then the royal favourite, to whom Dryden addresses some verses on her encouraging this play.—See Vol. XI p. 18.—The plot is borrowed avowedly from the Spanish, and partakes of the unnatural incongruity, common to the dramatic pieces of that nation, as also of the bustle and intrigue, with which they are usually embroiled. Few modern audiences would endure the absurd grossness of the deceit practised on Lord Nonsuch in the fourth act; nor is the plot of Lady Constance, to gain her lover, by marrying him in the disguise of a heathen divinity, more grotesque than unnatural.—Yet, in the under characters, some liveliness of dialogue is maintained; and the reader may be amused with particular scenes, though, as a whole, the early fate of the play was justly merited.