Such as Sir Martin and Sir Arthur Addle[5],

Be flocked unto, as the great heroes now

In plays of rhyme and noise, with wondrous show:—

Then shall the house, to see these Hectors kill and slay,

That bravely fight out the whole plot of the play,

Be for at least six months full every day.

Langbaine, who quotes the lines from the prologue to Ravenscroft's "Careless Lovers," is of opinion, that he paid Dryden too great a compliment in admitting the originality of "The Assignation," and labours to shew, that the characters are imitated from the "Romance Comique" of Scarron, and other novels of the time. But Langbaine seems to have been unable to comprehend, that originality consists in the mode of treating a subject, more than in the subject itself.

"The Assignation" was acted in 1672, and printed in 1673.

Footnotes:

  1. In the prologue to this beautified edition, Ravenscroft modestly tells us:

  3. Like other poets, he'll not proudly scorn
  4. To own, that he but winnowed Shakespeare's corn:
  5. So far was he from robbing him of's treasure,
  6. That he did add his own, to make full measure.
  7. This looks as if there had been some ground for Dryden's censure upon the actors.
  8. A flat parody on the lines in Dryden's prologue, referring to Mamamouchi:

  10. Grimace and habit sent you pleased away:
  11. You damned the poet, but cried up the play.
  12. It is somewhat remarkable, that the censure contained in what is above printed like verses, recoils upon the head of the author, who never wrote a single original performance. Langbaine, the persecutor of all plagiarism, though he did not know very well in what it consisted, threatens to "pull off Ravenscroft's disguise, and discover the politic plagiary that lurks under it. I know," continues the biographer, "he has endeavoured to shew himself master of the art of swift writing, and would persuade the world, that what he writes is extempore wit, and written currente calamo. But I doubt not to shew, that though he would be thought to imitate the silk-worm, that spins its web from its own bowels, yet I shall make him appear like the leech, that lives upon the blood of other men, drawn from the gums; and, when he is rubbed with salt, spews it up again."
  13. Sir Martin Mar-all we are acquainted with. Sir Arthur Addle is a similar character, in a play called "Sir Solomon, or, The Cautious Coxcomb," attributed to one John Caryll.