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

203 They conclude with a prayer to Almighty God, in which I therefore believe, the poet did not club. To libel the king through all the pamphlet, and to pray for him in the conclusion, is an action of more prudence in them than of piety. Perhaps they might hope to be forgiven, as one of their predecessors was by king James; who, after he had railed at him abundantly, ended his lampoon with these two verses:

Now God preserve our king, queen, prince and peers,

And grant the author long may wear his ears[42].

To take a short review of the whole.—It is manifest, that there is no such parallel in the play, as the faction have pretended; that the story would not bear one where they have placed it; and that I could not reasonably intend one, so contrary to the nature of the play, and so repugnant to the principles of the loyal party. On the other side, it is clear that the principles and practices of the public enemies, have both formerly resembled those of the League, and continue to hold the same resemblance. It appears by the outcry of the party before the play was acted, that they dreaded and foresaw the bringing of the faction upon the stage: and by the hasty printing of Mr Hunt's libel, and the Reflections, before the tragedy was published, that they were infinitely concerned to prevent any farther operation of it. It appears from the general consent of the audiences, that their party were known to be represented; and themselves owned openly, by their hissings, that they were incensed at it, as an object which they could not bear. It is evident 204 by their endeavours to shift off this parallel from their side, that their principles are too shameful to be maintained. It is notorious, that they, and they only, have made the parallel betwixt the Duke of Guise and the Duke of Monmouth, and that in revenge for the manifest likeness they find in the parties themselves, they have carried up the parallel to the heads of the parties, where there is no resemblance at all; under which colour, while they pretend to advert upon one libel, they set up another. For what resemblance could they suggest betwixt two persons so unlike in their descent, the qualities of their minds, and the disparity of their warlike actions, if they grant not, that there is a faction here, which is like that other which was in France? so that if they do not first acknowledge one common cause, there is no foundation for a parallel. The dilemma therefore lies strong upon them; and let them avoid it if they can,—that either they must avow the wickedness of their designs, or disown the likeness of those two persons. I do further charge those audacious authors, that they themselves have made the parallel which they call mine, and that under the covert of this parallel they have odiously compared our present king with king Henry the Third; and farther, that they have forced this parallel expressly to wound His Majesty in the comparison: for, since there is a parallel (as they would have it) it must be either theirs or mine. I have proved that it cannot possibly be mine: and in so doing, that it must be theirs by consequence. Under this shadow all the vices of the French king are charged by those libellers (by a side-wind) upon ours; and it is indeed the bottom of their design to make the king cheap, his royal brother odious, and to alter the course of the succession.

205 Now, after the malice of this sputtering triumvirate (Mr Hunt, and the two Reflectors), against the person and dignity of the king, and against all that endeavour to serve him (which makes their hatred to his cause apparent), the very charging of our play to be a libel, and such a parallel as these ignoramuses would render it, is almost as great an affront to His Majesty, as the libellous picture itself, by which they have exposed him to his subjects. For it is no longer our parallel, but the king's, by whose order it was acted, without any shuffling or importunity from the poets. The tragedy (cried the faction) is a libel against such and such illustrious persons. Upon this the play was stopt, examined, acquitted, and ordered to be brought upon the stage: not one stroke in it of a resemblance, to answer the scope and intent of the complaint. There were some features, indeed, that the illustrious Mr Hunt and his brace of beagles (the Reflectors) might see resembling theirs; and no other parallel either found or meant, but betwixt the French leaguers and ours: and so far the agreement held from point to point, as true as a couple of tallies. But when neither the king, nor my lord chamberlain, with other honourable persons of eminent faith, integrity, and understanding, upon a strict perusal of the papers, could find one syllable to countenance the calumny; up starts the defender of the charter, &c. opens his mouth, and says, "What do ye talk of the king? he's abused, he's imposed upon. Is my lord chamberlain, and the scrutineers that succeed him, to tell us, when the king and the duke of York are abused?" What says my lord chief baron of Ireland to the business? What says the livery-man templer? What says Og the king of Basan to it? "We are men that stand up for the king's supremacy in all causes, and over 206 all persons, as well ecclesiastical as civil, next and immediately under God and the people. We are for easing His Royal Highness of his title to the crown, and the cares that attend any such prospect; and we shall see the king and the Royal Family paralleled at this rate, and not reflect upon it?"

But to draw to an end. Upon the laying of matters fairly together, what a king have these balderdash scribblers given us, under the resemblance of Henry the Third! How scandalous a character again, of His Majesty, in telling the world that he is libelled, and affronted to his face, told on't, pointed to it; and yet neither he, nor those about him, can be brought to see or understand it. There needs no more to expound the meaning of these people, than to compare them with themselves: when it will evidently appear, that their lives and conversations, their writings and their practices, do all take the same bias; and when they dare not any longer revile His Majesty or his government point blank, they have an intention to play the libellers in masquerade, and do the same thing in a way of mystery and parable. This is truly the case of the pretended parallel. They lay their heads together, and compose the lewdest character of a prince that can be imagined, and then exhibit that monster to the people, as the picture of the king in the "Duke of Guise." So that the libel passes for current in the multitude, whoever was the author of it; and it will be but common justice to give the devil his due. But the truth is, their contrivances are now so manifest, that their party moulders both in town and country; for I will not suspect that there are any of them left in court. Deluded well-meaners come over out of honesty, and small offenders out of common discretion or fear. None will shortly remain with them, but men of 207 desperate fortunes or enthusiasts: those who dare not ask pardon, because they have transgressed beyond it, and those who gain by confusion, as thieves do by fires: to whom forgiveness were as vain, as a reprieve to condemned beggars; who must hang without it, or starve with it.

Footnotes:

As the whole passage from Davila is subjoined to the text in the play, the reader may easily satisfy himself of the accuracy of what is here stated. But, although the scene may have been written in 1661, we must be allowed to believe, that its extreme resemblance to the late events occasioned its being revived and re-presented in 1682.
The poem, alluded to, was probably the Religio Laici, first published in November l682.
Dryden and Shadwell had once been friends. In the preface to "The Humourists," acted, according to Mr Malone, in 1676, Shadwell thus mentions his great contemporary:
"And here I must make a little digression, and take liberty to dissent from my particular friend, for whom I have a very great respect, and whose writings I extremely admire; and, though I will not say, his is the best way of writing, yet, I am sure his manner of writing is much the best that ever was. And I may say of him, as was said of a celebrated poet, Cui unquam poetarum magis proprium fuit subito astro incalescere? Quis ubi incaluit, fortius et fæclicius debacchatur? His verse is smoother and deeper, his thoughts more quick and surprising, his raptures more mettled and higher, and he has more of that in his writings, which Plato calls σωφρονα μανιαν than any other heroic poet. And those who shall go about to imitate him, will be found to flutter and make a noise, but never to rise."
Such a compliment, from a rival dramatist, could only have been extracted by previous good offices and kindly countenance. Accordingly we find, that Dryden, in 1678-9, wrote a prologue to Shadwell's play, of "The True Widow."
"The Female Prelate, or Pope Joan," is a bombast, silly performance of Elkanah Settle; the catastrophe of which consists in the accouchement of the Pope in the streets of Rome. The aid necessary in the conclusion of an English tragedy, (usually loudly called for, but never brought) is of a surgical nature; but here Lucina was the deity to be implored, and the midwife's assistance most requisite.
Shadwell's comedy of "The Lancashire Witches," was popular for many years after the Revolution, chiefly, because the papists were reflected upon in the character of Teague O'Divelly, an Irish Priest, the high-church clergy ridiculed under that of Smerk, and the whole Tory faction generally abused through the play. It is by no means one of Shadwell's happiest efforts. The introduction of the witches celebrating their satanical sabbath on the stage, besides that the scene is very poorly and lamely written, is at variance with the author's sentiments, as delivered through Sir Edward Hartfort, "a worthy, hospitable, true English gentleman, of good understanding and honest principles," who ridicules the belief in witches at all. A different and totally inconsistent doctrine is thus to be collected from the action of the piece and the sentiments expressed by those, whose sentiments are alone marked as worthy of being attended to. This obvious fault, with many others, is pointed out in a criticism on the "Lancashire Witches," published in the Spectator. The paper is said to have been written by Hughes, but considerably softened by Addison.
Half-a-crown was then the box price.
You visit our plays and merit the stocks,
For paying half-crowns of brass to our box;
Nay, often you swear when places are shewn ye,
That your hearing is thick,
And so by a love trick,
You pass through our scenes up to the balcony.
Epilogue to "The Man's the Master."
The farce, alluded to, seems to have been "The Lancashire Witches." See Shadwell's account of the reception of that piece, from which it appears, that the charge of forming a party in the theatre was a subject of mutual reproach betwixt the dramatists of the contending parties.
This single remark is amply sufficient to exculpate Dryden from having intended any general parallel between Monmouth and the Duke of Guise. To have produced such a parallel, it would have been necessary to unite, in one individual, the daring political courage of Shaftesbury, his capacity of seizing the means to attain his object, and his unprincipled carelessness of their nature, with the fine person, chivalrous gallantry, military fame, and courteous manners of the Duke of Monmouth. Had these talents, as they were employed in the same cause, been vested in the same person, the Duke of Guise must have yielded the palm. The partial resemblance, in one point of their conduct, is stated by our poet, not to have been introduced as an intended likeness, betwixt the Duke of Guise, and the Protestant Duke. We may observe, in the words of Bertran,
The dial spoke not—but it made shrewd signs.
Spanish Friar.
Alluding to a book, called "The Parallel," published by J. Northleigh L.L.B. the same who afterwards wrote "the Triumph of the Monarchy," and was honoured by a copy of verses from our author.
"Julian the Apostate, with a short account of his life, and a parallel betwixt Popery and Paganism," was a treatise, written by the Rev. Samuel Johnson, chaplain to Lord Russell, for the purpose of forwarding the bill of exclusion, by shewing the consequences to Christianity of a Pagan Emperor attaining the throne. It would seem, that one of the sheriffs had mistaken so grossly, as to talk of Julian the Apostle; or, more probably, such a blunder was circulated as true, by some tory wit. Wood surmises, that Hunt had some share in composing Julian. Ath. Ox. II. p. 729.
This probably alludes to L'Estrange, who answered Hunt in the "Lawyer Outlawed."
"Curse ye Meroz," was a text much in vogue among the fanatic preachers in the civil wars. It was preached upon in Guildhall, before the Lord Mayor, 9th May, 1630, by Edmund Hickeringill, rector of All Saints, in Colchester:
There's Colchester Hickeringil, the fanatic's delight,
Who Gregory Greybeard and Meroz did write,
You may see who are saints in a pharisee's sight.
The Assembly of the Moderate Divines, stanza 18.
Gregory Greybeard was probably some ballad, alluding to the execution of Charles I, who was beheaded by a person disguised by a visor and greybeard. The name of the common hangman, at that time, was Gregory.
Jaques Clement, a Jacobin Monk, stabbed Henry III. on the 1st of August, 1589. He expired the following day.
"All crowned heads by poetical right are heroes. This character is a flower, a prerogative so certain, so inseparably annexed to the crown as by no poet, no parliament of poets, ever to be invaded." Rymer's Remarks on the Tragedies of the last age, p. 6l. This critical dogma, although here and else-where honoured by our author's sanction, fell into disuse with the doctrines of passive obedience, and indefeasible right.
The Earl of Arlington, Lord Chamberlain.
Charles II. and his brother the Duke of York, were grandchildren of Henry IV. of France, by their mother Henrietta Maria.
A very poor imitation of Moliere's "Festin de Pierre;" with the story of which the admirers of mute-shew have since been entertained, under the title of Don Juan. In the preface, Shadwell, after railing abundantly at Settle, is at the pains to assure us, there is no act in the piece which cost him above four days writing, and the last two (the play-house having great occasion for a play) were both written in four days. The Libertine, and his companions, travel by sea and land over the whole kingdom of Spain.
See the full passage prefixed to the Vindication.
The club alluded to seems to be the same which originally met at the King's-Head tavern, of which North gives the following lively account. "The gentlemen of that worthy society held their evening session continually at the King's-Head tavern, over against the Inner Temple gate. But upon occasion of the signal of a green ribbon, agreed to be worn in their hats in the days of secret engagements, like the coats of arms of valiant knights of old, whereby all the warriors of the society might be distinguished, and not mistake friends for enemies, they were called also the Green Ribbon Club. Their seat was in a sort of carrefour, at Chancery-Lane end, a centre of business and company, most proper for such anglers of fools. The house was double-balconied in front, as may be yet seen, for the clubsters to issue forth, in fresco, with hats and no peruques, pipes in their mouths, merry faces, and diluted throats, for vocal encouragement of the canaglia below, at bonfires, on usual and unusual occasions. They admitted all strangers that were confidingly introduced; for, it was a main end of their institution to make proselytes, especially of the raw estated youths newly come to town. This copious society were, to the faction in and about London, a sort of executive power, and by correspondence all over England. The resolves of the more retired councils and ministry of the faction, were brought in here, and orally insinuated to the company, whether it were lies, defamations, commendations, projects, &c. and so, like water diffused, spread over all the town; whereby that which was digested at the club over night, was, like nourishment, at every assembly, male and female, the next day. And thus the younglings tasted of political administration, and took themselves for notable counsellors." Examen, p. 572. The place of meeting is altered by Dryden, from the King's-Head, to the Devil-Tavern, either because he thought the name more appropriate, or wished slightly to disguise what he plainly insinuated.
Our author never omits an opportunity of twitting Hunt with his expected preferment of lord chief baron of exchequer in Ireland; L'Estrange, whose ready pen was often drawn for the court, answered Hunt's defence of the charter by a pamphlet entitled "The Lawyer Outlawed," in which he fails not to twit his antagonist with the same disappointment.
The foul practice of taking away lives by false witness, casts an indelible disgrace on this period. Oates, Dugdale, and Turberville, were the perjured evidences of the Popish plot. To meet them with equal arms, counter-plots were sworn against Shaftesbury and others, by Haines, Macnamara, and other Irishmen. But the true Protestant juries would only swallow the perjuries which made for their own opinions; nay, although they believed Dugdale, when he zealously forswore himself for the cause of the Protestant faith, they refused him credit when he bore false witness for the crown. "Thus," says Hume, "the two parties, actuated by mutual rage, but cooped up within the narrow limits of the law, levelled with poisoned daggers the most deadly blows against each other's breast, and buried in their factious divisions all regard to truth, honour, and humanity."—
In the Dramatis Personæ to Shadwell's play of Epsom-Wells, we have Rains, Bevil, Woodly, described as "men of wit and pleasure."
Dryden had already distinguished Shadwell and Settle by those names, which were destined to consign the poor wights to a painful immortality, in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel, published in 1682.
See note on p. 222. Vol. VI. describing this famous procession.
This passage, in Hunt's defence of the charter, obviously alludes to the Duke of York, whom he elsewhere treats with little ceremony, and to the king, whose affection for his brother was not without a mixture of fear, inspired by his more stubborn and resolved temper.
William Viscount Stafford, the last who suffered for the Popish plot, was tried and executed in 1680. It appears, that his life was foully sworn away by Dugdale and Turberville. The manly and patient deportment of the noble sufferer went far to remove the woful delusion which then pervaded the people. It would seem that Hunt had acted as his solicitor.
A quip at his corpulent adversary Shadwell.
The infamous Titus Oates pretended, amongst other more abominable falsehoods, to have taken a doctor's degree at Salamanca. In 1679, there was an attempt to bring him to trial for unnatural practices, but the grand jury threw out the bill. These were frequent subjects of reproach among the tory authors. In the Luttrel Collection, there is "An Address from Salamanca to her unknown offspring Dr T.O. concerning the present state of affairs in England." Also a coarse ballad, entitled, "The Venison Doctor, with his brace of Alderman Stags;"
Showing how a Doctor had defiled
Two aldermen, and got them both with child,
Who longed for venison, but were beguiled.
Our author has elsewhere expressed, in the same terms, his contempt for the satire of "The Rehearsal." "I answered not the Rehearsal, because I knew the author sat to himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own farce." Dedication to Juvenal.—The same idea occurs in a copy of verses on the Duke of Buckingham sometimes ascribed to Dryden:
But when his poet, John Bayes, did appear,
'Twas known to more than one-half that were there,
That the great'st part was his Grace's character;
For he many years plagued his friends for their crimes,
Repeating his verses in other men's rhymes,
To the very same person ten thousand times.
State Poems, Vol. II, p. 216.
Besides those who were alarmed for civil liberty, and those who dreaded encroachment on their religion, the whig party, like every one which promises to effect a great political change, was embraced by many equally careless of the one motive or the other; but who hoped to indulge their licentious passions, repair their broken fortunes, or gratify their inordinate ambition amidst a revolutionary convulsion.
The motto to Hunt's pamphlet.
Tantivi was a cant phrase for furious tories and high-flyers. In one of College's unlucky strokes of humour, he had invented a print called Mac Ninny, in which the Duke of York was represented half-jesuit half-devil; and a parcel of tories, mounted on the church of England, were driving it at full gallop, tantivy, to Rome. Hickeringill's poem, called "The Mushroom," written against our author's "Hind and Panther," is prefaced by an epistle to the tories and tantivies.
This passage is inaccurately quoted. Mr Hunt wrote, "Such monsters as Theseus and Hercules are, renowned throughout all ages for destroying." The learned gentleman obviously meant that Dryden's heroes (whom he accounted tyrants) resembled not the demi-gods, but the monsters whom they destroyed. But the comma is so unhappily placed after are, as to leave the sense capable of the malicious interpretation which Dryden has put upon it.
Shadwell, as he resembled Ben Jonson in extreme corpulence, and proposed him for the model of dramatic writing, seems to have affected the coarse and inelegant debauchery of his prototype. He lived chiefly in taverns, was a gross sensualist in his habits, and brutal in his conversation. His fine gentlemen all partake of their parent's grossness and vulgarity; they usually open their dialogue, by complaining of the effects of last night's debauch. He is probably the only author, who ever chose for his heroes a set of riotous bloods, or scowerers, as they were then termed, and expected the public should sympathise in their brutal orgies. True it is, that the heroes are whig scowerers; and, whilst breaking windows, stabbing watchmen, and beating passengers, do not fail to express a due zeal for the Protestant religion, and the liberty of the subject. Much of the interest also turns, it must be allowed, upon the Protestant scowerers aforesaid baffling and beating, without the least provocation, a set of inferior scowerers, who were Jacobites at least, if not Papists. Shadwell is thus described in the "Sessions of the Poets:"
Next into the crowd Tom Shadwell does wallow,
And swears by his guts, his paunch, and his tallow,
'Tis he that alone best pleases the age,
Himself and his wife have supported the stage.
Apollo, well pleased with so bonny a lad,
To oblige him, he told him he should be huge glad,
Had he half so much wit as he fancied he had.
However, to please so jovial a wit,
And to keep him in humour, Apollo thought fit
To bid him drink on, and keep his old trick
Of railing at poets—
Those, who consult the full passage, will see good reason to think Dryden's censure on Shadwell's brutality by no means too severe.
In 1444, Ladislaus king of Hungary, in breach of a treaty solemnly sworn upon the gospel, invaded Bulgaria, at the instigation of the Cardinal Legate. He was slain, and his army totally routed in the bloody battle of Warna, where ten thousand Christians fell before the janissaries of Amurath II. It is said, that while the battle remained undecided, the sultan displayed the solemn treaty, and invoked the God of truth, and the blessed name of Jesus, to revenge the impious infidelity of the Hungarian. This battle would have laid Hungary under the Turkish yoke, had it not been for the exploits of John Corvinus Huniades, the white knight of Walachia, and the more dubious prowess of the famous John Castriot, king of Epirus.
In the preface to which the author alleges, that Hunt contributed no small share towards the composition of "Julian the Apostate." See Wood's Ath. Oxon. v. ii. p. 729.
The song against the bishops is probably a ballad, upon their share in throwing out the bill of exclusion, beginning thus:
The grave house of Commons, by hook, or by crook,
Resolved to root out both the pope and the duke;
Let them vote, let them move, let them do what they will;
The bishops, the bishops, have thrown out the bill.
It concludes with the following stanza:
The best of expedients, the law can propose,
Our church to preserve, and to quiet our foes,
Is not to let lawn sleeves our parliament fill,
But throw out the bishops, that threw out the bill.
State Poems, Vol. III. p. 154.
The Tunbridge ballad, which our author also ascribes to Shadwell or his assistant, I have not found among the numerous libels of the time.
The "Massacre of Paris" appears to have been written by Lee, during the time of the Popish plot, and if then brought out, the subject might have been extravagantly popular. It would appear it was suppressed at the request of the French ambassador. Several speeches, and even a whole scene seem to have been transplanted to the "Duke of Guise," which were afterwards replaced, when the Revolution rendered the "Massacre of Paris," again a popular topic. There were, among others, the description of the meeting of Alva and the queen mother at Bayonne; the sentiments expressed concerning the assassination of Cæsar, and especially the whole quarrelling scene between Guise and Grillon, which, in the "Massacre of Paris," passes between Guise and the admiral Chastillon. In the preface to the "Princess of Cleves," which was acted in 1689, Lee gives the following account of the transposition of these passages. "The Duke of Guise, who was notorious for a bolder fault, has wrested two whole scenes from the original, (the Massacre just before mentioned,) which, after the vacation, he will be forced to pay. I was, I confess, through indignation, forced to limb my own child, which time, the true cure for all maladies and injustice, has set together again. The play cost me much pains, the story is true, and, I hope, the object will display treachery in its own colours. But this farce, comedy, tragedy, or mere play, was a revenge for the refusal of the other." This last sentence alludes to the suppression of the "Massacre of Paris," which, according to the author's promise, appeared with all its appurtenances restored in 1690, the year following.
When the days of Whiggish prosperity shone forth, Shadwell did his best to retort upon our poet. In the prologue to "Bury Fair," we find the following lines of exultation, on his having regained possession of the stage:
Those wretched poetitos, who got praise,
By writing most confounded loyal plays,
With viler coarser jests, than at Bear-garden,
And silly Grub-street songs, worse than Tom Farthing;
If any noble patriot did excel,
His own and country's rights defending well,
These yelping curs were straight 'looed on to bark,
On the deserving man to set a mark;
Those abject fawning parasites and knaves.
Since they were such, would have all others slaves.
'Twas precious loyalty, that was thought fit
To atone for want of honesty and wit;
No wonder common sense was all cried down,
And noise and nonsense swaggered through the town;
Our author then opprest would have you know it.
Was silenced for a non-conformist poet;
Now, sirs, since common sence has won the day,
Be kind to this as to his last year's play;
His friends stood firmly to him, when distressed,
He hopes the number is not now decreast.
He found esteem from those he valued most;
Proud of his friends, he of his foes could boast.
"Know then, to prevent the farther shedding of Christian blood, we are all content Ventoso shall be viceroy, upon condition I may be viceroy over him." Tempest, as altered by Dryden, vol. iii. p. 124.
The fable alluded to occurs in the Pia Hilaria of Gazæus, and in Le Grand's Fabliaux; it makes the subject of a humorous tale by Mr Robert Southey.
Alluding to the well-known catastrophe of poor Settle acting in Bartholomew fair:
"Reduced at last to hiss in his own dragon."
The say, or assay, is the first cut made on the stag when he is killed. The hunter begins at the brisket, and draws the knife downwards. The purpose is, to ascertain how fat he is:
"At the assay kitle him, that Lends may se
Anon Fat or lene whether that he be."
Boke of St Alban's.
The allusion in the text is to the cruel punishment of high treason by quartering.
"And so thou shalt for me," said James, when he came to the passage; "thou art a biting knave, but a witty one."

"And here I must make a little digression, and take liberty to dissent from my particular friend, for whom I have a very great respect, and whose writings I extremely admire; and, though I will not say, his is the best way of writing, yet, I am sure his manner of writing is much the best that ever was. And I may say of him, as was said of a celebrated poet, Cui unquam poetarum magis proprium fuit subito astro incalescere? Quis ubi incaluit, fortius et fæclicius debacchatur? His verse is smoother and deeper, his thoughts more quick and surprising, his raptures more mettled and higher, and he has more of that in his writings, which Plato calls σωφρονα μανιαν than any other heroic poet. And those who shall go about to imitate him, will be found to flutter and make a noise, but never to rise."