EPILOGUE
INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN BY
THE LADY HEN. MAR. WENTWORTH.
WHEN CALISTO WAS ACTED AT COURT, IN 1675.
"Calisto, or the Chaste Nymph," was a masque written by John Crowne, who, by the interference of Rochester, was employed to compose such an entertainment to be exhibited at court, though this was an encroachment on the office of Dryden, the poet laureat. The principal characters were represented by the daughters of the Duke of York, and the first nobility. The Lady Mary, afterwards Queen, to whom the masque was dedicated, acted Calisto; Nyphe was represented by the Lady Anne, who also succeeded to the throne; Jupiter, by Lady Harriot Wentworth; Psecas, by Lady Mary Mordaunt; Diana, by Mrs Blague, and Mercury by Mrs Sarah Jennings, afterwards Duchess of Marlborough. Among the attendant nymphs and dancers were the Countesses of Pembroke and of Derby, Lady Catharine Herbert, Mrs Fitzgerald, and Mrs Fraser. The male dancers were the Duke of Monmouth, Viscount Dunblaine, Lord Daincourt, and others of the first quality. Although the exhibition of this masque, which it was the privilege of his office to have written, must have been somewhat galling to Dryden, we see that he so far suppressed his feelings as to compose the following Epilogue, which, to his farther mortification, was rejected, through the interference of Rochester.
The Lady Henrietta Maria Wentworth, Baroness of Nettlested, who acted the part of Jupiter on the present occasion, afterwards adapted her conduct to that of Calisto, and became the mistress of the Duke of Monmouth. He was so passionately attached to her, that upon the scaffold he vindicated their intercourse by some very warm and enthusiastic expressions, and could by no means be prevailed on to express any repentance of it as unlawful. This lady died about a year after the execution of her unfortunate lover, in 1685. Her mother, Lady Wentworth, ordered a monument of L. 2000 value to be erected over her in the church of Teddington, Bedfordshire.
As Jupiter I made my court in vain;
I'll now assume my native shape again.
I'm weary to be so unkindly used,
And would not be a God, to be refused.
State grows uneasy when it hinders love;