STREPHON.
At that dear name I feel my heart rebound,
Like the old steed, at the fierce trumpet's sound;
I grow impatient of the least delay,
No bastard swain shall bear the prize away.
THIRSIS.
Let us make haste, already they are met;
The echoing hills their joyful shouts repeat.
* * * * *
JOHN CROWNE
Was the son of an independent minister, in that part of North America, which is called Nova Scotia. The vivacity of his genius made him soon grow impatient of the gloomy education he received in that country; which he therefore quitted in order to seek his fortune in England; but it was his fate, upon his first arrival here, to engage in an employment more formal, if possible, than his American education. Mr. Dennis, in his Letters, vol. i. p. 48, has given us the best account of this poet, and upon his authority the above, and the succeeding circumstances are related. His necessity, when he first arrived in England, was extremely urgent, and he was obliged to become a gentleman usher to an old independent lady; but he soon grew as weary of that precise office, as he had done before of the discipline of Nova Scotia. One would imagine that an education, such as this, would be but an indifferent preparative for a man to become a polite author, but such is the irresistable force of genius, that neither this, nor his poverty, which was very deplorable, could suppress his ambition: aspiring to reputation, and distinction, rather than to fortune and power. His writings soon made him known to the court and town, yet it was neither to the savour of the court, nor to that of the earl of Rochester, that he was indebted to the nomination the king made of him, for the writing the Masque of Calypso, but to the malice of that noble lord, who designed by that preference to mortify Mr. Dryden.
Upon the breaking out of the two parties, after the pretended discovery of the Popish plot, the favour he was in at court, and the gaiety of his temper, which inclined him to join with the fashion, engaged him to embrace the Tory party. About that time he wrote the City Politicks, in order to satirize and expose the Whigs: a comedy not without wit and spirit, and which has obtained the approbation of those of contrary principles, which is the highest evidence of merit; but after it was ready for the stage, he met with great embarrassments in getting it acted. Bennet lord Arlington (who was then lord chamberlain, was secretly in the cause of the Whigs, who were at that time potent in Parliament, in order to support himself against the power of lord treasurer Danby, who was his declared enemy) used all his authority to suppress it. One while it was prohibited on account of its being dangerous; another while it was laid aside upon pretence of its being flat and insipid; till Mr. Crowne, at last, was forced to have recourse to the King himself, and engage him to lay his absolute commands on the lord chamberlain to have it no longer delayed. This command he was pleased to give in his own person, for Charles II. loved comedy above all other amusements, except one which was both more expensive, and less innocent, and besides, had a very high opinion of Mr. Crowne's abilities. While he was thus in favour with the King and court, Mr. Dennis declares, he has more than once heard him say, that though he had a sincere affection for the King, he had yet a mortal hatred to the court. The promise of a sum of money made him sometimes appear there, to sollicit the payment of it, but as soon as he received the sum, he vanished, and for a long time never approached it.
It was at the latter end of King Charles's reign, that Mr. Crowne, tired with the fatigue of writing, shocked with the uncertainty of theatrical success, and desirous to shelter himself from the resentment of those numerous enemies he had made, by his City Politics, immediately addressed the King himself, and desired his Majesty to establish him in some office, that might be a security to him for life: the King answered, he should be provided for; but added, that he would first see another comedy. Mr. Crowne endeavouring to excuse himself, by telling the King he plotted slowly and awkwardly, his Majesty replied, that he would help him to a plot, and so put in his hand the Spanish Comedy called Non Poder Esser. Mr. Crowne was obliged immediately to go to work upon it, but after he had written three acts of it, found, to his surprize, that the Spanish play had some time before been translated, and acted and damned, under the title of Tarugo's Wiles, or the Coffee-House: yet, supported by the King's command, he went briskly on, and finished it.
Mr. Crowne, who had once before obliged the commonwealth of taste, with a very agreeable comedy in his City Politics, yet, in Sir Courtly Nice went far beyond it, and very much surpassed himself; for though there is something in the part of Crack, which borders upon farce, the Spanish author alone must answer for that: for Mr. Crowne could not omit the part of Crack, that is, of Tarugo, and the Spanish farce depending upon it, without a downright affront to the King, who had given him the play for his ground-work. All that is of English growth in Sir Courtly Nice is admirable; for though it has neither the fine designing of Ben Johnson, nor the masculine satire of Wycherley, nor the grace, delicacy, and courtly air of Etherege, yet is the dialogue lively and spirited, attractively diversified, and adapted to the several characters. Four of these characters are entirely new, yet general and important, drawn truly, and graphically and artfully opposed to each other, Surly to Sir Courtly, and Hot-head to Testimony: those extremes of behaviour, the one of which is the grievance, and the other the plague of society and conversation; excessive ceremony on the one side, and on the other rudeness, and brutality are finely exposed in Surly and Sir Courtly: those divisions and animosities in the two great parties of England, which have so long disturbed the public quiet, and undermined the general interest, are happily represented and ridiculed in Testimony and Hot-head. Mr. Dennis, speaking of this comedy, says, 'that though he has more than twenty times read it, yet it still grows upon him, and he delivers it as his opinion, that the greatest comic poet, who ever lived in any age, might have been proud to have been the author of it.'