273, 444. 276, 69.

279, 168.

280, 210.

238.

281, 258.

"To make me proud that jests" (Love's Labor's Lost, V. ll. 66). See Abbott, Shakespearian Grammar, § 247.

Want. Used here, as often in Shakspere, in the sense of lack. That porc'pisce bodes ill weather. Porc'pisce is a variant form of porpoise (porcus piscis). According to a common superstition, the porpoise "bodes ill weather."

"When porpoises and whales spout about ships at sea, storms may be expected.-Porpoises in harbour indicate coming storm. When porpoises swim to windward, foul weather will ensue within twelve hours.-Dolphins, as well as porpoises, when they come about a ship and sport and gambol on the surface of the water, betoken a storm: hence they are regarded as unlucky omens by sailors." R. INWARDS, Weather Lore,

ed. 3, London, 1898, p. 171.

Professor Saintsbury in his note on this passage misinterprets porc'pisce as porcupine, an animal that does not seem to be connected with foul weather. (Aside from this, the fat Alexas may be appropriately called a porpoise, but his resemblance to a porcupine is hard to trace.) His reference to Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, ii, 12, 13) is misleading. Gubernatis merely states, without citing authority, that the hedgehog presages wind and rain; and gives a reference to Altrovandi, to show that dreaming of a wild boar is an omen of tempest.

For this note the editor is again indebted to Professor J. A. Walz of Harvard University.

Commerce. The accent falls on the second syllable, as in both
instances of the word in verse in Shakspere.

Like one, etc. The word like is here apparently used in the sense
of as.
This idiom, though now regarded as a vulgarism, is
found elsewhere in Dryden (Astræa Redux, 1. 211), and is also
supported by the authority of some good writers both before
and after his time.

Then she's so charming, etc.
Cf. n. 263, 24.

Vent. Now, my lord, etc.

Again a reminiscence of Shakspere.

Ventidius in this scene seems to aban

don his part of straightforward soldier and to acquire something

of Iago's craft.

282, 299. Every man's Cleopatra. "Imitated, or rather copied, from Shakspere:

284, 387.

287, 491.

Don John. I came hither to tell you; and, circumstances short'ned, for she has been too long a-talking of, the lady is disloyal.

Claudio. Who? Hero?

Don John. Even she; Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero.

Much Ado About Nothing, III. ii. 105-110." SCOTT. Much. This adverbial use of the word is an archaism on Dryden's part; cf. 240, 52, n; 248, 354, n; 250, 442, n. Secure of injur'd faith. The meaning is, of course, "safe from any breach of confidence." Compare: Secure of thunder's crack or lightning flash. Titus Andronicus, II. 1. 3.

288, 530. Avoid my sight! Leave my sight. Compare: "Pray you, avoid

the house" (Coriolanus, IV. v. 25).

532. 542. 289, 564.

Spurn. Probably here used in the literal sense of kick. Compare: the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes.

Hamlet, III. i. 73, 74.

291, 71. Egypt has been. A Latinism; compare :
Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens
Gloria Teucrorum.

292, 96.

293, 154.

155.

295, 223.

297, 299.

298, 353.

361.

Eneid, il. 325, 326.

This needed not. This was not necessary. Probably felt by Dryden as an archaism. Compare: "There needs no such apology" (Richard III, III. vii. 104).

He was a bastard of the sun, etc. The idea may be explained by
a passage (11. 565-572) of Dryden's translation of the first
book of Ovid's Metamorphoses:

Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,
And seeks, with ebbing tides, his ancient bed,

The fat manure with heav'nly fire is warm'd;

And crusted creatures, as in wombs, are form'd:
These, when they turn the glebe, the peasants find;
Some rude, and yet unfinish'd in their kind;
Short of their limbs, a lame imperfect birth;
One half alive, and one of lifeless earth.

Ap'd into man. The phrase apparently means, "transform'd into
an apish resemblance of man." But no similar use of ape is
recorded in N. E. D.

Her unchang'd face. The adjective is here accented on the nega-
tive prefix. Cf. 345, 26.

Ventidius, you must live. The use of pronouns in the following
passage is worthy of study. Ventidius always uses the respect-
ful and formal you. Antony uses first you and then the
familiar and affectionate thou. Cf. 199, 59, n; 341, 120, n;
390, 52, n.
That I play'd booty with my life! To play booty is "to allow
one's adversary to win at cards at first, in order to induce
him to continue playing and victimize him afterwards"
(Webster's International Dictionary). Antony's meaning is
that Cæsar will suspect him of a sham attempt at suicide, in
order to win compassion from the conqueror.
Send quickly, etc. In this verse the pause between the two
speakers supplies the place of an unaccented syllable. In
Shakspere an accented syllable, or even a whole foot, is some-
times omitted in the same manner; see Abbott, Shakspearian
Grammar, § 506. Cf. 377, 205, n.

299, 387, 388. But grieve not, while thou stay'st, My last disastrous times. Retaining the punctuation of the early editions, stay might be taken as meaning wait for, but this hardly suits the context. It seems easier to follow SSM and make times the object of grieve, which is used in the rather uncommon sense of grieve for; and to interpret stay as tarry, linger. Compare, in Dryden's Aureng-Zebe, ""Tis little to confess, your fate I grieve" (Ss. v. 258).

802, 505.

She has done well. Dryden, by a fine stroke of art, makes even the coward Alexas pay tribute to Cleopatra's nobility of soul.

19.

Writ of ease.

v. 404, 405, 86-93.

N. E. D. defines this as "a certificate of discharge from employment." Dryden writes similarly in the epilogue to The Wild Gallant (revived):

Things well consider'd, 'tis so hard to make
A comedy which should the knowing take,
That our dull poet, in despair to please,
Does humbly beg, by me, his writ of ease.

And in the first prologue to The Adventures of Five Hours,
by Sir Samuel Tuke, are the lines:

But if, through his ill conduct or hard fate,
This foreign plot (like that of eighty-eight.)
Should suffer shipwreck in your narrow seas,
You'll give your modern poet his writ of ease;
For, by th' example of the King of Spain,
He resolves ne'er to trouble you again.

Dodsley's Old English Plays, ed. Hazlitt, xv. 191.

THE SPANISH FRIAR

The Spanish Friar was probably acted late in 1680 or early in 1681; it was first printed in the latter year, being entered in the Term Catalogue for Trinity Term. The play, with its strongly anti-Catholic bias, indicates a temporary estrangement of the author from the Court and from the Duke of York's party. In his dedication Dryden speaks of "recommending a Protestant play to a Protestant patron." Scott accounts for this defection by supposing that Dryden was involved in, or at any rate influenced by, the disgrace of his patron Lord Mulgrave, to whom he had dedicated Aureng-Zebe. (Ss. i. 195-198; compare Introduction, pp. xli, xlii.) But Mulgrave was apparently a consistent partisan of the Duke of York; and in November, 1679, upon the removal of the Duke of Monmouth (the rival of the Duke of York) from the place of governor of Hull, was rewarded with the gift of that position (Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, Oxford, 1857, vol. i, p. 27). Furthermore, Mulgrave's disgrace, which is said to have been caused by pretending courtship to the Lady Anne, daughter of the Duke of York, apparently did not occur until November, 1682 (Ibid. p. 236). Hence in writing The Spanish Friar Dryden was certainly not influenced by any sympathy with Mulgrave.

One might even propose a directly contrary theory. Dryden's reputed authorship of Mulgrave's Essay on Satire, which was handed about in manuscript late in 1679, was the cause of the Rose-Alley ambuscade of December 18, 1679, to which he may refer in the prologue to The Spanish Friar: v. 312, 43, 44; n. 149 (Rochester). This cowardly assault brought Dryden not sympathy, but ridicule. The Spanish Friar, then, may possibly indicate the poet's revulsion of feeling against Mulgrave and his party. But probably this supposition is too far-fetched, and we must be content to ascribe Dryden's anti-Catholic zeal to disgust at the irregular payment of his pension, or to accept, without deeper analysis, the following statement by Scott, which is of course not affected by the refutation of his further supposition, referred to above: "The truth seems to be that Dryden partook in some degree of the general ferment which the discovery of the Popish Plot had excited; and we may easily suppose him to have done so without any impeachment to his monarchical tenets, since.......... at the first opening of the Plot the chiefs of the royal party joined in the cry" (Ss. vi. 397).

At all events, Dryden's estrangement from the Court, whether real or apparent, was so marked that he was charged by a royalist pamphleteer with being an adherent of Shaftesbury (Ss. i. 198; ix. 438, 439; Christie, in Globe edition of Dryden, p. 123). Some lines in the play itself, apparently directed against the Whig mob of London (see 361, 157-169), indicate the injustice of this accusation. Only a few months later the poet triumphantly proved his loyalty by his great satire Absalom and Achitophel, published in November, 1681.

The Spanish Friar was prohibited by James II. Malone gives an interesting note on a revival of it after the Revolution :

"The Queen.......... was probably extremely fearful of any piece being introduced on the stage that might admit of a political application to her own time, in consequence of the distress she had suffered a few years he

fore at the representation of The Spanish Friar, which she ordered to be performed in June, 1689, it being the first play she went to see. Of her confusion and distress on that occasion a particular account is given in the following curious letter, written by Daniel Finch, second Earl of Nottingham, which seems to have been formerly in the possession of Oldys, and has been printed by Sir John Dalrymple, from a copy furnished by Dr. Percy, Lord Bishop of Dromore. It does not appear to whom the letter was addressed:

""The only day her Majesty gave herself the diversion of a play, and that on which she designed to see another, has furnished the town with discourse for near a month. The choice of the play was The Spanish Friar, the only play forbid by the late K[ing]. Some unhappy expressions, among which those that follow, put her in some disorder, and forced her to hold up her fan, and often look behind her, and call for her palatine and hood, and anything she could next think of; while those who were in the pit before her turned their heads over their shoulders, and all in general directed their looks towards her, whenever their fancy led them to make any appliIcation of what was said. In one place, where the Queen of Aragon is going to church in procession, 'tis said by a spectator: "Very good; she usurps the throne, keeps the old king in prison, and at the same time is praying for a blessing on her army." [v. 317, 318, 104, 105.] And when said: "That 't is observ'd at court, who weeps, and who wears black for good King Sancho's death," 't is said: "Who is that, that can flatter a court like this? Can I soothe tyranny? seem pleas'd to see my royal master murther'd; his crown usurp'd; a distaff in the throne?" [v. 357, 6-14.] And: "What title has this queen, but lawless force? and force must pull her down. [v. 358, 25, 26.]— Twenty more things are said, which may be wrested to what they were never designed: but, however, the observations then made furnished the town with talk, till something else happened, which gave it much occasion for discourse.'" (Prose Works of John Dryden, I, i. 214, 215.)

Scott tells us, on the authority of a contemporary satire, The Revolter (1687), that the satire on the Catholic Church was so severe in the first edition of The Spanish Friar that it had to be mitigated in succeeding editions (Ss. 1. 203; vi. 399). Collation of the early copies proves this statement to be baseless; in fact the third and fourth editions contain passages, not found earlier, that deepen the satire: see footnotes on 332, 4; 339, 27. Professor Saintsbury's interpretation of first edition as first representation is prohibited by the language of the passage Scott quotes from The Revolter. The unity of place is fairly well observed in The Spanish Friar, since all the scenes occur in the one city of Saragossa. The unity of time is not so strictly regarded: a night passes between act II and act III, or perhaps between the second and third scenes of act III, another between act IV and act V. The unity of action is patently neglected in this tragi-comedy: Introduction, pp. xlix-lii.

see

The skilful combination of the comic with the tragic plot of The Spanish Friar won warm praise from critics of the eighteenth century school, notably Addison (Spectator, No. 267), Johnson (Life of Dryden), and Scott. Portions of Scott's introduction to the drama may be quoted as illustrating both this view of the play and his own courtly style of criticism:

"The Spanish Friar poet's dramatic efforts. for the coincidence and "The comic part,

...... is one of the best and most popular of our The plot is, as Johnson remarks, particularly happy, coalition of the tragic and comic plots.

as it gives the first title to the play, seems to claim our first attention. Indeed, some precedence is due to it in another point of view; for, though the tragic scenes may be matched in All