PROLOGUE TO "THE TRUE WIDOW.” *
HEAVEN Save ye, gallants, and this hopeful age!
Ye are welcome to the downfall of the stage.
The fools have laboured long in their vocation;
And vice, the manufacture of the nation,
O'erstocks the town so much, and thrives so well,
That fops and knaves grow drugs, and will not sell.
In vain our wares on theatres are shown,
When each has a plantation of his own.
His cruse + ne'er fails; for whatsoe'er he spends,
There's still God's plenty for himself and friends.
Should men be rated by poetic rules,
Lord, what a poll would there be raised from fools!
Meantime poor wit prohibited must lie,
As if 'twere made some French commodity
Fools you will have, and raised at vast expense;
And yet, as soon as seen, they give offence.
Time was, when none would cry "That oaf was me!"
But now you strive about your pedigree.
Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down,
But there's a muss of more than half the town.
Each one will challenge a child's part at least;
A sign the family is well increast.
Of foreign cattle there's no longer need,
When we're supplied so fast with English breed.
Well! flourish, countrymen; drink, swear, and roar;
*Shadwell's comedy of "The True Widow" was produced at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Gardens, March 21, 1678. After the fierce quarrel of Dryden and Shadwell, Dryden gave this same Prologue to Mrs. Behn, in 1690, for her play "The Widow Ranter"
+ Cruse was turned into cause in Broughton's edition of 1743, and this inexcusable mistake appears in every succeeding edition of Dryden.
"Of late. when I cried, Ho!'
Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth,
SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra, act iii. sc. 13.
PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO " 'CEDIPUS."*
WHEN Athens all the Grecian states did guide,
And Greece gave laws to all the world beside;
Then Sophocles with Socrates did sit,
Supreme in wisdom one, and one in wit :
And wit from wisdom differed not in those,
But as 'twas sung in verse or said in prose.
Then (Edipus on crowded theatres
Drew all admiring eyes and listening ears:
The pleased spectator shouted every line,
The noblest, manliest, and the best design!
And every critic of each learned age,
By this just model has reformed the stage.
Now, should it fail, (as Heaven avert our fear!)
Damn it in silence, lest the world should hear.
or were it known this poem did not please,
You might set up for perfect savages:
Your neighbours would not look on you as men,
But think the nation all turned Picts again.
Faith, as you manage matters, 'tis not fit
You should suspect yourselves of too much wit:
Drive not the jest too far, but spare this piece;
And for this once be not more wise than Greece.
See twice do not pell-mell to damning fall,
Like true-born Britons, who ne'er think at all:
Pray be advised; and though at Mons you won, †
"Edipus," a joint production of Dryden and Lee, was brought out at the Duke's Theatre, Dorset Gardens, in the latter part of the year 1678. The references in the Prologue to the battle of Mons, fought in August 1678, and to the Woollen Act which came into operation on the 1st of the same month, fix the date of its representation as after August. Dryden wrote the first and second acts of the play: the rest was chiefly written by Lee. Dryden briefly refers in the Epilogue to Sophocles, Seneca, and Corneille, who had treated the subject.
The English auxiliary force, commanded by the Earl of Ossory, had aided effectively in the victory gained by the Prince of Orange over the French at Mons, in August 1678.
What Sophocles could undertake alone,
Our poets found a work for more than one;
And therefore two lay tugging at the piece,
Both yoked to draw the ponderous mass from Greece;
A weight that bent even Seneca's strong Muse,
And which Corneille's shoulders did refuse:*
So hard it is the Athenian harp to string!
So much two Consuls yield to one just King.
Terror and pity this whole poem sway;
The mightiest machines that can move a play.
How heavy will those vulgar souls be found,
Whom two such engines cannot move from ground!
When Greece and Rome have smiled upon this birth,
You can but damn for one poor spot of earth;
And when your children find your judgment such,
They'll scorn their sires, and wish themselves born Dutch;
Each haughty poet will infer with ease,
How much his wit must underwrite to please.
As some strong churl would brandishing advance
The monumental sword that conquered France,
So you by judging this your judgment teach,
Thus far you like, that is, thus far you reach.
Since then the vote of full two thousand years
Has crowned this plot, and all the dead are theirs,
Think it a debt you pay, not alms you give,
And in your own defence let this play live.
Think them not vain, when Sophocles is shown,
Yet as weak States each other's power assure,
Weak poets by conjunction are secure.
Their treat is what your palates relish most,
To praise his worth, they humbly doubt their own.
Charm! song! and show! a murder and a ghost!
We know not what you can desire or hope,
To please you more, but burning of a Pope.
EPILOGUE TO "TROILUS AND
CRESSIDA, OR TRUTH FOUND TOO LATE."÷
SEE, my loved Britons, see your Shakespeare rise,
An awful ghost confessed to human eyes!
* Mr. R. Bell has inserted the word old before Corneille, as he also did in the Epilogue to Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen," line 6, where see note. Compare the word reveille in the "Secular Masque," lines 63, 67, where Scott printed reveillé quite incorrectly.
+ Dryden's adaptation of Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," a decided deterioration,was brought out at Dorset Gardens in April 1679. The Prologue was spoken by Betterton, crowned with bays as the ghost of Shakespeare.
Unnamed, methinks, distinguished I had been
From other shades by this eternal green,
About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive,
And with a touch their withered bays revive.
Untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age,
I found not, but created first the stage.
And if I drained no Greek or Latin store,
'Twas that my own abundance gave me more.
On foreign trade I needed not rely,
Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply.
In this my rough-drawn play you shall behold
Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold
That he who meant to alter found them such;
He shook, and thought it sacrilege to touch.
Now, where are the successors to my name?
What bring they to fill out a poet's fame?
Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age;
Scarce living to be christened on the stage!
For humour farce, for love they rhyme dispense,
That tolls the knell for their departed sense.
Dulness might thrive in any trade but this:
'Twould recommend to some fat benefice.
Dulness, that in a playhouse meets disgrace,
Might meet with reverence in its proper place.
The fulsome clench that nauseates the town
Would from a judge or alderman go down,
Such virtue is there in a robe and gown!
And that insipid stuff which here you hate,
Might somewhere else be called a grave debate ;
Dulness is decent in the Church and State.
But I forget that still 'tis understood,
Bad plays are best decried by showing good.
Sit silent then, that my pleased soul may see
A judging audience once, and worthy me.
My faithful scene from true records shall tell,
How Trojan valour did the Greek excel;
Your great forefathers shall their fame regain,
And Homer's angry ghost repine in vain.
As we strew ratsbane when we vermin fear,
'Twere worth the cost to scatter foolbane here;
And after all our judging fops were served,
Dull poets too should have a dose reserved;
Such reprobates as, past all sense of shaming,
Write on, and ne'er are satisfied with damning;
Next, those, to whom the stage does not belong,
Such whose vocation only is to song,
At most to prologue; whom for want of time
Poets take in for journey-work in rhyme.
But I want curses for those mighty shoals
Of scribbling Chlorises, and Phyllis fools:
Those oafs should be restrained, during their lives,
From pen and ink, as madmen are from knives.
I could rail on, but 'twere a task as vain
As preaching truth at Rome or wit in Spain:
Yet to huff out our play was worth my trying;
John Lilburn scaped his judges by defying.
If guilty, yet I'm sure of the Church's blessing,
By suffering for the Plot without confessing.
PROLOGUE TO “CÆSAR BORGIA, SON OF POPE
ALEXANDER THE SIXTH."*
THE unhappy man who once has trailed a pen
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
What praise soe'er the poetry deserve,
Yet every fool can bid the poet starve.
That fumbling letcher to revenge is bent,
Because he thinks himself or whore is meant :
Name but a cuckold, all the city swarms;
From Leadenhall to Ludgate is in arms.
Were there no fear of Antichrist or France,
In the best time poor poets live by chance.
Either you come not here, or, as you grace
Some old acquaintance, drop into the place,
Careless and qualmish with a yawning face:
You sleep o'er wit, and by my troth you may;
Most of your talents lie another way.
You love to hear of some prodigious tale,
The bell that tolled alone, or Irish whale.
News is your food, and you enough provide,
Both for yourselves and all the world beside.
This tragedy by Lee was produced at the Duke's House, Dorset Gardens, in 1680. of this Prologue has been corrected from the quarto edition of the play, 1680. Besides the more important blunder of blest for best in line 13, all the modern editions have your for our in line 30, and feast for feasts in line 41.
Best has been improperly changed into blest in all modern editions.
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