Chapter XI: Epilogue: Written by Mr Dryden1 (3)

Now for my templar and poet in association for a libel, like the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in a fiery sign. What the one wants in wit, the other must supply in law. As for malice, their quotas are indifferently well adjusted; the rough draught, I take for granted, is the poet's, the finishings the lawyer's. They begin,--that in order to one Mr Friend's commands, one of them went to see the play. This was not the poet, I am certain; for nobody saw him there, and he is not of a size to be concealed. But the mountain, they say, was delivered of a mouse. I have been gossip to many such labours of a dull fat scribbler, where the mountain has been bigger, and the mouse less. The next sally is on the city-elections, and a charge is brought against my lord mayor, and the two sheriffs, for excluding true electors. I have heard, that a Whig gentleman of the Temple hired a livery-gown, to give his voice among the companies at Guild-hall; let the question be put, whether or no he were a true elector?--Then their own juries are commended from several topics; they are the wisest, richest, and most conscientious: to which is answered, _ignoramus_. But our juries give most prodigious and unheard-of damages. Hitherto there is nothing but boys-play in our authors: _My mill grinds pepper and spice, your mill grinds rats and mice._ They go on,--"if I may be allowed to judge;" (as men that do not poetize may be judges of wit, human nature, and common decencies;) so then the sentence is begun with _I_; there is but one of them puts in for a judge's place, that is, he in the grey; but presently it is--_men_; two more in buckram would be judges too. Neither of them, it seems, poetize; that is true, but both of them are in at rhime doggrel; witness the song against the bishops, and the Tunbridge ballad[35]. By the way, I find all my scribbling enemies have a mind to be judges, and chief barons. Proceed, gentlemen:--"This play, as I am informed by some, who have a nearer communication with the poets and the players, than I have,--". Which of the two Sosias is it that now speaks? If the lawyer, it is true he has but little communication with the players; if the poet, the players have but little communication with him; for it is not long ago, he said to somebody, "By G----, my lord, those Tory rogues will act none of my plays." Well, but the accusation,--that this play was once written by another, and then it was called the "Parisian Massacre." Such a play I have heard indeed was written; but I never saw it[36]. Whether this be any of it or no, I can say no more than for my own part of it. But pray, who denies the unparalleled villainy of the papists in that bloody massacre? I have enquired, why it was not acted, and heard it was stopt by the interposition of an ambassador, who was willing to save the credit of his country, and not to have the memory of an action so barbarous revived; but that I tempted my friend to alter it, is a notorious whiggism, to save the broader word. The "Sicilian Vespers" I have had plotted by me above these seven years: the story of it I found under borrowed names in Giraldo Cinthio; but the rape in my tragedy of "Amboyna" was so like it, that I forbore the writing. But what had this to do with protestants? For the massacrers and the massacred were all papists.

But it is observable, they say, that "though the massacre could not be acted, as it was first written against papists, yet when it was turned upon protestants, it found reception."

Now all is come out; the scandal of the story turns at last upon the government: that patronizes popish plays, and forbids protestant[37]. Ours is to be a popish play; why? Because it exposes the villainy of sectaries and rebels. Prove them first to be protestants, and see what you will get by it when you have done. Your party are certainly the men whom the play attacks, and so far I will help you; the designs and actions, represented in the play, are such as you have copied from the League; for though you have wickedness enough, yet you wanted the wit to make a new contrivance. But for shame, while you are carrying on such palpable villainy, do not assume the name of protestants. You will tell us, you are friends to the government, and the king's best subjects; but all the while you are aspersing both it and him. Who shall be judges, whether you are friends or not? The government or you? Have not all rebels always sung the same song? Was ever thief or murderer fool enough to plead guilty? For your love and loyalty to the king, they, who mean him best among you, are no better subjects than Duke Trinculo; they would be content he should be viceroy, so they may be viceroys over him[38].

The next accusation is particular to me,--"that I, the said Bayes, would falsely and feloniously have robbed Nat. Lee of his share in the representation of OEdipus." Now I am culprit; I writ the first and third acts of OEdipus, and drew the scenery of the whole play: whenever I have owned a farther proportion, let my accusers speak: this was meant mischievously, to set us two at variance. Who is the old serpent and Satan now? When my friends help my barren fancy, I am thankful for it: I do not use to receive assistance, and afterwards ungratefully disown it.

Not long after, "exemplary punishment" is due to me for this most "devilish parallel." It is a devilish one indeed; but who can help it? If I draw devils like one another, the fault is in themselves for being so: I neither made their horns nor claws, nor cloven feet. I know not what I should have done, unless I had drawn the devil a handsome proper gentleman, like the painter in the fable, to have made a friend of him[39]; but I ought to be exemplarily punished for it: when the devil gets uppermost, I shall expect it. "In the mean time, let magistrates (that respect their oaths and office)"--which words, you see, are put into a parenthesis, as if (God help us) we had none such now,--let them put the law in execution against lewd scribblers; the mark will be too fair upon a pillory, for a turnip or a rotten egg to miss it. But, for my part, I have not malice enough to wish him so much harm,--not so much as to have a hair of his head perish, much less that one whole side of it should be dismantled. I am no informer, who writ such a song, or such a libel; if the dulness betrays him not, he is safe for me. And may the same dulness preserve him ever from public justice; it is a sufficient thick mud-wall betwixt him and law; it is his guardian angel, that protects him from punishment, because, in spite of him, he cannot deserve it. It is that which preserves him innocent when he means most mischief, and makes him a saint when he intends to be a devil. He can never offend enough, to need the mercy of government, for it is beholden to him, that he writes against it; and he never offers at a satire, but he converts his readers to a contrary opinion.

Some of the succeeding paragraphs are intended for very Ciceronian: there the lawyer flourishes in the pulpit, and the poet stands in socks among the crowd to hear him. Now for narration, resolution, calumniation, aggravation, and the whole artillery of tropes and figures, to defend the proceedings at Guild-hall. The most minute circumstances of the elections are described so lively, that a man, who had not heard he was there in a livery-gown, might suspect there was a _quorum pars magna fui_ in the case; and multitudes of electors, just as well qualified as himself, might give their party the greater number: but throw back their gilt shillings, which were told for guineas, and their true sum was considerably less. Well, there was no rebellion at this time; therefore, says my adversary, there was no parallel. It is true there was no rebellion; but who ever told him that I intended this parallel so far? if the likeness had been throughout, I may guess, by their good will to me, that I had never lived to write it. But, to show his mistake, which I believe wilful, the play was wholly written a month or two before the last election of the sheriffs. Yet it seems there was some kind of prophecy in the case; and, till the faction gets clear of a riot, a part of the comparison will hold even there; yet, if he pleases to remember, there has been a king of England forced by the inhabitants from his imperial town. It is true, the son has had better fortune than the father; but the reason is, that he has now a stronger party in the city than his enemies; the government of it is secured in loyal and prudent hands, and the party is too weak to push their designs farther. "They rescued not their beloved sheriffs at a time (he tells you) when they had a most important use of them." What the importancy of the occasion was, I will not search: it is well if their own consciences will acquit them. But let them be never so much beloved, their adherents knew it was a lawful authority that sent them to the Tower; and an authority which, to their sorrow, they were not able to resist: so that, if four men guarded them without disturbance, and, to the contempt of their strength, at broad noon-day and at full exchange-time, it was no more their honesty to stand looking on with their hands in their pockets, than it is of a small band of robbers to let a caravan go by, which is too strong for them to assault.

After this, I am called, after the old rate, loose and infamous scribbler; and it is well I escape so cheap. Bear your good fortune moderately, Mr Poet; for, as loose and infamous as I am, if I had written for your party, your pension would have been cut off as useless. But they must take up with Settle, and such as they can get: Bartholomew-fair writers[40], and Bartholemew-close printers; there is a famine of wit amongst them, they are forced to give unconscionable rates, and, after all, to have only carrion for their money.

Then, I am "an ignorant fellow for not knowing there were no juries in Paris." I do not remember to have written any such thing; but whoever did, I am confident it was not his ignorance. Perhaps he had a mind to bring the case a little nearer home: If they had not juries in Paris, we had them from the Normans, who were Frenchmen; and, as you managed them, we had as good have had none in London. Let it satisfy you we have them now; and some of your loose and infamous scribblers may come to understand it a little better.

The next is, the justification of a noble peer deceased; the case is known, and I have no quarrel to his memory: let it sleep; he is now before another judge. Immediately after, I am said to have intended an "abuse to the House of Commons;" which is called by our authors "the most august assembly of Europe." They are to prove I have abused that House; but it is manifest they have lessened the House of Lords, by owning the Commons to be the "more august assembly."--"It is an House chosen (they say) by every protestant who has a considerable inheritance in England;" which word _considerable_ signifies forty shillings _per annum_ of free land. For the interest of the loyal party, so much under-valued by our authors, they have long ago confessed in print, that the nobility and gentry have disowned them; and the yeomanry have at last considered, _queis hæc consevimus arva_? They have had enough of unlawful and arbitrary power; and know what an august assembly they had once without a King and House of Peers.

But now they have me in a burning scent, and run after me full cry: "Was ever such licence connived at, in an impious libeller and scribbler, that the succession, so solemn a matter, that is not fit to be debated of but in parliament, should be profaned so far as to be played with on the stage?"

Hold a little, gentlemen, hold a little; (as one of your fellow citizens says in "The Duke of Guise,") is it so unlawful for me to argue for the succession in the right line upon the stage; and is it so very lawful for Mr Hunt, and the scribblers of your party, to oppose it in their libels off the stage? Is it so sacred, that a parliament only is suffered to debate it, and dare you run it down both in your discourses, and pamphlets out of parliament? In conscience, what can you urge against me, which I cannot return an hundred times heavier on you? And by the way, you tell me, that to affirm the contrary to this, is a _præmunire_ against the statute of the 13th of Elizabeth. If such _præmunire_ be, pray, answer me, who has most incurred it? In the mean time, do me the favour to look into the statute-book, and see if you can find the statute; you know yourselves, or you have been told it, that this statute is virtually repealed, by that of the 1st of king James, acknowledging his immediate lawful and undoubted right to this imperial crown, as the next lineal heir; those last words are an implicit anti-declaration to the statute in queen Elizabeth, which, for that reason, is now omitted in our books. The lawful authority of an House of Commons I acknowledge; but without fear and trembling, as my Reflectors would have it. For why should I fear my representatives? they are summoned to consult about the public good, and not to frighten those who chose them. It is for you to tremble, who libel the supreme authority of the nation. But we knavish coxcombs and villains are to know, say my authors, that "a vote is the opinion of that House." Lord help our understandings, that know not this without their telling! What Englishman, do you think, does not honour his representatives, and wish a parliament void of heat and animosities, to secure the quiet of the nation? You cite his majesty's declaration against those that dare trifle with parliaments; a declaration, by the way, which you endeavoured not to have read publicly in churches, with a threatening to those that did it. "But we still declare (says his majesty) that no irregularities of parliament shall make us out of love with them." Are not you unfortunate quoters? why now should you rub up the remembrance of those irregularities mentioned in that declaration, which caused, as the king informs us, its dissolution?

The next paragraph is already answered; it is only a clumsy commendation of the Duke of Monmouth, copied after Mr Hunt, and a proof that he is unlike the Duke of Guise.

After having done my drudgery for me, and having most officiously proved, that the English duke is no parallel for the French, which I am sure he is not, they are next to do their own business, which is, that I meant a parallel betwixt Henry III. and our most gracious sovereign. But, as fallacies are always couched in general propositions, they plead the whole course of the drama, which, they say, seems to insinuate my intentions. One may see to what a miserable shift they are driven, when, for want of any one instance, to which I challenge them, they have only to allege, that the play SEEMS to insinuate it. I answer, it does not seem; which is a bare negative to a bare affirmative; and then we are just where we were before. Fat Falstaff was never set harder by the Prince for a reason, when he answered, "that, if reasons grew as thick as blackberries, he would not give one." Well, after long pumping, lest the lie should appear quite barefaced, they have found I said, that, at king Henry's birth, there shone a regal star; so there did at king Charles the Second's; therefore I have made a parallel betwixt Henry III. and Charles II. A very concluding syllogism, if I should answer it no farther.

Now, let us look upon the play; the words are in the fourth act. The conjurer there is asking his devil, "what fortune attended his master, the Guise, and what the king?" The familiar answers concerning the king,--"He cannot be deposed, he may be killed; a violent fate attends him; but, at his birth, there shone a regal star."--_Conj._ "My master had a stronger."--_Devil._ "No, not a stronger, but more popular." Let the whole scene, (which is one of the best in the tragedy, though murdered in the acting) be read together, and it will be as clear as day light, that the Devil gave an astrological account of the French king's _horoscope_; that the regal star, then culminating, was the sun in the tenth house, or mid-heaven; which, _cæteris paribus,_ is a regal nativity in that art. The rest of the scene confirms what I have said; for the Devil has taken the position of the heavens, or scheme of the world, at the point of the sun's entrance into Aries. I dispute not here the truth or lawfulness of that art; but it is usual with poets, especially the Italians, to mix astrology in their poems. Chaucer, amongst us, is frequent in it: but this revolution particularly I have taken out of Luigi Pulci; and there is one almost the same in Boiardo's "_Orlando Inamorato._" Now, if these poets knew, that a star were to appear at our king's birth, they were better prophets than Nostradamus, who has told us nothing of it. Yet this they say "is treason with a witness," and one of the crimes for which they condemned me to be hanged, drawn and quartered. I find they do not believe me to be one of their party at the bottom, by their charitable wishes to me; and am proud enough to think, I have done them some little mischief, because they are so desirous to be rid of me. But if Jack Ketch must needs have the handling of us poets, let him begin first where he may take the deepest say[41]; let me be hanged, but in my turn; for I am sure I am neither the fattest scribbler, nor the worst; I'll be judged by their own party. But, for all our comforts, the days of hanging are a little out of date; and I hope there will be no more treason with a witness or witnesses; for now there is no more to be got by swearing, and the market is overstocked besides.

But are you in earnest when you say, I have made Henry III. "fearful, weak, bloody, perfidious, hypocritical, and fawning, in the play?" I am sure an unbiassed reader will find a more favourable image of him in the tragedy, whatever he was out of it. You would not have told a lie so shameless, but that you were resolved to second it with a worse--that I made a parallel of that prince. And now it comes to my turn, pray let me ask you,--why you spend three pages and a half in heaping up all the villainies, true or false, which you can rake together, to blast his memory? Why is all this pains taken to expose the person of king Henry III.? Are you leaguers, or covenanters, or associators? What has the poor dead man done to nettle you? Were his rebels your friends or your relations? Were your Norman ancestors of any of those families, which were conspirators in the play? I smell a rat in this business; Henry III. is not taken thus to task for nothing. Let me tell you, this is little better than an implicit confession of the parallel I intended. This gentleman of Valois sticks in your stomachs; and, though I do not defend his proceedings in the States, any otherwise than by the inevitable necessity which caused them, yet acknowledging his crime does not extenuate their guilt that forced him to it. It was bad on both sides, but the revenge was not so wicked as the treason; for it was a voluntary act of theirs, and a compelled one of his. The short on't is, he took a violent course to cut up the Covenant by the roots; and there is your quarrel to him.

Now for a long-winded panegyric of the king of Navarre; and here I am sure they are in earnest, when they take such overpains to prove there is no likeness where they say I intended it. The hero, at whom their malice is levelled, does but laugh at it, I believe; and, amongst the other virtues of that predecessor, wants neither his justice nor his clemency, to forgive all the heads of the League, as fast as they submit. As for obliging them, (which our author would fain hook in for an ingredient) let them be satisfied, that no more enemies are to be bought off with places and preferments; the trial which has been made in two kings reigns, will warn the family from so fruitless and dangerous an expedient. The rest is already answered, in what I have said to Mr Hunt; but I thank them, by the way, for their instance of the fellow whom the king of Navarre had pardoned and done good to, "yet he would not love him;" for that story reaches home somewhere.

I must make haste to get out of hearing from this Billingsgate oratory; and, indeed, to make an end with these authors, except I could call rogue and rascal as fast as they. Let us examine the little reason they produce concerning the Exclusion.

"Did the pope, the clergy, the nobility and commonalty of France think it reasonable to exclude a prince for professing a different religion; and will the papists be angry if the protestants be of the same opinion? No, sure, they cannot have the impudence."

First, here is the difference of religion taken for granted, which was never proved on one side, though in the king of Navarre it was openly professed. Then the pope, and the three estates of France had no power to alter the succession, neither did the king in being consent to it: or afterwards, did the greater part of the nobility, clergy, and gentry adhere to the Exclusion, but maintained the lawful king successfully against it; as we are bound to do in England, by the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, made for the benefit of our kings, and their successors? the objections concerning which oath are fully answered by Dr Hicks, in his preface to Jovian; and thither I refer the reader.

They tell us, that what it concerns protestants to do in that case, enough has been heard by us in parliament debates.

I answer, that debates coming not by an act to any issue, conclude, that there is nothing to be done against a law established, and fundamental of the monarchy. They dare not infer a right of taking up arms, by virtue of a debate or vote, and yet they tacitly insinuate this. I ask them, what it does concern protestants to do in this case, and whether they mean anything by that expression? They have hampered themselves before they were aware; for they proceed in the very next lines to tell us, they believe "the crown of England being hereditary, the next in blood have an undoubted right to succeed, unless God make them, or they make themselves uncapable of reigning." So that according to them, if either of those two impediments shall happen, then it concerns the protestants of England to do that something, which, if they had spoken out, had been direct treason. Here is fine legerdemain amongst them: they have acknowledged a vote to be no more than the opinion of an house, and yet from a debate, which was abortive before it quickened into a vote, they argue after the old song, "that there is something more to be done, which you cannot chuse but guess." In the next place, there is no such thing as incapacity to be supposed, in the immediate successor of the crown. That is, the rightful heir cannot be made uncapable on any account whatsoever to succeed. It may please God, that he may be _inhabilis_, or _inidoneus ad gerendam rempublicam_,--unfit or unable to govern the kingdom; but this is no impediment to his right of reigning: he cannot either be excluded or deposed for such imperfection; for the laws which have provided for private men in this case, have also made provision for the sovereign, and for the public; and the council of state, or the next of blood, is to administer the kingdom for him. Charles the Sixth of France, (for I think we have no English examples which will reach it) forfeited not his kingdom by his lunacy, though a victorious king of England was then knocking at his gates; but all things under his name, and by his authority were managed. The case is the same, betwixt a king _non compos mentis_, and one who is _nondum compos mentis_; a distracted or an infant-king. Then the people cannot incapacitate the king, because he derives not his right from them, but from God only; neither can any action, much less opinion of a sovereign, render him uncapable, for the same reason; excepting only a voluntary resignation to his immediate heir, as in the case of Charles the Fifth: for that of our Richard the Second was invalid, because forced, and not made to the next successor.

Neither does it follow, as our authors urge, that an unalterable succession supposes England to be the king's estate, and the people his goods and chattels on it. For the preservation of his right destroys not our propriety, but maintains us in it. He has tied himself by law, not to invade our possessions; and we have obliged ourselves as subjects to him, and all his lawful successors: by which irrevocable act of ours, both for ourselves and our posterity, we can no more exclude the successor, than we can depose the present king. The estate of England is indeed the king's; and I may safely grant their supposition, as to the government of England: but it follows not, that the people are his goods and chattels on it; for then he might sell, alienate, or destroy them as he pleased: from all which he has tied himself by the liberties and privileges which he has granted us by laws.

There is little else material in this pamphlet: for to say, "I would insinuate into the king a hatred to his capital city," is to say, he should hate his best friends, the last, and the present Lord Mayor, our two honourable Sheriffs, the Court of Aldermen, the worthy and loyal Mr Common Serjeant, with the rest of the officers, who are generally well affected and who have kept out their factious members from its government. To say, I would insinuate a scorn of authority in the city, is, in effect, to grant the parallel in the play: for the authority of tumults and seditions is only scorned in it,--an authority which they derived not from the crown, but exercised against it. And for them to confess I exposed this, is to confess, that London was like Paris.

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 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.

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 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 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:
1. 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.

2. The poem, alluded to, was probably the _Religio Laici_, first
published in November l682.

3. 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
_sôphrona manian_ 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."

4. "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.

5. 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.

6. 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._

7. 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.

8. "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.]

9. This probably alludes to L'Estrange, who answered Hunt in the
"Lawyer Outlawed."

10. "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.

11. Jaques Clement, a Jacobin Monk, stabbed Henry III. on the 1st of
August, 1589. He expired the following day.

12. "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.

13. The Earl of Arlington, Lord Chamberlain.

14. Charles II. and his brother the Duke of York, were grandchildren
of Henry IV. of France, by their mother Henrietta Maria.

15. 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.

16. See the full passage prefixed to the Vindication.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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."--

20. In the Dramatis Personæ to Shadwell's play of Epsom-Wells, we have
Rains, Bevil, Woodly, described as "men of wit and pleasure."

21. 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.

22. See note on p. 222. Vol. VI. describing this famous procession.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. A quip at his corpulent adversary Shadwell.

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. The motto to Hunt's pamphlet.

30. _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.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. The song against the bishops is probably a ballad, upon their
share in throwing out the bill of exclusion, beginning thus: