Chapter XLII: Epilogue: ,

SPOKEN BY THE SAME.

No poor Dutch peasant, winged with all his fear,
Flies with more haste, when the French arms draw near,
Than we, with our poetic train, come down,
For refuge hither, from the infected town:
Heaven, for our sins, this summer has thought fit
To visit us with all the plagues of wit.
A French troop first swept all things in its way;
But those hot Monsieurs were too quick to stay:
Yet, to our cost, in that short time, we find
They left their itch of novelty behind.
The Italian merry-andrews took their place,
And quite debauched the stage with lewd grimace:
Instead of wit, and humours, your delight
Was there to see two hobby-horses fight;
Stout Scaramoucha with rush lance rode in,
And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin.
For love you heard how amorous asses brayed,
And cats in gutters gave their serenade.
Nature was out of countenance, and each day
Some new-born monster shown you for a play.
But when all failed, to strike the stage quite dumb,
Those wicked engines, called machines, are come.
Thunder and lightning now for wit are played,
And shortly scenes in Lapland will be laid:
Art magic is for poetry profest,[378]
And cats and dogs, and each obscener beast,
To which Egyptian dotards once did bow,
Upon our English stage are worshipped now.
Witchcraft reigns there, and raises to renown
Macbeth[379] and Simon Magus of the town.
Fletcher's despised, your Jonson's out of fashion,
And wit the only drug in all the nation.
In this low ebb our wares to you are shown, }
By you those staple authors' worth is known, }
For wit's a manufacture of your own. }
When you, who only can, their scenes have praised,
We'll back, and boldly say, their price is raised.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 378: This and the following lines refer to the success of Shadwell's comedy of "The Lancashire Witches," in which a great deal of machinery is introduced; the witches flying away with the clown's candles, and the priest's bottle of holy water, and converting a country-fellow into a horse upon the stage. Not content with this, the author has introduced upon the stage all that writers upon Dæmonology have rehearsed of the Witches' Sabbath, or Festival, with their infernal master; and has thus, very clumsily, mixed the horrible with the ludicrous. As for the cats and dogs, we have, in one place,--"Enter an Imp, in the shape of a black Shock;" and, in another,

"Enter Mother Hargrave, Mother Madge, and two Witches more; they mew, and spit, like cats, and fly at them, and scratch them.

_Young Hartford._ What's this? we're set on by cats.

_Sir Timothy._ They're witches in the shape of cats; what shall we do?

_Priest._ Phaat will I do? cat, cat, cat! oh, oh! _Conjuro vobis! fugite, fugite, Cacodæmones_; cats, cats! (They scratch all their faces, till the blood runs about them.)

_Tom Shacklehead._ Have at ye all! (he cuts at them.) I ha' mauled some of them, by the mass! they are fled, but I am plaguily scratched. (The Witches shriek, and run away.)"

Besides the offence which Shadwell gave, in point of taste, by the introduction of these pantomimical absurdities, Dryden was also displeased by the whole tenor of the play, which was directed against the High-Churchmen and Tories.--_See Dedication of the Duke of Guise_, Vol. VII. p. 15.]

[Footnote 379: This has no reference to any recent representation of the tragedy of "Macbeth." Shadwell, from the witchcraft introduced in his play, is ironically termed, "Macbeth and Simon Magus."]