Each sings his part, echoing from pit and box,
With his hoarse voice, half harmony, half pox.
Le plus grand roi du monde is always ringing;

They show themselves good subjects by their singing:
On that condition, set up every throat;

40

You Whigs may sing, for you have changed your note.
Cits and citesses, raise a joyful strain,

'Tis a good omen to begin a reign;

Voices may help your charter to restoring,

45

And get by singing what you lost by roaring.

EPILOGUE.

After our Æsop's fable shown to-day,

I come to give the moral of the play.

Feigned Zeal, you saw, set out the speedier pace;
But, the last heat, Plain Dealing won the race :

Plain Dealing for a jewel has been known;
But ne'er till now the jewel of a crown.

5

When Heaven made man, to show the work divine,

Truth was his image, stamped upon the coin ;
And when a king is to a god refined,

On all he says and does he stamps his mind.
This proves a soul without allay, and pure;
Kings, like their gold, should every touch endure.
To dare in fields is valour; but how few
Dare be so throughly* valiant to be true?
The name of Great let other kings affect:
He's great indeed, the prince that is direct.+
His subjects know him now, and trust him more
Than all their kings and all their laws before.
What safety could their public acts afford?
Those he can break, but cannot break his word.
So great a trust to him alone was due;
Well have they trusted whom so well they knew.
The saint who walked on waves securely trod,
While he believed the beckoning of his God;
But when his faith no longer bore him out,
Began to sink, as he began to doubt.
Let us our native character maintain;
'Tis of our growth to be sincerely plain.

10

15

20

25

To excel in truth we loyally may strive,

Set privilege against prerogative:

He plights his faith, and we believe him just "

30

• Throughly, a common form of the adverb; incorrectly changed to thoroughly by Mr. R. Bell

+ Dryden compliments James II. somewhat similarly near the end of his reign in "Britannia Rediviva," 333

"The name of Great your martial mind will suit,

But Justice is your darling attribute."

PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO “DON SEBASTIAN.”*

1690.

PROLOGUE.

THE judge removed, though he's no more my lord,
May plead at bar, or at the council-board:
So may cast poets write; there's no pretension
To argue loss of wit from loss of pension.
Your looks are cheerful; and in all this place
I see not one that wears a damning face.
The British nation is too brave to show
Ignoble vengeance on a vanquished foe.
At least be civil to the wretch imploring;
And lay your paws upon him without roaring.
Suppose our poet was your foe before,
Yet now the business of the field is o'er ;
'Tis time to let your civil wars alone,

When troops are into winter-quarters gone.
Jove was alike to Latian and to Phrygian;
And you well know a play's of no religion.
Take good advice, and please yourselves this day
No matter from what hands you have the play.
Among good fellows every health will pass,
That serves to carry round another glass :
When with full bowls of Burgundy you dine,
Though at the mighty monarch you repine,
You grant him still most Christian in his wine.
Thus far the poet; but his brains grow addle,
And all the rest is purely from this noddle.
You have seen young ladies at the senate-door
Prefer petitions, and your grace implore;
However grave the legislators were,

Their cause went ne'er the worse for being fair.
Reasons as weak as theirs, perhaps, I bring;
But I could bribe you with as good a thing.
I heard him make advances of good nature,
That he for once would sheath his cutting satire
Sign but his peace, he vows he'll ne'er again
The sacred names of fops and beaux profane.

30

35

* Dryden had not produced a play for four years, when his tragedy of "Don Sebastian" was brought out in 1690: and it was his first appearance on the stage after the Revolution, which had deprived him of Court favour, and of his offices of Poet Laureat and Historiographer Royal. He refers in the opening of the Prologue to his altered position, and endeavours to propitiate the audience by an appeal to their magnanimity. The play was not very successful in representation, but it is one of the best of Dryden's plays. It was published also in 1690, with a dedication to the Earl of Leicester, the elder brother of Algernon Sidney, who himself as Lord Lisle had in early life acted with Cromwell, and was now, without being prominent in politics, a supporter of William and Mary's throne.

Strike up the bargain quickly; for, I swear,
As times go now, he offers very fair.

Be not too hard on him with statutes neither;
Be kind, and do not set your teeth together

To stretch the laws, as cobblers do their leather.
Horses by Papists are not to be ridden,
But sure the Muses' horse was ne'er forbidden;
For in no rate-book it was ever found
That Pegasus was valued at five pound:
Fine him to daily drudging and inditing:
And let him pay his taxes out in writing.

*

40

45

EPILOGUE.

Spoken betwixt ANTONIO and MORAYMA.†

Mor. I quaked at heart, for fear the royal fashion
Should have seduced us two to separation :
To be drawn in, against our own desire,

Poor I to be a nun, poor you a friar.

Ant. I trembled, when the old man's hand was in,
He would have proved we were too near of kin,
Discovering old intrigues of love, like the other,
Betwixt my father and thy sinful mother;

To make us sister Turk and Christian brother.

5

Mor. Excuse me there; that league should have been rather
Betwixt your mother and my Mufti father;

'Tis for my own and my relations' credit,

Your friends should bear the bastard, mine should get it.
Ant. Suppose us two, Almeyda and Sebastian,
With incest proved upon us

Mor.

II

Without question,

15

Their conscience was too queazy of digestion.

Ant. Thou wouldst have kept the counsel of thy brother,

And sinned till we repented of each other.

Mor. Beast as you are, on nature's laws to trample!

'Twere better that we followed their example.

20

And since all marriage in repentance ends,

'Tis good for us to part while we are friends.
To save a maid's remorses and confusions,
Even leave me now, before we try conclusions.

Ant. To copy their example, first make certain
Of one good hour, like theirs, before our parting;
Make a debauch o'ernight of love and madness;
And marry, when we wake, in sober sadness.

25

A satirical allusion to a clause in the Act for disarming the Catholics, passed at the beginning of the reign of William and Mary, which prohibited a Papist, or reputed Papist, refusing to take the oath of allegiance, from keeping a horse above the value of 57.

The Epilogue was spoken by Mr. and Mrs. Mountfort.

It may be inferred from this rhyme that certain was pronounced sartain. See note at p. 218 on the rhymes to serve, deserve, and desert. See rhymes of mercies and farces (Epilogue to "Cleomenes," line 24, and garment and preferment (Epilogue to "The Husband his own Cuckold," line 21).

Mor. I'll follow no new sects of your inventing.
One night might cost me nine long months repenting :
First wed, and, if you find that life a fetter,
Die when you please; the sooner, Sir, the better.
My wealth would get me love ere I could ask it :
Oh! there's a strange temptation in the casket.
All these young sharpers would my grace importune,
And make me thundering vows of life and fortune.

30

35

PROLOGUE TO "THE PROPHETESS." *

1690.

WHAT Nostradame with all his art can guess
The fate of our approaching Prophetess?
A play, which, like a prospective † set right,
Presents our vast expenses close to sight;
But turn the tube, and there we sadly view
Our distant gains, and those uncertain too;
A sweeping tax, which on ourselves we raise,
And all, like you, in hopes of better days.
When will our losses warn us to be wise?
Our wealth decreases, and our charges rise.
Money, the sweet allurer of our hopes,
Ebbs out in oceans, and comes in by drops.
We raise new objects to provoke delight,
But you grow sated ere the second sight.
False men, even so you serve your mistresses;
They rise three stories in their towering dress;
And, after all, you love not long enough
To pay the rigging, ere you leave 'em off.
Never content with what you had before,
But true to change, and Englishmen all o'er.
Now honour calls you hence; and all your care
Is to provide the horrid pomp of war.
In plume and scarf, jack-boots and Bilbo blade
Your silver goes, that should support our trade.
Go, unkind heroes! leave our stage to mourn,
Till rich from vanquished rebels you return;
And the fat spoils of Teague in triumph draw,
His firkin-butter and his usquebaugh.

5

1Ο

15

20

25

Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "The Prophetess" was brought out as an opera at Dorset Gardens in 1690. King William was in Ireland, and Queen Mary Regent. The political allusions of this Prologue gave great offence: and it was prohibited after the first night.

+ Prospective turned into perspective by Broughton, who is followed by all editors. A prospective is a magnifying glass or telescope.

"Did any e'er use prospective to see

No further than the glass?"

CLEAVELAND's Poems, p. 59, ed. 1660.

Go, conquerors of your male and female foes;
Men without hearts, and women without hose.
Each bring his love a Bogland captive home;
Such proper pages will long trains become;
With copper collars, and with brawny backs,
Quite to put down the fashion of our blacks."
Then shall the pious Muses pay their vows,
And furnish all their laurels for your brows;
Their tuneful voice shall rise for your delights;
We want not poets fit to sing your flights.
But you, bright beauties, for whose only sake
Those doughty knights such dangers undertake,
When they with happy gales are gone away,
With your propitious presence grace our play,
And with a sigh their empty seats survey;
Then think, on that bare bench my servant sat!
I see him ogle still, and hear him chat;
Selling facetious bargains, and propounding
That witty recreation, called dumbfounding.t
Their loss with patience we will try to bear,
And would do more, to see you often here;
That our dead stage, revived by your fair eyes,
Under a female regency may rise.

30

35

40

45

50

PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO "AMPHITRYON, OR THE TWO SOSIAS." +

1690. PROLOGUE.

THE labouring bee, when his sharp sting is gone,
Forgets his golden work, and turns a drone:
Such is a satire, when you take away

That rage in which his noble vigour lay.

He neither can offend you now, nor please ye.

What gain you, by not suffering him to tease ye?

The honey-bag and venom lay so near,
That both together you resolved to tear;

And lost your pleasure, to secure your fear.

5

"It was the custom to have black boys with collars, silver or copper. Scott quotes an advertisement of the Gazette of March 18, 1685: "A black boy, about fifteen years of age, named John White, ran away from Colonel Kirke, the 15th instant: he has a silver collar about his neck, upon which is the Colonel's arms and cipher." Dryden wickedly suggests that the English officers should bring boys from the bogs of Ireland to serve as pages with copper collars

"Selling bargains was a game of question and answer, the force of which lay in coarse answers to innocent questions. See "Mac Flecknoe." line 181 and note. "Dumbfounding" was a game of another sort: the players "dumbfounded" each other with sudden blows on the back stealthily given.

I Dryden had now set to work again diligently for the stage; and "Don Sebastian" was quickly followed by the comedy of "Amphitryon, or the Two Sosias" which was very successful The subject had been treated by Plautus and by Molière.