the poem which I present to you, because I know not if you are like to have an hour which, with a good conscience, you may throw away in perusing it; and, for the author, I have only to beg the continuance of your protection to him, who is,

My LORD,

Your Lordship's most obliged,

Most humble, and

most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

PREFACE

ΤΟ

ALL FOR LOVE,

or, the woRLD WELL LOST.

THE death of Antony and Cleopatra is a subject which has been treated by the greatest wits of our nation, after Shakspeare; and by all so variously, that their example has given me the confidence to try myself in this bow of Ulysses amongst the crowd of suitors; and withal, to take my own measures in aiming at the mark. I doubt not but the same motive has prevailed with all of

s On this subject Daniel wrote a play, entitled CLEOPATRA, which was printed in 1594, but never acted. ANTONIUS, or, the Tragedie of Mark Antony, done from the French, by Mary, Countess of Pembroke, (sister of Sir Philip Sydney,) was printed in 4to. in 1595. Both these pieces are written on the model of the ancient drama. May's CLEOPATRA was published in 1639, but does not appear to have been acted. In 1677, the year before our author's ALL FOR LOVE was printed, his friend Sir Charles Sedley produced at the Duke's Theatre a play, written in rhyme, on the same subject, entitled ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

us in this attempt, I mean the excellency of the moral; for the chief persons represented were famous patterns of unlawful love, and their end accordingly was unfortunate. All reasonable men have long since concluded, that the hero of the poem ought not to be a character of perfect virtue, for then he could not without injustice be made unhappy; nor yet altogether wicked, because he could not then be pitied: I have therefore steered the middle course, and have drawn the character of Antony as favourably as Plutarch, Appian, and Dion Cassius would give me leave; the like I have observed in Cleopatra. That which is wanting to work up the pity to a greater height, was not afforded me by the story; for the crimes of love which they both committed were not occasioned by any necessity, or fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary; since our passions are, or ought to be, within our power. The fabrick of the play is regular enough, as to the inferior parts of it; and the unities of time, place, and action, more exactly observed, than perhaps the English theatre requires. Particularly, the action is so much one, that it is the only of the kind without episode or underplot; every scene in the tragedy conducing to the main design, and every act concluding with a turn of it. The greatest errour in the contrivance seems to be in the person of Octavia; for though I might use the privilege of a poet, to introduce her into Alexandria, yet I had not enough considered, that the compassion she

moved to herself and children was destructive to that which I reserved for Antony and Cleopatra ; whose mutual love being founded upon vice, must lessen the favour of the audience to them, when virtue and innocence were oppressed by it. And though I justified Antony in some measure, by making Octavia's departure to proceed wholly from herself, yet the force of the first machine still remained; and the dividing of pity, like the cutting of a river into many channels, abated the strength of the natural stream. But this is an objection which none of my criticks have urged against me; and therefore I might have let it pass, if I could have resolved to have been partial to myself. The faults my enemies have found are rather cavils concerning little and not essential decencies, which a Master of the Ceremonies may decide betwixt us. The French poets, I confess, are strict observers of these punctilios: they would not, for example, have suffered Cleopatra and Octavia to have met; or if they had met, there must only have passed betwixt them some cold civilities, but no eagerness or repartee, for fear of offending against the greatness of their characters, and the modesty of their sex. This objection I foresaw, and at the same time contemned; for I judged it both natural and probable that Octavia, proud of her new-gained conquest, would search out Cleopatra to triumph over her, and that Cleopatra, thus attacked, was not of a spirit to shun the encounter; and it is not unlikely that two

exasperated rivals should use such satire as I have put into their mouths; for after all, though the one were a Roman, and the other a queen, they were both women. It is true, some actions, though natural, are not fit to be represented, and broad obscenities in words ought in good manners to be avoided; expressions therefore are a modest clothing of our thoughts, as breeches and petticoats are of our bodies. If I have kept myself within the bounds of modesty, all beyond it is but nicety and affectation, which is no more but modesty depraved into a vice: they betray themselves who are too quick of apprehension in such cases, and leave all reasonable men to imagine worse of them than of the poet.

Honest Montagne goes yet farther: "Nous ne sommes que ceremonie; la ceremonie nous emporte, et laissons la substance des choses; nous tenons aux branches, et abandonnons le tronc et le corps. Nous avons appris aux Dames de rougir, oyans seulement nommer ce qu'elles ne craignent aucunement a faire: nous n'osons appeller a droict nos membres, et ne craignons par de les employer a toute sorte de debauche. La ceremonie nous defend d'exprimer par paroles les choses licites et naturelles, et nous l'en croyons; la raison nous defend de n'en faire point d'illicites et mauvaises, et personne ne l'en croid." My comfort is, that by this opinion my enemies are but sucking criticks, who would fain be nibbling ere their teeth are come.

Yet in this nicety of manners does the excel