Dropping and cold, and their first fear scarce o'er,
Expecting famine on a desert shore.

From that hard climate we must wait for bread,
Whence even the natives, forced by hunger, fled.
Our stage does human chance present to view,
But ne'er before was seen so sadly true:

You are changed too, and your pretence to see
Is but a nobler name for † charity.

Your own provisions furnish out our feasts,

While you, the founders, make yourselves the guests.
Of all mankind beside Fate had some care,

But for poor wit no portlon did prepare;

'Tis left a rent-charge to the brave and fair.
You cherished it, and now its fall you mourn,

Which blind unmannered zealots make their scorn, T
Who think that fire a judgment on the stage,
Which spared not temples in its furious rage.
But as our new built city rises higher,
So from old theatres may new aspire,
Since Fate contrives magnificence by fire.+
Our great metropolis does far surpass
Whate'er is now, and equals all that was:
Our wit as far does foreign wit excel,
And, like a king, should in a palace dwell.
But we with golden hopes are vainly fed,
Talk high, and entertain you in a shed:

Your presence here, for which we humbly sue,
Will grace old theatres, and build up new.

30

PROLOGUE TO "ARVIRAGUS AND PHILICIA."S

1672.

WITH sickly actors and an old house too,

We're matched with glorious theatres and new ; ||
And with our alehouse scenes and clothes bare worn
Can neither raise old plays nor new adorn.

Field's Theatre was opened by the King's Company on February 26, 1672, the play acted being
Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wit without Money:" and Dryden furnished this Prologue. It was
printed in the first volume of the "Miscellany Poems;" also imperfectly in "Covent Garden
Drollery," and entire in "Westminster Drollery," published in 1672.

*From in "Covent Garden Drollery" version.

Of in "Covent Garden Drollery" version.

Compare in "Annus Mirabilis" stanza 212,

"Great as the world's, which at the death of time

Must fall and rise a nobler frame by fire."

§ "Arviragus and Philicia," a tragi-comedy by Lodovick Carlell, a court officer of Charles I. was originally produced in 1639, and it was revived at the Theatre Royal in 1672, with a Prologue by Dryden, spoken by Hart. It is to be inferred from the beginning of the Prologue that the play was produced in the old house in Lincoln's Inn Fields in which the King's Company took refuge after the fire at Drury Lane Theatre. This Prologue was printed in the first volume of the "Miscellany Poems," 1684.

An allusion to the new and handsomely decorated Duke of York's Theatre in Dorset Gardens. In the " Prologue for the Women" Dryden calls it "the gaudy house with scenes ;" and again gay shows with gaudy scenes" are spoken of in the Prologue to "Marriage-a-la-Mode."

If all these ills could not undo us quite,
A brisk French troop is grown your dear delight;
Who with broad bloody bills call you each day
To laugh and break your buttons at their play;
Or see some serious piece, which we presume
Is fallen from some incomparable plume;
And therefore, Messieurs, if you'll do us grace,
Send lacqueys early to preserve your place.
We dare not on your privilege entrench,
Or ask you why you like 'em? they are French.
Therefore some go with courtesy exceeding,
Neither to hear nor see, but show their breeding:
Each lady striving to out-laugh the rest;
To make it seem they understood the jest.
Their countrymen come in, and nothing pay,
To teach us English where to clap the play:
Civil, Igad! our hospitable land

Bears all the charge, for them to understand :
Meantime we languish, and neglected lie,
Like wives, while you keep better company;
And wish for your own sakes, without a satire,
You'd less good breeding or had more good nature.

PROLOGUE FOR THE WOMEN,

When they actea at the Old Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields.*

1672.

WERE none of you, gallants, e'er driven so hard,
As when the poor kind soul was under guard,
And could not do't at home, in some by-street
To take a lodging, and in private meet?

Such is our case; we can't appoint our house,
The lovers' old and wonted rendezvous,+
But hither to this trusty nook remove;

5

The worse the lodging is, the more the love.

For much good pastime, many a dear sweet hug
Is stolen in garrets, on the humble rug.
Here's good accommodation in the pit;
The grave demurely in the midst may sit,

* While the King's Company was in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1672, the actresses gave some representations by themselves; and this Prologue is supposed to have been furnished by Dryden for the first of such performances. The women acted Beaumont and Fletcher's "Philaster," and Killigrew's "Parson's Wedding." This Prologue was spoken by Mrs. Marshall. Dryden's play of "Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen," was also revived this year by the women-actors, with the Prologue and Epilogue which follow. This Prologue was printed in the first volume of the Miscellany Poems," 1684.

The same rhyme occurs in "Hudibras" with the aggravation of the plural:

"Convened at midnight in out-houses
T' appoint new rising rendezvouses.

Part 3, canto 2, 183.

And so the hot* Burgundian on the side
Ply vizard mask, and o'er the benches stride :
Here are convenient upper boxes too,
For those that make the most triumphant show;
All that keep coaches † must not sit below.
There, gallants, you betwixt the acts retire,
And at dull plays have something to admire:
We, who look up, can your addresses mark,
And see the creatures coupled in the ark:
So we expect the lovers, braves, and wits;

The gaudy house with scenes will serve for cits.

15

20

PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO "THE MAIDEN QUEEN, OR SECRET LOVE,"

When acted by the Women only.

1672.

PROLOGUE.

Spoken by MRS. BOUTELL, in man's clothes.

WOMEN like us passing for men, you'll cry,
Presume too much upon your secrecy.
There's not a fop in town but will pretend
To know the cheat himself, or by his friend;
Then make no words on't, gallants, 'tis e'en true,
We are condemned to look and strut, like you.
Since we thus freely our hard fate confess,
Accept us, these bad times, in any dress.
You'll find the sweet on't: now old pantaloons
Will go as far as formerly new gowns;

5

10

And from your own cast wigs expect no frowns.
The ladies we shall not so easily please;

They'll say, "What impudent bold things are these,
"That dare provoke, yet cannot do us right,

"Like men, with huffing looks, that dare not fight!"

15

But this reproach our courage must not daunt;
The bravest soldier may a weapon want;
Let her that doubts us still send her gallant.
Ladies, in us you'll youth and beauty find,
All things, but one, according to your mind:
And when your eyes and ears are feasted here,
Rise up, and make out the short meal elsewhere.

Hot with drinking Burgundy.

Mr. R. Bell has wrongly turned coaches into couches.

20

This Prologue and Epilogue to Dryden's play of "The Maiden Queen, or Secret Love," revived and acted by the women in 1672, are taken from "Covent Garden Drollery."

EPILOGUE.

Spoken by MRS. REEVE, in man's clothes.
What think you, sirs, was't not all well enough?
Will you not grant that we can strut and huff?
Men may be proud; but faith, for aught I see,
They neither walk nor cock so well as we;
And for the fighting part, we may in time
Grow up to swagger in heroic rhyme;
For though we cannot boast of equal force,
Yet at some weapons men have still the worse.
Why should not then we women act alone?
Or whence are men so necessary grown!
Ours are so old, they are as good as none.

Some who have tried them, if you'll take their oaths,
Swear they're as arrant tinsel as their clothes.
Imagine us but what we represent,

And we could e'en give you as good content.
Our faces, shapes, -all's better than you see,
And for the rest, they want as much as we.
Oh, would the higher powers be kind to us,
And grant us to set up a female house!
We'll make ourselves to please both sexes then,
To the men women, to the women men.
Here, we presume, our legs are no ill sight,
And they will give you no ill dreams at night.
In dreams both sexes must their passion ease,
You make us then as civil as you please.
This would prevent the Houses joining too,
At which we are as much displeased as you;
For all our women most devoutly swear,
Each would be rather a poor actress here
Than to be made a Mamamouchi there.*

EPILOGUE TC

PROLOGUE AND

"MARRIAGE-A-LA-MODE."+

1672.

PROLOGUE.

LORD, how reformed and quiet are we grown,
Since all our braves and all our wits are gone!

*This is a contemptuous reference to a play by E. Ravenscroft, called "The Citizen turned Gentleman, or Mamamouchi," adapted from Molière's "Bourgeois Gentilhomme. The citizen of the play is fooled into believing that the son of the Sultan of Turkey wishes to marry his daughter, and has given him the Turkish title of Mamamouchi. This play had been lately produced at the rival theatre in Dorset Gardens, and had great success; and Ravenscroft in the Prologue had made a contemptuous allusion to Dryden's "Conquest of Granada," and so provoked the poet's wrath. Dryden again ridiculed Mamamouchi in the Prologue to "The Assignation."

Dryden's comedy of "Marriage-a-la-Mode" was produced in 1672, at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, while the King's Company was there. The play was very successful; it was

Fop-corner now is free from civil war,
White-wig and vizard mask no longer jar.
France and the fleet have swept the town so clear, †
That we can act in peace, and you can hear.
Those that durst fight are gone to get renown;
And those that durst not, blush to stand in town. +
'Twas a sad sight, before they marched § from home,
To see our warriors in red waistcoats come,
With hair tucked up, into our tiring-room.
But 'twas more sad to hear their last adieu :

The women sobbed, and swore they would be true;
And so they were, as long as e'er they could;
But powerful guinea cannot be withstood,

And they were made of playhouse flesh and blood.
Fate did their friends for double use ordain;
In wars abroad they grinning honour gain,
And mistresses for all that stay maintain.
Now they are gone, 'tis dead vacation here,
For neither friends nor enemies appear.
Poor pensive punk now peeps ere plays begin,
Sees the bare bench, and dares not venture in;
But manages her last half-crown with care,||
And trudges to the Mall on foot for air.
Our city friends so far will hardly roam,'

They can take up with pleasures nearer home;

And see gay shows with ** gaudy scenes elsewhere;

For we presume they seldom come to hear.

But they have now taken up a glorious trade,
And cutting Morecraft ++ struts in masquerade.

30

published in 1673. The Prologue and Epilogue were printed in "Covent Garden Drollery," so that the play must have first appeared in 1672. Some of the variations in the "Covent Garden Drollery version are adopted in this edition; others are obvious misprints.

* Mask instead of make, which is the common reading of editors, has been adopted from the version in "Covent Garden Drollery," where the line is printed:

"While wig and vizard masks no longer jar."

The war in conjunction with France against the Dutch, which began in March 1672.

1 These two lines are omitted in Scott's and Bell's editions, and are supplied from the "Covent Garden Drollery" version.

§ Went instead of marched in "Covent Garden Drollery" version.

Half-a-crown was the price of entrance to the pit.

Roam is adopted from "Covent Garden Drollery" version, instead of come, which is in all modern editions.

Mr.

** With from "Covent Garden Drollery" version, instead of and, the common reading, ++ In the Covent Garden Drollery" version it is "cunning Morecraft;" but as cutting appears in the Prologue as printed in early editions of the play, the word is preserved. Cutting means doing the dandy, like the "Cutter of Coleman Street." Morecraft was a rich city usurer. R. Bell says he was a hair-dresser, but this is probably a conjecture from the epithet cutting Morecraft is mentioned by Dryden in his Translation of the second Epode of Horace, and is clearly a money-lender:

"Thus Morecraft said within himself:
Resolved to leave the wicked town,
And live retired upon his own,

He called his money in:

But the prevailing love of pelf
Soon split him on the former shelf,

He put it out again."

[Oldham