That our Bear-garden friends are all away,

Who bounce with hands and feet, and cry, Play, play!

Who, to save coach-hire, trudge along the street,
Then print our matted seats with dirty feet;
Who, while we speak, make love to orange-wenches,
And between acts stand strutting on the benches;
Where got a cock-horse, making vile grimaces,
They to the boxes show their booby faces.
A Merry-Andrew such a mob will serve,
And treat them with such wit as they deserve.
Let them go people Ireland, where there's need

Of such new planters, to repair the breed ;
Or to Virginia or Jamaica steer,

But have a care of some French privateer;
For, if they should become the prize of battle,
They'll take 'em, black and white, for Irish cattle.
Arise, true judges, in your own defence,
Control those foplings, and declare for sense:
For, should the fools prevail, they stop not there,
But make their next descent upon the fair.
Then rise, ye fair; for it concerns you most,
That fools no longer should your favours boast:
'Tis time you should renounce them, for we find
They plead a senseless claim to womankind :
Such squires are only fit for country towns,
To stink of ale and dust a stand with clowns ;
Who, to be chosen for the land's protectors,
Tope and get drunk before their wise electors.
Let not farce-lovers your weak choice upbraid,
But turn them over to the chamber-maid.
Or, if they come to see our tragic-scenes,
Instruct them what a Spartan hero means:
Teach them how manly passions ought to move,
For such as cannot think can never love;
And, since they needs will judge the poet's art,
Point them with fescues to each shining part.
Our author hopes in you; but still in pain,
He fears your charms will be employed in vain.
You can make fools of wits, we find each hour;
But to make wits of fools is past your power.

having objected to its being licensed. Cleomenes, king of Sparta, defeated by the Achæans, took refuge in Egypt; and the resemblance of his story to the exile of James II. in France made Queen Mary fear the effect of the representation of this play. The Queen, however, was persuaded, chiefly by Rochester (to whom, in consequence, Dryden dedicated the play when it was published), to withdraw her objections. Dryden was suffering so severely from gout, when anxious to finish the play, that he was obliged to call in the aid of Southern. It is stated by Southern in the dedication of his own play of "The Wife's Excuse," that Dryden "bequeathed to his care the half of the last act." The Wife's Excuse" had been unsuccessful; and Southern pleaded against the public Dryden's good opinion of him. "If modesty be sometimes a weakness, what I say can hardly be a crime: in a fair English trial, both parties are allowed to be heard; and without this vanity of mentioning Mr. Dryden, I had lost the best evidence of my cause

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Á fescue is a wire with which a person teaching reading points to the letters.

EPILOGUE.*

This day, the Poet, bloodily inclined,

Has made me die, full sore against my mind!

Some of you naughty men, I fear, will cry,

"Poor rogue! would I might teach thee how to die!"
Thanks for your love; but I sincerely say,

I never mean to die your wicked way.

Well, since it is decreed all flesh must go,

(And I am flesh,-at least, for aught you know,)
I first declare, I die with pious mind,

In perfect charity with all mankind.

Next, for my will!--I have in my dispose
Some certain moveables would please you beaux;
As, first, my youth; for, as I have been told,
Some of you, modish sparks, are devilish old.
My chastity I need not leave among ye;

For to suspect old fops were much to wrong ye.
You swear you're sinners; but for all your haste,
Your misses shake their heads, and find you chaste.
I give my courage to those bold commanders,
That stay with us, and dare not go for Flanders.
I leave my truth (to make his plot more clear)

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To Mr. Fuller, when he next shall swear.†

I give my judgment, craving all your mercies,

To those that leave good plays, for damned dull farces.

My small devotion let the gallants share,

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That come to ogle us at evening prayer.

I give my person--let me well consider,

Faith even to him that is the fairest bidder;
To some rich hunks, if any be so bold

To say those dreadful words, To have and hold.
But stay--to give, and be bequeathing still,
When I'm so poor, is just like Wickham's will:
Like that notorious cheat, vast sums I give,
Only that you may keep me while I live.
Buy a good bargain, gallants, while you may;
I'll cost you but your half a crown a day.

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* Mrs. Bracegirdle delivered this Epilogue.

+ William Fuller, an informer, who pretended a discovery in 1691 of a plot by the Jacobites against the Government. The House of Commons declared him "a notorious impostor, a cheat, and a false accuser, having scandalized their Majesties and their government, abused this House, and falsely accused several persons of quality;" and he was prosecuted by the Attorney-General, and put into the pillory. He was again sentenced to the pillory in 1702 for publishing a forgery concerning the birth of the Prince of Wales, son of James II.

1 Compare this rhyme with that of certain and parting (Epilogue to "Don Sebastian," line 25', and garment and preferment (Epilogue to The Husband his own Cuckold," line 22).

EPILOGUE TO "HENRY II., KING OF ENGLAND, WITH THE DEATH OF ROSAMOND."*

1692.

THUS you the sad catastrophe have seen,
Occasioned by a mistress and a queen.
Queen Eleanor the proud was French, they say;
But English manufacture got the day.
Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver:
Fair Rosamond was but her nom de guerre.
Now tell me, gallants, would you lead your life
With such a mistress, or with such a wife?
If one must be your choice, which d'ye approve,
The curtain lecture or the curtain love?
Would ye be godly with perpetual strife,
Still drudging on with homely Joan, your wife,
Or take your pleasure in a wicked way,
Like honest whoring Harry in the play?

I guess your minds; the mistress would be taking,+
And nauseous matrimony sent a packing.

The devil's in you all; mankind's a rogue;

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You love the bride, but you detest the clog.

After a year, poor spouse is left in the lurch,

And you, like Haines, + return to mother-church.

Or, if the name of church comes cross your mind,
Chapels of ease behind our scenes you find.
The play-house is a kind of market-place;
One chaffers for a voice, another for a face;
Nay, some of you,-I dare not say how many,-
Would buy of me a pen'worth for your penny.
Even this poor face, which with my fan I hide,
Would make a shift my portion to provide,
With some small perquisites I have beside.
Though for your love, perhaps, I should not care,
I could not hate a man that bids me fair.
What might ensue, 'tis hard for me to tell;
But I was drenched to-day for loving well,

And fear the poison that would make me swell.

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* The tragedy of "Henry the Second" was written by John Bancroft, a surgeon, for Mountfert the comedian; and it was published as Mountfort's. It was produced in 1692, and published in 1693, Mountfort having died in the interval. The Epilogue was spoken by Mrs. Bracegirdle. Taking is changed into taken by editors, including Scott and R. Bell.

Joe Haines, who had become a Roman Catholic in James II.'s reign, recanted after the Revolution, and returned to the Church of England. Being an actor, he made a public recantation of the Roman Catholic faith on the stage, in a white sheet, with a torch in his hand, thus making public penance for a sin.

PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO "LOVE TRIUMPHANT, OR NATURE WILL PREVAIL."*

1694.

PROLOGUE.

As, when some Treasurer lays down the stick,
Warrants are signed for ready money thick
And many desperate debentures paid,

Which never had been, had his lordship stayed:
So now, this poet, who forsakes the stage,
Intends to gratify the present age.

One warrant shall be signed for every man;
All shall be wits that will, and beaux that can :
Provided still, this warrant be not shown,
And you be wits but to yourselves alone;
Provided too, you rail at one another,

For there's no one wit, will allow a brother;
Provided also, that you spare this story,

Damn all the plays that e'er shall come before ye.
If one by chance prove good in half a score,

Let that one pay for all, and damn it more.

For if a good one scape among the crew,
And you continue judging as you do,
Every bad play will hope for damning too.

You might damn this, if it were worth your pains;
Here's nothing you will like; no fustian scenes,
And nothing too of-you know what he means.
No double entendres, which you sparks allow,
To make the ladies look-they know not how ;
Simply as 'twere, and knowing both together,
Seeming to fan their faces in cold weather.
But here's a story, which no books relate,
Coined from our own old poet's addle-pate.
The fable has a moral too, if sought;
But let that go; for, upon second thought,
He fears but few come hither to be taught.
Yet if you will be profited, you may;

And he would bribe you too to like his play.
He dies, at least to us, and to the stage,

And what he has he leaves this noble age.

He leaves you, first, all plays of his inditing,
The whole estate which he has got by writing.

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"Love Triumphant," a tragi-comedy, Dryden's last play, was brought out in the beginning of 1694. It was a great failure. A letter, preserved by Malone, written by one who was evidently a bitter enemy of Dryden's-"huffing Dryden" he calls him--says that the play was damned by the universal cry of the town." Dryden returned on this occasion to rhyme, which he had long discarded for tragedy, in some of the tragic parts. In the Prologue Dryden formally announces his intention of giving up writing for the stage; and the Epilogue opens with the conceit that "the poet's dead."

He leaves to the dire critics of his wit

The beaux may think this nothing but vain praise;
They'll find it something, the testator says;
For half their love is made from scraps of plays.
To his worst foes, he leaves his honesty,
That they may thrive upon't as much as he.
He leaves his manners to the roaring boys,

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Who come in drunk and fill the house with noise.

His silence and contempt of all they writ.
To Shakespeare's critic he bequeaths the curse

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บา

EPILOGUE.

Now, in good manners, nothing shall be said
Against this play, because the poet's dead.
The Prologue told us of a moral here:

Would I could find it! but the devil knows where.

If in my part it lies, I fear he means

To warn us of the sparks behind our scenes.
For, if you'll take it on Dalinda's word,

'Tis a hard chapter to refuse a lord.

The poet might pretend this moral too,
That when a wit and fool together woo,
The damsel (not to break an ancient rule)
Should leave the wit, and take the wealthy fool.
This he might mean; but there's a truth behind,
And, since it touches none of all our kind
But masks and misses, faith, I'll speak my mind.
What if he taught our sex more cautious carriage,
And not to be too coming before marriage;
For fear of my misfortune in the play,

A kid brought home upon the wedding-day?
I fear there are few Sanchos in the pit
So good as to forgive and to forget,
That will, like him, restore us into favour,
And take us after on our good behaviour.
Few, when they find the money-bag is rent,
Will take it for good payment on content;
But in the telling there the difference is,
Sometimes they find it more than they could wish.
Therefore be warned, you misses and you masks,
Look to your hits, nor give the first that asks.

ΙΟ

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