Tears, sighs, and oaths, no truth of passion prove;
True settlement alone declares true love.
For him that weds a puss, who kept her first,
I say but little, but I doubt the worst.

The wife, that was a cat, may mind her house,
And prove an honest and a careful spouse;
But, faith, I would not trust her with a mouse.

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EPILOGUE TO "THE HUSBAND HIS OWN CUCKOLD."*

1696.

LIKE some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit,

So trembles a young poet at a full pit.

Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear,

And wonders how the devil he durst come there;

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Wanting three talents needful for the place,
Some beard, some learning, and some little grace.

"

"The Husband his own Cuckold was a comedy written by Dryden's second son, John; it was brought out at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1696, the Prologue being written by Congreve and the Epilogue by Dryden. John Dryden, the son, was at this time about eight-andtwenty, and had resided at Rome for some four years together with his elder brother Charles, and was a Gentleman-usher to the Pope. Charles Dryden, the eldest son, was Chamberlain of the Pope's household. The play was published soon after with a Preface by Dryden and a Dedication to Sir Robert Howard, the author's maternal uncle, and with the happy motto:

"Et pater Æneas et avunculus excitet Hector."

Dryden states in the Preface that Sir Robert Howard had revised and rearranged the play. Dryden in the Preface gives another commencement for the Epilogue, which he had written, fearing that the first twenty-two lines of the Epilogue, as it is printed in the text, and as it was He thus explains the matter in introducing spoken, might displease as too severe on the clergy. the other set of lines: "Neither is my epilogue the worst which I have written; though it seems It was on that consideration at the first sight to expose our young clergy with too much freedom.

that I had once begun it otherwise, and delivered the copy of it to be spoken, in case the first part of it had given offence. This I will give you, partly in my own justification, and partly, too, because I think it not unworthy of your sight: only remembering you, that the last line connects the sense to the ensuing part of it.-Farewell, reader: if you are a father, you will forgive me; if not, you will when you are a father."

Time was, when none could preach without degrees,

And seven years' toil at Universities;

But when the canting saints came once in play,

The Spirit did their business in a day:

A zealous cobbler with the gift of tongue,

If he could pray six hours, might preach as long.

Thus, in the primitive times of poetry,

The stage to none but men of sense was free;
But thanks to your judicious taste, my masters,

It lies in common now to poetasters.

You set them up, and till you dare condemn,

The satire lies on you, and not on them.

When mountebanks their drugs at market cry,

Is it their fault to sell, or yours to buy?

'Tis true, they write with ease, and well they may;
Fly-blows are gotten every summer's day;
The poet does but buzz, and there's a play.
Wit's not his business, &c.

Nor is the puny poet void of care;

For authors, such as our new authors are,

Have not much learning, nor much wit to spare;

And as for grace, to tell the truth, there's scarce one,
But has as little as the very parson :

Both say they preach and write for your instruction;
But 'tis for a third day, and for induction.

The difference is, that though you like the play,
The poet's gain is ne'er beyond his day.
But with the parson 'tis another case,
He without holiness may rise to grace;

The poet has one disadvantage more,

IO

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That if his play be dull, he's damned all o'er,
Not only a damned blockhead, but damned poor.
But dulness well becomes the sable garment;

I warrant that ne'er spoiled a priest's preferment ;*
Wit's not his business, and as wit now goes,
Sirs, 'tis not so much yours as you suppose,
For you like nothing now but nauseous beaux.
You laugh not, gallants, as by proof appears,
At what his beauship says, but what he wears;
So 'tis your eyes are tickled, not your ears.
The tailor and the furrier find the stuff,
The wit lies in the dress and monstrous muff.
The truth on't is, the payment of the pit
Is like for like, clipt money for clipt wit.
You cannot from our absent author hope
He should equip the stage with such a fop.
Fools change in England, and new fools arise;
For, though the immortal species never dies, †
Yet every year new maggots make new flies.
But where he lives abroad, he scarce can find
One fool for million that he left behind.

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PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE‡

ON THE OCCASION OF A REPRESENTATION FOR DRYDEN'S BENEFIT,
MARCH 25, 1700.

PROLOGUE.

How wretched is the fate of those who write !
Brought muzzled to the stage, for fear they bite;

* See note on similar rhyming, Epilogue to "Cleomenes," line 24. "At genus immortale manet."-VIRG. Georg. iv. 208.

This Prologue and Epilogue were composed by Dryden for a representation for his own benefit, which took place very shortly before his death. Beaumont and Fletcher's "Pilgrim" was acted on this occasion, with alterations by Vanbrugh: and Dryden contributed a song-dialogue to the play, and also wrote his "Secular Masque." The "Secular Masque" and the Song added to the "Pilgrim" have been printed in this volume, pp. 380-5. All the pieces written by Dryden for this occasion were published immediately after his death. (See note † at p. 380. This represen

Where, like Tom Dove,* they stand the common foe,
Lugged by the critic, baited by the beau.

Yet, worse, their brother poets damn the play,
And roar the loudest, though they never pay.
The fops are proud of scandal, for they cry,
At every lewd, low character,-That's I.
He who writes letters to himself would swear,
The world forgot him if he was not there.
What should a poet do? 'Tis hard for one
To pleasure all the fools that would be shown;
And yet not two in ten will pass the town.
Most coxcombs are not of the laughing kind;
More goes to make a fop than fops can find.

Quack Maurus,† though he never took degrees
In either of our Universities,

Yet to be shown by some kind wit he looks,
Because he played the fool, and writ three books.
But if he would be worth a poet's pen,
He must be more a fool, and write again :
For all the former fustian stuff he wrote
Was dead-born dogrel, or is quite forgot;
His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe,
Is just the proverb, and "as poor as Job.'
One would have thought he could no longer jog;
But Arthur was a level, Job's a bog.‡
There though he crept, yet still he kept in sight;
But here he founders in, and sinks downright.
Had he prepared us, and been dull by rule,
Tobit had first been turned to ridicule;

tation was on March 25, 1700; Dryden died May 1, and the pieces were published in June. Colley Cibber spoke both the Prologue and Epilogue. The Prologue is almost exclusively an attack on Sir Richard Blackmore, whom Dryden had already severely chastised in the Epistle to his Cousin (p. 326). The Epilogue is a reply to Jeremy Collier, to whose attack on the stage and on himself Dryden had made some reply in his Address to Motteux (p. 322). No impartial person can admit the justice of Dryden's attempt to exculpate himself by throwing all the blame of the licentiousness of his plays on the Court. The following Epitaph on Dryden soon appeared; it is printed in the State Poems," vol. iii. p. 379:

John Dryden enemies had three,

Sir Dick, old Nick, and Jeremy:

The doughty knight was forced to yield,

The other two have kept the field;
But had his life been something holier,
He'd foiled the Devil and the Collier."

* "Tom Dove" was a well-known bear exhibited at the Bear-Garden. the Epilogue on the occasion of the Union of the two Companies, line 24.

He is also alluded to in

+ Dryden turns the name of his foe, Blackmore, into Maurus, as he has done before in the "Epistle to John Driden," line 83. Blackmore had taken the degree of M.A. at Oxford, but not a medical degree; his medical degree was from the University of Padua. When this Prologue was written he had just published "A Paraphrase on the Book of Job, as likewise on the Songs of Mcses, Deborah, David, on four select Psalms, some Chapters of Isaiah, and the Third Chapter of Habakkuk." He had previously published two long heroic poems, "Prince Arthur" and 'King Arthur." Pope followed Dryden in treating Sir Richard Blackmore's poetry with contempt; but his poem "Creation" was highly praised by Addison in the "Spectator;" and Locke, who was a better judge of philosophy than of poetry, gives great praise to Blackmore's philosophy.

Referring to Blackmore's poems on King Arthur and paraphrase of Job.

But our bold Briton, without fear or awe,

O'erleaps at once the whole Apocrypha;

For any Vandal Hopkins yet to come.

Invades the Psalms with rhymes, and leaves no room

But when, if, after all, this godly gear

Is not so senseless as it would appear,
Our mountebank has laid a deeper train;
His cant, like Merry-Andrew's noble vein,
Cat-calls the sects to draw 'em in again.
At leisure hours in Epic Song he deals,
Writes to the rumbling of his coach's wheels;
Prescribes in haste, and seldom kills by rule,
But rides triumphant between stool and stool.
Well, let him go, 'tis yet too early day
To get himself a place in farce or play;

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We know not by what name we should arraign him,

For no one category can contain him.

A pedant, canting preacher, and a quack,

Are load enough to break one ass's back.

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At last, grown wanton, he presumed to write,

Traduced two kings, their kindness to requite;

One made the Doctor, and one dubbed the Knight.*

EPILOGUE.

Perhaps the parson + stretched a point too far,
When with our theatres he waged a war.

He tells you, that this very moral age
Received the first infection from the stage;
But sure, a banished court, with lewdness fraught,
The seeds of open vice returning brought.
Thus lodged, (as vice by great example thrives,)
It first debauched the daughters and the wives.
London, a fruitful soil, yet never bore
So plentiful a crop of horns before.
The poets, who must live by courts or starve,+
Were proud, so good a government to serve ;
And, mixing with buffoons and pimps profane,
Tainted the stage for some small snip of gain;
For they, like harlots, under bawds professed,
Took all the ungodly pains, and got the least.
Thus did the thriving malady prevail;
The court its head, the poets but the tail.
The sin was of our native growth, 'tis true;
The scandal of the sin was wholly new.

*This statement is not correct. Blackmore was appointed physician to William III., and was knighted also by him. Pope makes it a reproach to King William that he knighted Blackmore: "The hero William and the martyr Charles,

One knighted Blackmore, and one pensioned Quarles."

Jeremy Collier, in his work on the "Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage." ↑ See note on starve, "Threnodia Augustalis," line 501, p. 218; sometimes printed sterve in Dryden's early editions, but here printed starve in the original edition of 1700.

Misses there were, but modestly concealed;
Whitehall the naked Venus first revealed,
Who standing as at Cyprus in her shrine,
The strumpet was adored with rites divine.
Ere this, if saints had any secret motion,
'Twas chamber practice all, and close devotion.
I pass the peccadillos of their time;
Nothing but open lewdness was a crime.
A monarch's blood was venial to the nation,
Compared with one foul act of fornication.
Now, they would silence us, and shut the door
That let in all the barefaced vice before.
As for reforming us, which some pretend,
That work in England is without an end;
Well may we change, but we shall never mend.
Yet, if you can but bear the present stage,
We hope much better of the coming age.
What would you say, if we should first begin
To stop the trade of love behind the scene,
Where actresses make bold with married men?
For while abroad so prodigal the dolt is,
Poor spouse at home as ragged as a colt is.*
In short, we'll grow as moral as we can,
Save, here and there, a woman or a man;

But neither you, nor we, with all our pains,

Can make clean work; there will be some remains,

While you have still your Oates, and we our Haines. +

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*This couplet also occurs in the Prologue to Southern's play of "Disappointment," line 55. + Haines, here referred to, is probably Joe Haines, the facetious poet, who had uttered a witticism on the subject of Collier's attack on the stage. "The clergy and the actors are both moralmenders by profession," said Haines, "and you know how two of a trade can never agree." This is related by Colley Cibber in his "Apology." Oates, it is to be presumed, is Titus Oates; though it is not easy to see the connexion of his name with the subject of this Epilogue; and Scott suggests that Haines may be Bryan Haines, who had been a Tory witness against Shaftesbury and College. But this Epilogue has nothing to do with politics; and the perjuries of Oates and Haines were twenty years gone by.