T% ?&ftj ^jtyttm^t^l L4-- THE REHEARSAL Five hundred and ten copies printed ; type distributed. No. 64 : , THE APPARITION OF PALLAS. ' f he Rehearsal : Actus IV. Scana I. (p. 51.) jFrom ^o\. ii of Buckingham's IVorh (1714). {Front. nr FT F REHEARSAL GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (1625— 1687) EDITED BY MONTAGUE SUMMERS THE SHAKESPEARE HEAD PRESS STRATFORD-UPON-AVON MCMXIV fjs »-p To L .H. C. who has so often trodden the historic boards of Drury Lane^ this edition of one of the earliest and greatest successes of the Theatre Royal PREFATORY NOTE The present text is reprinted from the third edition (4to, 1675), as representing the standard and permanent scrip of The Rehearsal, embodying the Duke of Buckingham's final amplifications and revisions. The fourth edition (4to, 1683), and the fifth edition * with amendments and large additions by the author' (4to, 1687) — the last to be published during Villiers' lifetime — are simply reissues of the 1675 quarto, which takes its place as the sole authoritative and complete version. An exact reprint of the first edition (4to, 1672^), errata innumerable and all, is easily procurable in the series, * English Reprints,' published under the editorship of the late Professor Edward Arber. It has been thought none the less necessary and useful to add in a separate appendix a list of the passages, additions and alterations wherein the third edition differs from the first two quartos. Save, how- ever, for the fact of being a word for word reprint Arber's edition is of little value ; and the notes (taken, without original research, from eighteenth-century Keys), so far from illuminating the play, serve only to obscure it. He confesses, moreover, that he could not even learn the dates of the second and third editions, and the floundering bibliography is worse than useless, being erroneous to a degree, full of random guesswork and gaping lacunae. Professor Noyes in his volume. Selected Dramas of John Dryden, a work of great merit and high scholarship, has 'The second edition (+to, 1674) is a replica of the first. e^ry.f\ A O ;*< vi Prefatory Note reprinted The Rehearsal^ but here, unfortunately, in spite of much able criticism and excellent editing, he has for Villiers' play relied too implicitly upon Arber. A Key to The Rehearsal was published by Sam Briscoe in 1704, and this was appended to nearly every subsequent edition of the play. To have reprinted this once more were entirely superfluous ; all that it contains of value will be found embodied in the present notes. Bishop Percy's edition, prepared for the press but never issued, of which a copy 'nearly unique' is in the British Museum, is certainly a work of considerable research, but the industry of the good Bishop was greater than his acumen. It has long been felt that a critical edition of The Rehearsal fully annotated was a desideratum. It seems strange that a play of such intrinsic merit and extreme importance in the history of literature, one, moreover, that kept the boards for a century and a half untired, should lack sufficient editing. This reproach is, we trust, now removed. Throughout the whole work 1 have been greatly helped by the valuable advice of Mr. A. H. Bullen, without whose kindly criticism and sound suggestions the edition would be far more faulty than it now stands. I cannot boast that I have cleared up every point of parody to my entire satisfaction. There are, one feels sure, allusions to dramas which, never printed and never recorded, have entirely escaped us. Henry Howard's The United Kingdoms would doubtless prove a happy hunting ground in this respect, but to conclude in the quaint phrasing of old Briscoe, as it miscarried on the stage 'the reader cannot reasonably expect any particular passages of it,' nor yet of those which shared the same fate. INTRODUCTION The first performance of Buckingham's famous burlesque took place on 7 December, 1671, at the Th eatre Ro^ ^al^ Drury Lane/ But it is well known that the first draft of the Duke's farce was written and ready for the boards early in the summer of 1^6^ when it was stopped by the Lord Chamberlain's edict of 5 June, which forbade all stage repre- sentations on account o f the plague . There can be no doubt that the Duke of Bucking ham had initiated a literary cam paign agains t the whole schoolof dramatists, whichinearlyJRestDra- tion days was repres ented by D^ FensM^^^^t^^^j ^pnTthQ four Howards, and alittI£T ateFbyThe ge Hius,ofLXQhn^ryden. It was he also who nri663 headed the clique of critics banded to drive from the stage, by foul means or fair. Colonel Henry Ho ward's Th e_JJnite^d Kin^Joms^ put on at the Cockpit in Drur)' Lane. They performed their task with such unwonted zest and fervour that a riot ensued in the theatre, and Buckingham hi mself narrowly escaped seri o u s injm y. The upshot of it all was that the tragedy was effectually damned, and the author not only (with unusual acumen) refused to print his work but refrained entirely for the future from the pen. Accordingly, all that we actually know of the drama is derived from a note in Briscoe's Key to the Rehearsal {i']0\)^ which states that it commenced with a funera], duly parodied in Act iv. Scene i, of the Duke's farce, and that th ere we re tw o kings who afforded the first hint for the twin monarchs of Brentford. MaTbne has an anecdote which, although accepted by many writers, seems to me in the highest degree suspicious and unlikely. He says that in a certain play of Dryden's an actress, having to speak the following line ' My wound is great because it is so small,' ' On 14 December, 1671, Evelyn 'went to see the Duke of Buckingham's ridiculous farce and rhapsody, called The Rccirjl, buffooning all plays yet profane enough'. It is not easy to see the force of this stupid criticism. via Introduction accentuated the absurdity by a long pause and a look of intense pathos, when Buckingham, who was seated in one of the side-boxes, rose, and declaimed in a ridiculous mock-heroic voice, which shrilled through the house, ' Then 'twould be greater were it none at all 1 ' The audience promptly burst into fits of laughter, and hooted the piece from the boards. As it was only the second per- formance Dryden lost his benefit. There are, however, three points which conclusively prove the above to be mere fiction. In the first place, no such line occurs in any of Dryden's works ; secondly, it is hardly likely that his battalions of enemies. Settle, Shadwell, the Duke himself, Pordage, Henry Care, Rochester and the rest, would have failed to make capital out of such an incident in their ballads and lampoons ; thirdly, there is absolutely no record of Dryden's ever having lost a benefit night, and had such been the case some reference to it must have somewhere survived. In his monograph ' Der Angriff George Villiers's, Herzogs von Buckingham' (Halle, 1887; Anglia, x. 38-75), Emil Dohler, in a very vague and thoroughly unsatisfactory manner, would attempt to show that Colonel Henry Howard might have been the original Bayes of the Duke's earliest sketch. Such a theory resting, as it does, upon strained and, in two instances, absolutely mistaken and misleading sug- gestions, which owe their initiative to nothing more than the confusion in the critic's mind, can have no weight whatsoever. That Colonel Henry Howard is parodied in The Rehearsal vic know, but that he is or ever was even in the original draft a principal object of attack is simply not the case. Bayes, it is too often forgotten, is a composite figure, and it was not until the brilliant successes of Tyrannic Love and The Conquest of Granada in 1669 and 1670 that Buckingham concentrated upon Dryden as the chief butt, the traits of the four Howards, Davenant, and other dramatists being worked in with telling and distinct, although subsidiary, touches. The Duke's satire was aimed at the principal writer of the school he burlesqued, and when he first began to form his farce not Dryden but Sir Robert Howard was pre-eminently Introduction ix the leader and champion of the new style. Sir Robert, indeed, was a fantastic figure who seemed peculiarly vulnerable to the shafts of satire, ' pretending,' says Evelyn, ' to all manners of arts and sciences . . . not ill-natured but insufferably boasting.' His eccentricities and whimsicality, his gasconading and en- cyclopaedic pretensions to a universality of art, learning and literature, his absurd adventures and quixotic heroism not without some alloy of swashbuckling braggadocio, all would have served the dullest of scribblers for a number of peculiarly happy strokes. In 1668, when Shadwell dragged him across the stage in 'The Sullen Lovers^ exquisitely caricatured as Sir Positive Atall, a delighted town (teste Pepys) rocked with laughter. And writing the outlines of his immortal satire about 1663-4 the Duke of Buckingham promptly pricked down Sir Robert as the chief butt of his ridicule under the very pertinent name of Bilboa. When, however, nearly a decade later The Rehearsal was once again being taken in hand and prepared for production, the literary status of Sir Robert had been wholly eclipsed by his own brother-in-law, both laureate and an acknowledged master of the heroic play. The Duke naturally altered his aim and Bilboa became Bayes. Malone has very mistakenly and obtusely tried to show that Davenant was the original hero of The Rehearsal^ not Sir Robert Howard, and advances as his most weighty argument the name Bilboa, which he pretends alludes to Sir William's military character. The error is all the stranger because, although Davenant did indeed serve in the royalist army and attained no mean rank, there was nothing in this fact to distinguish him from many of his brother courtiers and poets, and the name Bilboa would have been no .more applicable to him than to a hundred beside. In fact, Bayes, which was not used till 1671, would have been infinitely more suitable and would have directly pointed out the laureateship as it did in the case of his successor, but Bilboa is most distinctly appropriate to Sir Robert Howard, one of the most notorious hotspurs of the Restoration court, a trait which Shadwell does not fail to introduce when Sir Positive insists upon duelling with the two clerks who, from the eighteen-penny X Introduction gallery, had railed aloud on the first day of his heroic drama, The Lady in the Lobster^ and again when upon a slight con- tradiction from the coxcomb Woodcock, he instantly cries, * I will justify with my sword . . . draw!' Sir Robert Howard has left three comedies, The Blind Lady (1660), The Surprisal (1665), The Committee (1662), and three tragedies, The Vestal Virgin, or The Roman Ladies (1665), The Great Favourite, or The Duke ofLerma (1668), and, in conjunction with Dryden, The Indian Queen (1664). Although his blank verse often hobbles sadly, and is more than inclined to bombast, this output of dramatic work is by no means to be despised, save, perchance, as has too often been the case with the critics, by those who have no acquaintance therewith. The Blind Lady is not unamusing, and The Surprisal is quite a good play of the romance school of Davenant. The Committee, a rattling satire on the Puritans, has great merit, and maintained its hold on the stage for over a century, the last recorded per- formance of the original being at Drury Lane in 1788, a hfe even prolonged another cycle by its adaptation in 1797 into a farce. Honest Thieves. It was, moreover, frequently reprinted, and is to be found in all the later collections, such as Bell, Sir Walter Scott's Modern British Theatre. The vulgarities of Mr. and Mrs. Day, galloping Abel and Obadiah are still Intensely funny, and must have been irresistible to a con- temporary, whilst Teague gave Lacy one of his finest character parts. The Vestal Virgin is peculiar in being furnished with two conclusions, so that it could be acted either as a tragi- comedy or as a pure tragedy. The Great Favourite is the best of Howard's works ; it is full of vigour, and the scene where Lerma, in his newly donned scarlet, faces his enemies as a prince of the Church and defies their utmost is a situation of much power and intensity. In its final revision, as The Rehearsal noYf stands, there are but few hits at Sir Robert Howard, whilst there is a personal str oke against Davenant at the conclusion of Act ii ^ where Bayes falls a nd injures his nose, to re:^ap.peaiLwith ^^jjiece of brown paper on the bru ised organ . Sir William, it is well known, suffered from a marked nasal defect, and, although he had Introduction xi been dead ,SQnie th ree years before The i ?g/>g^n<:?/ wasLactuaJly produced, no doubt the incident was retained on account of its inherent farcical humour. The Siege of Rhodes is parodied in the recitative battle of Act v. John Lacy, the famous low comedian, who created Bayes, was most carefully instructed in all his business and rehearsed by Buckingham himself Dryden' s voice , his mode ofdress- ing, his g ait and manners, were all carefully jrn itated, so tha t in representaFion there must have been a thousand touches now lost to us. This close and, it must be allowed, insolent caricature of well-known contemporaries was no new thing to the Restoration stage, which delighted in mirnicry and scurrilities. As early as 1660 TathanTTTadm his farce. The Rump, introduced the chief living persons of the Common- wealth, Bertlam standing for Lambert, Lockwhite for White- lock, Woodfleet for Fleetwood. In the second edition of this play they appear without even this apparent disguise, if disguise it may be termed, along with Hewson, Duckenfield, Mrs. Cromwell, Desbrough, and others. Mrs. Behn revived the piece, with alterations, in 1682, under the title of The Roundheads, or the Good Old Cause, with a prologue ' spoken by the ghost of Hewson ascending from hell dressed as a cobbler.' In 1669 the famous Mrs. Corey, at the instigation of Lady Castlemaine, whilst acting Sempronia in Catiline, gave an imitation of Lady Harvey's oddities throughout the whole part. Furious at the insult. Lady Harvey had the actress imprisoned, but in a few hours she was released by order of the royal mistress and bidden act it over again 'worse than ever, where the King himself was,' whilst the outraged dame hired people to hiss and pelt the stage with oranges. Three weeks later, Pepys and his wife going to see a new play. The Heiress, of which nothing is known, found the theatre closed owing to Ned Kynaston being confined to his bed . It appeared the young actor had played a part ' in abuse to Sir Charles Sedley,' and the knight forthwith had him waylaid in the park by bullies and thrashed till he was bruised from head to foot and unable to stir a limb. In 1678 Dryden's Limberham was prohibited after three days for xii Introduction being too open a satire on the Duke of Lauderdale. In 1 676 the gay world was charmed and delighted with Etheredge's The Man of Mode ^ and smiled applause to see the author had drawn himself as Young Bellair, Rochester in the brilliant Dorimantj Sir Charles Sedley in Medley, and the notorious Beau Hewitt as Sir Fopling Flutter, a very pope of dandies and macaroni for all ages to come. In 1682 again everybody recognized Shaftesbury and his vices when in Venice Preserved the hircose old patrician Antonio ambled across the boards leering filthily at the little Greek courtesan. Sedley, in 1687, went so far as to picture Lady Castlemaine herself and her innumerable frailties in his Bellamira^ a subject drawn oddly enough from Terence's Eunuchus^ whilst Crowne confined himself to politics and gave playgoers in 1683 a gallery of Titus Oates, his lawyer the half-crazed Aaron Smith, Stephen Colledge and half a score more hated whigs, in 1689 the elusive Father Petre in The English Friar. Enough has been said to show how common and popular was personality upon the Restoration stage, but there was probably no mimicry more bitter, no satire more merciless and unmistakable than Lacy's presentation of John Dryden. John Lacy was recognized by all as an actor of the very highest rank, especially in farce and low comedy. Born near Doncaster, according to Aubrey, he ' came to London to ye playhouse 1631 ' at an early age. During the Civil War he, like his brethren, supported the Royal Cause, and served not without distinction. At the Restoration he speedily rejoined the stage, and became a universal favourite. There are many notices of him in Pepys, and the diarist seldom neglects an opportunity of praising his abilities. On 12 June, 1663, he witnesses The Committee, and * Lacy's part, an Irish foot- man, is beyond imagination.' At another time ' Lacy's part is . . . the best in the world' ; again, when he saw Love in a Maze he found the play had ' little in it, but Lacy's part of a country fellow, which he did to admiration.' In July, 1 667, Lacy seems to have suffered from a serious illness, and his life was despaired of, but recovering, he lived to an advanced age. In Wilkes' View of the Stage (1759, 8vo), the following Introduction xiii notice of him occurs : *The famous Mr. Lacy was an excellent low comedian and so pleasing to King Charles.' Even the captious Rymer could not withhold his compliment, whilst Langbaine declares ' he performed all parts that he undertook to a miracle, insomuch that I am apt to believe that as this age never had, so the next never will have, his equal, at least not his superior,' and Downes bursts into rhyme — 'For his just acting all gave him due praise, His part in "The Cheats,"^ Johnny Thump, ^ Teague,^ and Bayes — In these four excelling; the Court gave him the bays.' There is at Windsor Castle a picture painted by express command of Charles II which, divided into three compart- ments, depicts Lacy as Scruple, Teague, and Galliard in the Duke of Newcastles*Kzr/V/jy. Geneste gives the following list of his chief roles : 1662, Scruple in Wilson's The Cheats ; Johnny Thump in Shirley's Changes ; 1 663, Teague in Howard's Committee ; 1 664, Captain Otter in The Silent M^oman \ Ananias in The Alchemist \ 1665, Sir Politic Would-be in Volpone ; Monsieur Raggou in his own Old Troops 1666, Sir Roger in The Scornful Lady \ 1667, Sauny the Scot in his own poor adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew ; Country Gentleman in Edward Howard's The Change of Crowns-^ 1669, Drench in his own The Dumb Lady \ 1671, Bayes in The Rehearsal^ i6y2j Alderman Gripe in Wycherley's Love in a PFood ; 1673, Intrigo in Sir Francis Fane's Love in the Dark. According to our stage historian, he probably acted also the following : Frenchlove in James Howard's English Monsieur ; Pinguister in the same author's All Mistaken ; TartufFe in Medbourne's Tartuffe^ or the French Puritan ; the French valet in The Mock Duellist \ The Lawyer in Ravenscroft's The English Lawyer ; Bobadill in Every Man in His Humour. Lacy has left four farces,'' The Dumb Lady, or the Farrier made Physician (4to, 1672), an adaptation from Le Medecin > Scruple in Wilson's The Cheats (1662). -' In Shirley's The Cbangei (1662). ^ Howard's Committee {\(if>i). * There is a collected edition by Maidment and Logan, Edinburgh, 1875. xiv Introduction Malgre Lui ; The Old Troops or Monsieur Raggou (4to, 1672) ; Sir Hercules Buffoon ^ or the Poetical Squire (410, 1684); Sauny the Scot, or the Taming of the Shrew (4to, 1698), a crude and ungainly tinkering with Shakespeare. Langbaine tells us that both 0/d Troop and The Dumb Lady were acted 'with universal applause', and on 31 July, 1668, Pepys saw the King and all the court at Monsieur Raggou 'mighty merry', but all four pieces are far too rude and farcical to have any real value, although some scenes cannot be denied a certain rough and ready bustle and verve. Sir George Etheredge insinuates that Lacy participated with Charles Hart in the favours of Nell Gwynne, which is probable enough, as he is known to have been one of her instructors in the arts of acting and dancing. He died on Saturday, 17 September, 1681, and on the following Monday was buried in the churchyard of St. Martin's-in- the-Fields. The exquisite wit, the irresistible humour, the mordant satire, the inimitable parodies and banter of The Rehearsal silenced for the moment even the most ardent supporters of the heroic drama. Thronged houses shook with laughter that almost drowned the thunders of applause as point after point went home and Lacy, in the exact tones of Dryden, repeated some peculiarly happy travesty of the great laureate's flamboyant couplets. Buckingham's comedy at once took its place as a stock piece in the English Theatre among the masterpieces of the greatest dramatists, long surviving the tragedies it burlesqued and the poets it caricatured. It was continually performed during the theatrical seasons, and Bayes, who has given his name as a household word to literature, has been played by the most famous of our actors, including Gibber, Garrirk ^ Hpnrlpr<;nnj ^^ngj FfT'*'^"j and the arch-mocker ..EQr'^p '^hf? 1f\f^f r^f'nrHpH performance seems to have been at Covent Garden, as late as 22 June, 181Q, when it was given for the b_ £jajefit of- Earle:^ Such longevityJii_a_burlesque, which must o Hts very subject and natur e be eph e meral., is j ii itse lT~ a sigiTthat g enius went to its making. Amongst the more memorable productions of Introduction xv The Rehearsal was a performance given with a star cast at the Haymarket, i8 November, 1709. Bayes was played by Estcourt, an actor 'mostly indebted for applause to his powers of mimicry, in which he was inimitable'; Johnson, by Wilks ; Smith, Mills ; Prince Prettyman, Powel ; Volscius, Colley Gibber ; the two Kings, Bullock and Bowen ; Gentle- man-Usher, Pinkethman ; Physician, Cross ; Thunder and the Fisherman, Johnson ; Tom Thimble, Dogget. Estcourt is said to have so excelled in Bayes that Cibber, better actor as he was, who afterwards frequently played the part, did not attempt it during the lifetime of the former. On 8 September, 1732, at Drury Lane, The Rehearsal with Theophilus C ibber and Kitty Cl ive preceded The Mock Doctor. It was repeated several times during the ensuing season *by desire'. On 10 October, 1739, it was given at Covent Garden for the first time with young Cibber as Bayes ; Johnson, Ryan ; Smith, Delane. An additional attraction was *an epilogue written by J. Haines, comedian, of facetious memory, to be spoken by Mr. Cibber riding on an ass'. It was acted no less than ten times in succession and proved the draw of that season. On 3 February, 1742, Garrick , who had made his first appearance the previous October, appeared as Bayes at the Goodman's Fields Theatre. It is said that at first he disliked the part and declined to play it, but urged by Giffard, the manager, he essayed it with the most over- whelming success, and it afterwards remained one of his favourite roles. As Bayes he ddiglUed tqjnjmic_thLeL4ir-ijidpal actors of the day, anfthe house_rang_wjjJiJJie_vatLous-na^mes of players whose voices and gestures he copied with_ faultless, precision, as the audience quickly recognized Quin, Ryan, Delane and all the favourites of the town. In the autumn Garricki^eatedhis imperson ation an d had the help of Mills^andHMacklih m'thecast ; he also chose Bayes to open the autumn of 1744 at Drury Lane. In 1755 we find Theophilus Cibber as Bayes at the Haymarket, with Fanny Farren, the original Lady Teazle, as Prince Prettyman. In 1767 The Rehearsal was put on at xw Introduction Malgre Lui ; The Old Troops or Monsieur Raggou (4to, 1672); ^ir Hercules Buffoon^ or the Poetical Squire (410, 1684); Sauny the Scot^ or the Taming of the Shrew (410, 1698), a crude and ungainly tinkering with Shakespeare. Langbaine tells us that both Old Troop and The Dumb Lady were acted 'with universal applause', and on 31 July, 1668, Pepys saw the King and all the court at Monsieur Raggou 'mighty merry', but all four pieces are far too rude and farcical to have any real value, although some scenes cannot be denied a certain rough and ready bustle and verve. Sir George Etheredge insinuates that Lacy participated with Charles Hart in the favours of Nell Gwynne, which is probable enough, as he is known to have been one of her instructors in the arts of acting and dancing. He died on Saturday, 17 September, 1681, and on the following Monday was buried in the churchyard of St. Martin's-in- the-Fields. The exquisite wit, the irresistible humour, the mordant satire, the inimitable parodies and banter of The Rehearsal silenced for the moment even the most ardent supporters of the heroic drama. Thronged houses shook with laughter that almost drowned the thunders of applause as point after point went home and Lacy, in the exact tones of Dryden, repeated some peculiarly happy travesty of the great laureate's flamboyant couplets. Buckingham's comedy at once took its place as a stock piece in the English Theatre among the masterpieces of the greatest dramatists, long surviving the tragedies it burlesqued and the poets it caricatured. It was continually performed during the theatrical seasons, and Bayes, who has given his name as a household word to literature, has been played by the most famous of our actors, including Gibber, Garrick. Hendp r'^nn^ T^ing, Fn''^p"j and the arch-mocker JjjQt-p. The lrl?^t r^^roi^df^rl performance seems to have been at Covent Garden, as late as 22 June, 181Q, when it was given for the be nefit of Farley, Such longevityJjn_a_burlesque, which must ofi ts very subject and natur e be ephemeral.^ is j irTTse lf a sigiiniat g enius went to its makmg. Amongst the more memorable productions of Introduction xv The Rehearsal was a performance given with a star cast at the Haymarket, i8 November, 1709. Bayes was played by Estcourt, an actor 'mostly indebted for applause to his powers of mimicry, in which he was inimitable'; Johnson, by Wilks ; Smith, Mills ; Prince Prettyman, Powel ; Volscius, Colley Cibber ; the two Kings, Bullock and Bowen ; Gentle- man-Usher, Pinkethman ; Physician, Cross ; Thunder and the Fisherman, Johnson ; Tom Thimble, Dogget. Estcourt is said to have so excelled in Bayes that Cibber, better actor as he was, who afterwards frequently played the part, did not attempt it during the lifetime of the former. On 8 September, 1732, at Drury Lane, The Rehearsal with Theophilus C ibber and Kitty Cl ive preceded The Mock Doctor. It was repeated several times during the ensuing season 'by desire'. On 10 October, 1739, ^^ ^^^ given at Covent Garden for the first time with young Cibber as Bayes ; Johnson, Ryan ; Smith, Delane. An additional attraction was 'an epilogue written by J. Haines, comedian, of facetious memory, to be spoken by Mr. Cibber riding on an ass'. It was acted no less than ten times in succession and proved the draw of that season. On 3 February, 1742, Garrick , who had made his first appearance the previous October, appeared as Bayes at the Goodman's Fields Theatre. It is said that at first he disliked the part and declined to play it, but urged by Giffard, the manager, he essayed it with the most over- whelming success, and it afterwards remained one of his favourite roles. As Bayes he d^ghted to mimic the-^prmcipal actors of the day, an JtHe _housej"an^with_tke_var.i-aus-na.mes of players whose voices and gestures he co^^ied with faultless, precision's tlie audience quickly recognized Quin, Ryan, Delane and all the favourites of the town. In the autumn Garrick i^eatedhis jmpersoiia tion an d had the help of Millsahd'Tvlacklirrrn'the cast ; he also chose Bayes to open the autumn of 1744 at Drury Lane. In 1755 we find Theophilus Cibber as Bayes at the Haymarket, with Fanny Farren, the original Lady Teazle, as Prince Prettyman. In 1767 The Rehearsal W2is put on at xvi Introduction Covent Garden, 'not acted twelve years' at this house. On 6 April, 1 77 1, King played Bayes at Drury Lane for the benefit of his wife. Baddeley, Palmer, Parsons and Moody were in the cast, but it was only given once that season. Indeed, as soon as we enter on the reign of the third George there are signs of fast waning popularity. It is billed for ' the only time this season ', ' this one occasion by desire ', ' not acted these seven years '. On 1 1 October, 1 774, a performance was given at Covent Garden, 'not acted eight years', with Lee Lewis, Dunstall, Quick and Miss Barsanti. Foote gave his version of Bayes on 2 August, 1776, at the Hay- market, but he is said to have mutilated the text, and to have gagged unmercifully. In the following year Henderson, who had previously played the poetaster at Bath, gave it for the first time to his London audience. He had to support him Parsons, Edwin, and other well-known names and met with considerable success. At Covent Garden, 20 January, 1778, we find The Rehearsal billed 'not acted these three years'. In 1785 it follows 'The Constant Couple^ but cut down to an afterpiece of three acts, 'not acted these seven years'. Henderson is the Bayes. At the Haymarket, 9 August, 1792, The Rehearsal 'not acted fifteen years' is put on by Wilson, who has transformed it into three acts, a version he afterwards printed. The adapter is Bayes ; Baddeley, Gentleman Usher ; Wewitzer, Physician ; R. Palmer, Volscius ; Palmer, junior, Prettyman ; Edwin, Drawcansir. Finally, reduced to one meagre act. The Rehearsal is played by Farren at Covent Garden, 22 June, 18 19, with Blanchard as Pretty- man and Liston as Volscius. This seems to be the last recorded London performance. A prompt copy (third edition, 4to, 1675) of The Rehearsal^ now in my private possession, formerly used by James Whitley, manager and proprietor of the Midland Circuit Theatres, marked by him and dated 1755 with his signature, shows signs of constant professional handling. The Rehearsal was immensely popular also in Dublin, most theatre-loving of cities. 'If it be true, as I am told,' writes Professor Saintsbury in his Life of Dryden^ 'that The Rehearsal does not now Introduction xvii make a good acting play, the fact does not bear favourable testimony to the culture and receptive powers of modern audiences.' This adverse criticism, however, of T'>6^i?^/6^^zrj(^/'i London stage effect, incredible on the face of it, seems amply belied by the fact that when Buckingham's play was put on under the auspices of the Sheffield Playgoers' Society for one performance at Sheffield, 20 November, 19 12, it proved so great a success that it would have been definitely included in the Repertory Season had not some minor difficulties as to costumes and production prevented. But /^ in the latter half of the eighteenth century the place of ^ Buckingham was taken by She ridan, and The Criiic^ d irectly der ived {voraThe Rehearsal^ w hen produced In 1779 naturally gave its parent piece a final conge. Hereafter the place of Bayes, Smith, Johnson, the Brentford Kings, Volscius, Amarillis and the rest must be taken by Puft, Dangle, Sneer, Don Ferolo Whiskerandos, Tilburina, and the Nieces twain. Amusing as Sheridan is and full of smartness, even his wit and humour pale before the brilliance of the Restoration Duke. It may be advanced, however, that Buckingham cannot strictly claim to be regarded as the sole author of The Rehearsal, as there is evidence that he was assisted byJiis. chaplain, Thomas Sprat , afterwards Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Rochester, and by Martin Clifford , afterwards Master of the Charterhouse. These two passionate and lifelong adversaries of Dryden gave Settle ample help in his Abs alom Senior or Achitophel Tra njpos'd (1682). It is weak and vapid enough to make it pretty clear that their part in The Rehearsal must have been small indeed. Wood (Athenae Oxonienses, 1721, vol. ii.) mentions Butler as a collaborator with the Duke, and Professor Saintsbury finds that his 'hand is indeed traceable in many of the parodies of heroic diction'. This opinion, probably due to the extreme cleverness of [Repartees between Cat and Puss at a Cater- wauling', which burlesques the heroic love of rounded^ antithesis and nice reply with extraordinary wit and point,^ must not, I think, be pressed too far. The claims of Waller and Cowley to be added to the list of contributors, as h xviii Introduction formulated in the preface to the 171 1 edition of Waller, can be dismissed without much consideration. It is not impossible that many of the wits and writers of the time suggested points to the Duke, but beyond this it is useless to theorize. Various lampoons in Poems on State Affairs (vol. ii, 1703) refer to the heterogeneous authorship. Thus one ballad sings : 'With help of pimps, plays, and table chat. And the advice of his own canonical Sprat, And his family scribe antichristian Mat, With transcribing of these and transversing those, With transmitting of rhyme and transversing prose. He has dressed up his farce with other men's clothes.' And another writer says : 'I confess the dances are very well writ. And the time and the tune by Haines are well set.' In The Duke of Buckingham's Litany also, the following petition occurs : 'From owning twenty other men's farce. Libera nos.' Doubtless there is gross exaggeration in these attacks. The minor satirists of the Restoration knew neither truth nor decency, and Buckingham was often as vile a sinner as any. They had yet to learn that there is no sharper weapon than restraint. Dryden did not immediately reply to the attack. Wisely he waited, and more than amply repaid the author by the portrait of Zi mri in Absalom and Achitophel^ drawn with the fullest power ot his brilliant genius. In his Discourse con- cerning Satire (1692) he has these wards, * I answered not The Rehearsal because I knew the author sate to himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own ,farce.' Nor can it be too clearly insisted upon that The Rehearsal did not inflict a death-blow on the heroic play. It is true that Marriage a la Mode acted in May, 1672, shows unmistakeable signs of having been a proper heroic play to Introduction xix which Dryden, writing in the full flush of the efi^ect of Buckingham's satire, hastily added comic scenes and so made a tragi-comedy, as Sir Walter Scott has ably pointed out with some detail, but beyond this actual instance, "The Rehearsal had no influence on Dryden's work whatsoever. Nor does there appear any sufficient reason why it should, for, to quote a very apt remark of Professor Noyes, ' Clever as the farce was, it could not and did not overthrow an established reputation. Just as we ourselves can enjoy Calverley's parodies of Browning without one whit abating our admiration of their original, so "gentlemen of wit and sense" in the seventeenth century could laugh at Drawcansir and applaud Almanzor.' In 'the Reformation^ a good comedy by Arrowsmith, pro- duced at the Duke's Theatre, 1673, although the scene is laid at Venice, an English Tutor is introduced (Act iv, scene i), who makes some very pertinent remarks on the popular tragedy of the day. * Write a tragedy ! ' he cries, * I take you some three or four or half-a-dozen kings, but most commonly two or three serve my turn.' He goes on to speak of * opportunity for love and honour and fighting and all that,' moreover, ' you must have a hero that shall fight with all the world ; yes, i'gad, and beat them too and half the gods into the bargain if occasion serve . . . last of all, be sure to raise a dancing, singing ghost or two, court the players for half- a-dozen new scenes and fine clothes (for take me if there ben't much in that, too), put your story into rhyme and kill enough at the end of the play and probatum est.' The subject is to be ' the siege of Candy, or the conquest of Flanders, and by the way, sir, let it always be some warlike action ; you can't imagine what a grace a drum and trumpets give a play.' There are more than- echoes of 'The Rehearsal here. The sterling value of Buckingham's comedy can be soon seen if it be but for a moment compared with the insipid productions of other lampooners of his time. Thomas DuflFet, a milliner in the New Exchange, emboldened no doubt by the success oiThe Rehearsal^ undertook to ridicule Settle's The Empress of Morocco^ which, when produced in XX Introduction 1673 at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Gardens, with a star cast, had achieved, for various reasons of puffing and patron- age, an astonishing popularity unmerited by the play itself, far from bad though it be of its own kind. Accordingly, the new parodist wrote for the King's Theatre, The Empress of Morocco. A Farce (4to, 1 674). It is a miserable piece of doggrel dulness without a saving particle of wit or humour. The Dramatis Personse are described in the following manner : Muly Labas, a corn-cutter ; Muly Hamet, a drayman ; Crimalhaz, a strong water man ; Hamet Alhaz, a country vicar ; Abdrahaman, a chimney sweep ; Laula, a hostess ; Mariamne, a cinder-wench ; Morena, an apple-woman. The scene opens with the Moorish court playing at hot-cockles. The epilogue is more curious than the farce itself, being a burlesque of the witch portion oi Macbeth. Incidentally the praises of the notorious Mother Cresswell and other harri- dans, Mrs. Gifford, Mrs. Temple, Mrs. Betty Buly, Mrs. Mosely, belonging to the same iniquitous sisterhood, are sung by Hecate and her attendants. Encouraged by some ephemeral applause, DufFet travestied The Tempest in the following year, and in 1678 wrote Psyche Debauch' d^ a skit on Shadwell's opera. The Mock Tempest commences with a prentice riot of the same nature as when the city lads threatened to pull down ' the big brothel ' of Whitehall. Prospero appears as Prospero Whiffe, head-keeper of Bride- well, 'an enchanted castle', wherein various characters, including Quakero, a canting quaker meant to represent Ferdinand, are imprisoned. It is all very confused and absurd. Psyche Debauched is by far the best of Duffet's burlesques. It is at times astonishingly akin to modern pantomime. Several male roles were, it may be noted, acted by women and vice versa. Thus Mrs. Corbet appeared as King Andrew, Prince Nicholas was taken by Pepys' favourite, Mrs. Knipp, whilst Princess None-so-Fair, a name strangely reminiscent of Planche, was none other than Joe Haines in petticoats. The scenes where he is carried off by the magic Wishing-Chair to 'an arbour dressed up with gaudy play- games for children', the realms of ' Bruin, the "White Bear of Introduction xxt Norwich ' (acted by another friend of Pepys, the airy Harry Harris), must have been really funny in the hands of such an irresponsible scaramouch. The Inferno of the original opera appropriately enough appears as a prison. The follow- ing allusion to Oates is not without point and interest. When the Princess remarks, * The bushes break no trust, though walls have ears,' her maid promptly replies, ' No, Missy None-so-Fair, they are not of Oatalian mind.' Coarse and puerile. Buffet's farces fully deserve the oblivion into which they have fallen. Even in their own day they were speedily forgotten, as is evidenced by the following lines from Sir William Soame's Art of Poetry (1683), revised by Dryden : — 'The dullest scribblers some admirers found, And the Mock Teynpest was awhile renown'd : But this low stuff the town at last despis'd, And scorned the folly that they once had priz'd,' As might well have been expected, however. The Rehearsal had a numerous and a worthier progeny. It can, I think, hardly be claimed that Beaumont and Fletcher's exquisite fantasy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle^ produced, according to Malone, in 161 1, and a rare favourite with Restoration playgoers, or Davenant's brief ' Tragedy Travestie ' of Caesar and Cleopatra, which afterwards became the fifth Act of A Playhouse to be Let^ have any real connection with The Rehearsal, beyond the broadest common ground of burlesque, that could enable them to be ranked as the play's direct predecessors in any true sense. In subsequent dramatic history the case is far different. Often the parentage is openly acknowledged by the very titles, as in the case of D'Urfey, who, publishing in 1721 a collection of New Operas with Comical StorieSy included therein The Two Queens of Brentford: or J Bayes no Poetaster; a Musical Farce or Comical Opera , being the Sequel of the Famous Rehearsal, written by the late Duke of Buckingham. It is, the author informs us, *a piece of humour and grotesque wit,' but his word seems the only grounds for attributing to it either characteristic. It was never performed, and one is not a little surprised to learn that xxii Introduction it got as far as ' being rehears'd upon the stage '. As might have been expected, lyric Tom interlarded his farce with songs and catches, some two or three of which are tolerable, the rest execrable. Smith, Johnson, Bayes and other personages from The Rehearsal are introduced, but it is of all pieces the dullest and most entirely worthless. There is one solitary gleam of humour perhaps in this galimaufry, a parody on Italian opera in a recitative combat between a hero and a melodious lion (Act v, scene i), and even this is feeble enough. Various quips and tags from Buckingham appear strange and uncouth among the lees of moribund burlesque. Charles Montagu, future Earl of Halifax, and Mat Prior in their parody of Dryden, entitled 'The Hind and the Panther transversed to the story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse^ a most mediocre effusion, have for their personae, Bayes, Smith, and Johnson, but the satire, stupid and pointless stuff, is not dramatic, and a copious sprinkling of ' egads ' ill supplies the lack of wit and jest. Gildon's New Rehearsal, or Bayes the Younger, although divided into three set acts, is nothing more than a dialogue held at the Rose, Covent Garden, criticising and jeering at the tragedies of Rowe. On 15 March, 1750, there was played at Drury Lane a farce by Kitty Clive the actress, entitled Bayes in Petticoats. The theme is simple. Mrs. Hazard has written a burletta, and in Act ii we are shown the stage during a rehearsal. Various mishaps occur, and at length, after a message has been brought from Kitty Clive to say she is unable to attend, Mrs. Hazard, beside herself at the continuous interruptions, flies off in a violent passion, and the piece concludes. The authoress herself acted Mrs. Hazard, and the whole jest goes with considerable verve and spirit. l^mongst the more noteworthy mock-dramas owing their inspiration to Buckingham are Gay's What d'ye Call It? a Tragi-Comi-Pastoral-Farce, John Durant de Breval's amusing The Play is the Plot, Fielding's well-known Tom Thumb, Foote's The Tailors, T. Carey's Chromnhotonthologos, and his burlesque opera The Dragon ofWantley, The Court of Alexander the Great and Distress upon Distress of Saville Carey, Introduction xxiii Bombastes Furioso of Rhodes, and the most perfect and com- plete, perhaps because the most restrained, of all, Sheridan's The Critic. Even to-day we have had A Pantomine Rehearsal and The Poet and the Puppets, parodies both of actors and authors alike, pieces which made a considerable hit at the moment and perpetuate the tradition of old^ The first performance oi What d'ye Call It? was at Drury Lane, 23 February, 17 15. Shakespeare, Dryden, Addison's Cato, Otway, Southerne, Rowe, are all parodied. There is a ' Ghost of Child Unborn ' and much mock-melodrama. When the heroine, Kitty Carrot, declaims with wild and frantic gesture such lines as * Bagpipes in butter, flocks in fleecy fountains, Churns, Sheep-hooks, seas of milk and honey mountains,' we recognize Belvidera's raving *■ Murmuring streams, soft shades, and springing flowers. Lutes, laurels, seas of milk and ships of amber ! ' Lovers are torn asunder, exclaiming in the orthodox way, ' He. To part is death ! She. 'Tis death to part. He. Ah ! She. Oh ! ' The Play is the Plot, which had the advantage of Pinketham and Cibber in the original cast, was turned into a farce. The Strollers, and so acted with good success at Drury Lane in July, 1723. Tom T'/6/^w^ has some specially good skits on the Thom- son and Hill stilted and grandiose tragedy which so often falls ' into bathos and tedium. Chrononhotonthologos produced at the Haymarket, 22 February, 1734, claims to be but half an act. Bomhastes Furioso, first performance 7 August, 18 10, at the same house, is described as 'a burlesque of burlesques', and must indeed have proved so in the able hands of Liston, Munden, and Matthews. All these and others have been reprinted time after time in the copious collections of Farces, Interludes, Burlettas, and the rest which comprise the Minor British Theatre. Clever and witty as most of them undeniably xxii Introduction it got as far as 'being rehears'd upon the stage'. As might have been expected, lyric Tom interlarded his farce with songs and catches, some two or three of which are tolerable, the rest execrable. Smith, Johnson, Bayes and other personages from The Rehearsal are introduced, but it is of all pieces the dullest and most entirely worthless. There is one solitary gleam of humour perhaps in this galimaufry, a parody on Italian opera in a recitative combat between a hero and a melodious lion (Act v, scene i), and even this is feeble enough. Various quips and tags from Buckingham appear strange and uncouth among the lees of moribund burlesque. Charles Montagu, future Earl of Halifax, and Mat Prior in their parody of Dryden, entitled The Hind and the Panther transversed to the story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse^ a most mediocre effusion, have for their personae, Bayes, Smith, and Johnson, but the satire, stupid and pointless stuff, is not dramatic, and a copious sprinkling of *egads' ill supplies the lack of wit and jest. Gildon's New Rehearsal^ or Bayes the Younger^ although divided into three set acts, is nothing more than a dialogue held at the Rose, Covent Garden, criticising and jeering at the tragedies of Rowe. On 15 March, 1750, there was played at Drury Lane a farce by Kitty Clive the actress, entitled Bayes in Petticoats. The theme is simple. Mrs. Hazard has written a burletta, and in Act ii we are shown the stage during a rehearsal. Various mishaps occur, and at length, after a message has been brought from Kitty Clive to say she is unable to attend, Mrs. Hazard, beside herself at the continuous interruptions, flies off in a violent passion, and the piece concludes. The authoress herself acted Mrs. Hazard, and the whole jest goes with considerable verve and spirit. [Amongst the more noteworthy mock-dramas owing their inspiration to Buckingham are Gay's What d'ye Call It? a Tragi-Comi-Pastoral-Farce, John Durant de Breval's amusing The Play is the Plot^ Fielding's well-known Tom Thumb., Foote's The Tailors^ T. Carey's Chrononhotonthologos^ and his burlesque opera The Dragon ofWantley., The Court of Alexander the Great and Distress upon Distress of Saville Carey, Introduction xxiii Bombastes Furioso of Rhodes, and the most perfect and com- plete, perhaps because the most restrained, of all, Sheridan's The Critic. Even to-day we have had A Pantomine Rehearsal and The Poet and the Puppets, parodies both of actors and authors alike, pieces which made a considerable hit at the moment and perpetuate the tradition of oldf/ The first performance of fFhat d'ye Call It? was at Drury Lane, 23 February, 1715. Shakespeare, Dryden, Addison's CatOj Otway, Southerne, Rowe, are all parodied. There is a * Ghost of Child Unborn ' and much mock-melodrama. When the heroine, Kitty Carrot, declaims with wild and frantic gesture such lines as ' Bagpipes in butter, flocks in fleecy fountains, Churns, Sheep-hooks, seas of milk and honey mountains,' we recognize Belvidera's raving ' Murmuring streams, soft shades, and springing flowers. Lutes, laurels, seas of milk and ships of amber ! ' Lovers are torn asunder, exclaiming in the orthodox way, ' He. To part is death ! She. 'Tis death to part. He. Ah ! She. Oh ! ' The Play is the Plot, which had the advantage of Pinketham and Cibber in the original cast, was turned into a farce. The Strollers, and so acted with good success at Drury Lane in July, 1723. Tom T'i'^;;?^ has some specially good skits on the Thom- son and Hill stilted and grandiose tragedy which so often falls into bathos and tedium. Chrononhotonthologos produced at the Haymarket, 22 February, 1734, claims to be but half an act. Bombastes Furioso, first performance 7 August, 18 10, at the same house, is described as * a burlesque of burlesques ', and must indeed have proved so in the able hands of Liston, Munden, and Matthews. All these and others have been reprinted time after time in the copious collections of Farces, Interludes, Burlettas, and the rest which comprise the Minor British Theatre. Clever and witty as most of them undeniably xxw Introduction are, they have not one tithe of the real literary power and incisive vital satire which render The Rehearsal immortal. It has been only too truly said by a recent critic of no mean order that 'The English authors of the period from 1660 to 1700, with the exception of Milton and Bunyan, are probably less read than those of any other epoch since the Renaissance,' and so long as the above statement cannot be denied, so long will there be a standing reproach against all lovers of literature. The reasons for this neglect arise from many causes. A tremendous and perhaps exaggerated vogue brought the inevitable turn of the scale. Again, a whole tribe of critics, following with blind confidence in the steps of the prejudiced and partial Macaulay, contented themselves with echoing his pedantic and priggish criticisms as the infallible utterances of some Hildebrand of letters. They were satisfied to quote from Dryden odd lines and phrases rancourously remembered for their faults, and entirely to shut their eyes to the genius and brilliance of the great laureate. They exclaimed with the true accent of the canter and puritan at the looseness of comedies they had not read, and decried authors they did not know. And the world accepted their estimate. But there are not wanting signs of reaction. Authors long since confined to the dustiest shelves of the library are being rendered accessible, either wholly or in good part unemasculated, to the general reader who is waking, gradually it may be, but none the less surely, to the fact that, despite change of custom and manners, despite faults and freedoms impossible to-day, there are to be found therein no little power and strength, whilst the repartee, wit and humour are unsurpassed in our dramatic literature. Sheridan, so commonly quoted as the very apogee of verbal brilliance, is dull beside the sparkling comedy of Etheredge, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and the supreme Congreve. The Rivals is heavy work compared to The Country Wife ; The School for Scatidal vapid and forced when we think of Love for Love and The Way of the World \ whilst a A Trip to Scarhoroiigh shows only too clearly how, when profane hands were laid upon The Relapse^ its careless freedom was not Introduction xxv pruned without its wit and genius being lost in the process. The water_of_2j^ Critic is a mean thing to place beside the strong wi ne of The Re hearsal. That our Restoration literature will ever prove widely- popular is not to be expected and perhaps not to be desired. But it is hardly too much to hope that the professed student and lover of literature will no longer crassly write across the period of forty years that succeeded the recall of Charles II *non legenda', as he has far too often been wont to do in years gone by. It was a time of hot passion and wild gallantry which men cared little to disguise or conceal, a time of keen political and fierce religious strife, a time of much genius and much knavery ; for all its faults an hour of crowded events, years of full-blooded strife, hate, mis- trust, dark shadows and lurid lights, all pregnant with a throbbing vital interest, every detail of which, good and bad, is reflected in the literature, flamboyant mayhap, but virile and strenuous withal, that had its day of favour and applause, before we settle down to the bourgeois classicism and dull decorum of the reign of 'good Queen Anne'. Postscript The editor would like with sincere apologies to point out two errors which he has unfortunately allowed to remain on pp. 77 and 79. p. 77. The couplet 'And Vortigern . . .' does not actually occur in The British Princes^ but is itself a parody of lines in that poem. p. 79. The 'best good man with the worse natured muse' is of course applied by Rochester in his Horace s Tenth Satire of the First Book imitated to Dorset himself, and does not refer to Edward Howard. Dorset's mordant lines on Howard, To a Person of Honour, on his incomparable Incomprehensible Poems (The British Princes ), begin : — 'Come on, ye critics, find one fault who dare; For, read it backward like a witch's pray'r, 'Twill do as well.' y%^<\AX Bibliography of The Rehearsal (i) 1672, 4to. Editio princeps. (2) 1673, 4to. Second edition. (3) i^75j 4^°- Third edition, *with amendments and large additions by the author.' (4) 1683, 4to. Fourth edition. (The Bodleian contains a copy.) (5) 1687, 4to. Fifth edition. (6) 1692, 4to. vSixth edition. (7) 1 70 1, 4to. Seventh edition. (8) 1704, 8vo. In the first edition of Villiers' Collected Works. (9) 1709, i2mo. * With a Key and remarks . . . never printed with it before.' (10) 1710, 8vo. 'With a Key.' (11) 1 7 II, 1 2 mo. In volume iv of A Collection of the-, Best English Plays. (12) 1 71 5, 8vo. In volume ii of The JVorks of His Grace George Villiers, late Duke of Buckingham . . . adorn' d with cuts. (13) 1723, 8vo. Two Plays written by His Grace, George, late Duke of Buckingham, viz. : I The Rehearsal, to w'''' is added the Key to it, and II The Chances. (14) 1735, i2mo. The thirteenth edition. (15) 1735, i2mo. (Dublin.) (16) 1754, 1 2 mo. In The Genuine Works of His Grace George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham . . . (Edinburgh). (17) 1755, 8vo. Fifteenth edition. (18) 17.'' Sixteenth edition. (Of this I can learn no particulars.) (19) 1768, i2mo. Seventeeth edition. fVith the new occasional prologue, written by Paul Whitehead, Esq., on opening Covent Garden Theatre, Sept the i^th, 1767. (20) 1775, 8 vo. In the Works, 2 vols.-. xxviii Bibliography (21) 1777, 8vo. (22) 1787, 8vo. Theatrical Magazine. (23) 1797, 8vo, In vol. xxix o^ Bell's British Theatre. (24) 1761-1808, 8vo, Bishop Percy's edition, commenced by agreement with Tonson in 1761. The sheets were never published. The work, after being discontinued for many years, was resumed in 1795, ^^^ practically the whole impression was consumed by fire in Red Lion Passage in 1808. In the British Museum are two volumes of this edition, described as * unique or very nearly so'. They have MS. title-pages, and are incomplete, vol. i, p. 464, having catchword 'poor'; vol. ii, p. 240, catchword 'to'. They have been bound in red morocco. (25) 181 1, 8vo. In vol. iii of The Modern British Drama. (26) 1868, 8vo. Professor Arber's replica of the first edition. (27) 1885. In Morleys Universal Library. (28) 1895. A reprint of Arber. (29) 1904. The Rehearsal^ mit einleitimg herausgegehen von F. Linden. (30) 1909. A second reprint of Arber. (31) 1 9 10, 8vo. Selected Dramas of John Dry den, with The Rehearsal by George VilUers, Duke of Buckingham. Edited by G. R. Noyes. (Chicago and New York.) THE REHEARSAL, As it is now Afted at the Theatre-Royal. The third Edition with a mendments and large Additions by the Author, LONDON, Printed for TbomasT>ring^ at the HanotP ar the Comet oiCbancery-lane in Fleets Jireeu i 6 j ^. PROLOGUE WE might well call this skort_Mock-^l_ay^ 9jL9^F^ A Posie made of Weeds inst ead of Flowers ; Tet such have been presented to your noses ^ And there are such, I fear, who thought them 'em Roses. Would some of 'em were here, to see, this night. What stuff it is in which they took delight. Here brisk insipid Rogues, for wit, let fall Sometimes dull sence ; but offner none at all : There, strutting Heroes, with a grim-fac'd train. Shall brave the Gods, in King Cambyses vein. For (changing Rules, of late, as if men writ In spite of Reason, Nature, Art and Wit) Our Poets make us laugh at Tragcedy, And with their C[o]moedies they make us cry. Now, Critiques do your worst, that here are met; For, like a Rook, I have hedged in my Bet. If you approve ; I shall assume the state Of those highflyers whome I imitiate : And justly too, for I will teach you more 'Than ever tEeywould let you know before : I will not only shew thefeatsjhey da. But give you all their reasons for 'em too. Some honour may to me from hence arise. But if. By my endeavours, you grow wise. And what you oncesojpraiid, shall now despise ; Then Til cry out, swell' d with Poetic rage, 'Tis I, John Lacy, have reform' d your Stage. T^he Actors Names, BATES. Johnson. Smith. Two Kings of Brentford. Prince Pretty-man. [Prince Volscius.'] Gentleman Usher. Physician. Drawcansir. General. Lieutenant General. Cordelia . j Tom Thimble. [Harry.'] j Fisherman. Sun. Thunder. Players. [Shirly.] [Stage-keeper.] Souldiers. Two Heralds. Four Cardinals. Mayor. Judges. V Mutes. Serjeants at Arms. [Three Fiddlers.] fFomen. Amaryllis. Cloris. Parthenope. Pallas. Lightning. Moon. Earth. Attendants of Men and Women. Scene Brentford. THE REHEARSAL. Actus I. Sc^na I. [y^ Street near the Theatre Royal ^ Drury Lam\] Johnson am/ Smith. Johns. T T ONEST Frank ! I'm glad to see thee with JLl all my heart : how long hast thou been in Town .? Sfni. Faith, not above an hour: and, if I had not met you here, I had gone to look you out ; for I long to talk with you freely, of all the strange new things we have heard in the Country. Johns. And, by my troth, I have long'd as much to laugh with you, at all the impertinent, dull, fantastical things, we are tir'd out with here. Smi. Dull, and fantastical ! that's an excellent com- position. Pray, what are our men of business doing.? Johns. I ne'er enquire after 'em. Thou knowest my humour lyes another way. I love to please my self as much, and to trouble others as little as I can : and there- fore do naturally avoid the company of those solemn Fops; who, being incapable of Reason, and insensible of Wit and Pleasure, are always looking grave, and troubling one another, in hopes to be thought men of Business. Smi. Indeed, I have ever observed, that your grave lookers are the dullest of men. ■ 2 The Rehearsal Johns. I, and of Birds, and Beasts too : your gravest Bird is an Owl, and your gravest Beast is an Ass. Smi. Well ; but hovv_d£Stthou_^ass_d2y_di^^ Johns. Why, as I useto^do ;"eat and drinK^as v^ell as I can, have a she-friend to be private with in the afternoon, and sometimes see a Play : where there are such things (Frank) such hideous, monstrous things, that it has almost made me forswear the Stage, and resolve to apply my self to the solid nonsense of your Men of Business, as the more ingenious pastime. rSmi. I have heard, indeed, you have had lately many j i new Plays ; and our Country-wits commend 'em. J ^ Johns. I, so do some of our City-wits too ; but they are of the newMand_of Wits. Smi. New kind ! whaflaiiB is that ? Johns. Why, your Virtuosi, your civil persons, your Drolls : fellows that scorns to imitate Nature ; but are given altogether to elevate and surprise. Smi. Elevate, and surprise! pr'ytheemake me under- stand the meaning of that. TTohns. Nay, by my troth, that's a hard matter : I don't understand that my self. 'Tis a phrase they have got among them, to express their no-meaning by. I'l . tell you, as near as I can, what it is. Let me see: 'tis jTFighting, Loving, Sleeping, Rhyming, Dying, Danc- \ ing, Singing, Crying ; and every thing, but thinking '^and Sence^ Mr. Bayes passes o'er the Stage. IJBayes. Your most obsequious, and most observant, very servant, Sii\[7 Johns. God so, this is an Author: I'l fetch him to you. The Rehearsal 3 Smi. No, pr'ythee let him alone. Johns. Nay, by the Lord, ri have him. [Goes after him. Here he is. I have caught him. Pray, Sir, now for my sake, will you do a favour to this friend of mine .? Bayes./Sir, it is not within my small capacity to do favours, out receive 'em; especially from a person that does wear the honourable Title you are pleas'd to impose. Sir, upon this. — Sweet Sir, your servant. Smi. Your humble servant. Sir. Johns. But wilt thou do me a favour, now? Bayes. I, Sir : what is't ? Johns. Why, to tell him the meaning of thy last Play./ Bayes. How% Sir, the meaning .? do you mean the Plot.? Johns. I, I ; any thing. Bayes. Faith, Sir, the Intrigo's now quite out of my head ; but I have a new one, in my pocket, that I may say is a Virgin ; 't has never yet been blown upon. I must tell you one thing. 'Tis all new Wit ; and tho I say it, a better than my last : and you know well enough how that took. In fine, it shall read, and write, and act, and plot, and shew, ay, and pit, box and gallery, I gad, with any Play in Europe. This morning is its last Rehearsal, in their habits, and all that, as it is to be acted ; and if you, and your friend will do it but the honour to see it in its Virgin attire ; though, per- haps, it may blush, I shall not be asham'd to discover it ^gftafeed ja:^»' unto you. — I think it is in this pocket. [Puts his hand in his pocket. Johns. Sir, I confess, I am not able to answer you in this new way ; but if you please to lead, I shall be glad to follow you ; and I hope my friend will do so too. 4 'T'he Rehearsal Smi. Sir, I have no business so considerable, as should keep me from your company. Bayes. Yes, here it is. No, cry you mercy: this is v/ my book oifprama Common places \ the Mother of many other Plays/ Johns. Drama Common places ! pray what's that .? Bayes. Why, Sir, some certain helps, that we men of Art have found it convenient to make use of Smi. How, Sir, helps for Wit .? Bayes. I, Sir, that's my position. And I do here averr. That no man yet the Sun e'er shone upon, has parts sufficient to furnish out a Stage, except it were by the help of these m y Rules . Johns. What are those Rules, I pray } Bayes. I Why, Sir, my first Rule is the Rule of Trans- version, or Regula Duplex : changing Verse into Prose, or Prose into Verse, alternative as you please. ] Smi. Well; but how is this done by a Rule, Sir? / Bayes. Why,thus, Sir; nothing so easie when under- stood : I take a book in my hand, either at home or elsewhere, for that's all one, if there be any Wit in't, as there is no book but has some, I Transverse it ; that is, if it be Prose put it into Verse, (but that takes up some time), and if it be Verse, put it into Prose. Johns. Methinks,Mr. Bayes, that putting Verse into Prose should be call'd Transprosing. Bayes. By my troth. Sir, 'tis a very good Notion, and hereafter it shall be so. Smi. Well, Sir, and what d'ye do with it then.? Bayes. Make it my own. 'tis so chang'd that no i man can know it. My next Rule is the Rule of \ Record, by way of Table Book. Pray observe. y^ The Rehearsal 5 Johns. We hear you Sir : go on. Bayes. As thus. I come into a CofFee-house, or some other place where witty men resort, I make as if I minded nothing ; (do you mark .?) but as soon as \ any one speaks, pop I slap it down, and make that, too, my own. Johns. But, Mr. Bayes, are you not sometimes in danger of their making you restore, by force, what you have gotten thus by Art ? Bayes. No, Sir; the world's unmindful: they never take notice of these things. Smi. But pray, Mr. Bayes, among all your other Rules, have you no one Rule for invention .? Bayes. Yes, Sir ; that's my third Rule that I have here in my pocket. Smi. What Rule can that be, I wonder.? Bayes. Why, Sir, when I have any thing to invent, I never trouble my head about it, as other men do ; but presently turn over this Book, and there I have, at one view, all that Perseus, Montaigne, Seneca's Tragedies, Horace, Juvenal, Glaudian, Pliny, Plutarch's lives, and the rest, have ever thought upon this subject: and so, in a trice, by leaving out a few words, or put- % ting in others of my own, the business is done. Johns. Indeed, Mr. Bayes, this is as sure, and com- pendious a way of Wit as ever I heard of. Bayes. Sirs, if you make the least scruple of the efficacy of these my Rules, do but come to the Play- house, and you shall judge of 'em by the effects. Smi. We'l follow you. Sir. [Exeunt, j ^ 6 T^he Rehearsal [Sc^NA II.] \T'he Theatre Roy a/.] E?iter three Players upon the Stage. 1 Play. Have you your part perfect ? 2 Play. Yes, I have it without book; but I don't understand hov^ it is to be spoken. 3 Play. And mine is such a one, as I can't guess for my hfe what humour I'm to be in: whether angry, melancholy, merry, or in love. I don't know what to make on't. 1 Play. Phoo ! the Author will be here presently, and he'l tell us all. You must know, this is the new way of writing ; and these hard things please forty times better than the old plain way. For, look you, Sir, the grand design upon th e Stage is__t a-ke£p-JtJie, Audito i's in suspence ; for to guess presently at the plot, and the sence, tires 'em before the^end of the first Act : now, here, every line surprises^you^^and brings . in new matter. And, then, for Scenes, Cloaths and Dances we put 'em quiet \_sic'\ down, all that ever went before us : and those are the things, you know, that are essential to a Play. 2 Play. Well, I am not of thy mind ; but, so it gets us money, 'tis no great matter. Enter Bayes, Johnson and Smith. Bayes. Come, come in Gentlemen. Y'are very wel- come Mr. — a-— Ha' you your part ready ? I Play. Yes Sir. Bayes. But do you understand the true humor of it .? I Play. I, Sir, pretty well. T^he Rehearsal 7 Bayes. And Amarillis^ how does she do ? Does not her Armor become her? 3 Play. O, admirably ! Bayes. I'l tell you, now, a pretty conceipt. What do you think I'l make 'em call her anon, in this Play ? Smi. What, I pray ? Bayes. Why, I make 'em call her Armarillis^ because of her Armor : ha, ha, ha. Johns. That will be very well, indeed. Bayes. Ay, it's a pretty little rogue; I knew her face would set off Armor extreamly : and, to tell you true, I write that Part only for her. You must know she is my Mistress. Johns. Then, I know another thing, XittlQ Bayes^ that thou hast had her, I gad. Bayes. No, I gad, not yet; but I'm sure I shall: for I have talkt bawdy to her already. Johns. Hast thou, faith .? Pr'ythee how was that .? Bayes. Why, Sir, there is, in the French Tongue, a certain Criticism, which, by the variation of the Masculine Adjective instead of the Fceminine, makes a quite different signification of the word : as, for ex- ample. Ma vie is my life; but if, before vie you put Mon instead of Ma^ you make it bawdy. Johns. Very true. Bayes. Now, Sir, I, having observ'd this, set a Trap for her, the other day in the Tyring-Room ; for this said I, Adieu bel esperansa de ma vie ; (which I gad is very pretty) to which she answer'd, I vow, almost as prettily, every jot ; for said she, Songes a ma vie Moun- sieur\ whereupon I presently snapt this upon her; Non., non. Madam — Songes vous a mon^ by gad, and nam'd the thing directly to her. 8 T'he Rehearsal Smi. This is one of the richest Stories, Mr. Bayes, that ever I heard of. Bayes. I, let me alone, I gad, when I get to 'em ; ri nick 'em, I warrant you : But I'm a little nice ; for you must know, at this time, I am kept by another woman, in the City. Smi. How kept.? for what .? Bayes. Why, for a Beau Gerson : I am, ifackins. Smi. Nay, then we shall never have done. Bayes. And the Rogue is so fond of me, Mr. Johnson, that I vow to gad, I know not what to do with my self. Johns. Do with thy self! no; I wonder how thou canst make a shift to hold out, at this rate. Bayes. O Devil, I can toil like a Horse; only, some- times, it makes me melancholy : and then I vow to gad, for a whole day together, I am not able to say you one good thing if it were to save my life. Smi. That we do verily believe, Mr. Bayes. Bayes. And that's the only thing, I gad, which mads me, in my Amours; for I'l tell you, as a friend, Mr. Johnson, my acquaintances, I hear, begin to give it out that I am dull: now I am the farthest from it in the whole World, I gad ; but only, forsooth, they think I am so, because I can say nothing. Johns. Phoo pox. That's ill natur'dly done of 'em. Bayes. Ay gad, there's no trusting o' thefe Rogues ; but — a — Come, let's sit down. \ Look you. Sirs, the chief hinge of this Play, upon wrjich the whole Plot moves and turns, and that causes the variety of all the several accidents, which, you know, are the things in Nature that make up the grand refinement of a Play, is, that I suppose two Kings to be of the same place as. The Rehearsal 9 for example, at Brentford\ for I love to write familiarly. Now the people having the same relations to 'em both, the same affections, the same duty, the same obedience, and all that ; are divided among themselves in point of devoir and interest, how to behave themselves equally between 'em: these Kings differing sometimes in particular; though, in the main, they agree. (I know not whether I make my self well understood.) Johns. I did not observe you, Sir: praysay that again. Bayes. Why, look you, Sir, (nay, I beseech you, be a little curious in taking notice of this, or else you'l never understand my notion of the thing^ the people being embarrast by their equal tyes to both, and the Soveraigns concern'd in a reciprocal regard, as well to their own interest, as the good of the people ; may make a certain kind of a — you understand me — upon which, there does arise several disputes, turmoils, heart-burnings, and all that — In fine, you'l apprehend it better when you see it. \^Exit, to call the Players. Smi. I find the Author will be very much oblig'd to the Players, if they can make any sence out of this. / Enter Bayes. Bayes. Now, Gentlemen, I would fain ask your opinion of one thing. I have made a Prologue and an Epilogue, which may both serve for either : [that is, the Prologue for the Epilogu e, or_ the_ Kpilogugjor, the Prologue] : (do you mark ?) nay, they may both serve too, I gad, for any other-£Lay _as we ll as thiis^. Smi. Very welT That's indeed. Artificial. Bayes. And I would fain ask your judgements, now, which of them would do best for the Prologue ? For, lo 'The Rehearsal you must know there is, in nature, but two ways of making very good Prologues. The one is by civih'ty, by insinuation, good language, and all that, to — a — in a manner, steal your plaudit from the courtesie of the Auditors: the other, by making use of some certain personal things, which may keep a hank upon such cen- suring persons, as cannot otherways, A gad, in nature, be hindred from being too free with their tongues. To which end,,' my first Prologue is, that I may come out in a long black Veil, and a great Huge Hang-man behind me, with a Furr'd-cap, and his Sword drawn ; and there tell 'm plainly. That if, out of good nature, they will not like my Play, I gad, I'l e'en kneel down, and he shall cut my head off. Whereupon they all clapping — a — Smi. I ^ But su ppose__tJiey,diia!t. Bayes . S u p poseTSJ^y " ' ' ni.ay_s.u pi p ose.:adiatj/^o u please, I have nothing to do with your suppose. Sir; nor am not at all mortifi'd at it ; not at all. Sir ; I gad, not one jot. Sir. Suppose quoth a ! — ha, ha, ha. [^IValks away. Johns. Phoo ! pr'ythee, Bayes, don't mind what he says: he is a fellow newly come out of the Country, he knows nothing of what's the relish, here, of the Town. Bayes. If I writ, Sir, to please the Country, I should have follow'd the old plain way ; but I write for some persons of Qiiality, and peculiar friends of mine, that understand what Flame and Power in writing is : and they do me the right. Sir, to approve of what I do. Johns. I, I, they will clap, I warrant you ; never fear it. Bayes. I'm sure the design's good : that cannot be denyd. And then, for language, I gad, I defie 'em all. "The Rehearsal 1 1 in nature, to mend it. Besides, Sir, I have _ pjiated above a hundred she£tS.of^pj2yJCv-tjQJJisiQiiate.iJie_Plot into the Boxes : and, w^i tkal^iiave appoinjcd^ two or three dozen ofjTiyJHends , to he rea dy in the Pit^ vvjio, I'm sure, will clap, am i so the res t, you know, must follow ; and then, prayj__Sir5,_whajLjb£x:oin.esL of yiour suppose ? ha, ha,~ha. Johns. Nay, if the business be so well laid, it cannot miss. Bayes. I think so, Sir: and therefore would chuse this to be the Prologue. For, if I could engage 'em to clap, before they see the Play, you know 'twould be so much the better ; because then they were engag'd : /for let a man write never so well, there are, now-a- days, a sort of persons, they call Critiques, that, I gad, have no more wit in them than so many Hobby-horses; but they'll laugh you. Sir, and find fault, and censure things, that, I gad, I'm sure, they are not able to do themselves. A sort of envious persons, that emulate the glories of persons of parts, and think to build their fame, by calumniating of persons, that, I gad, to my knowledge, of all persons in the world are, in nature, the persons that do as much despise all that as — a — In fine, I'll say no more of 'em. i Johns. Nay, you have said enough of 'em, in all conscience : I'm sure more than they'll e're be able to answer. / Bayes. Why, I'll tell you, Sir, sincerely, and /^ona fide\ were it not for the sake of some ingenious persons, and choice female spirits, that have a value for me, I would see 'em all hang'd, I gad, before I would e'er more set pen to papyr ; but let 'em live in ignorance like ingrates.^ I 2 The Rehearsal \ Johns. Imarry ! thatwereaway tobereveng'dof 'em indeed: and,if I werein your place, now, I would doso. \ Bayes. No, Sir ; there are certain tyes upon me, that I cannot be disingag'd from ; otherwise, I would. But pray, Sir, how do you like my hang-man ? Smi. By my troth. Sir, I should like him very well. Bayes, But how do you like it Sir.? (for, I see, you can judge) Would you have it for a Prologue, or the Epilogue.? Johns. Faith, Sir, 'tisso good,letite'enserve forboth. Bayes. No, no; that wont do. Besides I have made another. Johns. What other. Sir? Bayes. Why, Sir, my other is Thunder and Lightning. Johns. That's greater: I'd rather stick to that. Bayes. Do you think so.? I'l tel you then; tho there have been many witty Prologues written of late, yet, I think, you'l say this is a non pareillo : I'm sure no body has hit upon it yet. For here. Sir, I make my Prologue to be Dialogue ; and as, in my first, you see I strive to oblige the Auditors by civility, by good nature, good language, and all that ; so, in this, by the other way, /;/ Terrorem, I chuse for the persons Thunder and Lightning. Do you apprehend the conceipt .? Johns. Phoo, Pox ! then you have it cock-sure. They'l be hang'd before they'l dare to affront an Author, that has 'em at that lock. Bayes. I have made, too, one of the most delicate, dainty Simile's in the whole world, I gad, if I knew but how to applie it. Smi. Lets hear it, I pray you. Bayes. 'Tis an allusion to love. The Rehearsal 13 So Boar and Sow, when any storm is nigh. Snuff up, and smell it gath'ring in the sky; Boar beckons Sow to trot in Chestnut Groves, And there consummate their unfinish'd Loves : Pensive in mud they wallow all alone, And snore and gruntle to each others moan. How do you like it now, ha ? Johns. Faith, 'tisextraordinary fine: and very applic- able to Thunder and hightnhig^ methinks, because it speaks of a storm. Bayes. I gad, and so it does, now I think on't Mr. Johnson, I thank you ; and I'l put it in profecto. Come out, Thunder and Lightning. Enter Thunder and Lightning. Thun. I am the bold Thunder. Bayes. Mr. Cartwright, pr'ythee speak that a little louder, and with a hoarse voice. I am the bold Thunder ! Pshaw ! speak it me in a voice that thunders it out indeed : I am the bold Thunder. Thun. I am the bold Thunder. Light. The brisk Lightning, L Bayes. Nay, you must be quick and nimble. The brisk Lightning, \. That's my meaning. Thun. I am the bravest Hector of the Sky. Light. And I fair Helen that made Hector die. Thun. I strike men down. Light. I fire the Town. Thun. Let the Critiques take heed how they grumble, For then begin I for to rumble. Light. Let the Ladles allow us their Graces. Or ri blast all the paint on their faces. And dry up their Peter to Soot. * 14 T'he Rehearsal Thun. Let the Critiques look to't. Light. Let the Ladies look to't. Thun. For Thmider will do't. Light. For Lightning will shoot. Thun. V\ give you dash for dash. Light, n give you flash for flash. Gallants Fl singe your Feather. Than. Fl Thunder you together. Both. Look to't, look to't; we'l do't, we'l do't: look to't, we'l do't. [Twice or thrice repeated. [Exeunt ambo. Bayes. There's no more. 'Tis but a flash of a Pro- logue : a Droll. Smi. Yes, 'Tis short indeed ; but very terrible. Bayes. Ay, when the similes in, it will do to a Miracle, I gad, Come, come begin the Play. Lnter first Flayer. I Play. Sir, Mr. Ivory is not come yet ; but hee'l be here presently, he's but two doors off. Bayes. Come then. Gentlemen, let's go out and take a pipe of Tobacco. [Exeunt. Finis Actus Frimi. Actus IL Sc^na L [The Theatre Roy a 1. 1 Bayes, Johnson and Smith. B^j/^-j. 'V Tow, Sir, because, Fll do nothing here X^ that ever was done before, instead of beginning with a Scene that discovers something of [the Plot, I begin this Play with a whisper. ] The Rehearsal Smi. Umph ! very new, indeed. Bayes. Come, take your seats. Begin, Sirs. 15 Enter Ge?JtIema?i-Usher and Physician. Phys. Sir, by your habit, I should ghess you to be the Gentleman-Usher of this sumptuous place. Ush. And, by your gait and fashion, I should almost suspect you rule the healths of both our noble Kings, under the notion of Physician. Phys. You hit my Function right. Ush. And you, mine. Phys. Then let's embrace. Ush. Come. Phys. Come. Johns. Pray, Sir, who are those so very civil persons ? Bayes. Why, Sir, the Gentleman-Usher, and Phy- sician of the two Kings of Brentford. Johns. But, pray then, how comes it to pass, that they know one another no better.? Bayes. Phoo ! that's for the better carrying on of the Plot. Johns. Very well. Phys. Sir, to conclude. Smi. What, before he begins ? Bayes. No, Sir ; you must know, they had been talking of this a pretty while without. Smi. Where.? in the Tyring-room .? Bayes. Why ay. Sir. He's so dull ! Come, speak again. Phys. Sir, to conclude, the place you fill, has more than amply exacted the Talents of a wary Pilot, and all these threatning storms, which, like impregnate -\- I 6 The Rehearsal Clouds, hover o'er our heads, will (when they once are grasp'd but by the eye of reason) melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people. Bayes. Pray mark that Allegory. Is not that good? Johns. Yes ; that grasping of a storm, with the eye, is admirable. Phys. But yet some rumours great are stirring; and {^Lorenzo should prove false (which none but the great Gods can tell) you then perhaps would find that — [^IVhispers. Bayes. Now he whispers. Ush. Alone, do you say ? Phys. No ; attended with the noble — [IVhispers. Bayes. Again. Ush. Who, he in gray ? Phys. Yes ; and at the head of — [Whispers. Bayes. Pray mark. Ush. Then, Sir, most certain, 'twill in time appear. These are the reasons that have mov'd him to't ; First, he — [Whispers. Bayes. Now the other whispers. Ush. Secondly, they — [Whispers. Bayes. At it still. Ush. Thirdly, and lastly, both he, and they — [Whispers. Bayes. Now they both whisper. [Exeunt Whispering. Now, Gentlemen, pray tell me true, and without flattery, is not this a very odd beginning of a Play .? Johns. In troth, I think it is, Sir. But why two Kings of the same place ? Bayes. Why? becase it's new; and that's it I aim at. I despise your Johnson and Beaumont, that borrow'd all The Rehearsal ij they writ from Nature : I am for fetching it purely out of my own fancy, I. Smi, But what think you, Sir, of Sir John Suckling} Bayes. By gad, I am a better Poet than he. Smi. Well, Sir, but pray why all this whispering ? Bayes. Why, Sir, (besides that it is new, as / told you before) because they are suppos'd to be Politicians; and matters of State ought not to be divulg'd. Smi. But then, Sir, why — Bayes. Sir, if you'l but respite your curiosity till the end of the fifth Act, you'l find it a piece of patience not ill recompenc'd. [Goes to the door. Johns. How dost thou like this, Frank} Is it not just as I told thee ? Smi. Why, I did never, before this, see any thing in Nature, and all that, (as Mr. Bayes says) so foolish, but I could give some ghess at what mov'd the Fop to do it ; but this, I confess, does go beyond my reach. Joh?is. It is all a like : Mr. Wintershul has inform'd me of this Play already. And I'l tell thee, Franck^ thou shalt not see one Scene here worth one farthing, or like any thing thou canst imagine has ever been the practice of the World. And then, when he comes to what he calls good language, it is, as I told thee, very fantastical, most abominably dull, and not one word to the purpose. Smi. It does surprise me, I'm sure, very much. Johns. I, but it won't do so long : by that time thou hast seen a Play or two, that I'l shew thee, thou wilt be pretty well acquainted with this new kind of Foppery. Smi. Pox on't but there's no Pleasure in him : he's too gross a fool to be laugh'd at. c 1 8 'The Rehearsal Writer Bayes. Johns. V\ swear, Mr. Bayes you have done this Scene most admirably ; tho, I must tell you, Sir; it is a very difficult matter to pen a Whisper well. Bayes. I, Gentlemen, when you come to write your selves, O' my word, you'l find it so. Johns. Have a care of what you say, Mr. Bayes, for Mr. Smk/i there ; I assure you, has written a great many fine things already. Bayes. Has he, ifackins? Why then Pray, Sir, how do you do, when you write ? Smi. Faith, Sir, for the most part, I am in pretty good health. Bayes. I but I mean, what do you do, when you write.? Smi. I take Pen, Ink, and Paper, and Sit down. Bayes. Now, I write standing; that's one thing: and then, another thing is, with what do you prepare your self? Smi. Prepare my self! what, the Devil, does the fool mean ? Bayes. Why, I'l tell you, now, what I do. If I am to write familiar things, as Sonnets to Armida, and the like, I make use of Stew'd Prunes only ; but when I have a grand design in hand, I ever take Phisic, and let blood : for, when you would have pure swift- ness of thought, and fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive part. In fine, you must purge the Belly. Smi. By my troth, Sir, this is a most admirable Receipt, for writing. Bayes. Ay, 'tis my Secret ; and, in good earnest, I think, one of the best I have. The Rehearsal 19 Smi, In good faith, Sir, and that may very well be. Bayes. May be, Sir? I gad, I'm sure on't : Experto crede Roberto. But I must give you this caution by the way, be sure you never take snufF, when you write. Smi. Why so Sir.? Bayes. Why, it spoil'd me once, I gad, one of the sparkishest Playes in all 'England. But a friend of mine, at Gresham Colledge^ has promis'd to help me to some spirit of Brains, and, I gad, that shall do my business. Sc^NA II. Enter the two Kings, hand in hand. Bayes. /^^H, These now are the two Kings o£ Brent- \^_y ford; take notice of their stile: 'twas never yet upon the Stage ; but, if you like it, I could make a shift, perhaps, to shew you a whole Play, writ all just so. / I. King. Did you observe their whisper. Brother ' King.? 2. King. I did ; and heard, besides, a grave bird sing. That they intend, sweet-heart, to play us pranks. Bayes. This is now, familiar, because they are both persons of the same Quality. Smi. 'Sdeath, this would make a man spew. 1 . King. If that design appears, ri lug 'em by the ears Until I make 'em crack. 2. King. And so will I, i'fack. 1. King. You must begin, Monfoy. 2. King. Sweet, Sir, Pardonnes moy. 20 T^he Rehearsal Bayes. Mark that : I makes 'em both speak French^ to shew their breeding. Johns. O, 'tis extraordinary fine ! 2. King. Then, spite of Fate, we'll thus combined stand; And like true brothers, walk stil hand in hand. [Exeunt Reges. Johns. This is a very Majestic Scene indeed. Bayes. Ay, 'tis a crust, a lasting crust for your Rogue Critiques, I gad : I would fain see the proudest of 'em all but dare to nibble at this ; I gad, if they do, this shall rub their gums for 'em, I promise you. It was I, you must know, that have written a whole Play just in this very same stile ; but it was never Acted yet. Johns. How so.? Bayes. I gad, I can hardly tell you, for laughing (ha, ha, ha) it is so pleasant a story : ha, ha, ha. Smi. What is't? Bayes. I gad, the Players refus'd to act it. Ha, ha, ha. Smi. That's impossible. Bayes. I gad they did it. Sir, point blank refus'd it, I gad, Ha, ha, ha. Johns. Fie, that was rude. Bayes. Rude ! Ay, I gad, they are the rudest, uncivilest persons, and all that, in the whole world, I gad : I gad, there's no living with 'em, I have written, Mr. Johnson, I do verily believe, a whole cart-load of things, every whit as good as this, and yet, I vow to gad, these insolent Raskals have turned 'em all back upon my hands again. Johns. Strange fellows indeed ! Smi. But pray, Mr. Bayes, how came these two The Rehearsal 2 i Kings to know of this whisper? for, as I remember, they were not present at it. Bayes. No, but that's the Actors' fault, and not mine; for the two Kings should (a pox take 'em) have pop'd both their heads in at the door, just as the other went off. Smi. That, indeed, would ha' done it. Bayes. Done it ! Ay, I gad, these fellows are able to spoil the best things in Christendome. I'l tell you, Mr. Johnson^ I vow to gad I have been so highly disoblig'd by the peremptoriness of these fellows, that I'm resolv'd hereafter, to bend my thoughts wholly for the service of the Nursery., and mump your proud Players, I gad. So ; now Prince Pretty- man comes in, and falls a sleep, making love to his Mistress, which, you know, was a grand Intrigue in a a late Play, written by a very honest Gentleman : a Knight. Sc^NA III. Enter Prince Pretty-man. Pret. T T O W strange a captive am I grown of late ! X X Shall I accuse my Love, or blame my Fate .? My Love, I cannot ; that is too Divine : And, against Fate, what mortal dares repine .? Efiter Cloris. But here she comes. Sure 'tis some blazing Comet is it not ? \_Lyes down. Bayes. Blazing Comet ! mark that, I gad, very fine ! Pret. But I am so surpris'd with sleep, I cannot speak the rest. [Sleeps. 2 2 The Rehearsal Bayes. Does not that, now, surprise you, to fall a sleep in the nick ? His spirits exhale with the heat of his passion, and all that, and swop falls a sleep, as you see. Now, here, she must make a simile. Smi. Where's the necessity of that Mr. Bayes} Bayes. Because she's surpris'd. That's a general Rule, you must ever make a simile, when you are surpris'd ; 'tis the new way of writing. Claris. As some tall Pine, which we, on /Etna, find T' have stood the rage of many a boist'rous wind. Feeling without, that flames within do play. Which would consume his Root and Sap away ; He spreads his woorsted Arms unto the Skies, Silently grieves, all pale, repines and dies: So, shrowded up, your bright eye disappears. Break forth, bright scorching Sun, and dry my tears. {Exit. Johns. Mr. Bayes, Methinks, this simile wants a little application too. Bayes. No, faith ; for it alludes to passion, to con- suming, to dying, and all that ; which, you know, are the natural effects of an Amour. But I'm afraid, this Scene has made you sad ; for, I must confess, when I writ it, I wept my self. Smi. No, truly. Sir, my spirits are almost exhal'd to, and I am likelier to fall a sleep. Prince Pretty-man starts up, and says — Bret. It is resolv'd. \Exit. Bayes, That's all. Smi. Mr. Bayes, may one be so bold as to ask you a question, now, and you not be angry? J T'he Rehearsal 23 /Bayes. O Lord, Sir, you may ask me any thing ; what you please; I vow to gad, you do me a great deal of honour : you do not know me, if you say that. Sir. Smi. Then, pray. Sir, what is it that this Prince here has resolv'd in his sleep ? Bayes. Why, I must confess, that question is well enough ask'd, for one that is not acquainted with this new way of writing. But you must know. Sir, that, to out-do all my fellow- Writers, whereas they keep their Intrigo secret, till the very last Scene before the Dance; I now. Sir, (do you mark me) — a — Smi, Begin the Play, and end it, without ever opening the Plot at all.? Bayes. I do so, that's the very plain troth on't ; ha, ha, ha ; I do, I gad. If they cannot find it out themselves, e'en let 'em alone for Bayes, I warrant you. But here, now, is a Scene of business: pray observe it; for I dare say you'l think it no unwise discourse this, nor ill argu'd. To tell you true, 'tis a Discourse I over-heard once betwixt two grand, sober, governing persons. / Sc^NA IV. Enter Gentleman-Usher and Physician. Usli. /^^OME, Sir; let's state the matter of Fact, V^^ and lay our heads together. Phys. Right : lay our heads together. I love to be merry sometimes ; but when a knotty point comes I lay my head close to it, with a snuffbox in my hand, and then I fegue it away, i'faith. Bayes. I do just so, I gad, alwayes. 24 T^he Rehearsal Us/i. The grand question is, whether they heard us whisper ? which I divide thus. Phys, Yes, it must be divided so indeed. Sf?ii. That's very complaisant, I swear, Mr. Bayes, to be of another man's opinion, before he knowes what it is. Bayes. Nay, I bring in none, here, but wel-bred persons, I assure you. Us/i, I divided the question into when they heard, what they heard, and whether they heard or no. Johns. Most admirably divided, I swear ! Us/i. As to the when ; you say, just now : So that is answer'd. Then, as for what ; why, what answers it self: for what could they hear, but what we talk'd of.? So that, naturally, and of necessity, we come to the last question, Videlicet^ whether they heard or no. Smi. This is a very wise Scene, Mr. Bayes. Bayes. Ay, you have it right : they are both Politicians. TJsh. Pray then to proceed in method, let me ask you that question. Phys. No, you'lanswerbetter, pray let me ask it you. JJsh. Your will must be a Law. Phys. Come then, what is it I must ask.? Smi. This Politician, I perceive, Mr. Bayes, has somewhat a short memory. Bayes. Why, Sir, you must know, that t'other is the main Politician, and this is but his pupil. Ush. You must ask me whether they heard us whisper. ^hys. Well, I do so. Ush. Say it then. The Rehearsal 25 *Sw/. Hey day ! here's the bravest work that ever I saw. Johns. This is mighty methodical ! Bayes^ Ay, Sir ; that's the way : 'tis the way of Art ; there is no other way, I gad, in business. Phys. Did they here [j/r] us whisper.? Ush. Why, truly, I can't tell; there's much to be said upon the word Whisper : to whisper, in Latin is Susurrare, which is as much as to say, to speak softly ; now, if they heard us speak softly, they heard us whisper : but then comes in the Quomodo^ the how ; how did they hear us whisper.? Why, as to that, there are two wayes ; the one, by chance, or accident : the other, on purpose; that is, with design to hear us whisper. Phys. Nay, if they heard us that way, I'll never give 'em Physic more. JJsh. Nor I e'er more will walk abroad before 'em. Bayes. Pray mark this ; for a great deal depend upon it, towards the latter end of the Play. Smi. I suppose, that's the reason why you brought in this Scene Mr. Bayes} Bayes. Partly, it was. Sir ; but, I confess, I was not unwilling, besides, to shew the world a pattern, here, how men should talk of business. Johns. You have done it exceeding well indeed. Bayes. Yes, I think, this will do. Phys. Well, if they heard us whisper, they'l turn us out, and no body else will take us. Smi. Not for Politicians, I dare answer for it. Phys. Let's then no more our selves in vain bemoan: We are not safe until we them unthrone. 26 The Rehearsal Ush. 'Tis right : And, since occasion now seems debonair, ri seize on this, and you shall take that Chair. They draw their Swords, and sit down in the two great Chairs upon the Stage. Bayes. There's now an odd surprize ; the whole State's turn'd quite topsie-turvy, without any puther or stir in the whole world, I gad. Johns. A very silent change of a Government, truly, as ever I heard of. Bayes. It is so. And yet you shall see me bring 'em in again, by and by, in as odd a way every jot. The Usurpers march out Jiourishing their Swords. EfJter Shirly. Shir. Hey ho, hey ho : what a change is here ! Hey day, hey day ! I know not what to do, nor what to say. [Exit. Johns. Mr. Bayes, in my opinion, now, that Gentle- man might have said a little more, upon this occasion. Bayes. No, Sir, not at all ; for I under writ his Part, on purpose to set off the rest. Johns. Cry you mercy, Sir. Smi. But, pray. Sir, how came they to depose the Kings so easily ? Bayes. Why, Sir, you must know, they long had a design to do it before ; but never could put it in practice till now : and, to tell you true, that's one reason why I made 'em whisper so at first. Smi. O very well: now I'm fully satisfi'd. Bayes. And then to shew you. Sir, it was not done so very easily neither ; in this next Scene you shall see some fighting. The Rehearsal 27 Sml O, ho : so then you make the struggle to be after the business is done ? Bayes. Aye. Smi O, I conceive you : that, I swear, is very natural. Sc^NA V. 'Enter four men at one door^ and four at another^ with their Swords drawn. I Soldier. QTAND. Who goes there? k3 2 Sol. A Friend. 1 Sol. What Friend .? 2 Sol. A Friend to the House. 2 Sol. Fallon. [They all kill one another . Music strikes. Bayes. Hold, hold. \To the Music. It ceasetli. I Now here's an odd surprize : all these dead men you shall see rise up presently, at a certain Note that I have made, in Efaut fat, and fall a Dancing. Do you hear, dead men .? remember your note in Effaut fat. Play on. / [To the Music. Now, now, now. O Lord, O Lord 1 The music play his Note, and the dead men rise, but cannot get in order. Out, out, out ! Did ever men spoil a good thing so .? no figure, no ear, no time, no thing ? Udzookers, you dance worse than the Angels in Harry the Eight, or the fat Spirits in The Te??ipest, I gad. I Sol. Why, Sir, 'tis impossible to do any thing in time, to this Tune. Bayes. O Lord, O Lord ! impossible ? why. Gentle- men, if there be any faith in a person that's a Christian, I sate up two whole nights in composing this Air, 28 The Rehearsal and apting it for the business : for, if you observe, there are two several Designs in this Tune ; it begins swift, and ends slow. You talk of time, and time ; you shall see me do't. Look you now. Here I am dead. \JLies down ji at on his face. Now mark my Note Effaut fat. Strike up Music. Now. \_As he rises up hastily, he falls down again. Ah, gadsookers, I have broke my Nose. Johns. By my troth, Mr. Bayes, this is a very unfortunate Note of yours, in Efaut. ' Bayes. A plague of this damn'd Stage, with your nails, and your tenter-hooks, that a Gentleman cannot come to teach you to Act, but he must break his nose, and his face, and the devil and all. Pray, Sir,, can you help me to a wet piece of brown paper .? / Smi. No indeed. Sir ; I don't usually carry any about me. 2 Sol. Sir, r\ go get you some within presently. Bayes. Go, go then ; I follow you. Pray dance out the dance and I'l be with you in a moment. Remember you dance like Horsmen. [Exit Bayes. Smi. Like Horsemen ! what, a plague, can that be? They dance the Dance, but can make nothing of it. I Sol. A Devil ! let's try this no longer : play my Dance that Mr. Bayes found fault with so. [Dance & exeunt. Smi. What can this fool be doing all this while about his Nose .? Johns. Pr'ythe lets go see. [Exeunt. Finis Actus secundi. The Rehearsal 29 Actus III. Sc^na I. \The Same.] Bayes wit/i a Fapyr on his Nose^ and the two Gentlemen. Bayes. '^k^JOW, Sirs, this I do, because my Fancy, in X ^ this PlaYas_to end every Act with a D ance. Smi. Faith, that Fancy is very good, but I should hardly have broke my Nose for it, tho. Johns. That Fancy, I suppose, is new too. Bayes. Sir, all my Fancies are so, I tread upon no J2 mans heels : but make my flight upon my own wings, I assure you. Now, here comes in a Scene of sheer Wit, without any mixture in the whole World, I gad, between Prince Pretty-man and his Taylor : it might properly enough be call'd a prize of Wit ; for you shall see 'em come in upon one another snip snap, hit for hit, as fast as can be. First one speaks, then presently t'others upon him, slap, with a Repartee ; then he at him again, dash with a new conceipt ; and so eternally, eternally, I gad, till they go quite off the Stage. Goes to call the Players. Smi. What a plague, does this Fop mean by his snip snap, hit for hit, and dash.? Johns. Mean ! why, he never meant any thing in's life : what dost talk of meaning for ? Enter Bayes. Bayes. Why don't you come in ? Enter Prince Pretty-man and Tom Thimble. This Scene will make you dye with laughing, if it be well Acted ; for 'tis as full of Drollory [.w] as ever it 30 The Rehearsal can hold : 'tis like an Orange stuff 'd with Cloves, as for conceit. Fret. But pr'vthee, Tzrn Tbimble, why wilt thou needs marrv ? if nine Tavlors make but one man ; and one woman cannot be satisded with nine men : what work art thou cutting out here for thy self, trow ? Baya. Good. Tbim. Whv, an't please your Highness, if I can't make up all the work I cut out, I shan't want Journey- men enough to help me, I warrant you. Bjycs. Good again. Prct. I am afraid thy Journey-men tho, Tb/w, wont work bv the day, but by the night. Bayes. Good still. Tbim. However if mv wife sits but cross-leg'd, as I do, there will be no great danger : not half so much as when I trusted vou. Sir, for your Coronation-suit. Bases. Very good, i'faith. Prct. Whv, the times then liv'd upon trust ; it was the fashion. You would not be out of time, at such a time as that, sure : a Tavlor, you know, must never be out of fashion. Bayes. Right. Tbim. I'm sure. Sir, I made vour Cloaths, in the Court-fashion, for you never paid me yet. Bayes. There's a bob for the Court ! Pret. Whv, T:m, thou art a sharp rogue when thou art angrv, I see : thou pay'st me now, methinks. Bases. There's pav, upon pav ! as good as ever was written, I gad ! Tbhn. I, Sir, in vour own covn : vou give me nothing but words. T^ke Rehearsal 31 Bayes. Admirable, before gad ! Pret. Well, Tom, I hope shortly I shall have another covn for thee ; for now the Wars are coming on, I shall grow to be a man of mettal. Bayes. O, you did not do that half enough. Johns. Methinks he does it admirably. Bayes. I, pretty well; but he does not hit me in't: he does not top his part. Thim. That's the way to be stamp'd your self, Sir. I shall see you come home, like an Angel for the Kings-Evil, with a hole bor'd through you. [Exeunt. Bayes. Ha, there he has hit it up to the hilts, I gad! How do you like it now, Gentlemen? Is not this pure Wit .? / Smi. 'Tis snip snap. Sir, as you say ? but, methinks, not ■pleasant, nor to the purpose,for the Play does not go on. Bayes. Play does not go on? I don't know what you mean : why, is not this part of the Play ? Smi. Yes, but the Plot stands still. Bayes. Plot stand still ! why, what a Devil is the Plot good for, but to bring in fine things ? Smi. O, I did not know that before. Bayes. No, I think you did not : nor many things more, that I am Master of. Now, Sir, I gad, this is the bane of all us Writers : let us soar but never so little above the common pitch, I gad, all's spoil'd ; for the vulgar never understand it, thev can never conceive you, Sir, the excellency of these things. Johns. 'Tis a sad fate, I must confess : but you write on still ; for all that ? Bayes. Write on? I, I gad, I warrant vou. 'Tis not their talk shall stop me : if thev catch me at that 32 T'he Rehearsal lock, ri give 'em leave to hang me. As long as I know my things are good, what care I, what they say ?/ What, are they gone, without singing my last new Song ? 'Sbud, would it were in their BelHes. I'll tell you, Mr. Johison^ if I have any skill in these matters, I vow to gad, this Song is peremtorily the very best that ever yet was written: you must know, it was made by T'om Thimble's first wife after she was dead. Smi. How, Sir ? after she was dead .? Bayes. Ay, Sir, after she was dead. Why, what have you to say to that ? Johns. Say ? Why, nothing : he were a Devil that had any thing to say to that ? Bayes. Right. Smi. How did she come to dye, pray Sir ? Bayes. Phoo ! that's no matter ; by a fall : but here's the conceit, that upon his knowing she was kill'd by an accident, he supposes, with a Sigh, that she dy'd for love of him. Johns. I, I, that's well enough: let'shearit,Mr. B^jyt'j-. Bayes. 'Tis to the Tune of Farewel, fair Armida^ on Seas, and in battels, in Bullets, and all that. SONG. In swords. Pikes, and Bullets, 'tis safer to be. Than in a Strong Castle, remoted from thee : My deaths-bruise pray think you gave me, tho a fall Did give it me more, from the top of a wall ; For then if the Moat on her mud would first lay. And after before you my body convey : The blew on my brest when you happen to see, You'l say, with a Sigh, there's a True blew for me. J T'he Rehearsal 33 Ha, Rogues ! when I am merry, I write these things as fast as hops, I gad ; for, you must know, I am as pleasant a Debauchtee, as ever you saw : I am ifaith. ^Smi. But Mr. Bayes^ how comes this song in here? for, methinks, there is no great occasion for it. Bayes. Alack, Sir, you know nothing : you must ever interlard your Playes with Songs, Ghosts, and Dances, if you mean to — a — Johns. Pit, Box, and Gallery, Mr. Bayes. Bayes. I gad, and you have nick'd it. Hark you, Mr. Johnson^ you know I don't flatter, a gad, you have a great deal of Wit. Johns. O Lord, Sir, you do me too much honour. Bayes. Nay, nay, come, come, Mr. Johnson^ I faith this must not be said, amongst us that have it. I know you have wit by the judgment you make of this Play; for that's the measure I go by : my Play is my Touch- stone. When a man tells me such a one is a person of parts ; is he so, say 1 1 what do I do, but bring him presently to see this Play ? If he likes it, I know what to think of him ; if not, your most humble Servant, Sir, ri no more of him upon my word, I thank you. I am Clara voyant^ I gad. Now here we go on to our business. Sc^NA n. Enter the two Usurpers^ hand in hand. Usli. T3UT what's become of Volscius the great } J_3 Hispresencehasnot grac'dourCourtsof late. Phys. I fear some ill, from emulation sprung. Has from us that Illustrious Hero wrung. 34 '^'^^ Ke hear sal Bayes. Is not that Majestical ? Smi. Yes, but who a Devil is that Volscius ? Bayes. Why, that's a Prince I make in love with Parthenope. Smi. I thank you Sir. Enter Cordelio. Cor. My Lieges, news from Volscius the Prince. Usli. His news is welcome, whatsoe'er it be. Smi. How, Sir, do you mean whether it be good or bad ? Bayes. Nay, pray, Sir, have a little patience : God- sookers you'l spoil all my Play. Why, Sir, 'tis im- possible to answer every impertinent question you ask. S?7ii. Cry you mercy, Sir. Cor. His Highness, Sirs, commanded me to tell you, That the fair person whom you both do know. Despairing of forgiveness for her fault, In a deep sorrow, twice she did attempt Upon her precious life ; but by the care Of standersby prevented was. Smi. 'Sheart, what stuff's here ! Cor. At last Volscius the great this dire resolve embrac'd : His servants he into the Countrey sent, And he himself to Peccadille went. Where he's inform'd, by Letters that she's dead. Ush. Dead ! is that possible ? Dead ! Phys. O ye Gods ! \_Exeunt. Bayes. There's a smart expression of a passion ; O ye Gods ! That's one of my bold strokes, I gad. Smi. Yes ; but who is the fair person that's dead ? / The Rehearsal 35 Bayes. That you shall know anon Sir. Smi. Nay ; if we know it at all, 'tis well enough. Bayes. Perhaps you may find too, by and by, for all this that she's not dead neither. Smi Marry, that's good news indeed : I am glad of that with all my heart. Bayes. Now here's the man brought in that is suppos'd to have kill'd her. [A great shout within. Sc^NA III. Enter Amarillis wit/i a book in her hand, and Attendants. ^w^.'lT That shout trlumphant's that? VV Enter a Souidier. Sol. Shie maid, upon the River brink Near TwicFnatn Town, the false Assassinate Is tane. Ama. Thanks to the Powers above, for this deliverance. I hope its slow beginning will portend A forward Exit to all future end. Bayes. Pish, there you are out ; to all Future end? No, no ; to all future End : you must lay the accent upon end, or else you lose the conceipt. Smi. I see you are very perfect in these matters. Bayes. I, Sir; I have been long enough at it, one would think, to know some thing. Enter Souidier s dragging in an old Fisher-man. Ama. Villain, what Monster did corrupt thy mind. T'attaque the noblest soul of humane kind ? Tell me who set thee on. 36 The Rehearsal Fish. Prince Pretty-man. Ama. To kill whom? Fish. Prince Pretty-man. Ama. What, did Prince Pretty-man hire you to kill Prince Pretty-man ? Fish. No ; Prince Volscius. Ama. To kill whom ? Fish. Prince Volscius. Ama. What did Prince Volscius hire you to kill Prince Volscius ? Fish. No ; Prince Pretty-man. Ama. So drag him hence, Till torture of the Rack produce his Sense. [Exeunt. Bayes. Mark how I make the horrour of his guilt confound his intellects ; for he's out at one and t'other : and that's the design of this Scene. Smi. I see, Sir, you have a several design for every Scene. Bayes. I, that's my way of writing ; and so Sir, I can dispatch you a whole Play, before another man, I gad, can make an end of his Plot. / Sc^NA IV. [Bayes.]^^0 now enter Prince Pretty-man in a rage. ^^ Where the Devil is he .? Why Pretty-man .? why when, I say ? O fie, fie, fie, fie ! all's marr'd, I vow to gad, quite marr'd. E?iter Pretty-man. Phoo, pox ! you are come to late. Sir, now you may go out again, if you please. I vow to gad, Mr. — a — I would not give a button for my Play, now you have done this. The Rehearsal 37 Pret. What Sir? Bayes. What Sir ! 'Slife, Sir, you should have come outincholer, rousupontheStage, just as the other went off. Must a man be eternally telling you of these things ? Johns. Sure this must be some very notable matter that he's so angry at. Smi. I am not of your opinion. Bayes. Pish ! come, let's hear your part. Sir. Pret. Bring in my Father ; why d'ye keep him from me .? Altho a Fisherman, he is my Father, Was ever Son, yet brought to this distress, To be, for being a Son, made fatherless? Ah, you just Gods, rob me not of a Father: The being of a Son take from me rather. [Exit. Smi. Well, Ned^ what think you now ? Johns. A Devil this is worst of all. iVlr. Bayes, pray what's the meaning of this Scene? Bayes. O, cry you mercy. Sir: I purtest I had forgot to tell you. Why, Sir, you must know, that long before the beginning of this Play, this Prince was taken by a Fisherman. Smi. How, Sir, taken Prisoner ? Bayes. Taken Prisoner \ O Lord, what a question's there ! did ever any man ask such a question ? God- sookers, he has put the Plot quite out of my head, with this damn'd question. What was I going to say ? Johns. Nay, the Lord knows: I cannot imagine. Bayes. Stay, let me see ; taken : O 'tis true. Why, Sir, as I was going to say, his Highness here, the Prince, was taken in a Cradle by a Fisherman, and brought up as his Child. 38 I' he Rehearsal Smi. Indeed ? Bayes. Nay, pr'ythe hold thy peace. And so. Sir, this murder being committed by the River-side, the Fisherman, upon suspition, was seiz'd ; and there upon the Prince grew angry. Smi. So, so ; now 'tis very plain. Johns. But Mr. Bayes, is not this some disparage- ment to a Prince, to pass for a Fishermans Son .? Have a care of that I pray. Bayes. No, no ; not at all ; for 'tis but for a while: I shall fetch him off again, presently, you shall see. Enter Pretty-man an^ Thimble. Pret. By all the Gods, Fl set the world on fire Rather than let 'em ravish hence my Sire. Thim. Brave Pretty-man, it is at length reveal'd, That he is not thy Sire who thee conceal'd. Bayes. Lo you now ; there he's off again. Johns. Admirably done i'faith. Bayes. Ay, now the Plot thickens very much upon us. Pret. What Oracle this darkness can evince.? Sometimes a Fishers Son, sometimes a Prince. It is a secret, great as is the world ; In which, I like the Soul, am tos'd and hurl'd. The blackest Ink of Fate, sure, was my Lot, And, when she writ my Name, she made a blot. [Exit. Bayes. There's a blust'ring verse for you now. Smi. Yes, Sir; but why is he so mightily troubled to find he is not a Fishermans Son .? Bayes. Phoo ! that is not because he has a mind to be his Son, but for fear he should be thought to be no bodies Son at all. The Rehearsal 39 Smi. Nay, that would trouble a man, indeed. Bayes. So let me see. Sc^NA V. Enter Prince Volscius, goi?ig out of Town. [Reads. Smi.^ THOUGHT he had been gone to Peccad'dle. X Bayes. Yes, he gave it out so ; but that was only to cover his design. Johns. What design ? Bayes. Why, to head the Army, that lies conceal'd for him in Knights-bridge. Johns. I see here's a great deal of Plot, Mr. Bayes. Bayes. Yes, now it begins to break ; but we shall have a world of more business anon. Enter Prince Volscius, Cloris, Amarillis, and Harry with a Riding-Cloak and Boots. Ama. Sir, you are cruel, thus to leave the Town, And to retire to Country solitude. Clo. We hop'd this Summer that we should at least Have held the honour of your Company. ' Bayes. Held the honour of your Company ! prettily exprest ! Held the honour of your Company ! God- sookers, these fellows will never take notice of any thing. Johns. I assure you Sir, I admire it extreamly : I don't know what he does. Bayes. I, I, he's a little envious ; but 'tis no great matter. Come. | Ama. Pray let us two this single boon obtain. That you will here, with poor us, still remain. Before your Horses come pronounce our fate, For then, alas ! I fear, 'twill be too late. 40 The Rehearsal Bayes. Sad ! Vols. Harry ^ my Boots ; for I'l go rage among My Blades encamp'd, and quit this Urban throng. Smi. But pray, Mr. Bayes, is not this a little difficult, that you were saying e'en now, to keep an army thus conceal'd in Knights-bridge. Bayes. In Knights-bridge .? stay. Johns. No, not if the Inn-keepers be his friends. Bayes. His Friends ! Ay, Sir, his intimate acquaint- ance ; or else, indeed, I grant it could not be. Smi. Yes, faith, so it might be very easie. Bayes. Nay, if I do not make all things easie, I gad, ri give you leave to hang me. Now you would think that he is going out of Town ; but you shall see how prettily I have contriv'd to stop him, presently. Smi. By my troth. Sir, you have so amaz'd me, that I know not what to think. Etiter Parthenope. Vols. Bless me ! how frail are all my best resolves ! How, in a moment, is my purpose chang'd ! Too soon I thought my selfe secure from Love. Fair, Madam, give me leave to ask her name Who does so gently rob me of my fame.? For I should meet the Army out of town, And, if I fail, must hazard my renown. Par. My Mother, Sir, sells Ale by the Town-walls, And me, her dear Parthenope she calls. Bayes. Now that's the Parthenope, I told you of. Johns. 1,1: I gad you are very right. Vols. Can vulgarvestmentshigh-born beauty shroud.? Thou bring'st the Morning pictur'd in a Cloud. The Rehearsal 41 Bayes, The Morning pictur'd in a Cloud ! A, Gad- sookers, what a conceipt is there ! Par. Give you good Ev'n, Sir. [Exit. Vols. O inauspicious Stars ! that I was born To sudden love, and to more sudden scorn ! ]ATna.\Y{Q)^N ! Prince Volscius in love? Ha, ha, ha. Clor. ' \_Exeunt laughing. Smi. Sure, Mr. Bayes, we have lost some jest here, that they laugh at so. Bayes. Why, did you not observe ? tie first resolves to go out of Town, and then, as he is pulling on his Boots falls in love with her. Ha, ha, ha. Smi. Well, and where lyes the jest of that? Bayes. Ha ? [Turns to Johnson. Johns. Why; In the Boots: where should the jest lie ? Bayes. I Gad, you are in the right : it does [Turns to Sfnith.'] Lie in the Boots — Your friend, and I know where a good jest lies, tho you don't. Sir. Smi. Much good do't you. Sir. Bayes. Here, now, Mr. Johnson, you shall see a combat betwixt Love and Honour. An ancient Author has made a whole Play on't ; but I have dispatch'd it all in this Scene. Volscius sits down to pull on his Boots : Bayes Stands by and over acts the Part as he speaks it. Vols. How has my passion Made me Cupid's scoff! This hasty Boot is on, the other off. And sullen lies, with amorous design To quit loud fame, and make that Beauty mine. Smi. Pr'ythee mark what pains Mr. Bayes takes to Act this speech himselfe ! 42 The Rehearsal Johns. Yes, the fool, I see, is mightily transported with it. Vols. My Legs, the Emblem of my various thought. Shew to what sad distraction I am brought. Sometimes with stubborn Honour, like this Boot, My mind is guarded, and resolv'd : to do't : Sometimes, again, that very mind, by Love Disarmed, like this other Leg does prove. Shall I to Honour or to Love give way? Go on, cries Honour ; tender Love saies, nay : Honour, aloud, commands, pluck both Boots on ; But softer Love does whisper put on none. What shall I do .? what conduct shall I find To lead me through this twy-light of my mind ? For as bright Day with black approach of Night Contending, makes a doubtful puzling light ; So does my Honour and my Love together Puzzle me so, I can resolve for neither. \Goes out hopping with one Boot on, and the other ojf. Johns. By my troth, Sir, this is as difficult a Combat as ever I saw, and as equal ; for 'tis determin'd on neither side. Bayes. Ay, is't not now I gad, ha? For, to go off hip hop, hip hop, upon this occasion, is a thousand times better than any conclusion in the world, I gad. Johns. Indeed, Mr. Bayes, that hip hop, in this place as you say, does a very great deal. Bayes. O, all in all Sir ; they are these little things that mar, or set you off a Play : as I remember once, in a Play of mine, I set off a Scene I gad, beyond expectation, only with a Petticoat, and the Belly ake. Smi. Pray, how was that. Sir ? The Ke hear sal 43 Bayes. Why, Sir, I contriv'd a Petticoat to be brought in upon a Chair, (no body knew how) into a Prince's Chamber, whose Father was not to see it, that came in by chance. Johns. God's my Hfe, that was a notable Contriv- ance indeed. Smi. I but, Mr. Bayes, how could you contrive the Belly-ake ? Bayes. The easiest ith' World, I Gad: I'l tell you how, I made the Prince sit down upon the Petticoat, no more than so, and pretended to his Father that he had just then got the Belly-ake: whereupon, his Father went out to call a Physician, and his man ran away with the Petticoat. SmL Well and what follow'd upon that? Bayes. Nothing, no Earthly thing, I vow to Gad. Johns. O, my word, Mr. Bayes, there you hit it. Bayes. Yes It gave a world of content. And then I paid 'em away besides, for I made 'em all talk baudy ; ha, ha, ha : beastly, downright baudry upon the Stage, I gad ; ha, ha, ha ; but with an infinite deal of wit, that I must say. J Johns. That, I that, we know well enough, can never fail you. Bayes. No, I Gad can't it: come bring in the Dance. [Exit, to call 'em. Smi. Now, the Devil take thee for a silly, confident, unnatural, fulsom Rogue. Enter Bayes and Players. Bayes, Pray Dance well, before these Gentlemen : you are commonly so lazy ; but you should be light and easie, tab, tab, tab. 44 T^be Rehearsal All the while they Dance ^ Bayes puts 'em out with teaching 'em. Well Gentlemen, you'l see this Dance, if I am not deceiv'd, take very well upon the Stage, when they are perfect in their motions, and all that. Smi. I don't know how 'twill take, Sir ; but I am sure you sweat hard for't. Bayes. Ay, Sir, it costs me more pains and trouble, to do these things, than almost the things are worth. Smi. By my troth, I think so. Sir. Bayes. Not for the things themselves, for I could write you, Sir, forty of 'em in a day ; but, I gad, these Players are such dull persons, that, if a man be not by 'em upon every point, and at every turn, I gad, they'l mistake you. Sir, and spoil all. Enter a Player. What, is the Funeral ready? Play. Yes, Sir. Bayes. And is the Lance fiU'd with Wine? Play. Sir, 'tis just now a doing. Bayes. Stay then, I'l do it my self. Smi. Come, let's go with him. Bayes. A Match. But Mr. Johnson^ I gad, I am not like other persons ; they care not what becomes of their things, so they can but get mony for 'em ; now, I gad, when I write, if it be not just as it should be in every circumstance, to every particular, I gad ; I am no more able to endure it, I am not my self, I'm out of my wits, and all that, I'm the strangest person in the whole world. For what care I for mony ? I write for Reputation. [^Exeunt. Finis Actus tertii. T'he Rehearsal 45 Actus IV. Sc^na I. {The Same.] Bayes, an^ the two Gentlemen. J5tf;'d'-f./^^ ENTLEMEN, because I would not have V^JT any two things ahke in this Play, the last Act beginning with a witty Scene of Mirth, I make this to begin with a Funeral. Smi. And is that all your reason for it, Mr. Bayes} Bayes. No, Sir, I have a Precedent for it besides. A person of Honour, and a Scholar^ brought in his Funeral just so : and he was one (let me tell you) that knew as well what belong'd to a Funeral, as any man in 'England^ I gad. Johns. Nay if that be so, you are safe. Bayes. I gad, but I have another device, a frolick, which I think yet better than all this ; not for the Plot or Characters, (for in my heroic Plays, I make no difference, as to those matters) but for another contrivance. Smi. What is that, I pray ? Bayes. Why, I have design'd a Conquest, that Cannot possibly, I gad, be acted in less than a whole week: and I'l speak a bold word, it shall Drum, Trumpet, Shout, and Battle, I gad with any the most warlike Tragoedy we have, either ancient or modern. Johns. I, marry. Sir, there you say something. Smi. And pray, Sir, how have you order'd this same frolic of yours .? Bayes. Faith, Sir, by the Rule of Romance. For example : they divided their things into three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or as many Tomes as they 46 The Rehearsal please: now, I would very fain know what should hinder me, from doing the same with my things, if I please ? Johns. Nay, if you should not be Master of your own works, 'tis very hard. Bayes. That is my sence. And then. Sir, this con- trivance of mine has something of the reason of a Play in it too ; for as every one maizes you five Acts to one Play, what do me I, but make five Playes to one Plot : by which means the Auditors have every day a new thing. Johns. Most admirably good, i'faith ! and must certainly take, because it is not tedious. Bayes. I, Sir, I know that, there's the main point. And then, upon Saturday^ to make a close of all, (for I ever begin upon a Monday^ I make you. Sir, a sixth Play, that sums up the whole matter to 'em, and all that, for fear they should have forgot it. Johns. That consideration, Mr. Bayes., indeed, I think, will be very necessary. Smi. And when comes in your share, pray Sir? Bayes. The third week. Johns. I vow you'l get a world of money. Bayes. Why, faith, a man must live: and if you don't, thus, pitch upon some new device, I gad, you'l never do it, for this Age (take it o'my word) is somewhat hard to please. But There's one pretty odd passage, in the last of these Plays which may be executed two several ways, wherein I'd have your opinion. Gentlemen. Johjis. What is't. Sir .? Bayes. Why, Sir, I make a Male person to be in Love with a Female. Smi. Do you mean that, Mr. Bayes^ for a new thing ? The Rehearsal 47 Bayes. Yes, Sir, as I have order'd it. You shall here [j/r]. He having passionately lov'd her through my five whole Playes, finding at last that she consents to his love, just after that his Mother had appear'd to him like a Ghost, he kills himself. That's one way. The other is that she coming at last to love him, with as violent a passion as he lov'd her, she kills her self. Now my question is, which of these two persons should suffer upon this occasion .? Johns. By my troth, it is a very hard case to decide. Bayes. The hardest in the World, I gad, and has puzled this pate very much. What say you Mr. Smith .? Smi. Why truly Mr. Bayes, if it might stand with your justice now, I would spare 'em both. Bayes. I gad, and I think — ha — why then, I'l make him hinder her from killing her selfe. Ay, it shall be so. Come, come, bring in the Funeral. Enter a Funeral, with the two Usurpers and Attendants. Lay it down there : no, no, here. Sir. So now speak. K. Ush. Set down the Funeral Pile, and let our grief Receive, from its imbraces, some relief. K. Phys. Was't not unjust to ravish hence her breath. And, in life's stead, to leave us nought but death ? The World discovers now its emptiness. And, by her loss, demonstrates we have less. Bayes. Is not this good language now ? is not that elevate ? 'Tis my non ultra, I gad. You must know they were both in love with her. Sf7ii. With her? with Vx^hom ? Bayes. Why, this is Lardella's Funeral. Smi. Lardella ! I, who is she? 48 The Rehearsal Bayes. Why, Sir, the Sister of Drawcansir. A Lady that was drown'd at Sea, and had a wave for her Winding sheet. K. Us/j. Lardella^ O Lardella^ from above. Behold the Tragic issues of our Love. Pity us, sinking under grief and pain, For thy being cast away upon the Main. Bayes. Look you now, you see I told you true. Smi. I, Sir, and thank you for it, very kindly. Bayes. Ay, I gad, but you will not have patience ; honest M. — a — you will not have patience. Johns. Pray, Mr. Bayes^ who is that Drawcansir} Bayes. Why, Sir, a fierce Hero^ that frights his Mistress, snubs up Kings, baffles Armies, and does what he will, without regard to numbers, good manners, or justice. • Johns. A very pretty Character. Smi. But, Mr. Bayes, I thought your Heroes had ever been men of great humanity and justice. Bayes. Yes, they have been so ; but for my part, I prefer that one quality of singly beating of whole Armies above all your moral virtues put together, I gad. You shall see him come in presently. Zookers, why don't you read the paper? [To the Players. K. Phys. O, cry you mercy. [Goes to take the paper. Bayes. Pish ! nay you are such a fumbler. Come ri read it my self. [Takes a paper from off the Coffn. Stay, it's an ill hand, I must use my Spectacles. This, now, is a Copy of Verses, which I make Lardella compose, just as she is dying, with design to have it pin'd upon her Coffin, and so read by one of the Usurpers, who is her Cousin. The Rehearsal 49 Smi. A very shrewd design that, upon my word, Mr. Bayes. iBayes. And what do you think now I fancy her to make Love like, here, in the paper? Smi. Like a -Woman : what should she make Love like ? Bayes. O'my word you are out tho, Sir ; I gad, you are. ^ Smi. What then .? like a man ? Bayes. No, Sir ; like a Humble Bee. Smi. I confess, that I should not have fancy 'd. Bayes. It may be so. Sir. But it is, tho, in order to the opinion of some of your ancient Philosophers, who held the transmigration of the soul. Smi. Very fine. Bayes. I'l read the Title. TomydearCouz, King Fhys. Smi. That's a little too familiar with a King, tho. Sir, by your favor, for a Humble Bee. Bayes. Mr. Smithy in other things. I grant your knowledge may be above me ; but, as for Poetry, give me leave to say, I understand that better : it has been longer my practice ; it has, indeed, Sir. \ Smi. Your servant, Sir. Bayes. Pray mark it. Since death my earthly part will thus remove \Reads. V\ come a Humble Bee to your chaste love. With silent wings I'll follow you, dear Couz ; Or else, before you, in the Sun-beams, buz. And when to Melancholy Groves you come. An Airy Ghost, you'l know me by my Hum ; For sound, being Air, a Ghost does well become. S^ni. (After a pause.) Admirable ! ^o The Rehearsal Bayes. At night, into your bosom I will creep, And buz but softly if you chance to sleep : Yet in your Dreams, I will pass sweeping by, And then, both Hum an[d] Buz before your eye. Johns. By my troth, that's a very great promise. Smi. Yes, and a most extraordinary comfort to boot. Bayes. Your bed of love from dangers I will free ; But most from love of any future Bee. And when with pity your heart strings shall crack, With empty arms I'l bear you on my back. Smi. A pick-a-pack, a pick-a-pack. Bayes. Ay, I gad, but is not that tuant now, ha ? is it not tuant} Here's the end. Then at your birth of immortality, Like any winged Archer, hence I'l fly, And teach you your first flutt'ring in the Sky. Johns. O rare ! This is the most natural, refin'd fancy that ever I heard, I'l swear. Bayes. Yes, I Think, for a dead person, it is a good enough way of making love: for being divested of her Terrestrial part, and all that, she is only capable of these little, pretty, amorous designs that are innocent, and yet passionate. Come, draw you[r] swords. K. Phys. Come sword, come sheath thy self within this breast. Which only in Lardella's Tomb can rest. K. Us/i. Come, dagger, come, and penetrate this heart. Which cannot from Lan/e/Za's Love depart. Enter Pallas. Pa/. Hold, stop your murd'ring hands At Pallases commands : The Rehearsal 51 For the supposed dead, O Kings, Forbear to act such deadly things. Lardella lives ; I did but try If Princes for their Loves could dye. Such Celestial constancy Shall, by the Gods, rewarded be : And from these Funeral Obsequies A Nuptial Banquet shall arise. p-" \The Coffin opens ^ and a Banquet is discover d. I Bayes. So, take away the Coffin. Now it's out. This is the very Funeral of the fair person which Volscius sent word was dead, and Pallas^ you see, has turn'd it into a Banquet. Sfni. Well, but where is this Banquet.? Bayes. Nay, look you. Sir, we must first have a Dance, for joy that Lardella is not dead. Pray, Sir, give me leave to bring in my things properly at least. Smi. That, indeed, I had forgot: I ask your pardon. Bayes. O, d'ye so. Sir? I am glad you will confess / your selfe once in an error, Mr. Smith. J Dance. K. Ush. Resplendent Pallas^ we in thee do find The fiercest Beauty, and a fiercer mind : And since to thee Lardella's life we owe. We'll supple Statues in thy Temple grow. K. Phys. Well, since alive Lardella' s found. Let, in full Boles, her Health go round. \Thetwo Usurpers take each of them a Bole in their hands. K. Ush. But Where's the Wine? Pal. That shall be mine. Lo, from this conquering Lance, 52 The Rehearsal Does flow the purest Wine oi France'. \Fills the Boles out of her Lance. And to appease your hunger, I Have, in my Helmet, brought a Pye : Lastly, to bear a part with these. Behold a Buckler made of Cheese. \yanish Pallas. Bayes. There's the Banquet. Are you satisfi'd now, Sir? Johns. By my troth, now, that is new, and more than I expected. Bayes. Yes, I knew this would please you : for the chief Art in Poetry is to elevate your expectation, and then bring you off some extraordinary way. Enter Drawcansir. K. Phys. What man is this, that dares disturb our Feast ? Draw. He that dares drink, and for that drink dares dye, And, knowing this, dares yet drink on, am I. Johns. That is, Mr. Bayes, as much as to say, that tho he would rather die than not drink, yet he would fain drink for all that too. Bayes. Right ; that's the conceipt on't. Johns. 'Tis a marvellous good one, I swear. Bayes. Now there are some Critics that have advis'd me to put out the Second Dare, and print Must in the place on't ; but, I gad, I think 'tis better thus a great deal. Johns. Whoo ! a thousand times. Bayes. Go on then. K. .Usli. Sir, if you please, weshould be glad to know. How long you here will stay, how soon you'l go.? r The Rehearsal 53 Bayes. Is not that now like a well bred person, I gad ? So modest, so gent ! Smi. O, very like. Draw. You shall not know how long I here will stay ; But you shall know I'l take your Bowles away. {Snatches the Boles out of the Kings V hands^ and drinks ''em off. Smi. But, Mr. Bayes, is that (too) modest and gent? Bayes. No, I gad, Sir, but it's great. K. Ush. Tho, Brother, this grum st[r]anger be a Clown, He'l leave us, sure, a little to gulp down. Draw. Who e'er to gulp one drop of this dares think V\ stare away his very pow'r to drink. (The two Kings sneak off the Stage, \ with their Attendants. I drink I huff, I strut, look big and stare; And all this I can do, because I dare. [Exit. Smi. I suppose, Mr. Bayes, this is the fierce Hero you spoke of. Bayes. Yes ; but this is nothing : you shall see him, in the last Act, win about a dozen Battles, one after another, I gad, as fast as they can possible come upon the Stage. Johns. That will be a fight worth the seeing indeed. Smi. But pray, Mr. Bayes, why do you make the Kings let him use 'em so scurvily .? Bayes. Phoo ! that is to raise the character of £)r^/'Z£^- cansir. Johns. O' my word, that was well thought on. Bayes. Now, Sirs I'l shew you a Scene indeed; or rather, indeed, the Scene of Scenes. 'Tis an Heroic Scene. ^^ "The Rehearsal Smi. And pray, Sir, what's your design in this Scene ? Bayes. Why, Sir, my design is guilded Truncheons, forc'd conceipt, smooth Verse, and a Rant : in fine, if this Scene do not take, I gad, I'l write no more. Come, come in, Mr. — a — nay, come in as many as you can. Gentlemen, I must desire you to remove a little, for I must fill the Stage. Smi Why fill the Stage? Bayes. O, Sir, because your Heroic Verse, never sounds well, but when the Stage is full. SciENA II. Enter Prince Pretty-man, and Prince Volscius. [5j_y£'j.]^V T AY, hold, hold; pray by your leave a X^ little. Look you. Sir, the drift of this Scene is somewhat more than ordinary : for I make 'em both fall out because they are not in love with the same Woman. Smi. Not in love.? you mean, I suppose, because they are in love, Mr. Bayest Bayes. No, Sir; I say not in love: there's a new conceipt for you. Now speak. Pret. Since fate. Prince Volscius^ now has found the way For our so long'd for meeting here this day. Lend thy attention to my grand concern. Vols. I gladly would that story from thee learn ; But thou to love dost Pretty-man^ incline : Yet love in thy breast is not love in mine? Bayes. Antithesis I Thine and mine. The Rehearsal 55 F7-et. Since love it self's the same, why should it be DifF'ring in you from what it is in me? Bayes. Reasoning ! I gad, I love reasoning in verse. Vols. Love takes Cameleon-WkQ^ a various dye From every Plant on which it self does lye. Bayes. Simile ! Pret. Let not thy love the course of Nature fright : Nature does most in harmony delight. Vols. How weak a Deity would nature prove Contending with the pow'rful God of Love ? Bayes. There's a great Verse ! Vols. If Incense thou wilt offer at the Shrine Of mighty Love, burn it to none but mine. Her Rosie-lips eternal sweets exhale ; And her bright flames make all flames else look pale. Bayes. I gad that is right. Pret. Perhaps dull Incense may thy love suffice ; But mine must be ador'd with Sacrifice. All hearts turn ashes which her eyes controul : The Body they consume as well as Soul. Vols. My love has yet a power more Divine ; Victims her Altars burn not, but refine : Amidst the flames they ne're give up the Ghost, But, with her looks, revive still as they roast. In spite of pain and death, they're kept alive: Her fiery eyes makes 'em in fire survive. Bayes. That is as well, I gad, as I can do. Vols. Let my Parthenope at length prevail. • Bayes. Civil, I gad. Pret. V\ sooner have a passion for a Whale: In whose vast bulk, tho store of Oyl doth lye, We find more shape, more beauty in a Fly. 56 The Rehearsal Smi. That's uncivil, I gad. Bayes. Yes ; but as far a fetch 'd fancy, tho, I gad, as e're you saw. Vols. Soft, Pretty-man^ let not thy vain pretence Of perfect love, defame loves excellence. Parthenope is sure, as far above All other loves, as above all is Love. Bayes. Ah ! I gad, that strikes me, Pret. To blame my Claris^ Gods would not pretend. Bayes. Now mark. Vols. Were all Gods join'd, they could not hope to mend My better choice: for fair Parthetmpe., Gods would, themselves, un-god themselves to see. Bayes. Now the Rant's a coming. Pret. Durst any of the Gods be so uncivil, rid make that God subscribe himself a Devil. Bayes. Ah, Godsookers, that's well writ ! [Scratching his head., his Perruke falls off. Vols. Could'st thou that God from Heav'n to Earth translate. He could not fear to want a Heav'nly State. Parthenope^ on Earth, can Heav'n create. Pret. Chris does Heav'n it self so far excel. She can transcend the joys of Heav'n in Hell. Bayes. There's a bold flight for you now ! 'Sdeath, I have lost my Perruke. Well, Gentlemen, this is that I never yet saw any one could write, but my self. Here's true spirit and flame all through, I gad. So, So ; pray clear the Stage. \He puts 'em off the Stage. Johns. I wonder how the coxcomb has got the knack of writing smooth Verse thus. T'he Rehearsal 57 Smi. Why there's no need of brain for this : 'tis but scaning, the labour's in the finger; but where's the sence of it ? Johns. O', for that, he desires to be excus'd : he is too proud a man to creep servily after Sense, I assure you. But pray, Mr. Bayes, why is this Scene all in Verse? Bayes. O, Sir, the subject is too great for Prose. Smi. Well said, i'faith ; I'l give thee a pot of Ale for that answer : 'tis well worth it. Bayes. Come, with all my heart. I'll make that God subscribe himself a Devil. That single line, I gad, is worth all that my brother Poets ever writ. Let down the Curtain. [^Exeunt. Finis Actus Quarti. Actus V. Sc^na I. [T'he Same.] Bayes, and the two Gentlemen. Bayes.^^^\0^ ^ Gentlemen, I will be bold to say, X^ ri shew you the greatest Scene that ever England saw : I mean not for words, for those I do not value ; but for state, shew, and magnificence. In fine I'll justifie it to be as grand to the eye every whit, I gad, as that great Scene in Harry the Eight, and grander too, I gad ; for instead of two Bishops, I bring in here four Cardinals. ^The Curtain is drawn up, the two usurping Kings appear in State, with the four Cardinals, Prince Pretty-man, Prince Volscius, Amarillis, Cloris, Parthenope, ^c. before them. Heralds and Serjeants at Arms with Maces. ^8 T^be Rehearsal Smi. Mr. Bayes, pray what is the reason that two of the Cardinals are in Hats, and the other in Caps? Bayes. Why, Sir, because — By gad, I won't tell you. Your Country friend. Sir, grows so troublesome. K. Us/i. Now, Sir, to the business of the day. K. Phys. Speak Vohcius. Vols, Dread Sovereign Lords, my zeal to you, must not invade my duty to your Son ; let me intreat that great Prince Pretty-man first do speak : whose high preheminence, in all things that do bear the name of good, may justly claim that priviledge. Bayes, Here it begins to unfold : you may perceive, now, that he is his Son. Johns. Yes, Sir ; and we are very much beholding to you for that discovery. Pret. Royal Father, upon my knees I beg, That the Illustrious Volscius first be heard. Vols. That preference is only due to Amarillis, Sir. Bayes. I'l make her speak very well, by and by, you shall see. Ama. Invincible Soveraigns — [Soft Music. K. Ush. Butstay,whatsoundisthis invades our ears.? K. Phys. Sure'tistheMusickof themovingSpheres. Pret. Behold, with wonder, yonder comes from far A God-like Cloud, and a triumphant Carr: In which, our two right Kings sit one by one. With Virgins Vests, and Laurel Garlands on. K. Ush. Then, Brother Phys 'tis time we should begon. , The two Usurpers steal out of the Throne., I and go away. Bayes. Look you now, did not I tell you that this would be as easie a change as the other.? I The Rehearsal 59 Smi. Yes, faith, you did so ; tho I confess, I could not believe you ; but you have brought it about, I see. (The two right Kings 0/' Brentford descend in the \ Clouds^ singings in white garments ; and three \ F idlers sitting before them^ in green. Bayes. Now, because the two right Kings descend from above, I make 'em sing to the Tune and Stile of our modern Spirits. 1 King. Haste, Brother King, we are sent from above. 2 King. Let us move, let us move : Move to remove the Fate Of Brentfords long united State. 1 King. Tarra, tan tarra, full East and by South, 2 King. We sail with Thunder in our mouth. In scorching noon day, whil'st the traveller 'stayes, Busie, busie, busie, busie, we bustle a long. Mounted upon warm Phoebus his Rayes, Through the Heavenly throng. Hasting to those Who will feast us, at night, with a Pigs Petty-toes. 1 King. And we'l fall with our pate In an Ollio of hate. 2 King. But now supper's done, the Servitors try, Like Souldiers, to storm a whole half-moon-pye. 1 King. They gather, they gather hot Custard in spoons, But Alas, I must, leave these half-moons, And repair to my trusty Dragoons. 2 King. O stay, for you need not as yet go astray; The Tyde, like a friend, has brought ships in our way, And on their high ropes we will play. Like Maggots in Filberds, we'l snug in our shell, 6o The Rehearsal We'l frisk in our shell We'l firk in our shell. And farewel. 1 King. But the Ladies have all inclination to dance, And the green Frogs croak out a Coranto of France. Bayes. Is not that pretty, now ? The Fiddlers are all in green. S?ni. I, but they play no Coranto. Johns. No, but they play a Tune, that's a great deal better. Bayes. No Coranto, quoth a ! that's a good one, with all my heart. Come, sing on. 2 King. Now Mortals thathear How we Tilt and Carreer, With wonder will fear The event of such things as shall never appear. 1 King. Stay you to fulfil what the Gods have decreed. 2 King. Then call me to help you, if there shall be need. I King. So firmly resolv'd is a true Brentford King To save the distressed, and help to 'em bring. That ere a Full-pot of good Ale you can swallow. He's here with a whoop, and gone with a holla. [Bayes philiips his finger^ and sings after \m. Bayes. He's here with a whoop, and gone with a holla. This, Sir, you must know, I thought once to have brought in with a Conjurer. Johns. I, that would have been better. Bayes. No, faith, not when you consider it : for thus 'tis more compendious, and does the thing every whit as well. Smi. Thing ! what thing ? T'he Rehearsal 6i Bayes. Why, bring 'em down again into the Throne, Sir ; what thing would you have ? Smi. Well ; but, methinks the Sence of this Song is not very plain. Bayes. Plain ? why did you ever hear any people in Clouds speak plain ? They must be all for flight of fancie, at its full range, without the least check, or controul upon it. When once you tye up spirits, and people in Clouds to speak plain, you spoil all. Smi. Bless me, what a Monster's this ! i'The two Kings light out of the Clouds^ and \ step into the Throne. 1 King. Come, now to serious counsel we'l advance. 2 King. I do agree ; but first, let's have a Dance. Bayes. Right. You did that very well, Mr. Cart- wright. But first, let's have a Dance. Pray remember that ; be sure you do it always just so : for it must be done as if it were the effect of thought, and premedita- tion. But first, let's have a Dance. Pray remember that. Smi. Well, I can hold no longer, I must gag this rogue ; there's no enduring of him. Johns. No, pr'thee make use of thy patience a little longer : let's see the end of him now. [^Dance a grand Dance. Bayes. This, now, is an ancient Dance, of right belonging to the Kings o^ Brentford \ but since deriv'd, with a little alteration, to the Inns of Court. An Alarm. 'Enter two Heralds. I King. What saucie Groom molests our privacies? I Her. The Army's at the door, and in disguise. Desires a word with both your Majesties : 62 ^he Rehearsal 2 Her. Having from Knights Bridge hither march 'd by stealth. 2 King. Bid 'em attend a while, and drink our health. Smi. How, Mr. Bayes} the Army in disguise? Bayes. Ay, Sir, for fear the Usurpers might discover them that went out but just now. Smi. Why, what if they had discover'd them t Bayes. Why, then they had broke the design. 1 /(^OT^. Here, take five Guineysfor those warlike men. 2 King. And here's five more ; that makes the sum just ten. 1 Her. We have not seen so much the Lord knowes when. [Exeunt Heralds. I King. Speak on, brave Amarillis. Ama. Invincible Soveraigns, blame not my modesty, If at this grand conjuncture — [^Drum beat behind the Stage. 1 King. What dreadful noise is this that comes and goes ? Enter a Souldier with his Sword drawn. Sould. Haste hence, great Sirs, your Royal persons save. For the event of war no mortal knowes: The Army, wrangling for the gold you gave. First fell to words and then to handy-blows. [Exit. Bayes. Is not that now a pretty kind of a Stanza, and a handsome come off: 2 King. O dangerous estate of Soveraign pow'r ! Obnoxious to the change of every hour. I King. Let us for shelter in our Cabinet stay : Perhaps these threat'ning storms may pass away. [Exeunt. 'The 'Rehearsal 63 Johns. But Mr. Bayes^ did not you promise us, just now, to make Amarillis speak very well. Bayes. Ay, and so she would have done, but that they hinder'd her. Smi. How, Sir, whether you would or no ,? Bayes. Ay, Sir, the Plot lay so that, I vow to gad, it was not to be avoided. Smi. Marry, that was hard. Johns. But, pray, who hindr'd her.? Bayes. Why, the battel. Sir, that's just coming in at door: And I'll tell you now a strange thing, tho I don't pretend to do more than other men, I gad, ri give you both a whole week to ghess how I'l represent this Battel. Smi. I had rather be bound to fight your Battle, I assure you. Sir. Bayes. Whoo ! there's it now: fight a Battle.? there's the common error. I knew presently where I should have you. Why pray. Sir, do but tell me this one thing. Can you think it a decent thing, in a Battle before Ladies, to have men run their Swords through one another, and all that .? Johns. No, faith, 'tis not civil. Bayes. Right on the other side ; to have a long relation of Squadrons here and Squadrons there: what is it but dull prolixity .? Johns. Excellently reason 'd by my troth ! Bayes. Wherefore, Sir, to avoid both those Indi- corums, I sum up my whole Battle in the representa- tion of two persons only, no more : and yet so lively, that, I vow to gad, you would swear ten thousand men were at it really engag'd. Do you mark me? 64 T'he Rehearsal Smi. Yes, Sir ; but I think I should hardly swear tho, for all that. Bayes. By my troth, Sir, but you would, tho, when you see it : for I make 'em both come out in Armor Cap-a-pea, with their Swords drawn, and hung, with a scarlet Ribbon at their wrists, (which you know, represents fighting enough.) Johns. I, I ; so much, that, if I were in your place I would mak 'em go out again without ever speaking one word. Bayes. No ; there you are out ; for I make each of 'em hold a Lute in his hand. SmL How Sir? instead of a Buckler? Bayes. O Lord, O Lord! instead of a Buckler? Pray Sir do you ask no more questions. I make 'em. Sir, play the battel in Recitativo. And here's the conceipt. Just at the very same instant that one sings, the other, Sir, recovers you his Sword, and puts him- self in a warlike posture : so that you have at once your ear entertained with Music and good Language; and your eye satisfied with the garb, and accoutre- ments of war. Smi. I confess Sir, you stupifie me. Bayes. You shall see. Johns. But Mr. Bayes, might not we have a little fighting ? for I love those playes, where they cut and slash one another upon the Stage, for a whole hour together. Bayes. Why, then, to tell you true I have contriv'd it both wayes. But you shall have my Recitativo first. Johns. I, now you are right : there is nothing then can be objected against it. The Rehearsal 6 z Bayes. True: and so, I gad, I'l make it, too, a Tragedy, in a trice. Enter ^ at several doors ^ the General^ and Lieutenant Gefieral, amid Cap-a-pe, with each of them a Lute in his hand^ and his sword drawn^ and hung with a scarlet Ribbon at his wrist. Lieut. Gen. Villain, thou lyest. Gen. Arm, arm, Gonsaho^ arm ; what ho ? The lye no flesh can brook I trow. Lieut. Gen. Advance, from Acton with the Mus- quetiers. Gen. Draw down the Chelsey Curiasiers. Lieut. Gen. The Band you boast of, Chelsey Curia- siers, Shall, in my Putney Pikes, now meet their Peers. Gen. Chiswickians, aged, and renown'd in fight. Join with the Hammersmith Brigade. Lieut. Gen. You'l find my Mortlake Boys will do them right. Unless by Fulham numbers over-laid. Gen. Let the left-wing of Twick'nam Foot advance. And line that Eastern hedge. Lieut. Gen. The Horse I rais'd in Petty France Shall try their chance. And scour the Meadows, over grown with Sedge. Gent. Stand : give the word. Lieut. Gen. Bright Sword. Gent. That may be thine. But 'tis not mine. Lieut. Gen. Give fire, give fire, at once give fire. And let those recreant Troops perceive mine ire. F 66 Tihe Rehearsal Gen. Pursue, pursue ; they fly That first did give the lie. [^Exeunt. Bayes. This, now, is not improper, I thinic, because the Spectators know all these Towns, and may easily conceive them to be within the Dominions of the two Kings of Brentford. Johns. Most exceeding well design'd ! Bayes. How do you think I have contriv'd to give a stop to this battle? Smi. How ? Bayes. By an Eclipse : Which, let me tell you, is a kind of fancy that was yet never so much as thought of, but by my self, and one person more, that shall be nameless. Enter Lieutenant General. Lieut. Gen. What mid-night darkness does invade the day And snatch the Victor from his conquer'd prey .? Is the Sun weary of this bloody sight. And winks upon us with the eye of light ? 'Tis an Eclipse. This was unkind, O Moon, To clap between me, and the Sun so soon. Foolish Eclipse : thou this in vain hast done, My brighter honour had Eclips'd the Sun : And now behold Eclipses two in one. [Exit. Johns. This is an admirable representation of a Battel, as ever I saw. Bayes. I, Sir. But how would you fancy now to represent an Eclipse? Smi. Why, that's to be suppos'd. Bayes. Suppos'd ! Ay, you are ever at your suppose: T^he Rehearsal 67 ha, ha, ha. Why you may as well suppose the whole Play. No, it must come in upon the Stage, that's certain ; but in some odd way, that may delight, amuse, and all that. I have a conceipt for't, that I am sure is new, and, I believe to the purpose. Johns, How's that ? Bayes. Why, the truth is, I took the first hint of this out of a Dialogue, between Phoebus and Aurora in the Slighted Maid \ which by my troth, was very pretty ; but I think, you'l confess this is a little better. Johns. Nodoubton't,Mr. 5^j/6'j-. A great deal better. [Bayes hugs Johnson, then turns to Smith. Bayes. Ah dear Rogue : but — a — Sir, you have heard I suppose, that your Eclipse of the Moon, is no thing else, but an interposition of the Earth, between the Sun and Moon : as likewise your Eclipse of the Sun is caus'd by an interlocation of the Moon, betwixt the Earth and Sun ? Smi. I have heard some such thing indeed. Bayes. Well, Sir, then what do me I, but make the Earth, Sun, and Moon, come out upon the Stage, and dance the Hey : hum ; And, of necessity, by the very nature of this Dance, the Earth must be some- times between the Sun and the Moon, and the Moon between the Earth and Sun ; and there you have both your Eclipses, by demonstration. Johns. That must needs be very fine truly. Bayes. Yes, it has fancy in't. And then. Sir, that there may be something in't too of a Joque, I bring 'em in all singing, and make the Moon sell the Earth a bargain. Come, come out Eclipse to the Tune of 'Tom Tyler. 68 The Rehearsal Enter Luna. Luna. Orbis^ O Orbis. Come to me thou little rogue Orbis. Enter the Earth. Orb. Who calls Terra firma^ pray? Luna. Luna that ne'r shines by day. Orb. What means Luna in a veil? Luna. Luna means to shew her tail. Bayes. There's the bargain. Enter Sol, to the Tune o/" Robin Hood. Sol. Fie, Sister, fie ; thou mak'st me muse, Derry, derry down. To see the Orb abuse. Lujia. I hope his anger 'twill not move ; Since I shew'd it out of love. Hey down derry down. Orb. Where shall I thy true love know. Thou pretty, pretty Moon ? Luna. To morrow soon, ere it be noon, On Mount Vesuvio. [Bis. Sol. Then I will shine. [To the Tune ^i/Trenchmore. Orb. And I will be fine. Luna. And I will drink nothing but Lippary wine. O nines. And we, &c. [As they Dance the Hey^ Bayes speaks. Bayes. Now the earth's before the Moon ; now the Moon's before the Sun : there's the Eclipse again. Smi. He's mightily taken with this I see. Johns. I, 'tis so extraordinary, how can he chuse? Bayes. So, now, vanish Eclipse, and enter t'other K The Rehearsal 69 Battle, and fight. Here now, if I am not mistaken, you will see fighting enough. 'A battel is fought between foot and great Hobby horses. At last^ Drawcansir comes in and kills 'em all on both sides. All this while the Battel is fghting Bayes is telling them when to shout^ and shouts with em. Draw. Others may host a single man to kill ; But I, the blood of thousands daily spill. Let petty Kings the names of Parties know : Where e'er I come, I slay both friend and foe. The swiftest Horsmen my swift rage controuls, And from their Bodies drives their trembling souls. If they had wings, and to the Gods could flie, I would pursue and beat 'em through the skie : And make proud Jove^ with all his Thunder, see This single Arm more dreadful is, than he. \Rxit. Bayes. There's a brave fellow for you now. Sirs. You may talk of your Hector^ and Achilles^ and I know not who ; but I defie all your Histories, and your Romances too, to shew me one such Conqueror as this Drawcansir. Johns. I swear, I think you may. ^mi. But Mr. Bayes ^ how shall all these dead men go off.? for I see none alive to help 'em. Bayes. Go off, why, as they came on ; upon their legs : how should they go off.? Why do you think the people here don't know they are not dead.? He is mighty ignorant, poor man; you[r] friend here is very silly. Mr. Johnson^ I gad, he is, ha, ha, ha. Come, Sir, I'l show you how they shall go off. Rise, rise. Sirs, and go about your business. There's 70 T^he Ke hear sal go off for you now, Ha, ha, ha. Mr. Ivory^ a word. Gentlemen, I'l be with you presently. \_Exit. Johns. Will you so .? then we'l be gone. Smi. I, pr'ythee let's go, that we may preserve our hearing. One Battel more will take mine quite away, j [Exeunt. Enter Bayes and Players. Bayes. Where are the Gentlemen ? I Play. They are gone. Sir. Bayes. Gone ! 'Sdeath, this last Act is best of all. ri go tell 'em again. [Exit. 1 Play. What shall we do, now he is gone away? 2 Play. Why, so much the better; then let's go to dinner. 3 Play. Stay, here's a foul piece of papyr of his. Let's see what 'tis. 3 or 4 Play. I, I ; come let's hear it. Reads. The Argument of the Fifth Act. 3 Play. Cloris at length, being sensible of Prince Pretty-maiis passion, consents to marry him ; but, just as they are going to Church, Prince Pretty-man meet- ing, by chance, with old Joan the Chandlers widdow, and remembring it was she that first brought him acquainted with Cloris : out of a high point of honour, brake off his match with Cloris, and marries old Joan. Upon which, Cloris, in despair, drowns her self: and Frince Pretty-man, discontentedly, walkes by the River side. This will never do : 'tis just like the rest. Come, let's begone. Most of the Play. Ay, pox on't, let's go away. \ Exeunt. The Rehearsal Jl Enter Bayes. Bayes. A plague on 'em both for me, they have made me sweat, to run after 'em. A couple of sence- less raskals, that had rather go to dinner then see this play out, with a pox to 'em. What comfort has a man to write for such dull rogues.? Come Mr. — a — Where are you. Sir.? come a way quick, quick. Enter Stage-keeper. Stage. Sir, they are gone to dinner. Bayes. Yes, I know the Gentlemen are gone ; but I ask for the Players. Stage. Why, an't please your worship, Sir, the Players are gone to dinner too. Bayes. How ! are the Players gone to Dinner?^^ 'Tis impossible : the Players gone to dinner ! I gad, if they are, I'l make 'em know what it is to injure a person that does 'em the honour to write for 'em, and all that. A company of proud, conceited, humorous, cross-grain'd persons, and all that. I gad, I'l make 'em the most contemptible, despicable, inconsiderable persons, and all that, in the whole world for this trick. I gad I'l be reveng'd on 'em ; I'l sell this play to the other House. Stage. Nay, good. Sir, don't take a way the Book ; you'l disappoint the company that comes to see it acted here, this after noon. Bayes. That's all one. I must reserve this comfort to my self, my Play and I shall go together, we will not part indeed. Sir. Stage. But what will the Town say, Sir.? Bayes. The Town ! why, what care I for the Town? 72 T^he Rehearsal I gad, the Town has us'd me as scurvily, as the Players have done: but I'l be leveng'd on them too ; for ri Lampoon 'em all. And Since they will not admit of my Plays, they shall know what a Saty- rist I am. And so farewel to this Stage, I gad, for ever. \'Exit Bayes. Enter Players. 1 Piay. Come then, let's set up Bills for another Play. 2 Play. I, I ; we shall lose nothing by this I warrant you. 1 Play. I am of your opinion. But before we go, let's see Haynes and Shirley practise the last dance ; for that may serve us another time. 2 Play. V\ call 'em in. I think they are but in the Tiring-room. 'The Dance done. I Play. Come, come; let's go away to dinner, [Exeunt Omnes. EPILOGUE THE Play is at an end^ but whereas the Plot f T'hat circumstance our Poet Ba-jes forgot. And we can boast., tho ^tis a plotting Age., No place is freer from it than the Stage. The Ancients plotted^ tho^ and Strove to please With sence that might be understood with ease ; They every Scene with so much wit did store. That who brought any in., went out with ?nore : ' But this new way of wit does so surprise. Men lose their wits in wondring where it lyes. If it be true, that Monstrous births presage The following mischiefs that ajfflict the Age, And sad disasters to the State proclaim ; Plays without head or tail, may do the same. Wherefore, for ours, and for the Kingdomes peace. May th is prodigious_ way_of^'^^^^^^-^'^K ^('a'ie,, Lefs have, at least, once in our lives, a time When we may hear some reasen, not all Rhyme : We have these ten years felt it's Infuence ; Pray let this prove a year of Prose and Scence. FINIS. THE EPILOGUE TO TYRANNIC LOVE. Originally spoken by Nell Gwynnc {-vide p. 148). From Vol. ii of Buckingham's fVork^JiiyiAV [To face p. 75, NOTES Prologue. 1. lo. King Cambyses vein. The allusion here is to Falstaff's well-known speech, i King Henry /^, Act ii, Scene 4. *Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept ; for 1 must speak in pas- sion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein.' Shakespeare, of course, is glancing at Preston's ranting old play, A Lafnentable Tragedie mixed full of pleasant mirth^ containing the Life of Cambises^ King of Percia (4to, 1570), which has been reprinted in collections of our early drama. 1. 1 6. / have hedg d in my Bet. To hedge in a bet is to stake on both sides of a wager so that there must be a certainty of winning. If the critics laugh Lacy will have attained his object ; if they take the play quite seriously he will turn tragedian forthwith. Act I. p. 2. Fightings Loving^ Sleeping. 'The very first reflection ', writes Dryden in his Essay on Heroic plays, prefixed to The Conquest of Granada (1670), 'which 1 made was this, — that an heroic play ought to be an imitation (in little) of an heroic poem, and consequently that Love and Valour ought to be the subject of it.' p. 2. Mr. Bayes passes o'er the Stage. The name Bayes was retained owing to the fact that Dryden had been appointed Poet Laureate in August, 1670. The patent is given 18 August, and the salary fixed at ;^2oo a year, besides the butt of sack and the due payment of various arrears. About 1678 Charles granted him an additional ;^ioo. Dryden held this post as well as that of Historio- grapher Royal until the Revolution, when, as a Catholic, he 76 Notes refused the oaths to William and Mary, and the forfeited laurel was bestowed on Shadwell, the hardiest of Whigs, although, as Dorset was bound to confess, by no means the best of poets. It has been absurdly proposed by some over-curious critic that Bayes is derived from two words in the Biscayan dialect Bai or Bay = yes, Es = no. 'Was it an allusion to any marked wavering in Dryden's views and opinions.^' he asks. Nothing of the sort is recorded. These trivial ingenuities belong to the very cobwebs of criticism. The nickname Bayes clung to Dryden ever after, and in his Epilogue to All for Love (1678), he makes use of it himself thus : — 'For our poor wretch, he neither rails or prays. Nor likes your wit just as you h'ke his plays; He has not yet so much of Mr. Bayes.' Dryden is said to have allowed The Rehearsal to have ' a great many good strokes in it', although he added, '1 can't help saying that Smith and Johnson are two of the coolest, most insignificant fellows I ever met with on the stage.' The laureate felt the smart. p. 3. ''/« all new Wit. There is an extant letter of Orrery, in which he states he has just finished 'a play in the French manner' and hopes it will prove no small success 'as it is wrote in a new way'. p. 3. P/>, box and gallery. The Key (1709) tells us that these were favourite expressions of the Hon. Ed. Howard at a rehearsal. This author was the fifth son of Thomas Howard, first Earl of Berkshire, K.G. He was baptized at St. Martin's-in-the-Field, 2 November, 1624. At the Restoration, like several of his brothers, he turned his thoughts to literature, and produced some half a dozen plays with little success. Dr. Doran's criticism is an entirely just one: 'His characters "talk", but they are engaged in no plot ; and they exhibit a dull lack of incident.' T^he Usurper^ a tragedy, was produced in the winter of 1662. Pepys saw it on 2 January, 1663, when he went 'To the King's house, Notes yy and there saw The Usurper which is no good play.' On 2 December, 1668, he and his wife ride in their own coach for the first time, and 'so she and I to the King's playhouse, and there saw The Usurper^ a pretty good play in all but what is designed to resemble Cromwell and Hugh Peters, which is mighty silly.' There seems no need to differ over- much from the diarist's opinion. The play was printed (4to, 1668). The scene is laid in Sicily. Damocles, the usurper, represents Oliver Cromwell, Hugo de Petra is his 'parasite and creature', whilst Cleomenes 'a faithful noble person' thinly veils General Monk. Cleander, 'the true king, dis- guised like a Moor under the name of Hiarbas' is for a while a prisoner, having been captured in battle, but in due time he reveals himself and recovers the throne. Damocles resorts to the ever-ready dagger, and Hugo is hanged. Howard's next production was The British Princes (1669), an heroic poem which called down a shower of ridicule on his head. As poetry it is quite worthless, but it contains the famous couplet : — 'And Vortigern a painted vest had on Which from a naked Pict his grandslre won.' The Six Days Adventure^ or the New Utopia (4to, 1671), was acted at the Duke of York's house. It was a failure, and yet is perhaps the best of Howard's extant plays. The author in a long preface attributes his ill success to a clique who seemed to have caused a riot in the theatre, and practi- cally prevented the performance. Aphara Behn in a copy of commendatory verses has the impudence to compare Howard to Ben Jonson, much to the disparagement of the latter: — 'Were he alive, he would resign to you ; Thou hast outdone even what he writ, In this last great example of thy wit, Thy Solymour does this his Morose destroy, And thy black page undoes his barber's boy, His whole college of ladies must retire, Whilst we thy braver heroines do admire.' Absurdity could reach no further ! Sir Grave Solymour in his piece is tricked by his son Festlin into a mock marriage 78 Notes with a negress, who afterwards proves to be a black page- boy. There is also some borrowing from Fletcher. The Women's Conquest (4to, 1671), a tragi-comedy, was acted by the Duke of York's servants. It is a dull dis- appointing play ; one feels that something might have been made of the characters and situations, but in Howard's hands all are uniformly arid. The scene lies in Scythia, where we meet with various pseudo-classical Amazons. Mrs. Inchbald's Comedy, Every One has his Faulty acted at Covent Garden, 29 January, 1793, has borrowed from this source the characters of Sir Robert Ramble, Miss Woodburn, Mr. and Mrs. Placid. The Man of Newmarket (4to, 1678), acted at the Theatre Royal, is solely interesting on account of the scenes in which jockeys, trainers, and racers appear, as giving us a glimpse of a Restoration race-meeting. The scene, however, is actually laid in London. The London Gentleman^ entered in the Stationers' Register, 7 August, 1667, has not come down to us. On 15 April, 1667, Pepys went 'to the King's house by chance, where a nev/ play ; So full as I never saw it . . . and many people went away for want of room. The King and Queen and Duke of York and Duchess there and all the Court. . . . The play called The Change of Crowns : A play of Ned Howard's, the best that I ever saw at that house being a great play and a serious ; only Lacy did act the country gentleman come up to Court, who do abuse the Court with ail the imaginable wit and plainness about selling of places and doing everything for money. The play took very much.' On the following day he took his wife to the new play, only to find that it had been suddenly withdrawn and The Silent Woman was being performed in its stead. Charles, Mrs. Knipp whispers to him, is furious at being abused to his face. Lacy has been promptly lodged in jail, and, until Mohun interceded with the irate king, the company had been forbidden to act again. 'The King mighty angry ; and it was bitter indeed,' comments Pepys, 'but very fine and witty.' Unfortunately, immediately after his release. Notes 79 Lacy met Howard at the theatre. The dramatist congratulated him on so soon regaining his freedom, to which the actor replied by cursing Howard and his nonsensical play. High words ensued, and Lacy shouted that Howard was *more a fool than a poet'. In a fury the author slapped the player's face sharply with his glove, and Lacy, having a cane in his hand, did not hesitate to deal his opponent a sharp crack over the head. Thereupon the town wondered that 'Howard did not run him through, he being too mean a fellow to fight with.' But Howard merely complained to the king, and the theatre was once again closed, to the great delight of the gentry who were weary of the actors' insolence. Unfortunately The Change of Crowns has never been printed. In 1689 Howard produced Caroloiades\ a heroic poem. He also prefixed commendatory verses to Mrs. Behn's poems (1685), and to Dryden's Virgil {i6()^). The Earl of Dorset dubs him the ' best good man with the worse natured muse '. There is a tradition that Shirley assisted him in his work. If so, it would have been The Usurper which. thus benefited, but I can discern no trace of the elder drama- tist's hand. This is alluded to, however, inthe following lines: 'Ned Howard, in whom great nature is found, Though never took notice of until that day, Impatiently sat till it came to his round, Then rose and commended the plot of his play. Such arrogance made Apollo stark mad, But Shirley endeavoured to appease his choler. By owning the play, and swearing the lad, In poetry was a very pert scholar.' p. 4. The help of these my Rules. Cf. The Prologue to The Maiden Queen (1667) : — *He who writ this, not without pains and thought ^ From French and English Theatres has brought The exactest rules by which a Play is wrought : The Unities of Action, Place, and Time ; The Scenes unbroken ; and a mingled chime Of Jonson's humour, with Corneille's rhyme.' 8o Notes Corneille is with Dryden a trisyllable as in French. The same pronounciation occurs in the epilogue to Oedipus (1678). Langbaine in his Account of English Dramatic Poets^ noticing Dryden's Secret Love or The Maiden Queen says : * I can- not pass by his making use of Bayes's art of transversing, as any one may observe by comparing the fourth stanza of his first prologue with the last paragraph of the preface of Ibrahim.'' The title of this work is as follows : Ibrahim. Or the Illustrious Bassa. An excellent new Romance. The whole Work in four Parts. Written in French by Monsieur de Scudery. And now Englished by Henry Cogan, gent. London 1652. The paragraph referred to runs thus: * Behold, Reader, that which I had to say to you, but what defence soever I have imployed, I know that it is of works of this nature, as of a place of war, where notwithstanding all the care the Engineer hath brought to fortify it, there is always some weak part found, which he hath not dreamed of, and whereby it is assaulted ; but this shall not surprise me ; for as T have not forgot that I am a man, no more have I forgot that 1 am subject to err.' Cf. The Prologueto TheMaiden Queen (1667): 'Plays are like Towns, which howe'er fortified By Engineers, have still some weaker side By the o'erseen Defendant unespy'd.' p. 4. Putting Verse into Prose should be calFd Transprosing. Cf. the following stanza in Poems on State Affairs, vol. ii. (1703), which satirizes the Duke of Buckingham : — 'With transcribing of these, and transversing those. With transmitting of rhyme and transversing prose. He has dressed up his farce with other men's clothes.' p. 5, I come into a Coffee-house. Scott's vivid picture of Dryden in The Pirate, ch. xiv, is among the commonplaces of literature. At Will's famous coffee-house the laureate would sit in his own chair, placed by the fire in winter, in summer on the balcony, and so discuss and adjudicate the literary movements of the day, whilst younger aspirants to fame gathered round, hoping to be able to boast anon the honour of a pinch from the great man's snuff-box. Notes 8 1 p. 7. She is my Mistress. The lovely Mrs. Anne Reeve was a member of Killigrew's company, which she appears to have joined about the same time as Nell Gwynne, whose first recorded performance was in 1665. In Downes' list the name Mrs. Knight occurs amongst the women of the King's Servants, an erratum corrected to Mrs. Reeve on the verso of the title page. Some confusion has been caused by Waldron, who, misled by an error of the old printer, in his edition of Downes wrongly corrected the erratum; but in 1670 the prompter duly notes Mrs. Reeve as Esperanza in The Con- quest of Granada^ to which character 'bel esperansa de ma vie ' obviously alludes. After the fire, 1672, we find her at the temporary Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre acting Philotis in Marriage a la Mode, and Ascanio, the page, in The Assigna- tion. In the same year she performed a male part in The Maiden Queen, when it was * done by the Women only ', and, dressed as a boy, spoke the epilogue. About 1675 she disappeared from the stage to take the veil in a foreign cloister, a fact which is alluded to in the epilogue to Otway's Don Carlos (1676), when the speaker, a girl, says : — 'But now, if by my suit you'll not be won, — You know what your unkindness oft has done, — I'll e'en forsake the play-house, and turn nun.' Rochester too, in his Session of the Poets, makes capital of this incident : — 'In the head of the gang, John Dryden appeared. That ancient grave wit so long loved and feared. But Apollo had heard a story i' the Town, Of his quitting the Muses to wear a black gown ; And so gave him leave now his poetry's done. To let him turn priest since Reeve is turned nun.' Mrs. Reeve had more beauty than talent. The roles she essayed were small, and as an actress she met with little success. It was no doubt the coldness of her audiences that turned her thoughts to religion. Probably she owed her appearance on the boards to her lover as she chiefly performed in his plays. Of Dryden's amour with her there can be no doubt. Tradition is unanimous on the point. Even if we G 82 Notes attribute small weight to the mass of Restoration satire, some of which at any rate cannot have been without ample foundation, we still find the laureate's name coupled with that of Mrs. Reeve in a way the very persistence of which would have been utterly vapid and pointless, were not the fact of their intrigue public property. In Covent Garden Drollery {iGyi), there is a song addressed to * Dear Reveechia ', which is almost certainly by Dryden, and the ladies of the King's Theatre proved, it is to be feared, as frail as the ladies of the King's Court. Nell Gwynne, * whose name was last on Charles' lips,' ruled the monarch himself; Mrs. Hughes was the mistress of Prince Rupert ; Mrs. Susanna Uphill swayed the somewhat erratic heart of Sir Robert Howard, *and refused to marry him', as the old pamphlet says ; Ann and Rebecca Marshall were notorious for their profligate lives ; sweet-voiced Mrs. Knipp gave Pepys' wife only too much cause for jealousy ; Mrs. Fanny Davenport 'left the house to be kept by somebody'. It is improbable that pretty Mrs. Reeve was singular in her conduct. As late as 1682 Shadwell in the preface to his foul-mouthed satire. The Medal of John Bayes^ says, 'His (Dryden's) pros- tituted muse will become as common for hire as his mistress Revesia was, upon whom he spent so many hundred pounds.' There was published in the Gentleman s Magazine of 1745, a letter written by an old man of eighty-seven (who may possibly be Southerne), which gives us a vivid picture of the poet about the time of the first performance of The Conquest of Granada. 'I remember plain John Dryden, before he paid his court with success to the great, in one uniform clothing of Norwich drugget. I have ate tarts with him and Madam Reeve at the Mulberry Garden, when our author advanced to a sword and Chedreux wig.' In the same number of the Magazine another writer breaks into verse when he recalls the actors who made Marriage a la Mode so brilliant a success : — 'Gibber will smile applause: and think again Of Hart, of Mohun, and all the female train, Coxe, Marshall, Dryden's Reeve, Bet Slade, and Charles' reign ! Notes 83 Mr. Saintsbury's well-meant efforts entirely to clear the poet's name must inevitably fall to the ground, but this is far from saying that one need be committed to the extreme views of Mr. T. R. Green and Mr. Christie, who lash Dryden with unsparing and uncalled for severity. Mr. R. Bell would apparently indemnify the man at the expense of his works. 'The morality of his life', he writes, 'was unimpeachable. The ingenuity of slander was exhausted in assailing his principles and exposing his person to obloquy — but the morality of his life comes pure out of the furnace.' He also adds, 'The licentiousness of Dryden's plays admits of no palliation in this way with those of others. Shadwell alone transcended him in depravity.' Of such reckless statements as these we can only say that the writer who is bold enough to make them betrays a crass ignorance of the Restoration drama and literature which a not very wide and laborious reading must have speedily corrected. p. 8. Two Kings. The two Kings of Brentford are probably intended for Mahomet Boabdelin, the last King of Granada, and Prince Abdalla, his traitrous brother, in The Conquest of Granada (1670), both parts of which had just been produced with triumphant success. In Marriage a la Mode (1672), Polydamas, the usurper of Sicily, is eventually dethroned by his daughter's lover, Leonidas, 'the rightful prince, unknown'. Although this play was produced a few months after The Rehearsal, doubt- less much of it had been already written, and shown about the town, so the imbroglio of the plot would be no secret to Buckingham. The 1 704 Key refers to The United Kingdoms^ by Colonel Henry Howard, which play, it states, had two Kings in it. This was acted shortly after the Restoration, but never printed. p. 9. Artificial. In the common old sense, 'well-contrived'. p. 10. My first Prologue. Although sufficiently bizarre, the idea of this prologue is equalled by many addresses which were really spoken. There is Joe Haines' famous epilogue, 'spoken on an ass upon the head of which he has placed a periwig', and yet another which he declaimed dressed in a 84 Notes white sheet, holding a penitent's taper ; in the prologue to 'The Wild Gallant (1662), two astrologers appear, who proceed to erect a scheme for the new play to ascertain its fortune or failure; in Mrs. Behn's The Emperor of the Moon (1687), the prologue was spoken by the famous harlequin Jevon, and during its progress *The head rises upon a twisted post, on a bench from under the stage. Jevon speaks to its mouth . . . after this it sings Sawny, laughs, cries "God bless the King!" in order'. p. 10. They all dapping. Cf the epilogue to Thomson, The English Rogue (4to, 1668) : — 'Join all your forces now and set me free One score of claps and I'm at liberty (Clap) Now, gentlemen, I hope you're satisfied. On the same covenant to clap. . ^ (CWp again)' The stage directions must have been inserted for a whole army of claqueurs. p. 10. Flame and Power. Cf the epistle dedicatory to The Indian Emperor, 12 October, 1667, where Dryden says of his play, * 'Tis an irregular piece, if compar'd with many of Corneille's ; and, if I make a judgment of it, written with more flame than art.' p. II. A hundred sheets of papyr. The Indian Q«^^;/, which is much more Sir Robert Howard's than Dryden's, was produced at the King's house in January, 1663. Brought out with all the splendour of costume and scenery the theatre could command, it proved an enormous success. On 27 January, 1663, Pepys noticed that the streets were 'full of coaches at the new play. The Indian Queen, which for show, they say, exceeds Henry VIII.' On i February, he accordingly visits the theatre and finds it 'indeed a most pleasant show, and beyond my expectation.' The famous tragedian, Mrs. Marshall, acted Zempoalla, the usurping Queen of Mexico. Mrs. Behn, in Oroonoko, ttWs us how, whilst at Surinam, she was presented by the natives with a robe and crown of brilliant feathers from the tropical birds, which costume she gave to the King's Theatre. 'It was the dress of the Indian Queen, infinitely admired by persons of Notes 85 quality; and was inimitable.' The Indian Queen is far from being a bad tragedy, with much scope for magnificent scenery and show, common both to Elizabethan masques and the modern stage. Purcell's exquisite setting of Ismeron's song, 'You twice ten hundred deities' is still happily remembered. The sequel, The Indian Emperor^ is by Dryden only. It crowded the Theatre nightly, partially, perhaps, because as he says in the prologue : — 'The scenes are old, the habits are the same, We wore last year before the Spaniards came.' It is a very good piece of its kind, and deals with the conquest of Mexico by Cortez. The paper prefixed to the play, showing the connection between the two is as follows : ' Connection of The Indian Emperor to The Indian Queen. 'The conclusion of the Indian Queen, (part of which poem was writ by me) left little matter for another Story to be built on, there remaining but two of the considerable characters alive, (viz.) Montezuma and Orazia ; thereupon the Author of this, thought it necessary to produce new persons from the old ones ; and considering the late Indian Queen, before she loved Montezuma, liv'd in clandestine Marriage with her general Traxalla from those two he has raised a son and two daughters, supposed to be left young orphans at their death : On the other side he has given to Montezuma and Orazia, two sons and a daughter ; all now supposed to be grown up to mens and womens estate ; and their mother Orazia (for whom there was no further use in the story) lately dead. 'So that you are to imagine about twenty years elapsed since the coronation of Montezuma ; who, in the truth of the history, was a great and glorious Prince ; and in whose time happened the Discovery and Invasion of Mexico by the Spaniards ; under the conduct of Hernando Cortez, who joining with the Taxallan-Indians, the invetrate enemies of Montezuma, wholly subverted that flourishing Empire ; the conquest of which, is the subject of this Dramatic Poem. 86 Notes ' I have neither wholly followed the story nor varied from it ; and, as near as I could, have traced the native simplicity and io-norance of the Indians, in relation to European customs : The shipping, armour, horses, swords, and guns of the Spaniards, being as new to them as their habits, and their language. 'The difference of their Religion from ours, I have taken from the Story itself; and that which you find of it in the first and fifth Acts, touching the sufferings and constancy of Montezuma in his opinions. I have only illustrated, not altered from those who have written of it.' Cydaria, Montezuma's daughter, was originally acted by Nell Gwynne. According to Pepys, she played it 'most basely', having no genius for tragedy. Both plays continued exceedingly popular and were frequently acted during the first half of the eighteenth century. p. 1 1. Choice female spirits. The allusion here is to Lady Castlemaine who, upon the failure of Dryden's ^he Wild Gallant, first produced in February, 1663, by the King's Company, then acting in Vere Street, took the poor play under her special protection, and, after a few alterations, had it performed more than once at Court. Here Pepys was privileged to see it on 23 February, 1663, but he says that 'it was ill acted, and the play so poor a thing as ever I saw in my life. The King did not seem pleased at all, the whole play, nor anybody else. My Lady Castlemaine was all worth seeing to-night, and little Steward.' In spite of his patroness' efforts the piece was doomed to complete failure. It is indeed the weakest of Dryden's comedies. He addressed, however, a copy of verses 'To The Lady Castlemaine, upon her encouraging his first play', which he afterwards reprinted in his third volume of Miscellany Poems (1693), with the motto from Lucan ' Victrix causa Deis placuit, sed victa Catoni'. In later years it was Buckingham who, although he had once been her lover, revealed Barbara Villiers' intrigue with the 'invincible Jermyn ' to Charles II, and thus enabled the King to release himself, in some small measure at any rate, from the thraldom of the fair termagant. Notes 87 p. 12. There are certain lyes upon me. Early in 1668 Dryden completed a contract with Killigrew's company to write three plays a year for them in consideration of receiving an annual share and a quarter of the profits of the house. He notoriously neglected to keep his agreement, but nevertheless regularly obtained his part of the profits, which gave him an income averaging, for some years at least, from £,2>^o to ;^400. After the King's Theatre was burned down, 25 January, 1672, the shares naturally decreased in value, and difficulties arose. We learn these details from an official complaint, signed by Charles Killigrew, Hart, Burt, Goodman and Mohun, addressed against Dryden, on the occasion of the production of Oedipus (1679), in which he collaborated with Lee, at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Gardens. *The house being burned,' says the memorial, 'the Company in building another contracted great debts, so that the shares fell much short of what they were formerly. Thereupon Mr. Dryden complaining to the Company of his want of profit, the Company was so kind to him that they not only did not press him for the plays which he is engaged to write for them, and for which he was paid beforehand, but they did also, at his earnest request, give him a third day for his last new play, called All for Love^ and at the receipt of the money of the said third day he acknowledged it as a gift and a particular kindness of the Company'. They, moreover, state that Dryden's action proved to the 'great prejudice and almost undoing of the Company'; and further, when Crowne's Destruction of Jerusalem (1677) was refused by the Duke's House and brought to them, none the less, before they could play it, they were compelled to 'buy off the claim' of the rival theatre, a proceeding which entailed no little expense. The King's actors then, not unreasonably, proceed to demand that either Dryden may be compelled to give them the play, or the Dorset Garden Theatre obliged to hand over the profits. We do not know if any compensation was allowed, but at this juncture Dryden promptly quarrelled with and forsook the King's House. Henceforth his plays 88 Notes were produced by the Duke's company. The two theatres, however, amalgamated in 1682. p. 12. / inake my Prologue to be Dialogue. Prologues and epilogues in dialogue are very usual. The direct allusion here is, perhaps, to Sir Robert Howard's prologue to The Duke of Lerma (1668), which, spoken by Nell Gwynne and Mrs. Knipp, attained great celebrity, more from the verve and spirit of the two talented actresses than from any merits of its own. Pepys says 'Knipp and Nell spoke the prologue most excellently, especially Knipp, who spoke beyond any creature I ever heard.' The prologue to Orrery's Tryphon (1669), was spoken by the celebrated low comedians Nokes and Angel ; that to The Indian Queen (1664), by an Indian boy and girl who, discovered * sleeping under two plaintain trees ', are awakened by strains of martial music. The prologue to The Rival Ladies (1663), is also, partially at least, in dialogue. This custom of occasionally introducing two or even three actors to speak prologue or epilogue continued in vogue as long as those addresses themselves. The epilogue to Garrick and Colman's The Clandestine Marriage (1786), is indeed quite a miniature play,afterthe style of Moliere's Critiquede VEcoledes FemmeSj being spoken and sung by nearly a dozen characters. p. 12. At that lock. Lock is a term from the wrestling ring. p. 13. So Boar and Sow. This passage burlesques Alma- hide's simile. Conquest of Granada^ 11, Act i, Scene 2 : — *So two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh, Look up, and see it gath'ring in the sky : Each calls his mate to shelter in the groves, Leaving, in murmurs, their unfinish'd loves; Perch'd on some dropping branch, they sit alone, And coo, and hearken to each other's moan.' p. 13. Gruntle. Dryden himself uses this form in Troilus aftd Cressida, or^ Truth found too Late (1679), Act iv, 2, where Thersites says, 'So, the boars begin to gruntle at one another.' cf Somerville, The Chase (1735), ^'^j ZTi^- 'By Circe's charms To swine transformed ran gruntling thro' the groves.' Notes 89 p. 13. I am the bold Thunder. The prologue to Jordan's Money is an Ass (410, 1668), is spoken by Night, and that to The Rival Friends is a dialogue between Venus, Phoebus, and Thetis, *sung by two trebles and a bass,' but this prologue burlesques the following passage from Act iii of Sir Robert Stapylton's comedy. The Slighted Maid {i6G'T^)y played by Davenant's company. *SoNG IN Dialogue. Evening. I am an Evening dark as night, Jack-with-the-Lantern, bring a h'glit. Jack. Whither, whither, whither ? [IFithin.) Evening. Hither, hither, hither. Jack. Thou art some pratling Eclio, of my making. Evening. Thou art a foolish Fire, by thy mistaking : I am the Evening that creates thee. Enter Jack in a black suit border''d ivith glow-worms^ a coronet of shaded beams on his head^ over it a paper lantern luith a candle int. Jack. My Lantern and my Candle waits thee. Evening. Those flageolets that we heard play, Are reapers that have lost their way ; They play, they sing, they dance a-round. Lead them up, here's a fairy-ground. Chorus. Let the men ware the ditches; Maids, look to your breeches. We'll scratch them with briars and thistles : When the flageolets cry. We are a-dry ; Pond-water shall wet their whistles. {Exeunt Evening, Winds, and ]ACK.y In his prologue to Charles Davenant's Circe (1677), Dryden speaks disparagingly of this very play : 'Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight. Did no Volpone, no Arbaces write; But hopped about, and short excursions made From bough to bough as if they were afraid, And each were guilty of some "Slighted Maid".' p. 13. Cartwright. William Cartwright, who doubled the roles of Thunder (in the prologue) and the Second King of 90 Notes Brentford, was originally a member of Prince Charles' company at the private house in Salisbury Court. During the Civil War and Commonwealth he kept a bookseller's shop at the end of Turnstile Alley, but immediately upon the Restoration joined the actors who began giving per- formances at the Red Bull in St. John's Street. In the winter of 1660 he played at the theatre in Vere Street, Clare Market, and it was here he probably performed FalstafFin The Merry Wives of Windsor^ for on 5 December, Pepys saw The Merry Wives of Windsor acted : 'the humours of the country gentleman and the French doctor very well done, but the rest very poorly, and Sir Falstaffe as bad as any.' The diarist, a few years later, had occasion to alter his opinion of the actor in this part. Subsequently Cartwright attached himself to Killigrew, the manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which opened 7 May, 1663. That same year he played Alderman Whitebroth in Wilson's The Cheats^ and also Corbaccio in Volpone. Among his principal parts were : 1664, Morose in The Silent Woman^ Sir Epicure Mammon in The Alchemist and Lygones in A King and no King\ 1665, The High Priest in The Indian Emperor \ 1667, Grimani in Rhodes' Floras Vagaries^ Lord Latimer in Orrery's The Black Prince and Falstaff in Henry IV^ Part i ; 1669, The Governor of Ternata in The Island Princess^ Brabantio in Othello and Apollonius in Tyrannic Love ; 1670, Abenamar in The Conquest of Granada ; 1 67 1, Arsenius in Joyner's The Roman Empress and Don Bertram in Corye's The Generous Enemies. On 25 January, 1672, the Theatre Royal was burned to the ground, and the homeless actors were only to glad to secure the old Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in Portugal Street, which had just been vacated by the Duke's company for their new house in Dorset Gardens. Killigrew opened on 26 February, 1672, and remained here for two years until his theatre in Drury Lane was ready for occupation. In the same year as the fire Cartwright played Hermogenes in Marrriage a la Mode and Mario in The Assignation \ 1673, Sir Jasper Fidget in The Country Wife and Harman Senior in Amboyna ; 1674, Major Notes 9 1 Oldfox in "The Plain Dealer \ 1675, Seneca in Lee's Nero and Hircanio in Sir Francis Fane's Love in the Dark\ 1676, Agrippa in Lee's Gloriana \ 1677, John in Crowne's The Destruction of Jerusalem \ 1679, Chilax in Valentinian. In 1682 Cartwright joined with the Duke's company at the union of the two theatres, but by this time a man of considerable private means he, in all probability, practically retired not long after the amalgamation, although we learn from an edition of the Bloody Brother that he played Baldwin in a revival of that play about 1686, and he is also known to have repeated his r61e of Brabantio as late as 1687. About the middle of December that same year he died at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and by his will, dated 1686, it was found that he had left his books, pictures and furniture to Dulwich College. A lawsuit ensued, as Francis and Jane Johnson, his servants, had unwarrantably seized upon clothing, books, prints, and a large sum of ready money. Only a portion of the bequest was eventually recovered. Among the Dulwich portraits are. No. 234, *My picture in a black dress with a great dog'; No. 78, 'My first wife's portrait like a shepherdess'; No. 116, ' My second wife's portrait with a black veil on her head '. The catalogue, one leaf of which (186-209) ^^ wanting, is an illiterate script, said, however, to be the donor's own hand. Cartwright was a sound actor of much experience and no ordinary merit. Downes has more than a word of praise for him, whilst Aubrey pronounces his playing excellent. Pepys, the immortal gossip, who, for all his criticism of A Mid- summer Night's Dream and Othello, was, when in the humour, no mean judge of these matters, on 2 November, 1667, found his way to the Theatre Royal, 'and there saw Henry the Fourth ; and, contrary to expectation was pleased in nothing more than in Cartwright's speaking of Falstaffe's speech about What is Honour?'. Cartwright was in person a large-faced man of tall stature and portly habit, with a loud resonant voice; hence there is additional point in Bayes' remark and the casting of the role Thunder. 92 Notes p, 13. Peter. Peter = vermillion ; rouge. Cf. Boccalini's Advertise?nents for Parnassus^ translated 1656, *My face is now so fresh and ruddy because people have petered it and coloured it.' p. 14. Mr. Ivory. 'Abraham Ivory had formerly been a considerable actor of women's parts, but afterwards stupified himself so far, with drinking strong waters, that, before the first acting of this farce, he was fit for nothing but to go of errands ; for which, and mere charity, the company allowed him a weekly salary.' — Key (1704). Beyond this brief notice I can find nothing more concerning Abraham Ivory. None of our theatrical writers mention him, and so far as I am able to discover, the name nowhere occurs in Caroline or Restoration literature. He probably made his first appear- ance about 1638-9. In 1642 plays were declared unlawful. Save for a few spasmodic attempts, one of which landed the whole company in jail, there were no theatrical performances until Sir William Davenant's tentative entertainments in 1656, and doubtless during the sterile interim of suppression Ivory fell into the greatest want, and at the re-opening of the theatre was unable to recover his former position. Act II. p. 14. I begin . . . with a whisper. In Orgula^ or the Fatal Error., a tragedy by W. L. (i.e. Leonard Willan) 4to, 1658, we have the following whispering scene. Act i. Scene 4, when Zinzania, daughter to Sinevero, the Lord Protector, whispers a secret in his ear regardless of the fact that they are closeted alone, 'iS/«. Be brief. Zz«. To my own sense I scarce dare whisper it. Good sir, your ear. Sin. How ! Ludaster ! — this night ! — [Intermission) — I am in wonder lost ! ' The Key (1704) refers to Davenant's Playhouse to be Let, Act iii, sixth entry (folio, 1673 ; and separately as The History of Sir Francis Drake , 4to, 1659) : — Notes 93 ^ Drake sen. Draw up our men And in low whispers give our orders out.' But this undoubtedly parodies Orrery's Mustapha (1665), a typical heroic tragedy. I n Act iv, whilst the Queen of Hungary is parleying with the Cardinal of Veradium, 'enter Cleora at another door, and whispers to the Queen '. ' Clear. Zarma has hastily a whisper brought Which says that means for your escape is wrought. This tempest Mustapha would have you shun ; And she will help to send away your son. Queen. Oh, how am I perplexed ! secure him Heaven ! {aside) I have my faith to Roxolana given T' assure her of my stay, by which my son, May in my fortunes equal hazard run. {whispers Cleora.)' There are, it is true, a good many 'asides' in Mrs. Behn's Amorous Prince (1671). Antonio listens to the dialogue between Alberto and his sister Ismenia, whom, being veiled, he mistakes for his wife Clarina, and comments unheard the while (Act i, Scene 4). Lorenzo, fearing he will be called upon to second Curtius in a duel, expresses wreat terror in half whispers during their conversation (Act in, Scene 2). In Act iv. Scene i, the stage direction 'aside' is very frequent, as it is subsequently when Guilliam is relating Cloris' feigned death. T/6(? A?norous Prince is one of Mrs. Behn's earliest plays. It is a good comedy, somewhat wanton, and containing things which would find short shrift with the twentieth- century censor. But then the gallantries of Frederick and his Florentine Court are not a theme for prudes or the puling folk of the nursery. Astrsea is never dull. Sir William Killigrew has a curious direction to his Pandora (1664), 'Note that all the play thro' when Sylvander and Lindamira speak not they are to whisper in private discourse.' In ^he tVomens Conquest (4to, 1671), Act v, Edward Howard has: — '■Enter Draxanes. '■Drax. A word in private {whispers to Eumenes ivho deliver it to one another).^ 94 Notes And also later : — ' Enter Tysamnes whispering Bassanes, Foscaris,' &c. p. 15. All these threatening Storms. Cf. Edward Howard's The Usurper (1667), Act iii : — * Tim. This language would invite me to believe There were some danger near. Cal. I would give it a name That should not fright you : for it is Within your choice, timely to scatter all Those hovering clouds that may involve you in Too late repentance.' p. 17. Mr. JVintershul. From 1637 till the closing of the theatres William Wintershal was a member of Queen Henrietta Maria's company and appeared at Salisbury Court. After the Restoration he joined the actors who had begun to perform at the Red Bull in St. John's Street, Clerkenwell, and a little later became a member of Killigrew's company at the Theatre Royal. Here in 1663 he played the King in The Humorous Lieutenant and Runter in Wilson's The Cheats ; 1664, Sir Amorous La Foole in The Silent Woman^ Subtle in The Alchemist and Gobrias in A King and No King; 1665, Odmar in The Indian Emperor; 1666, the King in The Maid's Tragedy ; 1667, King Henry the Fourth in i Henry IV, King John in Orrery's The Black Prince, Sir Gervase Simple in Love in a Maze and Don Alonzo in An Evening's Love ; 1 670, Selin in The Conquest of Granada; 1671, Robatzy in Corye's The Generous Enemies and Sir Simon Addleplot in Love in a Wood; in 1672, after the fire which reduced the King's Theatre to ashes, Polydamas in Marriage a la Mode; 1673, the Fiscal in Amboyna ; 1675, Otho in Lee's Nero, Cornanti in Sir Francis Fane's Love in the Dark and Arimant in Aureng- Zebe; i6j6, Bomilcar in Lee's Sophonisba ; 1678, Pelopidas in Lee's Mithridates and Maximus in Valentinian. Wintershal died in July, 1679. He was an extraordinarily clever actor with the highest comic gifts, and Downes says that he was good in tragedy as well as in comedy. Dennis, the critic, ungrudgingly extols his Slender, whilst Pepys found his acting as the country Knight in Love in a Maze irresistibly Notes 9 ^ funny. His great part seems to have been Squire Cokes in Bartholomew Fair, in which role even the brilliant comedian James Nokes fell very far short of him. p. 1 8. Sonnets to Armida. Armida was the name given to * La Belle Stuart ', Duchess of Richmond, by her lover Francis Digby, a younger son of the Earl of Bristol. His romantic passion was more sentimental than successful,* for Miss Stuart, in spite of her innocent beauty and artless simplicity, was too engaged in adroitly coquetting with the Kin^, and at the same time fascinating the Duke of Richmond into matrimony, to waste her moments upon other admirers. Driven to despair by her coldness, Captain Digby, who was killed in a sea fight with the Dutch, is said to have voluntarily courted his death. See further note on page 32. p. 18. Stew'd Prunes. A letter from Dryden to Tonson affords us evidence of the poet's liking for stewed plums, whilst his fondness for snuff has passed into a tradition, mentioned by most his biographers. p. 18. I ever take Phisic. Charles la Motte in his Essay on Poetry and Painting (1730, i2mo), states that it was really Dryden's habit, before any considerable piece of work 'to purge his body and clear his head by a dose of physic' p. 1 9. Gresham Colledge. Gresham College originally occupied the house of Sir Thomas Gresham in Bishopsgate Street. By his will it had passed, after the death of his widow in 1596, to the Mercers' Company. Seven professors lived there to deliver the lectures appointed by its founder, and, when first formed, the Royal Society used the College for its weekly re-unions, to which the present allusion must be referred. After the great fire of 1666 the Exchange also made it a temporary home. p. 19. Hand in hand. The entry of the two kings 'hand in hand' and their tag before going off parodies the scene between Mustapha and Zanger, Act iv, Orrery's Mustapha (1665), which concludes: — 'To ours alone the perfect praise is due At once of being friends and rivals too. {exeunt embracing.)^ p. 19. Sweet-heart. With the second king's endearments 96 Notes one may compare in The Wild Gallant {1661^) Burr's favourite expression, Mear heart'. p. 19. Mon foy. Mon foi is an intentionally gross solecism to heighten the jest. p. 20. / makes 'em. Professor Jespersen quotes this as the earliest instance of the vulgarism known. 1692 4to, missing the point, reads 'make'. p. 20. Rudest^ uncivilest. As early as February, 1661, Pepys noted that 'the gallants do begin to be tired with the vanity and pride of the theatre actors, who are indeed grown very proud and rich'. In April, 1667, when the king, enraged at the venality and looseness of his court being openly satirized on the public stage, abruptly inter- dicted Killigrew's company from acting and closed the theatre, the diarist tells us that 'the gentry seemed to rejoice much at it, the house being become too insolent'. p. 20. Turned 'em all back. Flecknoc, in his preface to The Demoiselles a la Mode (1667, 8vo), rails against the actors who refused to stage his play. p. 2 1 . Nursery. The Nursery was a theatre for the training of boys and girls for the regular stage. Charles II, on 3 March, 1664, gave W. Legge, Groom of the Bed-chamber, royal letters patent to establish a Nursery for young actors {Shakespeare Society Papers^ iii. 162). There appears to have been two houses of this description, the most famous of which in Golden Lane, near the Barbican, supplied Killigrew's company. It was here that Langbaine saw Revenge for Honour. Dryden's allusion in MacFlecknoe to this house is well known : — 'Near these a Nursery erects its head, Where queens are formed and future heroes bred, Where unfledged actors learn to laugh and cry. Where infant punks their tender voices try, And little Maximins the gods defy.' The second Nursery was in Hatton Garden. It was built by Captain Bedford, and belonged to Davenant. Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent the younger members of each theatre gave performances on their own account at Notes 97 their respective Nurseries. We find Killigrew's company acted The Rival Ladies in this way. 24 February, 1668, Pepys made his way to the Nursery. *The house and music better than we looked for and the acting not much worse, because I expected as bad as could be ; and I was not much mistaken, for it was so.' Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy was performed, but he found the ^play was a bad one'. Oldham has the following couplet : — 'Then slighted by the very Nursery, Mayest thou at last be forced to starve like me.' In the prologue to The Forced Marriage (1671), Mrs. Behn alludes to the custom of gallants frequenting the Nursery. Joe Haines, the famous comedian, began his stage life at the Barbican Nursery. p. 21. A late Play. This late play here aimed at was in all probability not Sir William Barclay's tragi-comedy The Lost Lady (folio, 1639), as is often supposed, but rather Sir Richard Fanshawe's translation of Mendoza's Querer por solo Querer. There is, however, a passage in Barclay's play which affords some ground for the statement that it is burlesqued by Buckingham. Lysicles, the hero, whose mistress has been murdered, nightly visits her tomb. At the beginning of Act i. Scene 2, he enters the monument and presumably remains there whilst other characters are conversing on the stage. It has been suggested that he may be supposed to sleep before his lady's remains. Fan- shawe's dramatic romance' is, however, almost undoubtedly the true object of ridicule. Sir Richard Fanshawe, the fifth son of Sir Henry Fanshawe, of Ware Park, Hertfordshire, was born in June, 1608. A fervent royalist, at the outbreak of the civil war, he joined Charles I at Oxford, and after- wards did him considerable service in Ireland. During the Commonwealth he was imprisoned, but having regained his liberty, lived in the utmost seclusion till the Restoration, shortly after which event he was appointed ambassador to Spain. He died there of an ague, 26 June, 1666. His translation of Guarini's // Pastor Fido is well known, and he published several other works. 98 Notes The full title of this play, to which Bishop Percy has drawn our attention, runs as follows : Querer por solo querer. To Love only for Love s sake ; a Dramatic Romance ^ represented at AranjueZj before the King and Queen of Spain^ to celebrate the birthday of that king (Philip IV) by the Meninas^ w'^ are a set of ladies^ in the nature of ladies of honour in that court^ children in years^ but higher in degree (being many of them daughters and heirs to grandees of Spain) than the ordinary ladies of honour^ attending likewise that queen^ written in Spanish by Don Antonio de Mendoza^ 1623. Paraphrased in English^ anno 1654. 'Together with the Festivals of Aranwhez. London, 4to, 1 67 1. Bishop Percy especially remarks on the following passage as supplying ample and pertinent material for the present allusion : — 'Felisbiavo, the young king of Persia, travelling in search of Zelidaura, Queen of Tartaria (whom, it seems, he had never seen) retires into a wood to shun the noon-tide heat, and taking out his mistress's picture, thus rants. Pel. If deep invade me strongly. That may sever My life some minutes from me, my love never. But 'tis impossible to sleep (we know) Extended on the Rack : If that be so, [ Takes out the Picture. Dumb Larum^ come thou forth : Eloquent Mute^ For whom high Heav'n and Earth commence a Suit : Of Angel-woman, fair Hermaphrodite ! The Moon's extinguisher ! the Moon-days night ! How could so small a Sphear hold so much day ? sleep ! now, now, thou conquer'st me — But stay : That part thou conquer'' st^ I'l not own for mine. Tempest I seek, not calm : If the days thine, Thou quell'st my body, my Love still is whole : 1 give thee all of that which is not Soul. And, since in Lodgings from the Street Love lies, Do thou (and spare not) quarter in my eyes A while; I harb'ring so unwelcome Guest (As Men obey thy Brother Death's arrest) Not as a Lover^ but a Mortal \He falls asleep with the Picture in his hand. Notes 99 Ris. He's fain a sleep ; so soon ? Whatyr^;/7/y Is? More like a Husband^ then a Lover^ this. If Lovers take such sleeps, what shall I take, Whom pangs of Love^ nor Honour's Trumpets^ 'wake ? [Risaloro/^/A asleep.'' — Act i, p. 20. p. 22. A simile when you are surprised. Bishop Percy has the following note: 'This rule is most exactly observed in Dryden's Indian Emperor, Act iv, Scene 4. Upon a sudden and unexpected misfortune, Almeria thus expresses her surprise and concern : — '■'■Jim. All hopes of safety and of love are gone: ^ As when some dreadful thunder-clap is nigh, The winged fire shoots swiftly through the sky, Strikes and consumes e'er scarce it does appear. And by the sudden ill, prevents the fear : Such is my state in this amazing woe; It leaves no power to think, much less to do."' 'The Indian Emperor was produced at the King's Theatre in 1665. It proved an almost unprecedented success. p. 22. As some tall Pine. This particular passage parodies The Conquest of Granada (i6y6)j Act v, when Mahomet Boabdelin addressing Almahide says: — 'As some fair tulip, by a storm oppressed. Shrinks up, and folds its silken arms to rest ; And, bending to the blast, all pale and dead. Hears from within, the wind sing round its head : So, shrouded up your beauty disappears; Unveil, my love, and lay aside your fears.' p. 23. Without ever opening the Plot. Sir Robert Howard's The Blind Lady (i2mo, 1660), might well be said to begin and end without the plot being revealed. In Edward Cooke's Love's Triumph, or the Royal Union (4to, 1678), once the situation has been revealed in Act i, no progress whatsoever is made until Act v, and all action is practically at a standstill. Porter in The Carnival, 1 664, has the following: I oo Notes ^ Loren%o, It was a dainty masque, for all Were kept in suspense to the last, and Did never comprehend what we meant. Ferd'inando. That could not choose but be rare.' Dryden in his Preface to Troilus and Cressida ; or, Truth found too Late (4to, 1679), carefully insists upon a due sequence of events in a play and the necessity of * making one accident naturally produce another, otherwise 'tis a farce, and not a play. Of this nature is The Slighted Maid \ where there is no scene in the First Act, which might not by as good reason be in the Fifth.' p. 23. Lay our heads together. The scene between the Gentleman-Usher and the Physician burlesques Dryden's partiality for scholastic logic and argument in verse. In his Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy he clearly states, 'I am of opinion that they cannot be good poets, who are not accustom'd to argue well.' His genius for disputation in poetry reaches its ultimate climax in Religio Laid and The Hind and the Panther^ but it is also very prominent in many of his plays. We may cite the discussion between Osmyn and Benzayda, Second Part of The Conquest of Granada^ Act iii. Scene 2, and the yet more lengthy dialogue between Almanzor and Lyndaraxa, which immediately follows. In The State of Innocence^ Act iv, Adam and the two Archangels indulge in a disquisition on free-will. These arguments, often subtle and clever to a degree, are, in fact, a most marked feature, strongly characterizing most of Dryden's work. In Act iv. Scene 2 of The Rehearsal^ we find Mr. Bayes confessing, 'I love reasoning in verse'. James Howard in his All Mistaken (4to, i6y2), acted September, 1667, has a scene commencing thus : — ^Loranzo. Pray tell me what you mean? Jmphelia. I cannot, first do you begin. Loran-zo. Nor I. Atnphelia. Let us tell both together then.' p. 23. I fegue it away. Fegue=to beat or to drive. Sir Walter Scott uses this phrase in his journal, adding *as Mr. Bayes says'. Notes I o I p. 26. The whole State's turnd quite topsie-turvy. This doubtless directly alludes to the serious plot of Dryden's tragi-comedy Marriage a la Mode produced by the King's company at their temporary theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1672 ; it is as follows : The King of Sicily being killed in battle, Polydamas, his general, usurped the crown. Eubulus, the governor of Syracuse, promptly fled, taking with him the widowed queen and her infant. They found a companion in Eudoxia, the usurper's wife, herself about to become a mother, who remained steadfastly loyal in spite of her husband's treachery. Some twenty years after, a brigand is captured, upon whom are discovered royal jewels and a torn letter which is recognized as Eudoxia's hand. Acting upon these clues and the robber's confession, a certain old man, his foster son and his daughter Palmyra, are inter- rogated ; and he, proving to be Hermogenes, a noble who had disappeared at the same time as Eubulus, confesses that the boy Leonidas is the usurper's child. Leonidas is instantly raised to the position of crown prince, but upon his refusing to abandon Palmyra, whom he loves, the king is about to wreak vengeance on her, when Hermogenes comes forward and hands a letter and a jewel to Polydamas by which he learns that Leonidas is the son of the late king, and Palmyra his own daughter. She is forthwith instated in the palace, and occasion found shortly after to arrest the boy and doom him to death on a charge of conspiracy. On the fatal day, however, the populace, who have long chafed under the usurper's rule, break out into open revolt, rescue the lawful prince, and dethrone the tyrant. Leonidas, acknowledged king, weds Palmyra. It is, as will be seen, a complicated plot, but not more so than that of many well-approved tragi-comedies. It hardly deserves to be called * very ridiculous', as Mr. Saintsbury unsympathetically thinks it, and even if it were, it is more than compensated for by the lighter episodes, the most material part of the play, in which Dryden has written comedy as sparkling as, and more natural than, the coldly polished genius of Congreve. There are indeed few comedies in the 02 Notes English language which for brilliance of wit can vie with these scenes of Dryden's fancy. Truly * glorious John' has not yet come to his own. p. 26. Enter Shirty. This actor, whose Christian name has not come down to us, joined Killigrew's company about the same time as Joseph Haines, Griffin, Cardell Goodman, Lydal, and Beeston, that is to say not long after the opening of the Theatre Royal, 7 May, 1663. He seems to have been an accomplished and graceful dancer, but an indifferent player. At the conclusion of The Rehearsal he executes a dance with Joe Haines. His name occurs in the original casts of Corye's The Generous Enemies (1672), and Buffet's The Amorous Old Woman (1674), to very minor roles. p. 26. Hey day, hey day I Cf. James Howard's All Mistaken (4to, 1672), Act iv : — ^ Arbatis. Hey day ! Hey day ! I know not what to do or what to say ! ' Also Flecknoe's Erminia (8vo, 1661), Act i. Scene 6 : — '■Duchess. I'm so confounded I know not what to say or what to do.' Also Sir Aston Cockain's Trappolin supposed a Prince (4to, 1658), Act iii, Scene i, where the expression 'I know not what to think' occurs more than once. Sir William Killigrew's Ormasdes., or Love and Friendship (8vo, 1664): — < Ormasdes. I know not what to say, not what to think ! I know not when I sleep or when I wake ! The same author's Pandora, or The Converts (8vo, 1664), Act v, has : — ' Clearcus. I know not what to resolve or what to say.' And again : — ^Pandora. My doubts and fears my reason does dismay, I know not what to do nor what to say.' p. 27. At one door. In a Restoration theatre the stage projected a considerable way into the auditorium, and it was on this apron in front of the proscenium that most of the action took place. The scenery was often set immediately behind the proscenium itself, and the characters would Notes ' 103 enter and leave the stage by the two practicable doors in the proscenium one on either side of the theatre. So in Ravens- croft's The Anatomist^ or The Sham Doctor (iG^y), we have, Act i, Scene i, 'Enter, before the curtain, Angelica, Beatrice.' Over these doors, used as the principal means of entrance and exit, boxes or balconies were arranged wherein the actors would appear if the play demanded. This is obvious from Act v. Scene i, in Sir Martin Mar-All (1667) where Sir Martin, about to give his mistress a serenade, is told to get up into his window and set two candles by him. As he is ignorant of music, he takes a borrowed lute in his hand and fumbles with it, grimacing all the while with his mouth as though singing, whilst in reality the tune is played by his man stationed just within. The stage directions are 'enter Mrs. Millicent and Rose, with a candle by 'em above ', and then 'Sir Martin appears at the adverse window.' In The Conquest of Granada (1670), part 11, iv. 3, when Zulema and Hamet make their infamous attempt on the queen, the direction is, 'enter Almahide, shrieking, her hair loose ; she runs across the stage.' Abdelmelech about to fly to her assistance is disarmed by treachery, and, as the assasins attack him, 'he goes off at one door, while the queen escapes at the other.' Immediately 'Enter at several doors, the King, Abenamar, Selin, Ozmyn, Almanzor, Guards'. In Shadwell's The Humourists (1671), Act iv. Scene 2, Crazy arrives with a ladder and proceeds to climb into one of the balconies ; Drybob follows him, and they call to Theodosia to open her window. They are taken for thieves, beaten off the stage, and 'Enter Crazy from behind the door'. In The Miser (1672), at the end of Act iv. Rant and Hazard, drunk, attempt to force their way through one of the doors. Squeeze appears in the balcony and leaps down on to the stage, he is seized by the watch, and then the two roisterers 'go off, and come in at another door.' In The Libertine (16^6), Act i. Scene 2, after a serenade, Maria comes to the balcony and throws down a letter. Presently Don John is admitted through the door underneath. 1 04 Notes The first scene of Etheredge's She Wou d if She Coud (1668), is laid in the Mulberry Garden. Courtal and Free- man are. found awaiting their mistresses. Soon the girls trip across the stage. The two gallants promptly pursue, then * enter women again . . . the women go out, and go about behind the scenes to the other door'. '-Enter Courtal and Freeman. Free. Sdeath, how fleet they are ! . . . Court. . . . We shall never reach 'em. Free. I'll follow directly, do thou turn down the cross walk and meet 'em. Enter the Women, and after ^em Courtal at the lower door^ and Freeman at the upper on the contrary side.'' Act ii. Scene 2, of Davenant's The Distresses (folio, 1673), but almost certainly The Spanish Lovers^ licensed 30 Novem- ber, 1639, Oreo, wishing to rid himself finally of Androlio's company, says : — Til give him a false turn i' th' corner of The next blind lane, that I may safer move In my design. (goes ojf^ and enters again at the other door.) ' Mr. W. J. Lawrence in his The Elizabethan Playhouse and other Studies gives (p. 189) an interesting photograph of the 'Last of the Proscenium doors' as existing at the Adelphi Theatre, Liverpool (1832-1905); but it is certain that something very like them still survives at the King's Lynn Theatre and also at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. p. 27. Stand. Who goes there? Cf. Secret Love or The Maiden Queen (1667), Act iv. Scene i : — * I Soldier (within) Stand ! 2 Sold. Stand, give the word. Cel. Now, what's the meaning of this trow ? Guards set ! I Sold. Give the word or you cannot pass; these are they, brother; let's in and seize 'em. The two Soldiers etiter. 1 Sold. Down with him ! 2 Sold. Disarm him ! Cel. How now rascals ! (draws^ and beats one off^ and catches the other.) ' Notes 105 Mrs. Behn has a somewhat shiiilar fray in The Forced Mar- riage^ or the Jealous Bridegroom (410, 1671), Act ii, Scene 6 : ^Pisaro. What's all this? Philander. Who's there ? Pis. A man, a friend to the general. Phi. Draw then, and keep thy word. Alcander. Stand by, and let me do that duty, sir. (He steps between them^ they fight ^ PisARO falls.) ' p. 27. Effaut flat. Effaut flat is an obsolete musical term. 'The fuller name (F fa ut) of the note F which was sung to the syllable fa or ut according as it occured in one or other of the Hexachords (imperfect scales), to which it could belong.' Murray, New English Dictionary., where this passage is quoted. p. 27. Angels in Harry the Eight. Henry /^///was one of the plays which, by a regulation of the Lord Chamberlain, 12 December, 1660, became the especial property of the Duke's company. It was first produced early in December, 1663 ; for Pepys, gossiping with his shoemaker on 10 Decem- ber, hears 'of a rare play, to be acted this week, of Sir William Davenant's. The story of Henry VIII and all his wives'. Some authorities are inclined to suppose that Davenant actually altered Shakespeare and Fletcher's play, but I think we need understand no more than a re-arrange- ment with a view to theatric effect and mise en scene, much as our managers love to-day. On New Year's Day, 1664, Pepys goes to the Duke's house and 'saw the so much cried up play of Henry VIII ; which though 1 went with resolution to like it, is so simple a thing, made up of a great many patches, that, besides the shows and processions in it, there is nothing in the world good or well done'. On 30 December, 1668, however, he saw it again, 'and was mightily pleased, better than ever I expected, with the history and shows of it.' Every resource of decoration and dresses seems to have been expended on the production and, no doubt in accordance with the taste of the times, the scene where angels hover round the couch of the dying io6 Notes Katherine was elaborated and 'written up' by Davenant himself. The magnificence of the set-pieces, the pageantry of the spectacle, and the crowds of supers employed, became proverbial as late as 1687. ^'"^ Mrs. Behn's highly diverting but deplorably naughty comedy. The Lucky Chance or An Alderman s Bargain^ Bredwell refers to *A broken sixpenny looking-glass, that showed as many faces as the scene in Henry Vlllth'. The revival, Downes tells us, 'by order of Sir William Davenant, was all new cloath'd in proper habits : the King's was new, all the Lords, the Cardinals, the Bishops, the doctors, proctors, lawyers, tip-staves : new scenes.' The public seem fully to have appreciated this production, for Downes continues, 'Every part, by the great care of Sir William, being exactly perform'd ; it being all new cloath'd and new scenes ; it continued acting 1 5 days together with general applause.' Harris and Betterton, who played Wolsey and the King respectively, won for themselves especial renown, and the old prompter waxes enthusiastic in their praise. The Tempest h?id been revived on 7 November, 1667, at Lincoln's Inn Fields in a version by Dryden and Davenant. Pepys found 'the house mighty full : the King and court there : and the most innocent play that ever I saw : and a curious piece of music in an echo of half sentences, the echo repeating the former half, while the man goes on to the latter, which is mighty pretty.' The music was by Banister. Pepys sees the piece again on two further occasions, and found it full of 'so good variety that 1 cannot be more pleased almost in a comedy, only the seamen's part a little too tedious.' In the folio Dryden, 1701, Comedies, Tragedies, and Operas, printed for Tonson, amongst the stage directions to The Tempest, Act iii, we read, 'enter eight fat spirits', and Gon- zalo has a jest at their corpulence. This plumpness was afterwards not unwisely expunged. No doubt it is to this business the sneer of Mr. Bayes alludes. On 30 April, or very early in May, 1674, the Duke's company produced at their new theatre in Dorset Gardens, Notes 1 07 ^he Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, by Shadwell. * Made into an opera,' comments Downes, and, 'all things were performed in it so admirably well, that not any succeeding opera got more money.' Shadwell certainly introduces a large number of elves and fairies into his version, and is not sparing of scenical resources. These two alterations, that by Dryden and Davenant, and Shadwell's opera are often confounded. They need to be carefully distinguished. Dryden's versions of Shakespeare, and particularly this joint work with Davenant, have been the stalking-horse for generations of critics to vilipend and belittle the poet un- mercifully. Judged by a literary and poetic criterion, they are confessedly sadly inadequate, but is this not approaching them from quite a wrong standpoint .'' Davenant, after the Restoration, was above all a manager intent upon his public, and he took good care to give what the day demanded. There was a universal craving for gorgeous pageants lineally descended from the Elizabethan masques. He himself had written court triumphs in the days of Charles I, and was accustomed to profuse and splendid machinery. By 1661, owing to his good offices and enterprise, scenery had become permanent and, on the regular stage, soon assumed elaborate proportions. Although one cannot forgive him for having laid profane hands upon Measure for Measure, a very good case, from the stage manager's point of view, could be made out for these alterations of The Tempest, and even oi Macbeth. In any case, Dryden has given us nothing worse than the mutilations of Shakespeare to which we submit in our twentieth-century theatres. p. 27. I sate up two. There is an anecdote that, many years after this, Bolingbroke, then a young man, calling one morn- ing to see Dryden, found the poet had been sitting up all night. He had just composed his magnificent ode on St. Cecila's Day. p. 28. 1 have broke my Nose. The allusion here to Davenant is very apparent. Sir William, as may be seen by his portrait, was possessed of a very short nose, snub to the point of deformity. This was often made the topic of lampoons. In 1 08 Notes the Great Assizes holden in Parnassus (1645), the anonymous writer says : — 'And as for him, whose vote he did reject, Upon a cavil against some defect. He him assured that all the world might know, His art was high although his nose was low.' Again, in a copy of verses (which have been privately printed), found written on a fly-leaf of a copy of Denham's Poems (8vo, 1668), the following lines occur : — 'Into his bed Sir William creeps, And now in Abram's bosom sleeps, His friend he to the ancients shows ; Their former feuds he doth compose ; To show him they are no longer foes, Naso has lent him half his nose.' The story runs that once when the poet had bestowed an alms upon a poor woman, he was startled to hear her vehemently praying God to preserve his eyesight. Upon his asking the reason for this unusual wish, she replied, ' Why, Sir, if you had to wear spectacles you would have no nose on which to balance 'em.' Davenant was born at Oxford towards the end of February, 1605. In 1637 he obtained the laureateship, vacant by the death of Ben Jonson. When the Commonwealth was on the wane he first re-introduced dramatic entertainments into England, and in 1 660 became manager of the Duke of York's Theatre. He died 7 April, 1668, and two days after Pepys saw 'Sir W. Davenant's corpse carried out towards West- minster, there to be buried.' To say with the infinite assurance of a later day critic that Davenant's dramas are 'wholly unreadable . . . his influence on the theatre utterly deplorable ' is merely to argue ignor- ance. Sir William possessed no mean view of poetry, and many of his plays have excellent scenes with well-sustained interest. His verse often attains a high level, whilst Gondihert is far finer than those who have never looked into it are disposed to allow. That Davenant, sadly hampered Notes 109 by the times in which he lived, essayed much his most ardent admirers would wish he had left alone is indisputable, but notwithstanding all, the modern stage owes him a debt it does not acknowledge and so will never pay. ACT III. p. 29. A Dance. In Settle's The Empress of Morocco (1673), Act ii concludes with a 'Moorish dance' performed 'about an artificial palm tree', of which entertainment there is a curious copper-plate in the illustrated first quarto. Dryden was especially fond of introducing dances into his heroic tragedies. Act iii of The Indian Queen (1664), opens with 'a warlike dance'; in Act iv. Scene 3, of the The Indian Emperor {166^), a saraband is danced; Tyrannic Love (1669), Act iv, Scene i, has 'a dance of spirits' ; and in The Conquest of Granada (1670), Part i. Act iii, Scene i, there is the Zambra dance with the exquisitely beautiful song, Beneath a Myrtle Shade. p. 29. Prince Pretty-man and Tom Thimble. This scene closely parodies the exchange of wit between Loveby and Will Bibber, his tailor, in Dryden's The Wild Gallant (1663), Act i. p. 30. A bob for the Court. ^Nonsuch. My friend at court is to pay his mercer. Isabella. Nay, if that be all, there's no such haste. The courtiers are not so forward to pay their debts. — TVild Gallant^ Act i.' p. 31. Top his part. 'A great word with Mr. Edward Howard.' — Key^ 1704. p. 3 1 . Angel . . . Evil. Scrofula was formerly know as * King's evil' from the belief that the touch of the Sovereign could effect a cure. Charles II frequently 'touched', and the same royal prerogative was exercised by Prince Charles Edward in 1745. The patient, having been inspected by the court physician, was stroked by the sovereign's hand, and a gold angel (6j. 'id.-ios.) hung round the neck. Meanwhile the chap- lains read the special prayers appointed. This form of service may be found in some old Books of Common Prayer. 1 1 o Notes p. 32. Song. The well-known verses, Farewell, fair Armida, the second stanza of which, 'on seas and in battles,' is here parodied, were composed by Dryden, and first printed in Covent Garden Drollery (1672). The song, Blame not your Armida, in answer, 'to the preceding,' which follows, is not nearly so well written. This song. Farewell, fair Armida, was penned on the death of Captain Francis Digby. He had long been hopelessly enamoured of Frances Stuart, a lovely prude, courted in vain by the monarch himself, and so met death with eagerness rather than reluctance, being killed in a naval engagement against the Dutch, 28 May, 1672. This parody does not appear in the first two editions of 'The Rehearsal. p. 33. Songs, Ghosts, and Dances. Songs were essential to a play in the Restoration theatre. Dryden, Aphara Behn, Tom D'Urfey, and a dozen more were admirable song writers, and lyrics either by the author or a friend were introduced into plays on any and every occasion. A satire of 1 70 1, with a sharp cut at this custom unjustly says : — 'Motteux and Durfey are for nothing fit, But to supply with songs their want of wit. Had not the Island Princess been adorn'd, With tunes, and pompous scenes, she had been scorn'd.' The reference is to an operatic version by Motteux of Fletcher's Island Princess, which had been played with success in the summer of 1699. With reference to Dryden, Professor Saintsbury says, 'There are few thfligs which better illustrate the range of his genius than these exquisite snatches. . . . Dorset, Rochester, even Mulgrave wrote singularly fascinating songs . . . but Dryden excelled them.' His lyrical faculty and management of difficult metres has hardly, if ever, been surpassed. Nor were his fellows far behind him. The audience looked for songs as their due, and when Etheredge's She Would if She Could was produced 6 February, 1668, Pepys is sorely aggrieved that Harris did not 'so much as sing a ketch in it '. I Notes 1 1 1 Ghosts were to an heroic play as essential as songs. In Part II, Act iv, Scene 3, of The Conquest of Granada the ghost of Almanzor's mother appears, and holds a somewhat lengthy dialogue with her son. In Orrery's Herod the Great (folio, 1 694), Act iii, the king is discovered asleep. The ghosts of Hircanus and Aristobulus enter, 'attended by several other ghosts in white, having great stains of blood over all their garments. They dance antic dances.' When Herod awakes, 'all the ghosts vanish.' In Act i the same ghosts have already appeared, accompanied by flashes of fire, to predict misfortune and woe. In Crowne's The Destruction of Jerusalem (1677), P^^'t ^j -^^t iv. Scene i, the ghost of Herod arises in fearful manner before the Sanhedrin, and delivers nearly fifty lines of most excellent rant. Above all, in Ship- man's Henry HI of France (4to, 1678), an entirely typical heroic play, we have a friar, who is a wizard to boot, and with much exorcism raises both astral and earthly spirits in a wood near Blois. There are elaborate stage directions, and the scene concludes with apparitions of Rebellion and Murder. 'Some men,' says Dryden, in 'An Essay on Heroic Plays ' prefixed to The Conquest of Granada, part i (1670), 'think they have raised a great argument against the use of spectres and magic in heroic poetry, by saying, they are unnatural ; but whether they or 1 believe there are such things is not material ; 'tis enough that, for ought we know, they may be in nature, and whatever is or may be is not properly unnatural.' A dance was a well-approved method of concluding an old comedy. Cf. An Evenings Love (1668); Etheredge's The Man of Mode (1676); Lacy's The Dumb Lady (4to, 1672); Mrs. Behn's The Dutch Lover (1673); The Rover, Part I (1677); Shadwell's Bury Fair (1689); Congreve's The Old Batch e^or (1693); The Way of the World (1700); Mrs. Centlivre's Beaus Duel ( 1 704) ; The Wonder a Woman keeps a Secret (17 14). Innumerable other examples might be quoted. It could, not untruly, be said that there are few plays of the Restoration period in which a dance is not on some pretext introduced. Edward Howard in his preface 12 Notes to The Woman s Conquest {\to^ 1671), alludes to the * Scenes, Machines, Habits, Jiggs and Dances' which found their way even into tragedies, and in his first prologue he makes Angel say, * We are to act a farce to-day that has sixteen Mimics in it . . . with two and thirty Dances and Jiggs a la mode'. Nevertheless he himself has a Masque of Diana, Echo, Thetis, Cupid, and a dance of nereids in his first Act. All of the actors were good, many accomplished dancers, p. 34. My Lieges^ news. '•Alberto. Curtius, I've something to deliver to your ear. Curtius. Anything from Alberto is welcome.' — Mrs. Behn, The Amorous Prince (1671), Act iii. Scene 2. p. 34. O ye Gods ! O ! ye Gods ! is a constant exclamation in Thomas Killigrew's plays. It is also noticeably frequent in Joyner's The Roman Empress (1671), and Settle's ranting Cambyses, King of Persia (1666). Cf. Hemmings' The Jew's Tragedy (4to, 1662), 'Is it possible 1 O ! ye gods !' — Act i. p. 35. Tell me who set thee on. Cf Sir Robert Stapylton's The Slighted Maid (1663), Act iii :— * Decio. Now you shall tell me, who played at Cards with you. Pyramena. None but my Lord Iberio and I played. Dec. Who waited ? Py. No body. Dec. No page ? Py. No page. Dec. No groom ? Py. No groom ; I tell you nobody. Dec. What not your woman ? Py. Not my woman, lack, How your tongue runs ! ' It is more probable, however, that the parody is directly of Marriage a la Mode^ Act i, where the usurping Polydamas examines Hermogenes and cross-questions him concerning the fate of his lost wife and child. p. '}^(i. Torture of the Rack. Cf Marriage a la Mode^ Act i, Scene i : — '■Poly. He talks too like a man that knew the world. To have been long a peasant. But the rack Will teach him other language. Notes 1 1 3 Sir Robert Howard's The Surprisal (folio, 1665), Act iv, Scene 2 : — '■Vill. Nay, I cannot tell what operation A rack and torture might have on me.' p. 37. Rous. This very rare adverb = bouncingly, slap- bang, The New Oxford Dictionary refers to Elsworthy's JVest Somerset Word Book (1888) ; and quotes : 'Down come the roof, rous.' It would seem to be a pure provincialism. p. 37. Fisherman. Cf. Marriage a la Mode^ Act i. Scene i : — ^Poly. Those I employ 'd, have in the neighbouring hamlet, Amongst the fishers' cabins, made discovery Of some young persons, whose uncommon beauty. And graceful carriage, make it seem suspicious They are not what they seem.' p. 37. Rob me not of a Father. Cf. Mrs. Behn's Abdelazar ; or^ The Moors Revenge (1677), Act i, Scene 2 : — ^ Enter Philip in a rage. ''Phil. I know he is not dead; what envious powers Durst snatch him hence? . . . Where is the body of my royal fath er r O guide me to him ! p. 38. Sometimes a Fishers Son^ sometimes a Prince. A burlesque of the predicaments of Leonidas in Marriage a la Mode (1672), who, reared in obscurity, is fiirst declared to be the son of the usurping king, and then on this being found to be false, banished the court. Finally, as rightful heir to the crown, he recovers his father's throne. p. 39. Enter Prince Volscius. This entire passage parodies The English Monsieur (4to, 1674), Act iv. Scene 2. It is the best of the Hon. James Howard's two comedies, and especi- ally delighted Pepys, who on 8 December, 1666, found it 'a mighty pretty play, very witty and pleasant '. All Mistaken; or^ The Mad Couple (4to, 1672), Howard's second produc- tion the diarist judged 'but an ordinary play'. Nell Gwynne had original parts in both these pieces. The English Monsieur is certainly an excellent comedy. Frenchlove is drawn with the most diverting strokes ; his Gallic foppishness knows no bounds. In the words of Charles Lamb, 'the Monsieur 1 1 4 Notes comforts himself when his mistress rejects him that "'twas a denial with a French tone of voice, so that 'twas agreeable ;" and at the final departure, "Do you see, sir, how she leaves us 1 She walks away with a French step." ' This complete coxcomb even finds a French noise pleasant, and differen- tiates it from a mere English noise. British beef too is so obnoxious to him that on being invited to dine in the orthodox English manner, he threatens to challenge his host whose 'greasy proposition' he takes as 'an affront to his palate'. James Howard was also author of an alteration o^ Romeo and Juliet which has not been printed. The lovers, however, were kept alive, and so, says Downes, 'when the tragedy was reviv'd again 'twas played alternately, tragical one day, and tragi-comical another for several days together.' In this adaptation Count Paris' wife appears, a role acted by Mrs. Holden, of whom in this part the old prompter relates a jest which, although it ' put the house into such a laughter that London Bridge at low water was silence to it', is now quite unquotable. The scene in The English Monsieur^ Act iv. Scene 2, v/hich is here parodied by Prince Volscius going out of town but meeting the fair Parthenope opens : — ^ Enter Comely in a riding garb ^ with his servant. Comely. Let my horses be brought ready to the door, for I'll go out of town this evening. [Exit Servant.) Enter Welbred. TVel. Why, how now, Comely, booted and spun'd ? Comely. Marry, am I. JFel. For how long?' As he is about to leave, however. Comely meets a country lass, Elsbeth Pritty, newly come to London, and, enraptured with her charms, changes his mind, deciding to remain in town. p. 39. Have held the honour of your Company. Cf. Porter's The Villain {1662), Act ii :— '■D'Orville. You know not, sir, with what great zeal I still shall court the honour of your presence.' Notes 1 1 5 p. 39. Poor us. Cf. The Indian Emperor (1665), Act v, Scene 2 : — ' Cydaria. He's gone, he's gone ! And leaves poor me defenceless here alone ! ' p. 40. Morning picturd in a Cloud. Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes^ Part i, the Second Entry (410, 1663) : — '' Mustiipha. I bring the morning pictur'd in a cloud.' Cf. Sir William Barclay's The Lost Lady (folio, 1639), Act ii : ' Enter Phillida veiled ivho talks to Ergasto aside and then goes out. Clean. From what part of the town comes this fair day In a cloud that makes you look so cheerfully ?' p. 41. Prince Volscius in Love. Cf. The English Monsieur^ Act iv, Scene 2: — ' Comely. Come, come, you all know me well enough and yet I tell you I am plaguily alter 'd since you saw me last. Lady JVealthy. Why, what's the matter ? Comely. I am, a pox on't ! — I am, a plague on't ! — I am in love. Lady JVeal. In love ! — what, Mr. Comely, in love ? Comely. Nay, nay, nay, come begin the laugh and let it not last above three hours; that's all I ask. [_They laugh a great while.'] one Well, have you d All ladies. No, not by great deal. [_They laugh on.] Comely. I must have patience till you have. Lady JVeal. I warrant 'tis some mimping country gentlewoman. Comely. No, 'tis a country farmer's daughter.' p. 41. Love and Honour. Love and Honour (4to 1649), a tragi-comedy by Sir William Davenant, was originally acted at the Blackfriars. It was reprinted (folio, 1673), with a few rather needless additions. Upon its revival, 21 October, t66i, 'this play was richly clothed, the King giving Mr. Betterton his coronation suit, in which he acted the part of Prince Alvaro ; the Duke of York giving Mr. Harris his who did Prince Prospero ; and my Lord of Oxford gave Mr. Joseph Price his, who did Lionel, the duke of Parma's son.' Pepys was present at the first performance. 'To the opera', he writes, 'which is now newly begun to act again, after some alteration of their scene, which do make it very 1 I 6 Notes much worse ; but the play, " Love and Honour ", being the first time of their acting it, is a very good plot and well done.' A little later he has : 'To the opera, and there I saw again "Love and Honour", and a very good play it is.' We can heartily endorse the diarist's opinion. It is one of the best, and was the most successful, of all Davenant's plays. Langbaine says that he often saw it acted to crowded houses both at the Lincoln's Inn Fields and Dorset Garden Theatres, p. 41. Vohcius sits down to pull on his Boots. The following passages are parodied either wholly or in part in this scene. Sir Richard Fanshawe's translation of Hurtado de Mendoza Querer por solo querer (4to, 1671), Act iii : — *■ Felishravo. Love, and Honour, pull two ways; And I stand doubtful which to take: "To Arabia," Honour says, Love says: "No; thy stay here make."' Sir William Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes (1656), Part i. The Third Entry. 'The scene . . . the Town besieg'd': — '■ Alphomo. But Honour says not so.' Francis Quarles' The Virgin Widow (4to, 1649), Act iii. Scene i : — ' Enter Palladius softly reading two letters. '-Pall. I stand between two minds! what's best to do? This bids me stay ; This spurs me on to go. Once more let our impartial eyes peruse Both t' one and t' other : Both may not prevail. " My Lord, Prize not your honour so much as so disprize her that honours you, in choosing rather to meet death in the field, than Pulchrella in her desires. Give my affection leave once more to dissuade you fi-om trying conquest with so unequal a foe. Or if a combat must be tried, make a bed of roses the field, and me your enemy. The interest I claim in you is sufficient warrant to my desires, which according to the place they find in your respects confirm me either the happiest of all ladies, or make me the most unfortunate of all women. — Purchrella." A Charm too strong for Honour to repress. Mils. A heart too poor for honour to possess. Pall. Honour must stoop to vows. But what says this? [Reads the other Letter. Notes 1 1 7 "My Lord, the hand that guides this pen, being guided by the ambition of j^our honour, and my own affection, presents you with the wishes of a faithful ser\ant, who desires not to buy you safety with the hazard of your reputation. Go on with courage, and know, Panthea shall partake with you in either fortune. If conquer'd, my heart shall be your monument, to preserve and glorify your honour'd ashes ; if a conqueror, my tongue shall be your herault to proclaim you the champion of our sex, and the phoenix of your own, honour'd by all, equall'd by few, beloved by none more dearly than — Your own Panthea." I sail between two rocks! What shall I do? What marble melts not if Pulchrella woo ? Or what hard-hearted ear can be so dead. As to be deaf, if fair Panthea plead ? Whom shall I please? Or which shall I refuse? Pulchrella sues, and fair Panthea sues: Pulchrella melts me with her love-sick tears. But brave Panthea batters down my ears With love's petar; Pulchrella's breast encloses A soft affection wrapt in beds of roses. But in the rare Panthea's noble lines True worth and honour with affection joins. I stand even-balanced, doubtfully opprest, Beneath the burthen of a bivious breast, When I peruse my sweet Pulchrella's tears, My blood grows wanton, and I plunge in fears: But when I read divine Panthea's charms, I turn all fiery, and I grasp for arms. Whoever saw, when a rude blast out-braves. And thwarts tlie swelling tide, how the proud waves Rock the drencht pinnace on the sea-green breast Of frowning Amphitrite, who, opprest Betwixt two lords (not knowing which t' obey) Remains a neuter in a doubtful way. So tost am I, bound to such strait confines. Betwixt Pulchrella's and Panthea's lines. Both cannot speed : But one that must prevail. I stand even pois'd ; an atom turns the scale.' Francis Quarks (1592- 1644) the famous author of the Emblems (partially translated, partially paraphrased from the Pia Destderia of the Jesuit Hugo), the Enchiridion^ and many I I 8 Notes other works, wrote The Virgin IVidow about 1632. It was never performed in public, but a stationer's note says that *it had been sometimes at Chelsea acted privately (by a company of young gentlemen) with good approvement.' Stapylton's Hero and Leander (4to, 1669), Act iv : — '"Yes," Honour says; Diviner Love says "No."' p. 42. A Petticoat and the Belly ake. This alludes to Act iv, Scene i, of The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery, a comedy by Dryden, which was produced in 1672. The piece was a failure, and it is impossible to tell why. It is a first-rate play, always smart and not infrequently brilliantly witty, with ino-enious situations, an excellent plot and characterization ; and one can only attribute its non-success to some inexplic- able caprice of the audience. Perhaps the Epistle Dedicatory to Sir Charles Sedley lets us into the secret when it says : * This Comedy. . . succeeded ill in the representation, against the opinion of many the best judges of our age, to whom you know I read it, ere it was presented publicly. Whether the fault was in the play itself, or in the lameness of the action, or in the number of its enemies, who came resolved to damn it for the title, I will not now dispute.' The name. Love in a Nunnery, would certainly not have been grateful to good Catholics. But after all the intrigue is quite innocent. Lucretia, 'a lady designed to be a nun,' has, it is distinctly stated, not yet taken the final vows ; whilst Laura and Violetta are merely boarders in the convent. Hippolita, in spite of her flirtation with the page-boy, does not eventually leave the cloister. The Abbess Sophronia too, is well drawn, neither a bigot nor a tyrant, but a good woman with a tender heart and indulgent sympathies. The plot is briefly as follows : The Duke of Mantua and Prince Frederick, his son, arrive in Rome, where the young gallant speedily becomes enamoured of a nun whom he perceives at the grate of a Benedictine convent, and persuades her and Hippolita, the portress, who has struck up a warm friendship on her own account with Ascanio, his attendant, to accompany him to a masked ball given in honour of his father. To those who are acquainted with Cardinal Federigo Notes 119 Borromeo's letter written from Milan, 15 September, 1622, to the Prioress of St. Margherita at Monza, wherein he bids her admit no soldier into her house nor yet to allow soldiers' servants to lodge there ; or who know the story of Virginia Maria de Leyva, who for seven years was accustomed to receive her lover Gianpalo Osio in her cell, and bore him a child ; or again remember the eighteenth-century salons of Venetian convents, where nuns in low-necked dresses with jewels in their perfumed hair sat behind the most flimsy of screens to be complimented and caressed by dainty abbes and decadent patricians, whilst tiny black-a-moors handed round cates and chocolate ; to these Prince Frederick's address to Lucretia in Dryden's play will bear every mark of probability. The lady accordingly appears at the ball, but masked and in a domino. Unhappily she attracts the attention of the old duke who proceeds to declare his passion, but by a ruse she is enabled to gain her convent unrecognised. The next morning the duke visits Frederick's chamber early. The masquerading habits, of which he took particular notice, have been carelessly thrown over a chair, and lest they should be discovered, Frederick, feigning a sudden illness, falls swooning on the chair to conceal them, and whilst his father runs to summon assistance the dresses are hurried away and secreted in an adjoining room. It is this incident which Buckingham burlesques. Eventually the old duke discovers it is Lucretia, whom his son loves, that he is pursuing ; and after some difficulties he is finally persuaded to consent to their union. There is also an underplot to the play consisting of the intrigues of Camillo and Aurclian, two Roman gentlemen, with the nieces of Don Mario, the governor of Rome, who confines the girls in the convent. In the end, however, the lovers are rewarded with the hands of their mistresses. Benito the blunderer, Aurelian's lackey, is a capital character, and was originally acted by Joe Haines. It is difficult to understand why Dryden's brilliant comedies have met with such unjustifiably harsh treatment at the hands of his critics. His scenes are certainly not penned 1 20 Notes virginibus puerisque^ but they are written with an inimitable verve and gaiety which amply compensates for any careless freedom. Such indeed is their merit that it is strongly to be suspected that many who judge so loudly and so glibly are very sparely acquainted with the dramas they attempt to condemn, p. 43. I make 'em all talk haudy. Can it be that this very passage may have influenced the critics who damn The Assignation as 'coarse', 'vulgar', 'dull'? A slight acquaint- ance with Dryden's play should convince them of their crass mistake. ACT IV. p. 45. / make this to begin with a Funeral. 'Colonel Henry Howard, son of Thomas Earl of Berkshire, made a play, called The United Kingdoms., which began with a funeral, and had also two kings in it. This gave the Duke a just occasion to set up two kings in Brentford, as 'tis generally believed, though others are of opinion that his Grace had our two brothers in his thoughts. It was acted at the Cockpit in Drury Lane soon after the Restoration, but miscarrying on the stage the author had the modesty not to print it ; and therefore the reader cannot reasonably expect any particular passages of it. Others say that they are Boabdelin and Abdalla, the two contending kings of Granada, and Mr. Dryden has, in most of his serious plays, two contending kings of the same place.' — Key (1704). The Cockpit, or Phoenix, was built about 1617, but completely dismantled in 1649. At the Restoration it was hurriedly repaired, and last used in 1664. In Porter's The Villain^ the great success of October, 1662, Act iv, a hearse is set out on a table. In Orgula ; or The Fatal Error, a dull play by L. W. (Leonard Willan), 4to, 1658, after a tedious opening monologue we are introduced to 'Castrophilus' Funeral Triumph, watched from the window by the Princess Eumena, Zizania,' etc. It will be remembered that in Act i. Scene 2, of Richard III we have the solemn obsequies of Henry VI. Notes I 2 1 p. 45. Drum, Trumpet, Shout and Battle. A parody of Edward Howard's favourite expressions at rehearsal. Dryden in his 'Essay on Heroic Plays' which serves as an introduction to the First Part o^ The Conquest of Granada, {j^to, 1672), writes, *To those who object my frequent use of drums and trumpets and my representations of battles; I answer, I introduced them not on the English stage ; Shakespeare used them frequently ; and tho' Jonson shows no battle in his " Cataline " yet you hear from behind the scenes the sounding of trumpets and the shouts of fighting armies. But, I add further, that these warlike instruments and even their presentations of fighting on the stage are no more than necessary to produce the ejffects of an heroic play, that is, to raise the imagination of the audience and to persuade them, for the time, that what they behold in the theatre is really performed. . . . And that the Red Bull has formerly done the same is no more an argument against our practice, than it would be for a physician to forbear an approv'd medicine, because a mountebank has used it with success.' p. 45. The Rule of Romance. Although when translated into English they generally made their appearance in one huge folio, the original editions of the interminable romances {Romans de longue haleine) of la Calprenede, Mdlle. de Scudery and her school are in many volumes. Cleopatre (la Calprenede), was published in parts ; the first is dated 1 646. On its completion the whole was printed in twelve volumes 8vo. English translation by Robert Loveday, folio, 1668. Pharamond (la Calprenede) is in seven volumes. Five more were added by de Vaumoriere. English translation by J. Phillips, folio, 1677. Clelie, ou histoire Romaine (Mdlle. de Scudery) extends to ten volumes (8vo, 1 656-1 660). Each contains about eight hundred pages. English translation by John Davies, 1 656-6 1 and 1678, folio. p. 46. Five Playes to one Plot. The allusion here is princi- pally aimed at The Conquest of Granada (1670), which is written in Two Parts, and is indeed, as Bishop Percy says, I 2 2 Notes 'properly but one play of ten acts'. This remark applies with equal force to Crowne's heroic tragedy, The Destruction of Jerusalem (1677), which is completely modelled on Dryden. The Second Part, containing the siege and capture of the city, with the burning of the temple, is far more dramatic and sensational than the First. It was often acted alone, and met with success as late as 17 12, when Booth, Mills and Powell with Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Bradshaw played it at Drury Lane. Sir William Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes^ first produced 1656, was considerably enlarged on its revival at the Duke's house in 1662, and a Second Part was added. These Two Parts were printed 4to, 1663. As it originally appeared it had been issued 4to, 1656. The Indian Emperor (1665), although a sequel to The Indian Queen (1664), is a distinct and separate play by itself. Several of Tom Killigrew's lengthy plays are in Two Parts : Thomaso ; or^ The Wanderer, i and 11 ; Bellamira, her Dream, I and II ; Cicilia and Clorinda, i and 11 (all separate titles 1663, but collected folio with common title 1664). Mrs. Behn followed up The Rover; or. The Banished Cavaliers, acted at the Duke's house, 1677, by a Second Part in 1681. Each of these two comedies is complete by itself, the scene of the first being Naples during the carnival, of the second Madrid. They are brilliant plays, full of intrigue and gallantry, and very amusing. The dialogue sparkles with repartee and wit. Willmore (the Rover) was superbly acted by Smith. D'Urfey divides his The Comical History of Don Quixote into Three Parts ; i and 11 were acted at Dorset Gardens in 1694 ; III two years later. The First is an excellent play, and the Second even better. The Third does not fall a whit behind them. p. 46. Upon Saturday. One is sensibly reminded of Bayreuth ; Das Rheingold; Die WalkiXre \ Siegfried \ Das G'otterdammerung ; and Wagnerian Opera sung without cuts on consecutive nights. p. 46. The third tveek. It was customary for an author to receive the whole profits of the third day of his piece, Notes I 2 3 and upon that occasion his patrons and friends would rally- to support him. In the dedication to The Squire of Ahatia (4to, 1688), Shadwell says, 'I had the great honour to find so many friends, that the house was never so full since it was built as upon the third day of this play, and vast numbers went away that could not be admitted.' He netted in this instance one hundred and thirty pounds, a large sum for the time. p. 47. His Mother had appear d to him like a Ghost. In Act iv. Scene 3, of The Conquest of Granada (11), the lovesick Almanzor waiting outside Almahide's apartments is met by the ghost of his mother, who in an exquisitely written scene reproves him for his unchecked passion and promises that the mystery of his birth shall be before long revealed. p. 48. A lady that was drown d at Sea. Cf. The Conquest of Granada (11), Act iv. Scene 3. 'The Alhambra, or a gallery.' . . . Almanzor 'goes to the door; the ghost of his mother meets him : he starts back : the ghost stands in the door.' ^ Ahnan%. Again ! by Heav'n I do conjure thee, speak ! What art thou, Spirit ? and what dost thou seek ? [ The ghost comes ofij softly^ after the conjuration ; and Alman- zor retires to the middle of the stage. Ghost. I am the Ghost of her who gave thee birth : The airy shadow of her mouldering earth. Love of thy father me through seas did guide ; On seas I bore thee, and on seas I died. I died ; and for my winding-sheet a wave I had, and all the ocean for my grave.' p. 48. The Tragic issues of our Love. Cf The Ungrateful Favourite (4to, 1664), Act iii. Scene 4 : — 'Let me intreat The issues of our love.' p. 48. Drawcansir. Drawcansir is a burlesque of Almanzor in The Conquest of Granada (1670). In his 'Essay on Heroic Plays' prefixed to the published play Dryden ably defends his hero. ''Tis said that Almanzor is no perfect pattern of heroic virtue, that he is a contemner of Kings, and that he is made to perform impossibilities. I must therefore avow, 1 24 Notes in the first place, from whence I took the character. The first image I had of him was from the Achilles of Homer, the next from Tasso's Rinaldo (who was a copy of the former), and the third from the Arteban of Monsieur Calprenede, who has imitated both.' Dryden then examines at length the temper of Achilles, pertinently quoting from the first book of the ///Whis famous quarrel with Agamemmon, and Horace's 'Honoratum si forte reponis Achillem Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis.' He also touches on various points in La Gerusalemme Liherata^ and after having made an excellent case concludes : 'If the history of the late Duke of Guise be true, he hazarded more and performed no less in Naples than Almanzor is feigned to have done in Granada.' In the Epistle Dedicatory 'To His Royal Highness the Duke' of York, he further says: 'I have formed a hero I confess ; not absolutely perfect ; but of an excessive and over- boiling courage, but Homer and Tasso are my precedents. Both the Greek and the Italian poet had well consider'd that a tame hero who never transgresses the bounds of moral virtue, would shine but dimly in an epic poem. . . . But a character of an eccentric virtue is the more exact image of human life, because he is not wholly exempted from its frail- ties ; such a person is Almanzor. ... By the suffrage of the most and best he already is acquitted.' p. 49. Since death my earthly part . . . This burlesques a speech of Berenice, the faithful wife of the Emperor Maximin, to her lover Porphyrius, Tyrannic Love^ Act iii : — '■Porphyrins. And would you rather choose your death than me? Berenice. My earthly part Which is iny tyrant's right, death will remove ; I'll come all soul and spirit to your love. With silent steps I'll follow you all day ; Or else, before you, in the sunbeams play : I'll lead you thence to melancholy groves, And there repeat the scenes of our past loves. Notes 125 At night, I will within your curtains peep ; With empty arms embrace you while you sleep : In gentle dreams I often will be by, And sweep along before your closing eye. All dangers from your bed I will remove, But guard it most from any future love ; And when at last, in pity, you will die, I'll watch your birth of immortality : Then, turtle-like, I'll to my mate repair. And teach you your first flight in open air. \_Exit Berenice,]' After the assassination of the tyrant Berenice is united to her lover. Berenice was acted by Mrs. Marshall, Porphyrins by Hart. p. 50. Hold^ stop your murdering hands. In Settle's Cambyses (1666), Act V, as Mandana, a captive princess, is led to execution the following occurs : — '■Mandana. Now, executioner. Osiris. Hold ! you mistake, Osiris lives ! ' p. 51. IVe'/i supple Statues in thy 'Temple grow. Cf. Sir Robert Howard's The Blind Lady (i2mo, 1660), 'If you deny I'll grow a fixed monument still to ubraid your rigour.' p. 51. Lo^ from this conquering Lance. This supplying of wine, a pie, and cheese by Pallas from her lance, helmet, and shield ridicules a scene in Porter's tragedy The Villain^ Act iii. Thomas, fourth son of Endymion Porter, staunchest of royalists, was born in 1636. He was from his youth up a swashbuckling adventuring fellow, and when only nineteen had been imprisoned for abducting his future bride, Anne Blount, daughter to the Earl of Newport. He twice killed his man in a duel. The first time he was burned in the hand, but on the second occasion had to fly. Pepys gives very full details of this latter encounter, which took place in July, 1667. Porter was afterwards recalled from exile. He lived till 1680. He has left four plays. The Villainy a tragedy (4to, 1663, 1670, 1694), was produced at the Duke's Theatre, Saturday, 18 October, 1662. It was played to crowded houses with immense success. On the Monday 126 Notes after the first performance young Killigrew extolled it to Pepys in the highest terms 'as if there had never been any such play come on the stage'. Both Captain Ferrers and Dr. Clarke seconded his praise. Accordingly the diarist promptly took coach and went, but 'whether it was in over- expecting or what, I know not, but I was never less pleased with a play in my life. Though there was good singing and dancing, yet no fancy in the play'. Doubtless the presence of Mrs. Pepys considerably dashed his enjoyment, for soon after he saw it at least twice again, and confesses 'the more I see it, the more I am offended at my first undervaluing the play, it being very good and pleasant, and yet a true and allowable tragedy'. The Carnival (4to, 1664), was produced at the King's House in 1664. The scene is laid in Seville. It is a capital comedy meriting the good reception it obtained. A Witty Combat; or, the Female Victor (4to, 1663), was 'acted by persons of quality in Whitsun week with great applause'. The plot narrates the adventures of Mary Moders or Stedman, a notorious imposter of the day, who pretended to be a princess from Germany. Her doings may be found in Kirkman's Counterfeit Lady Unveiled {^to, 1673). On 15 April, 1664, Pepys saw the woman herself act The German Princess which Geneste identifies with Porter's play. The French Conjuror (4to, 1678), came out at the Duke's Theatre, 1678. It is an excellent comedy with a highly amusing epilogue in broken French criticizing English actors. The plot is founded on two stories in Guzman d' Alfarache. They are improved in the borrowing. The Villain is a good tragedy, ably written and interesting throughout. The diction is easy and natural, and although never rising perhaps to any great heights yet well sustained and equable. The scene is laid at Tours. A regiment has just been quartered on the town and the play deals with the wrangles and strifes, subtly sown amongst the officers by Malignii, a major, whose machinations bring about no less than five deaths. Clairmont, the general, and Brisac, the hero, kill each other in a duel. Beauprcs and Bontefeu are Notes 1 27 likewise enmeshed in a fatal quarrel, and Belmont, who, is secretly married to Beaupres, is wounded to death by her husband in a mad fit of jealousy. His characters bear Porter's own stamp and are a trifle over-ready to resort to the sword on the smallest provocation. There is no doubt the play owed much to the acting of Sanford as Malignii. Aston and Cibber both praise him highly in this role, and King Charles II swore he was the best villain in the world. The scene here parodied is Act iii. The host, who is a thorough rogue, and his wife enter, having just been expelled by their landlord from the tavern, and he forthwith opens house by the wayside. DT^lpeche, Lamarche, tv/o officers, with their mistresses Mariane and Francibel, accom- panied by Coligni, the girls' clownish brother, proceed to sample the cheer. ' Enter Host and his Wife. Host. Nay, prithee weep not, chuck: I'll warrant thee There's nobody will take the house off their hands. Now we liave left it. IVife. But what an inhuman dog to turn us out, Just when these blades were come to town ! O the tearing customers we should have had ! Host. No matter, no matter, God's precious. They cannot hinder me my standing on the king's ground, And we will vent our merchandise here, In spite of their noses: set down the table, chuck ! There, there, so, lay the stools under it. Pox, let's be merry for all this, chuck. Hang sorrow, care will kill a cat. IVife. Truly, husband, I believe that's the reason Ours died this morning. Host. Away, woman, away — Sings. When as King Peppin rul'd in France, A king of wondrous might. He that could the coranto dance. Was straightways made a knight. If any pass this way, I'm sure they'll stop. For here's man's meat, and woman's meat ; 128 Notes Thou for the men, and I for the women, At the sign of St. Anthony's pig. Wife. But why have you chang'd the sign we had before ? St. Lewis is as much respected in this country. Host. Aye, but you know the prodigal child thrust out of Doors, kept company with pigs, good wife, and sows. Wife. 'Tis true, and with hogs, good husband, and hogs. Host. Away, thou cockatrice ; peace, here's company. Enter Coligni, D'Elpeche, Mariane, Lamarch, Francibel, Sings. Please you, monsieurs, entertain The damoisels ye bring ; Here's cheer, there ne'er was such in Spain, And wine would fox a king. Here's capons that from Bruges came In post for expedition. And veal so white, that none in Gant Can come in competition. Here's sallet mystic savor has, As mystic as the color ; A lover being put to grass Pick'd it against love's dolour. Here's vin de Bon, vin de Champagne, And vin de Celestine, And here is that they call Bouru, Which to love's sports incline. Sa, sa, monsieurs, what have you a mind to? Col. Odd's my life, gentlemen, here is the bravest Fellow I ever read of in all my travels ; Pray, friend, what show do you represent ? Host. Show, sir ? Col. Ay, show, sir; does that offend you? Uds fish, I care not a fart an you be offended at show, sir. What do you wear that in your hat for, sir. If it be not for a show, sir, ha ? Host. Why, for a sign, sir. Col. For a sign ? Why, are you the post ? Ha, ha, ha, ha ! A very good jest. Did not I put a very good jest upon him, gentlemen ? J Notes 1 29 Host. Yes, you tlitl, a very good jest ; ha, ha, ha, 'twas a very good Jest i' faith, gentlemen. Col. Why, so it was, sir ; for all your sneering. Host. Why, so I thought, sir ; 'tis very strange you will be so Angry without cause. Franc. So, so, gentlemen, my brother's taken up. ITElp. Aye, aye, let him alone, let's mark 'em. Col. Why, sir, without a cause ? I was angry at something ; I was angry at a post, and there you have it again, Ha, ha, ha, ha. Host. I'm glad you are pleas'd again, For I find your wits riding post, ha, ha, ha, ha. Col. A pig, a pig, a pig, ha, ha, ha. Host. 'Tis the sign of the pig, and I'm the master of the Cabaret, which shall give you most excellent content. Col. Say'st thou so, honest fellow ? Faith, thou art a very merry honest fellow ; Sisters, I'll treat you and these gentlemen At this cabaret he talks of. Prethee, honest friend, Where is this cabaret ? for I long to be in a cabaret. Host. Why, here, sir, sit down at this table. And call for what you will. D'Elp. How's this, how's this ? 'Sdeath are you one of Urganda's Squires? Pray, friend, whence shall the meat And wine come } Lamar. From Tripoli on a broomstick. Host. Pray, gentlemen, hinder me not the custom of the young gallant ; Entreat but these ladies to sit down, and break my head if you be not Well-treated — I'll desire no favour. Col. Nor no money neither, I hope, sir. Host. Truly I won't ; if you be not pleas'd above expectation, Ne'er trust one again of my profession. D''Elp. Faith, ladies, this may prove worth our curiosity ; Come, we will sit down. Mar. What you please, sir. Col. That's my good sister : come, come, La couvert, la convert. Lamar. This begins to look like something: he's bravely stuff 'd, K 130 Notes I'll warrant you, he is so well hung. Col. Now, sir, a cold breast of your delicate white veal. Host. Here you have it, sir. Col. Nay, nay, and a sallet, good sir, a sallet. Host. Well, sir, I must untruss a point. Col. How, sir, to give us a sallet ? Why have you been at grass ? D'Elp. Why d'ye want a boil'd sallet, monsieur ? Lamar. Before St. Lewis, an excellent trimming. I'll ha' my next suit, that I go into the campaign with, Trimm'd all with sausages. Mar. 'Twill make many a hungry soldier aim at you. Col. Well thought on, i' faith, sir. Come, friend, a dish of sausages ; a dish of sausages. Host. Why look you, sir, this gentleman only mistook The placing ; these do better in a belt. Franc. A strange fellow this. D^Elp. Aye, is it not ? Come, sir, wine we see you have Prethee let's taste the best. Host. That you shall, sir. If you'll hear music and a song with 't, I'm ready : you shall want nothing here. Sings. Ye may tipple, and tipple, and tipple, all out. Till ye baffle the stars, and the sun face about. D'Elp. Away with your drunken song; have you nothing Fitter to please the ladies? Host. Yes, sir. D'Elp. Come away with it then. Host sings. Col. Most excellent, i' faith ! Here's to thee, honest fellow, With all my heart: nay, stay a little, this is very good wine. Here's to thee again — hark, you honest fellow, Let me speak with you aside. D'ye count here by pieces, or d'ye treat by the head .? Host. I'll treat by the head, sir, if you please ; A crown a head, and you shall have excellent cheer, Wine as much as you can drink. Col. That's honestly said : you know my father, friend ; 'Tis Monsieur Cortaux. J Notes 1 3 I Host. Yes, sir, the famous scrivener here of Tours, Col. Well, treat us very well ; I'll see thee paid. Host. Nay, sir, I'll see myself paid, I'll w^arrant you, Before you and I part. Col. I do mean it so, honest friend, but prethee Speak not a word to the gentlemen, for then You quite disgrace, sir, your most humble servant. Host. Mum, a word to the wise is enough. Col. Come, come, friend, where's the capon of Bruges You last spoke of? Host. Here at hand, sir ; wife, undo my helmet : This, sir, is my crest. D'Elp. A very improper one for a married man. Col. Yes, faith and troth, he should have had horns, ha, ha, ha ! Here's to ye, noble captain, a very good jest, As I am a gentleman. T>''Elp. I thank you, sir ! Col. Methinks you are melancholy, sir ! Lamar. Not I, sir, I can assure you : ladies, how Like ye the sport ? an odd collation, but well contriv'd. Franc. The contrivance is all in all. Mar. What makes my brother kneel ; look, look, sister. Col. Here's a health to our noble colonel ; Gentlemen, ye see 'tis a good one ! WElp. Yes, and a large one, but if both drink it. How shall we lead your sisters home ? Col. No matter, hem : here 'tis, gentlemen, super naculum ; Come, come, a tansy, sirrah, quickly. D Elp. H'as pos'd ye there, mine host. Host. That's as time shall try, look ye here, sir : The lining of my cap is good for something. Lamar. Faith, this was unlook'd for. D^Elp. 'Sfish, I think all his apparel is made of commendable Stuff: has he not gingerbread shoes on ? Host. No, truly, sir, 'tis seldom call'd for in a tavern ; But if ye call'd for a dish of pettitoes, 'twere But plucking off my wife's buskins. Franc. We'll rather believe than try. Col. S'foot, I'll puzzle him now. A chamber-pot. Quickly, sirrah, a chamber ! O ! O ! O ! Quickly ! Host. Here, sir, you see it serves for a good cap with Feathers in't. This won't do, do your worst. I 3 2 Notes Gallant, I'll fit ye. Call for what ye please. Col. Nay, I've no need on't. 'Faith, thou art a brave Fellow. Here's mine host's health, gentlemen. D''Elp. Could you procure these ladies a dish of cream. Sir, this will show your masterpiece. Host. 'Tis the only weapon I fight at ; look ye, Gentlemen,the thunder has melted my sword in the scabbard ; But 'tis good, taste it. D^Elp. Th'ast my verdict to be tlie wonder of hosts, Shalt have a patent for it if I have any Power at court. Lamar. This is excellent.' There is next a dance, and Coligni, who has become intoxi- cated, is left in the host's care. p. 52. He that dares drink. This parodies The Conquest of Granada (11), Act iv, Scene 3 : — '• Almahide. Who dares to interrupt my private walk? Ahnanzor. He who dares love, and for that love must die, And, knowing this, dares yet love on arn I.' p. 5'^. 77 take your Bowles away. In burlesque of The Conquest of Granada (i), Act v, Scene 3 : — *■ Almanzor. I will not now, if thou wouldst beg me, stay; But I will take my Almahide away.' p. 53. JVho e'er to gulp one drop. Cf. The Conquest of Granada (i), Act v, Scene 3 : — *■ Almanzor. Thou dars't not marry her while I'm in sight : With a bent brow thy priest and thee I'll fright ; And in that scene Which all thy hopes and wishes should content, The thought of me shall make thee impotent.' p. c,2>. I drink., I huff. Cf. The Conquest of Granada (11), Act ii, Scene 3 : — '■Almanzor. Spite of myself I'll stay, fight, love, despair; And I can do all this, because I dare,' The Conquest of Granada ^-^s peculiarly vulnerable to parody. In Buckingham's /For/^j ( 1 704), vol. 11, is printed the follow- ing quatrain : — *A Py, a Pudding, a Pudding a Py, A Py for me, and a Pudding for thee ; Notes 133 A Pudding for mc, and a Py for thee, And a Pudding-Py for thee and me.' In parody of The Conquest of Granada (i), Act v, Scene i : — *■ Abenamar. For as old Selin was not mov'd by thee, Neither will I by Selin's Daughter be.' p. 54. My design is guilded Truncheons. In the first 4to, 1672, the words 'Roman clothes' are inserted before 'guilded truncheons'. The allusion is to the revival of Catiline. On 1 1 December, 1667, Pepys meeting his crony Harry Harris, a member of the Duke's company, 'talked of Catiline which is to be suddenly acted at the King's House ; and there all agree that It cannot be well done at that house, there not being good actors enough ; and Burt acts Cicero, which they all conclude he will not be able to do well. The King gives them ^^500 for robes, there being, as they say, to be sixteen scarlet robes.' Harris showed true professional jealousy and malice. On 1 1 January, however, a month later, Mrs. Knipp informed the diarist that Catiline 'for want of the clothes which the King promised them, will not be acted for a good while '. Ben Jonson's tragedy was eventually produced on Friday, 18 December, 1668, and Pepys, seeing It the next day from a box, found It rather dull 'though most fine in clothes, and a fine scene of the Senate, and of a fight, as ever I saw In my life'. On one occasion when 'there happened to be one night a play acted called Catalinc' s Conspiracy.^ wherein there was wanting a great number of senators'. Hart, who played Catallne, pressed Haines, the low comedian, Into service as a super, and 'would oblige Jo to dress for one of these senators '. In revenge Haines appeared upon the stage during the fifth act dressed as a scaramouch with a large full rufF, a peaked merry-Andrew's cap, whiskers from ear to ear, and puffing at a great pipe sat him down upon a little three-legged stool laughing at the great tragedian. The house burst Into a roar of jeering and hoot- ing, and Hart, after a few minutes, discovering the cause, stalked off the stage 'swearing he would never set foot on it again, unless Jo was Immediately turned out of doors, which was no sooner spoke, but put In practice.' I 3 4 Notes p. 54. Scctna II. This scene between Prince Pretty-man and Prince Volscius is reminiscent of Orrery's Mustapha (1665)5 Act ii, the dialogue between Zanger and Achmat. p. 54. I gladly would that story from thee learn. Cf. Orrery's Mustapha^ Act ii : — ^Zanger. Love is a god and cannot be withstood I rather would if e'er he conquered you, Be told how first he did your heart subdue.' p. c^^. How weak a Deity would nature prove. Cf, Orrery's Mustapha, Act ii : — ''Mustapha. Ev'n reason's power is useless against love, For when he enters reason does remove.' p. 55. Revive still as they roast. Cf. Orrery's Mustapha, Act ii : — ' Tjonger. Warm me and quench me for I freeze and burn. And at one object both rejoice and mourn. What means't thou, Nature, is it bad or good. To make this April-weather in my blood ? ' p. c^G. Were all Gods joind. A parody of Maximin in Tyrannic Love, Act ii. The emperor, having become violently enamoured of his fair captive, St. Catherine, suddenly suspects Placidius *a great officer' of being his rival : — ^Placidius (kneeling). Far, mighty prince, be such a crime from me. Which, with the pride, includes impiety. Could you forgive it, yet the gods above Would never pardon me a Christian love. Maximin. Thou liest : — there's not a god inhabits there. But for this Christian would all heaven forswear. Ev'n Jove would try more shapes her love to win, And in new birds and unknown beasts would sin. At least, if Jove could love like Maximin.' For another parody of Maximin's heroics cf Crowne's The Country Wit (1675), Act iv, Scene 2 : — ^ Booby. Your Worship and I acted a tragedy book, you know. Sir Man. Yes ; and I was a hero, and I remember two of the bravest lines — Notes I 3 5 If Saucy Jove my enemy appears I'll pull him out o' heaven by the ears ! There's ramping for you. Lady Fad. Saucy Jove ! That's very great ! that took mightily here.' p. 56. Durst any of the Gods. h\ Tyrannic Love ^Kct.\yV{\\Qn the tribune Albinus enters bearing the news that the young prince Charinus has been killed in a skirmish, Maximin cries : * Stay ; if thou speaks't that word, thou spcaks't thy last : Some god now, if he dares, relate what's past : Say but he's dead, that god shall mortal be.' And a little later : — ' Provoke my rage no farther, lest I be Reveng'd at once upon the gods and thee.* In Act V he utters the famous rant : — * What had the gods to do with me or mine ?' Maximin was acted by Mohun, whose performance was a masterpiece. In spite of its frenzies the emperor's rodomon- tade is not so unnatural as critics have thought when we remember 'Dominus et Deus noster'^ Domitian ; Commo- dus, Caracalla, Heliogabalus and other Caesars. For all its bombast Tyrannic Love is a tragedy of high merit and has many exquisite felicities. p. ^G. The joys of Heavn in Hell. Boileau summarized Quietism as the enjoyment in paradise of the pleasures of hell. p. 57. Too great for prose. Cf. the opening paragraphs of Dryden's 'Essay of Heroic Plays' which serves as a preface to The Conquest of Granada (i). p. 57. Let down the Curtain. In the Restoration theatre it was the usual practice for the curtain to rise at the commence- ment and fall at the end of the play, so that the close of each intermediate act was only marked by a clear stage. There are few exceptions to this rule, but Orrery, in his Henry the Fifth (1664), makes great use of the curtain, occasionally even during an act, and there is a striking example in Mrs. Behn's The Forced Marriage.^ acted December, 1670. The stage directions to Act ii are as follows : — 'The curtain 'Cf. Martial, Lib. v. 8 ; also Suetonius , 'Domitianus', cap 13 j and Xiphilinus. I 3 6 Notes must be let down, and soft music must play. The curtain being drawn up discovers a scene of a temple.' The repre- sentation of a wedding is shown with the King, court and priests. 'This within the scene. Without on the stage' appear a large number of characters intently gazing at the ceremony, ' all remaining without motion, whilst the music softly plays. This continues awhile till the curtain falls, and then the music plays aloud till the act begins' with the entry of two characters who have already been on watching the wedding. Any difficulties were, of course, obviated by the apron stage. No doubt this was occupied by Bayes and the two gentlemen, well forward ; but it is impossible to say exactly which scenes of The Rehearsal were acted within the prosce- nium and which on the apron. At the end of this fourth act, however, Bayes would clear the stage, and, saying ' Let down the curtain,' go off with the others. When the fifth act was to begin he would enter with Smith and Johnson through a proscenium door, of which entrances or exits there was one on either side of the stage, and after his first speech the curtain would be drawn up to discover the tableau of the usurping Kings, the cardinals, court and retinue. The whole subject of the apron stage and proscenium doors has been discussed in a most thorough and masterly way by Mr. W. J. Lawrence in his scholarly The Elizabethan Playhouse and other Studies. Amongst other examples he quotes this passage of The Rehearsal to illustrate his points. In his exquisitely beautiful Shakespearean productions at the Savoy theatre during the winter of 1 912-13, Granville Barker reproduced almost exactly the conditions of the Restoration theatre. Characters were able to advance from behind the proscenium on to the apron, and as the curtain fell they would uninterruptedly continue the scene, whilst others could appear as required from the two curtained entrances beyond the proscenium, one door on either side of the stage. Notes 1 37 ACT V. p. 57. Harry the Eight. See note (p. 105) on Harry the Eighty Act ii, Scasna 5, p. 27. p. 57. The Curtain is drawn up. Cf. Orrery's Henry the Fifth (1664). 'The Fourth Act. The curtain being drawn up. The Duke of Burgundy, the Constable, Earl of Charalois, and the Bishop of Arras are seen sitting at one side of a table, attended by the French officers of state ; on the other side are seated the Duke of Exeter, Duke of Bedford, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl of Warwick, attended by the English.' Also the same author's The Black Prince (19 Oct., 1667). 'The Second Act. The First Scene. The curtain being drawn up. King Edward the Third, King John of France, and the Prince of Wales appear' with a great attendance of lords, ladies, royal guards. There are elaborate stage directions, 'two scenes of clouds appear, the one within the other ; in the hollow of each cloud are women and men richly apparell'd who sing in dialogue and chorus as the clouds descend to the stage ; then the women and men enter upon the theatre and dance ; afterwards return into the clouds, which insensibly rise, all of them singing until the clouds are ascended to their full height, then only the scene of the King's magnificent palace does appear, all the company arise,' and the Act proper begins. p. 58. He is his Son. Cf. Joyner's The Roman Empress (4to, 1 671), Act iii : — ' Aurelia. Arsenius has let me know Of late a secret which will raise your wonder, How Florus is his son.' p. 58. Invades our ears. Cf. The Indian Queen (1664), Act i. Scene i : — '■ Acacis. What noise is this invades my ear?' Also Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes^ First Entry : — *■ Alphonso. What various noises do mine ears invade And have a cojicert of confusion made ? ' 138 Notes In Settle's Cambyses (1666), 'two glorious spirits descend in clouds' with a song which is interrupted by 'a bloody cloud and ghosts': — ^Smerdis. What pleasant music's this which charms my ears! 1st Priest. Some airy concert from the lower spheres.' p. 58. Firgifi vests. Cf. Cosmo Manuche's The Bastard (4to, 1652), Act iv, Scena secunda : — 'Picarro. Behold! Her spotless soul, attir'd in white, ascends In a clear chariot, drawn by virgins.' p. 59. Our modern Spirits. The song of the two right kings is a parody on Act iv of Tyrannic Love (1669), which opens in an Indian cave, where, after various occult ceremonies, the warlock Nigrinus, for the benefit of Placidius, who is enamoured of St. Catherine, raises two spirits, Nakar and Damilcar : — * Nakar and Damilcar descend in clouds^ and sing. Nakar. Hark, my Damilcar, we are call'd below ! Dam. Let us go, let us go ! Go to relieve the care Of longing lovers in despair ! Nakar. Merry, merry, merry, we sail from the east, Half tippled at a rainbow feast. Dam. In the bright moonshine while w^inds whistle loud, Tivy, tivy, tivy, we mount and we fiy. All racking along in a downy white cloud : And lest our leap from the sky should prove too far. We slide on the back of a new-falling star. Nakar. And drop from above In a jelly of love ! Dam. But now the sun's down, and the element's red. The spirits of fire against us make head ! Nakar. They muster, they muster, like gnats in the air : Alas ! I must leave thee, my fair ; And to my light horsemen repair. Dam. O stay, for you need not to fear 'em to-night ; The wind is for us, and blows full in their sight : And o'er the wide ocean we fight ! Notes I 3 9 Like leaves in the autumn our foes will fall down \ And hiss in the water — Both. And hiss in the water and drown ! Nakar. But their men lie securely intrench'd in a cloud, And a trumpeter-hornet to battle sounds loud. Dam. Now mortals that spy How we tilt in the sky, With wonder will gaze ; And fear such events as will ne'er come to pass ! Nakar. Stay you to perform what the man will have done. Dam. Then call me again when the battle is won. Both. So ready and quick is a spirit of air To pity the lover, and succour the fair, That, silent and swift, the little soft god Is here with a wish, and is gone with a nod. [The clouds part ; Nakar _/7;V5 up^ and Damilcar down.)* A vision of St. Catherine asleep is produced ; however, her guardian angel Amariel descending in a whirl of fire and glory straightway dispels the magic glamour with his flaming sword. This scene must have been extraordinarily effective on the stage. Kynaston acted Placidius, Beeston the con- juror, and Mrs. Boutell St. Catharine. p. 60. J Coranto of France. The 'swift coranto' was a quick lively dance of French origin. p. 60. A Conjuror. In allusion to Nigrinus in Tyrannic Love, vide supra note our modern spirits (p. 59). In Act iii of The Indian Queen (1664), we are shown the cell of the necromancer Ismeron, who invokes the God of Dreams to reveal the future to Zempoalla. The deity, however, refuses to play the prophet and bluntly tells the love-sick queen, 'Seek not to know what must not be revealed.' There is also a song 'supposed sung by aerial spirits.' Wizards, witches, and incantation scenes are frequent in heroic tragedies. They were largely introduced for scenic purposes. p. 6 1 . Let's have a Dance. The Fifth Entry of Davenant's History of Sir Francis Drake (4to, 1659) — afterwards Act iii of The Playhouse to be Let (folio, 1673) — is ushered in 'by a prelude and corante'. 1 40 Notes Cf. Ed. Howard's The Woman's Conquest (4to, 1671), Act iv, Scene i : — ^ Renone. Some prisoners of war desire to present Your majesty with a dance, after the Manner of their country. Mandana. We admit them. \tnmic and a dance.^ ' p. 6r. Dance a grand Dance. Pepys being at the first performance of Orrery's 'The Black Prince., on Saturday, 19 October, 1667, noted that the play had 'in it nothing particular but a very fine dance for variety of figures '. He saw it again on i April, 1668, and found 'the fancy, most of it, the same as in the rest of my Lord Orrery's plays, but the dance very stately'. p. 62. Five Guineys. Cf. The Imperial Tragedy (anon, 4to, 1669) : — ' Ye noble sons of Mars . . . . , . This gold accept it. Castor, pray see it be distributed. Castor (a Heutenant-general). Such golden showers are rare in this our age.' p. 62. What dreadful noise is this? This scene parodies The Conquest of Granada (11), Act i, Scene 2 : — '•(A tianultuous noise within). Enter Abdelmelech. Boahdelin. What new misfortune do these cries presage ? Abdel. They are th' effects of the mad people's rage. Enter a Second Messenger. Sec. Mess. Haste all you can their fury to assuage. You are not safe from their rebellious rage. Enter a Third Messenger. Third Mess. This minute if you grant not their desire They'll seize your person, and your palace fire.' Cf Orrery's Mustapha (1665), Act iv : — ' Enter Solyman, Rustan, Pyrrhus. [^Shouts are heard from within.'] Soly. What shouts are these ? Rust. Shouts which your soldiers pay. Hearing Prince Mustapha has leave to stay.' Notes 1 4 1 And again, a little earlier in the same play : — ' llmricus. The Sultan's troops, more swift than in alarms, Are without orders running to their arms. V'tche. Rustan does now in sev'ral shapes appear, For he is often altered by his fear. Cardinal. The army is so bent to mutiny That Mustapha does counsel you to fly. Madam, we all are to your flight inclin'd. Queen. But to this place, my Lord, I am confin'd And by a tie which has such influence, That I will rather die than fly from hence. (A mutinous noise is heard). Card. Their anger is grown loud ! Madam, 'tis fit That you send out to know the cause of it.' p. 63. AmariUis speaks very well. Sheridan imitates this very closely in The Critic (1779), ^^^ ^^^ Scene i: — ^ Puff. Now, sir, your soliloquy Beefeater. Though hopeless love finds comfort in despair. It never can endure a rival's bliss ! But soft — I am observed. (Exit). Dangle. That's a very short soliloquy. Puff. Yes — but it would have been a great deal longer if he had not been observed.' p. 63. I sum up my whole Battle. Sir William Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes (i), The Fifth Entry, is here aimed at. The scene was ' a representation of a general assault given to the Town ; the greatest fury of the army being discerned at the English Station. The Entry is again prepar'd by instrumental music' Two persons, Pirrhus, vizier bassa, and Mustapha, bassa, commence the Entry. They are joined by the Sultan Solyman. Alphonso, a Sicilian noble, fighting for the Rhodians, and the Admiral of the Isle next appear. A little later the scene changes to the town besieged, and we are introduced to Villerius, Grand Master of Rhodes, with lanthe, Alphonso's wife. Davenant has managed his battles excellently, although of course in an opera there must be certain conventions in such scenes, which to us are quite natural and allowable, and yet to the Duke of Buckingham and the wits must always give ample scope for burlesque and clever parody. 142 Notes p. 65. Enter ^ at several doors. The Siege of Rhodes (i), commences thus: — 'The curtain being drawn up, a lightsome sky appear'd discovering a maritime coast, full of craggy rocks and high cliffs . . . and, afar off, the true prospect of the city of Rhodes. ... In that part of the horizon, terminated by the sea, was represented the Turkish fleet, making towards a promontory, some few miles distant from the town . , . instrumental music' 'The First Entry. Enter Admiral. Adviir. Arm, arm, Villerius, arm ! Thou hast no leisure to grow old ; Those now must feel thy courage warm, Who think thy blood is cold. Enter Villerius. Vill. Our Admiral from sea ! What storm transporteth thee ? Admir. Arm ! Arm ! The Bassa's fleet appears ; To Rhodes his course from Chios steers.' p. (if^. Villain., thou lyest. Cf. Mrs. Behn's The Forced Mar- riage ; or. The Jealous Bridegroom (4to, 1671), Act ii. Scene 7. * Philander. Villain, thou liest ! Alcippus. That you are my prince shall not defend you here. Draw, sir, for I have laid respect aside.' Abdelazar ; or. The Moors Revenge (4to, 1677), Act iv. Scene 4 : — < Philip. Death ! you lie ! Cardinal. Lie ! sir ! Phil. Yes, lie sir.' Sir R. Howard's The Surprisal, Act iv, Scene 3 (1665 folio): ' Samira. Villain thou liest, in everything thou liest.' p. 6^. Draw down the Chelsey Cuirasiers. The Third Entry in The Siege of Rhodes commences thus : — ' Solyman. Pirrhus, draw up our army wide ! Then from the gross two strong reserves divide ; And spread the wings; Notes 1 43 As if we were to fight, In the lost Rhodiaiis' sight, With all the western kings ! Each wing with Janizaries line ; The right and left to Haly's sons assign. The gross to Zangiban. The main artillery With Mustapha shall be : Bring thou the rear, we lead the van.' At the beginning of the Fifth Entry is : — ' Mustapha. Point well the cannons and play fast ! Their fury is too hot to last. That rampire shakes, they fly into the town. Pirrhus. March up with those reserves to that redoubt ; Faint slaves I the Janizaries reel ! They bend, they bend ! and seem to feel The terrors of a rout. Musta. Old Zanger halts, and reinforcement lacks ! Pirrhus. March on ! Musta. Advance those pikes, and charge their backs ! ' Cf. also The History of Sir Francis Drake^ being Act iv of The Playhouse to be Let : — ' Drake junior. More pikes ! More pikes ! to reinforce That squadron, and repulse the horse.' and the whole conduct of the battle concluding that act. p. 6^. Petty France. Petty France, rebuilt in 1730 and called New Broad Street, was, in the reign of Charles II, to the north of Broad Street, beyond the city wall. The passage, mentioned by Defoe in his 'Journal of the Plague Year' as leading from Petty France into Bishopsgate churchyard, is still in existence. p. 66. This was unkind^ O moon. Cf. Daphne's address to a laurel bush in Stapylton's The Stepmother [^to, 1664), Act iii, Apollo's Masque : — ^Daphne. False laurel, wcrt thou kind so long At last to sell me for a song ? ' p. 67. A dialogue . . . Slighted Maid. The Slighted Maid is a comedy by Sir Robert Stapylton, the third son of Richard Stapylton, of Carlton, near Snaith, Yorks. He was educated in 1 44 Notes the Benedictine convent of St. Gregory at Douai, took the habit, and was solemnly professed, 30 March, 1625. In the words of Wood, 'being too gay and poetical to be confined within a cloister,' he left the Order, became a Protestant, and was appointed one of the Gentlemen in Ordinary of the Privy Chamber to Prince Charles. He followed the King from London, and was knighted at Nottingham, 13 September, 1642. After Edgehill, accompanying the king to Oxford, he was created D.C.L. in November, 1642. He remained here until the city surrendered to Fairfax, 1645. Under the Commonwealth he lived in retirement, devoting himself to study, and at the Restoration was promptly made one of the Gentlemen Ushers of the Privy Chamber. Stapylton died 10 July, 1669, and was buried five days later near the vestry door of Westminster Abbey. There are three engraved portraits, one by William Marshall. He published several translations from the classics, of which his Juvenal is the best known, and also various copies of commendatory verses. His dramatic works are four in number. The Royal Choice^ unprinted, but entered on the register of the Stationers' Company, 29 November, 1653. The Slighted Maid (4to, 1663) was produced early in 1663 at the Duke's Theatre. It met with success. On 29 May, 1663, Pepys seeing it for the second time, found 'the play is not very excellent, but is well acted.' On 28 July, 1668, being in a bad temper, he reports it ' a mean play.' Dryden has some severe strictures on the piece, but Geneste is fairest when he terms it ' a pretty good comedy.' It is somewhat hybrid and rococo, but if carefully acted should have proved interesting. The Stepmother (^Ar^Oj 1664), acted at the Duke's Theatre, was very well received. Sir Robert did not put his name to this play, but the prologue expressly declares it to be written by the author of The Slighted Maid. The instrumental, vocal and recitative music was composed by Locke. The Tragedy of Hero and Leander (4to, 1669) is taken from the pseudo-MusaeuSj a poet Stapylton immensely admired. He has ventured on many additions which are by no means Notes 145 improvements. The piece is for the most part in rhyme, very tamely written, and it is easy to understand why it was never staged. The passage here so deftly parodied occurs in Act v of The Slighted Maid, and runs as follows : — 'The Scene : Vulcan s court^ over it is ivrit, "Foro del Volcano." Soft music. Enter Aurora in a black veil below. Song in dialogue. Aur. Phoebus? Fhoeb. Who calls the world's great light ? Aur. Aurora, that abhors the night. Phoeb. Why does Aurora from her cloud To drowsy Phoebus cry so loud ? Aur. Put on thy beams ; rise (no regard To a young goddess, that lies hard In th' old man's bosom P) rise for shame, And shine my cloud into a flame. Phoeb. Oblige me not beyond my pow'r, I must not rise before my hour. Aur. Before thy hour? Look down, and see, In vain the Persian kneels to thee, And I (mock'd by the glimm'ring shade) A sad mistake in Naples made ; Like Pliny, I had lost my life, If I had been a mortal wife. Phoeb. Thou cam'st too near the burning Mount Vesuvio ? Aur. Upon thy account. For I took clouds of smoke and fire, (Which here from Vulcan's court expire,) For morning-streaks, blue, white, and red. That rouse me from cold Tithon's bed. Phoebus enters with his beams on. Phoeb. Charge not upon me for a crime, That I stay'd th' utmost point of time. Before I would put off my bays, And on Naples shed my rays. Where such a mischief they have done, As will make Venus hate the sun, L 1 46 Notes Discovering to Vulcan's eye Where she and Mars embracing lie. Aur. I'm sorry Mars and Venus had Such privacy ; but I am glad That Phoebus does at last appear To shine away Aurora's fear. Phceb. What frighted thee ? Aur. I know not what : But thou know'st all ; what noise is that ? [JVithin Vulcan r-oars out : " No work, rogues ? " Phoeh. 'Tis Vulcan, in a greater heat Than th' irons by his Cyclops beat : He makes the horror of that noise. Teaching and knocking his great boys. From hamm'ring out Jove's thunder, set To file and polish Vulcan's net. Which he'll catch Mars and Venus in. Aur. What now ? (Laughing within). Phoeb. To laugh the smitlis begin : At furious Vulcan halting ofiF, To measure his wife's bed, they scoff. Aur. I'll leave the place ; I can no more Endure the laughter than the roar. (Tuning within). Phoeb. Hark, they record ; they'll sing anon : 'Tis time for Phoebus to be gone ; For wlien such lyric asses bray. The God of Music cannot stay. [Exeunt Phcebus and Aurora. The Cyclops' song (ivithin). Cry our ware, sooty fellows Of the forge and the bellows ; Has Jove any oaks to rend ? Has Ceres sickles to mend ? Wants Neptune a Water-fork? All these are the Cyclops' work ; But to withdraw iron rods. To file nets to catch the gods. What can make our fingers so fine ? Drink, drink, wine, Lipari wine. Notes 1 47 (Chorus). Smoke, smoke breeds the tisic ; Wine, wine's the best physic ; For every Cyclop a full can. Our terms run thus : Some wine for us, Or no net for our Master Vulcan.' At the conclusion of the Masque the jealous Decio rushes in upon Iberio and Pyramena, who are ' as Venus and Mars discovered on a bed with Cupid weeping at the foot'. Decio eventually proves to be Ericina, the Slighted Maid, who, to avenge her refusal by Iberio, personates her dead sister. Ericina is eventually wedded to Aviedo, who in his turn is found to be one Guilio, heir to Gonsalvo, 'a great captain'. p. 67. The Hey. It has been suggested that the name of this dance (hey or hay) is derived from the French, haie = a hedge, the dancers, who stood in two rows, being compared to hedges. It seems to have been a kind of reel, and Thornot Arbeau describes one of the passages-at-arms in the Buffons or Matassins as the ' Passage de la Haye '. This was solely danced by men who imitated a combat. In Playford's Muskk's Handmaid (^16^ 'i')^ an air is found entitled 'The Canaries, or the Hay.' The Canaries was greatly in vogue in France temp. Louis XIV. Tv/o partners danced, and it appears a variant of the jig. p. 67. Sell the Earth a bargain. To sell bargains was a piece of foolery v/hich consisted in answering innocent questions with some impudent vulgarity. Dryden sufficiently explains it in Mac Flecknoe^ where he lashes Shadwell for having introduced this dirty buffiaonery in The Virtuoso. In his prologue to The Prophetess (1690), he pictures the ladies, whose gallants are in Ireland with King William, gazing at the empty places, and sighing ' 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 dumfounding.' 1 48 Notes Lee, also, in the prologue to The Rival Queens (4to, 1677), has the following lines : ' As for you, sparks, that hither come each day To act your own, and not to mind our play. Rehearse your usual follies to the pit, And with loud nonsense crown the stage's wit ; Talk of your clothes, your last debauches tell, And witty bargains to each other sell.' Young Ranter, a town spark, in Crowne's The English Friar (1690), is much given to this form of amusement, evidently regarding it as a gentlemanly accomplishment. p. 67. Tom Tyler. 'Tom Tyler' and 'Robin Hood' were popular old country tunes, the latter being especially asso- ciated with May Day revels. p. 68. Trenchmore. Trenchmore is an old English rustic dance. According to Chappell it is first mentioned by William Bulleyn in 1564. Trenchmore first appears in The Dancing Master^ Fifth Edition (1675). The direction is, to be danced 'longways for as many as you will'. The tune there given is found in Deuteromelia ( 1 609), where it is called ' To-morrow the fox will come to town'. p. 69. Great hobby horses. Cf. the stage direction to Ed. Howard's The Man of Newmarket {^to^ 1678). 'The scene opens with the 3rd and 4th jockey mounted on the shapes of two horses.' p. 69. Achilles. The character of Almanzor Dryden tells us was largely based on Homer's Achilles. p. 69. How shall all the dead men go off? In a tragedy the principal deaths were enacted well forward on the projecting portion of the stage in front of the proscenium, and when the curtains closed the bodies were solemnly carried out by bearers. Cf. the much quoted epilogue to Tyrannic Love {1660)). Nell Gwynne as Valeria, the tyrant's daughter, had in the last act stabbed herself She lies dead on the boards, and at the end of the piece follows, 'Epilogue spoken by Mrs. Ellen when she was to be carried off dead by the bearers.' ' To the Bearer. Hold ! are you mad ? you damned confounded dog ! I am to rise and speak the epilogue. Notes 1 49 To the Audience. I come, kind gentlemen, strange news to tell ye ; I am the ghost of poor departed Nelly.' In Sir Robert Howard's The Vestal Virgin ; or The Roman Laities (folio, 1665), as originally acted, the stage is heaped with dead, and Emilius ends with the tag : — 'The world shall weep for me whenever fame Does but relate the Vestal Virgin's name.' Just as the last words were spoke. Lacy entered and began the epilogue. 'By your leave, gentlemen. After a sad and dismal tragedy I do suppose that few expected me ! ' Sir Robert however altered the end of his fourth act, and almost entirely rewrote Act v so it could be 'acted the comical way'. Only one character, Mutlus is killed, and the 'epilogue spoken by Lacy, who is suppos'd to enter as intending to speak the epilogue for the tragedy ', commences : 'By your leave, gentlemen — How ! What do I see ! How ! all alive ! Then there's no use for me. Troth, I rejoice you are revived again ; And so farewell, good living gentlemen.' p. 70. CioriSy in despair^ drowns herself. Cf. Mrs. Behn's The Amorous Prince; or. The Curious Husband (^j^to, 1671), Act iv, Scene 2 : — ' Guilliatn. Oh, sir, the poor maid you speak of is dead ! Curtius. Dead ! Where died she ? And how ? Guil. . . . Why, sir, she came into the wood and liard by A river side she sighed and wept full sore ; And cried two or three times out upon Curtius, And — then — [howls.) Curt. Poor Cloris, thy fate was too severe. Guil. And then, as I was saying, sir. She leaped into the river, and swam up the stream.' p. 71. Go to Dinner. In 1658 when Sir William Davenant was very cautiously attempting his Entertainments of Music with scenes, the hour of the play was three o'clock as we learn from the title of The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru I 5 o Notes (4to, 1658), 'represented daily at the Cockpit in Drury Lane, at three afternoon punctually.' At the Restoration the play began half an hour after. In the prologue to The Wild Gallant^ produced 5 February, 1663, an astrologer appears and reads 'A figure of the heavenly bodies in their several apartments, Feb. 5th, half an hour after three afternoon from whence you are to judge the success of a new play The Wild Gallant' This hour for the curtain was maintained for at least a couple of decades, though it gradually became a little later. Some alteration was made, I am inclined to think, soon after the death of Charles II. By the end of the century, at any rate, five o'clock was the regular time. It may be remarked that the famous play-bill for the opening of Killigrew's 'New Theatre in Drury Lane', this day being Thursday, 8 April, 1663, with The Humorous Lieutenant, says, ' The play will begin at three o'clock exactly ; ' but Mr. Lowe has acutely shown that this bill is indisput- ably a forgery. The Playbill of The Confederacy ' the sixth day of November, 1 705 ' has ' beginning exactly at Five of the Clock', whilst in the epilogue to Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer (iyo6)j all who wish to see this comedy are bidden 'repair tomorrow night, by six o'clock, to the sign of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.' Six o'clock was the hour for more than half-a-century. On 6 November, 1740, when Peg Woffington made her first appearance at Covent Garden the bill has, 'By the Company of Comedians, At the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. This day will be presented a Comedy, call'd The Recruiting Officer, written by the late Mr. Farquhar. The part of Sylvia by Miss Woffington, (being the first time of her performing on that Stage). . . . To begin exactly at Six-o-clock.' On 28 September, 1750, the Covent Garden bill tells us that the play was Romeo and Juliet. 'The part of Romeo to be perform'd by Mr. Barry. . . . And the part of Juliet to be performed by Mrs. Cibber. . . . To begin exactly at Six-o-clock.' The rehearsal of Mr. Bayes' tragedy would have taken place in the morning. p. 72. Lefs set up bills. In Restoration times one method of announcing the next day's performance to the public was Notes 1 5 1 by putting out bills on posts in the streets adjacent to the theatre. Pepys, going to see what play was to be acted on 24 March, 1662, found the theatres closed during Passiontide; another occasion (28 July, 1664) he notices on the posts that Massinger's The Bondman^ a prime favourite of his, was to be given at the Duke's House, and so he straightway goes to see it. Isabella, in The Wild Gallant^ Act ii (originally 1663, reproduced 1667), says : 'Your name has been on more posts than playbills.' When a French troop visited London in 1672 they used the novelty of scarlet printed bills. Dryden in the prologue to Cd.r\e\Vs y^rviragus and Phi/icia (originally 1639, reproduced 1672), spoken by Hart, has the following hit : — '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.' The whole subject of these bills has been most exhaustively treated by Mr. W. J. Lawrence in his 'The Origin of the Theatre Programme' — Elizabethan Playhouse {Second Series). p. 72. Haynes. Joseph Haines, the celebrated farceur, was educated at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and Queen's College, Oxford, He appears to have fallen in with a company of strollers at Stourbridge fair ; to have belonged to the Barbican Nursery, and then joined the King's Theatre, soon after it was first opened by Killigrew in Drury Lane, May, 1663. An exquisite dancer, he became famous for both writing and saucily delivering the broadest of prologues and epilogues, and soon attained no small notoriety from his pranks off as well as on the stage. Owing to his propensity for sheer buffoonery and to the results of his practical jokes upon such men as Hart and Betterton, he seems to have shifted his quarters from house to house at no infrequent intervals. His first recorded role was Benito in The Assignation (1672), a character especially written for him by Dryden. As a regular actor, save in some few parts which he made peculiarly his own, he met with no extraordinary success. However, as the French Master in Ravenscroft's Citizen turned Gentleman (16^2) ; Plot in Orrery's Mr. Anthony (4to, 1690) ; Roger in Vanbrugh's Aesop (1697) ; Tom Errand in I 5 2 Notes Farquhar's The Constant Couple^ or a Trip to the Jubilee (^\6()0i\ he chanced on his own vein and gave first-rate performances. As early as May, 1668, Pepys pronounced him 'an incom- parable dancer'. Anthony Aston has many anecdotes concerning this merry droll, and more than one life of him has been penned. He died in 1701, leaving a large number of prologues and epilogues, and one play, A Fatal Mistake^ or the Plot spoiled (4to, 1696). A contemporary satire on the Duke of Buckingham referring to The Rehearsal has the following lines : — 'I confess the dances are very well writ And the time and the tune by Haynes well set,' During Lacy's illness and after his death Haines often acted Bayes in the following circumstances : — ' The Rehearsal^ writ by His Grace the Duke of Buckingham was to be acted. The famous Lacy, whose part was that of Bays, unreasonably falls sick of the gout, and consequently is incapable of appearing on the theatre. Hayns is looked upon as the fittest person to supply the place of the distemper'd, his Grace himself being pleased to instruct him in the nature of the part, and Mr. Lacy, by his Grace's command, took no small pains in teaching it*' him ; nor did Lacy gain less reputation by this his suffragan and schollar than if he had acted it himself. So well did Hayns perform it that the Earl of R[ochester], Lord B[uckhurst], Sir Charles S[edley], and several of the most ingenious men, ever after held him in great esteem, which increased more and more with his conservation.' At the accession of James II he became a Catholic, but shortly after recanted, and spoke a special prologue to The Rehearsal writ- ten by Tom Brown. They are dirty lines and offensive. He masqueraded in *a white sheet with a burning taper in his hand'. Haines died in 1701. p. 72. Shirley, vide p. 102, note *p. 26, Enter Shirly.' p. 72. Let's go away to dinner. Thomas Thomson's The English Rogue (4to, 1668), concludes thus : — ^Plot-thrift. Come, let's have a dance or two and so to dinner. All. Agreed ! Agreed ! {dance.) Arantius. Well, nov/ let's in to dinner.' APPENDIX Readings of Q. i.' p. 2, 1. i6. ^ Johns. Why, your Blade, your frank Persons, your Drolls:' 'I think it is o' this side.' p. 4,1. i8. ^ Smi. How's that. Sir, by a Rule, I pray.''' p. 5, 1. 27. * Bayes. 1, Sirs, when you come to write yourselves, o' my word you'll find it so. But, Gentlemen, if you make the least scruple ', &c. p. 7, 1. 9. ^ ^ Bayes. I, it's a pretty little rogue; she is my Mis- tress. I knew her face would set off Armor extremely ; and, to tell you true, 1 writ that Part only for her. Well, gentlemen I dare be bold to say, without vanity, I'll show you something here that's very ridiculous, i'gad. [Exeunt Players.'] Johns. Sir, that we do not doubt of. Bayes. Pray, Sir, let's sit down. Look you. Sir, the chief hindge', &c., continuing as 1. 27, p. 8. p. 9, 1. 25. omits '[that is, . . . the Prologue] :' p. 14, 1. 23. 'Actus II. Sc^na I. Bayes, Johnson and Smith. Bayes. Now, Sir, because I'l do nothing here that ever was done before — \_Spits. Smi. A very notable design, for a Play, indeed. ' This appendix is not to be taken as exactly recording every minor divergence in punctuation and the like between Quartos I and 3, but as embodying only those differences of text which are of real importance and value. 1 54 Appendix Baycs. Instead of beginning with a Scene that discovers something of the Plot, I begin this with a whisper. Smi. That's very new. Bayes. Come, take your seats. Begin Sirs.' p. 15, line 16. ' physicians'. p. i7>l-.30-, omits trom 'Foppery' to beginning 'Sc^na II,' p. 19. p. 20, line 13. ' It was I, you must know, writ the Play I told you of in this very stile ; and shall 1 tell you a very good jest "? I gad, the Players would not act it : ha, ha, ha. S?m. That's impossible. Bayes. I gad, they would not, Sir : ha, ha, ha. They refus'd it, I gad, the silly Rogues : ha, ha, ha. Johns. Fie, that was rude. ' p. 21,1. 14. omits from 'proud Players, I gad' tol. 19 'Sc/ena III.' p. 22, 1. 16. after 'dry my tears. [Exit.' omits to ' — effects of an Amour.' and continues straight ''Bayes. 1 am afraid. Gentlemen, this Scene,' &c. p. 22, 1. 29. omits ' Bayes. That's all.' p. 23, I. 28. 'close to it, with a pipe of Tobacco in my mouth, and then I whew it away, i'faith.' p. 24, 1. 2. ' which I divide thus : into when they heard, what they heard, and whether they heard or no.' omitting lines 3-9. p. 24,1. 17. ^ ' they are both politicians. 1 writ this Scene for a pattern to show the world how men should talk of business', and continues as 1. 26, p. 25, with Johnson's speech, 'You have done it exceeding well indeed.' p. 25, 1 29. ^ after Phys.' speech inserts ' Ush. No bodie else will take us.' Appendix i 5 5 p. 26,1. 17. omits from '[Ea;//.' to 1. 23 '5;«/. But, pray, Sir', &c. p. 28, 1. 21. omits ^Smi. Like Horsemen! what, a plague, can that be ?' p. 29, 1. 8. '■Bayes. Sir, all my fancies are so. I tread upon no mans heels ; but make my flight upon my own wings, I assure you. As, now, this next Scene some perhaps will say, It is not very necessary to the Plot : I grant it ; what then .'' I meant it so. But then it's as full of Drollery as ever it can hold : 'tis like an Orange stuck with Cloves, as for conceipt. Come, where are you ^ This Scene will make you die with laughing, if it be well acted : it is a Scene of sheer Wit, without any mixture in the world, I gad. [Reads — Enter Prince Pretty-man, and Tom Thimble his 'Taylor. This, Sirs, might properly enough be call'd a prize of Wit ; for you shall see 'em come in upon one another snip snap, hit for hit, as fast as can be. First one speaks, then presently t'other's upon him slap, with a Repartee ; then he at him again, dash with a new conceipt : and so eternally, eternally, 1 gad, till they go quite off the Stage. [Goes to call the Players. Smi. What a plague, does this Fop mean by his snip snap, hit for hit, and dash } Johns. Mean.? why, he never meant any thing in's life: what dost talk of meaning for ^ Enter Bayes. Bayes. Why don't you come in } Enter Prince Pretty-man and Tom Thimble. Pret. But pr'ythee, Tom Thimble^ why wilt thou needs marry } If nine Taylors make but one man ; and one woman cannot be satisfi'd with nine men : what work art thou cutting out here for thy self, trow we V p. 30, 1. 6. ' trow we ^ ' 156 Appendix p. 30, 1. 24. * cloath '. p. 30j 1-.29- omits ' Bayes. There's pay, upon pay ! as good as ever was written, 1 gad ! ' P- 32, 1- 3- ' . . . What are they gone and forgot the Song ? Smi. They have done very well, methinks, here's no need of one. Bayes. Alack, sir, you know nothing : you must ever interlard your Plays with Songs, Ghosts, and Idols if you mean to — a — ' continuing as 1. 8, p. 33. P-35, 1'.9- omits 'Sc^NA III.' p. 35, 1.22. after ' . . . lose the conceipt.' ^ Johns. Indeed the alteration of that accent does a great deal, Mr. Bayes. Bayes. O, all in all, sir : they are these little things that mar, or set you offa play. Smi. I see you are very perfect ', &c. p. 35, 1.25. omits 'one would think.' p. 36,1. 13. ' Bayes. Mark how I make the horror of his guilt con- found his intellects ; for that's the design of this Scene.' p. 36, 1. 22. omits 'Scy^NA IV.' P- 37,1- 15- marks '■\Exit.^ P- 39> 1- 3- omits 'Sc^NA V.' p. 40, 1. 28. omits ' Bayes. Now that's the Parthenope^ I told you of. Johns. I, I : I gad you are very right.' p. 41,1. II. ' as he is pulling on his boots falls in love. Ha, ha, ha. Smi. 0,1 did not observe: that, indeed, is a very goodjest. Bayes. Here now you shall see a combat ', &c. Appendix 157 p. 41,1.23. omits in stage direction ^ to pull on . . . he speaks ii.' p. 41,1. 29. gives Smith's speech to Johnson, p. 42, 1. I. ^ gives Johnson's speech to Smith ; commencing ' I, the fool', &c. p. 42,1. 19. reads ^[Exit with one Boot on^ and the other off.' p. 42, L 25. 'in the world I gad. But, Sirs, you cannot make any judgement of this Play, because we are come but to the end of the second Act. Come, the Dance. [Dance.'] Well, Gentlemen, you'll see this Dance if I am not mistaken, take very well upon the Stage', &c., continuing as 1. 4, p. 44. p. 44,1. 31. * I write for Fame and Reputation.' p. 46, 1. 5. ' That is my sense. And therefore. Sir, whereas every- one makes five Acts to one Play', &c. p. 51,1. 9. ^\_The Coffin opens ^ and Banquet is discovered. Bayes. Now it's out. This is the very Funeral of the fair person which Volscius sent word was dead, and Pallas, you see, has turn'd it into a Banquet. Johns. By my troth, now, that is new, and more than I expected. Bayes. Yes, I knew this would please you : for the chief Art in Poetry is to elevate your expectation, and then bring you off some extraordinary way. K. Ush. Resplendent Pallas^ we in thee do find,' &c. p. 52, 1. 6. ' IVanish Pallas. Enter Drawcansir. K. Phys. What man is this that dares disturb our feast } ' &c. 158 Appendix p. 52, 1. 24. ^ Johns. . . . good one, 1 swear. K. Ush. Sir, if you please ', . . . omitting lines 25-9. P- SZ^ 1- 5- ' my Boles.' P- ST^^ 1- 23. 'as fast as they can possibly be represented.' p. 53, 1-.25. omits from ^Bayes. Now there are some . . .' to 1. 29 ^Bayes. Go on then.' p. 54, 1. 2. _ * my design is Roman cloaths, guilded Truncheons.' p. 56, 1. 19. omits this, the stage direction. p. s^. 1.30. omits from ^ [He puts 'em off the Stage.y to 1. 6, p. 57, reading, '■Johns. But Mr. Baycs^ pray why is this Scene', &c. P- 57,1- 13- ' So, now let down the Curtain.' p. 57, 1. 25. ' I have brought in two other Cardinals.' p. 58, 1. 4. ' — By gad, I won't tell you. Smi. I ask your pardon, sir. K. Ush. Now, Sir, to the business of the day. Vols. Dread Soveraign Lords', &c. p. 58,1.6. omits ^K. Phys. Speak Fo/scius.' p. 58, 1. 16. puts Pretty-man's two lines before Bayes' and Johnson's speeches. p. 62. 1. 8. * they had broke this design. Smi. That's true, indeed. I did not think of that. I King. Here, take', &c. p. 62, 1. 26. omits ^ Bayes, Is not that . , . come off:' Appendix 159 p. 63,1. 17. * Bayes. Why, there's it now ', &c. p. 64, 1 7- * represents fighting enough,) each of em holding a Lute in his hand. Smi. How, Sir, instead of a buckler?' &c., as 1. 13. p. 64. 1. 22. adds * of war. Is not that well?' p. 64, 1. 30. * . . . recitativo first. ^ Enter at several doors\ &c., omitting Johnson's speech and Bayes' answer, p. 67,1. II. ^ Johns. No doubt on't, Mr. Bayes. Bayes. But, Sir, you have heard I suppose', &c. p. 67, 1. 29. *. . . Joque, 1 make the Moon sell the Earth a Bar- gain.' &c. p. 68, 1. 9. omits * Bayes. There's the bargain.' p. 68, 1. 10. omits ^To the Tune 0/ Robin Hood.' p. 68, 1. 21. omits * To the Tune o/Trenchmore.' p. 68, 1. 24. ' Omnes. And we — etc. Bayes. So, now, vanish Eclipse', &c. p. 69,1. 19. * 1 have read of your Hector, your Achilles, and a hundred more; but I defy', &c. p. 69, 1.31. *Come, Sir, I'l show you go off. Rise, Sirs, and go about your business. There's go off for you. Hark you, Mr. Ivory. Gentlemen', &c. p. 70, \. I. ' I'll go fetch 'em again. [Exit. 3 Play. Stay, here's a foul piece of paper of his. Let's see what 'tis. [Reads. The Argument of the Fifth Act.' 1 6o Appendix p. 70, 1. 28. * ... by the river side. I Play. Pox on't , this will never do : 'tis just like the rest. Come, let's be gone. [Exeunt' p. 71,1.8. ^ Enter Plavers again\ and marks stage-keeper's speeches * Play: p. J 1/1.17. The conclusion is given thus : — ^ Bayes. That's all one, I must reserve this comfort to my self, my Book and I will go together, we will not part, indeed. Sir. The Town ! why, what care I for the Town .' I gad, the Town has us'd me as scurvily, as the Players have done: but I'l be reveng'd on them too: I will both Lampoon and print 'em too, I gad. Since they will not admit of my Plays, they shall know what a Satyrist I am. And so farewel to to this Stage for ever, I gad. [Exit. 1 Play. What shall we do now .' 2 Play. Come then, let's set up Bills for another Play: We shall lose nothing by this, I warrant you. 1 Play. I am of your opinion. But, before we go, let's see HayneSy and ShirUy practise the last Dance ; for that may serve for another Play. 2 Play. V\ call 'em : I think they are in the Tyring- room. The Dance done. I Play. Come, come ; let's go away to dinner. [Exeunt omnes.' l62 hidex of Plays H M Heiress (Duke of Newcastle : not printed), ix Henry VIII (Shakespeare and Fletcher ; altered Davenant ?), 27, 57, 84, 105, 137 Henry IV (i) (Shakespeare), 75, 90, 91, 94 Henry the Fifth (Orrery), 135, 137 Henry the Third of France (Shipman), 1 1 1 Hero and Leander (Stapylton), 118, 144 Herod the Great (Orrery), 1 1 1 History of Sir Francis Drake (Davenant), 92, 139,143 Honest Thieves (T. Knight), x Humorous Lieutenant (Fletcher), 150 Humourists (T. Shad well), 103 I Imperial Tragedy (Anon. Sir W. Killi- grew?), 140 Indian Emperor (Dryden), 85, 90, 94, 99, 109 Indian Queen (Sir R. Howard and Dryden), X, 84, 85, 88, 109, 122, 137, 139 Island Princess (Fletcher), 90 Island Princess (Motteux), no J Jeiv's Tragedy (W. Hemmings), 112 K Kind Keeper i or, Mr. Limhcrham (Dryden), xi King and no King (Beaumont and Fletcher), 90, 94 Knight of the Burning Pestle (Beaumont and Fletcher), xxi Libertine (T. Shadwell), 103 Limberham (Dryden : 'vide Kind Keeper), xi London Gentleman (Ed. Howard ; not printed), 78 Lost Lady (Sir W. Barclay), 97, 115 Lo-ve and Honour (Davenant), i 15 Love for Love (Congreve), xxiv Love in a Maze (Shirley : vide Changes), xii, xiii, 94 Love in a fVood (Wycherlcy), xiii, 94 Love in the Dark (Sir F. Fane), xiii, 91, 94 Love's Triump/i (Ed. Cooke), 99 Lucky Chance (Mrs. Behn), 106 Macbeth (Shakespeare), xx, 107 Maiden Queen (Dryden), 79, 80, 81, 104 Man of Mode (Etheredge), xii, iii Man of Ncivmarket {Ed. Howard), 78, 148 Marriage a la Mode (Dryden), xviii, 81, 82, 83, 90, 94, loi, 112, 113 Measure for Measure (Shakespeare), 107 Medecin Malgre Lui (Moliere), xiii Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare), 90 Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare), 91 Miser (T. Shadwell), 103 Mock Doctor (Fielding), xv Mock Duellist (P[eter] B[e!on]), xiii Mock Tempest (Duffet), xx, xxi Money is an Ass (Jordan), 89 Monsieur Ragou (Lacy), xiv Mr. Anthony (Orrery), i 5 i Mustapha (Orrery), 93, 95, 134, 140 N Nero (Lee), 91, 94 Neiv Rehearsal (Gildon), xxii Oedipus (Dryden and Lee), 87 Old Batchelor (Congreve), 1 1 1 Old Troop (Lacy), xiii, xiv Orgida (L[eonard] W[illan]), 92, 120 Ormasdes (Sir W. Killigrew), 102 Othello (Shakespeare), 90, 91 Pandora (Sir W. Killigrew), 93, 102 Pantomime Rehearsal (Clay), xxiii Pastor Fido (Guarini), 97 Plain Dealer (Wycherley), 91 Play is the Plot (Breval), xxii, xxiii Playhouse to be Let (Davenant), xxi, 139, 143 Poet and Puppets (Ch. Brookfield), xxiii Prophetess (Betterton), 147 Psyche Debauch' d (Duffet), xx Querer por solo |5«t-'er (Mendoza), 97, 98, 1 16 R Recruiting Officer (Farquhar), 150 Reformation (Arrowsmith), xix Relapse (Vanbrugh), xxiv Index of Plays 163 Revenge for Honour, 96 i?^c;n^oA/ (Wagner), 122 /?;V/E)i;ri/ /// (Shakespeare), 120 Ri-vals (Sheridan), xxiv Rit'al Friends (Peter Haustead), 8g Rival Ladies (Dryden), 97 Rival Queens\Lte), 148 Roman Empress (Joyner), 90, 1 1 2, 137 Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), 150 Romeo and Juliet (James Howard : not printed), 1 14 Roundheads (Mrs, Behn), xi Ro-ver (Mrs. Behn), iii, 122 Royal Choice (Stapylton : not printed), 144 Rump (Tatham), xi Tartuffe (Mcdbourne), xiii Tempest (Dryden and Davcnant), xx, 27, 106, 107 rm/.fif (T. Shadwell), 107 Thotnaso (T. Killigrew), 122 Tom Thumb (Fielding), xxii, xxiii Trappolin suppos'd A Prince (Cockain), 102 Trip to Scarborough (Sheridan), xxiv Troilus and Cressida (Dryden), 88, 100 Trjphon (Orrery), 88 T1V0 Queens of Brentford (D'Urfey), xxi Tyrannic Love (Dryden), viii, 90, 109, 124, 134, i3S> '38, 139. 1+8 U Sauny the Scot (Lacy. Taming of the Shrezv), XllI, XIV School for Scandal (Sheridan), xxiv Scornful Lady (Beaumont and Flctclier), xiii Secret Love, vide Maiden Oueen She -would if She Could (Etheredge), 104, no Siege of Rhodes (Davenant), xi, 115, n6, 137, 141, 142 Siegfried (Wagner), 122 Silent fVoman (Jonson), xiii, 78, 90, 94 Sir Hercules Buffoon (Lacy), xiv Sir Martin Mar-All (Dryden), 103 Six Days' Adventure (Ed. Howard), 77 Slighted Maid (Stapylton), 89, 100, 112, 1+3, H4, 145-7 Spanish Lovers, vide Distresses. Spanish Tragedy (Kyd), 97 Squire of Alsatia (T. Shadwell), 123 The Step Mother (Stapylton), 143, 144 Sullen Lovers (T. Shadwell), ix Surprisal (Sir R. Howard), x, 113, 142 Tailors (Foote), xxii Taming of the Sbreiv (Lacy), vide Sauny the Scot Ungrateful Favourite (anon.), 123 United Kingdoms (Col. Henry Howard : not printed), vi, vii, 83, 120 Usurper (Ed. Howard), 76, jj, 94 Valentinian (Fletcher), 91, 94 Variety (Duke of Newcastle), xiii Venice Preserved (Otway), xii Vestal Virgin (Sir R. Howard), x, 149 Villain (T. Porter), 114, 120, 125, 126-32 Virgin IVidoiv (Quarles), 1 16, 1 18 Virtuoso (T. Shadwell), 147 Volpone (Jonson), xiii, 90 W Walkilre (Wagner), 122 J'Vay of the World (Congreve), xxiv, ni What D'ye Call It (Gay), xxii, xxiii Wild Gallant (Dryden), 84, 86, 96, 109, 150, 151 Witty Combat (T. Porter), 1 26 Woman's Conquest (Ed. Howard), 78, 93, 112, 140 Wonder a Woman Keeps a Secret (Mrs. Centlivre), 1 1 1 Printed by A. H. Bullen, at The Shakespeare Head Press^ Stratford-upon-Avon. ^J^^^ 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. ■^ff^M REC'D LC t?H^ OCT q'65-4l>M J At! 1 'i330 2 1 ^OV 181976 5 5 REC'D JftN15'66-llAM LOAN DEPT. ftPR 6-19SS3 5 ^M6 ft9 SEC. CIS. IB 28 IB -ft^rftt — I IOV 1 ' ' "!6 H i 4 1983 Etc. cm. juNoe-aa &} — -' ,"-1.1 APR i- '66-1 MAY 6 2001 m LD 21A-60m-3,'65 (P2336sl0)476B General Library University of California Berkeley ^^d£^ "ZfW^ U. C BERKELEY LIBRARIES CD551flHM71 \W€m*!i^i