John Dryden - The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18)

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THE

WORKS

OF

JOHN DRYDEN,

NOW FIRST COLLECTED

_IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES._

ILLUSTRATED

WITH NOTES,

HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY;

AND

A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.

VOL. VI.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,

BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.

1808.

* * * * *

CONTENTS

OF

VOLUME SIXTH.

Limberham, or the Kind Keeper, a Comedy
Epistle Dedicatory to Lord Vaughan

OEdipus, a Tragedy
Preface

Troilus and Cressida, or Truth found too late, a Tragedy
Epistle Dedicatory to the Earl of Sunderland
Preface

The Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery
Epistle Dedicatory to Lord Haughton

* * * * *

LIMBERHAM;

OR,

THE KIND KEEPER.

A

COMEDY.

[Greek: Ken me phages epi rhizan, homos eti karpophoreso.
Anthologia Dentera.]

_Hic nuptarum insanit amoribus; hic meretricum:
Omnes hi metuunt versus; odere poetas._
HORAT.

LIMBERHAM.

The extreme indelicacy of this play would, in the present times
furnish ample and most just grounds for the unfavourable reception it
met with from the public. But in the reign of Charles II. many plays
were applauded, in which the painting is, at least, as coarse as that
of Dryden. "Bellamira, or the Mistress," a gross translation by Sir
Charles Sedley of Terence's "Eunuchus," had been often represented
with the highest approbation. But the satire of Dryden was rather
accounted too personal, than too loose. The character of Limberham has
been supposed to represent Lauderdale, whose age and uncouth figure
rendered ridiculous his ungainly affectation of fashionable vices. Mr
Malone intimates a suspicion, that Shaftesbury was the person levelled
at, whose lameness and infirmities made the satire equally poignant.
In either supposition, a powerful and leading nobleman was offended,
to whose party all seem to have drawn, whose loose conduct, in that
loose age, exposed them to be duped like the hero of the play. It is a
singular mark of the dissolute manners of those times, that an
audience, to whom matrimonial infidelity was nightly held out, not
only as the most venial of trespasses, but as a matter of triumphant
applause, were unable to brook any ridicule, upon the mere transitory
connection formed betwixt the keeper and his mistress. Dryden had
spared neither kind of union; and accordingly his opponents exclaimed,
"That he lampooned the court, to oblige his friends in the city, and
ridiculed the city, to secure a promising lord at court; exposed the
kind keepers of Covent Garden, to please the cuckolds of Cheapside;
and drolled on the city Do-littles, to tickle the Covent-Garden
Limberhams[1]." Even Langbaine, relentless as he is in criticism,
seems to have considered the condemnation of Limberham as the
vengeance of the faction ridiculed.

"In this play, (which I take to be the best comedy of his) he so much
exposed the keeping part of the town, that the play was stopt when it
had but thrice appeared on the stage; but the author took a becoming
care, that the things that offended on the stage, were either altered
or omitted in the press. One of our modern writers, in a short satire
against keeping, concludes thus:

"Dryden, good man, thought keepers to reclaim,
Writ a kind satire, call'd it Limberham.
This all the herd of letchers straight alarms;
From Charing-Cross to Bow was up in arms:
They damn'd the play all at one fatal blow,
And broke the glass, that did their picture show."

Mr Malone mentions his having seen a MS. copy of this play, found by
Lord Bolingbroke among the sweepings of Pope's study, in which there
occur several indecent passages, not to be found in the printed copy.
These, doubtless, constituted the castrations, which, in obedience to
the public voice, our author expunged from his play, after its
condemnation. It is difficult to guess what could be the nature of the
indecencies struck out, when we consider those which the poet deemed
himself at liberty to retain.

The reader will probably easily excuse any remarks upon this comedy.
It is not absolutely without humour, but is so disgustingly coarse, as
entirely to destroy that merit. Langbaine, with his usual anxiety of
research, traces back a few of the incidents to the novels of Cinthio
Giraldi, and to those of some forgotten French authors.

Plays, even of this nature, being worth preservation, as containing
genuine traces of the manners of the age in which they appear, I
cannot but remark the promiscuous intercourse, which, in this comedy
and others, is represented as taking place betwixt women of character,
and those who made no pretensions to it. Bellamira in Sir Charles
Sedley's play, and Mrs Tricksy in the following pages, are admitted
into company with the modest female characters, without the least hint
of exception or impropriety. Such were actually the manners of Charles
the II.d's time, where we find the mistresses of the king, and his
brothers, familiar in the highest circles. It appears, from the
evidence in the case of the duchess of Norfolk for adultery, that Nell
Gwyn was living with her Grace in familiar habits; her society,
doubtless, paving the way for the intrigue, by which the unfortunate
lady lost her rank and reputation[2]. It is always symptomatic of a
total decay of morals, where female reputation neither confers
dignity, nor excites pride, in its possessor; but is consistent with
her mingling in the society of the libertine and the profligate.

Some of Dryden's libellers draw an invidious comparison betwixt his
own private life and this satire; and exhort him to

Be to vices, which he practised, kind.

But of the injustice of this charge on Dryden's character, we have
spoken fully elsewhere. Undoubtedly he had the licence of this, and
his other dramatic writings, in his mind, when he wrote the following
verses; where the impurity of the stage is traced to its radical
source, the debauchery of the court:

Then courts of kings were held in high renown,
Ere made the common brothels of the town.
There virgins honourable vows received,
But chaste, as maids in monasteries, lived.
The king himself, to nuptial rites a slave,
No bad example to his poets gave;
And they, not bad, but in a vicious age,
Had not, to please the prince, debauched the stage.
_Wife of Bath's Tale._

"Limberham" was acted at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset-Garden; for,
being a satire upon a court vice, it was deemed peculiarly calculated
for that play-house. The concourse of the citizens thither is alluded
to in the prologue to "Marriage-a-la-Mode." Ravenscroft also, in his
epilogue to the "Citizen turned Gentleman," acted at the same theatre,
disowns the patronage of the courtiers who kept mistresses, probably
because they Constituted the minor part of his audience:

From the court party we hope no success;
Our author is not one of the noblesse,
That bravely does maintain his miss in town,
Whilst my great lady is with speed sent down,
And forced in country mansion-house to fix.
That miss may rattle here in coach-and-six.

The stage for introducing "Limberham" was therefore judiciously
chosen, although the piece was ill received, and withdrawn after being
only thrice represented. It was printed in 1678.

Footnotes:
1. Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion, p. 24.

2. See State Trials, vol. viii. pp. 17, 18.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN,

LORD VAUGHAN, &c[1].

MY LORD,

I cannot easily excuse the printing of a play at so unseasonable a
time[2], when the great plot of the nation, like one of Pharaoh's lean
kine, has devoured its younger brethren of the stage. But however weak
my defence might be for this, I am sure I should not need any to the
world for my dedication to your lordship; and if you can pardon my
presumption in it, that a bad poet should address himself to so great
a judge of wit, I may hope at least to escape with the excuse of
Catullus, when he writ to Cicero:

_Gratias tibi maximas Catullus
Agit, pessimus omnium, poeta;
Tanto pessimus omnium poeta,
Quanto tu optimns omnium patronus._

I have seen an epistle of Flecknoe's to a nobleman, who was by some
extraordinary chance a scholar; (and you may please to take notice by
the way, how natural the connection of thought is betwixt a bad poet
and Flecknoe) where he begins thus: _Quatuordecim jam elapsi sunt
anni,_ &c.; his Latin, it seems, not holding out to the end of the
sentence: but he endeavoured to tell his patron, betwixt two languages
which he understood alike, that it was fourteen years since he had the
happiness to know him. It is just so long, (and as happy be the omen
of dulness to me, as it is to some clergymen and statesmen!) since
your lordship has known, that there is a worse poet remaining in the
world, than he of scandalous memory, who left it last[3]. I might
enlarge upon the subject with my author, and assure you, that I have
served as long for you, as one of the patriarchs did for his
Old-Testament mistress; but I leave those flourishes, when occasion
shall serve, for a greater orator to use, and dare only tell you, that
I never passed any part of my life with greater satisfaction or
improvement to myself, than those years which I have lived in the
honour of your lordship's acquaintance; if I may have only the time
abated when the public service called you to another part of the
world, which, in imitation of our florid speakers, I might (if I durst
presume upon the expression) call the _parenthesis of my life_.

That I have always honoured you, I suppose I need not tell you at this
time of day; for you know I staid not to date my respects to you from
that title which now you have, and to which you bring a greater
addition by your merit, than you receive from it by the name; but I am
proud to let others know, how long it is that I have been made happy
by my knowledge of you; because I am sure it will give me a reputation
with the present age, and with posterity. And now, my lord, I know you
are afraid, lest I should take this occasion, which lies so fair for
me, to acquaint the world with some of those excellencies which I have
admired in you; but I have reasonably considered, that to acquaint the
world, is a phrase of a malicious meaning; for it would imply, that
the world were not already acquainted with them. You are so generally
known to be above the meanness of my praises, that you have spared my
evidence, and spoiled my compliment: Should I take for my common
places, your knowledge both of the old and the new philosophy; should
I add to these your skill in mathematics and history; and yet farther,
your being conversant with all the ancient authors of the Greek and
Latin tongues, as well as with the modern--I should tell nothing new
to mankind; for when I have once but named you, the world will
anticipate all my commendations, and go faster before me than I can
follow. Be therefore secure, my lord, that your own fame has freed
itself from the danger of a panegyric; and only give me leave to tell
you, that I value the candour of your nature, and that one character
of friendliness, and, if I may have leave to call it, kindness in you,
before all those other which make you considerable in the nation[4].

Some few of our nobility are learned, and therefore I will not
conclude an absolute contradiction in the terms of nobleman and
scholar; but as the world goes now, 'tis very hard to predicate one
upon the other; and 'tis yet more difficult to prove, that a nobleman
can be a friend to poetry. Were it not for two or three instances in
Whitehall, and in the town, the poets of this age would find so little
encouragement for their labours, and so few understanders, that they
might have leisure to turn pamphleteers, and augment the number of
those abominable scribblers, who, in this time of licence, abuse the
press, almost every day, with nonsense, and railing against the
government.

It remains, my lord, that I should give you some account of this
comedy, which you have never seen; because it was written and acted in
your absence, at your government of Jamaica. It was intended for an
honest satire against our crying sin of _keeping_; how it would have
succeeded, I can but guess, for it was permitted to be acted only
thrice. The crime, for which it suffered, was that which is objected
against the satires of Juvenal, and the epigrams of Catullus, that it
expressed too much of the vice which it decried. Your lordship knows
what answer was returned by the elder of those poets, whom I last
mentioned, to his accusers:

_--castum esse decet pium poetam
Ipsum. Versiculos nihil necesse est:
Qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem
Si sint molliculi et parum pudici._

But I dare not make that apology for myself; and therefore have taken
a becoming care, that those things which offended on the stage, might
be either altered, or omitted in the press; for their authority is,
and shall be, ever sacred to me, as much absent as present, and in all
alterations of their fortune, who for those reasons have stopped its
farther appearance on the theatre. And whatsoever hindrance it has
been to me in point of profit, many of my friends can bear me witness,
that I have not once murmured against that decree. The same fortune
once happened to Moliere, on the occasion of his "Tartuffe;" which,
notwithstanding, afterwards has seen the light, in a country more
bigot than ours, and is accounted amongst the best pieces of that
poet. I will be bold enough to say, that this comedy is of the first
rank of those which I have written, and that posterity will be of my
opinion. It has nothing of particular satire in it; for whatsoever may
have been pretended by some critics in the town, I may safely and
solemnly affirm, that no one character has been drawn from any single
man; and that I have known so many of the same humour, in every folly
which is here exposed, as may serve to warrant it from a particular
reflection. It was printed in my absence from the town, this summer,
much against my expectation; otherwise I had over-looked the press,
and been yet more careful, that neither my friends should have had the
least occasion of unkindness against me, nor my enemies of upbraiding
me; but if it live to a second impression, I will faithfully perform
what has been wanting in this. In the mean time, my lord, I recommend
it to your protection, and beg I may keep still that place in your
favour which I have hitherto enjoyed; and which I shall reckon as one
of the greatest blessings which can befall,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient,
Faithful servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.

Footnotes:
1. John, Lord Vaughan, was the eldest surviving son of Richard, Earl
of Carbery, to which title he afterwards succeeded. He was a man of
literature, and president of the Royal Society from 1686 to 1689.
Dryden was distinguished by his patronage as far back as 1664,
being fourteen years before the acting of this play. Lord Vaughan
had thus the honour of discovering and admiring the poet's genius,
before the public applause had fixed his fame; and, probably better
deserved the panegyric here bestowed, than was Usual among Dryden's
patrons. He wrote a recommendatory copy of verses, which are
prefixed to "The Conquest of Granada." Mr Malone informs us, that
this accomplished nobleman died at Chelsea, on 16th January,
1712-13.

2. The great popish plot, that scene of mystery and blood, broke out
in August 1678.

3. Flecknoe was a Roman Catholic priest, very much addicted to
scribbling verses. His name has been chiefly preserved by our
author's satire of "Mack-Flecknoe;" in which he has depicted
Shadwell, as the literary son and heir of this wretched poetaster.
A few farther particulars concerning him may be found prefixed to
that poem. Flecknoe, from this dedication, appears to have been
just deceased. The particular passage referred to has not been
discovered; even Langbaine had never seen it: but Mr Malone points
out a letter of Flecknoe to the Cardinal Barberini, whereof the
first sentence is in Latin, and the next in English. Our author, in
an uncommon strain of self-depreciation, or rather to give a neat
turn to his sentence, has avouched himself to be a worse poet than
Flecknoe. But expressions of modesty in a dedication, like those of
panegyric, are not to be understood literally. As in the latter,
Dryden often strains a note beyond _Ela_, so, on the present
occasion, he has certainly sounded the very base string of
humility. Poor Flecknoe, indeed, seems to have become proverbial,
as the worst of poets. The Earl of Dorset thus begins a satire on
Edward Howard:

Those damned antipodes to common sense,
Those toils to Flecknoe, pr'ythee, tell me whence
Does all this mighty mass of dulness spring,
Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring?

4. There is a very flat and prosaic imitation of this sentiment in the
Duke of Buckingham's lines to Pope:

And yet so wondrous, so sublime a thing
As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing;
Except I justly could at once commend
A good companion, and as firm a friend;
One moral, or a mere well-natured deed,
Does all desert in sciences exceed.

Thus prose may be humbled, as well as exalted; into poetry.

PROLOGUE.

True wit has seen its best days long ago;
It ne'er looked up, since we were dipt in show;
When sense in doggrel rhimes and clouds was lost,
And dulness flourished at the actor's cost.
Nor stopt it here; when tragedy was done,
Satire and humour the same fate have run,
And comedy is sunk to trick and pun.
Now our machining lumber will not sell,
And you no longer care for heaven or hell;
What stuff will please you next, the Lord can tell.
Let them, who the rebellion first began
To wit, restore the monarch, if they can;
Our author dares not be the first bold man.
He, like the prudent citizen, takes care,
To keep for better marts his staple ware;
His toys are good enough for Sturbridge fair.
Tricks were the fashion; if it now be spent,
'Tis time enough at Easter, to invent;
No man will make up a new suit for Lent.
If now and then he takes a small pretence,
To forage for a little wit and sense,
Pray pardon him, he meant you no offence.
Next summer, Nostradamus tells, they say,
That all the critics shall be shipped away,
And not enow be left to damn a play.
To every sail beside, good heaven, be kind;
But drive away that swarm with such a wind,
That not one locust may be left behind!

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ALDO, _an honest, good-natured, free-hearted old gentleman of the
town._
WOODALL, _his son, under a false name; bred abroad, and now returned
from travel._
LIMBERHAM, _a tame, foolish keeper, persuaded by what is last said
to him, and changing next word._
BRAINSICK, _a husband, who, being well conceited of himself,
despises his wife: vehement and eloquent, as he thinks;
but indeed a talker of nonsense._
GERVASE, WOODALL'S _man: formal, and apt to give good counsel._
GILES, WOODALL'S _cast servant._

MRS SAINTLY, _an hypocritical fanatic, landlady of the
boarding-house._
MRS TRICKSY, _a termagant kept mistress._
MRS PLEASANCE, _supposed daughter to_ MRS SAINTLY: _Spiteful and
satirical; but secretly in love with_ WOODALL.
MRS BRAINSICK.
JUDITH, _a maid of the house._

SCENE--_A Boarding-house in Town._

LIMBERHAM;

OR, THE

KIND KEEPER.

ACT I.

SCENE I.--_An open Garden-House; a table in it, and chairs._

_Enter_ WOODALL _and_ GERVASE.

_Wood._ Bid the footman receive the trunks and portmantua; and see
them placed in the lodgings you have taken for me, while I walk a turn
here in the garden.

_Gerv._ It is already ordered, sir. But they are like to stay in the
outer-room, till the mistress of the house return from morning
exercise.

_Wood._ What, she's gone to the parish church, it seems, to her
devotions!

_Gerv._ No, sir; the servants have informed me, that she rises every
morning, and goes to a private meeting-house; where they pray for the
government, and practise against the authority of it.

_Wood._ And hast thou trepanned me into a tabernacle of the godly? Is
this pious boarding-house a place for me, thou wicked varlet?

_Gerv._ According to human appearance, I must confess, it is neither
fit for you, nor you for it; but have patience, sir; matters are not
so bad as they may seem. There are pious bawdy-houses in the world, or
conventicles would not be so much frequented. Neither is it
impossible, but a devout fanatic landlady of a boarding-house may be a
bawd.

_Wood._ Ay, to those of her own church, I grant you, Gervase; but I am
none of those.

_Gerv._ If I were worthy to read you a lecture in the mystery of
wickedness, I would instruct you first in the art of seeming holiness:
But, heaven be thanked, you have a toward and pregnant genius to vice,
and need not any man's instruction; and I am too good, I thank my
stars, for the vile employment of a pimp.

_Wood._ Then thou art even too good for me; a worse man will serve my
turn.

_Gerv._ I call your conscience to witness, how often I have given you
wholesome counsel; how often I have said to you, with tears in my
eyes, master, or master Aldo--

_Wood._ Mr Woodall, you rogue! that is my _nomme de guerre._ You know
I have laid by Aldo, for fear that name should bring me to the notice
of my father.

_Gerv._ Cry you mercy, good Mr Woodall. How often have I said,--Into
what courses do you run! Your father sent you into France at twelve
years old; bred you up at Paris, first in a college, and then at an
academy: At the first, instead of running through a course of
philosophy, you ran through all the bawdy-houses in town: At the
latter, instead of managing the great horse, you exercised on your
master's wife. What you did in Germany, I know not; but that you beat
them all at their own weapon, drinking, and have brought home a goblet
of plate from Munster, for the prize of swallowing a gallon of Rhenish
more than the bishop.

_Wood._ Gervase, thou shalt be my chronicler; thou losest none of my
heroic actions.

_Gerv._ What a comfort are you like to prove to your good old father!
You have run a campaigning among the French these last three years,
without his leave; and now he sends for you back, to settle you in the
world, and marry you to the heiress of a rich gentleman, of whom he
had the guardianship, yet you do not make your application to him.

_Wood._ Pr'ythee, no more.

_Gerv._ You are come over, have been in town above a week _incognito_,
haunting play-houses, and other places, which for modesty I name not;
and have changed your name from Aldo to Woodall, for fear of being
discovered to him: You have not so much as inquired where he is
lodged, though you know he is most commonly in London: And lastly, you
have discharged my honest fellow-servant Giles, because--

_Wood._ Because he was too saucy, and was ever offering to give me
counsel: Mark that, and tremble at his destiny.

_Gerv._ I know the reason why I am kept; because you cannot be
discovered by my means; for you took me up in France, and your father
knows me not.

_Wood._ I must have a ramble in the town: When I have spent my money,
I will grow dutiful, see my father, and ask for more. In the mean
time, I have beheld a handsome woman at a play, I am fallen in love
with her, and have found her easy: Thou, I thank thee, hast traced her
to her lodging in this boarding-house, and hither I am come, to
accomplish my design.

_Gerv._ Well, heaven mend all. I hear our landlady's voice without;
[_Noise._] and therefore shall defer my counsel to a fitter season.

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