John Dryden - The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (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. V.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,

BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.

1808.

* * * * *

CONTENTS

OF

VOLUME FIFTH.

Amboyna; or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants, a
Tragedy
Epistle Dedicatory to Lord Clifford of Chudleigh

The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man, an Opera
Epistle Dedicatory to her Royal Highness the Duchess
Preface.--The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry, and Poetic
Licence

Aureng-Zebe, a Tragedy
Epistle Dedicatory to the Earl of Mulgrave

All for Love, or the World Well Lost, a Tragedy
Epistle Dedicatory to the Earl of Danby
Preface

* * * * *

AMBOYNA:

OR, THE

CRUELTIES OF THE DUTCH

TO THE

_ENGLISH MERCHANTS._

A

TRAGEDY.

--_Manet alta mente repostum._

AMBOYNA.

The tragedy of Amboyna, as it was justly termed by the English of the
seventeenth century, was of itself too dreadful to be heightened by
the mimic horrors of the stage. The reader may be reminded, that by
three several treaties in the years 1613, 1615, and 1619, it was
agreed betwixt England and Holland, that the English should enjoy
one-third of the trade of the spice islands. For this purpose,
factories were established on behalf of the English East India Company
at the Molucca Islands, at Banda, and at Amboyna. At the latter island
the Dutch had a castle, with a garrison, both of Europeans and
natives. It has been always remarked, that the Dutchman, in his
eastern settlements, loses the mercantile probity of his European
character, while he retains its cold-blooded phlegm and avaricious
selfishness. Of this the Amboyna government gave a notable proof.
About the 11th of Feb. 1622, old stile, under pretence of a plot laid
between the English of the factory and some Japanese soldiers to seize
the castle, the former were arrested by the Dutch, and subjected to
the most horrible tortures, to extort confession of their pretended
guilt. Upon some they poured water into a cloth previously secured
round their necks and shoulders, until suffocation ensued; others were
tortured with lighted matches, and torches applied to the most tender
and sensible parts of the body. But I will not pollute my page with
this monstrous and disgusting detail. Upon confessions, inconsistent
with each other, with common sense and ordinary probability, extorted
also by torments of the mind or body, or both, Captain Gabriel
Towerson, and nine other English merchants of consideration, were
executed; and, to add insult to atrocity, the bloody cloth, on which
Towerson kneeled at his death, was put down to the account of the
English Company. The reader may find the whole history in the second
volume of Purchas's "Pilgrim." The news of this horrible massacre
reached King James, while he was negociating with the Dutch concerning
the assistance which they then implored against the Spaniards; and the
affairs of his son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, appeared to render an
union with Holland so peremptorily necessary, that the massacre of
Amboyna was allowed to remain unrevenged.

But the Dutch war, which was declared in 1672, the object of which
seems to have been the annihilation of the United Provinces as an
independent state, a century sooner than Providence had decreed that
calamitous event, met with great opposition in England, and every
engine was put to work to satisfy the people of the truth of the Lord
Chancellor Shaftesbury's averment, that the "States of Holland were
England's eternal enemies, both by interest and inclination." Dryden,
with the avowed intention of exasperating the nation against the
Dutch, assumed from choice, or by command, the unpromising subject of
the Amboyna massacre as the foundation of the following play.
Exclusive of the horrible nature of the subject, the colours are laid
on too thick to produce the desired effect. The monstrous caricatures,
which are exhibited as just paintings of the Dutch character,
unrelieved even by the grandeur of wickedness, and degraded into
actual brutality, must have produced disgust, instead of an animated
hatred and detestation. For the horrible spectacle of tortures and
mangled limbs exhibited on the stage, the author might plead the
custom of his age. A stage direction in Ravenscroft's alteration of
"Titus Andronicus," bears, "A curtain drawn, discovers the heads and
hands of Demetrius and Chiron hanging up against the wall; their
bodies in chairs, in bloody linen." And in an interlude, called the
"Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru," written by D'Avenant, "a doleful
pavin is played to prepare the change of the scene, which represents a
dark prison at a great distance; and farther to the view are discerned
racks and other engines of torment, with which the Spaniards are
tormenting the natives and English mariners, who may be supposed to be
lately landed there to discover the coast. Two Spaniards are likewise
discovered sitting in their cloaks, and appearing more solemn in
ruffs, with rapiers and daggers by their sides; the one turning a
spit, while the other is basting an Indian prince, who is roasted at
an artificial fire[1]." The rape of Isabinda is stated by Langbaine to
have been borrowed from a novel in the Decamerone of Cinthio Giraldi.

This play is beneath criticism; and I can hardly hesitate to term it
the worst production Dryden ever wrote. It was acted and printed in
1673.

Footnote:
1. This extraordinary kitchen scene did not escape the ridicule of the
wits of that merry age.

O greater cruelty yet,
Like a pig upon a spit;
Here lies one there, another boiled to jelly;
Just as the people stare
At an ox in the fair,
Roasted whole, with a pudding in's belly.

A little further in,
Hung a third by his chin,
And a fourth cut all in quarters.
O that Fox had now been living,
They had been sure of heaven,
Or, at the least, been some of his martyrs.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE

LORD CLIFFORD

OF

CHUDLEIGH[1].

MY LORD,

After so many favours, and those so great, conferred on me by your
lordship these many years,--which I may call more properly one
continued act of your generosity and goodness,--I know not whether I
should appear either more ungrateful in my silence, or more
extravagantly vain in my endeavours to acknowledge them: For, since
all acknowledgements bear a face of payment, it may be thought, that I
have flattered myself into an opinion of being able to return some
part of my obligements to you;--the just despair of which attempt, and
the due veneration I have for his person, to whom I must address, have
almost driven me to receive only with a profound submission the
effects of that virtue, which is never to be comprehended but by
admiration; and the greatest note of admiration is silence. It is that
noble passion, to which poets raise their audience in highest
subjects, and they have then gained over them the greatest victory,
when they are ravished into a pleasure which is not to be expressed by
words. To this pitch, my lord, the sense of my gratitude had almost
raised me: to receive your favours, as the Jews of old received their
law, with a mute wonder; to think, that the loudness of acclamation
was only the praise of men to men, and that the secret homage of the
soul was a greater mark of reverence, than an outward ceremonious joy,
which might be counterfeit, and must be irreverent in its tumult.
Neither, my lord, have I a particular right to pay you my
acknowledgements: You have been a good so universal, that almost every
man in the three nations may think me injurious to his propriety, that
I invade your praises, in undertaking to celebrate them alone; and
that I have assumed to myself a patron, who was no more to be
circumscribed than the sun and elements, which are of public benefit
to human kind.

As it was much in your power to oblige all who could pretend to merit
from the public, so it was more in your nature and inclination. If any
went ill-satisfied from the treasury, while it was in your lordship's
management, it proclaimed the want of desert, and not of friends: You
distributed your master's favour with so equal hands, that justice
herself could not have held the scales more even; but with that
natural propensity to do good, that had that treasure been your own,
your inclination to bounty must have ruined you. No man attended to be
denied: No man bribed for expedition: Want and desert were pleas
sufficient. By your own integrity, and your prudent choice of those
whom you employed, the king gave all that he intended; and gratuities
to his officers made not vain his bounty. This, my lord, you were in
your public capacity of high treasurer, to which you ascended by such
degrees, that your royal master saw your virtues still growing to his
favours, faster than they could rise to you. Both at home and abroad,
with your sword and with your counsel, you have served him with
unbiassed honour, and unshaken resolution; making his greatness, and
the true interest of your country, the standard and measure of your
actions. Fortune may desert the wise and brave, but true virtue never
will forsake itself[2]. It is the interest of the world, that virtuous
men should attain to greatness, because it gives them the power of
doing good: But when, by the iniquity of the times, they are brought
to that extremity, that they must either quit their virtue or their
fortune, they owe themselves so much, as to retire to the private
exercise of their honour;--to be great within, and by the constancy of
their resolutions, to teach the inferior world how they ought to judge
of such principles, which are asserted with so generous and so
unconstrained a trial.

But this voluntary neglect of honours has been of rare example in the
world[3]: Few men have frowned first upon fortune, and precipitated
themselves from the top of her wheel, before they felt at least the
declination of it. We read not of many emperors like Dioclesian and
Charles the Fifth, who have preferred a garden and a cloister before a
crowd of followers, and the troublesome glory of an active life, which
robs the possessor of his rest and quiet, to secure the safety and
happiness of others. Seneca, with the help of his philosophy, could
never attain to that pitch of virtue: He only endeavoured to prevent
his fall by descending first, and offered to resign that wealth which
he knew he could no longer hold; he would only have made a present to
his master of what he foresaw would become his prey; he strove to
avoid the jealousy of a tyrant,--you dismissed yourself from the
attendance and privacy of a gracious king. Our age has afforded us
many examples of a contrary nature; but your lordship is the only one
of this. It is easy to discover in all governments, those who wait so
close on fortune, that they are never to be shaken off at any turn:
Such who seem to have taken up a resolution of being great; to
continue their stations on the theatre of business; to change with the
scene, and shift the vizard for another part--these men condemn in
their discourses that virtue which they dare not practise: But the
sober part of this present age, and impartial posterity, will do
right, both to your lordship and to them: And, when they read on what
accounts, and with how much magnanimity, you quitted those honours, to
which the highest ambition of an English subject could aspire, will
apply to you, with much more reason, what the historian said of a
Roman emperor, "_Multi diutius imperium tenuerunt; nemo fortius
reliquit._"

To this retirement of your lordship, I wish I could bring a better
entertainment than this play; which, though it succeeded on the stage,
will scarcely bear a serious perusal; it being contrived and written
in a month, the subject barren, the persons low, and the writing not
heightened with many laboured scenes. The consideration of these
defects ought to have prescribed more modesty to the author, than to
have presented it to that person in the world for whom he has the
greatest honour, and of whose patronage the best of his endeavours had
been unworthy: But I had not satisfied myself in staying longer, and
could never have paid the debt with a much better play. As it is, the
meanness of it will shew; at least, that I pretend not by it to make
any manner of return for your favours; and that I only give you a new
occasion of exercising your goodness to me, in pardoning the failings
and imperfections of,

MY LORD,

Your Lordship's
Most humble, most obliged,
Most obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.

Footnotes:
1. Sir Thomas Clifford, just then created Lord Clifford of Chudleigh,
and appointed Lord High Treasurer, was one of the six ministers,
the initials of whose names furnished the word _Cabal_, by which
their junto was distinguished. He was the most virtuous and honest
of the junto, but a Catholic; and, what was then synonymous, a warm
advocate for arbitrary power. He is said to have won his promotion
by advising the desperate measure of shutting the Exchequer in
1671, the hint of which he is said to have stolen from Shaftesbury.
This piece may have been undertaken by his command; for, even at
the very time of the triple alliance, he is reported to have said,
"For all this, we must have another Dutch war." Upon the defection
of Lord Shaftesbury from the court party, and the passing of the
test act, Lord Clifford resigned his office, retired to the
country, and died in September 1673, shortly after receiving this
dedication.

2. In this case, Dryden's praise, which did not always occur, survived
the temporary occasion. Even in a little satirical effusion, he
tells us,

Clifford was fierce and brave.

Clifford had been comptroller and treasurer of the household, and
one of the commissioners of the treasury; he had served in the
Dutch wars.

3. Alluding to Lord Clifford's resignation of an office he could not
hold without a change of religion.

PROLOGUE.

_This poem was written as far back as 1662, and was then termed a
Satire against the Dutch._

As needy gallants in the scriveners' hands,
Court the rich knave that gripes their mortgaged lands,
The first fat buck of all the season's sent,
And keeper takes no fee in compliment:
The dotage of some Englishmen is such
To fawn on those who ruin them--the Dutch.
They shall have all, rather than make a war
With those who of the same religion are.
The Straits, the Guinea trade, the herrings too,
Nay, to keep friendship, they shall pickle you.
Some are resolved not to find out the cheat,
But, cuckold like, love him who does the feat:
What injuries soe'er upon us fall,
Yet, still, The same religion, answers all:
Religion wheedled you to civil war,
Drew English blood, and Dutchmen's now would spare:
Be gulled no longer, for you'll find it true,
They have no more religion, faith--than you;
Interest's the god they worship in their state;
And you, I take it, have not much of that.
Well, monarchies may own religion's name,
But states are atheists in their very frame.
They share a sin, and such proportions fall,
That, like a stink, 'tis nothing to them all.
How they love England, you shall see this day;
No map shews Holland truer than our play:
Their pictures and inscriptions well we know[1];
We may be bold one medal sure to show.
View then their falsehoods, rapine, cruelty;
And think what once they were, they still would be:
But hope not either language, plot, or art;
'Twas writ in haste, but with an English heart:
And least hope wit; in Dutchmen that would be
As much improper, as would honesty.

Footnote
1. Amongst the pretexts for making war on the states of Holland were
alleged their striking certain satirical medals, and engraving
prints in ridicule of Charles II. See his proclamation of war in
1671-2.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

_Captain_ GABRIEL TOWERSON.
_Mr_ BEAMONT, } _English Merchants, his Friends._
_Mr_ COLLINS, }
_Captain_ MIDDLETON, _an English Sea Captain._
PEREZ, _a Spanish Captain._
HARMAN _Senior, Governor of Amboyna._
_The Fiscal._
HARMAN _Junior, Son to the Governor._
VAN HERRING, _a Dutch Merchant._

ISABINDA, _betrothed to_ TOWERSON, _an Indian Lady._
JULIA, _Wife to_ PEREZ.
_An English Woman._
_Page to_ TOWERSON.
_A Skipper._
_Two Dutch Merchants._

SCENE--_Amboyna._

AMBOYNA.

ACT I.

SCENE I.--_A Castle on the Sea._

_Enter_ HARMAN _Senior, the Governor, the Fiscal, and_ VAN HERRING:
_Guards._

_Fisc._ A happy day to our noble governor.

_Har._ Morrow, Fiscal.

_Van Her._ Did the last ships, which came from Holland to these parts,
bring us no news of moment?

_Fisc._ Yes, the best that ever came into Amboyna, since we set
footing here; I mean as to our interest.

_Har._ I wonder much my letters then gave me so short accounts; they
only said the Orange party was grown strong again, since Barnevelt had
suffered.

_Van Her._ Mine inform me farther, the price of pepper, and of other
spices, was raised of late in Europe.

_Har._ I wish that news may hold; but much suspect it, while the
English maintain their factories among us in Amboyna, or in the
neighbouring plantations of Seran.

_Fisc._ Still I have news that tickles me within; ha, ha, ha! I'faith
it does, and will do you, and all our countrymen.

_Har._ Pr'ythee do not torture us, but tell it.

_Van Her._ Whence comes this news?

_Fisc._ From England.

_Har._ Is their East India fleet bound outward for these parts, or
cast away, or met at sea by pirates?

_Fisc._ Better, much better yet; ha, ha, ha!

_Har._ Now am I famished for my part of the laughter.

_Fisc._ Then, my brave governor, if you're a true Dutchman, I'll make
your fat sides heave with the conceit on't, 'till you're blown like a
pair of large smith's bellows; here, look upon this paper.

_Har._ [_reading._] _You may remember we did endamage the English
East-India Company the value of five hundred thousand pounds, all in
one year; a treaty is now signed, in which the business is ta'en up
for fourscore thousand._--This is news indeed: would I were upon the
castle-wall, that I might throw my cap into the sea, and my gold chain
after it! this is golden news, boys.

_Van Her._ This is news would kindle a thousand bonfires, and make us
piss them out again in Rhenish wine.

_Har._ Send presently to all our factories, acquaint them with these
blessed tidings: If we can 'scape so cheap, 'twill be no matter what
villanies henceforth we put in practice.

_Fisc._ Hum! why this now gives encouragement to a certain plot, which
I have been long brewing, against these skellum English. I almost have
it here in pericranio, and 'tis a sound one, 'faith; no less than to
cut all their throats, and seize all their effects within this island.
I warrant you we may compound again.

_Van Her._ Seizing their factories I like well enough, it has some
savour in't; but for this whoreson cutting of throats, it goes a
little against the grain, because 'tis so notoriously known in
Christendom, that they have preserved ours from being cut by the
Spaniards.

_Har._ Hang them, base English starts, let them e'en take their part
of their own old proverb--Save a thief from the gallows; they would
needs protect us rebels, and see what comes to themselves.

_Fisc._ You're i'the right on't, noble Harman; their assistance, which
was a mercy and a providence to us, shall be a judgment upon them.

_Van Her._ A little favour would do well; though not that I would stop
the current of your wit, or any other plot, to do them mischief; but
they were first discoverers of this isle, first traded hither, and
showed us the way.

_Fisc._ I grant you that; nay more, that, by composition made after
many long and tedious quarrels, they were to have a third part of the
traffic, we to build forts, and they to contribute to the charge.

_Har._ Which we have so increased each year upon them, we being in
power, and therefore judges of the cost, that we exact whatever we
please, still more than half the charge; and on pretence of their
non-payment, or the least delay, do often stop their ships, detain
their goods, and drag them into prisons, while our commodities go on
before, and still forestall their markets.

_Fisc._ These, I confess, are pretty tricks, but will not do our
business; we must ourselves be ruined at long run, if they have any
trade here; I know our charge at length will eat us out: I would not
let these English from this isle have cloves enough to stick an orange
with, not one to throw into their bottle-ale.

_Har._ But to bring this about now, there's the cunning.

_Fisc._ Let me alone awhile; I have it, as I told you, here; mean time
we must put on a seeming kindness, call them our benefactors and dear
brethren, pipe them within the danger of our net, and then we'll draw
it o'er them: When they're in, no mercy, that's my maxim.

_Van Her._ Nay, brother, I am not too obstinate for saving Englishmen,
'twas but a qualm of conscience, which profit will dispel: I have as
true a Dutch antipathy to England, as the proudest _he_ in Amsterdam;
that's a bold word now.

_Har._ We are secure of our superiors there. Well, they may give the
king of Great Britain a verbal satisfaction, and with submissive
fawning promises, make shew to punish us; but interest is their god as
well as ours. To that almighty, they will sacrifice a thousand English
lives, and break a hundred thousand oaths, ere they will punish those
that make them rich, and pull their rivals down.
[_Guns go off within._

_Van Her._ Heard you those guns?

_Har._ Most plainly.

_Fisc._ The sound comes from the port; some ship arrived salutes the
castle, and I hope brings more good news from Holland. [_Guns again._

_Har._ Now they answer them from the fortress.

_Enter_ BEAMONT _and_ COLLINS.

_Van Her._ Beamont and Collins, English merchants both; perhaps
they'll certify us.

_Beam._ Captain Harman van Spelt, good day to you.

_Har._ Dear, kind Mr Beamont, a thousand and a thousand good days to
you, and all our friends the English.

_Fisc._ Came you from the port, gentlemen?

_Col._ We did; and saw arrive, our honest, and our gallant countryman,
brave captain Gabriel Towerson.

_Beam._ Sent to these parts from our employers of the East India
company in England, as general of the voyage.

_Fisc._ Is the brave Towerson returned?

_Col._ The same, sir.

_Har._ He shall be nobly welcome. He has already spent twelve years
upon, or near, these rich Molucca isles, and home returned with honour
and great wealth.

_Fisc._ The devil give him joy of both, or I will for him. [_Aside._

_Beam._ He's my particular friend; I lived with him, both at Tencrate,
Tydore, and at Seran.

_Van Her._ Did he not leave a mistress in these parts, a native of
this island of Amboyna?

_Col._ He did; I think they call her Isabinda, who received baptism
for his sake, before he hence departed.

_Har._ 'Tis much against the will of all her friends, she loves your
countryman, but they are not disposers of her person; she's beauteous,
rich, and young, and Towerson well deserves her.

_Beam._ I think, without flattery to my friend, he does. Were I to
chuse, of all mankind, a man, on whom I would rely for faith and
counsel, or more, whose personal aid I would invite, in any worthy
cause, to second me, it should be only Gabriel Towerson; daring he is,
and thereto fortunate; yet soft, and apt to pity the distressed, and
liberal to relieve them: I have seen him not alone to pardon foes, but
by his bounty win them to his love: If he has any fault, 'tis only
that to which great minds can only subject be--he thinks all honest,
'cause himself is so, and therefore none suspects.

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