John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  Down, villain, down! — I’m gone, — O Marmoutiere! [Flings himself upon him, dies.

  The Traverse is drawn.

  The King rises from his Chair, comes forward with his Cabinet-council.

  King. Open the closet, and let in the council;

  Bid Dugast execute the cardinal;

  Seize all the factious leaders, as I ordered,

  And every one be answered, on your lives.

  Enter Queen-Mother followed by the Counsellors.

  O, madam, you are welcome; how goes your health?

  Qu. M. A little mended, sir. — What have you done?

  King. That which has made me king of France; for there

  The king of Paris at your feet lies dead.

  Qu. M. You have cut out dangerous work, but make it up

  With speed and resolution.

  King. Yes, I’ll wear

  The fox no longer, but put on the lion;

  And since I could resolve to take the heads

  Of this great insurrection, you, the members,

  Look to it; beware, turn from your stubbornness,

  And learn to know me, for I will be king.

  Gril. ‘Sdeath, how the traitors lower, and quake, and droop,

  And gather to the wing of his protection,

  As if they were his friends, and fought his cause!

  King. [Looking upon Guise.]

  Be witness, heaven, I gave him treble warning!

  He’s gone — no more. — Disperse, and think upon it.

  Beware my sword, which, if I once unsheath,

  By all the reverence due to thrones and crowns,

  Nought shall atone the vows of speedy justice,

  Till fate to ruin every traitor brings,

  That dares the vengeance of indulgent kings.[Exuent.

  EPILOGUE.

  WRITTEN BY MR DRYDEN.

  SPOKEN BY MRS COOK.

  Much time and trouble this poor play has cost;

  And, ‘faith, I doubted once the cause was lost.

  Yet no one man was meant, nor great, nor small;

  Our poets, like frank gamesters, threw at all.

  They took no single aim: —

  But, like bold boys, true to their prince, and hearty,

  Huzza’d, and fired broadsides at the whole party.

  Duels are crimes; but, when the cause is right,

  In battle every man is bound to fight.

  For what should hinder me to sell my skin,

  Dear as I could, if once my hand were in?

  Se defendendo never was a sin.

  ’Tis a fine world, my masters! right or wrong,

  The Whigs must talk, and Tories hold their tongue.

  They must do all they can,

  But we, forsooth, must bear a christian mind;

  And fight, like boys, with one hand tied behind;

  Nay, and when one boy’s down, ‘twere wond’rous wise,

  To cry, — box fair, and give him time to rise.

  When fortune favours, none but fools will dally;

  Would any of you sparks, if Nan, or Mally,

  Tip you the inviting wink, stand, shall I, shall I?

  A Trimmer cried, (that heard me tell this story)

  Fie, mistress Cook, ‘faith you’re too rank a Tory!

  Wish not Whigs hanged, but pity their hard cases;

  You women love to see men make wry faces. —

  Pray, sir, said I, don’t think me such a Jew;

  I say no more, but give the devil his due. —

  Lenitives, says he, suit best with our condition. —

  Jack Ketch, says I, is an excellent physician. —

  I love no blood. — Nor I, sir, as I breathe;

  But hanging is a fine dry kind of death. —

  We Trimmers are for holding all things even. —

  Yes; just like him that hung ‘twixt hell and heaven. —

  Have we not had men’s lives enough already? —

  Yes, sure: but you’re for holding all things steady.

  Now since the weight hangs all on one side, brother,

  You Trimmers should, to poize it, hang on t’other.

  Damned neuters, in their middle way of steering,

  Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red-herring:

  Not Whigs, nor Tories they; nor this, nor that;

  Not birds, nor beasts; but just a kind of bat:

  A twilight animal, true to neither cause,

  With Tory wings, but Whigish teeth and claws.

  VINDICATION OF THE DUKE OF GUISE.

  THE VINDICATION: OR, THE PARALLEL OF THE FRENCH HOLY LEAGUE, AND THE ENGLISH LEAGUE AND COVENANT, TURNED INTO A SEDITIOUS LIBEL AGAINST THE KING AND HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS,

  BY THOMAS HUNT, AND THE AUTHORS OF THE REFLECTIONS UPON THE PRETENDED PARALLEL IN THE PLAY CALLED THE DUKE OF GUISE.

  Turno tempus erit magno cum optaverit emptum

  Intactum Pallanta: et cum spolia ista, diemque

  Oderit. —

  It was easy to foresee, that a play, which professed to be a broadside discharged at the whole popular party, would not long remain uncensured. The satire being derived from a historical parallel of some delicacy, offered certain facilities of attack to the critics. It was only stretching the resemblance beyond the bounds to which Dryden had limited it, and the comparison became odious, if not dangerous. The whig writers did not neglect this obvious mode of attack, now rendered more popular by the encroachment lately attempted by the court upon the freedom of the city, whose magistrates had been exposed to ridicule in the play.

  Our readers cannot but remember, that, in order to break the spirit of the city of London, a writ of quo warranto was issued against the incorporation, by which was instituted a vexatious and captious inquiry into the validity of the charter of London. The purpose of this process was to compel the city to resign their freedom and immunities into the king’s hands, and to receive a new grant of them, so limited, as might be consistent with the views of the crown, or otherwise to declare them forfeited. One Thomas Hunt, a lawyer of some eminence, who had been solicitor for the Viscount Stafford when that unfortunate nobleman was tried for high treason, and had written upon the side of the tories, but had now altered his principles, stepped forward upon this occasion as the champion of the immunities of the city of London. 128 The ludicrous light in which the sheriffs are placed, during the scene with Grillon in the third act, gave great offence to this active partizan; and he gives vent to his displeasure in the following attack upon the author, and the performance.

  “They have already condemned the charter and city, and have executed the magistrates in effigy upon the stage, in a play called “The Duke of Guise,” frequently acted and applauded; intended most certainly, to provoke the rabble into tumults and disorder. The Roman priest had no success, (God be thanked,) when he animated the people not to suffer the same sheriffs to be carried through the city to the Tower, prisoners. Now the poet hath undertaken, for their being kicked three or four times a-week about the stage to the gallows, infamously rogued and rascalled, to try what he can do towards making the charter forfeitable, by some extravagancy and disorder of the people, which the authority of the best governed cities have not been able to prevent, sometimes under far less provocations.

  “But this ought not to move the citizens, when he hath so maliciously and mischievously represented the king, and the king’s son, nay, and his favourite the duke too, to whom he gives the worst strokes of his unlucky fancy.

  “He puts the king under the person of Henry III. of France, who appeared in the head of the Parisian massacre; the king’s son under the person of the Duke of Guise, who concerted it with the Queen-mother of France, and was slain in that very place, by the righteous judgment of God, where he and his mother had first contrived it.

  “The Duke of Guise ought to have represented a great prince, that had inserved to some most detestable villany, to please the rage, or lust, of a tyrant.

  “Such grea
t courtiers have been often sacrificed, to appease the furies of the tyrant’s guilty conscience, to expiate for his sin, and to atone the people.

  “Besides, that a tyrant naturally stands in fear of ministers of mighty wickedness; he is always obnoxious to them, he is a slave to them, as long as they live they remember him of his guilt, and awe him. These wicked slaves become most imperious masters: they drag him to greater evils for their own impunity, than they first perpetrated for his pleasure, and their own ambition.

  “But such are best given up to public justice, but by no means to be assassinated. Until this age, never before was an assassination invited, commended, and encouraged upon a public theatre.

  “It is no wonder that Trimmers (so they call men of some moderation of that party) displease them; for they seem to have designs for which it behoves them to know their men; they must be perfectly wicked, or perfectly deceived; of the Catiline make; bold, and without understanding; that can adhere to men that publicly profess murders, and applaud the design.

  “Caius Cæsar (to give unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s) was in the Catiline conspiracy; and then the word was, he that is not for us is against us; for the instruments of wickedness must be men that are resolute and forward, and without consideration; or they will deceive the design, and relent when they enterprize.

  “But when he was made dictator, and had some pretences, and a probability by means less wicked and mischievous to arrive at the government, his words were, he that is not against us is with us. But to Pompey only it belonged, and to his cause, or the like cause, to the defenders of ancient established governments, of the English monarchy and liberties, to say, they that are not with us are against us. In internecino bello, in attacks upon government, medii pro hostibus habentur, neutral men are traitors, and assist, by their indifferency, to the destruction of the government. As many as applaud this play, ought to be put under sureties of the peace; and yet not one warrant, that we hear of yet, granted by the Lord Chief Justice.

  “But it is not a Duke of Guise to be assassinated, a turbulent, wicked, and haughty courtier; but an innocent and gentle prince, as well as brave, and renowned for noble achievements: a prince, that hath no fault, but that he is the king’s son; and the best too of all his sons; such a son, as would have made the best of emperors happy.

  “Except it be, that the people honour him and love him, and every where publicly and loudly show it: But this they do, for that the best people of England have no other way left to show their loyalty to the king, and love to their religion and government, in long intervals of Parliament, than by prosecuting his son, for the sake of the king and his own merit, with all the demonstrations of the highest esteem.

  “But he hath not used his patron Duke much better; for he hath put him under a most dismal and unfortunate character of a successor, excluded from the crown by act of state for his religion, who fought his way to the crown, changed his religion, and died by the hand of a Roman assassinate.

  “It is enough to make his great duke’s courage quail, to find himself under such an unlucky and disastrous representation, and thus personated; besides, he hath offered a justification of an act of exclusion against a popish successor, in a Protestant kingdom, by remembering what was done against the king of Navarre.

  “The Popish religion, in France, did, de facto, by act of state, exclude a Protestant prince, who is under no obligation, from his religion, to destroy his Popish subjects.

  “Though a Popish prince is, to destroy his Protestant subjects.

  “A Popish prince, to a Protestant kingdom, without more, must be the most insufferable tyrant, and exceed the character that any story can furnish for that sort of monster: And yet all the while to himself a religious and an applauded prince; discharged from the tortures that ordinarily tear and rend the hearts of the most cruel princes, and make them as uneasy to themselves as they are to their subjects, and sometimes prevail so far as to lay some restraints upon their wicked minds.

  “But this his patron will impute to his want of judgment; for this poet’s heroes are commonly such monsters as Theseus and Hercules are, renowned throughout all ages for destroying.

  “But to excuse him, this man hath forsaken his post, and entered upon another province. To “The Observator” it belongs to confound truth and falsehood; and, by his false colours and impostures, to put out the eyes of the people, and leave them without understanding.

  “But our poet hath not so much art left him as to frame any thing agreeable, or verisimilar, to amuse the people, or wherewith to deceive them.

  “His province is to corrupt the manners of the nation, and lay waste their morals; his understanding is clapt, and his brains are vitiated, and he is to rot the age.

  “His endeavours are more happily applied, to extinguish the little remains of the virtue of the age by bold impieties, and befooling religion by impious and inept rhymes, to confound virtue and vice, good and evil, and leave us without consciences.

  “And thus we are prepared for destruction.

  “But to give the world a taste of his atheism and impiety, I shall recite two of his verses, as recited upon the stage, viz.

  For conscience, and heaven’s fear, religious rules,

  They are all state-bells to toll in pious fools;

  which I have done the rather, that some honest judge, or justice, may direct a process against this bold impious man; or some honest surrogate, or official, may find leisure to proceed, ex officio, against him, notwithstanding at present they are so encumbered with the dissenters.

  “Such public blasphemies against religion, never were unpunished in any country, or age, but this.

  “But I have made too long a digression, but that it carries with it some instructions towards the preserving of the honour of your august city, viz.

  “That you do not hereafter authorise the stage to expose and revile your great officers, and offices, by the indignities yourselves do them; whilst the Papists clap their hands, and triumph at your public disgraces, and in the hopes they conceive thereby of the ruin of your government, as if that were as sure and certain to them, as it is to us, without doubt, that they once fired it.

  “And further, for that it was fit to set forth to the world, of what spirit our enemies are, how they intend to attack us; as also, how bold they are with his majesty, what false and dishonourable representations they make of him, and present to the world upon a public theatre; which, I must confess, hath moved me with some passion.”

  This angry barrister was not the only adversary whom Dryden had to encounter on this occasion. Thomas Shadwell, a man of some talents for comedy, and who professed to tread in the footsteps of Ben Jonson, had for some time been at variance with Dryden and Otway. He was probably the author of a poem, entitled, “A Lenten Prologue, refused by the Players;” which is marked by Mr Luttrel, 11th April, 1683, and contains the following direct attack on “The Duke of Guise,” and the author:

  Our prologue wit grows flat; the nap’s worn off,

  And howsoe’er we turn and trim the stuff,

  The gloss is gone that looked at first so gaudy;

  ’Tis now no jest to hear young girls talk bawdry.

  But plots and parties give new matters birth,

  And state distractions serve you here for mirth.

  At England’s cost poets now purchase fame;

  While factious heats destroy us, without shame,

  These wanton Neroes fiddle to the flame;

  The stage, like old rump-pulpits, is become

  The scene of news, a furious party’s drum:

  Here poets beat their brains for volunteers,

  And take fast hold of asses by their ears;

  Their jingling rhimes for reason here you swallow,

  Like Orpheus’ music, it makes beasts to follow.

  What an enlightening grace is want of bread!

  How it can change a libeller’s heart, and clear a laureat’s head;

  Open h
is eyes, till the mad prophet see

  Plots working in a future power to be!

  Traitors unformed to his second sight are clear.

  And squadrons here and squadrons there appear;

  Rebellion is the burden of the seer.

  To Bayes, in vision, were of late revealed,

  Whig armies, that at Knightsbridge lay concealed;

  And though no mortal eye could see’t before,

  The battle just was entering at the door.

  A dangerous association, signed by none,

  The joiner’s plot to seize the king alone.

  Stephen with College made this dire compact;

  The watchful Irish took them in the fact.

  Of riding armed; O traitorous overt act!

  With each of them an ancient Pistol sided,

  Against the statute in that case provided.

  But, why was such a host of swearers pressed?

  Their succour was ill husbandry at best.

  Bayes’s crowned muse, by sovereign right of satire,

  Without desert, can dub a man a traitor;

  And tories, without troubling law or reason,

  By loyal instinct can find plots and treason.

  A more formal attack was made in a pamphlet, entitled, “Some Reflections on the pretended parallel in the Play called the Duke of Guise.” This Dryden, in the following Vindication, supposes to have been sketched by Shadwell, and finished by a gentleman of the Temple. In these Reflections, the obvious ground of attack, 133 occupied by Hunt, is again resumed. The general indecency of a theatrical exhibition, which alluded to state-transactions of a grave and most important nature; the indecorum of comparing the king to such a monarch as Henry III., infamous for treachery, cruelty, and vices of the most profligate nature; above all, the parallel betwixt the Dukes of Monmouth and Guise, by which the former is exhibited as a traitor to his father, and recommended as no improper object for assassination — are topics insisted on at some length, and with great vehemence.

  Our author was not insensible to these attacks, by which his loyalty to the king, and the decency of his conduct towards Monmouth, the king’s offending, but still beloved, son, and once Dryden’s own patron, stood painfully compromised. Accordingly, shortly after these pamphlets had appeared, the following advertisement was annexed to “The Duke of Guise:”