by John Dryden
Sir, royal sir! —
He hears me not; he lifts not up his eyes,
But, fixed upon the pavement, looks the way
That points to death. —— [She pulls him.
Oh, hear me, hear me, father!
Have you forgot that dear indulgent name,
Never before in vain pronounced by me?
Vera. Ha! who disturbs my thoughts?
Cel. [Kneeling.] ’Tis Celidea. —
Alas! I would relieve you, if I durst:
If ever I offended, even in thought,
Or made not your commands
The bounds of all my wishes and desires,
Bid me be dumb, or else permit me speech.
Vera. Oh, rise, my only unoffending child,
Who reconciles me to the name of father!
Speak, then; — but not for her, and less for him.
Cel. Perhaps I would accuse them, not defend;
For both are guilty, dipped in equal crimes,
And are obnoxious to your justice both.
Vera. True, Celidea; thou confirm’st my sentence.
’Tis just Alphonso die.
Xim. Forgive her, heaven! she aggravates their faults,
And pushes their destruction. — [Aside.
Cel. Speak, Alphonso:
Can you deny, when royal Veramond,
Then thought your father, and by you so deemed,
When he required your captive, old Ramirez,
And ordered his confinement; did you well
Then to control the pleasure of that king,
Under whose just commands you fought and conquered?
Alph. I did not well; but heat of boiling youth,
And ill-weighed honour, made me disobey.
Vera. That cause is gained; for he confesses guilt. —
Proceed, most equitable judge, proceed.
Cel. [To Alph.] Next, I reproach you with a worse rebellion:
The king’s first promise, to Don Garcia made,
You dared to oppose; forbade his fair addresses;
Then made a ruffian quarrel with that prince;
And, last, were guilty of incestuous love.
I will not load my sister with consent;
But, in strict virtue, listening to a crime,
And not rejecting, is itself a crime.
Vict. Is this a sister’s office? peace, for shame!
We loved without transgressing virtue’s bounds;
We fixed the limits of our tenderest thoughts;
Came to the verge of honour, and there stopped:
We warmed us by the fire, but were not scorched.
If this be sin, angels might love with less,
And mingle rays of minds less pure than ours.
Our souls enjoyed; but to their holy feasts,
Bodies, on both sides, were forbidden guests.
Cel. Now help me, father, or our cause is lost;
For much I fear their love was innocent.
Vera. With my own troops Alphonso seized my person,
In my own town, to my perpetual shame.
Pass on to that, and strike the traitor dead.
Cel. Yes, proud Alphonso, you were banish’d hence;
Your father was confined, and doomed to death;
The beauty you adored was made another’s.
How durst you, then, attempt to avenge your wrongs,
And force your mistress from your rival’s arms,
Rather than die contented, as you ought?
Alph. Even for those very reasons you allege.
Xim. At last I find her drift. — [Aside.
Vera. Thou justifiest, and not accusest him.
Cel. Patience, good father, and hear out the rest. — [To Alphonso.
Thought you, because you bravely fought and conquered
For royal Veramond, nay, saved his life,
And set him free when you had conquered him,
Only because he was Victoria’s father;
Thought you for such slight services as these,
That he should spare you now? O generous madman,
To give your head to one, who ne’er forgave.
Vera. Oh, she stings me. — [Aside.
Cel. And you, Don Garcia, witness to this truth:
You were his hated rival, fairly vanquished,
And yet he spared your life.
Gar. At your request:
I owe it to you both.
Cel. That he dismissed my sister, ’twas her fault;
I charge it not on him, but ’twas his folly:
A capital fool he was, in that last error,
For which he justly stands condemned to death.
Your sentence, royal sir?
Vera. That he should live;
Should live triumphant over Veramond,
And should live happy in Victoria’s love. —
Oh, I have held as long as nature could;
Convinced in reason, obstinate in will:
I saw the pleader’s aim, found her design,
I longed to be o’ercome, and yet resisted. —
What have I done against thee, my Alphonso?
And what hast thou not done for Veramond?
Xim. O fortunate event!
Vict. O happy day!
Alph. O unexpected bliss, and therefore double!
Vera. [To Alph.] Can you forgive me? yes,
I know you can;
Alphonso can forgive Victoria’s father.
But yet, in pity, pardon not too soon;
Punish my pride a while,
And make me linger for so great a good,
Lest ecstasy of joy prevent this blessing,
And you, instead of pardon, give me death.
[He offers to kneel to Alphonso: Alphonso takes him up, and kneels himself.
Alph. Oh, let me raise my father from the ground!
Vera. [Rising.]’Tis your peculiar virtue, my
Alphonso,
Always to raise me up.
Alph. Here let me grow, till I obtain your grace.
My life has been one universal crime;
And you, like heaven, accepting short repentance,
Forgive my length of sins.
Vera. [Raising him.] Let us forget from whence offence began.
But since, to save my shame, thou wilt be guilty,
Impute thy hate for me to sure instinct,
That showed thee thy true father in my foe;
Now grafted on my stock, be son to both. —
[Turning to Gar.] To you, Don Garcia, next —
Gar. Before you speak,
Permit me, sir, to assume some little merit
In this day’s happiness; your promise made
Victoria mine —
Alph. What then?
Gar. Nay, hear me out.
He kept his royal word; he gave her me:
I lost her, when I fell beneath your sword;
Or, if I have a title, I resign it,
And make her yours.
Alph. I take her, as your gift.
Gar. [To Vera.] Make me but blest in Celidea’s love;
She saved my life, and hers it is for ever.
’Tis pity she, who gained another’s cause,
Should lose her own.
Vera. [Presenting Cel.] She’s yours.
Cel. My joys are full.
Vict. And mine o’erflow.
Alph. And mine are all a soul can bear, and live.
Vera. Then seek we out Ramirez,
To make him partner of this happy day,
That gives him back his crown and his Alphonso.
Ram. Behold me here, unsought, with some few friends. — [ Taking off his vizard.
Resolved to save my son, or perish with him,
Thus far I traced, and followed him unknown;
And here have waited, with a beating heart,
To see this blest event.
Vera. Just like the winding up of some design,
Wel
l formed, upon the crowded theatre;
Where all concerned surprisingly are pleased,
And what they wish see done. Lead to the temple:
Let thanks be paid; and heaven be praised no less
For private union, than for public peace.
[Exeunt.
EPILOGUE.
SPOKEN BY DALINDA.
Now, in good manners, nothing should be said
Against this play, because the poet’s dead.
The prologue told us of a moral here:
Would I could find it! but the devil knows where.
If in my part it lies, I fear he means
To warn us of the sparks behind our scenes.
For, if you’ll take it on Dalinda’s word,
’Tis a hard chapter to refuse a lord.
The poet might pretend this moral too, —
That when a wit and fool together woo,
The damsel (not to break an ancient rule)
Should leave the wit, and take the wealthy fool.
This he might mean: but there’s a truth behind,
And, since it touches none of all our kind
But masks and misses, ‘faith, I’ll speak my mind.
What if he taught our sex more cautious carriage,
And not to be too coming before marriage;
For fear of my misfortune in the play,
A kid brought home upon the wedding-day?
I fear there are few Sanchos in the pit,
So good as to forgive, and to forget;
That will, like him, restore us into favour,
And take us after on our good behaviour.
Few, when they find the money-bag is rent,
Will take it for good payment on content.
But in the telling, there the difference is,
Sometimes they find it more than they could wish.
Therefore be warned, you misses and you masks,
Look to your hits, nor give the first that asks.
Tears, sighs, and oaths, no truth of passion prove;
True settlement, alone, declares true love.
For him that weds a puss, who kept her first,
I say but little, but I doubt the worst.
The wife, that was a cat, may mind her house,
And prove an honest, and a careful spouse;
But ‘faith I would not trust her with a mouse.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO VANBRUGH’S ADAPTATION OF FLETCHER’S THE PILGRIM
PROLOGUE, SONG, SECULAR MASQUE, & EPILOGUE, WRITTEN FOR THE PILGRIM, REVIVED FOR DRYDEN’s BENEFIT, IN 1700.
OUR author’s connection with the Theatre only ended with his life. The pieces which follow have reference to the performance of “The Pilgrim,” a play of Beaumont and Fletcher, which was revived in 1700. Vanburgh, a lively comic writer, who seems to have looked up to Dryden with that veneration which was his due, added some light touches of humour, to adapt this play to the taste of the age. The aged poet himself furnished a Prologue and Epilogue, a Song, and Secular Masque; and, with these additions, the piece was performed for the benefit of Dryden. It seems dubious whether the kind intentions of Vanburgh and the players actually took effect in favour of our author himself, or in that of his son. It is certain, that, if he did not die before the representation, he did not survive it many weeks, as the play was not published till after his death.
But his lamp burned bright to the close. The Prologue and Epilogue, written within a few weeks of his death, equal anything of the kind which he ever produced. He combats his two enemies, Blackmore and Collier, with his usual spirit; but with manliness concedes that they had attacked him in one vulnerable and indefensible particular, where he lay open less from any peculiar depravity in his own taste than from compliance with the general licence of the age.
Cibber informs us that Sir John Vanburgh, who cast the parts, being pleased with the young actor’s moderation, in contenting himself with those of the Stuttering Cook, and Mad Englishman, assigned him also the creditable task of speaking the Epilogue, which, as it was so much above the ordinary strain, highly gratified his vanity. Dryden himself, on hearing Cibber recite it, made him the further compliment of trusting him with the Prologue also; an honourable distinction, which drew upon him the jealousy of the other actors, and the indignation of Wilkes in particular. This revival of “The Pilgrim” was also remarkable as affording Mrs. Oldfield, who had been about a year or more a mute on the stage, an opportunity of attracting public attention in the character of Alinda, which suited the want of confidence natural to her inexperience, and in which she afforded that promise of future excellence which was afterwards so amply fulfilled.
PROLOGUE TO THE PILGRIM. REVIVED FOR OUR AUTHOR’S BENEFIT, ANNO 1700.
How wretched is the fate of those who write!
Brought muzzled to the stage, for fear they bite;
Where, like Tom Dove, they stand the common foe,
Lugged by the critic, baited by the beau.
Yet, worse, their brother poets damn the play,
And roar the loudest, though they never pay.
The fops are proud of scandal, for they cry,
At every lewd, low character, — that’s I.
He, who writes letters to himself, would swear,
The world forgot him, if he was not there.
What should a poet do. ’Tis hard for one
To pleasure all the fools that would be shown;
And yet not two in ten will pass the town.
Most coxcombs are not of the laughing kind;
More goes to make a fop, than fops can find.
Quack Maurus, though he never took degrees
In either of our universities,
Yet to be shown by some kind wit he looks,
Because he played the fool, and writ three books.
But if he would be worth a poet’s pen,
He must be more a fool, and write again:
For all the former fustian stuff he wrote
Was dead-born dogg’rel, or is quite forgot;
His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe,
Is just the proverb, and “As poor as Job.”
One would have thought he could no longer jog;
But Arthur was a level, Job’s a bog.
There though he crept, yet still he kept in sight;
But here he founders in, and sinks downright.
Had he prepared us, and been dull by rule,
Tobit had first been turned to ridicule;
But our bold Briton, without fear or awe,
O’erleaps at once the whole Apocrypha;
Invades the Psalms with rhymes, and leaves no room
For any Vandal Hopkins yet to come.
But when, if, after all, this godly gear
Is not so senseless as if; would appear,
Our mountebank has laid a deeper train;
His cant, like Merry Andrew’s noble vein,
Cat-calls the sects to draw them in again.
At leisure hours in Epic Song he deals,
Writes to the rumbling of his coach’s wheels
Prescribes in haste, and seldom kills by rule,
But rides triumphant between stool and stool.
Well, let him go,— ’tis yet too early day
To get himself a place in farce or play;
We know not by what name we should arraign him,
For no one category can contain him.
A pedant, canting preacher, and a quack,
Are load enough to break an ass’s back.
At last, grown wanton, he presumed to write,
Traduced two kings, their kindness to requite;
One made the Doctor, and one dubbed the Knight.
See, who ne’er was, or will be half read,
Who first sung Arthur, then sung Alfred (a).
Praised great Eliza (6) in God’s anger,
Till all true Englishmen cried, hang her:
Mads William’s virtues wipe the bare a — ,
And
hanged up Marlborough in arraa (c);
Then biased from earth, grown heavenly quite,
Made every reader curss the light (d).
Mauled human wit in one thick satire (e);
Next, in three books, spoiled human nature (J);
Ended Creation (g) at a jerk,
And of Redemption (h) made damned work:
Then took hia muae at once, and dipped her
Full in the middle of the Scripture.
What wonders there the man grown old did!
Sternhold himself be out-sternholded;
Made David (i) seem so mad and freakish,
All thought him just what thought King Achish.
No mortal read his Solomon (k),
But judged B’oboam his own son.
Mosea (I) he aerved, aa Moses Pharaoh,
And Deborah as she Siaera;
Made Jeremy (m) full sore to cry,
And Job (n) himself curse God and die.
What punishment shall all this follow?
Shall Arthur use him like King Tollo?
Shall David as Uriah slay him?
Or dexterous Deborah Sisera him?
Or shall Eliza lay a plot,
To treat him like her sister Scot?
Shall William dub his better end (o)?
Or Marlborough serve him like a friend?
No, none of these — heaven spare his life, ‘
But send him, honest Job — thy wife.
(а) — Two Heroic Poems, in Folio; twenty books.
(б) — An Heroic Poem, in twelve books.
(ci) — Instructions to a Tapestry Weaver.
(e) — Hymn to the Light.
(f) — Satire against Wit.
(f) Of the Nature of Man.
(g) Creation, in seven books.
(h) Redemption, in six books.
(i) Translation of aU the Psalms.
(k) Canticles and Ecclesiastes.
(I) Canticles of Moses, Deborah, etc.
(m) The Lamentations.
(n) The whole Book of Job, a Poem, in folio.
(o) Kick him on the breech, not knight him on the shoulder.
SONG OF A SCHOLAR AND HIS MISTRESS, WHO, BEING CROSSED BY THEIR FRIENDS, FELL MAD FOR ONE ANOTHER, AND NOW FIRST MEET IN BEDLAM.
In “The Pilgrim,” as originally written by Beaumont and Fletcher, one scene is laid in a mad-house, where the humours of the different persons confined are described with some pleasantry. Amongst others is introduced a Scholar, who has solicited dismission from his confinement, and who, after having been carefully examined by two gentlemen, whom his patron had appointed to visit him, is on the point of being discharged as possessed of his perfect understanding. The dialogue, which follows, probably formed the introduction to our author’s Song.