Chapter XLVI: Prologue: TO

THE KING AND QUEEN,

UPON THE

UNION OF THE TWO COMPANIES, IN 1686.

_The two rival Companies, so long known by the names of the King's
and the Duke's players, after exhausting every effort, both of
poetry and machinery, to obtain a superiority over each other,
were, at length, by the expence of these exertions, and the
inconstancy of the public, reduced to the necessity of uniting
their forces, in order to maintain their ground. "Taste and
fashion," says Colley Cibber, "with us, have always had wings, and
fly from one public spectacle to another so wantonly, that I have
been informed, by those who remember it, that a famous puppet-show,
in Salisbury-change, then standing where Cecil-street now is, so
far distressed these two celebrated companies, that they were
reduced to petition the king for relief against it. Nor ought we,
perhaps, to think this strange, when, if I mistake not, Terence
himself reproaches the Roman auditors of his time with the like
fondness for the_ funambuli, _the rope-dancers. Not to dwell too
long, therefore, upon that part of my history, which I have only
collected from oral tradition, I shall content myself with telling
you, that Mohun and Hart now growing old, (for above thirty years
before this time, they had severally borne the king's commission
of major and captain in the civil wars,) and the younger actors,
as Goodman, Clark, and others, being impatient to get into their
parts, and growing intractable, the audiences too of both houses
then falling off, the patentees of each, by the king's advice,
(which, perhaps, amounted to a command,) united their interests,
and both companies into one, exclusive of all others, in the year_
1684. _This union was, however, so much in favour of the Duke's
company, that Hart left the stage upon it, and Mohun survived not
long after."_[388] Apology, p. 58.

_It appears, that the king and queen honoured with their presence
the first performance under the union they had recommended.
Dryden's prologue abounds with those violent expressions of loyalty
with which James loved to be greeted._

Since faction ebbs, and rogues grow out of fashion,
Their penny scribes take care t' inform the nation,
How well men thrive in this or that plantation:[389]

How Pennsylvania's air agrees with Quakers,
And Carolina's with Associators;
Both e'en too good for madmen and for traitors.[390]

Truth is, our land with saints is so run o'er,
And every age produces such a store,
That now there's need of two New Englands more.

What's this, you'll say, to us, and our vocation?
Only thus much, that we have left our station,
And made this theatre our new plantation.

The factious natives never could agree;
But aiming, as they called it, to be free,
Those play-house Whigs set up for property.[391]

Some say, they no obedience paid of late;
But would new tears and jealousies create,
Till topsy-turvy they had turned the state.

Plain sense, without the talent of foretelling,
Might guess 'twould end in downright knocks and quelling;
For seldom comes there better of rebelling.

When men will, needlessly, their freedom barter
For lawless power, sometimes they catch a Tartar;--
There's a damned word that rhimes to this, called Charter.[392]

But, since the victory with us remains,
You shall be called to twelve in all our gains,
If you'll not think us saucy for our pains.

Old men shall have good old plays to delight them;
And you, fair ladies and gallants, that slight them,
We'll treat with good new plays, if our new wits can write them.

We'll take no blundering verse, no fustain tumor,
No dribbling love, from this or that presumer;
No dull fat fool shammed on the stage for humour:[393]

For, faith, some of them such vile stuff have made,
As none but fools or fairies ever played;
But 'twas, as shopmen say, to force a trade.

We've given you tragedies, all sense defying,
And singing men, in woful metre dying;
This 'tis when heavy lubbers will be flying.

All these disasters we will hope to weather;
We bring you none of our old lumber hither;
Whig poets and Whig sheriffs[394] may hang together.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 388: In this last point Colley is, however, mistaken. See p. 328.]

[Footnote 389: The American colonies, from the time of the first troubles in the reign of Charles I., continued to be the place of refuge to all who were discontented with the government of the time, or experienced oppression under it. The settlers did not fail to excite their countrymen to emigration, by exaggerated accounts of the fertility and advantages of their places of refuge, which were circulated by the hawkers.]

[Footnote 390: The settlement of Pennsylvania, under the famous Penn, had just taken place; and the design of a Scottish insurrection, at the time of the Rye-house plot, was carried on by Baillie of Jerviswood, under pretence of being agent for some gentlemen of the south of Scotland, who proposed to leave their country, and make a settlement in Carolina.]

[Footnote 391: This seems to allude to the mutiny of the younger actors against Hart and Mohun, mentioned by Cibber. The performers were also anxious to emancipate themselves from the thraldom of the patentees, which they did not accomplish till after the Revolution. They were emancipated by King William, who considered them, says Cibber, as the only subjects he had not yet relieved from arbitrary power. Dryden seems to allude to some ineffectual struggles made for this purpose, which he compares to those of the Whigs in the latter end of the reign of Charles II.]

[Footnote 392: Alluding to the forfeiture of the city charter, by the process of _Quo Warranto_.]

[Footnote 393: Our author, who writes in all the exultation of triumphant Toryism, does not forget to bestow a passing sarcasm upon his political and personal enemy, Shadwell. In the observations on "Mac-Flecnoe," and elsewhere, we have noticed Shadwell's affectation of treading in the paths of Ben Jonson, by describing what he calls _humours_; a word as great a favourite with the fat bard as with Corporal Nym. The following passage in the dedication of "The Virtuoso," may serve to explain what he means by the phrase:

"I have endeavoured in this play, at humour, wit, and satire, which are the three things (however I may have fallen short in my attempt) which your grace has often told me are the life of a comedy. Four of the humours are entirely new; and, without vanity, I may say I never produced a comedy that had not some natural humour in it, not represented before, nor, I hope, ever shall. Nor do I count those humours which a great many do; that is to say, such as consist in using one or two by-words; or in having a fantastic extravagant dress, as many pretended humours have; nor in the affectation of some French words, which several plays have shown us. I say nothing of impossible, unnatural, farce fools, which some intend for comical; who think it the easiest thing in the world to write a comedy, and yet will sooner grow rich upon their ill plays than write a good one: Nor is downright silly folly a humour, as some take it to be, for it is a mere natural imperfection; and they might as well call it a humour of blindness in a blind man, or lameness in a lame one; or as a celebrated French farce has the humour of one who speaks very fast, and of another who speaks very slow: But natural imperfections are not fit subjects for comedy, since they are not to be laughed at, but pitied. But the artificial folly of those who are not coxcombs by nature, but, with great art and industry, make themselves so, is a proper object of comedy; as I have discoursed at large in the Preface to "The Humourists," written five years since. Those slight circumstantial things, mentioned before, are not enough to make a good comical humour; which ought to be such an affectation as misguides men in knowledge, art, or science; or that causes defection in manners and morality, or perverts their minds in the main actions of their lives: And this kind of humour, I think, I have not improperly described in the Epilogue to "The Humourists."

"But your grace understands humour too well not to know this, and much more than I can say of it. All I have now to do, is, humbly to dedicate this play to your grace, which has succeeded beyond my expectation; and the humours of which have been approved by men of the best sense and learning. Nor do I hear of any professed enemies to the play, but some women, and some men of feminine understandings, who like slight plays only that represent a little tattle-sort of conversation like their own: but true humour is not liked or understood by them; and therefore even my attempt towards it is condemned by them: but the same people, to my great comfort, damn all Mr Jonson's plays, who was incomparably the best dramatic poet that ever was, or, I believe, ever will be; and I had rather be author of one scene in his best comedies, than of any play this age has produced."]

[Footnote 394: This inhuman jest turns on the execution of Henry Cornish, who, with Slingsby Bethel, was sheriff in 1680, and distinguished himself in opposition to the court.--See Note on "Absalom and Achitophel," Part I. vol. ix. p. 280. He was condemned as accessary to the Rye-house plot, and executed accordingly on 23d October, 1685; probably a short time before this prologue was spoken, which might be in January 1686.]