I have only a dark remembrance of this story, and have not the Spanish author by me, but, I think, I am not much mistaken in the main of it; and whether true or false, the counsel given, I am sure, is such, as ought, in common prudence, to be practised against Trimmers, whether the lawful or unlawful cause prevail. Loyal men may justly be displeased with this party, not for their moderation, as Mr Hunt insinuates, but because, under that mask of seeming mildness, there lies hidden either a deep treachery, or, at best, an interested luke-warmness. But he runs riot into almost treasonable expressions, as if "Trimmers were hated because they are not 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:" by all which villainous names he opprobriously calls his majesty's most loyal subjects; as if men must be perfectly wicked, who endeavour to support a lawful government; or perfectly deceived, who on no occasion dare take up arms against their sovereign: as if acknowledging the right of succession, and resolving to maintain it in the line, were to be in a Catiline conspiracy; and at last, (which is ridiculous enough, after so much serious treason) as if "to clap the Duke of Guise" were to adhere to men that publicly profess murders, and applaud the design of the assassinating poets.

But together with his villainies, pray let his incoherences be observed. He commends the Trimmers, (at least tacitly excuses them) for men of some moderation; and this in opposition to the instruments of wickedness of the Catiline make, that are resolute and forward, and without consideration. But he forgets all this in the next twenty lines; for there he gives them their own, and tells them roundly, in internecino bello, medii pro hostibus habentur. Neutral men are traitors, and assist by their indifferency to the destruction of the government. The plain English of his meaning is this; while matters are only in dispute, and in machination, he is contented they should be moderate; but when once the faction can bring about a civil war, then they are traitors, if they declare not openly for them.

"But it is not," says he, "the Duke of Guise who is to be assassinated, a turbulent, wicked, and haughty courtier, but an innocent and gentle prince." By his favour, our Duke of Guise was neither innocent nor gentle, nor a prince of the blood royal, though he pretended to descend from Charlemagne, and a genealogy was printed to that purpose, for which the author was punished, as he deserved; witness Davila, and the journals of Henry III. where the story is at large related. Well, who is it then? why, "it is a prince who has no fault, but that he is the king's son:" then he has no fault by consequence; for I am certain, that is no fault of his. The rest of the compliment is so silly, and so fulsome, as if he meant it all in ridicule; and to conclude the jest, he says, that "the best people of England have no other way left, to shew their loyalty to the king, 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."

Yes, I can tell them one other way to express their loyalty, which is, to obey the king, and to respect his brother, as the next lawful successor; their religion commands them both, and the government is secured in so doing. But why in intervals of parliament? How are they more obliged to honour the king's son out of parliament, than in it? And why this prosecution of love for the king's sake? Has he ordered more love to be shewn to one son, than to another? Indeed, his own quality is cause sufficient for all men to respect him, and I am of their number, who truly honour him, and who wish him better than this miserable sycophant; for I wish him, from his father's royal kindness, what justice can make him, which is a greater honour than the rabble can confer upon him.

But our author finds, that commendation is no more his talent, than flattery was that of AEsop's ass; and therefore falls immediately, from pawing with his fore-feet, and grinning upon one prince, to downright braying against another.

He says, I have not used "my patron duke much better; for I have 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."

If it please his Royal Highness to be my patron, I have reason to be proud of it; because he never yet forsook any man, whom he has had the goodness to own for his. But how have I put him under an unfortunate character? the authors of the Reflections, and our John-a-Nokes, have not laid their noddles together about this accusation. For it is their business to prove the king of Navarre to have been a most successful, magnanimous, gentle, and grateful prince; in which character they have followed the stream of all historians. How then happens this jarring amongst friends, that the same man is put under such dismal circumstances on one side, and so fortunate on the other, by the writers of the same party? The answer is very plain; that they take the cause by several handles. They, who will not have the Duke resemble the king of Navarre, have magnified the character of that prince, to debase his Royal Highness; and therein done what they can to shew the disparity. Mr Hunt, who will have it to be the Duke's character, has blackened that king as much as he is able, to shew the likeness. Now this would be ridiculous pleading at a bar, by lawyers retained for the same cause; and both sides would call each other fools, because the jury betwixt them would be confounded, and perhaps the judges too.

But this it is to have a bad cause, which puts men of necessity upon knavery; and that knavery is commonly found out. Well, Mr Hunt has in another place confessed himself to be in passion, and that is the reason he is so grosly mistaken in opening of the cause. For, first, the king of Navarre was neither under dismal, nor unfortunate circumstances: before the end of that very sentence, our lawyer has confessed, that he fought his way to the crown; that is, he gloriously vanquished all his rebels, and happily possessed his inheritance many years after he had regained it. In the next place, he was never excluded from the crown by act of state. He changed his religion indeed, but not until he had almost weathered the storm, recovered the best part of his estate, and gained some glorious victories in pitched battles; so that his changing cannot without injustice be attributed to his fear. Monsieur Chiverny, in his Memoirs of those times, plainly tells us, that he solemnly promised to his predecessor Henry III. then dying, that he would become a Romanist; and Davila, though he says not this directly, yet denies it not. By whose hands Henry IV. died, is notoriously known; but it is invidiously urged, both by Mr Hunt and the Reflectors: for we may, to our shame, remember, that a king of our own country was barbarously murdered by his subjects, who professed the same religion; though I believe, that neither Jaques Clement, nor Ravaillac, were better papists, than the independents and presbyterians were protestants; so that their argument only proves, that there are rogues of all religions: Iliacos infra muros peccatur, et extra. But Mr Hunt follows his blow again, that I have "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, who was de facto excluded by an act of state." My gentleman, I perceive, is very willing to call that an act of exclusion, and an act of state, which is only, in our language, called a bill; for Henry III. could never be gained to pass it, though it was proposed by the three estates at Blois. The Reflectors are more modest; for they profess, (though I am afraid it is somewhat against the grain,) that a vote of the House of Commons is not an act; but the times are turned upon them, and they dare speak no other language. Mr Hunt, indeed, is a bold republican, and tells you the bottom of their meaning. Yet why should it make the "courage of his Royal Highness quail, to find himself under this representation," which; by our author's favour, is neither dismal, nor disastrous? Henry IV. escaped this dreadful machine of the League; I say dreadful, for the three estates were at that time composed generally of Guisards, factious, hot-headed, rebellious interested men. The king in possession was but his brother-in-law, and at the time publicly his enemy; for the king of Navarre was then in arms against him; and yet the sense of common justice, and the good of his people so prevailed, that he withstood the project of the states, which he also knew was levelled at himself; for had the exclusion proceeded, he had been immediately laid by, and the lieutenancy of France conferred on Guise; after which the rebel would certainly have put up his title for the crown. In the case of his Royal Highness, only one of the three estates have offered at the exclusion, and have been constantly opposed by the other two, and by his majesty. Neither is it any way probable, that the like will ever be again attempted; for the fatal consequences, as well as the illegality of that design, are seen through already by the people; so that, instead of offering a justification of an act of exclusion, I have exposed a rebellious, impious, and fruitless contrivance tending to it. If we look on the parliament of Paris, when they were in their right wits, before they were intoxicated by the League, (at least wholly) we shall find them addressing to king Henry III. in another key, concerning the king of Navarre's succession, though he was at that time, as they called it, a relapsed heretic. And to this purpose I will quote a passage out of the journals of Henry III. so much magnified by my adversaries.

Towards the end of September, 1585, there was published at Paris a bull of excommunication against the king of Navarre, and the prince of Conde. The parliament of Paris made their remonstrance to the king upon it, which was both grave, and worthy of the place they held, and of the authority they have in this kingdom; saying for conclusion, that "their court had found the stile of this bull so full of innovation, and so distant from the modesty of ancient Popes, that they could not understand in it the voice of an Apostle's successor; forasmuch, as they found not in their records, nor in the search of all antiquity, that the princes of France had ever been subject to the justice or jurisdiction of the Pope, and they could not take it into consideration, until first he made appear the right which he pretended in the translation of kingdoms, established and ordained by Almighty God, before the name of Pope was heard of in the world." It is plain by this, that the parliament of Paris acknowledged an inherent right of succession in the king of Navarre, though of a contrary religion to their own. And though, after the duke of Guise's murder at Blois, the city of Paris revolted from their obedience to their king, pretending, that he was fallen from the crown, by reason of that and other actions, with which they charged him; yet the sum of all their power to renounce him, and create the duke of Mayenne lieutenant-general, depended ultimately on the Pope's authority; which, as you see, but three years before, they had peremptorily denied.

The college of Sorbonne began the dance, by their determination, that the kingly right was forfeited; and, stripping him of all his dignities, they called him plain Henry de Valois: after this, says my author, "sixteen rascals (by which he means the council of that number) having administered the oath of government to the duke of Mayenne, to take in quality of lieutenant-general of the estate and crown of France, the same ridiculous dignity was confirmed to him by an imaginary parliament, the true parliament being detained prisoners, in divers of the city gaols, and two new seals were ordered to be immediately made, with this inscription,—the Seal of the Kingdom of France." I need not enlarge on this relation: it is evident from hence, that the Sorbonnists were the original, and our Schismatics in England were the copiers of rebellion; that Paris began, and London followed.

The next lines of my author are, that "a gentleman of Paris made the duke of Mayenne's picture to be drawn, with a crown imperial on his head;" and I have heard of an English nobleman, who has at this day a picture of old Oliver, with this motto underneath it,—Utinam vixeris. All this while, this cannot be reckoned an act of state, for the deposing king Henry III., because it was an act of overt rebellion in the Parisians; neither could the holding of the three estates at Paris, afterwards, by the same duke of Mayenne, devolve any right on him, in prejudice of king Henry IV.; though those pretended states declared his title void, on the account of his religion; because those estates could neither be called nor holden, but by, and under the authority of, the lawful king. It would take more time than I have allowed for this Vindication, or I could easily trace from the French history, what misfortunes attended France, and how near it was to ruin, by the endeavours to alter the succession. For first, it was actually dismembered, the duke of Mercaeur setting up a principality in the dutchy of Bretagne, independent of the crown. The duke of Mayenne had an evident design to be elected king, by the favour of the people and the Pope: the young dukes of Guise and of Nemours aspired, with the interest of the Spaniards, to be chosen, by their marriage with the Infanta Isabella. The duke of Lorraine was for cantling out some part of France, which lay next his territories; and the duke of Savoy had, before the death of Henry III., actually possessed himself of the marquisate of Saluces. But above all, the Spaniards fomented these civil wars, in hopes to reduce that flourishing kingdom under their own monarchy. To as many, and as great mischiefs, should we be evidently subject, if we should madly engage ourselves in the like practices of altering the succession, which our gracious king in his royal wisdom well foresaw, and has cut up that accursed project by the roots; which will render the memory of his justice and prudence immortal and sacred to future ages, for having not only preserved our present quiet, but secured the peace of our posterity.

It is clearly manifest, that no act of state passed, to the exclusion of either the King of Navarre, or of Henry the fourth, consider him in either of the two circumstances; but Oracle Hunt, taking this for granted, would prove a fortiori, "that if a protestant prince were actually excluded from a popish kingdom, then a popish successor is more reasonably to be excluded from a protestant kingdom; because," says he, "a protestant prince is under no obligation to destroy his popish subjects, but a popish prince is to destroy his protestant subjects:" Upon which bare supposition, without farther proof, he calls him insufferable tyrant, and the worst of monsters.

Now, I take the matter quite otherwise, and bind myself to maintain that there is not, nor can be any obligation, for a king to destroy his subjects of a contrary persuasion to the established religion of his country; for, quatenus subjects, of what religion soever he is infallibly bound to preserve and cherish, and not to destroy them; and this is the first duty of a lawful sovereign, as such, antecedent to any tie or consideration of his religion. Indeed, in those countries where the Inquisition is introduced, it goes harder with protestants, and the reason is manifest; because the protestant religion has not gotten footing there, and severity is the means to keep it out; but to make this instance reach England, our religion must not only be changed, (which in itself is almost impossible to imagine,) but the council of Trent received, and the Inquisition admitted, which many popish countries have rejected. I forget not the cruelties, which were exercised in Queen Mary's time against the protestants; neither do I any way excuse them; but it follows not, that every popish successor should take example by them, for every one's conscience of the same religion is not guided by the same dictates in his government; neither does it follow, that if one be cruel, another must, especially when there is a stronger obligation, and greater interest to the contrary: for, if a popish king in England should be bound to destroy his protestant people, I would ask the question, over whom he meant to reign afterwards? And how many subjects would be left?

In Queen Mary's time, the protestant religion had scarcely taken root; and it is reasonable to be supposed, that she found the number of papists equalling that of the protestants, at her entrance to the kingdom; especially if we reckon into the account those who were the Trimmers of the times; I mean such, who privately were papists, though under her protestant predecessor they appeared otherwise; therefore her difficulties in persecuting her reformed subjects, were far from being so insuperable as ours now are, when the strength and number of the papists is so very inconsiderable. They, who cast in the church of England as ready to embrace popery, are either knaves enough to know they lie, or fools enough not to have considered the tenets of that church, which are diametrically opposite to popery; and more so than any of the sects.

Not to insist on the quiet and security, which protestant subjects at this day enjoy in some parts of Germany, under popish princes; where I have been assured, that mass is said, and a Lutheran sermon preached in different parts of the same church, on the same day, without disturbance on either side; nor on the privileges granted by Henry the fourth of France to his party, after he had forsaken their opinions, which they quietly possessed for a long time after his death.

The French histories are full of examples, manifestly proving, that the fiercest of their popish princes have not thought themselves bound to destroy their protestant subjects; and the several edicts, granted under them, in favour of the reformed religion, are pregnant instances of this truth. I am not much given to quotations, but Davila lies open for every man to read. Tolerations, and free exercise of religion, granted more amply in some, more restrainedly in others, are no sign that those princes held themselves obliged in conscience to destroy men of a different persuasion. It will be said, those tolerations were gained by force of arms. In the first place, it is no great credit to the protestant religion, that the protestants in France were actually rebels; but the truth is, they were only Geneva protestants, and their opinions were far distant from those of the church of England, which teaches passive obedience to all her sons, and not to propagate religion by rebellion. But it is further to be considered, that those French kings, though papists, thought the preservation of their subjects, and the public peace, were to be considered, before the gratification of the court of Rome; and though the number of the papists exceeded that of the protestants, in the proportion of three to one, though the protestants were always beaten when they fought, and though the pope pressed continually with exhortations and threatenings to extirpate Calvinism, yet kings thought it enough to continue in their own religion themselves, without forcing it upon their subjects, much less destroying them who professed another. But it will be objected, those edicts of toleration were not kept on the papists' side: they would answer, because the protestants stretched their privileges further than was granted, and that they often relapsed into rebellion; but whether or no the protestants were in fault, I leave history to determine. It is matter of fact, that they were barbarously massacred, under the protection of the public faith; therefore, to argue fairly, either an oath from protestants is not to be taken by a popish prince; or, if taken, ought inviolably to be preserved. For, when we oblige ourselves to any one, it is not his person we so much consider, as that of the Most High God, who is called to witness this our action; and it is to Him we are to discharge our conscience. Neither is there, or can be any tie on human society, when that of an oath is no more regarded; which being an appeal to God, He is immediate judge of it; and chronicles are not silent how often He has punished perjured kings. The instance of Vladislaus King of Hungary, breaking his faith with Amurath the Turk, at the instigation of Julian the Pope's legate, and his miserable death ensuing it, shews that even to infidels, much more to Christians, that obligation ought to be accounted sacred[33]. And I the rather urge this, because it is an argument taken almost verbatim from a papist, who accuses Catharine de Medicis for violating her word given to the protestants during her regency of France. What securities in particular we have, that our own religion and liberties would be preserved though under a popish successor, any one may inform himself at large in a book lately written by the reverend and learned doctor Hicks, called Jovian, in answer to Julian the Apostate[34]; in which that truly Christian author has satisfied all scruples which reasonable men can make, and proved that we are in no danger of losing either; and wherein also, if those assurances should all fail, (which is almost morally impossible,) the doctrine of passive obedience is unanswerably demonstrated; a doctrine delivered with so much sincerity, and resignation of spirit, that it seems evident the assertor of it is ready, if there were occasion, to seal it with his blood.

I have done with mannerly Mr Hunt, who is only magni nominis umbra; the most malicious, and withal, the most incoherent ignorant scribbler of the whole party. I insult not over his misfortunes, though he has himself occasioned them; and though I will not take his own excuse, that he is in passion, I will make a better for him, for I conclude him cracked; and if he should return to England, am charitable enough to wish his only prison might be Bedlam. This apology is truer than that he makes for me; for writing a play, as I conceive, is not entering into the Observator's province; neither is it the Observator's manner to confound truth with falsehood, to put out the eyes of people, and leave them without understanding. The quarrel of the party to him is, that he has undeceived the ignorant, and laid open the shameful contrivances of the new vamped Association; that though he is "on the wrong side of life," as he calls it, yet he pleads not his age to be emeritus; that, in short, he has left the faction as bare of arguments, as AEsop's bird of feathers; and plumed them of all those fallacies and evasions which they borrowed from jesuits and presbyterians.

Now for my templar and poet in association for a libel, like the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in a fiery sign. What the one wants in wit, the other must supply in law. As for malice, their quotas are indifferently well adjusted; the rough draught, I take for granted, is the poet's, the finishings the lawyer's. They begin,—that in order to one Mr Friend's commands, one of them went to see the play. This was not the poet, I am certain; for nobody saw him there, and he is not of a size to be concealed. But the mountain, they say, was delivered of a mouse. I have been gossip to many such labours of a dull fat scribbler, where the mountain has been bigger, and the mouse less. The next sally is on the city-elections, and a charge is brought against my lord mayor, and the two sheriffs, for excluding true electors. I have heard, that a Whig gentleman of the Temple hired a livery-gown, to give his voice among the companies at Guild-hall; let the question be put, whether or no he were a true elector?—Then their own juries are commended from several topics; they are the wisest, richest, and most conscientious: to which is answered, ignoramus. But our juries give most prodigious and unheard-of damages. Hitherto there is nothing but boys-play in our authors: My mill grinds pepper and spice, your mill grinds rats and mice. They go on,—"if I may be allowed to judge;" (as men that do not poetize may be judges of wit, human nature, and common decencies;) so then the sentence is begun with I; there is but one of them puts in for a judge's place, that is, he in the grey; but presently it is—men; two more in buckram would be judges too. Neither of them, it seems, poetize; that is true, but both of them are in at rhime doggrel; witness the song against the bishops, and the Tunbridge ballad[35]. By the way, I find all my scribbling enemies have a mind to be judges, and chief barons. Proceed, gentlemen:—"This play, as I am informed by some, who have a nearer communication with the poets and the players, than I have,—". Which of the two Sosias is it that now speaks? If the lawyer, it is true he has but little communication with the players; if the poet, the players have but little communication with him; for it is not long ago, he said to somebody, "By G——, my lord, those Tory rogues will act none of my plays." Well, but the accusation,—that this play was once written by another, and then it was called the "Parisian Massacre." Such a play I have heard indeed was written; but I never saw it[36]. Whether this be any of it or no, I can say no more than for my own part of it. But pray, who denies the unparalleled villainy of the papists in that bloody massacre? I have enquired, why it was not acted, and heard it was stopt by the interposition of an ambassador, who was willing to save the credit of his country, and not to have the memory of an action so barbarous revived; but that I tempted my friend to alter it, is a notorious whiggism, to save the broader word. The "Sicilian Vespers" I have had plotted by me above these seven years: the story of it I found under borrowed names in Giraldo Cinthio; but the rape in my tragedy of "Amboyna" was so like it, that I forbore the writing. But what had this to do with protestants? For the massacrers and the massacred were all papists.

But it is observable, they say, that "though the massacre could not be acted, as it was first written against papists, yet when it was turned upon protestants, it found reception."

Now all is come out; the scandal of the story turns at last upon the government: that patronizes popish plays, and forbids protestant[37]. Ours is to be a popish play; why? Because it exposes the villainy of sectaries and rebels. Prove them first to be protestants, and see what you will get by it when you have done. Your party are certainly the men whom the play attacks, and so far I will help you; the designs and actions, represented in the play, are such as you have copied from the League; for though you have wickedness enough, yet you wanted the wit to make a new contrivance. But for shame, while you are carrying on such palpable villainy, do not assume the name of protestants. You will tell us, you are friends to the government, and the king's best subjects; but all the while you are aspersing both it and him. Who shall be judges, whether you are friends or not? The government or you? Have not all rebels always sung the same song? Was ever thief or murderer fool enough to plead guilty? For your love and loyalty to the king, they, who mean him best among you, are no better subjects than Duke Trinculo; they would be content he should be viceroy, so they may be viceroys over him[38].

The next accusation is particular to me,—"that I, the said Bayes, would falsely and feloniously have robbed Nat. Lee of his share in the representation of OEdipus." Now I am culprit; I writ the first and third acts of OEdipus, and drew the scenery of the whole play: whenever I have owned a farther proportion, let my accusers speak: this was meant mischievously, to set us two at variance. Who is the old serpent and Satan now? When my friends help my barren fancy, I am thankful for it: I do not use to receive assistance, and afterwards ungratefully disown it.

Not long after, "exemplary punishment" is due to me for this most "devilish parallel." It is a devilish one indeed; but who can help it? If I draw devils like one another, the fault is in themselves for being so: I neither made their horns nor claws, nor cloven feet. I know not what I should have done, unless I had drawn the devil a handsome proper gentleman, like the painter in the fable, to have made a friend of him[39]; but I ought to be exemplarily punished for it: when the devil gets uppermost, I shall expect it. "In the mean time, let magistrates (that respect their oaths and office)"—which words, you see, are put into a parenthesis, as if (God help us) we had none such now,—let them put the law in execution against lewd scribblers; the mark will be too fair upon a pillory, for a turnip or a rotten egg to miss it. But, for my part, I have not malice enough to wish him so much harm,—not so much as to have a hair of his head perish, much less that one whole side of it should be dismantled. I am no informer, who writ such a song, or such a libel; if the dulness betrays him not, he is safe for me. And may the same dulness preserve him ever from public justice; it is a sufficient thick mud-wall betwixt him and law; it is his guardian angel, that protects him from punishment, because, in spite of him, he cannot deserve it. It is that which preserves him innocent when he means most mischief, and makes him a saint when he intends to be a devil. He can never offend enough, to need the mercy of government, for it is beholden to him, that he writes against it; and he never offers at a satire, but he converts his readers to a contrary opinion.

Some of the succeeding paragraphs are intended for very Ciceronian: there the lawyer flourishes in the pulpit, and the poet stands in socks among the crowd to hear him. Now for narration, resolution, calumniation, aggravation, and the whole artillery of tropes and figures, to defend the proceedings at Guild-hall. The most minute circumstances of the elections are described so lively, that a man, who had not heard he was there in a livery-gown, might suspect there was a quorum pars magna fui in the case; and multitudes of electors, just as well qualified as himself, might give their party the greater number: but throw back their gilt shillings, which were told for guineas, and their true sum was considerably less. Well, there was no rebellion at this time; therefore, says my adversary, there was no parallel. It is true there was no rebellion; but who ever told him that I intended this parallel so far? if the likeness had been throughout, I may guess, by their good will to me, that I had never lived to write it. But, to show his mistake, which I believe wilful, the play was wholly written a month or two before the last election of the sheriffs. Yet it seems there was some kind of prophecy in the case; and, till the faction gets clear of a riot, a part of the comparison will hold even there; yet, if he pleases to remember, there has been a king of England forced by the inhabitants from his imperial town. It is true, the son has had better fortune than the father; but the reason is, that he has now a stronger party in the city than his enemies; the government of it is secured in loyal and prudent hands, and the party is too weak to push their designs farther. "They rescued not their beloved sheriffs at a time (he tells you) when they had a most important use of them." What the importancy of the occasion was, I will not search: it is well if their own consciences will acquit them. But let them be never so much beloved, their adherents knew it was a lawful authority that sent them to the Tower; and an authority which, to their sorrow, they were not able to resist: so that, if four men guarded them without disturbance, and, to the contempt of their strength, at broad noon-day and at full exchange-time, it was no more their honesty to stand looking on with their hands in their pockets, than it is of a small band of robbers to let a caravan go by, which is too strong for them to assault.

After this, I am called, after the old rate, loose and infamous scribbler; and it is well I escape so cheap. Bear your good fortune moderately, Mr Poet; for, as loose and infamous as I am, if I had written for your party, your pension would have been cut off as useless. But they must take up with Settle, and such as they can get: Bartholomew-fair writers[40], and Bartholemew-close printers; there is a famine of wit amongst them, they are forced to give unconscionable rates, and, after all, to have only carrion for their money.

Then, I am "an ignorant fellow for not knowing there were no juries in Paris." I do not remember to have written any such thing; but whoever did, I am confident it was not his ignorance. Perhaps he had a mind to bring the case a little nearer home: If they had not juries in Paris, we had them from the Normans, who were Frenchmen; and, as you managed them, we had as good have had none in London. Let it satisfy you we have them now; and some of your loose and infamous scribblers may come to understand it a little better.

The next is, the justification of a noble peer deceased; the case is known, and I have no quarrel to his memory: let it sleep; he is now before another judge. Immediately after, I am said to have intended an "abuse to the House of Commons;" which is called by our authors "the most august assembly of Europe." They are to prove I have abused that House; but it is manifest they have lessened the House of Lords, by owning the Commons to be the "more august assembly."—"It is an House chosen (they say) by every protestant who has a considerable inheritance in England;" which word considerable signifies forty shillings per annum of free land. For the interest of the loyal party, so much under-valued by our authors, they have long ago confessed in print, that the nobility and gentry have disowned them; and the yeomanry have at last considered, queis haec consevimus arva? They have had enough of unlawful and arbitrary power; and know what an august assembly they had once without a King and House of Peers.

But now they have me in a burning scent, and run after me full cry: "Was ever such licence connived at, in an impious libeller and scribbler, that the succession, so solemn a matter, that is not fit to be debated of but in parliament, should be profaned so far as to be played with on the stage?"

Hold a little, gentlemen, hold a little; (as one of your fellow citizens says in "The Duke of Guise,") is it so unlawful for me to argue for the succession in the right line upon the stage; and is it so very lawful for Mr Hunt, and the scribblers of your party, to oppose it in their libels off the stage? Is it so sacred, that a parliament only is suffered to debate it, and dare you run it down both in your discourses, and pamphlets out of parliament? In conscience, what can you urge against me, which I cannot return an hundred times heavier on you? And by the way, you tell me, that to affirm the contrary to this, is a praemunire against the statute of the 13th of Elizabeth. If such praemunire be, pray, answer me, who has most incurred it? In the mean time, do me the favour to look into the statute-book, and see if you can find the statute; you know yourselves, or you have been told it, that this statute is virtually repealed, by that of the 1st of king James, acknowledging his immediate lawful and undoubted right to this imperial crown, as the next lineal heir; those last words are an implicit anti-declaration to the statute in queen Elizabeth, which, for that reason, is now omitted in our books. The lawful authority of an House of Commons I acknowledge; but without fear and trembling, as my Reflectors would have it. For why should I fear my representatives? they are summoned to consult about the public good, and not to frighten those who chose them. It is for you to tremble, who libel the supreme authority of the nation. But we knavish coxcombs and villains are to know, say my authors, that "a vote is the opinion of that House." Lord help our understandings, that know not this without their telling! What Englishman, do you think, does not honour his representatives, and wish a parliament void of heat and animosities, to secure the quiet of the nation? You cite his majesty's declaration against those that dare trifle with parliaments; a declaration, by the way, which you endeavoured not to have read publicly in churches, with a threatening to those that did it. "But we still declare (says his majesty) that no irregularities of parliament shall make us out of love with them." Are not you unfortunate quoters? why now should you rub up the remembrance of those irregularities mentioned in that declaration, which caused, as the king informs us, its dissolution?

The next paragraph is already answered; it is only a clumsy commendation of the Duke of Monmouth, copied after Mr Hunt, and a proof that he is unlike the Duke of Guise.

After having done my drudgery for me, and having most officiously proved, that the English duke is no parallel for the French, which I am sure he is not, they are next to do their own business, which is, that I meant a parallel betwixt Henry III. and our most gracious sovereign. But, as fallacies are always couched in general propositions, they plead the whole course of the drama, which, they say, seems to insinuate my intentions. One may see to what a miserable shift they are driven, when, for want of any one instance, to which I challenge them, they have only to allege, that the play SEEMS to insinuate it. I answer, it does not seem; which is a bare negative to a bare affirmative; and then we are just where we were before. Fat Falstaff was never set harder by the Prince for a reason, when he answered, "that, if reasons grew as thick as blackberries, he would not give one." Well, after long pumping, lest the lie should appear quite barefaced, they have found I said, that, at king Henry's birth, there shone a regal star; so there did at king Charles the Second's; therefore I have made a parallel betwixt Henry III. and Charles II. A very concluding syllogism, if I should answer it no farther.

Now, let us look upon the play; the words are in the fourth act. The conjurer there is asking his devil, "what fortune attended his master, the Guise, and what the king?" The familiar answers concerning the king,—"He cannot be deposed, he may be killed; a violent fate attends him; but, at his birth, there shone a regal star."—Conj. "My master had a stronger."—Devil. "No, not a stronger, but more popular." Let the whole scene, (which is one of the best in the tragedy, though murdered in the acting) be read together, and it will be as clear as day light, that the Devil gave an astrological account of the French king's horoscope; that the regal star, then culminating, was the sun in the tenth house, or mid-heaven; which, caeteris paribus, is a regal nativity in that art. The rest of the scene confirms what I have said; for the Devil has taken the position of the heavens, or scheme of the world, at the point of the sun's entrance into Aries. I dispute not here the truth or lawfulness of that art; but it is usual with poets, especially the Italians, to mix astrology in their poems. Chaucer, amongst us, is frequent in it: but this revolution particularly I have taken out of Luigi Pulci; and there is one almost the same in Boiardo's "Orlando Inamorato." Now, if these poets knew, that a star were to appear at our king's birth, they were better prophets than Nostradamus, who has told us nothing of it. Yet this they say "is treason with a witness," and one of the crimes for which they condemned me to be hanged, drawn and quartered. I find they do not believe me to be one of their party at the bottom, by their charitable wishes to me; and am proud enough to think, I have done them some little mischief, because they are so desirous to be rid of me. But if Jack Ketch must needs have the handling of us poets, let him begin first where he may take the deepest say[41]; let me be hanged, but in my turn; for I am sure I am neither the fattest scribbler, nor the worst; I'll be judged by their own party. But, for all our comforts, the days of hanging are a little out of date; and I hope there will be no more treason with a witness or witnesses; for now there is no more to be got by swearing, and the market is overstocked besides.

But are you in earnest when you say, I have made Henry III. "fearful, weak, bloody, perfidious, hypocritical, and fawning, in the play?" I am sure an unbiassed reader will find a more favourable image of him in the tragedy, whatever he was out of it. You would not have told a lie so shameless, but that you were resolved to second it with a worse—that I made a parallel of that prince. And now it comes to my turn, pray let me ask you,—why you spend three pages and a half in heaping up all the villainies, true or false, which you can rake together, to blast his memory? Why is all this pains taken to expose the person of king Henry III.? Are you leaguers, or covenanters, or associators? What has the poor dead man done to nettle you? Were his rebels your friends or your relations? Were your Norman ancestors of any of those families, which were conspirators in the play? I smell a rat in this business; Henry III. is not taken thus to task for nothing. Let me tell you, this is little better than an implicit confession of the parallel I intended. This gentleman of Valois sticks in your stomachs; and, though I do not defend his proceedings in the States, any otherwise than by the inevitable necessity which caused them, yet acknowledging his crime does not extenuate their guilt that forced him to it. It was bad on both sides, but the revenge was not so wicked as the treason; for it was a voluntary act of theirs, and a compelled one of his. The short on't is, he took a violent course to cut up the Covenant by the roots; and there is your quarrel to him.

Now for a long-winded panegyric of the king of Navarre; and here I am sure they are in earnest, when they take such overpains to prove there is no likeness where they say I intended it. The hero, at whom their malice is levelled, does but laugh at it, I believe; and, amongst the other virtues of that predecessor, wants neither his justice nor his clemency, to forgive all the heads of the League, as fast as they submit. As for obliging them, (which our author would fain hook in for an ingredient) let them be satisfied, that no more enemies are to be bought off with places and preferments; the trial which has been made in two kings reigns, will warn the family from so fruitless and dangerous an expedient. The rest is already answered, in what I have said to Mr Hunt; but I thank them, by the way, for their instance of the fellow whom the king of Navarre had pardoned and done good to, "yet he would not love him;" for that story reaches home somewhere.

I must make haste to get out of hearing from this Billingsgate oratory; and, indeed, to make an end with these authors, except I could call rogue and rascal as fast as they. Let us examine the little reason they produce concerning the Exclusion.

"Did the pope, the clergy, the nobility and commonalty of France think it reasonable to exclude a prince for professing a different religion; and will the papists be angry if the protestants be of the same opinion? No, sure, they cannot have the impudence."

First, here is the difference of religion taken for granted, which was never proved on one side, though in the king of Navarre it was openly professed. Then the pope, and the three estates of France had no power to alter the succession, neither did the king in being consent to it: or afterwards, did the greater part of the nobility, clergy, and gentry adhere to the Exclusion, but maintained the lawful king successfully against it; as we are bound to do in England, by the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, made for the benefit of our kings, and their successors? the objections concerning which oath are fully answered by Dr Hicks, in his preface to Jovian; and thither I refer the reader.

They tell us, that what it concerns protestants to do in that case, enough has been heard by us in parliament debates.

I answer, that debates coming not by an act to any issue, conclude, that there is nothing to be done against a law established, and fundamental of the monarchy. They dare not infer a right of taking up arms, by virtue of a debate or vote, and yet they tacitly insinuate this. I ask them, what it does concern protestants to do in this case, and whether they mean anything by that expression? They have hampered themselves before they were aware; for they proceed in the very next lines to tell us, they believe "the crown of England being hereditary, the next in blood have an undoubted right to succeed, unless God make them, or they make themselves uncapable of reigning." So that according to them, if either of those two impediments shall happen, then it concerns the protestants of England to do that something, which, if they had spoken out, had been direct treason. Here is fine legerdemain amongst them: they have acknowledged a vote to be no more than the opinion of an house, and yet from a debate, which was abortive before it quickened into a vote, they argue after the old song, "that there is something more to be done, which you cannot chuse but guess." In the next place, there is no such thing as incapacity to be supposed, in the immediate successor of the crown. That is, the rightful heir cannot be made uncapable on any account whatsoever to succeed. It may please God, that he may be inhabilis, or inidoneus ad gerendam rempublicam,—unfit or unable to govern the kingdom; but this is no impediment to his right of reigning: he cannot either be excluded or deposed for such imperfection; for the laws which have provided for private men in this case, have also made provision for the sovereign, and for the public; and the council of state, or the next of blood, is to administer the kingdom for him. Charles the Sixth of France, (for I think we have no English examples which will reach it) forfeited not his kingdom by his lunacy, though a victorious king of England was then knocking at his gates; but all things under his name, and by his authority were managed. The case is the same, betwixt a king non compos mentis, and one who is nondum compos mentis; a distracted or an infant-king. Then the people cannot incapacitate the king, because he derives not his right from them, but from God only; neither can any action, much less opinion of a sovereign, render him uncapable, for the same reason; excepting only a voluntary resignation to his immediate heir, as in the case of Charles the Fifth: for that of our Richard the Second was invalid, because forced, and not made to the next successor.

Neither does it follow, as our authors urge, that an unalterable succession supposes England to be the king's estate, and the people his goods and chattels on it. For the preservation of his right destroys not our propriety, but maintains us in it. He has tied himself by law, not to invade our possessions; and we have obliged ourselves as subjects to him, and all his lawful successors: by which irrevocable act of ours, both for ourselves and our posterity, we can no more exclude the successor, than we can depose the present king. The estate of England is indeed the king's; and I may safely grant their supposition, as to the government of England: but it follows not, that the people are his goods and chattels on it; for then he might sell, alienate, or destroy them as he pleased: from all which he has tied himself by the liberties and privileges which he has granted us by laws.

There is little else material in this pamphlet: for to say, "I would insinuate into the king a hatred to his capital city," is to say, he should hate his best friends, the last, and the present Lord Mayor, our two honourable Sheriffs, the Court of Aldermen, the worthy and loyal Mr Common Serjeant, with the rest of the officers, who are generally well affected and who have kept out their factious members from its government. To say, I would insinuate a scorn of authority in the city, is, in effect, to grant the parallel in the play: for the authority of tumults and seditions is only scorned in it,—an authority which they derived not from the crown, but exercised against it. And for them to confess I exposed this, is to confess, that London was like Paris.

They conclude with a prayer to Almighty God, in which I therefore believe, the poet did not club. To libel the king through all the pamphlet, and to pray for him in the conclusion, is an action of more prudence in them than of piety. Perhaps they might hope to be forgiven, as one of their predecessors was by king James; who, after he had railed at him abundantly, ended his lampoon with these two verses:

Now God preserve our king, queen, prince and peers, And grant the author long may wear his ears[42].

To take a short review of the whole.—It is manifest, that there is no such parallel in the play, as the faction have pretended; that the story would not bear one where they have placed it; and that I could not reasonably intend one, so contrary to the nature of the play, and so repugnant to the principles of the loyal party. On the other side, it is clear that the principles and practices of the public enemies, have both formerly resembled those of the League, and continue to hold the same resemblance. It appears by the outcry of the party before the play was acted, that they dreaded and foresaw the bringing of the faction upon the stage: and by the hasty printing of Mr Hunt's libel, and the Reflections, before the tragedy was published, that they were infinitely concerned to prevent any farther operation of it. It appears from the general consent of the audiences, that their party were known to be represented; and themselves owned openly, by their hissings, that they were incensed at it, as an object which they could not bear. It is evident by their endeavours to shift off this parallel from their side, that their principles are too shameful to be maintained. It is notorious, that they, and they only, have made the parallel betwixt the Duke of Guise and the Duke of Monmouth, and that in revenge for the manifest likeness they find in the parties themselves, they have carried up the parallel to the heads of the parties, where there is no resemblance at all; under which colour, while they pretend to advert upon one libel, they set up another. For what resemblance could they suggest betwixt two persons so unlike in their descent, the qualities of their minds, and the disparity of their warlike actions, if they grant not, that there is a faction here, which is like that other which was in France? so that if they do not first acknowledge one common cause, there is no foundation for a parallel. The dilemma therefore lies strong upon them; and let them avoid it if they can,—that either they must avow the wickedness of their designs, or disown the likeness of those two persons. I do further charge those audacious authors, that they themselves have made the parallel which they call mine, and that under the covert of this parallel they have odiously compared our present king with king Henry the Third; and farther, that they have forced this parallel expressly to wound His Majesty in the comparison: for, since there is a parallel (as they would have it) it must be either theirs or mine. I have proved that it cannot possibly be mine: and in so doing, that it must be theirs by consequence. Under this shadow all the vices of the French king are charged by those libellers (by a side-wind) upon ours; and it is indeed the bottom of their design to make the king cheap, his royal brother odious, and to alter the course of the succession.

Now, after the malice of this sputtering triumvirate (Mr Hunt, and the two Reflectors), against the person and dignity of the king, and against all that endeavour to serve him (which makes their hatred to his cause apparent), the very charging of our play to be a libel, and such a parallel as these ignoramuses would render it, is almost as great an affront to His Majesty, as the libellous picture itself, by which they have exposed him to his subjects. For it is no longer our parallel, but the king's, by whose order it was acted, without any shuffling or importunity from the poets. The tragedy (cried the faction) is a libel against such and such illustrious persons. Upon this the play was stopt, examined, acquitted, and ordered to be brought upon the stage: not one stroke in it of a resemblance, to answer the scope and intent of the complaint. There were some features, indeed, that the illustrious Mr Hunt and his brace of beagles (the Reflectors) might see resembling theirs; and no other parallel either found or meant, but betwixt the French leaguers and ours: and so far the agreement held from point to point, as true as a couple of tallies. But when neither the king, nor my lord chamberlain, with other honourable persons of eminent faith, integrity, and understanding, upon a strict perusal of the papers, could find one syllable to countenance the calumny; up starts the defender of the charter, &c. opens his mouth, and says, "What do ye talk of the king? he's abused, he's imposed upon. Is my lord chamberlain, and the scrutineers that succeed him, to tell us, when the king and the duke of York are abused?" What says my lord chief baron of Ireland to the business? What says the livery-man templer? What says Og the king of Basan to it? "We are men that stand up for the king's supremacy in all causes, and over all persons, as well ecclesiastical as civil, next and immediately under God and the people. We are for easing His Royal Highness of his title to the crown, and the cares that attend any such prospect; and we shall see the king and the Royal Family paralleled at this rate, and not reflect upon it?"

But to draw to an end. Upon the laying of matters fairly together, what a king have these balderdash scribblers given us, under the resemblance of Henry the Third! How scandalous a character again, of His Majesty, in telling the world that he is libelled, and affronted to his face, told on't, pointed to it; and yet neither he, nor those about him, can be brought to see or understand it. There needs no more to expound the meaning of these people, than to compare them with themselves: when it will evidently appear, that their lives and conversations, their writings and their practices, do all take the same bias; and when they dare not any longer revile His Majesty or his government point blank, they have an intention to play the libellers in masquerade, and do the same thing in a way of mystery and parable. This is truly the case of the pretended parallel. They lay their heads together, and compose the lewdest character of a prince that can be imagined, and then exhibit that monster to the people, as the picture of the king in the "Duke of Guise." So that the libel passes for current in the multitude, whoever was the author of it; and it will be but common justice to give the devil his due. But the truth is, their contrivances are now so manifest, that their party moulders both in town and country; for I will not suspect that there are any of them left in court. Deluded well-meaners come over out of honesty, and small offenders out of common discretion or fear. None will shortly remain with them, but men of desperate fortunes or enthusiasts: those who dare not ask pardon, because they have transgressed beyond it, and those who gain by confusion, as thieves do by fires: to whom forgiveness were as vain, as a reprieve to condemned beggars; who must hang without it, or starve with it.

Footnotes: 1. As the whole passage from Davila is subjoined to the text in the play, the reader may easily satisfy himself of the accuracy of what is here stated. But, although the scene may have been written in 1661, we must be allowed to believe, that its extreme resemblance to the late events occasioned its being revived and re-presented in 1682.

2. The poem, alluded to, was probably the Religio Laici, first published in November l682.

3. Dryden and Shadwell had once been friends. In the preface to "The Humourists," acted, according to Mr Malone, in 1676, Shadwell thus mentions his great contemporary:

"And here I must make a little digression, and take liberty to dissent from my particular friend, for whom I have a very great respect, and whose writings I extremely admire; and, though I will not say, his is the best way of writing, yet, I am sure his manner of writing is much the best that ever was. And I may say of him, as was said of a celebrated poet, Cui unquam poetarum magis proprium fuit subito astro incalescere? Quis ubi incaluit, fortius et faeclicius debacchatur? His verse is smoother and deeper, his thoughts more quick and surprising, his raptures more mettled and higher, and he has more of that in his writings, which Plato calls sophrona manian than any other heroic poet. And those who shall go about to imitate him, will be found to flutter and make a noise, but never to rise."

Such a compliment, from a rival dramatist, could only have been extracted by previous good offices and kindly countenance. Accordingly we find, that Dryden, in 1678-9, wrote a prologue to Shadwell's play, of "The True Widow."

4. "The Female Prelate, or Pope Joan," is a bombast, silly performance of Elkanah Settle; the catastrophe of which consists in the accouchement of the Pope in the streets of Rome. The aid necessary in the conclusion of an English tragedy, (usually loudly called for, but never brought) is of a surgical nature; but here Lucina was the deity to be implored, and the midwife's assistance most requisite.

Shadwell's comedy of "The Lancashire Witches," was popular for many years after the Revolution, chiefly, because the papists were reflected upon in the character of Teague O'Divelly, an Irish Priest, the high-church clergy ridiculed under that of Smerk, and the whole Tory faction generally abused through the play. It is by no means one of Shadwell's happiest efforts. The introduction of the witches celebrating their satanical sabbath on the stage, besides that the scene is very poorly and lamely written, is at variance with the author's sentiments, as delivered through Sir Edward Hartfort, "a worthy, hospitable, true English gentleman, of good understanding and honest principles," who ridicules the belief in witches at all. A different and totally inconsistent doctrine is thus to be collected from the action of the piece and the sentiments expressed by those, whose sentiments are alone marked as worthy of being attended to. This obvious fault, with many others, is pointed out in a criticism on the "Lancashire Witches," published in the Spectator. The paper is said to have been written by Hughes, but considerably softened by Addison.

5. Half-a-crown was then the box price.

You visit our plays and merit the stocks, For paying half-crowns of brass to our box; Nay, often you swear when places are shewn ye, That your hearing is thick, And so by a love trick, You pass through our scenes up to the balcony. Epilogue to "The Man's the Master."

The farce, alluded to, seems to have been "The Lancashire Witches." See Shadwell's account of the reception of that piece, from which it appears, that the charge of forming a party in the theatre was a subject of mutual reproach betwixt the dramatists of the contending parties.

6. This single remark is amply sufficient to exculpate Dryden from having intended any general parallel between Monmouth and the Duke of Guise. To have produced such a parallel, it would have been necessary to unite, in one individual, the daring political courage of Shaftesbury, his capacity of seizing the means to attain his object, and his unprincipled carelessness of their nature, with the fine person, chivalrous gallantry, military fame, and courteous manners of the Duke of Monmouth. Had these talents, as they were employed in the same cause, been vested in the same person, the Duke of Guise must have yielded the palm. The partial resemblance, in one point of their conduct, is stated by our poet, not to have been introduced as an intended likeness, betwixt the Duke of Guise, and the Protestant Duke. We may observe, in the words of Bertran,

The dial spoke not—but it made shrewd signs. Spanish Friar.

7. Alluding to a book, called "The Parallel," published by J. Northleigh L.L.B. the same who afterwards wrote "the Triumph of the Monarchy," and was honoured by a copy of verses from our author.

8. "Julian the Apostate, with a short account of his life, and a parallel betwixt Popery and Paganism," was a treatise, written by the Rev. Samuel Johnson, chaplain to Lord Russell, for the purpose of forwarding the bill of exclusion, by shewing the consequences to Christianity of a Pagan Emperor attaining the throne. It would seem, that one of the sheriffs had mistaken so grossly, as to talk of Julian the Apostle; or, more probably, such a blunder was circulated as true, by some tory wit. Wood surmises, that Hunt had some share in composing Julian. Ath. Ox. II. p. 729.]

9. This probably alludes to L'Estrange, who answered Hunt in the "Lawyer Outlawed."

10. "Curse ye Meroz," was a text much in vogue among the fanatic preachers in the civil wars. It was preached upon in Guildhall, before the Lord Mayor, 9th May, 1630, by Edmund Hickeringill, rector of All Saints, in Colchester:

There's Colchester Hickeringil, the fanatic's delight, Who Gregory Greybeard and Meroz did write, You may see who are saints in a pharisee's sight. The Assembly of the Moderate Divines, stanza 18.

Gregory Greybeard was probably some ballad, alluding to the execution of Charles I, who was beheaded by a person disguised by a visor and greybeard. The name of the common hangman, at that time, was Gregory.

11. Jaques Clement, a Jacobin Monk, stabbed Henry III. on the 1st of August, 1589. He expired the following day.

12. "All crowned heads by poetical right are heroes. This character is a flower, a prerogative so certain, so inseparably annexed to the crown as by no poet, no parliament of poets, ever to be invaded." Rymer's Remarks on the Tragedies of the last age, p. 6l. This critical dogma, although here and else-where honoured by our author's sanction, fell into disuse with the doctrines of passive obedience, and indefeasible right.

13. The Earl of Arlington, Lord Chamberlain.

14. Charles II. and his brother the Duke of York, were grandchildren of Henry IV. of France, by their mother Henrietta Maria.

15. A very poor imitation of Moliere's "Festin de Pierre;" with the story of which the admirers of mute-shew have since been entertained, under the title of Don Juan. In the preface, Shadwell, after railing abundantly at Settle, is at the pains to assure us, there is no act in the piece which cost him above four days writing, and the last two (the play-house having great occasion for a play) were both written in four days. The Libertine, and his companions, travel by sea and land over the whole kingdom of Spain.

16. See the full passage prefixed to the Vindication.

17. The club alluded to seems to be the same which originally met at the King's-Head tavern, of which North gives the following lively account. "The gentlemen of that worthy society held their evening session continually at the King's-Head tavern, over against the Inner Temple gate. But upon occasion of the signal of a green ribbon, agreed to be worn in their hats in the days of secret engagements, like the coats of arms of valiant knights of old, whereby all the warriors of the society might be distinguished, and not mistake friends for enemies, they were called also the Green Ribbon Club. Their seat was in a sort of carrefour, at Chancery-Lane end, a centre of business and company, most proper for such anglers of fools. The house was double-balconied in front, as may be yet seen, for the clubsters to issue forth, in fresco, with hats and no peruques, pipes in their mouths, merry faces, and diluted throats, for vocal encouragement of the canaglia below, at bonfires, on usual and unusual occasions. They admitted all strangers that were confidingly introduced; for, it was a main end of their institution to make proselytes, especially of the raw estated youths newly come to town. This copious society were, to the faction in and about London, a sort of executive power, and by correspondence all over England. The resolves of the more retired councils and ministry of the faction, were brought in here, and orally insinuated to the company, whether it were lies, defamations, commendations, projects, &c. and so, like water diffused, spread over all the town; whereby that which was digested at the club over night, was, like nourishment, at every assembly, male and female, the next day. And thus the younglings tasted of political administration, and took themselves for notable counsellors." Examen, p. 572. The place of meeting is altered by Dryden, from the King's-Head, to the Devil-Tavern, either because he thought the name more appropriate, or wished slightly to disguise what he plainly insinuated.

18. Our author never omits an opportunity of twitting Hunt with his expected preferment of lord chief baron of exchequer in Ireland; L'Estrange, whose ready pen was often drawn for the court, answered Hunt's defence of the charter by a pamphlet entitled "The Lawyer Outlawed," in which he fails not to twit his antagonist with the same disappointment.

19. The foul practice of taking away lives by false witness, casts an indelible disgrace on this period. Oates, Dugdale, and Turberville, were the perjured evidences of the Popish plot. To meet them with equal arms, counter-plots were sworn against Shaftesbury and others, by Haines, Macnamara, and other Irishmen. But the true Protestant juries would only swallow the perjuries which made for their own opinions; nay, although they believed Dugdale, when he zealously forswore himself for the cause of the Protestant faith, they refused him credit when he bore false witness for the crown. "Thus," says Hume, "the two parties, actuated by mutual rage, but cooped up within the narrow limits of the law, levelled with poisoned daggers the most deadly blows against each other's breast, and buried in their factious divisions all regard to truth, honour, and humanity."—

20. In the Dramatis Personae to Shadwell's play of Epsom-Wells, we have Rains, Bevil, Woodly, described as "men of wit and pleasure."

21. Dryden had already distinguished Shadwell and Settle by those names, which were destined to consign the poor wights to a painful immortality, in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel, published in 1682.

22. See note on p. 222. Vol. VI. describing this famous procession.

23. This passage, in Hunt's defence of the charter, obviously alludes to the Duke of York, whom he elsewhere treats with little ceremony, and to the king, whose affection for his brother was not without a mixture of fear, inspired by his more stubborn and resolved temper.

24. William Viscount Stafford, the last who suffered for the Popish plot, was tried and executed in 1680. It appears, that his life was foully sworn away by Dugdale and Turberville. The manly and patient deportment of the noble sufferer went far to remove the woful delusion which then pervaded the people. It would seem that Hunt had acted as his solicitor.

25. A quip at his corpulent adversary Shadwell.

26. The infamous Titus Oates pretended, amongst other more abominable falsehoods, to have taken a doctor's degree at Salamanca. In 1679, there was an attempt to bring him to trial for unnatural practices, but the grand jury threw out the bill. These were frequent subjects of reproach among the tory authors. In the Luttrel Collection, there is "An Address from Salamanca to her unknown offspring Dr T.O. concerning the present state of affairs in England." Also a coarse ballad, entitled, "The Venison Doctor, with his brace of Alderman Stags;"

Showing how a Doctor had defiled Two aldermen, and got them both with child, Who longed for venison, but were beguiled.

27. Our author has elsewhere expressed, in the same terms, his contempt for the satire of "The Rehearsal." "I answered not the Rehearsal, because I knew the author sat to himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own farce." Dedication to Juvenal.—The same idea occurs in a copy of verses on the Duke of Buckingham sometimes ascribed to Dryden:

But when his poet, John Bayes, did appear, 'Twas known to more than one-half that were there, That the great'st part was his Grace's character;

For he many years plagued his friends for their crimes, Repeating his verses in other men's rhymes, To the very same person ten thousand times. State Poems, Vol. II, p. 216.

28. Besides those who were alarmed for civil liberty, and those who dreaded encroachment on their religion, the whig party, like every one which promises to effect a great political change, was embraced by many equally careless of the one motive or the other; but who hoped to indulge their licentious passions, repair their broken fortunes, or gratify their inordinate ambition amidst a revolutionary convulsion.

29. The motto to Hunt's pamphlet.

30. Tantivi was a cant phrase for furious tories and high-flyers. In one of College's unlucky strokes of humour, he had invented a print called Mac Ninny, in which the Duke of York was represented half-jesuit half-devil; and a parcel of tories, mounted on the church of England, were driving it at full gallop, tantivy, to Rome. Hickeringill's poem, called "The Mushroom," written against our author's "Hind and Panther," is prefaced by an epistle to the tories and tantivies.

31. This passage is inaccurately quoted. Mr Hunt wrote, "Such monsters as Theseus and Hercules are, renowned throughout all ages for destroying." The learned gentleman obviously meant that Dryden's heroes (whom he accounted tyrants) resembled not the demi-gods, but the monsters whom they destroyed. But the comma is so unhappily placed after are, as to leave the sense capable of the malicious interpretation which Dryden has put upon it.

32. Shadwell, as he resembled Ben Jonson in extreme corpulence, and proposed him for the model of dramatic writing, seems to have affected the coarse and inelegant debauchery of his prototype. He lived chiefly in taverns, was a gross sensualist in his habits, and brutal in his conversation. His fine gentlemen all partake of their parent's grossness and vulgarity; they usually open their dialogue, by complaining of the effects of last night's debauch. He is probably the only author, who ever chose for his heroes a set of riotous bloods, or scowerers, as they were then termed, and expected the public should sympathise in their brutal orgies. True it is, that the heroes are whig scowerers; and, whilst breaking windows, stabbing watchmen, and beating passengers, do not fail to express a due zeal for the Protestant religion, and the liberty of the subject. Much of the interest also turns, it must be allowed, upon the Protestant scowerers aforesaid baffling and beating, without the least provocation, a set of inferior scowerers, who were Jacobites at least, if not Papists. Shadwell is thus described in the "Sessions of the Poets:"

Next into the crowd Tom Shadwell does wallow, And swears by his guts, his paunch, and his tallow, 'Tis he that alone best pleases the age, Himself and his wife have supported the stage. Apollo, well pleased with so bonny a lad, To oblige him, he told him he should be huge glad, Had he half so much wit as he fancied he had. However, to please so jovial a wit, And to keep him in humour, Apollo thought fit To bid him drink on, and keep his old trick Of railing at poets—

Those, who consult the full passage, will see good reason to think Dryden's censure on Shadwell's brutality by no means too severe.

33. In 1444, Ladislaus king of Hungary, in breach of a treaty solemnly sworn upon the gospel, invaded Bulgaria, at the instigation of the Cardinal Legate. He was slain, and his army totally routed in the bloody battle of Warna, where ten thousand Christians fell before the janissaries of Amurath II. It is said, that while the battle remained undecided, the sultan displayed the solemn treaty, and invoked the God of truth, and the blessed name of Jesus, to revenge the impious infidelity of the Hungarian. This battle would have laid Hungary under the Turkish yoke, had it not been for the exploits of John Corvinus Huniades, the white knight of Walachia, and the more dubious prowess of the famous John Castriot, king of Epirus.

34. In the preface to which the author alleges, that Hunt contributed no small share towards the composition of "Julian the Apostate." See WOOD'S Ath. Oxon. v. ii. p. 729.

35. The song against the bishops is probably a ballad, upon their share in throwing out the bill of exclusion, beginning thus:

The grave house of Commons, by hook, or by crook, Resolved to root out both the pope and the duke; Let them vote, let them move, let them do what they will; The bishops, the bishops, have thrown out the bill.

It concludes with the following stanza:

The best of expedients, the law can propose, Our church to preserve, and to quiet our foes, Is not to let lawn sleeves our parliament fill, But throw out the bishops, that threw out the bill. State Poems, Vol. III. p. 154.

The Tunbridge ballad, which our author also ascribes to Shadwell or his assistant, I have not found among the numerous libels of the time.

36. The "Massacre of Paris" appears to have been written by Lee, during the time of the Popish plot, and if then brought out, the subject might have been extravagantly popular. It would appear it was suppressed at the request of the French ambassador. Several speeches, and even a whole scene seem to have been transplanted to the "Duke of Guise," which were afterwards replaced, when the Revolution rendered the "Massacre of Paris," again a popular topic. There were, among others, the description of the meeting of Alva and the queen mother at Bayonne; the sentiments expressed concerning the assassination of Caesar, and especially the whole quarrelling scene between Guise and Grillon, which, in the "Massacre of Paris," passes between Guise and the admiral Chastillon. In the preface to the "Princess of Cleves," which was acted in 1689, Lee gives the following account of the transposition of these passages. "The Duke of Guise, who was notorious for a bolder fault, has wrested two whole scenes from the original, (the Massacre just before mentioned,) which, after the vacation, he will be forced to pay. I was, I confess, through indignation, forced to limb my own child, which time, the true cure for all maladies and injustice, has set together again. The play cost me much pains, the story is true, and, I hope, the object will display treachery in its own colours. But this farce, comedy, tragedy, or mere play, was a revenge for the refusal of the other." This last sentence alludes to the suppression of the "Massacre of Paris," which, according to the author's promise, appeared with all its appurtenances restored in 1690, the year following.]

37. When the days of Whiggish prosperity shone forth, Shadwell did his best to retort upon our poet. In the prologue to "Bury Fair," we find the following lines of exultation, on his having regained possession of the stage:

Those wretched poetitos, who got praise, By writing most confounded loyal plays, With viler coarser jests, than at Bear-garden, And silly Grub-street songs, worse than Tom Farthing; If any noble patriot did excel, His own and country's rights defending well, These yelping curs were straight 'looed on to bark, On the deserving man to set a mark; Those abject fawning parasites and knaves. Since they were such, would have all others slaves. 'Twas precious loyalty, that was thought fit To atone for want of honesty and wit; No wonder common sense was all cried down, And noise and nonsense swaggered through the town; Our author then opprest would have you know it. Was silenced for a non-conformist poet; Now, sirs, since common sence has won the day, Be kind to this as to his last year's play; His friends stood firmly to him, when distressed, He hopes the number is not now decreast. He found esteem from those he valued most; Proud of his friends, he of his foes could boast.

38. "Know then, to prevent the farther shedding of Christian blood, we are all content Ventoso shall be viceroy, upon condition I may be viceroy over him." Tempest, as altered by Dryden, vol. iii. p. 124.

39. The fable alluded to occurs in the Pia Hilaria of Gazaeus, and in Le Grand's Fabliaux; it makes the subject of a humorous tale by Mr Robert Southey.

40. Alluding to the well-known catastrophe of poor Settle acting in Bartholomew fair:

"Reduced at last to hiss in his own dragon."

41. The say, or assay, is the first cut made on the stag when he is killed. The hunter begins at the brisket, and draws the knife downwards. The purpose is, to ascertain how fat he is:

"At the assay kitle him, that Lends may se Anon Fat or lene whether that he be." Boke of St Alban's.

The allusion in the text is to the cruel punishment of high treason by quartering.

42. "And so thou shalt for me," said James, when he came to the passage; "thou art a biting knave, but a witty one."

* * * * *

ALBION AND ALBANIUS:

AN

OPERA

Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos. VIRG.



ALBION AND ALBANIUS.

This opera, like the play which precedes it, had an avowed political object. It was intended to celebrate the victory of the crown over its opponents, or, as our author would have expressed it, of loyalty over sedition and insurrection. The events, which followed the Restoration, are rapidly, but obviously and distinctly, traced down to the death of Charles, and the quiet accession of his brother, who, after all the storms which had threatened to blast his prospects, found himself enabled to mount the throne, with ease sufficient to encourage him to the measures which precipitated him from that elevation. The leading incidents of the busy and intriguing reign of Charles II. are successively introduced in the following order. The city of London is discovered occupied by the republicans and fanatics, depicted under the allegorical personages Democracy and Zeal. General Monk, as Archon, charms the factions to sleep, and the Restoration is emblematized by the arrival of Charles, and the Duke of York, under the names of Albion and Albanius. The second act opens with a council of the fiends, where the popish plot is hatched, and Democracy and Zeal are dismissed, to propagate it upon earth, with Oates, the famous witness, in their train. The next entry presents Augusta, or London, stung by a snake, to intimate the revival of the popular faction in the metropolis. Democracy and Zeal, under the disguise of Patriotism and Religion, insinuate themselves into the confidence of the city, and are supposed to foment the parliamentary opposition, which, ending on the bill of exclusion, rendered it necessary, that the Duke of York should leave the kingdom. We have then, in allegorical representation, the internal feuds of the parties, which, from different causes, opposed the crown. The adherents of Monmouth, and the favourers of republican tenets, are represented as disputing with each other, until the latter, by the flight of Shaftesbury, obtains a final ascendancy. In the mean while, Charles, or Albion, has recourse to the advice of Proteus; under which emblem an evil minded whig might suppose Halifax, and the party of Trimmers, to be represented; actuated by whose versatile, and time-serving politics, Charles gave way to each wave, but remained buoyant amid the tempest. The Rye-house plot is then presented in allegory,—an unfit subject for exultation, since the dark intrigues of the interior conspirators were made the instruments of the fall of Sidney and Russell. The return of the Duke of York, with his beautiful princess, and the rejoicings which were supposed to take place, in heaven and earth, upon Charles' attaining the pinnacle of uncontrolled power, was originally the intended termination of the opera; which, as first written, consisted of only one act, introductory to the drama of "King Arthur." But the eye and the ear of Charles were never to be regaled by this flattering representation: he died while the opera was in rehearsal. A slight addition, as the author has himself informed us, adapted the conclusion of his piece to this new and unexpected event. The apotheosis of Albion, and the succession of Albanius to the uncontrouled domination of a willing people, debased by circumstances expressing an unworthy triumph over deceased foes, was substituted as the closing scene. Altered as it was, to suit the full-blown fortune of James, an ominous fatality attended these sugared scenes, which were to present the exulting recapitulation of his difficulties and triumph. While the opera was performing, for the sixth time only, news arrived that Monmouth had landed in the west, the audience dispersed, and the players never attempted to revive a play, which seemed to be of evil augury to the crown.

Our author appears to have found it difficult to assign a name for this performance, which was at once to address itself to the eye, the ear, and the understanding. The ballad-opera, since invented, in which part is sung, part acted and spoken, comes nearest to its description. The plot of the piece contains nothing brilliantly ingenious: the deities of Greece and Rome had been long hacknied machines in the masks and operas of the sixteenth century; and it required little invention to paint the duchess of York as Venus, or to represent her husband protected by Neptune, and Charles consulting with Proteus. But though the device be trite, the lyrical diction of the opera is most beautifully sweet and flowing. The reader finds none of these harsh inversions, and awkward constructions, by which ordinary poets are obliged to screw their verses into the fetters of musical time. Notwithstanding the obstacles stated by Dryden himself, every line seems to flow in its natural and most simple order; and where the music required repetition of a line, or a word, the iteration seems to improve the sense and poetical effect. Neither is the piece deficient in the higher requisites of lyric poetry. When music is to be "married to immortal verse," the poet too commonly cares little with how indifferent a yoke-mate he provides her. But Dryden, probably less from a superior degree of care, than from that divine impulse which he could not resist, has hurried along in the full stream of real poetry. The description of the desolation of London, at the opening of the piece, the speech of Augusta, in act second, and many other passages, fully justify this encomium.

The music of the piece was entrusted to Louis Grabut, or Grabu, the master of the king's band, whom Charles, French in his politics, his manners, and his taste, preferred to the celebrated Purcell. "Purcell, however," says an admirable judge, "having infinitely more fancy, and, indeed, harmonical resources, than the Frenchified Tuscan, his predecessor, now offered far greater pleasure and amusement to a liberal lover of music, than can be found, not only in the productions of Cambert and Grabu, whom Charles II., and, to flatter his majesty, Dryden, patronised in preference to Purcell, but in all the noisy monotony of the rhapsodist of Quinault."—Burney's History of Music, Vol. III. p. 500.

It seems to be generally admitted, that the music of "Albion and Albanius" was very indifferent. From the preface, as well as the stage directions, it appears that a vast expence was incurred, in shew, dress, and machinery. Downes informs us, that, owing to the interruption of the run of the piece in the manner already mentioned, the half of the expence was never recovered, and the theatre was involved considerably in debt.—Rosc. Anglic. p. 40. The whigs, against whom the satire was levelled, the rival dramatists of the day, and the favourers of the English school of music, united in triumphing in its downfall[1].

Mr Luttrell's manuscript note has fixed the first representation of "Albion and Albanius" to the 3d of June, 1685; and the laudable accuracy of Mr Malone has traced its sixth night to Saturday the 13th of the same month, when an express brought the news of Monmouth's landing. The opera was shortly after published. In 1687 Grabut published the music, with a dedication to James II.[2]

Footnotes: 1. The following verses are rather better worthy of preservation than most which have been written against Dryden.

From Father Hopkins, whose vein did inspire him, Bayes sends this raree-show to public view; Prentices, fops, and their footmen admire him, Thanks patron, painter, and Monsieur Grabu.

Each actor on the stage his luck bewailing, Finds that his loss is infallibly true; Smith, Nokes, and Leigh, in a fever with railing, Curse poet, painter, and Monsieur Grabu.

Betterton, Betterton, thy decorations, And the machines, were well written, we knew; But, all the words were such stuff, we want patience, And little better is Monsieur Grabu.

Damme, says Underhill, I'm out of two hundred, Hoping that rainbows and peacocks would do; Who thought infallible Tom[a] could have blundered? A plague upon him and Monsieur Grabu!

Lane, thou hast no applause for thy capers, Though all, without thee, would make a man spew; And a month hence will not pay for the tapers, Spite of Jack Laureat, and Monsieur Grabu.

Bayes, thou wouldst have thy skill thought universal, Though thy dull ear be to music untrue; Then, whilst we strive to confute the Rehearsal, Prithee leave thrashing of Monsieur Grabu.

With thy dull prefaces still thou wouldst treat us, Striving to make thy dull bauble look fair; So the horned herd of the city do cheat us, Still most commending the worst of their ware.

Leave making operas and writing of lyricks, Till thou hast ears, and can alter thy strain; Stick to thy talent of bold panegyricks, And still remember—breathing the vein[b].

Yet, if thou thinkest the town will extoll them, Print thy dull notes; but be thrifty and wise: Instead of angels subscribed for the volume, Take a round shilling, and thank my advice.

In imitating thee, this may be charming, Gleaning from laureats is no shame at all; And let this song be sung next performing, Else, ten to one that the prices will fall.

Footnotes: a. Thomas Betterton.

b. An expression in Dryden's poem on the death of Cromwell, which his libeller insisted on applying to the death of Charles I.

2. Langbaine has preserved another jest upon our author's preference of Grabut to the English musicians.

Grabut, his yokemate, ne'er shall be forgot. Whom th' god of tunes upon a muse begot; Bayes on a double score to him belongs, As well for writing, as for setting songs; For some have sworn the intrigue so odd is laid, That Bayes and he mistook each other's trade, Grabut the lines, and he the music made.



THE

PREFACE.

If wit has truly been defined, "a propriety of thoughts and words,[1]" then that definition will extend to all sorts of poetry; and, among the rest, to this present entertainment of an opera. Propriety of thought is that fancy which arises naturally from the subject, or which the poet adapts to it; propriety of words is the clothing of those thoughts with such expressions as are naturally proper to them; and from both these, if they are judiciously performed, the delight of poetry results. An opera is a poetical tale, or fiction, represented by vocal and instrumental music, adorned with scenes, machines, and dancing. The supposed persons of this musical drama are generally supernatural, as gods, and goddesses, and heroes, which at least are descended from them, and are in due time to be adopted into their number. The subject, therefore, being extended beyond the limits of human nature, admits of that sort of marvellous and surprising conduct, which is rejected in other plays. Human impossibilities are to be received as they are in faith; because, where gods are introduced, a supreme power is to be understood, and second causes are out of doors; yet propriety is to be observed even here. The gods are all to manage their peculiar provinces; and what was attributed by the heathens to one power, ought not to be performed by any other. Phoebus must foretel, Mercury must charm with his caduceus, and Juno must reconcile the quarrels of the marriage-bed; to conclude, they must all act according to their distinct and peculiar characters. If the persons represented were to speak upon the stage, it would follow, of necessity, that the expressions should be lofty, figurative, and majestical: but the nature of an opera denies the frequent use of these poetical ornaments; for vocal music, though it often admits a loftiness of sound, yet always exacts an harmonious sweetness; or, to distinguish yet more justly, the recitative part of the opera requires a more masculine beauty of expression and sound. The other, which, for want of a proper English word, I must call the songish part, must abound in the softness and variety of numbers; its principal intention being to please the hearing, rather than to gratify the understanding. It appears, indeed, preposterous at first sight, that rhyme, on any consideration, should take place of reason; but, in order to resolve the problem, this fundamental proposition must be settled, that the first inventors of any art or science, provided they have brought it to perfection, are, in reason, to give laws to it; and, according to their model, all after-undertakers are to build. Thus, in epic poetry, no man ought to dispute the authority of Homer, who gave the first being to that masterpiece of art, and endued it with that form of perfection in all its parts, that nothing was wanting to its excellency. Virgil therefore, and those very few who have succeeded him, endeavoured not to introduce, or innovate, any thing in a design already perfected, but imitated the plan of the inventor; and are only so far true heroic poets, as they have built on the foundations of Homer. Thus, Pindar, the author of those Odes, which are so admirably restored by Mr Cowley in our language, ought for ever to be the standard of them; and we are bound, according to the practice of Horace and Mr Cowley, to copy him. Now, to apply this axiom to our present purpose, whosoever undertakes the writing of an opera, which is a modern invention, though built indeed on the foundation of ethnic worship, is obliged to imitate the design of the Italians, who have not only invented, but brought to perfection, this sort of dramatic musical entertainment. I have not been able, by any search, to get any light, either of the time when it began, or of the first author; but I have probable reasons, which induce me to believe, that some Italians, having curiously observed the gallantries of the Spanish Moors at their zambras, or royal feasts, where music, songs, and dancing, were in perfection, together with their machines, which are usual at their sortija, or running at the ring, and other solemnities, may possibly have refined upon those moresque divertisements, and produced this delightful entertainment, by leaving out the warlike part of the carousals, and forming a poetical design for the use of the machines, the songs, and dances. But however it began, (for this is only conjectural,) we know, that, for some centuries, the knowledge of music has flourished principally in Italy, the mother of learning and of arts[2]; that poetry and painting have been there restored, and so cultivated by Italian masters, that all Europe has been enriched out of their treasury; and the other parts of it, in relation to those delightful arts, are still as much provincial to Italy, as they were in the time of the Roman empire. Their first operas seem to have been intended for the celebration of the marriages of their princes, or for the magnificence of some general time of joy; accordingly, the expences of them were from the purse of the sovereign, or of the republic, as they are still practised at Venice, Rome, and at other places, at their carnivals. Savoy and Florence have often used them in their courts, at the weddings of their dukes; and at Turin particularly, was performed the "Pastor Fido," written by the famous Guarini, which is a pastoral opera made to solemnise the marriage of a Duke of Savoy. The prologue of it has given the design to all the French; which is a compliment to the sovereign power by some god or goddess; so that it looks no less than a kind of embassy from heaven to earth. I said in the beginning of this preface, that the persons represented in operas are generally gods, goddesses, and heroes descended from them, who are supposed to be their peculiar care; which hinders not, but that meaner persons may sometimes gracefully be introduced, especially if they have relation to those first times, which poets call the Golden Age; wherein, by reason of their innocence, those happy mortals were supposed to have had a more familiar intercourse with superior beings; and therefore shepherds might reasonably be admitted, as of all callings the most innocent, the most happy, and who, by reason of the spare time they had, in their almost idle employment, had most leisure to make verses, and to be in love; without somewhat of which passion, no opera can possibly subsist.