Tainted the stage, for some small snip of gain. For they, like harlots, under bawds profess'd, Took all th' ungodly pains, and got the least. Thus did the thriving malady prevail, 20 The scandal of the sin was wholly new. Misses there were, but modestly conceal'd; Whitehall the naked Venus first reveal'd, Who standing, as at Cyprus, in her shrine, The strumpet was ador'd with rites divine. Ere this, if saints had any secret motion, I pass the peccadillos of their time; Compar'd with one foul act of fornication. Now, they would silence us, and shut the door That let in all the barefac'd vice before. As for reforming us, which some pre tend, That work in England is without an end: Well we may change, but we shall never mend. 31 Save here and there a woman or a man; But neither you, nor we, with all our pains, Can make clean work; there will be some remains, While you have still your Oates, and we our Haynes. SONG OF A SCHOLAR AND HIS MISTRESS, WHO, BEING CROSS'D BY THEIR FRIENDS, FELL MAD FOR ONE ANOTHER, AND NOW FIRST MEET IN BEDLAM Music within. The lovers enter at opposite doors, each held by a keeper. Phyllis. Look, look, I see - I see my love appear! 'Tis he 't is he alone; For like him there is none: 'Tis the dear, dear man; 't is thee, Amyntas. Hark! the winds war; Phyllis. Tossing and tossing, and making to the shore: But what's that I view, ΤΟ St. Hermo, St. Hermo, that sits St. Hermo never, never shone so 'Tis Phyllis, only Phyllis, can Amyntas. If all the Fates combine, Here they break from their keepers, run to each other, and embrace. Phyllis. Shall I marry the man I love? And shall I conclude my pains? Now blest be the powers above, I feel the blood bound in my veins; APPENDIX I POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO DRYDEN OR ONLY IN PART WRITTEN BY HIM [The canon of Dryden's writings is not easy to determine. Dryden seems to have had no trace of petty vanity in regard to his own minor works. For one of Tonson's miscellany volumes he might gather together a dozen old prologues and songs that he had lying by him, but further than this he made no attempt to collect his occasional poems. Hence it is likely that among the anonymous pieces printed in miscellanies, between 1660 and 1700, by busy and conscienceless editors, there may be found some written by him. After his death many pieces, some certainly genuine, others as certainly spurious, were published under his name. In the text of the present volume there are included several poems that are only in part by Dryden, or that may not be his work at all: see, for example, the headnotes on pages 76, 137. In the present Appendix there are included: (1) some pieces ascribed to Dryden in his own time, or shortly after it, but of doubtful authenticity; (2) some poems assigned to Dryden on internal evidence, in modern times; (3) a translation of Boileau's Art of Poetry, in which Dryden had some small share. Finally, there follows a series of titles of poems that have been printed in editions of Dryden's works, or have been otherwise attributed to him, but that are in all probability spurious. An explanatory note accompanies each title.] PROLOGUE, epilogue, AND SONG FROM THE INDIAN QUEEN [This heroic play was first printed in Four New Plays. written by. Sir Robert Howard, 1665. It was first acted in January, 1664 (Pepys' Diary, January 27). Dryden's name was never joined to it in his lifetime; nor was the play included in the first collected edition of his dramatic works, published in 1701. But in his Connection of The Indian Emperor to The Indian Queen (Scott-Saintsbury edition, ii. 321) Dryden claims part of the latter drama as his own work. (Compare headnote, page 21.) It is therefore just possible that he is the author of one or more of the following pieces.] PROLOGUE TO JULIUS CÆSAR [This prologue was first printed in Covent Garden Drollery, 1672, a miscellany which contains several of Dryden's early poems: see headnotes on pages 51, 56, 64-66, 68. Mr. Bolton Corney, in Notes and Queries, series I. ix. 95, 96, assigns this prologue to Dryden, largely because the criticism of Shakespeare and Jonson here expressed greatly resembles that embodied in Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy. The present editor finds much force in this argument and in that based on the general style of the prologue. On the other hand, it may be urged that Dryden never included the piece in any of his miscellany volumes. In a man of Dryden's careless habits, such reasoning has little weight: compare headnotes on pages 51, 65, 68.] IN country beauties as we often see And take without their spreading of the snare: Such artless beauty lies in Shakespeare's wit; 'T was well in spite of him whate'er he writ. |