Selected quad for the lemma: majesty_n
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A36692
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The Spanish fryar, or, The double discovery acted at the Duke's Theatre / written by John Dryden ...
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Dryden, John, 1631-1700.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing D2368; ESTC R11507
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59,675
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120
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THE SPANISH FRYAR OR The Double Discovery Acted at the Duke's Theatre Vt melius possis fallere sume togam Ma. Alterna revisens Lusit in solido rursus fortuna locavit Vir. Written by Iohn Dryden Servant to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed for Richard Tonson and Iacob Tonson at Grays-inn-gate in Grays-inn-lane and at the Iudge's-Head in Chancery-lane 1681. TO The Right Honourable JOHN LORD HAVGHTON MY LORD WHEN I first design'd this Play I found or thought I found somewhat so moving in the serious part of it and so pleasant in the Comick as might deserve a more than ordinary Care in both Accordingly I us'd the best of my endeavour in the management of two Plots so very different from each other that it was not perhaps the Tallent of every Writer to have made them of a piece Neither have I attempted other Playes of the same nature in my opinion with the same Iudgment though with like success And though many Poets may suspect themselves for the fondness and partiality of Parents to their youngest Children yet I hope I may stand exempted from this Rule because I know my self too well to be ever satisfied with my own Conceptions which have seldom reach'd to those Idea's that I had within me and consequently I presume I may have liberty to judge when I write more or less pardonably as an ordinary Markes-man may know certainly when he shoots less wide at what he aymes Besides the Care and Pains I have bestowed on this beyond my other Tragi-comedies may reasonably make the World conclude that either I can doe nothing tolerably or that this Poem is not much amiss Few good Pictures have been finish'd at one sitting neither can a true just Play which is to bear the Test of Ages be produc'd at a heat or by the force of fancie without the maturity of judgment For my own part I have both so just a Diffidence of my self and so great a Reverence for my Audience that I dare venture nothing without a strict Examination and am as much asham'd to put a loose indigested Play upon the Publick as I should be to offer brass money in a Payment For though it shou'd be taken as it is too often on the Stage yet it will be found in the second telling And a judicious Reader will discover in his Closset that trashy stuffe whose glittering deceiv'd him in the action I have often heard the Stationer sighing in his shop and wishing for those hands to take off his melancholy bargain which clapp'd its Performance on the Stage In a Play-house every thing contributes to impose upon the Iudgment the Lights the Scenes the Habits and above all the Grace of Action which is commonly the best where there is the most need of it surprize the Audience and cast a mist upon their Vnderstandings not unlike the cunning of a Iuggler who is always staring us in the face and overwhelming us with gibberish onely that he may gain the opportunity of making the cleaner conveyance of his Trick But these false Beauties of the Stage are no more lasting than a Rainbow when the Actor ceases to shine upon them when he guilds them no longer with his reflection they vanish in a twinkling I have sometimes wonder'd in the reading what was become of those glaring Colours which amaz'd me in Bussy Damboys upon the Theatre but when I had taken up what I suppos'd a fallen Star I found I had been cozen'd with a Ielly nothing but a cold dull mass which glitter'd no longer than it was shooting A dwarfish thought dress'd up in gigantick words repetition in aboundance looseness of expression and gross Hyperboles the Sense of one line expanded prodigiously into ten and to sum up all uncorrect English and a hideous mingle of false Poetry and true Nonsense or at best a scantling of wit which lay gasping for life and groaning beneath a Heap of Rubbish A famous modern Poet us'd to sacrifice every year a Statius to Virgil's Manes and I have Indignation enough to burn a D'amboys annually to the memory of Johnson But now My Lord I am sensible perhaps too late that I have gone too far for I remember some Verses of my own Maximin and Almanzor which cry Vengeance upon me for their Extravagance and which I wish heartily in the same fire with Statius and Chapman All I can say for those passages which are I hope not many is that I knew they were bad enough to please even when I writ them But I repent of them amongst my Sins and if any of their fellows intrude by chance into my present Writings I draw a stroke over all those Dalilahs of the Theatre and am resolv'd I will settle my self no reputation by the applause of fools 'T is not that I am mortified to all ambition but I scorn as much to take it from half-witted Iudges as I shou'd to raise an Estate by cheating of Bubbles Neither do I discommend the lofty style in Tragedy which is naturally pompous and magnificent but nothing is truly sublime that is not just and proper If the Ancients had judg'd by the same measures which a common Reader takes they had concluded Statius to have written higher than Virgil for Quae superimposito moles geminata Colosso carries a more thundring kind of sound than Tityre tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi Yet Virgil had all the Majesty of a lawfull Prince and Statius onely the blustring of a Tyrant But when men affect a Vertue which they cannot reach they fall into a Vice which bears the nearest resemblance to it Thus an injudicious Poet who aims at Loftiness runs easily into the swelling puffie style because it looks like Greatness I remember when I was a Boy I thought inimitable Spencer a mean Poet in comparison of Sylvester's Dubartas and was rapt into an ecstasie when I read these lines Now when the Winter 's keener breath began To Chrystallize the Baltick Ocean To glaze the Lakes to bridle up the Floods And periwig with Snow the bald pate Woods I am much deceiv'd if this be not abominable fustian that is thoughts and words ill sorted and without the least relation to each other yet I dare not answer for an Audience that they wou'd not clap it on the Stage so little value there is to be given to the common cry that nothing but Madness can please Mad-men and a Poet must be of a piece with the Spectators to gain a reputation with them But as in a room contriv'd for State the height of the roof shou'd bear a proportion to the Area so in the Heightnings of Poetry the strength and vehemence of Figures shou'd be suited to the Occasion the Subject and the Persons All beyond this is monstrous 't is out of nature 't is an excrescence and not a living part of Poetry I had not said thus much if some young Gallants who pretend to Criticism had not told me that this Tragi-comedy
wanted the dignity of style but as a man who is charg'd with a Crime of which he thinks himself innocent is apt to be too eager in his own defence so perhaps I have vindicated my Play with more partiality than I ought or than such a trifle can deserve Yet whatever beauties it may want 't is free at least from the grosness of those faults I mention'd What Credit it has gain'd upon the Stage I value no farther than in reference to my Profit and the satisfaction I had in seeing it represented with all the justness and gracefulness of Action But as 't is my Interest to please my Audience so 't is my Ambition to be read that I am sure is the more lasting and the nobler Design for the propriety of thoughts and words which are the hidden beauties of a Play are but confus'dly judg'd in the vehemence of Action All things are there beheld as in a hasty motion where the objects onely glide before the Eye and disappear The most discerning Critick can judge no more of these silent graces in the Action than he who rides Post through an unknown Countrey can distinguish the scituation of places and the nature of the soyle The purity of phrase the clearness of conception and expression the boldness maintain'd to Majesty the significancie and sound of words not strain'd into bombast but justly elevated in short those very words and thoughts which cannot be chang'd but for the worse must of necessity escape our transient view upon the Theatre and yet without all these a Play may take For if either the Story move us or the Actor help the lameness of it with his performance or now and then a glittering beam of wit or passion strike through the obscurity of the Poem any of these are sufficient to effect a present liking but not to fix a lasting admiration for nothing but Truth can long continue and Time is the surest Iudge of Truth I am not vain enough to think I have left no faults in this which that touchstone will not discover neither indeed is it possible to avoid them in a Play of this nature There are evidently two Actions in it But it will be clear to any judicious man that with half the pains I could have rais'd a Play from either of them for this time I satisfied my own humour which was to tack two Plays together and to break a rule for the pleasure of variety The truth is the Audience are grown weary of continu'd melancholy Scenes and I dare venture to prophesie that few Tragedies except those in Verse shall succeed in this Age if they are not lighten'd with a course of mirth For the Feast is too dull and solemn without the Fiddles But how difficult a task this is will soon be try'd for a several Genius is requir'd to either way and without both of 'em a man in my opinion is but half a Poet for the Stage Neither is it so trivial an undertaking to make a Tragedy end happily for 't is more difficult to save than 't is to kill The Dagger and the Cup of Poison are alwaies in a readiness but to bring the Action to the last extremity and then by probable means to recover all will require the Art and Iudgment of a Writer and cost him many a pang in the performance And now My Lord I must confess that what I have written looks more like a Preface than a Dedication and truly it was thus far my design that I might entertain you with somewhat in my own Art which might be more worthy of a noble mind than the stale exploded Trick of fulsome Panegyricks 'T is difficult to write justly on any thing but almost impossible in Praise I shall therefore wave so nice a subject and onely tell you that in recommending a Protestant Play to a Protestant Patron as I doe my self an Honour so I do your Noble Family a right who have been alwaies eminent in the support and favour of our Religion and Liberties And if the promises of your Youth your Education at home and your Experience abroad deceive me not the Principles you have embrac'd are such as will no way degenerate from your Ancestors but refresh their memory in the minds of all true English-men and renew their lustre in your Person which My Lord is not more the wish than it is the constant expectation of your Lordship's Most obedient faithfull Servant Iohn Dryden PROLOGUE NOW Luck for us and a kind hearty Pit For he who pleases never failes of Wit Honour is yours And you like Kings at City Treats bestow it The Writer kneels and is bid rise a Poet But you are fickle Sovereigns to our Sorrow You dubb to day and hang a man to morrow You cry the same Sense up and down again Iust like brass mony once a year in Spain Take you i' th' mood what e'er base metal come You coin as fast as Groats at Bromingam Though 't is no more like Sense in ancient Plays Than Rome's Religion like St. Peter's days In short so swift your Iudgments turn and wind You cast our fleetest Wits a mile behind 'T were well your Iudgments but in Plays did range But ev'n your Follies and Debauches change With such a Whirl the Poets of your age Are tyr'd and cannot score 'em on the Stage Vnless each Vice in short-hand they indite Ev'n as notcht Prentices whole Sermons write The heavy Hollanders no Vices know But what they us'd a hundred years ago Like honest Plants where they were stuck they grow They cheat but still from cheating Sires they come They drink but they were christ'ned first in Mum. Their patrimonial Sloth the Spaniards keep And Philip first taught Philip how to sleep The French and we still change but here 's the Curse They change for better and we change for worse They take up our old trade of Conquering And we are taking theirs to dance and sing Our Fathers did for change to France repair And they for change will try our English Air. As Children when they throw one Toy away Strait a more foolish Gugaw comes in play So we grown penitent on serious thinking Leave Whoring and devoutly fall to Drinking Scowring the Watch grows out of fashion wit Now we set up for Tilting in the Pit Where 't is agreed by Bullies chicken-hearted To fright the Ladies first and then be parted A fair Attempt has twice or thrice been made To hire Night-murth'rers and make Death a Trade When Murther 's out what Vice can we advance Vnless the new found Pois'ning Trick of France And when their Art of Rats-bane we have got By way of thanks we 'll send 'em o'er our Plot Dramatis Personae Leonora Queen of Arragon Mrs. Barry Teresa Woman to Leonora Mrs. Crofts Elvira Wife to Gomez Mrs. Betterton Torrismond Mr. Betterton Bertran Mr. Williams Alphonso Mr. Wilisheir Lorenzo his Son Mr. Smith Raymond Mr. Gillow Pedro Mr. Vnderhill Gomez Mr. Nokes