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BAYES. Why, Sir, when I have any thing to invent, I never trouble my head about it, as other men do; but presently turn o'er this Book, and there I have, at one view, all that Perfeus, Montaigne, Seneca's Tragedies, Horace, Juvenal, Claudian, Pliny, Plutarch's lives, and the reft, have ever thought, upon this subject: and fo, in a trice, by leaving out a few words, or putting in others of my own, the business is done.

JOHNS. Indeed, Mr. Bayes, this is as fure, and compendious a way of Wit as ever I heard of.

BAYES. I, Sirs, when you come to write your felves, o' my word you'l find it fo. But, Gentlemen, if you make the leaft fcruple of the efficacie of these my Rules, do but come to the Play-house, and you fhall judge of 'em by the effects.

SMI. We'l follow you, Sir.

Enter three Players upon the Stage.

1 Play. Have you your part perfect ?

[Exeunt.

2 Flay. Yes, I have it without book; but I do not understand how it is to be spoken.

3 Play. And mine is such a one, as I can't ghefs for my life what humour I'm to be in: whether angry, melancholy, merry, or in love. I don't know what to make on't.

I [Play.] Phoo! The Author will be here presently, and he'l tell us all. You must know, this is the new way of writing; and these hard things please forty times better than the old plain way. For, look you, Sir, the grand defign upon the Stage is to keep the Auditors in fufpence; for to ghefs presently at the plot, and the fence, tires 'em before the end of the first Act now, here, every line furprises you, and brings in new matter. And, then, for Scenes, Cloaths and Dancing, we put 'em quite down, all that ever went before us and these are the things, you know, that are effential to a Play.

2 Play. Well, I am not of thy mind; but, so it gets us money, 'tis no great matter.

C

I.

'He who writ this, not without pains and thought From French and English Theaters has brought Th' exactest Rules by which a Play is wrought.

II.

The Unities of Action, Place, and Time;
The Scenes unbroken; and a mingled chime
Of Johnfons humour, with Corneilles rhyme

J. DRYDEN, Prologue to Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen. Ed. 1669.

'In Dryden's lifetime, GERARD LANGBAINE, in his Account of Eng. Dram. Poets, Ed. 1691, p. 169, noticing Dryden's Secret Love or The Maiden Queen, says:-I cannot pafs by his making use of Bayes's Art of Tranfverfing, as any One may observe by comparing the Fourth Stanza of his First Prologue, with the laft Paragraph of the Preface of Ibrahim.

The title of this work, is as follows: "Ibrahim. Or the Illuf trious Baffa. An excellent new Romance. The whole Work, in foure Parts. Written in French by Monfieur de Scudery. Anċ now Englished by HENRY COGAN, gent. London 1652." The paragraph referred to, runs thus:

Behold, Reader, that which I had to fay to youbut what defence foever I have imployed, I know tha it is of works of this nature, as of a place of ware where notwithstanding all the care the Engineer hate brought to fortifie it, there is alwayes fome wea part found, which he hath not dream'd of, and whereby it is affaulted; but this shall not furprize me; for as I have not forgot that I am a man, no more have I forgot that I am subject to erre.

This is thus verfified in the fourth ftanza of the fame Prologue.

IV.

Plays are like Towns, which how e're fortify'd
By Engineers, have still some weaker side

By the o're feen Defendant unefpy'd.

BAYES. Why, Sir, when I have any thing to invent, I never trouble my head about it, as other men do; but presently turn o'er this Book, and there I have, at one view, all that Perfeus, Montaigne, Seneca's Tragedies, Horace, Juvenal, Claudian, Pliny, Plutarch's lives, and the reft, have ever thought, upon this subject: and fo, in a trice, by leaving out a few words, or putting in others of my own, the business is done.

JOHNS. Indeed, Mr. Bayes, this is as fure, and compendious a way of Wit as ever I heard of.

BAYES. I, Sirs, when you come to write your felves, o' my word you'l find it fo. But, Gentlemen, if you make the least fcruple of the efficacie of these my Rules, do but come to the Play-house, and you shall judge of 'em by the effects.

SMI. We'l follow you, Sir.

Enter three Players upon the Stage.

1 Play. Have you your part perfect?

[Exeunt.

2 Flay. Yes, I have it without book; but I do not understand how it is to be spoken.

3 Play. And mine is such a one, as I can't ghefs for my life what humour I'm to be in: whether angry, melancholy, merry, or in love. I don't know what to make on't.

I [Play.] Phoo! The Author will be here presently, and he'l tell us all. You must know, this is the new way of writing; and these hard things please forty times better than the old plain way. For, look you, Sir, the grand defign upon the Stage is to keep the Auditors in fufpence; for to ghefs prefently at the plot, and the fence, tires 'em before the end of the first Act: now, here, every line surprises you, and brings in new matter. And, then, for Scenes, Cloaths and Dancing, we put 'em quite down, all that ever went efore us and these are the things, you know, that re essential to a Play.

2 Play. Well, I am not of thy mind; but, fo it gets s money, 'tis no great matter.

1 The Part of Amaryllis was acted by Mrs. Ann Reeves, who, at that Time, was kept by Mr. Bayes.

Key 1704

The licentiousness of Dryden's plays admits of no palliation or defence. He wrote for a licentious stage in a profligate age, and supplied, much to his own disgrace, the kind of material the vicious taste of his audiences demanded. Nor will it serve his reputation to contrast his productions in this way with those of others. Shadwell alone transcended him in depravity. But there is some compensation for all his grossness in turning from his plays to his life, and marking the contrast. The morality of his life-the practical test of his heart and his understanding-was unimpeachable. The ingenuity of slander was exhausted in assailing his principles, and exposing his person to obloquy -but the morality of his life comes pure out of the furnace. The only hint of personal indiscretion ascribed to him is that of having eaten tarts with Mrs. Reeve. the actress, in the Mulberry garden, which, if true, amounts to nothing, but which, trivial as it is, must be regarded as apocryphal. To eat tarts with an actress did not necessarily involve any grave delinquency in a poet who was writing for the theatre; yet upon this slight foundation, for I have not been able to discover that it rests upon any other, a suspicion has been raised, that Mrs. Reeve was his mistress. By way, however, of mitigating the odium of this unwarrantable imputation, it is added, that after his marriage Dryden renounced all such associations. But his relations with Mrs. Reeve, if he ever had any, must have been formed after his marriage, as a reference to dates will show, so that the suppositious scandal, as it has been transmitted to us, conveys its own refutation.

R. BELL. Life of Dryden, i. 91. Ed. 1854

*Two Kings of Brentford, supposed to be the two Brother the King and the Duke. [See note at p. 90.] .

Key 1704

Enter BAYES, JOHNSON and SMITH.

BAYES. Come, come in, Gentlemen. welcome Mr.

Y'are very

-a- -Ha' you your Part ready?

I Play. Yes, Sir.

BAYES. But do you understand the true humour of it? 1 Play. I, Sir, pretty well.

BAYES. And Amarillis, how does the do? Does not her Armor become her?

3 Play. O, admirably!

BAYES. I'l tell you, now, a pretty conceipt. What do you think I'l make 'em call her anon, in this Play? SMI. What, I pray?

BAYES. Why I'l make 'em call her Armarillis, because of her Armor: ha, ha, ha.

JOHNS. That will be very well, indeed.

BAYES, I, it's a pretty little rogue; she is my Miftrefs.' I knew her face would set off Armor extreamly: and, to tell you true, I writ that Part only for her. Well, Gentlemen, I dare be bold to say, without vanity, I' fhew you fomething, here, that's very ridiculous, I gad. [Exeunt Players. JOHNS. Sir, that we do not doubt of.

BAVES. Pray, Sir, let's fit down. Look you, Sir, the chief hindge of this Play, upon which the whole Plot moves and turns, and that causes the variety of all the several accidents, which, you know, are the thing in Nature that make up the grand refinement of a Play, is, that I suppose two Kings2 to be of the fame place: as, for example, at Brentford; for I love to write familiarly. Now the people having the fame relations to 'em both, the fame affections, the fame duty, the fame obedience, and all that; are divided among themselves in point of devoir and interest, how to behave themselves equally between 'em these Kings differing sometimes in particular; though, in the main, they agree, (I know not whether I make my self well understood.)

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