The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II | Page 5

a game called _solitaire_, who used
to complain of the hardship of drinking by himself, because the toast
came too often about.
The whole piece seems to have been intended as a sacrifice to popular
taste; and, perhaps, our poet only met a deserved fate, when he stooped
to sooth the depraved appetite, which his talents enabled him to have
corrected and purified. Something like this feeling may be interred
from the last lines of the second epilogue:
Would you but change, for serious plot and verse, This motley
garniture of fool and farce; Nor scorn a mode, because 'tis taught at
home, Which dues, like vests,[A] our gravity become; Our poet yields
you should this play refuse, As tradesmen by the change of fashions
lose, With some content, their fripperies of France, In hope it may their
staple trade advance.
[Footnote A: This seems to allude to the Polish dress, which, upon his
restoration, Charles wished to introduce into Britain. It was not altered
for the French, till his intimacy with that court was cemented by
pecuniary dependence.]
In the prologue, the author indulges himself in a display of the terms of
astrology, of which vain science he was a believer and a student.

PREFACE.
It would be a great impudence in me to say much of a comedy, which
has had but indifferent success in the action. I made the town my
judges, and the greater part condemned it: after which, I do not think it
my concernment to defend it with the ordinary zeal of a poet for his
decried poem. Though Corneille is more resolute in his preface before
his _Pertharite_[A], which was condemned more universally than this;
for he avows boldly, that, in spite of censure, his play was well and

regularly written; which is more than I dare say for mine. Yet it was
received at court; and was more than once the divertisement of his
Majesty, by his own command; but I have more modesty than to
ascribe that to my merit, which was his particular act of grace. It was
the first attempt I made in dramatic poetry; and, I find since, a very
bold one, to begin with comedy, which is the most difficult part of it.
The plot was not originally my own; but so altered by me, (whether for
the better or worse I know not) that whoever the author was, he could
not have challenged a scene of it. I doubt not but you will see in it the
uncorrectness of a young writer; which is yet but a small excuse for
him, who is so little amended since. The best apology I can make for it,
and the truest, is only this, that you have, since that time, received with
applause, as bad, and as uncorrect plays from other men.
[Footnote A: "Le succés de cette tragédie à été si malheureux, que pour
m'epargner le chagrin de m'en souvenir, je n'en dirai presque
rien.--J'ajoute ici malgré sa disgrace, que les sentimens en sont assez
vifs et nobles, les vers assez bien tournes, et que la façon dont le sujet
s'explique dans la première scène ne manque pas d'artifice."
Examen de Pertharite.]

PROLOGUE,
WHEN IT WAS FIRST ACTED.
Is it not strange to hear a poet say, He comes to ask you, how you like
the play? You have not seen it yet: alas! 'tis true; But now your love
and hatred judge, not you: And cruel factions (bribed by interest) come,
Not to weigh merit, but to give their doom. Our poet, therefore, jealous
of th' event, And (though much boldness takes) not confident, Has sent
me, whither you, fair ladies, too, Sometimes upon as small occasions,
go; And, from this scheme, drawn for the hour and day, Bid me enquire
the fortune of his play.
_The curtain drawn discovers two Astrologers; the prologue is
presented to them_.
_1 Astrol. reads_, A figure of the heavenly bodies in their several
Apartments, Feb. the 5th, half-an-hour after three afternoon, from
whence you are to judge the success of a new play, called the Wild
Gallant.

_2 Astrol_. Who must judge of it, we, or these gentlemen? We'll not
meddle with it, so tell your poet. Here are, in this house, the ablest
mathematicians in Europe for his purpose.
They will resolve the question, ere they part. _1 Att_. Yet let us judge it
by the rules of art; First Jupiter, the ascendant's lord disgraced, In the
twelfth house, and near grim Saturn placed, Denote short life unto the
play:-- _2 Ast_. --Jove yet, In his apartment Sagittary, set Under his
own root, cannot take much wrong. _1 Ast_. Why then the life's not
very short, nor long; _2 Ast_. The luck not very good, nor very ill;
Prole.