The Works of John Dryden, Volume 6 | Page 2

as
entirely to destroy that merit. Langbaine, with his usual anxiety of
research, traces back a few of the incidents to the novels of Cinthio
Giraldi, and to those of some forgotten French authors.
Plays, even of this nature, being worth preservation, as containing
genuine traces of the manners of the age in which they appear, I cannot
but remark the promiscuous intercourse, which, in this comedy and
others, is represented as taking place betwixt women of character, and
those who made no pretensions to it. Bellamira in Sir Charles Sedley's
play, and Mrs Tricksy in the following pages, are admitted into
company with the modest female characters, without the least hint of
exception or impropriety. Such were actually the manners of Charles
the II.d's time, where we find the mistresses of the king, and his
brothers, familiar in the highest circles. It appears, from the evidence in
the case of the duchess of Norfolk for adultery, that Nell Gwyn was
living with her Grace in familiar habits; her society, doubtless, paving
the way for the intrigue, by which the unfortunate lady lost her rank
and reputation[2]. It is always symptomatic of a total decay of morals,
where female reputation neither confers dignity, nor excites pride, in its
possessor; but is consistent with her mingling in the society of the
libertine and the profligate.
Some of Dryden's libellers draw an invidious comparison betwixt his
own private life and this satire; and exhort him to
Be to vices, which he practised, kind.
But of the injustice of this charge on Dryden's character, we have
spoken fully elsewhere. Undoubtedly he had the licence of this, and his

other dramatic writings, in his mind, when he wrote the following
verses; where the impurity of the stage is traced to its radical source,
the debauchery of the court:
Then courts of kings were held in high renown, Ere made the common
brothels of the town. There virgins honourable vows received, But
chaste, as maids in monasteries, lived. The king himself, to nuptial rites
a slave, No bad example to his poets gave; And they, not bad, but in a
vicious age, Had not, to please the prince, debauched the stage. _Wife
of Bath's Tale._
"Limberham" was acted at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset-Garden; for,
being a satire upon a court vice, it was deemed peculiarly calculated for
that play-house. The concourse of the citizens thither is alluded to in
the prologue to "Marriage-a-la-Mode." Ravenscroft also, in his
epilogue to the "Citizen turned Gentleman," acted at the same theatre,
disowns the patronage of the courtiers who kept mistresses, probably
because they Constituted the minor part of his audience:
From the court party we hope no success; Our author is not one of the
noblesse, That bravely does maintain his miss in town, Whilst my great
lady is with speed sent down, And forced in country mansion-house to
fix. That miss may rattle here in coach-and-six.
The stage for introducing "Limberham" was therefore judiciously
chosen, although the piece was ill received, and withdrawn after being
only thrice represented. It was printed in 1678.
Footnotes: 1. Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion, p. 24.
2. See State Trials, vol. viii. pp. 17, 18.

TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
JOHN,

LORD VAUGHAN, &c[1].
MY LORD,
I cannot easily excuse the printing of a play at so unseasonable a
time[2], when the great plot of the nation, like one of Pharaoh's lean
kine, has devoured its younger brethren of the stage. But however weak
my defence might be for this, I am sure I should not need any to the
world for my dedication to your lordship; and if you can pardon my
presumption in it, that a bad poet should address himself to so great a
judge of wit, I may hope at least to escape with the excuse of Catullus,
when he writ to Cicero:
_Gratias tibi maximas Catullus Agit, pessimus omnium, poeta; Tanto
pessimus omnium poeta, Quanto tu optimns omnium patronus._
I have seen an epistle of Flecknoe's to a nobleman, who was by some
extraordinary chance a scholar; (and you may please to take notice by
the way, how natural the connection of thought is betwixt a bad poet
and Flecknoe) where he begins thus: _Quatuordecim jam elapsi sunt
anni,_ &c.; his Latin, it seems, not holding out to the end of the
sentence: but he endeavoured to tell his patron, betwixt two languages
which he understood alike, that it was fourteen years since he had the
happiness to know him. It is just so long, (and as happy be the omen of
dulness to me, as it is to some clergymen and statesmen!) since your
lordship has known, that there is a worse poet remaining in the world,
than he of scandalous memory, who left