The Works of John Dryden | Page 2

hanging up against the wall; their bodies in chairs, in bloody linen." And in an interlude, called the "Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru," written by D'Avenant, "a doleful pavin is played to prepare the change of the scene, which represents a dark prison at a great distance; and farther to the view are discerned racks and other engines of torment, with which the Spaniards are tormenting the natives and English mariners, who may be supposed to be lately landed there to discover the coast. Two Spaniards are likewise discovered sitting in their cloaks, and appearing more solemn in ruffs, with rapiers and daggers by their sides; the one turning a spit, while the other is basting an Indian prince, who is roasted at an artificial fire[1]." The rape of Isabinda is stated by Langbaine to have been borrowed from a novel in the Decamerone of Cinthio Giraldi.
This play is beneath criticism; and I can hardly hesitate to term it the worst production Dryden ever wrote. It was acted and printed in 1673.
Footnote:?1. This extraordinary kitchen scene did not escape the ridicule of the
wits of that merry age.
O greater cruelty yet,?Like a pig upon a spit;?Here lies one there, another boiled to jelly;
Just as the people stare?At an ox in the fair,?Roasted whole, with a pudding in's belly.
A little further in,?Hung a third by his chin,?And a fourth cut all in quarters.
O that Fox had now been living,?They had been sure of heaven,?Or, at the least, been some of his martyrs.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE
LORD CLIFFORD
OF
CHUDLEIGH[1].
MY LORD,
After so many favours, and those so great, conferred on me by your lordship these many years,--which I may call more properly one continued act of your generosity and goodness,--I know not whether I should appear either more ungrateful in my silence, or more extravagantly vain in my endeavours to acknowledge them: For, since all acknowledgements bear a face of payment, it may be thought, that I have flattered myself into an opinion of being able to return some part of my obligements to you;--the just despair of which attempt, and the due veneration I have for his person, to whom I must address, have almost driven me to receive only with a profound submission the effects of that virtue, which is never to be comprehended but by admiration; and the greatest note of admiration is silence. It is that noble passion, to which poets raise their audience in highest subjects, and they have then gained over them the greatest victory, when they are ravished into a pleasure which is not to be expressed by words. To this pitch, my lord, the sense of my gratitude had almost raised me: to receive your favours, as the Jews of old received their law, with a mute wonder; to think, that the loudness of acclamation was only the praise of men to men, and that the secret homage of the soul was a greater mark of reverence, than an outward ceremonious joy, which might be counterfeit, and must be irreverent in its tumult. Neither, my lord, have I a particular right to pay you my?acknowledgements: You have been a good so universal, that almost every man in the three nations may think me injurious to his propriety, that I invade your praises, in undertaking to celebrate them alone; and that I have assumed to myself a patron, who was no more to be circumscribed than the sun and elements, which are of public benefit to human kind.
As it was much in your power to oblige all who could pretend to merit from the public, so it was more in your nature and inclination. If any went ill-satisfied from the treasury, while it was in your lordship's management, it proclaimed the want of desert, and not of friends: You distributed your master's favour with so equal hands, that justice herself could not have held the scales more even; but with that natural propensity to do good, that had that treasure been your own, your inclination to bounty must have ruined you. No man attended to be denied: No man bribed for expedition: Want and desert were pleas sufficient. By your own integrity, and your prudent choice of those whom you employed, the king gave all that he intended; and gratuities to his officers made not vain his bounty. This, my lord, you were in your public capacity of high treasurer, to which you ascended by such degrees, that your royal master saw your virtues still growing to his favours, faster than they could rise to you. Both at home and abroad, with your sword and with your counsel, you have served him with unbiassed honour, and unshaken resolution; making his greatness, and the true interest of your country, the standard and measure of your actions. Fortune may desert the