Selected quad for the lemma: city_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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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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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