Criticisms only mark it with a small Asterisme and say Jehu was formerly a Hackney Coachman This for a heavy Piece of Prosaness is no doubt thought a lucky one because it burlesques the Text and the Comment all under one I could go on with the Double Dealer but he 'll come in my way afterwards and so I shall part with him at present Let us now take a veiw of Don Sebastian And here the Reader can't be long unfurnish'd Dorax shall speak first Shall I trust Heaven With my revenge then where 's my satisfaction No it must be my own I scorn a Proxy But Dorax was a Renegado what then He had renounc'd Christianity but not Providence Besides such hideous Sentences ought not to be put in the Mouth of the Devil For that which is not fit to be heard is not fit to be spoken But to some Peoplean Atheistical Rant is as good as a Flourish of Trumpets To proceed Antonio tho' a profess'd Christian mends the matter very little He is looking on a Lot which he had drawn for his Life This proving unlucky after the preamble of a Curse or two he calls it As black as Hell an other lucky saying I think the Devils in me good again I cannot speak one syllable but tends To Death or to Damnation Thus the Poet prepares his Bullies for the other World Hell and Damnation are strange entertaining words upon the Stage Were it otherwise the Sense in these Lines would be almost as bad as the Conscience The Poem warms and rises in the working And the next Flight is extreamly remarkable Not the last sounding could surprize me more That summons drowsy Mortals to their doom When call'd in hast they fumble for their Limbs Very Solemnly and Religiously express'd Lucian and Celsus could not have ridiculed the Resurrection better Certainly the Poet never expects to be there Such a light Turn would have agreed much better to a Man who was in the Dark and was feeling for his Stockings But let those who talk of Fumbling for their Limbs take care they don't find them too fast In the Fourth Act Mustapha dates his Exaltation to Tumult from the second Night of the Month Abib Thus you have the Holy Text abused by Captain Tom And the Bible torn by the Rabble The Design of this Liberty I can't understand unless it be to make Mustapha as considerable as Moses and the prevalence of a Tumult as much a Miracle as the Deliverance out of Aegypt We have heard this Author hitherto in his Characters let us hear him now in his own Person In his Dedication of Aurenge Zebe he is so hardy as to affirm that he who is too lightly reconciled after high Provocation may Recommend himself to the World for a Christian but I should hardly trust him for a Friend And why is a Christian not fit to make a Friend of Are the Principles of Christianity defective and the Laws of it Ill contriv'd Are the Interests and Capacities of Mankind overlook'd Did our Great Master bind us to Disadvantage and make our Duty our Misfortune And did he grudge us all the Pleasures and Securities of Friendship Are not all these horrid Suppositions Are they not a flat Contradiction to the Bible and a Satyr on the Attributes of the Deity Our Saviour tells us we must forgive until Seventy times Seven That is we must never be tired out of Clemency and Good Nature He has taught us to pray for the Forgiveness of our own Sins only upon the Condition of forgiving others Here is no exception upon the Repetition of the Fault or the Quality of the Provocation Mr. Dryden to do him right do's not dispute the Precept He confesses this is the way to be a Christian But for all that he should hardly trust him for a Friend And why so Because the Italian Proverb says He that forgives the second time is a Fool. This Lewd Proverb comes in for Authority and is a piece of very pertinent Blasphemy Thus in some Peoples Logick one proof from Atheisin is worth Ten from the New Testament But here the Poet argues no better than he Believes For most certainly a Christian of all others is best qualifyed for Friendship For He that loves his Neighbour as himself and carries Benevolence and Good Nature beyond the Heights of Philosophy He that is not govern'd by Vanity or Design He that prefers his Conscience to his Life and has Courage to Maintain his Reason He that is thus qualified must be a good Friend And he that falls short is no good Christian And since the Poet is pleas'd to find fault with Christianity let us examine his own Scheme Our Minds says he are perpetually wrought on by the Temperament of our Bodies which makes me suspect they are nearer Allyed than either our Philosophers or School Divines will allow them to be The meaning is he suspects our Souls are nothing but Organiz'd Matter Or in plain English our Souls are nothing but our Bodies And then when the Body dies you may guess what becomes of them Thus the Authorities of Religion are weaken'd and the prospect of the other World almost shut up And is this a likely Supposition for Sincerity and good Nature Do's Honour use to rise upon the Ruines of Conscience And are People the best Friends where they have the least Reason to be so But not only the Inclinations to Friendship must Languish upon this Scheme but the very Powers of it are as it were destroy'd By this Systeme no Man can say his Soul is his own He can't be assured the same Colours of Reason and Desire will last Any little Accident from without may metamorphose his Fancy and push him upon a new set of Thoughts Matter and Motion are the most Humorsom Capricious Things in Nature and withall the most Arbitrary and uncontroll'd And can Constancy proceed from Chance Choice from Fate and Virtue from Necessity In short a Man at this rate must be a Friend or an Enemy in spite of his Teeth and just as long as the Atoms please and no longer Every Change in Figure and Impulse must alter the Idea and wear off the former Impression So that by these Principles Friendship will depend on the Seasons and we must look in the Weather Glass for our Inclinations But this 't is to Refine upon Revelation and grow wiser than Wisdom The same Author in his Dedication of Juvenal and Persius has these words My Lord I am come to the last Petition of Abraham If there be ten Righteous Lines in this vast Preface spare it for their sake and also spare the next City because it is but a little one Here the Poet stands for Abraham and the Patron for God Almighty And where lies the Wit of all this In the Decency of the Comparison I doubt not And for the next City he would have spared he is out in the Allusion 'T is no Zoar
is to bring Thebes to London and to show the Antiquity of Doctors Commons For if you will believe Mercury this Conference between him and Phaebus was held three thousand years ago Thus Shakespear makes Hector talk about Aristotles Philosophy and calls Sr. John Old Castle Protestant I had not mention'd this Discovery in Chronology but that Mr. Dryden falls upon Ben Johnson for making Cataline give Fire at the Face of a Cloud before Guns were invented By the Pattern of these pretended Deities we may guess what sort of Mortals we are likely to meet with Neither are we mistaken For Phaedra is bad enough in all Conscience but Bromia is a meer Original Indeed when Mr. Dryden makes Jupiter and Jupiter makes the Women little less can be expected So much for Amphitrion I shall pass on to King Arthur for a word or two Now here is a strange jumble and Hotch potch of Matters if you mind it Here we have Genii and Angels Cupids Syrens and Devils Venus and St. George Pan and the Parson the Hell of Heathenism and the Hell of Revelation A fit of Smut and then a Jest about Original Sin And why are Truth and Fiction Heathenism and Christianity the most Serious and the most Trifling Things blended together and thrown into one Form of Diversion Why is all this done unless it be to ridicule the whole and make one as incredible as the other His Airy and Earthy Spirits discourse of the first state of Devils of their Chief of their Revolt their Punishment and Impostures This Mr. Dryden very Religiously calls a Fairy way of Writing which depends only on the Force of Imagination What then is the Fall of the Angels a Romance Has it no basis of Truth nothing to support it but strength of Fancy and Poetick Invention After He had mention'd Hell Devils c. and given us a sort of Bible description of these formidable Things I say after he had formed his Poem in this manner I am surprized to hear him call it a Fairy kind of Writing Is the History of Tophet no better prov'd than that of Styx Is the Lake of Brimstone and that of Phlegeton alike dreadful And have we as much Reason to believe the Torments of Titius and Prometheus as those of the Devils and Damn'd These are lamentable Consequences And yet I can't well see how the Poet can avoid them But setting aside this miserable Gloss in the Dedication the Representation it self is scandalously irreligious To droll upon the Vengeance of Heaven and the Miseries of the Damn'd is a sad Instance of Christianity Those that bring Devils upon the Stage can hardly believe them any where else Besides the Effects of such an Entertainment must needs be admirable To see Hell thus play'd with is a mighty Refreshment to a lewd Conscience and a byass'd Understanding It ' heartens the Young Libertine and confirms the well-wishers to Atheism and makes Vice bold and enterprizing Such Diversions serve to dispel the Gloom and guild the Horrors of the Shades below and are a sort of Ensurance against Damnation One would think these Poets went upon absolute Certainty and could demonstrate a Scheme of Infidelity If they could They had much better keep the Secret The divulging it tends only to debauch Mankind and shake the Securities of Civil Life However if they have been in the other World and find it empty and uninhabited and are acquainted with all the Powers and Places in Being If they can show the Impostures of Religion and the Contradictions of Common Belief they have something to say for themselves Have they then infallible Proof and Mathematick Evidence for these Discoveries No Man had ever the Confidence to say This And if He should he would be but laughed at for his Folly No Conclusions can exceed the Evidence of their Principles you may as well build a Castle in the Air as raise a Demonstration upon a Bottom of Uncertainty And is any Man so vain as to pretend to know the Extent of Nature and the Stretch of Possibility and the Force of the Powers Invisible So that notwithstanding the Boldness of this Opera there may be such a Place as Hell And if so a Discourse about Devils will be no Fairy way of Writing For a Fairy way of Writing is nothing but a History of Fiction A subject of Imaginary Beings such as never had any existence in Time or Nature And if as Monsieur Rapin observes Poetry requires a mixture of Truth and Fable Mr. Dryden may make his advantage for his Play is much better founded on Reality than He was aware of It may not be improper to consider in a word or two what a frightfull Idea the Holy Scriptures give us of Hell 'T is describ'd by all the Circumstance of Terror by every Thing dreadful to Sense and amazing to Thought The Place the Company the Duration are all Considerations of Astonishment And why has God given us this solemn warning Is it not to awaken our Fears and guard our Happiness To restrain the Disorders of Appetite and to keep us within Reason and Duty And as for the Apostate Angels the Scriptures inform us of their lost Condition of their Malice and Power of their active Industry and Experience and all these Qualities Correspondent to the Bulk of their Nature the Antiquity of their Being and the Misery of their State In short They are painted in all the formidable Appearances imaginable to alarm our Caution and put us upon the utmost Defence Let us see now how Mr. Dryden represents these unhappy Spirits and their Place of Abode Why very entertainingly Those that have a true Tast for Atheism were never better regaled One would think by this Play the Devils were meer Mormo's and Bugbears fit only to fright Children and Fools They rally upon Hell and Damnation with a great deal of Air and Pleasantry and appear like Robin Good-fellow only to make the Company laugh Philidel Is call'd a Puling Sprite And why so For this pious reason because He trembles at the yawning Gulph of Hell Nor dares approach the Flames least he should Singe His gaudy silken Wings He sighs when he should plunge a Soul in Sulphur As with Compassion touch'd of Foolish Man The answer is What a half Devil 's he You see how admirably it runs all upon the Christian Scheme Sometimes they are Half-Devils and sometimes Hopeful-Devils and what you please to make sport with Grimbald is afraid of being whooped through Hell at his return for miscarrying in his Business It seems there is great Leisure for Diversion There 's Whooping in Hell instead of Weeping and Wailing One would fancy Mr. Dryden had Day-light and Company when these Lines were written I know his Courage is extraordinary But sure such Thoughts could never bear up against Solitude and a Candle And now since he has diverted himself with the Terrors of Christianity I dont wonder he should treat
Pomp and Curiosity were this Lords Inclination why then should he mortifie without necessity make his first Approaches thus out of Form and present himself to his Mistress at such Disadvantage And as this is the Character of Lord Foplington so 't is reasonable to suppose Sir Tunbelly acquainted with it An enquiry into the Humour and management of a Son in Law is very natural and Customary So that we can't without Violence to Sense suppose Sir Tunbelly a Stranger to Lord Foplington's Singularities These Reasons were enough in all Conscience to make Sir Tunbelly suspect a Juggle and that Fashion was no better then a Counterfeit Why then was the Credential swallow'd without chewing why was not Hoyden lock'd up and a pause made for farther Enquiry Did this Justice never hear of such a Thing as Knavery or had he ever greater reason to guard against it More wary steps might well have been expected from Sir Tunbelly To run from one extream of Caution to another of Credulity is highly improbable In short either Lord Foplington and Sir Tunbelly are Fools or they are not If they are where lies the Cunning in over-reaching them What Conquest can there be without Opposition If they are not Fools why does the Poet make them so Why is their Conduct so gross so particolour'd and inconsistent Take them either way and the Plot miscarries The first supposition makes it dull and the later incredible So much for the Plot. I shall now in the 4 th Place touch briefly upon the Manners The Manners in the Language of the Stage have a signification somewhat particular Aristotle and Rapin call them the Causes and Principles of Action They are formed upon the Diversities of Age and Sex of Fortune Capacity and Education The propriety of Manners consists in a Conformity of Practise and Principle of Nature and Behaviour For the purpose An old Man must not appear with the Profuseness and Levity of Youth A Gentleman must not talk like a Clown nor a Country Girl like a Town Jilt And when the Characters are feign'd 't is Horace's Rule to keep them Uniform and consistent and agreeable to their first setting out The Poet must be careful to hold his Persons tight to their Calling and pretentions He must not shift and shuffle their Understandings Let them skip from Wits to Blockheads nor from Courtiers to Pedants On the other hand If their business is playing the Fool keep them strictly to their Duty and never indulge them in fine Sentences To manage otherwise is to desert Nature and makes the Play appear monstrous and Chimerical So that instead of an Image of Life 't is rather an Image of Impossibility To apply some of these remarks to the Relapser The fine Berinthia one of the Top-Characters is impudent and Profane Lovelace would engage her Secrecy and bids her Swear She answers I do Lov. By what Berinth By Woman Lov. That 's Swearing by my Deity do it by your own or I shan't believe you Berinth By Man then This Lady promises Worthy her Endeavours to corrupt Amanda and then They make a Profane jest upon the Office In the progress of the Play after a great deal of Lewd Discourse with Lovelace Berinthia is carried off into a Closet and Lodged in a Scene of Debauch Here is Decency and Reservedness to a great exactness Monsieur Rapin blames Ariosto and Tasso for representing two of their Women over free and airy These Poets says he rob Women of their Character which is Modesty Mr. Rymer is of the same Opinion His words are these Nature knows nothing in the Manners which so properly and particularly distinguish a Woman as her Modesty An impudent Woman is fit only to be kicked and expos'd in Comedy Now Berinthia appears in Comedy 't is true but neither to be kick'd nor expos'd She makes a Considerable Figure has good Usage keeps the best Company and goes off without Censure or Disadvantage Let us now take a Turn or two with Sir Tun-belly's Heiress of 1500 pounds a year This Young Lady swears talks smut and is upon the matter just as ragmanner'd as Mary the Buxsome 'T is plain the Relapser copyed Mr. Durfey's Original which is a sign he was somewhat Pinch'd Now this Character was no great Beauty in Buxsome But it becomes the Knights Daughter much worse Buxsome was a poor Pesant which made her Rudeness more natural and expected But Deputy Lieutenants Children don't use to appear with the Behaviour of Beggars To breed all People alike and make no distinction between a Seat and a Cottage is not over artful nor very ceremonious to the Country Gentlemen The Relapser gives Miss a pretty Soliloquy I 'll transcribe it for the Reader She swears by her Maker 't is well I have a Husband a coming or I 'de Marry the Baker I would so No body can knock at the Gate but presently I must be lock'd up and here 's the Young Gray-hound can run loose about the Hoase all day long she can 't is very well Afterwards her Language is too Lewd to be quoted Here is a Compound of Ill Manners and Contradiction Is this a good Resemblance of Quality a Description of a great Heiress and the effect of a Cautious Education By her Coarsness you would think her Bred upon a Common and by her Confidence in the Nursery of the Play-house I suppose the Relapser Fancies the calling her Miss Hoyden is enough to justifie her Ill Manners By his favour this is a Mistake To represent her thus unhewn he should have suited her Condition to her Name a little better For there is no Charm in Words as to matters of Breeding An unfashionable Name won't make a Man a Clown Education is not form'd upon Sounds and Syllables but upon Circumstances and Quality So that if he was resolv'd to have shown her thus unpolish'd he should have made her keep Sheep or brought her up at the Wash-Boul Sir Tun-belly accosts Young Fashion much at the same rate of Accomplishment My Lord I humbly crave leave to bid you Welcome in Cup of Sack-wine One would imagine the Poet was overdozed before he gave the Justice a Glass For Sack-wine is too low for a Petty Constable This peasantly expression agrees neither with the Gentlemans Figure nor with the rest of his Behaviour I find we should have a Creditable Magistracy if the Relapser had the Making them Here the Characters are pinch'd in Sense and stinted to short Allowance At an other time they are over-indulged and treated above Expectation For the purpose Vanity and Formalizing is Lord Foplingtons part To let him speak without Aukwardness and Affectation is to put him out of his Element There must be Gumm and stiffening in his Discourse to make it natural However the Relapser has taken a fancy to his Person and given him some of the most Gentile raillery in the whole Play To give an Instance or two This Lord