Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
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A49572
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Heroick love a tragedy : as it is acted at the theatre in Little Lincolns-Inn-Fields / written by the Honourable George Granville, Esq.
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Lansdowne, George Granville, Baron, 1667-1735.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing L422; ESTC R11031
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42,456
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90
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jog on still tricking never thriving And Murd'ring Plays which they miscal Reviving Our Sense is Nonsense through their Pipes convey'd Scarce can a Poet know the Play He made 'T is so disguis'd in Death Nor thinks 't is He That suffers in the Mangled Tragedy Thus Itys first was kill'd and after dress'd For his own Sire the Chief Invited Guest I say not this of thy successful Scenes Where thine was all the Glory their 's the Gains With length of Time much Judgment and more Toil Not ill they Acted what they cou'd not spoil Their Setting-Sun still shoots a Glim'ring Ray Like Ancient Rome Majestick in decay And better gleanings their worn Soil can boast Then the Crab-Vintage of the Neighb'ring Coast. This difference yet the judging World will see Thou Copiest Homer and they Copy thee JOHN DRYDEN PROLOGUE By Henry St. Johns Esq HOW hard 's the Poet's task in these our days Who such dull Pallates is condemn'd to please As Damn all Sense and only Fustian praise Charm'd with Heroick Non-sense lofty strains Not with the Writers but the Players pains And by the Actors Lungs judge of the Poet's Brains Let Scribling Judges who your Pleasures serve Live by your Smiles or by your Anger starve To please you in your vain Fantastick way Renounce their Judgment to secure their Pay By written Laws our Author would be try'd And writes as if Athenians should decide With Horace and the Stagyrite for Guide Applause is welcome but too dearly bought Should we give up one rule those mighty Masters taught Yet some methinks I here and there descry Who may with Ancient Rome and Athens vye To whose Tribunal we submit with Joy To them and only them for not to wrong ye 'T would be a shame to please the most among ye Chiefly the softer Sex he hopes to move Those tender Judges of Heroick Love To that bright Circle he resigns his Cause And if they Smile he asks no more Applause EPILOGUE By Bevill Higgons Esq WHat will the Galleries nay Boxes say There 's not one Man destroy'd in all our Play Murder and Blood have long possess'd the Stage And pleas'd the Genius of a Barbarous Age But since the Poet's task 's the Soul to move And with his Objects make you Grieve or Love Surviving Wretches should more pity find Than they who die and leave their Woes behind On Athen's Stage when Greece the World gave Law Hr sprightly Dames our Agamemnon saw They shar'd his Sorrows did his Fate bemoan And always made the Hero's wrongs their own But then the World was Gay and Nature Young Mens Passions were more high and Fancy strong Poets could either raise or make so sad That going Home whole Audiences ran Mad. In vain we would your colder Hearts inspire And blow up Flames without the Seeds of Fire Three thousand Years ago illustrious Dames Attended Camps and gave the Heroes Flames Now every Wench when Batter'd and Decay'd To Flanders fled where straight the Rampant Jade At once the Colonel serv'd and the Brigade If Poets have the Privilege of Laws To challenge Juries who must try their Cause To judge of Wit the Critick be debarr'd Who often Damns what he ne'er saw nor heard Besides he still to Poets bears a spite For never yet was Critick who could write For You the Viler Rabble of the Pit Who want good Nature tho' you have no Wit Maliciously you imitate the Times Like Judges try the Men and not their Crimes With Noâ—se and Nonsense whom you hate dâ—cry And if demanded give no reason why But when no pity can the Torrent stem Attaint the Poet whom you can't condemn 'T is on that shining Circle we depend To the Ladies For You Our Poet writes in gratitude defend Of Love and Honour he a Pattern meant And took the bright Ideas that you lent Your Picture drawn show then the Painter Grace Who fails in an inimitable Face Persons Names Agamemnon King of Argos General of the Allies at the Siege of Troy In Love with Chruseis Mr. Betterton Achilles General of the Myrmidons Mr. Verbruggen Nestor A Graecian-Commander Mr. Bowman Ulysses Another Commander of the Greeks Mr. Sandford Patroclus The Friend of Achilles Mr. Scudemore Chryses High Priest of Phoebus Father of Chruseis Mr. Kynaston Chalcas A Graecian Soothsayer Mr. Freeman Talthybius and Eurybates Captains of the King's Guard Mr. Baily  Officers Guards and Attendants to the King  WOMEN Chruseis In Love with Agamemnon Mrs. Barry Briseis Mistress to Achilles Mrs. Bracegirdle Artemis A Woman attendant to Chruseis Mrs. Prince  Other Women Attendants to Chruseis  The Scene is of the Graecian Fleet and Camp before TROY Heroick Love ACT I. SCENE I. Agamemnon's Pavillion Enter Chryses the Priest and Chalcas the Soothsayer Chr. SEE him I will and Must. Chal. See him you may but wait a better time Chr. Chalcas What time Whose time shall Chryses wait Shall I who to th' assembled Gods can say Let me be heard And straight they bend their Ears And at all Hours are ready to my Prayers Shall I upon a Mortal's Leisure wait I say I will be heard and now Chal. Forgive me Holy Chryses Prince of Prophets Thou Oracle unerring when thy Gods Enlighten thee to speak their dark Decrees But Humane born retaining Humane frailties Your Reason by your Passion is misled To temperate Tongues Unbyass'd by resentment Trust your Demands Or failing to persuade You may provoke For tho' the King be mild Enclin'd to Good of easie Disposition Yet he 's of hasty temper catching Fire As the best Natures are indeed most apt Surprize him not nor work him unprepar'd He knows not your arrival yet Let us begin By easie steps to lead him to your wish And if we fail then urge what you think fit Chr. Why do we pray for Children Call 'em Blessings And deem the Barren Womb a Curse O Marriage Unhappy Most unhappy of all States Matching with sorrows Teeming still with more The Vexed Womb seems to bring forth to Vex Producing none but to Disgrace or Ruin The rash Begetters Had Hellen never been Troy were safe Or had Chruseis been un-born Greece had been well reveng'd O fatal Pair Most Mischievous where most Belov'd Pleasing And yet Destroying Not Medusa kills With her envenom'd Glances half so sure Not Hector's Sword has cost more Argive lives Nor has Achilles's Spear more Dardans slain Than each of these with her devouring Eyes Chal. Well am I pleas'd to find your Soul thus mov'd If you can pity sure you will redress Where Pity rests there Mercy too will lodge These heavy Vengeances that press so sore Are owing to your Pray'rs incensing Heaven O Chryses Chryses Look on yonder Camp Behold what heaps of Dead without one wound Behold how like the Dead the Living look So near their End that they who wait their Friends To the last Rites are burnt on the same Pile The sturdy Greeks unsinew'd by Diseases That firmly went impressing deep
HEROICK LOVE A TRAGEDY As it is Acted at The THEATRE in Little Lincolns-Inn-Fields Written by the Honourable GEORGE GRANVILLE Esq Rectius Iliacum Carmen deducis in Actus Hor. de Arte Poeticâ Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus LONDON Printed for F. Saunders in the New-Exchange in the Strand H. Playford in the Temple-Change and B. Tooke at the Middle-Temple-Gate Fleetstreet 1698. The Preface IT may be necessary to inform the Reader that after the first Representation of this Play the Conclusion was altered Agamemnon is left to continue in a Swoon and the Scene is clos'd with these few lines spoken by Ulysses immediately upon the Departure of Chruseis Uly. The Ills that Love has done Love has aton'd And Glory calls to make us full amends Look to the King be that your care Talthybius To Tal. And let all Ages in this Truth agree Love never gain'd a Nobler Victory The Reasons for this Alteration were these The Author was of Opinion that some might think it more Natural that Agamemnon considering the Excess of Love which fills his Character should upon coming to himself rather run after his Mistress than into the Battel He declares that in the same Circumstance he should have done so himself and it is a pretty true Observation that in the Frame of our Heroes we commonly draw our own Pictures Another Reason was Brevity some having complain'd of the length of that Act. There was indeed such effectual Care taken not to seem tedious to the Audience that the last Scene may be more properly said to have been Murder'd than Cut for the Conveniency of Acting as will evidently appear to the Reader Some have objected that it is unnatural for a Hero to Swoon those Persons are entreated to inform us of what stuff they take Heroes to be made Hitherto they have pass'd for Men and by consequence subject to humane Infirmities Othello in one of his Agonies of Jeloufie falls into a Swoon and indeed in some Cases where the Passion must be presum'd so Violent or so Tender that words can but faintly represent it it is then a Beauty to express it in this manner and by far more Pathetick than any Speech thô never so Rhetorical Others have complain'd that they want to know what becomes afterwards of Agamemnon They are desir'd to accept of this short reply That the Author never undertook to write the Life of Agamemnon A Tragedy is the Representation of one single particular Action and not of every Circumstance of a Man's Life But however to satisfie their Curiosity these Persons if they can give themselves the trouble to observe may find mixt up and down in the Play either by way of Relation or Prophecy all the remarkable Passages of the Life of Agamemnon from the Beginning to the End not omitting so much as his Forefathers and his Posterity and what would they have more It has likewise been objected that the Characters are too few Let those Criticks be pleas'd to consider that a single Action will allow of but few Persons and a regular Play is confin'd to a single Action Let them examine what number of Characters the Ancients and all who have written in their Imitation were wont to introduce and then let them judge It may be further observ'd that whosoever crowds his Play with a Multitude of Persons will be forc'd to draw his Characters so little and as it were in miniature that it will scarce be perceptible there are any Characters at all for to shew Men at full Length and in just Proportion requires room which can only be found when the Characters are few There is indeed one Personage which the Author thinks himself oblig'd to make some Apology for to the Judicious Reader thô it happens to be the Part which in the Representation meets the loudest Applause and this is the Character of Briseis which may seem to some a little over-strain'd and extended larger than the Life However he cannot help owning that in his Opinion he verily believes there are many who think full as vainly of themselves Some Men he is sure he has met with of that Character but Ladies are Sacred Things and he would not be thought to suggest the least uncivil Supposition of any of that Sex To proceed then to give some account of the true Reason of his choice of so extraordinary a Person the plain Truth of the whole matter is this Had he form'd her a moving Character should he have brought her in lamenting her Misfortune and attracting Compassion this would have prejudic'd the Chief Hero of the Play for all the Pity which she had excited must necessarily have rais'd so much Indignation against him The Author thus was under a Necessity to represent her in such a manner that no body might be concern'd or take any part in her Misfortune and he therefore chose to make her of a Piece with her Lover for in reality her Character is form'd out of his as presuming and arrogant with her Beauty as Achilles with the Opinion of his Courage There was scarce any other way of introducing her without giving occasion for pity which was absolutely to be avoided and therefore the Author hopes in such a Case he is pardonable This Excuse is addrest to the Judicious the generality of the World needed it not this being the Part in the Play which found the best Reception It often indeed happens that the Audience is best pleas'd where the Author is most out of countenance and that part of the Performance which the Writer Suspects the Spectator chiefly approves When we observe how little notice is taken of the noble and sublime Thoughts and Expressions of Mr. Dryden in Oedipus and what Applause is given to the Rants and the Fustian of Mr. Lee what can we say but that Madmen are only fit to write when nothing is esteem'd Great and Heroick but what is un-intelligible To Mr. GRANVILLE on his Excellent Tragedy call'd HEROICK LOVE AUspicious Poet wert thou not my Friend How could I envy what I must commend But since 't is Natures Law in Love and Wit That Youth shou'd Reign and with'ring Age submit With less regret those Lawrels I resign Which dying on my Brows revive on thine With better Grace an Ancient Chief may yield The long contended Honours of the Field Than venture all his Fortune at a Cast And Fight like Hannibal to lose at last Young Princes Obstinate to win the Prize Thô Yearly beaten Yearly yet they rise Old Monarchs though Successful still in Doubt Catch at a Peace and wisely turn Devout Thine be the Lawrel then thy blooming Age Can best if any can support the Stage Which so declines that shortly we may see Players and Plays reduc'd to second Infancy Sharp to the World but thoughtless of Renown They Plot not on the Stage but on the Town And in Despair their Empty Pit to fill Set up some Foreign Monster in a Bill Thus they