All For Love .........................................................................................................................................................1

John Dryden .............................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTORY NOTE......................................................................................................................1

DEDICATION .........................................................................................................................................2

PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................5

Act I......................................................................................................................................................10

Act II.....................................................................................................................................................24

Act III ....................................................................................................................................................38

Act IV ....................................................................................................................................................53

Act V .....................................................................................................................................................71

The age of Elizabeth, memorable for so many reasons in the history of England, was especially brilliant in

literature, and, within literature, in the drama. With some falling off in spontaneity, the impulse to great

dramatic production lasted till the Long Parliament closed the theaters in 1642; and when they were reopened

at the Restoration, in 1660, the stage only too faithfully reflected the debased moral tone of the court society

John Dryden (16311700), the great representative figure in the literature of the latter part of the seventeenth

century, exemplifies in his work most of the main tendencies of the time. He came into notice with a poem on

the death of Cromwell in 1658, and two years later was composing couplets expressing his loyalty to the

returned king. He married Lady Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of a royalist house, and for practically all the

rest of his life remained an adherent of the Tory Party. In 1663 he began writing for the stage, and during the

next thirty years he attempted nearly all the current forms of drama. His "Annus Mirabilis" (1666),

celebrating the English naval victories over the Dutch, brought him in 1670 the Poet Laureateship. He had,

meantime, begun the writing of those admirable critical essays, represented in the present series by his

Preface to the "Fables" and his Dedication to the translation of Virgil. In these he shows himself not only a

critic of sound and penetrating judgment, but the first master of modern English prose style.

With "Absalom and Achitophel," a satire on the Whig leader, Shaftesbury, Dryden entered a new phase, and

achieved what is regarded as "the finest of all political satires." This was followed by "The Medal," again

directed against the Whigs, and this by "Mac Flecknoe," a fierce attack on his enemy and rival Shadwell. The

After triumphing in the three fields of drama, criticism, and satire, Dryden appears next as a religious poet in

his "Religio Laici," an exposition of the doctrines of the Church of England from a layman's point of view. In

the same year that the Catholic James II. ascended the throne, Dryden joined the Roman Church, and two

years later defended his new religion in "The Hind and the Panther," an allegorical debate between two

The Revolution of 1688 put an end to Dryden's prosperity; and after a short return to dramatic composition,

he turned to translation as a means of supporting himself. He had already done something in this line; and

after a series of translations from Juvenal, Persius, and Ovid, he undertook, at the age of sixtythree, the

enormous task of turning the entire works of Virgil into English verse. How he succeeded in this, readers of

the "Aeneid" in a companion volume of these classics can judge for themselves. Dryden's production closes

with the collection of narrative poems called "Fables," published in 1700, in which year he died and was

Dryden lived in an age of reaction against excessive religious idealism, and both his character and his works

are marked by the somewhat unheroic traits of such a period. But he was, on the whole, an honest man, open

minded, genial, candid, and modest; the wielder of a style, both in verse and prose, unmatched for clearness,

Three types of comedy appeared in England in the time of Dryden the comedy of humors, the comedy of

intrigue, and the comedy of mannersand in all he did work that classed him with the ablest of his

contemporaries. He developed the somewhat bombastic type of drama known as the heroic play, and brought

it to its height in his "Conquest of Granada"; then, becoming dissatisfied with this form, he cultivated the

French classic tragedy on the model of Racine. This he modified by combining with the regularity of the

French treatment of dramatic action a richness of characterization in which he showed himself a disciple of

Shakespeare, and of this mixed type his best example is "All for Love." Here he has the daring to challenge

comparison with his master, and the greatest testimony to his achievement is the fact that, as Professor Noyes

has said, "fresh from Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra,' we can still read with intense pleasure Dryden's

To the Right Honourable, Thomas, Earl of Danby, Viscount Latimer, and Baron Osborne of Kiveton, in

Yorkshire; Lord High Treasurer of England, one of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, and

The gratitude of poets is so troublesome a virtue to great men, that you are often in danger of your own

benefits: for you are threatened with some epistle, and not suffered to do good in quiet, or to compound for

their silence whom you have obliged. Yet, I confess, I neither am or ought to be surprised at this indulgence;

for your lordship has the same right to favour poetry, which the great and noble have ever had

There is somewhat of a tie in nature betwixt those who are born for worthy actions, and those who can

transmit them to posterity; and though ours be much the inferior part, it comes at least within the verge of

alliance; nor are we unprofitable members of the commonwealth, when we animate others to those virtues,

It is indeed their interest, who endeavour the subversion of governments, to discourage poets and historians;

for the best which can happen to them, is to be forgotten. But such who, under kings, are the fathers of their

country, and by a just and prudent ordering of affairs preserve it, have the same reason to cherish the

chroniclers of their actions, as they have to lay up in safety the deeds and evidences of their estates; for such

records are their undoubted titles to the love and reverence of after ages. Your lordship's administration has

already taken up a considerable part of the English annals; and many of its most happy years are owing to it.

His Majesty, the most knowing judge of men, and the best master, has acknowledged the ease and benefit he

receives in the incomes of his treasury, which you found not only disordered, but exhausted. All things were

in the confusion of a chaos, without form or method, if not reduced beyond it, even to annihilation; so that

you had not only to separate the jarring elements, but (if that boldness of expression might be allowed me) to

create them. Your enemies had so embroiled the management of your office, that they looked on your

advancement as the instrument of your ruin. And as if the clogging of the revenue, and the confusion of

accounts, which you found in your entrance, were not sufficient, they added their own weight of malice to the

public calamity, by forestalling the credit which should cure it. Your friends on the other side were only

capable of pitying, but not of aiding you; no further help or counsel was remaining to you, but what was

founded on yourself; and that indeed was your security; for your diligence, your constancy, and your

prudence, wrought most surely within, when they were not disturbed by any outward motion. The highest

virtue is best to be trusted with itself; for assistance only can be given by a genius superior to that which it

assists; and it is the noblest kind of debt, when we are only obliged to God and nature. This then, my lord, is

your just commendation, and that you have wrought out yourself a way to glory, by those very means that

were designed for your destruction: You have not only restored but advanced the revenues of your master,

without grievance to the subject; and, as if that were little yet, the debts of the exchequer, which lay heaviest

both on the crown, and on private persons, have by your conduct been established in a certainty of

satisfaction. An action so much the more great and honourable, because the case was without the ordinary

relief of laws; above the hopes of the afflicted and beyond the narrowness of the treasury to redress, had it

been managed by a less able hand. It is certainly the happiest, and most unenvied part of all your fortune, to

do good to many, while you do injury to none; to receive at once the prayers of the subject, and the praises of

the prince; and, by the care of your conduct, to give him means of exerting the chiefest (if any be the chiefest)

of his royal virtues, his distributive justice to the deserving, and his bounty and compassion to the wanting.

The disposition of princes towards their people cannot be better discovered than in the choice of their

ministers; who, like the animal spirits betwixt the soul and body, participate somewhat of both natures, and

make the communication which is betwixt them. A king, who is just and moderate in his nature, who rules

according to the laws, whom God has made happy by forming the temper of his soul to the constitution of his

government, and who makes us happy, by assuming over us no other sovereignty than that wherein our

welfare and liberty consists; a prince, I say, of so excellent a character, and so suitable to the wishes of all

good men, could not better have conveyed himself into his people's apprehensions, than in your lordship's

person; who so lively express the same virtues, that you seem not so much a copy, as an emanation of him.

Moderation is doubtless an establishment of greatness; but there is a steadiness of temper which is likewise

requisite in a minister of state; so equal a mixture of both virtues, that he may stand like an isthmus betwixt

the two encroaching seas of arbitrary power, and lawless anarchy. The undertaking would be difficult to any

but an extraordinary genius, to stand at the line, and to divide the limits; to pay what is due to the great

representative of the nation, and neither to enhance, nor to yield up, the undoubted prerogatives of the crown.

These, my lord, are the proper virtues of a noble Englishman, as indeed they are properly English virtues; no

people in the world being capable of using them, but we who have the happiness to be born under so equal,

and so wellpoised a government;a government which has all the advantages of liberty beyond a

commonwealth, and all the marks of kingly sovereignty, without the danger of a tyranny. Both my nature, as

I am an Englishman, and my reason, as I am a man, have bred in me a loathing to that specious name of a

republic; that mock appearance of a liberty, where all who have not part in the government, are slaves; and

slaves they are of a viler note, than such as are subjects to an absolute dominion. For no Christian monarchy

is so absolute, but it is circumscribed with laws; but when the executive power is in the lawmakers, there is

no further check upon them; and the people must suffer without a remedy, because they are oppressed by

their representatives. If I must serve, the number of my masters, who were born my equals, would but add to

the ignominy of my bondage. The nature of our government, above all others, is exactly suited both to the

situation of our country, and the temper of the natives; an island being more proper for commerce and for

defence, than for extending its dominions on the Continent; for what the valour of its inhabitants might gain,

by reason of its remoteness, and the casualties of the seas, it could not so easily preserve: And, therefore,

neither the arbitrary power of One, in a monarchy, nor of Many, in a commonwealth, could make us greater

than we are. It is true, that vaster and more frequent taxes might be gathered, when the consent of the people

was not asked or needed; but this were only by conquering abroad, to be poor at home; and the examples of

our neighbours teach us, that they are not always the happiest subjects, whose kings extend their dominions

farthest. Since therefore we cannot win by an offensive war, at least, a land war, the model of our government

seems naturally contrived for the defensive part; and the consent of a people is easily obtained to contribute

to that power which must protect it. Felices nimium, bona si sua norint, Angligenae! And yet there are not

wanting malcontents among us, who, surfeiting themselves on too much happiness, would persuade the

people that they might be happier by a change. It was indeed the policy of their old forefather, when himself

was fallen from the station of glory, to seduce mankind into the same rebellion with him, by telling him he

might yet be freer than he was; that is more free than his nature would allow, or, if I may so say, than God

could make him. We have already all the liberty which freeborn subjects can enjoy, and all beyond it is but

licence. But if it be liberty of conscience which they pretend, the moderation of our church is such, that its

practice extends not to the severity of persecution; and its discipline is withal so easy, that it allows more

freedom to dissenters than any of the sects would allow to it. In the meantime, what right can be pretended by

these men to attempt innovation in church or state? Who made them the trustees, or to speak a little nearer

their own language, the keepers of the liberty of England? If their call be extraordinary, let them convince us

by working miracles; for ordinary vocation they can have none, to disturb the government under which they

were born, and which protects them. He who has often changed his party, and always has made his interest

the rule of it, gives little evidence of his sincerity for the public good; it is manifest he changes but for

himself, and takes the people for tools to work his fortune. Yet the experience of all ages might let him know,

that they who trouble the waters first, have seldom the benefit of the fishing; as they who began the late

rebellion enjoyed not the fruit of their undertaking, but were crushed themselves by the usurpation of their

own instrument. Neither is it enough for them to answer, that they only intend a reformation of the

government, but not the subversion of it: on such pretence all insurrections have been founded; it is striking

at the root of power, which is obedience. Every remonstrance of private men has the seed of treason in it; and

discourses, which are couched in ambiguous terms, are therefore the more dangerous, because they do all the

mischief of open sedition, yet are safe from the punishment of the laws. These, my lord, are considerations,

which I should not pass so lightly over, had I room to manage them as they deserve; for no man can be so

inconsiderable in a nation, as not to have a share in the welfare of it; and if he be a true Englishman, he must

at the same time be fired with indignation, and revenge himself as he can on the disturbers of his country.

And to whom could I more fitly apply myself than to your lordship, who have not only an inborn, but an

hereditary loyalty? The memorable constancy and sufferings of your father, almost to the ruin of his estate,

for the royal cause, were an earnest of that which such a parent and such an institution would produce in the

person of a son. But so unhappy an occasion of manifesting your own zeal, in suffering for his present

majesty, the providence of God, and the prudence of your administration, will, I hope, prevent; that, as your

father's fortune waited on the unhappiness of his sovereign, so your own may participate of the better fate

which attends his son. The relation which you have by alliance to the noble family of your lady, serves to

confirm to you both this happy augury. For what can deserve a greater place in the English chronicle, than the

loyalty and courage, the actions and death, of the general of an army, fighting for his prince and country? The

honour and gallantry of the Earl of Lindsey is so illustrious a subject, that it is fit to adorn an heroic poem; for

he was the protomartyr of the cause, and the type of his unfortunate royal master.

Yet after all, my lord, if I may speak my thoughts, you are happy rather to us than to yourself; for the

multiplicity, the cares, and the vexations of your employment, have betrayed you from yourself, and given

you up into the possession of the public. You are robbed of your privacy and friends, and scarce any hour of

your life you can call your own. Those, who envy your fortune, if they wanted not goodnature, might more

justly pity it; and when they see you watched by a crowd of suitors, whose importunity it is impossible to

avoid, would conclude, with reason, that you have lost much more in true content, than you have gained by

dignity; and that a private gentleman is better attended by a single servant, than your lordship with so

clamorous a train. Pardon me, my lord, if I speak like a philosopher on this subject; the fortune which makes

a man uneasy, cannot make him happy; and a wise man must think himself uneasy, when few of his actions

This last consideration has brought me to another, and a very seasonable one for your relief; which is, that

while I pity your want of leisure, I have impertinently detained you so long a time. I have put off my own

business, which was my dedication, till it is so late, that I am now ashamed to begin it; and therefore I will

say nothing of the poem, which I present to you, because I know not if you are like to have an hour, which,

with a good conscience, you may throw away in perusing it; and for the author, I have only to beg the

The death of Antony and Cleopatra is a subject which has been treated by the greatest wits of our nation, after

Shakespeare; and by all so variously, that their example has given me the confidence to try myself in this bow

of Ulysses amongst the crowd of suitors, and, withal, to take my own measures, in aiming at the mark. I

doubt not but the same motive has prevailed with all of us in this attempt; I mean the excellency of the moral:

For the chief persons represented were famous patterns of unlawful love; and their end accordingly was

unfortunate. All reasonable men have long since concluded, that the hero of the poem ought not to be a

character of perfect virtue, for then he could not, without injustice, be made unhappy; nor yet altogether

wicked, because he could not then be pitied. I have therefore steered the middle course; and have drawn the

character of Antony as favourably as Plutarch, Appian, and Dion Cassius would give me leave; the like I

have observed in Cleopatra. That which is wanting to work up the pity to a greater height, was not afforded

me by the story; for the crimes of love, which they both committed, were not occasioned by any necessity, or

fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary; since our passions are, or ought to be, within our power. The

fabric of the play is regular enough, as to the inferior parts of it; and the unities of time, place, and action,

more exactly observed, than perhaps the English theatre requires. Particularly, the action is so much one, that

it is the only one of the kind without episode, or underplot; every scene in the tragedy conducing to the main

design, and every act concluding with a turn of it. The greatest error in the contrivance seems to be in the

person of Octavia; for, though I might use the privilege of a poet, to introduce her into Alexandria, yet I had

not enough considered, that the compassion she moved to herself and children was destructive to that which I

reserved for Antony and Cleopatra; whose mutual love being founded upon vice, must lessen the favour of

the audience to them, when virtue and innocence were oppressed by it. And, though I justified Antony in

some measure, by making Octavia's departure to proceed wholly from herself; yet the force of the first

machine still remained; and the dividing of pity, like the cutting of a river into many channels, abated the

strength of the natural stream. But this is an objection which none of my critics have urged against me; and

therefore I might have let it pass, if I could have resolved to have been partial to myself. The faults my

enemies have found are rather cavils concerning little and not essential decencies; which a master of the

ceremonies may decide betwixt us. The French poets, I confess, are strict observers of these punctilios: They

would not, for example, have suffered Cleopatra and Octavia to have met; or, if they had met, there must

have only passed betwixt them some cold civilities, but no eagerness of repartee, for fear of offending against

the greatness of their characters, and the modesty of their sex. This objection I foresaw, and at the same time

contemned; for I judged it both natural and probable, that Octavia, proud of her newgained conquest, would

search out Cleopatra to triumph over her; and that Cleopatra, thus attacked, was not of a spirit to shun the

encounter: And it is not unlikely, that two exasperated rivals should use such satire as I have put into their

mouths; for, after all, though the one were a Roman, and the other a queen, they were both women. It is true,

some actions, though natural, are not fit to be represented; and broad obscenities in words ought in good

manners to be avoided: expressions therefore are a modest clothing of our thoughts, as breeches and

petticoats are of our bodies. If I have kept myself within the bounds of modesty, all beyond, it is but nicety

and affectation; which is no more but modesty depraved into a vice. They betray themselves who are too

quick of apprehension in such cases, and leave all reasonable men to imagine worse of them, than of the poet.

Honest Montaigne goes yet further: Nous ne sommes que ceremonie; la ceremonie nous emporte, et laissons

la substance des choses. Nous nous tenons aux branches, et abandonnons le tronc et le corps. Nous avons

appris aux dames de rougir, oyans seulement nommer ce qu'elles ne craignent aucunement a faire: Nous

n'osons appeller a droit nos membres, et ne craignons pas de les employer a toute sorte de debauche. La

ceremonie nous defend d'exprimer par paroles les choses licites et naturelles, et nous l'en croyons; la raison

nous defend de n'en faire point d'illicites et mauvaises, et personne ne l'en croit. My comfort is, that by this

opinion my enemies are but sucking critics, who would fain be nibbling ere their teeth are come.

Yet, in this nicety of manners does the excellency of French poetry consist. Their heroes are the most civil

people breathing; but their good breeding seldom extends to a word of sense; all their wit is in their

ceremony; they want the genius which animates our stage; and therefore it is but necessary, when they cannot

please, that they should take care not to offend. But as the civilest man in the company is commonly the

dullest, so these authors, while they are afraid to make you laugh or cry, out of pure good manners make you

sleep. They are so careful not to exasperate a critic, that they never leave him any work; so busy with the

broom, and make so clean a riddance that there is little left either for censure or for praise: For no part of a

poem is worth our discommending, where the whole is insipid; as when we have once tasted of palled wine,

we stay not to examine it glass by glass. But while they affect to shine in trifles, they are often careless in

essentials. Thus, their Hippolytus is so scrupulous in point of decency, that he will rather expose himself to

death, than accuse his stepmother to his father; and my critics I am sure will commend him for it. But we of

grosser apprehensions are apt to think that this excess of generosity is not practicable, but with fools and

madmen. This was good manners with a vengeance; and the audience is like to be much concerned at the

misfortunes of this admirable hero. But take Hippolytus out of his poetic fit, and I suppose he would think it a

wiser part to set the saddle on the right horse, and choose rather to live with the reputation of a plainspoken,

honest man, than to die with the infamy of an incestuous villain. In the meantime we may take notice, that

where the poet ought to have preserved the character as it was delivered to us by antiquity, when he should

have given us the picture of a rough young man, of the Amazonian strain, a jolly huntsman, and both by his

profession and his early rising a mortal enemy to love, he has chosen to give him the turn of gallantry, sent

him to travel from Athens to Paris, taught him to make love, and transformed the Hippolytus of Euripides

into Monsieur Hippolyte. I should not have troubled myself thus far with French poets, but that I find our

Chedreux critics wholly form their judgments by them. But for my part, I desire to be tried by the laws of my

own country; for it seems unjust to me, that the French should prescribe here, till they have conquered. Our

little sonneteers, who follow them, have too narrow souls to judge of poetry. Poets themselves are the most

proper, though I conclude not the only critics. But till some genius, as universal as Aristotle, shall arise, one

who can penetrate into all arts and sciences, without the practice of them, I shall think it reasonable, that the

judgment of an artificer in his own art should be preferable to the opinion of another man; at least where he is

not bribed by interest, or prejudiced by malice. And this, I suppose, is manifest by plain inductions: For, first,

the crowd cannot be presumed to have more than a gross instinct of what pleases or displeases them: Every

man will grant me this; but then, by a particular kindness to himself, he draws his own stake first, and will be

distinguished from the multitude, of which other men may think him one. But, if I come closer to those who

are allowed for witty men, either by the advantage of their quality, or by common fame, and affirm that

neither are they qualified to decide sovereignly concerning poetry, I shall yet have a strong party of my

opinion; for most of them severally will exclude the rest, either from the number of witty men, or at least of

able judges. But here again they are all indulgent to themselves; and every one who believes himself a wit,

that is, every man, will pretend at the same time to a right of judging. But to press it yet further, there are

many witty men, but few poets; neither have all poets a taste of tragedy. And this is the rock on which they

are daily splitting. Poetry, which is a picture of nature, must generally please; but it is not to be understood

that all parts of it must please every man; therefore is not tragedy to be judged by a witty man, whose taste is

only confined to comedy. Nor is every man, who loves tragedy, a sufficient judge of it; he must understand

the excellences of it too, or he will only prove a blind admirer, not a critic. From hence it comes that so many

satires on poets, and censures of their writings, fly abroad. Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed

so), and endued with a trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out with some smattering of Latin, are ambitious

And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what fortune has done for them, and sit down

quietly with their estates, but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their nakedness to

public view? Not considering that they are not to expect the same approbation from sober men, which they

have found from their flatterers after the third bottle. If a little glittering in discourse has passed them on us

for witty men, where was the necessity of undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an

estate, but yet is in possession of it; would he bring it of his own accord, to be tried at Westminster? We who

write, if we want the talent, yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in

their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make

themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right, where he said, "That no man is satisfied with his

own condition." A poet is not pleased, because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented, because the poets

will not admit them of their number. Thus the case is hard with writers: If they succeed not, they must starve;

and if they do, some malicious satire is prepared to level them, for daring to please without their leave. But

while they are so eager to destroy the fame of others, their ambition is manifest in their concernment; some

poem of their own is to be produced, and the slaves are to be laid flat with their faces on the ground, that the

Dionysius and Nero had the same longings, but with all their power they could never bring their business

well about. 'Tis true, they proclaimed themselves poets by sound of trumpet; and poets they were, upon pain

of death to any man who durst call them otherwise. The audience had a fine time on't, you may imagine; they

sat in a bodily fear, and looked as demurely as they could: for it was a hanging matter to laugh unseasonably;

and the tyrants were suspicious, as they had reason, that their subjects had them in the wind; so, every man, in

his own defence, set as good a face upon the business as he could. It was known beforehand that the

monarchs were to be crowned laureates; but when the show was over, and an honest man was suffered to

depart quietly, he took out his laughter which he had stifled, with a firm resolution never more to see an

emperor's play, though he had been ten years amaking it. In the meantime the true poets were they who

made the best markets: for they had wit enough to yield the prize with a good grace, and not contend with

him who had thirty legions. They were sure to be rewarded, if they confessed themselves bad writers, and that

was somewhat better than to be martyrs for their reputation. Lucan's example was enough to teach them

manners; and after he was put to death, for overcoming Nero, the emperor carried it without dispute for the

best poet in his dominions. No man was ambitious of that grinning honour; for if he heard the malicious

trumpeter proclaiming his name before his betters, he knew there was but one way with him. Maecenas took

another course, and we know he was more than a great man, for he was witty too: But finding himself far

gone in poetry, which Seneca assures us was not his talent, he thought it his best way to be well with Virgil

and with Horace; that at least he might be a poet at the second hand; and we see how happily it has succeeded

with him; for his own bad poetry is forgotten, and their panegyrics of him still remain. But they who should

be our patrons are for no such expensive ways to fame; they have much of the poetry of Maecenas, but little

of his liberality. They are for prosecuting Horace and Virgil, in the persons of their successors; for such is

every man who has any part of their soul and fire, though in a less degree. Some of their little zanies yet go

further; for they are persecutors even of Horace himself, as far as they are able, by their ignorant and vile

imitations of him; by making an unjust use of his authority, and turning his artillery against his friends. But

how would he disdain to be copied by such hands! I dare answer for him, he would be more uneasy in their

company, than he was with Crispinus, their forefather, in the Holy Way; and would no more have allowed

them a place amongst the critics, than he would Demetrius the mimic, and Tigellius the buffoon;

With what scorn would he look down on such miserable translators, who make doggerel of his Latin, mistake

his meaning, misapply his censures, and often contradict their own? He is fixed as a landmark to set out the

But other arms than theirs, and other sinews are required, to raise the weight of such an author; and when

For my part, I would wish no other revenge, either for myself, or the rest of the poets, from this rhyming

judge of the twelvepenny gallery, this legitimate son of Sternhold, than that he would subscribe his name to

his censure, or (not to tax him beyond his learning) set his mark: For, should he own himself publicly, and

come from behind the lion's skin, they whom he condemns would be thankful to him, they whom he praises

would choose to be condemned; and the magistrates, whom he has elected, would modestly withdraw from

their employment, to avoid the scandal of his nomination. The sharpness of his satire, next to himself, falls

most heavily on his friends, and they ought never to forgive him for commending them perpetually the wrong

way, and sometimes by contraries. If he have a friend, whose hastiness in writing is his greatest fault, Horace

would have taught him to have minced the matter, and to have called it readiness of thought, and a flowing

fancy; for friendship will allow a man to christen an imperfection by the name of some neighbour virtue

But he would never allowed him to have called a slow man hasty, or a hasty writer a slow drudge, as Juvenal

Yet Lucretius laughs at a foolish lover, even for excusing the imperfections of his mistress

But to drive it ad Aethiopem cygnum is not to be endured. I leave him to interpret this by the benefit of his

French version on the other side, and without further considering him, than I have the rest of my illiterate

censors, whom I have disdained to answer, because they are not qualified for judges. It remains that I

acquiant the reader, that I have endeavoured in this play to follow the practice of the ancients, who, as Mr.

Rymer has judiciously observed, are and ought to be our masters. Horace likewise gives it for a rule in his art

Yet, though their models are regular, they are too little for English tragedy; which requires to be built in a

larger compass. I could give an instance in the Oedipus Tyrannus, which was the masterpiece of Sophocles;

but I reserve it for a more fit occasion, which I hope to have hereafter. In my style, I have professed to imitate

the divine Shakespeare; which that I might perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme.

Not that I condemn my former way, but that this is more proper to my present purpose. I hope I need not to

explain myself, that I have not copied my author servilely: Words and phrases must of necessity receive a

change in succeeding ages; but it is almost a miracle that much of his language remains so pure; and that he

who began dramatic poetry amongst us, untaught by any, and as Ben Jonson tells us, without learning, should

by the force of his own genius perform so much, that in a manner he has left no praise for any who come after

him. The occasion is fair, and the subject would be pleasant to handle the difference of styles betwixt him and

Fletcher, and wherein, and how far they are both to be imitated. But since I must not be overconfident of my

own performance after him, it will be prudence in me to be silent. Yet, I hope, I may affirm, and without

vanity, that, by imitating him, I have excelled myself throughout the play; and particularly, that I prefer the

scene betwixt Antony and Ventidius in the first act, to anything which I have written in this kind.