All Almanzor For us and victory. A king entreats you. What subjects will precarious [imploring] kings regard? Lay down your arms! 'tis I command you now. Do it-or, by our prophet's soul I vow, My hands shall right your king on him I seize. Long live king Mahomet Boabdelin! No more; but hushed as midnight silence go: [The Common People go off in both parties. Empire, thou poor and despicable thing, When such as these make or unmake a king! THE REHEARSAL. [THIS famous burlesque is attributed to George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham (son of Charles I.'s minister), the Zimri of "Absalom and Achitophel," which see; though his ability to produce such a gem of wit, criticism, and parody has been questioned, and he certainly had much help. He was born in 1627, nineteen months before his father was murdered; educated at Cambridge; took the "grand tour"; on the outbreak of the Civil War came back and joined the king, was badly defeated and barely escaped from England, and his estates were confiscated. Returning with Charles II., he shared in the rout at Worcester, and again fled; returned once more and secretly married a daughter of Fairfax; was imprisoned in the Tower by Cromwell, and after the Restoration became disastrously influential with Charles II., being without principle or judgment, and a town-talk as a weathercock. He was a leading agent in Clarendon's overthrow and the robbery of the goldsmiths by the Exchequer, and was one of the "Cabal"; then coquetted with the democrats; tiring of politics, withdrew to private life and died in 1688. He dabbled in alchemy and music, and wrote verses and farces, all forgotten but this. "Bayes" ("the bays") of course implies the poet laureate, Dryden, and his rhyming plays, with their repeated double kingships, are parodied; but so are many others, and Bayes' own talk is made up largely of the genuine sillinesses of Lord Edward Howard.] แ BAYES-OH, DEVIL! I can toil like a horse; only so sometimes it makes me melancholy; and then, I vow to Gad, for a whole day together I am not able to say you one good thing, if it were to save my life. Smith-That do we verily believe, Mr. Bayes. Bayes-And that's the only thing, 'egad, which mads me in my amours; for I'll tell you, as a friend, Mr. Johnson, my acquaintance, I hear, begin to give out that I am dull - Now I am the farthest from it in the whole world, 'egad; but only, forsooth, they think I am so, because I can say nothing. a Johnson — Phoo, pox! that's ill-naturedly done of them. Bayes-Aye, 'gad, there's no trusting of these rogues― But come, let's sit down. Look you, sirs, the chief hinge of this play, upon which the whole plot moves and turns, and that causes the variety of all the several accidents, which, you know, are the things in nature that make up the grand refinement of a play, is, that I suppose two kings of the same place! as, for example, at Brentford: for I love to write familiarly. Now the people having the same relations to them both, the same affections, the same duty, the same obedience, and all that, are divided amongst themselves in point of devoir and interest, how to behave themselves equally between them. These kings differing sometimes in particular, though in the main they agree -I know not whether I make myself well understood. Johnson-I did not observe you, sir. Pray, say that again. Bayes-Why look you, sir; nay, I beseech you, be a little curious in taking notice of this (or else you'll never understand my notion of the thing): the people being embarrassed by their equal ties to both, and the sovereigns concerned in a reciprocal regard, as well to their own interest as the good of the people, they make a certain kind of a—you understand me-Upon which, there do arise several disputes, turmoils, heart-burnings, and all that-In fine, you'll understand it better when you see it. [Exit to call the players. Smith-I find the author will be very much obliged to the players, if they can make any sense out of this. Bayes [reëntering] - Now, gentlemen, I would fain ask your opinion of one thing: I have made a prologue and an epilogue, which may both serve for either, that is, the prologue for the epilogue, or the epilogue for the prologue; (do you mark?) nay, they may both serve too, 'egad, for any other play as well as this. Smith-Very well; that's indeed artificial. Bayes- And I would fain ask your judgments, now, which of them would do best for the prologue. For, you must know, there is, in nature, but two ways of making very good prologues. The one is by civility, by insinuation, good language, and all that, to—a— in a manner, steal your plaudit from the courtesy of the auditors: the other, by making use of some certain personal things, which may keep a hank upon such censuring persons, as cannot otherways, 'egad, in nature, be hindered from being too free with their tongues; to which end, my first prologue is, that I come out in a long black veil, and a great huge hangman behind me, with a furred cap, and his sword drawn; and there tell them plainly, that if, out of good nature, they will not like my play, 'egad, I'll e'en kneel down, and he shall cut my head off. Whereupon they all fall a clapping—a— Smith-Aye, but suppose they don't. Bayes-Suppose! Sir, you may suppose what you please; I have nothing to do with your suppose, sir; nor am at all mortified at it; not at all, sir; 'egad, not one jot, sir. Suppose, quoth-a! —ha, ha, ha! [Walks away. Johnson-Phoo! pr'ythee, Bayes, don't mind what he says; he's a fellow newly come out of the country; he knows nothing of what's the relish here, of the town. Bayes-If I writ, sir, to please the country, I should have followed the old plain way; but I write for some persons of quality, and peculiar friends of mine, that understand what flame and power in writing is; and they do me right, sir, to approve of what I do. Johnson - Aye, aye, they will clap, I warrant you; never fear it. Bayes-I am sure the design is good; that cannot be denied. And then for language, 'egad, I defy them all in nature to mend it. Besides, sir, I have printed above a hundred sheets of paper, to insinuate the plot into the boxes; and withal have appointed two or three dozen of my friends to be ready in the pit, who I'm sure will clap, and so the rest, you know, must follow; and then, pray, sir, what becomes of your suppose? Ha, ha, ha! Johnson-Nay, if the business be so well laid, it cannot miss. Bayes- I think so, sir; and therefore would chuse this to be the prologue. For if I could engage them to clap before they see the play, you know it would be so much the better, because then they were engaged; for let a man write ever so well, there are, nowadays, a sort of persons they call critics, that, 'egad, have no more wit in them than so many hobby-horses; A but they'll laugh at you, sir, and find fault, and censure things that, 'egad, I'm sure they are not able to do themselves. sort of envious persons, that emulate the glories of persons of parts, and think to build their fame by calumniating of persons that, 'egad, to my knowledge, of all persons in the world are, in nature, the persons that do as much despise all that asa - In fine, I'll say no more of them. Johnson-Nay, you have said enough of them, in all conscience; I'm sure more than they'll e'er be able to answer. Bayes - Why, I'll tell you, sir, sincerely, and bona fide, were it not for the sake of some ingenious persons, and choice female spirits, that have a value for me, I would see them all hanged, 'egad, before I would e'er set pen to paper, but let them live in ignorance, like ingrates. Johnson-Aye, marry, that there were a way to be revenged of them indeed; and if I were in your place now, I would do so. Bayes—No, sir; there are certain ties upon me, that I canot be disengaged from, otherwise I would. Bayes-Now, sir, because I'll do nothing here that was ever done before, instead of beginning with a scene that discovers something of the plot, I begin this play with a whisper. Smith-Umph! very new indeed. Bayes - Come, take your seats. Begin, sirs. GENTLEMAN-USHER and PHYSICIAN enter. Physician-Sir, by your habit, I should guess you to be the gentleman-usher of this sumptuous palace. Usher And by your gait and fashion, I should almost suspect you rule the healths of both our noble kings, under the notion [title] of physician. Physician-You hit my function right. Usher And you mine. Physician-Then let's embrace. Physician Come. Johnson Pray, sir, who are those so very civil persons? Bayes-Why, sir, the gentleman-usher and physician of the two kings of Brentford. Johnson-But, pray, then, how comes it to pass that they know one another no better? Bayes-Phoo! that's for the better carrying on of the plot. Johnson-Very well. Physician-Sir, to conclude Smith-What, before he begins? Bayes-No, sir, you must know they had been talking of this a pretty while without. Smith-Where? In the tiring room? again. Come, speak Physician-Sir, to conclude, the place you fill has more than amply exacted the talents of a wary pilot; and all these threatening storms, which, like impregnate clouds, hover o'er our heads, will (when they once are grasp'd but by the eye of reason) melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people. Bayes-Pray, mark that allegory! Is not that good? Johnson-Yes, that grasping of a storm with the eye is admirable. Physician-But yet some rumors great are stirring; and if Lorenzo should prove false (which none but the great gods can tell), you then, perhaps, would find that Bayes- Now he whispers. [Whispers. Then, sir, most certain 'twill in time appear, These are the reasons that have moved him to 't: Bayes-Now the other whispers. Usher-Secondly, they — Bayes-At it still. Usher Thirdly, and lastly, both he and they Bayes-Now they both whisper. [Whispers. [Whispers. [Exeunt whispering. Now, gentlemen, pray tell me true, and without flattery, is not this a very odd beginning of a play? |