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DEDICATION

OF

LOVE TRIUMPHANT,

OR, NATURE WILL PREVAIL.7

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JAMES, EARL OF SALISBURY, &c.&

MY LORD,

THIS poem being the last which I intend

for the theatre, ought to have the same provision made for it, which old men make for their youngest child, which is commonly a favourite. They who

7 This tragi-comedy, which has no preface, was the last piece produced by our author for the stage. It was represented at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, by their Majesties' Servants, early in 1694, in which year it was first printed. He was now about to undertake his great work, the translation of Virgil.

A contemporary writer, who appears to have been no great admirer of our author, whom he calls "huffing Dryden, thus speaks of this drama, in a letter, dated March the 22d, 1693-4, which I have given at length in the HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH STAGE: "The second play is Mr. Dryden's, called Love TRIUMPHANt, or NATURE WILL PREVAIL. It is a tragi-comedy, but in my opinion one of the worst he ever writ, if not the very

were born before it carry away the right of patrimony by right of eldership: this is to make its fortune in the world; and since I can do little for it, natural affection calls upon me to put it out, at least, into the best service which I can procure for it. And as it is the usual practice of our decayed gentry to look about them for some illustrious family, and there endeavour to fix their young darling, where he may be both well educated and supported, I have herein also followed the custom of the world, and am satisfied in my judgment that I could not have made a more worthy choice. It is true, I am not vain enough to think that any thing of mine can in any measure be worthy of your Lordship's patronage; and yet I should be ashamed to leave the stage without some acknow

worst: the comical part descends beneath the style and show of a Bartholomew-Fair droll. It was damned by the universal cry of the town, nemine contradicente but the conceited poet. He says in his prologue, that this is the last the town must expect from him; he had done himself a kindness, had he taken his leave before."

8 James, the fourth Earl of Salisbury, was the son of James, the third Earl, and of Margaret, daughter of John Manners, Earl of Rutland. On the death of his father in 1683, he succeeded to the title; and he died a few months after this play was dedicated to him. The circumstances of his having become a convert to popery, and being warmly attached to the interest of James the Second, must have particularly endeared this nobleman to our author, who was also connected with his family by marriage.

ledgment of your former favours, which I have more than once experienced. Besides the honour of my wife's relation to your noble house, to which my sons may plead some title, though I cannot, you have been pleased to take a particular notice of me, even in this lowness of my fortunes, to which I have voluntarily reduced myself, and of which I have no reason to be ashamed. This condescension, my Lord, is not only becoming of your ancient family, but of your personal character in the world; and if I value myself the more for your indulgence to me, and of your opinion of me, it is because any thing which you like ought to be considered as something in itself; and therefore I must not undervalue my present labours, because I have presumed to make you my patron. A man may be just to himself, though he ought not to be partial. And I dare affirm, that the several manners which I have given to the persons of this drama are truly drawn from nature, all perfectly distinguished from each other; that the fable is not injudiciously contrived; that the turns of fortune are not managed unartfully; and that the last revolution is happily enough invented. Aristotle, I acknowledge, has declared,

9 William, the second Earl of Salisbury, married Catharine, daughter of Thomas, Earl of Suffolk, and sister of Charles, Earl of Berkshire; whose daughter, Lady Elizabeth Dryden, was consequently cousin-german to Charles, Lord Cranbourne, who was grandfather to the nobleman here addressed.

that the catastrophe which is made from the change of will is not one of the first order for beauty; but it may reasonably be alledged in defence of this play, as well as of the CINNA, (which I take to be the very best of Corneille's,) that the philosopher who made the rule, copied all the laws which he gave for the theatre from the authorities and examples of the Greek poets which he had read; and from their poverty of invention he could get nothing but mean conclusions of wretched tales, where the mind of the chief actor was for the most part changed without art or preparation, only because the poet could not otherwise end his play. Had it been possible for Aristotle to have seen the CINNA, I am confident he would have. altered his opinion; and concluded, that a simple change of will might be managed with so much judgment, as to render it the most agreeable as well as the most surprizing part of the whole fable; let Dacier, and all the rest of the modern criticks, who are too much bigotted to the ancients, contend never so much to the contrary.

I was afraid that I had been the inventor of a new sort of designing, when in my third act I make a discovery of my Alphonso's true parentage. If it were so, what wonder had it been that dramatick poetry, though a limited art, yet might be capable of receiving some innovations for the better; but afterwards I casually found that Menander and Terence, in the HEAUTONTIMORUMENOS, had been before me, and made the same

As for the

kind of discovery in the same act.
mechanick unities, that of time is much within
the compass of an astrological day, which begins
at twelve, and ends at the same hour the day
following. That of place is not observed so justly
by me, as by the ancients; for their scene was
always one, and almost constantly some publick
place. Some of the late French poets, and amongst
the English, my most ingenious friend Mr. Con-
greve, have observed this rule strictly; though the
place was not altogether so publick as a street. I
have followed the example of Corneille, and
stretched the latitude to a street and palace, not
far distant from each other in the same city. They
who will not allow this liberty to a poet, make it
a very ridiculous thing for an audience to suppose
themselves sometimes to be in a field, sometimes
in a garden, and at other times in a chamber.
There are not indeed so many absurdities in their
supposition as in ours; but it is an original absur-
dity for the audience to suppose themselves to be
in any other place than in the very theatre in
which they sit; which is neither chamber, nor
garden, nor yet a publick place of any business,
but that of the representation.

For my action, it is evidently double; and in that I have most of the ancients for my examples. Yet I dare not defend this way by reason, much less by their authority; for their actions, though double, were of the same species, that is to say, in their comedies two amours; and their persons

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