Prologue[1] To The University Of Oxford, 1681.

    The famed Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance
    Orlando and the Paladins of France,
    Records, that, when our wit and sense is flown,
    'Tis lodged within the circle of the moon,
    In earthen jars, which one, who thither soar'd,
    Set to his nose, snuff'd up, and was restored.
    Whate'er the story be, the moral's true;
    The wit we lost in town, we find in you.
    Our poets their fled parts may draw from hence,
    And fill their windy heads with sober sense.
    When London votes with Southwark's disagree,
    Here may they find their long-lost loyalty.
    Here busy senates, to the old cause inclined,
    May snuff the votes their fellows left behind:
    Your country neighbours, when their grain grows dear,
    May come, and find their last provision here:
    Whereas we cannot much lament our loss,
    Who neither carried back, nor brought one cross.
    We look'd what representatives would bring;
    But they help'd us, just as they did the king.
    Yet we despair not; for we now lay forth
    The Sibyl's books to those who know their worth;
    And though the first was sacrificed before,
    These volumes doubly will the price restore.
    Our poet bade us hope this grace to find,
    To whom by long prescription you are kind.
    He whose undaunted Muse, with loyal rage,
    Has never spared the vices of the age,
    Here finding nothing that his spleen can raise,
    Is forced to turn his satire into praise.

John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England’s first Poet Laureate in 1668. His work dominated the literary life of Restoration England and he is seen as a major figure in the literary history of the period. Dryden's notable works include the satirical poem 'Absalom and Achitophel' and the mock-heroic 'Mac Flecknoe.'

John Dryden

Prologue To The University Of Oxford, 1674.

John Dryden, Simple Poetry

To The Duchess Of York, On Her Return From Scotland In The Year 1682.

John Dryden, Simple Poetry

Song In The "Maiden Queen."

John Dryden, Simple Poetry

Prologue To "Cæsar Borgia;"[1] By Nathan Lee, 1680.

John Dryden, Simple Poetry

English

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Prologue To The University Of Oxford, 1674.

SPOKEN BY MR HART.


    Poets, your subjects have their parts assign'd
    To unbend, and to divert their sovereign's mind:
    When tired with following nature, you think fit
    To seek repose in the cool shades of wit,
    And, from the sweet retreat, with joy survey
    What rests, and what is conquer'd, of the way.
    Here, free yourselves from envy, care, and strife
    You view the various turns of human life:
    Safe in our scene, through dangerous courts you go,
    And, undebauch'd, the vice of cities know.
    Your theories are here to practice brought,
    As in mechanic operations wrought;
    And man, the little world, before you set,
    As once the sphere^[1] of crystal show'd the great.
    Blest, sure, are you above all mort...

John Dryden

Prologue To The University Of Oxford.

    Though actors cannot much of learning boast,
    Of all who want it, we admire it most:
    We love the praises of a learned pit,
    As we remotely are allied to wit.
    We speak our poet's wit, and trade in ore,
    Like those who touch upon the golden shore:
    Betwixt our judges can destinction make,
    Discern how much, and why, our poems take:
    Mark if the fools, or men of sense, rejoice;
    Whether the applause be only sound or voice.
    When our fop gallants, or our city folly,
    Clap over-loud, it makes us melancholy:
    We doubt that scene which does their wonder raise,
    And, for their ignorance, contemn their praise.
    Judge then, if we who act, and they who write,
    Should not be proud of giving you delight.
    London likes g...

John Dryden

Prologue To The University Of Oxford, Spoken By Mr Hart, At The Acting Of "The Silent Woman."

    What Greece, when learning flourish'd, only knew,
    Athenian judges, you this day renew;
    Here too are annual rites to Pallas done,
    And here poetic prizes lost or won.
    Methinks I see you, crown'd with olives, sit,
    And strike a sacred horror from the pit.
    A day of doom is this of your decree,
    Where even the best are but by mercy free:
    A day, which none but Jonson durst have wish'd to see.
    Here they, who long have known the useful stage,
    Come to be taught themselves to teach the age.
    As your commissioners our poets go,
    To cultivate the virtue which you sow;
    In your Lycaeum first themselves refined,
    And delegated thence to human-kind.
    But as ambassadors, when long from home,
    For new instructions to ...

John Dryden

Epilogue, Spoken By The Same.

(Prologue To The University Of Oxford, Spoken By Mr Hart, At The Acting Of "The Silent Woman.")


    No poor Dutch peasant, wing'd with all his fear,
    Flies with more haste, when the French arms draw near,
    Than we with our poetic train come down,
    For refuge hither, from the infected town:
    Heaven, for our sins, this summer has thought fit
    To visit us with all the plagues of wit.
    A French troop first swept all things in its way;
    But those hot Monsieurs were too quick to stay:
    Yet, to our cost, in that short time, we find
    They left their itch of novelty behind.
    The Italian Merry-Andrews took their place,
    And quite debauch'd the stage with lewd grimace:
    Instead of wit and humours, your delight
    Was there to see tw...

John Dryden

Prologue To The University Of Oxford.

    Discord and plots, which have undone our age,
    With the same ruin have o'erwhelm'd the stage.
    Our house has suffer'd in the common woe,
    We have been troubled with Scotch rebels too.
    Our brethren are from Thames to Tweed departed,
    And of our sisters, all the kinder-hearted,
    To Edinburgh gone, or coach'd, or carted.
    With bonny bluecap there they act all night
    For Scotch half-crown, in English three-pence hight.
    One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaff's lean,
    There with her single person fills the scene.
    Another, with long use and age decay'd,
    Dived here old woman, and rose there a maid.
    Our trusty doorkeepers of former time
    There strut and swagger in heroic rhyme.
    Tack but a copper-lace to drugget suit,<...

John Dryden

To My Dear Friend Mr Congreve, On His Comedy Called "The Double-Dealer."

    Well, then, the promised hour is come at last,
    The present age of wit obscures the past:
    Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ,
    Conquering with force of arms, and dint of wit:
    Theirs was the giant race, before the flood;
    And thus, when Charles return'd, our empire stood.
    Like Janus he the stubborn soil manured,
    With rules of husbandry the rankness cured;
    Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude;
    And boisterous English wit with art endued.
    Our age was cultivated thus at length;
    But what we gain'd in skill we lost in strength.
    Our builders were with want of genius cursed;
    The second temple was not like the first:
    Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length;
    Our beauties equal, but exce...

John Dryden