iii. Dryden and the Duke of Buckingham.
From Dean Lockier, through the medium of the Rev. Joseph Spence,[1] has come down to us the highly improbable story of the Duke of Buckingham’s impromptu ridicule of a line in an unnamed play of Dryden’s, which not only resulted in the immediate and total discomfiture of the actress who spoke it, but also damned the the poet of the benefit of the deprived third day’s performance. No other reference to such an incident is to be found, and one takes leave to doubt whether it ever occurred. The story has been so frequently repeated and discussed that it is curious that no one has noticed the two following passages, which seem to refer to the original line, wherever it appeared, and the rejoinder to it.
The first is to be found in S’ too him Bayes: Or Some Observations upon the Humour of Writing Rehearsals Transprosed. Oxon: 1673, 8vo, p. 7. “And, there was a time (another happy time) when the Clergy needed no more knowledge then to read the Liturgy.
(The Wound was great because it was but small)
Th’adst been a Bishop needed none at all.”
The second is in Notes And Observations On The Empress of Morocco. 1674, 4to, p. 62.
“His argument runs thus: No Traitor can come within the Sphere of Morena, but I can come within the Sphere of Morena, therefore I am no Traitor: what could his Father reply to this; but that his treason greater was for being small; And had been greater were it none at all.”
If this had been founded on what was originally a joke at Dryden’s expense, it is extremely unlikely to have made its appearance in a tract of which he was part-author, or, having so appeared, to have been left without comment in Notes And Observations On
- ↑ Spence’s Anecdotes, ed. Singer, pp. 61–62.
