cannot place Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who was so far from exercising his pen in any performance of that kind, that he thought the loud applause which had been bestowed for some years on the rhyming tragedies produced by D'Avenant, Dryden, Stapylton, Howard, Killigrew, and others, much misplaced, and resolved to correct the publick taste by holding them up to ridicule. With this view, in conjunction, it is said, with Martin Clifford, Master of the Charter-House, Butler, Sprat, and others, he wrote the celebrated farce entitled THE REHEARSAL. Some of the contemporary writers have stated, that it took up as much time as the Siege of Troy ;' and with justice ex 2 2 Buckingham's poem in answer to ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL, a piece utterly devoid of merit of any kind, furnishes us with a strong confirmation of the received opinion that he was aided by others in writing THE RE HEARSAL. Of one of his coadjutors, Martin Clifford, whom his contemporaries usually called Mat Clifford, little is known. Wood mentions in his manuscript additions to his own copy of the ATHENE OXONIENSIS, that he was a Lieutenant in Thomas Earl of Ossory's regiment in 1660; for which he quotes MERC. PUB. p. 510. He was elected from Westminster to Trinity College, Cambridge, ten years before our author went there; was made Master of the Charter-House Nov. 17, 1671; and died Dec. 10,1677. See THE STATE POEMS, vol. ii. p. 216: "On the Duke of Bucks." "I come to his farce, which must needs be well done, "For Troy was not longer before it was won, "Since 'tis more than ten years since this farce was begun: press their surprise, that such a combination of wits, and a period of ten years, should have been requisite for a work, which apparently a less numerous band could have produced without such mighty "With the help of pimps, plays, and table-chat, "With transcribing of these, and translating those, "But where the devil his own wit doth lie, "They must have very good eyes that espy, "Unless in the dances and mimickry. "I confess the dances are very well writ, "And the time and the tune by Haines are well set, 66 And Littelton's motion and dress has much wit: "But when his poet, John Bayes, did appear, "'Twas known to more than half that were there, "That the great'st part was his Grace's charactèr. "For he many years plagu'd his friends for their crimes, "Repeating his verses in other men's rhymes, "To the very same person ten thousand times. "But his Grace has tormented the players more "Than the Howards, or Flecknoes, or all the store "Of damned dull rogues that e'er plagu'd them before. "When in France, and in Spain, and in Holland, 'tis known, "What wonders our mighty statesman has done ; ""Twill make them all tremble to hear his renown. 4 throws. In the Key to this piece, published by a bookseller in 1704, we are told, that it was written, and ready for representation, before the middle of the year 1665, and that Sir Robert Howard, under the name of Bilboa, was then intended to have been the hero of the farce. That some interlude of this kind might have been thus early intended, is not improbable; but assuredly the original hero was not Howard, but D'Avenant; not only on account of the name of Bilboa, which alludes to his mili "For he that can libel the poets, and knows Our author, to whom these lines are ascribed in the 4 The Key to THE REHEARSAL was published by Samuel Briscoe, a bookseller, who lived opposite to Will's Coffee-House in Russel-strect, Covent-Garden, and appears to have been connected with several of the poets of his time. In the Preface to the Second volume of "Familiar Letters of Love and Gallantry," published by him not long after our author's death, he says, that " after he had finished his collection, he had received several original letters and poems of Mr. Dryden ;"--but they never appeared. Mr. Spence says, in his ANECDOTES, from the information of Dr. Lockier, that Tonson had a good Key to THE REHEARSAL, "but refused to print it, because he had been so much obliged to Dryden." tary character, (for he was Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance under the Duke of Newcastle, in the Civil Wars,) but from the circumstance of the patch that in the course of the drama he is obliged to wear on his nose; which can relate to none but D'Avenant. Besides, he was a much more distinguished character, not only as Poet Laureate, but as superintendant of the Duke of York's Company of Comedians, and the introducer of heroick plays on the English stage. The allusions to Sir Robert Howard's tragedies are so few and inconsiderable, that he never could have been the author's principal object.-As soon as it was resolved that Dryden should be the hero, an abundant use was made of his INDIAN EMPEROR and CONQUEST OF GRANADA; yet the author was unwilling to lose any of the strokes which were pe 5 D'Avenant had met with the misfortune here alluded to, before the breaking out of the Civil Wars, as appears from "A [fictitious] Letter sent by Sir John Suckling, from France, deploring his sad estate and plight," 4to. 1641: "The witty poet, let all know it, "In this design that I call mine, "Though he can write, he cannot fight, "And bravely take a fort-a, "Nor can he smell a project well, "His nose it is too short-a." culiarly levelled at D'Avenant, and thus the piece became a kind of patchwork. This lively farce was first performed on the 7th of December, 1671, and was published in the following year: a publication which, we are told by Prior," the Duke of Buckingham deferred for some time, till he was sure, as he expressed it, that my Lord Dorset would not rehearse on him again." Such was the high opinion then entertained of that nobleman's satirical powers. It was formerly a common notion that THE REHEARSAL was hissed off the stage the first night of its performance, though it afterwards met with a favourable reception: but this is a mistake. Though the poignancy of its satire is certainly somewhat abated by the lapse of more than a century, at the time of its original representation it must have afforded a high degree of entertainment. Much of the success, doubtless, was owing to the mimickry employed. Dryden's dress, and manner, and usual expressions, were all minutely copied, and the Duke of Buckingham took incredible pains in teaching Lacy, the original performer of Bayes, to speak some passages of that part:' in 6 ATH. OXON. vol. ii. col. 804. * It was entered in the Stationers' Register, by Thomas Dring, June 19, 1672. : Spence's ANECDOTES. 9 After the death of Lacy in 1681, the part of Bayes was played by Haines, who was famous for dancing and mimickry. |