The works of John Dryden Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author, by Sir Walter Scott |
11 | IX. |
9 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
I. |
II. |
1 | X. |
I. |
II. |
III. |
1 |
1 |
PROLOGUE TO SOPHONISBA;
|
6 | XI. |
4 |
I. |
II. |
III. |
IV. |
V. |
2 | VI. |
VII. |
VIII. |
IX. |
X. |
XI. |
XII. |
XIII. |
XIV. |
XV. |
2 | XVI. |
1 |
1 |
I. |
II. |
III. |
IV. |
V. |
VI. |
VII. |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
I. |
II. |
III. |
1 | XII. |
1 |
1 |
26 | XIII. |
4 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
1 | 1. |
1 |
2. |
3. |
2 | 4. |
5. |
6. |
19 |
8 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
10 |
1 | I. |
1 | II. |
III. |
2 | IV. |
V. |
1 | VI. |
VII. |
1 | VIII. |
3 | IX. |
1 | X. |
60 | XIV, XV. |
14 |
4 | I. |
3 | II. |
5 | III. |
2 | IV. |
42 |
1 | I. |
1 | II. |
2 | III. |
6 | IV. |
2 | V. |
14 | VI. |
4 | VII. |
1 | VIII. |
3 | IX. |
1 | X. |
XI. |
7 | XII. |
4 |
4 |
I. |
1 | II. |
1 |
1 | III. |
1 |
2 | IV. |
The works of John Dryden | ||
347
PROLOGUE TO SOPHONISBA;
SPOKEN AT OXFORD, 1680.
Thespis, the first professor of our art,At country wakes, sung ballads from a cart.
To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass,
Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis.
But Æschylus, says Horace in some page,
Was the first mountebank that trod the stage:
Yet Athens never knew your learned sport,
Of tossing poets in a tennis-court.
But 'tis the talent of our English nation,
Still to be plotting some new reformation;
And few years hence, if anarchy goes on,
Jack Presbyter shall here erect his throne,
Knock out a tub with preaching once a day,
And every prayer be longer than a play.
Then all your heathen wits shall go to pot,
For disbelieving of a Popish Plot;
Nor should we scape the sentence, to depart,
Even in our first original, a cart;
348
And worst, the author of the Oxford bells;
No zealous brother there would want a stone,
To maul us cardinals, and pelt Pope Joan.
Religion, learning, wit, would be supprest,
Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast;
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down,
As chief supporters of the triple crown;
And Aristotle's for destruction ripe;
Some say, he called the soul an organ-pipe,
Which, by some little help of derivation,
Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration.
The works of John Dryden | ||