tafford. Mr. Southern has likewise
acknowledged, that he received from the bookseller, as a price for this
play, 150 l. which at that time was very extraordinary. He was the first
who raised the advantage of play writing to a second and third night,
which Mr. Pope mentions in the following manner,

--Southern born to raise,
The price of Prologues and of Plays.

The reputation which Mr. Dryden gained by the many Prologues he wrote,
induced the players to be sollicitous to have one of his to speak, which
were generally well received by the public. Mr. Dryden's price for a
Prologue had usually been five guineas, with which sum Mr. Southern
presented him when he received from him a Prologue for one of his plays.
Mr. Dryden returned the money, and said to him; 'Young man this is too
little, I must have ten guineas.' Mr. Southern on this observ'd, that
his usual price was five guineas. Yes answered Dryden, it has been so,
but the players have hitherto had my labours too cheap; for the future I
must have ten guineas [2].

Mr. Southern was industrious to draw all imaginable profits from his
poetical labours. Mr. Dryden once took occasion to ask him how much he
got by one of his plays; to which he answered, that he was really
ashamed to inform him. But Mr. Dryden being a little importunate to
know, he plainly told him, that by his last play he cleared seven
hundred pounds; which appeared astonishing to Mr. Dryden, as he himself
had never been able to acquire more than one hundred by any of his most
successful pieces. The secret is, Mr. Southern was not beneath the
drudgery of sollicitation, and often sold his tickets at a very high
price, by making applications to persons of distinction: a degree of
servility which perhaps Mr. Dryden thought was much beneath the dignity
of a poet; and too much in the character of an under-player.

That Mr. Dryden entertained a very high opinion of our author's
abilities, appears from his many expressions of kindness towards him. He
has prefixed a copy of verses to a Comedy of his, called the Wife's
Excuse, acted in the year 1692, with very indifferent success: Of this
Comedy, Mr. Dryden had so high an opinion, that he bequeathed to our
poet, the care of writing half the last act of his Tragedy of Cleomenes,
'Which, says Mr. Southern, when it comes into the world will appear to
be so considerable a trust, that all the town will pardon me for
defending this play, that preferred me to it.'