vate life and this satire; and exhort him to

Be to vices, which he practised, kind.

But of the injustice of this charge on Dryden's character, we have
spoken fully elsewhere. Undoubtedly he had the licence of this, and
his other dramatic writings, in his mind, when he wrote the following
verses; where the impurity of the stage is traced to its radical
source, the debauchery of the court:

Then courts of kings were held in high renown,
Ere made the common brothels of the town.
There virgins honourable vows received,
But chaste, as maids in monasteries, lived.
The king himself, to nuptial rites a slave,
No bad example to his poets gave;
And they, not bad, but in a vicious age,
Had not, to please the prince, debauched the stage.
_Wife of Bath's Tale._

"Limberham" was acted at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset-Garden; for,
being a satire upon a court vice, it was deemed peculiarly calculated
for that play-house. The concourse of the citizens thither is alluded
to in the prologue to "Marriage-a-la-Mode." Ravenscroft also, in his
epilogue to the "Citizen turned Gentleman," acted at the same theatre,
disowns the patronage of the courtiers who kept mistresses, probably
because they Constituted the minor part of his audience:

From the court party we hope no success;
Our author is not one of the noblesse,
That bravely does maintain his miss in town,
Whilst my great lady is with speed sent down,
And forced in country mansion-house to fix.
That miss may rattle here in coach-and-six.

The stage for introducing "Limberham" was therefore judiciously
chosen, although the piece was ill received, and withdrawn after being
only thrice represented. It was printed in 1678.

Footnotes:
1. Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion, p. 24.

2. See State Trials, vol. viii. pp. 17, 18.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN,

LORD VAUGHAN, &c[1].

MY LORD,

I cannot easily excuse the printing of a play at so unseasonable a
time[2], when the great plot of the nation, like one of Pharaoh's lean
kine, has devoured its younger brethren of the stage. But however weak
my defence might be for this, I am sure I should not need any to the
world for my dedication to your lordship; and if you can pardon my
presumption in it, that a bad poet should addres