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The Works of John Dryden, Volume XIV

The Works of John Dryden, Volume XIV: Plays; The Kind Keeper, The Spanish Fryar, The Duke of Guise, and The Vindication

VINTON A. DEARING
ALAN ROPER
Series: Works of John Dryden
Copyright Date: 1992
Published by: University of California Press
Pages: 646
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppzjd
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  • Book Info
    The Works of John Dryden, Volume XIV
    Book Description:

    Kept women, comic clerics, and political schemers enliven the four plays in this volume of the California Dryden. Dryden asserted thatThe Kind Keeperwas a moral play, dedicated to exposing the "crying sin" of keeping a mistress. The production was closed after three nights, but whether because of the play's success in moralizing, or in exposing, is hard to know.

    eISBN: 978-0-520-91163-5
    Subjects: Language & Literature

Table of Contents

  1. Front Matter
    (pp. i-viii)
  2. Table of Contents
    (pp. ix-xii)
  3. THE KIND KEEPER OR, MR. LIMBERHAM
    (pp. 1-96)

    My Lord,

    I cannot easily excuse the printing of a Play at so unseasonable a time, when the Great Plot of the Nation, like one ofPharaoh’s lean Kine, has devour’d its younger Brethren of the Stage: But however weak my defence might be for this, I am sure I shou’d 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 address himself to so great a Judge of Wit, I may hope at least to scape with the Excuse ofCatullus, when he...

  4. THE SPANISH FRYAR OR, THE DOUBLE DISCOVERY
    (pp. 97-204)

    MY LORD,

    When I first design’d this Play I found or thought I found somewhat so moving in the serious part of it, and so pleasant in the Comick, as might deserve a more than ordinary Care in both: Accordingly I us’d the best of my endeavour, in the management of two Plots, so very different from each other, that it was not perhaps the Tallent of every Writer, to have made them of a piece. Neither have I attempted other Playes of the same nature, in my opinion, with the same Judgment; though with like success. And though many...

  5. THE DUKE OF GUISE
    (pp. 205-306)

    My Lord,

    The Authors of this Poem, present it humbly to your Lordships Patronage, if you shall think it worthy of that honour. It has already been a Confessor, and was almost made a Martyr for the Royal Cause. But having stood two Tryals from its Enemies, one before it was Acted, another in the Representation, and having been in both acquitted, ’tis now to stand the Publick Censure in the reading: Where since, of necessity, it must have the same Enemies, we hope it may also find the same Friends; and therein we are secure not only of the...

  6. THE VINDICATION OF THE DUKE OF GUISE
    (pp. 307-358)

    In the Year of His Majesty’s Happy Restauration, the First Play I undertook wasThe Duke of Guise, as the Fairest way, whichthe Act of Indempnityhad then left us, of setting forth theRise of the Late Rebellion;and byExplodingthe Villanies of it upon theStage, toPrecaution Posterityagainst the Like Errors.

    As This was myFirst Essay;so it met with the Fortune of anUnfinisht Piece;that is to say, It was Damn'd in Private, by the Advice of some Friends to whom I shew’d it; who freely told me, that it was...

  7. COMMENTARY
    (pp. 359-564)
  8. TEXTUAL NOTES
    (pp. 565-604)
  9. Appendix A: A Defence of the Charter of London, By Thomas Hunt [Excerpt]
    (pp. 607-610)
  10. Appendix B: Some Reflections Upon the Pretended Parallel in the Play Called The Duke of Guise
    (pp. 611-622)
  11. INDEX TO THE COMMENTARY
    (pp. 623-638)