To His Royal Highness the Duke6
Sir,
’Tis an approved opinion, there is not so unhappy a creature in the world as the man that wants ambition; for certainly he lives to very little use that only toils in the same round, and because he knows where he is, though in a dirty road, dares not venture on a smoother path for fear of being lost. That I am not the wretch I condemn, your Royal Highness may be sufficiently convinced, in that I durst presume to put this poem under your patronage. My motives to it were not ordinary: for besides my own propensity to take an opportunity of publishing the extreme devotion I owe your Royal Highness, the mighty encouragement I received from your approbation of it when presented on the stage was hint enough to let me know at whose feet it ought to be laid. Yet, whilst I do this, I am sensible the curious world will expect some panegyric on those heroic virtues which are throughout it so much admired. But, as they are a theme too great for my undertaking, so only to endeavour at the truth of them must, in the distance between my obscurity and their height, savour of a flattery, which in your Royal Highness’s esteem I would not be thought guilty of; though in that part of them which relates to myself (viz., your favours showered on a thing so mean as I am) I know not how to be silent. For you were not only so indulgent as to bestow your praise on this, but even (beyond my hopes) to declare in favour of my first essay of this nature, and add yet the encouragement of your commands to go forward, when I had the honour to kiss your Royal Highness’s hand, in token of your permission to make a dedication to you of the second. I must confess, and boast I am very proud of it; and it were enough to make me more, were I not sensible how far I am undeserving. Yet when I consider you never give your favours precipitately, but that it is a certain sign of some desert when you vouchsafe to promote, I, who have terminated my best hopes in it, should do wrong to your goodness, should I not let the world know my mind, as well as my condition, is raised by it. I am certain none that know your Royal Highness will disapprove my aspiring to the service of so great and so good a master; one who (as is apparent to all those who have the honour to be near you and know you by that title) never raised without merit, or discountenanced without justice. It is that, indeed, obliging severity which has in all men created an awful love and respect towards you; since in the firmness of your resolution the brave and good man is sure of you, whilst the ill-minded and malignant fears you. This I could not pass over; and I hope your Royal Highness will pardon it, since it is unaffectedly my zeal to you, who am in nothing so unfortunate, as that I have not a better opportunity to let you and the world know how much I am,
Your Royal Highness’s
Most humble, most faithful, and most obedient Servant,
THO. OTWAY.
Reader,
’Tis not that I have any great affection to scribbling, that I pester thee with a preface; for, amongst friends, ’tis almost as poor a trade with poets, as it is with those that write hackney under attorneys; it will hardly keep us in ale and cheese. Honest Ariosto began to be sensible of it in his time, who makes his complaint to this purpose:
I pity those who in these latter days
Do write, when bounty hath shut up her gate:
Where day and night in vain good writers knock,
And for their labour oft have but a mock.
Thus I find it according to Sir John Harington’s translation; had I understood Italian, I would have given it thee in the original, but that is not my talent; therefore to proceed: this Play was the second that ever I writ, or thought of writing. I must confess, I had often a titillation to poetry, but never durst venture on my muse, till I got her into a corner in the country; and then, like a bashful young lover, when I had her in private, I had courage to fumble, but never thought she would have produced anything; till at last, I know not how, ere I was aware, I found myself father of a dramatic birth, which I called Alcibiades; but I might, without offence to any person in the play, as well have called it Nebuchadnezzar; for my hero, to do him right, was none of that squeamish gentleman I make him, but would as little have boggled at the obliging the passion of a young and beautiful lady as I should myself, had I the same opportunities which I have given him. This I publish to antedate the objections some people may make against that play, who have been (and much good may it do them!) very severe, as they think, upon this. Whoever they are, I am sure I never disobliged them: nor have they (thank my good fortune) much injured me. In the meanwhile I forgive them, and, since I am out of the reach on’t, leave them to chew the cud on their own venom. I am well satisfied I had the greatest party of men of wit and sense on my side; amongst which I can never enough acknowledge the unspeakable obligations I received from the Earl of R.,7 who, far above what I am ever able to deserve from him, seemed almost to make it his business to establish it in the good opinion of the King and his Royal Highness; from both of whom I have since received confirmation of their good liking of it, and encouragement to proceed. And it is to him, I must in all gratitude confess, I owe the greatest part of my good success in this, and on whose indulgency I extremely build my hopes of a next. I dare not presume to take to myself what a great many, and those (I am sure) of good judgment too, have been so kind to afford me—viz., that it is the best heroic play that has been written of late; for, I thank Heaven, I am not yet so vain. But this I may modestly boast of, which the author8 of the French Berenice has done before me, in his preface to that play, that it never failed to draw tears from the eyes of the auditors; I mean, those whose hearts were capable of so noble a pleasure: for it was not my business to take such as only come to a playhouse to see farce-fools, and laugh at their own deformed pictures. Though a certain writer that shall be nameless9 (but you shall guess at him by what follows), being asked his opinion of this play, very gravely cocked, and cried, “I’gad, he knew not a line in it he would be author of.”10 But he is a fine facetious witty person, as my friend Sir Formal has it; and to be even with him, I know a comedy of his, that has not so much as a quibble in it that I would be author of. And so, Reader, I bid him and thee Farewell.
Footnotes
5 To gain by honourable ways
A great man’s favour is no vulgar praise.
—Conington.
6 James, Duke of York, afterwards James II.
7 Rochester, whose motive in patronising Otway at this time was solely a desire to mortify Dryden.
8 Racine.
9 Dryden.
10 It will be remembered that I’gad is an expression frequently used by Bayes in the Rehearsal; a character written in ridicule of Davenant, Dryden, the Howards, &c., by the Duke of Buckingham (Dryden’s Zimri), Butler, and others.
When first our author took this play in hand,
He doubted much, and long was at a stand.
He knew the fame and memory of kings
Were to be treated of as sacred things,
Not as they’re represented in this age,
Where they appear the lumber of the stage;
Used only just for reconciling tools,
Or what is worse, made villains all, or fools.
Besides, the characters he shows to-night,
He found were very difficult to write:
He found the fame of France and Spain at stake,
Therefore long paused, and feared which part to take;
Till this his judgment safest understood,
To make them both heroic as he could.
But now the greatest stop was yet unpassed;
He found himself, alas! confined too fast.
He is a man of pleasure, sirs, like you,
And therefore hardly could to business bow;
Till at the last he did this conquest get,
To make his pleasure whetstone to his wit;
So sometimes for variety he writ.
But as those blockheads, who discourse by rote,
Sometimes speak sense, although they rarely know’t;
So he scarce knew to what his work would grow,
But ’twas a play, because it would be so:
Yet well he knows this is a weak pretence,
For idleness is the worst want of sense.
Let him not now of carelessness be taxed,
He’ll write in earnest, when he writes the next:
Meanwhile,—
Prune his superfluous branches, never spare;
Yet do it kindly, be not too severe:
He may bear better fruit another year.
Philip II., King of Spain.
Don Carlos, his Son.
Don John of Austria.
Marquis of Posa, the Prince’s Confidant.
Ruy-Gomez.
Officer of the Guards.
Queen of Spain.
Duchess of Eboli, Wife of Ruy-Gomez.
Henrietta.
Garcia.
SCENE—The Court of Spain.
DON CARLOS,
PRINCE OF SPAIN.