Dryden's Prologue to the ProphetessAuthor(s): R. P. McCutcheonSource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Feb., 1924), pp. 123-124Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2914757 .

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CORRESPONDENCE 123

the light in 1625, it is obvious that Sidney did not get his informa- tion from that book. He must either have read Oviedo in the original Spanish,9 since no translation into English of the " arey- tos" passage had appeared by Sidney's time, or he got it froin another source. Eden's allusion to Peter Martyr as containing the same material which the former chose to omit from his translation of Oviedo probably gives the answer. For in the same book with The Hystorie of the weste Indies Eden translated three Decades of Martyr, in one of wvhlich occurs this description of Indian manners: 10

Perhappes your holynesse wyll marveLl by what meanes these syrniple men shoulde of soo longe contynuance beare in minde suche principles, where as they have no knowledge of letters . . . They gyve them selves chieflye to two thynges: As generally to lerne thoriginall and successe of thynges: And particularlye to reherse the noble factes of their graundefathers great graundefathers and auncestours as well in peace as in warre. These two thynges they have of owlde tyme composed in certeyne myters and ballettes in their language. These rhymes or ballettes, they caule Areitos. And as owre mynstrelles are accustomed too synge to the harpe or lute, so doo they in lyke maner synge these songes."

Eden's marginal note, which directs attention to the passage, is "The manier of lernynge; " and Sidney's topic, for the momenit, was " learning."

Even so good a linguist as Sir Philip would normally have re- course to his own language first.

R. R. CAWLEY. Princeton University.

DRYDEN'S PROLOGUE TO THE Prophetess The prologue which Dryden wrote for a revival of Fletcher's

Prophetess in 1690, as Cibber relates, "was forbid by the Lord Dorset, after the first Day of its being spoken. This happen'd when King William was prosecuting the War, in Ireland. It must be confess'd, that this Prologue had some familiar, metaphorical Sneers, at the Revolution itself: and as the Poetry of it was good, the Offence of it was less pardonable." 1 Editors of Dryden have, in general, followed Cibber's story, and have further stated that this Prologue first appeared in print in the second edition, 1708, of

' Several editions of Ramnusio's DL)Ce Navigationi et Viaggi, containing a translation of the passage from Oviedo, had appeared before The Defence. E. g., cf. Venice ed. 1565, Vol. IIi, p. 1112. In French, J. Poleur's translation had been published at Paris in 1555.

1?0 Eden's Decades, p. 125. 11 C. Cibber, Apology, 3rd edition. London, 1750, p. 283.

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124 MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES

The Annual Miscellany for the Year 1694.2 But a version of the Prologue had appeared a year before this, in the Muses Mercury for January, 1707, pp. 3-5. This version differs from that printed in the Annual Miscellany in some minor details, and has an addi- tional linle following 1. 24 of the accepted version,

But we shall flourish sure when you are paid.

An explanatory note appended to the Prologue in the 3Mses Mercury charges Shadwell with the responsibility for the suppres- sion of this prologue. As this item seems to have escaped atten- tion, it is here reprinted in part.

" This Prologue was forbidden to be spoken the second Night of the Representation of the Prophetess. Mr. Shadwell was the occasion of its being taken notice of by the M/tinistry in the last Reign: He happeni'd to be at the House on the first Night, and taking the beginning of the Prologue to have a double MIeaniing, and that Mleaning to reflect on the Revolution, he told a Genitle- man, He would immediately put a stop to it. When that Gentle- man ask'd, Why he wou'd do the Author such a Disservice? He said, Becautse while Mr. Dryden uwas Poet Laureat, he wou'd never let any Play of his be Acted. MIr. Shadwell informing the Secre- tary of State of it, and representing it in its worst Colours, the Prologue was never Spoken afterwards, and is not Printed in Mr. Dryden's Works, or his Miscellanies."

R. P. MCCUTCHEON. Wake Forest College.

THE TOUCHSTONE METHOD OF JUDGING POETRY

Matthew Arnold's famous exposition of the touchstone method of judging poetry in the equally famous essay prefixed to Ward's English Poets inevitably opens up the question as to previous use of the term in this connection. The NED does not list any oc- currence of the word in the sense of a test of literature or the arts. J. M. Bray's History of English Critical Terms does not recognize it at all. Thomas Warton has, however, preserved for us the most suggestive name of "<a small black-lettered tract entitled the TOUCH-STONE OF WITTES, chiefly compiled, with some slender ad- ditions, from William Wdbbe's DIscOURSE OF ENGLISH POETRIE, written by Edward Hake, and printed at London by Edward Boti- faullt in 1588. . . ." 1 Hake's work is unfortunately lost,2 but

2 Dryden's WVorks, Scott ed., x, 406-8: ibid., Scott-Saintsbury ecd., XI 407. Drvden's Poems. Cambridge edition. . 260.

I The :History of English Poetry, 3 vols., 1840; Vol. iiT, p. 228. 2 G. Gregory Smith. Elizabethan Critical Essays, 2 vols., 1904. r, 226-7,

is my immediate authority for this. Saintsbury's History of Criticism does not mention HTake.

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