Notes on the Text.
Rover I.
Dramatis Personæ
p. 9 Diego, Page to Don Antonio. Neither 4tos nor 1724 give the page’s name, but it is furnished by the stage direction Act ii. I, p. 32. I have added Hellena’s page, Belvile’s page, and Blunt’s man to the list as it appears in 4tos and 1724.
p. 9 Angelica. 4tos give ‘Angellica’ throughout. I have retained 1724 ‘Angelica’ as more correct.
Act I: Scene i
p. 12, l. 5 my things. 1724 misprints ‘methinks’.
Act I: Scene ii
p. 17, l. 14 as those which ... 4to 1677 prints this as a separate line of blank verse. 4to 1709 italicizes it.
p. 23, l. 12 She often passes ... 4to 1709 puts this stage direction before Blunt’s speech.
p. 24, l. 18 Ex. all the Women. I have added ‘except Lucetta’ as she is individually directed to make her exit with Blunt later and not at this point.
Act II: Scene i
p. 32, l. 23 Pedro. Ha! 1724 omits.
p. 32, l. 28 aside. 1724 omits.
p. 35, l. 33 his shirt bloody. 1724 gives ‘their shirts’ but 4tos, more correctly, ‘his shirt’. It is only Willmore who has been wounded.
Act II: Scene ii
p. 38, l. 6 high i’ th’ Mouth. 1724, 1735 misprint ‘Month’.
p. 39, l. 8 This last reserve. 1724 omits ‘reserve’.
p. 39, l. 10 by me. 1724 omits the repetition of ‘by me’.
p. 39, l. 14 cure. 1724 misprints ‘curse’.
p. 40, l. 9 Thou art a brave Fellow. 1724 prints this speech as prose but the 4tos, which I have followed, divide metrically.
Act III: Scene i
p. 44, l. 1 Thou wou’t. 4to 1677. 1724 wrongly reads ‘won’t’. 1735 ‘Thou’lt’.
p. 45, l. 8 ago. 4to 1677. 1724 misprints ‘go’.
p. 47, l. 26 starts. 4tos read ‘stares’ but I retain 1724 ‘starts’ as more appropriate.
p. 47, l. 31 Expect! 1724 gives this speech as prose. I follow metrical division of 4tos.
p. 49, l. 16 rally. 1724 misprints ‘railly’.
p. 52, l. 5 Exeunt. 1724 omits this necessary stage direction.
Act III: Scene ii
p. 52, l. 31 Exit. 1724 misprints ‘aside’.
p. 53, l. 5 Enter Sancho. 4tos, but misprint after Sancho’s speech. 1724 omits, but misprints an ‘exit Sancho’, and gives ‘exit’ after Blunt’s speech instead of ‘exeunt’.
Act III: Scene iia
p. 54, l. 9 Pimps! 1724 ‘Imps’.
p. 55, l. 12 sheer. 4to 1677. 4to 1709 and 1724 read wrongly ‘share’.
Act IV: Scene i
p. 64, l. 4 Ant. 4to 1677 wrongly gives this speech to Belvile. 4to 1709 and ed. 1724 assign it correctly.
p. 64, l. 14 That Opinion. 1724 prints this speech as prose. I follow metrical division of 4tos.
Act IV: Scene ii
p. 65, l. 4 Aside. 4to 1677. 1724 and 1735 omit this stage direction.
p. 65, l. 11 Masquing Habit. 1724, 1735, ‘Masque habit’.
p. 66, l. 2 If you strike. 1724, 1735 omit this line.
p. 66, l. 21 Belv. Love Florinda! 4tos give this speech as prose. 1724 metrically.
p. 67, l. 35 Fred.— ’tis he— 1724 and 1735 mistaking ‘Fred.’ for speech-prefix give this line to Frederick.
p. 68, l. 1 Belv. Vizard ... 1724, 1735, read ‘Vizard falls out on’s Hand.’
p. 68, l. 13 Nay, an you ... 4tos and 1724, print as prose. This speech is obviously metrical.
p. 69, l. 17 I am all Rage! 4to 1677 divides metrically. 1724 prints as prose.
p. 71, l. 26 unconstant. 1724, 1735 ‘inconstant’.
p. 73, l. 23 Aside. 4tos omit this necessary stage direction.
p. 73, l. 24 Now I perceive. 1724 prints this as prose. 4tos metrically.
p. 75, l. 12 So, you have made ... 1724, 1735 prose. 4tos metrically.
p. 76, l. 16 You are mistaken. 1724, 1735 prose. 4tos metrically.
p. 76, l. 20 continence. 1724 misprints ‘continuance’.
p. 76, l. 23 Will. 1677 misprinting, omits this speech-prefix.
p. 77, l. 8 has Wit. 1724 misprints ‘Whas it’.
Act IV: Scene iii
p. 79, l. 20 A Woman! 1724 omits ‘A’.
p. 80, l. 16 the Rogue. 1724 omits ‘the’.
Act IV: Scene iiib
p. 82, l. 14 He starts up. 1677 4to misprints ‘she’.
p. 84, l. 18 dexterous. 1724 misprints ‘dexetrous’. 1735 ‘dextrous’.
p. 86, l. 10 Exeunt. 1724 wrongly ‘exit’.
Act V: Scene i
p. 86, l. 12 Blunt’s Chamber. 4tos ‘Chamber’. 1724, 1735, ‘Room’.
p. 86, l. 13 as at his Chamber-door. 1724, 1735, omit ‘as’.
p. 87, l. 20 and Belvile’s Page. I have added this entrance which 4tos and 1724 omit, as late in the scene an exit is marked for the page.
p. 97, l. 3 Hah! Angelica! 4to 1677 mistakenly marks this speech before the stage direction.
p. 97, l. 4 What Devil. 1724, 1735 ‘What the Devil’, which weakens the whole passage.
p. 107 Post-Script. This is only given in the first 4to (1677).
Notes: Critical And Explanatory.
Rover I.
Prologue
p. 7 Rabel’s Drops. Monsieur Rabell, as he is sometimes termed, was a famous empiric of the day. A description of his medicaments may be found in ‘Pharmacopoeia Bateana; or, Bate’s Dispensatory. Edited by William Salmon, London, 1700.’ Rabell’s name occurs on the title-page of this book, and in Section VI of the Preface Rabell’s ‘Styptick Drops’ are alluded to as having been added to the recipes found in the original volume by G. Bate. An account of the manufacture and use of this particular remedy appears in the same volume, Lib. I, chap. x, under ‘Sal Stypticum Rabelli’. Salmon, who edited this pharmacopoeia, was himself an irregular practitioner of some notoriety. He took part in the great controversy with the doctors which raged about 1698 and earlier. He finds a sorry place in Garth’s Dispensary, canto III, l. 6, wherein his works are alluded to as ‘blessed opiates’.
p. 8 Cits in May-day Coaches. On May-day it was the custom for all sorts and conditions of persons and pleasure parties to visit Hyde Park in coaches or at least on horse-back, cf. Pepys Diary, 1 May, 1663: ‘We all took horse, and I ... rode, with some trouble, through the fields, and then Holborn, etc., towards Hyde Park, whither all the world, I think, are going; ... there being people of all sorts in coaches there, to some thousands.... By and by ... I rode home, coaches going in great crowds to the further end of the town almost.’
Dramatis Personæ
p. 9 Sancho, Pimp to Lucetta. Mr. John Lee. There were at this time two actors and two actresses of the name Lee, Leigh, who, especially in view of the eclectic spelling of seventeenth-century proper names, need to be carefully distinguished. John Lee, who appeared in the small rôle of Sancho and also took the equally unimportant part of Sebastian in Abdelazer this same year, had, according to Downes, joined the Duke’s Company about 1670. He never rose above an entirely insignificant line, and we find him cast as Alexas in Pordage’s Herod and Mariamne, 1673; Titiro in Settle’s Pastor Fido, 1676; Pedro in Porter’s The French Conjurer, and Noddy in The Counterfeit Bridegroom, 1677. He was, it is almost certain, the husband of the famous Mrs. Mary Lee. Downes’ entry runs as follows: ‘Note, About the year 1670, Mrs. Aldridge, after Mrs. Lee, after Lady Slingsby, also Mrs. Leigh Wife, Mr. John Lee, Mr. Crosby, Mrs. Johnson, were entertain’d in the Dukes House.’ There is of course some confusion here. Antony Leigh, it may be noted, is not mentioned in the Roscius Anglicanus for another three years to come (1673), and there can be little doubt that the above passage should read ‘also Mrs. Leigh’s [Lee’s] husband, Mr John Lee’. If this were not so, there would be no point in Downes mentioning so minor an actor at this juncture and in such a list. Crosby and Mrs. Johnson were both performers of great merit, in fact Downes, a page later, has a special warm word of praise for the lady whom we find cast as Carolina in Shadwell’s Epsom Wells (1672). Crosby played such parts as Mr. Cleverwit, Lucia’s lover, in Ravenscroft’s Mamamouchi (1672), Alonzo in Abdelazer (1677), Leander Fancy in Sir Patient Fancy (1678). John Lee disappears entirely after 1677, and his widow is first billed as Lady Slingsby in 1681. For a full account of this great tragedienne see note on Abdelazer, Vol. II.
Mrs. Elizabeth Leigh, Moretta in The Rover, Part I, who is so persistently confused with Mrs. Mary Lee, was the wife of Antony Leigh, the celebrated comedian. In Betterton’s comedy, The Revenge (1680), when she acted Mrs. Dashit, she is billed as Mrs. A. Lee. Her husband died in December, 1692. Their son Michael also gave great promise on the boards. The lad’s name occurs in the cast of Shadwell’s The Amorous Bigot (1690) as ‘young Leigh’, when he played Diego, a servant, to his father’s Tegue o’ Divelly, the Irish friar. Unfortunately he died at an early age, probably in the winter of 1701, but his younger brother Francis attained considerable success. Frank Leigh made his debut at Lincoln’s Inn’s Fields, 31 December, 1702, as Tristram in the original production of Mrs. Centlivre’s The Stolen Heiress. He died in the autumn of 1719. Mrs. Leigh was herself an actress of no small eminence, her special line being ‘affected mothers, aunts, and modest stale maids that had missed their market’. Says Cibber, ‘In all these, with many others, she was extremely entertaining’. After 10 June, 1707, when she acted Lady Sly in Carlile’s The Fortune Hunters, her name is no longer to be found in the bills, and in October, 1707, Mrs. Powell is playing her parts. Mrs. Leigh’s repertory was very large, and amongst her roles were Lady Woodvil in Etheredge’s The Man of Mode (1676); Lady Plyant in The Double Dealer (1694); the Nurse in Love for Love (1695); the Hostess in Betterton’s revival of Henry IV, Part I (1699); and Lady Wishfort in The Way of the World (1700). In comedies by Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Leigh only appears twice, Moretta, The Rover, Part I (1677); and Mrs. Closet, The City Heiress (1682).
In and about 1702 another Mrs. Leigh, perhaps Frank Leigh’s wife, made a brief appearance. She was at first cast for good parts but soon sank into obscurity. Thus on 21 October, 1702, she sustained Mrs. Plotwell in Mrs. Centlivre’s The Beau’s Duel; on 28 April, 1703, Chloris in the Hon. Charles Boyle’s insipid As You Find It. She may have been the Mrs. Eli. Leigh who with other performers signed a petition to Queen Anne in 1709. Of Mrs. Rachel Lee, who took the ‘walk-on’ part of Judy, a waiting-woman, in Southern’s The Maid’s Last Prayer (1693), nothing is known.
p. 9 Angelica Bianca, a famous Curtezan. Mrs. Gwin. Anne Quin (or Quyn, Gwin, Gwyn as the name is indifferently spelt) was a famous actress of great personal beauty. She is constantly, but most erroneously, confounded with Nell Gwynne, and the mistake is the more unpardonable as both names twice occur in the same cast. When Nelly was acting Florimel in Dryden’s Secret Love, produced February, 1667, Mrs. Quin played Candiope. Again, in An Evening’s Love, June, 1668, Nell Gwynne was Jacinta, and Mrs Quin Aurelia, a role assumed later in the run by Mrs. Marshall. Among Mrs. Quin’s more notable parts were Alizia (Alice Perrers) in Orrery’s The Black Prince, produced 19 October, 1667; 1677, Thalestris in Pordage’s The Siege of Babylon, and Astrea in The Constant Nymph; 1678, Lady Knowell in Sir Patient Fancy and Lady Squeamish in Otway’s Friendship in Fashion; 1682, Queen Elizabeth in Banks’ The Unhappy Favourite, and Sunamire in Southerne’s The Loyal Brother. Mrs. Quin appears to have retired from the stage towards the close of the year 1682. There exists of this actress an extremely interesting portrait which was offered for sale at Stevens’ Auction Rooms, 26 February, 1901, but not reaching the reserve price, withdrawn. It is mistakenly described in the catalogue as ‘Miniature Portrait of Nell Gwynn on copper with original case and 30 cover dresses on talc...’ An illustrated article on it, entitled, ‘Nell Gwynne’s Various Guises’, appeared in the Lady’s Pictorial, 23 March, of the same year, p. 470, in the course of which the writer says: ‘Accompanying the miniature are some thirty mica covers in different stages of preservation upon which various headdresses and costumes are painted. The place where, in the ordinary course, the face would come is in all cases left blank, the talc being of course transparent, when it is laid upon the original miniature the countenance of the latter becomes visible, and we are enabled to see Nell Gwynne [Anne Quin] as she would appear in various characters.’ The old error has been perpetuated here, but the Lady’s Pictorial reproduced half-a-dozen of these painted mica covers, and the costumes for the two roles of Queen Elizabeth and Sunamire can be distinctly recognized. Doubtless an examination of the original micas would soon yield an identification of other characters. The miniature, it may be noted, does not in the least resemble Nell Gwynne, so there is bare excuse here for the confusion.
Act I: Scene i
p. 11 Siege of Pampelona. Pampluna, the strongly fortified capital of Navarra, has from its geographical position very frequently been a centre of military operations. It will be remembered that it was during a siege of Pampluna in 1521 Ignatius Loyola received the wound which indirectly led to the founding of the Jesuits.
p. 13 King Sancho the First. Sancho I, ‘the Fat’, of Castile and Leon, reigned 955-67: Sancho I of Aragon 1067-94. But the phrase is here only in a vague general sense to denote some musty and immemorial antiquity without any exact reference.
p. 14 Hostel de Dieu. The first Spanish hospital was erected at Granada by St. Juan de Dios, founder of the Order of Hospitallers. ob. 1550.
p. 14 Gambo. The Gambia in W. Africa has been a British Colony since 1664, when a fort, now Fort James, was founded at the mouth of the river.
Act I: Scene ii
p. 17 Hogoes. Haut-goût, a relish or savoury.
Act I: Scene ii
p. 26 a Piece of Eight. A piastre, a coin of varying values in different countries. The Spanish piastre is now synonymous with a dollar and so worth about four shillings. The old Italian piastre was equivalent to 3s. 7d.
Act II: Scene i
p. 30 Balcony... each side of the Door. With regard to the proscenium doors and balconies of a Restoration theatre, our knowledge of these points has been rendered much more exact since the valuable discovery by that well-known authority in stage matters, Mr. W. J. Lawrence, of Sir Christopher Wren’s designs for the second Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1674. Beyond the proscenium on the apron there are four doors each with its balcony above. The height of these balconies from the stage is considerable, surprisingly so indeed in view of the fact that characters frequently have to climb up into or descend from one of these ‘windows’, e.g., Shadwell’s The Miser (1672), Act. iv, when the drunken bullies ‘bounce at the Doors’, we have ‘Squeeze at the Window in his Cap, and undressed,’ who cries: ‘I must venture to escape at this Window’; ‘he leaps down’, and yells, as he falls, ‘Death! I have broke my Bones; oh! oh!’ whilst the scowrers run up, exclaiming: ‘Somebody leaped out of a Window’, and he is promptly seized. In Ravenscroft’s The London Cuckolds (1682), Act. v: ‘Enter Ramble above in the Balcony’. This gallant, escaping from the house hurriedly, decides ‘which way shall I get down? I must venture to hang by my hands and then drop from the Balcony’. Next: ‘As Ramble is getting down Doodle enters to look for his glove, Ramble drops upon him and beats him down.’ This could hardly have been an easy bit of stage business, although Smith, who acted Ramble, was an athletic, tall young fellow.
Normally no doubt only two of the doors (those nearest the proscenium opening on opposite sides) with their balconies were in constant use by the actors as the exigencies of the play might demand, but if required, all four balconies, and more frequently, all four doors could be and were employed. It is noticeable in Wren’s design that the balconies are not stage balconies, but side boxes, a permanent part of the general architectural scheme, and there can be no doubt that, save in exceptional circumstances, the two outermost were occupied by spectators. If the play did not require the use of a balcony at all, spectators would also fill the inner side boxes. In time, indeed, two doors and two balconies only came to be used, but for some decades at least all four were practicable. The present passage of The Rover indicates the use of three doors. The bravos hang up two little pictures of Angelica, one at each side of the door of her house, and presently the fair courtezan appears in her balcony above. A little later Don Pedro and Stephano enter by one door at the opposite side, Don Antonio and his page by the second door on the same side as Pedro.
In Etheredge’s She Wou’d if She Cou’d (6 February, 1668) Act ii, 1, Courtal and Freeman are seen following up Ariana and Gatty in the Mulberry Garden. Presently ‘The Women go out, and go about behind the Scenes to the other Door’, then ‘Enter the Women [at one door] and after ’em Courtal at the lower Door, and Freeman at the upper on the contrary side’.
Three balconies are employed in Ravenscroft’s Mamamouchi (1672; 4to 1675) Act iv. We have ‘Enter Mr. Jorden, musick’ obviously in one balcony from the ensuing dialogue. Then ‘Cleverwit, in Turk’s habit, with Betty Trickmore and Lucia appear in the Balcony’ number two. A song is sung and ‘Young Jorden and Marina in the Balcony against ’em’. Young Jorden remarks, ‘Now, dearest Marina, let us ascend to your Father, he is by this time from his Window convinc’d of the slight is put on you....’ ‘They retire’ and although there has been no exit marked for Mr, Jorden, we find directly, ‘Enter Mr. Jorden and Trickmore,’ obviously upon the stage itself, to which Mr. Jorden has descended. It must be noted, however, that the use of more than two balconies is very rare.
Mr. W. J. Lawrence in The Elizabethan Playhouse and other Studies (First Series) aptly writes: ‘No dramatist of the time had a better sense of the theatre than Mrs. Behn, and none made more adroit employment of the balconies.’ He then cites the scene of Angelica, her bravos and admirers.
p. 36 a Patacoone. A Spanish coin in value about 4s. 8d.
Act II: Scene ii
p. 38 a Pistole-worth. The pistole was a gold coin worth about 16s.
p. 42 a shameroon. A rare word meaning a trickster, a cozening rascal.
Act III: Scene iia
p. 54 bow’d Gold. Bowed for bent is still used in the North of England: ‘A bowed pin.’
Act III: Scene iii
p. 57 disguis’d. A common phrase for drunk.
Act IV: Scene ii
p. 75 cogging. To cog = to trick, wheedle or cajole.
Act V: Scene i
p. 99 Tramontana. Foreign; Italian and Spanish tramontano = from beyond the mountains.
p. 101 upse. Op zijn = in the fashion or manner of. Upse Gipsy = like a gipsy, cf. The Alchemist, iv, vi:
I do not like the dulness of your eye:
It hath a heavy cast, ’tis upsee Dutch.
p. 101 Incle. Linen thread or yarn which was woven into a tape once very much in use.
Epilogue
p. 106 Nokes, or Tony Lee. James Nokes and Antony Leigh, the two famous actors, were the leading low comedians of the day.
p. 107 Play of the Novella. Novella is a good, though intricate, comedy by Brome. 8vo, 1653, but acted 1632.
p. 107 The famous Virgil. There is a tale, reported by Donatus, that Vergil once anonymously wrote up on the palace gates a distich in praise of Augustus, which, when nobody was found to own it, was claimed by a certain versifier Bathyllus, whom Cæsar duly rewarded, A few days later, however, Virgil again set in the same place a quatrain each line of which commenced ‘sic vos non vobis...’ but was unfinished, and preceeded these by the one hexameter
Hos ego versiculos feci; tulit alter honores.
All were unable to complete the lines satisfactorily save the great poet himself, and by this means the true author of the eulogy was revealed.
A, B. A portion of the facing inner margins is missing:
Reconstruction, page 30:
Reconstruction, page 31:
THE ROVER; OR,
THE BANISH’D CAVALIERS.
PART II.
Scenes described in (parentheses) are unnumbered.
ARGUMENT.
The exiled cavaliers, Willmore the Rover, Shift and Hunt, two officers, Ned Blunt and Fetherfool, his friend, have arrived at Madrid, where they are welcomed by Beaumond, nephew to the English Ambassador. Both Willmore and Beaumond are enamoured of La Nuche, a beautiful courtezan, whilst Shift and Hunt are respectively courting a Giantess and a Dwarf, two Mexican Jewesses of immense wealth, newly come to Madrid with an old Hebrew, their uncle and guardian. Beaumond is contracted to Ariadne, who loves Willmore. Whilst the Rover is complimenting La Nuche, some Spaniards, headed by Don Carlo, an aged admirer of the lady, attempt to separate the pair. During the scuffle the ladies enter a church, where they are followed by the gallants. A little later Fetherfool comes to terms with La Nuche’s duenna, Petronella, whilst Willmore makes love to Ariadne. Shift next informs Willmore of the arrival of a celebrated mountebank, and the Rover resolves to take the quack’s place, which he does in effective disguise. Fetherfool and Blunt visit the pseudo-doctor’s house, where the Giantess and Dwarf are lodged to be converted to a reasonable size by his medicaments; covetous of their great fortunes, the coxcombs also begin to court the two Jewesses. La Nuche comes to consult the mountebank and meets Ariadne attired as a boy, and Willmore in his own dress. Ariadne, who has a rendezvous that evening with Willmore, is accidentally anticipated by La Nuche, who runs into the garden during a night brawl between Beaumond and the Rover, each of whom is ignorant of his opponent’s personality. Both the combatants encounter the courtezan in the garden and are joined by Ariadne. The confusion and mistakes that ensue are augmented by the arrival of Beaumond’s page and eventually all disperse in different directions. La Nuche returns to her house, where Fetherfool—led on by the Duenna—awaits her. Carlo, however, come thither for the same purpose, enters the chambers, and after they have fallen to fisticuffs, Fetherfool in a fright escapes through a window. Meanwhile La Nuche is engaged with Willmore; Beaumond interrupts, and both leave her in pretended disdain. Ariadne, purposing to meet the Rover, mistakes Beaumond for him in the dark and they hurry away to the quack’s house. Here, however, Fetherfool has already arrived and, finding the Giantess asleep, robs her of a pearl necklace; but he is alarmed by Shift, who takes her off and promptly weds her, whilst Hunt does the same by the Dwarf. Blunt next appears leading Petronella, veiled, who, filching a casket of jewels, has just fled from La Nuche; but the hag is discovered and compelled to disgorge. The Jewish Guardian is reconciled to the marriages of his wards; Beaumond and Ariadne, Willmore and La Nuche arrive, and the various mistakes with regard to identity are rectified, Willmore incidentally revealing himself as the sham mountebank. Beaumond and Ariadne agree to marry, whilst La Nuche gives herself to the Rover.
SOURCE.
Induced by the extraordinary success of The Rover in 1677, Mrs. Behn, four years later, turned again to Killigrew’s Thomaso; or, The Wanderer, and produced a sequel to her play. She had, however, already made good use of the best points of the old comedy, and the remaining material only being that which her judgment first rejected, it is not a matter of surprise to find the second part of The Rover somewhat inferior to the first. This is by no means to say that it is not an amusing comedy full of bustle and humour. The intrigue of Willmore and La Nuche, together with the jocantries of the inimitable Blunt, Nick Fetherfool, and the antique Petronella Elenora, are all alive with the genius of Astrea, although it may be possibly objected that some of the episodes with the two Monsters and the pranks of Harlequin are apt to trench a little too nearly on the realm of farce.
THEATRICAL HISTORY.
The Second Part of The Rover was produced at the Duke’s Theatre, Dorset Gardens, in 1681. It is noticeable that Will Smith had so distinguished himself in Willmore, that Betterton, who appeared as Belvile in the first part, did not essay a character in the second. The cast was reinforced, however, by Mrs. Barry, who took the role of La Nuche.
The play was received with great applause; it suffered none the less the fate of most sequels and, being overshadowed by its predecessor, after a few decades disappeared from the boards.
TO HIS
ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE
DUKE, &c.
Great Sir,
I dread to appear in this Humble Dedication to Your Royal Highness, as one of those Insolent and Saucy Offenders who take occasion by Your absence to commit ill-mannered indecencies, unpardonable to a Prince of your Illustrious Birth and God-like Goodness, but that in spight of Seditious Scandal You can forgive; and all the World knows You can suffer with a Divine Patience: the proofs You have early and late given of this, have been such, as if Heaven design’d ’em only to give the World an undeniable Testimony of Your Noble Vertues, Your Loyalty and True Obedience (if I may presume to say so,) both to Your Sacred Brother, and the never satisfied People, when either one Commanded, or t’other repin’d, With how chearful and intire a submission You Obey’d? And tho the Royal Son of a Glorious Father who was render’d unfortunate by the unexemplary ingratitude of his worst of Subjects; and sacrific’d to the insatiate and cruel Villany of a seeming sanctifi’d Faction, who cou’d never hope to expiate for the unparallell’d sin, but by an intire submission to the Gracious Off-spring of this Royal Martyr: yet You, Great Sir, denying Yourself the Rights and Priviledges the meanest Subject Claims, with a Fortitude worthy Your Adorable Vertues, put Yourself upon a voluntary Exile to appease the causeless murmurs of this again gathering Faction, who make their needless and self-created fears, an occasion to Play the old Game o’re again; whil’st the Politick self-interested and malitious few betray the unconsidering Rest, with the delicious sounds of Liberty and Publick Good; that lucky Cant which so few years since so miserably reduc’d all the Noble, Brave and Honest, to the Obedience of the ill-gotten Power, and worse-acted Greatness of the Rabble; so that whil’st they most unjustly cry’d down the oppression of one of the best of Monarchs, and all Kingly Government: all England found itself deplorably inslav’d by the Arbitrary Tyranny of many Pageant Kings. Oh that we shou’d so far forget with what greatness of mind You then shar’d the common Fate, as now and again to force Your Royal Person to new Perils, and new Exiles; but such ingratitude we are punisht with, and You still suffer for, and still forgive it.
This more than Human Goodness, with the incouragement Your Royal Highness was pleas’d to give the Rover at his first appearance, and the concern You were pleas’d to have for his second, makes me presume to lay him at Your feet; he is a wanderer too, distrest; belov’d, the unfortunate, and ever conscent to Loyalty; were he Legions he should follow and suffer still with so Excellent a Prince and Master. Your Infant worth he knew, and all Your growing Glories; has seen you like young Cesar in the Field, when yet a Youth, exchanging Death for Laurels, and wondred at a Bravery so early, which still made double Conquest, not only by Your Sword, but by Your Vertues, Some of Oliver’s Commanders at Dunkirk which taught even Your Enemies so intire an Obedience, that asham’d of their Rebel Gallantry, they have resign’d their guilty Commissions, and Vow’d never to Draw Sword more but in the Royal Cause; which Vow Religiously they kept: a noble Example for the busie and hot Mutineers of this Age misled by Youth, false Ambition and falser Council.
How careless since Your Glorious Restauration You have been, of Your Life for the service of Your mistaken Country, the whole World knows, and all brave men admire.
Pardon me then, Great Sir, if I presume to present my faithful Soldier, (which no Storms of Fate can ever draw from his Obedience) to so great a General: allow him, Royal Sir, a shelter and protection, who was driven from his Native Country with You, forc’d as You were, to fight for his Bread in a Strange Land, and suffer’d with You all the Ills of Poverty, War and Banishment; and still pursues Your Fortunes; and though he cannot serve Your Highness, he may possibly have the Honour of diverting You a few moments: which tho Your Highness cannot want in a place where all Hearts and Knees are justly bow’d in Adoration, where all conspire, as all the Earth (who have the blessing of Your presence) ought to entertain, serve and please You; yet this humble Tribute of a most Zealous and Devout Heart, may find amongst Your busier hours of greater moment, some one wherein it may have the Glory of Your regard, and be capable in some small degree of unbending Your great mind from Royal Cares, the weightiest Cares of all; which if it be so fortunate as to do, I have my end, and the Glory I design, a sufficient reward for her who does and will eternally pray for the Life, Health and Safety of Your Royal Highness, as in Duty all the World is bound to do, but more especially,
Illustrious Sir,
Your Highnesses most Humble,
most Faithful, and
most Obedient Servant,
A. BEHN.