Before the Play
Rare Prologues and Epilogues. 1642-1700. Edited by Autrey Nell Wiley. (Allen and Unwin. Iss.) THIS finely edited selection of prologues and epilogues more or less inaccessible to the ordinary reader is dedicated "to Collectors of the Ephemeral which vivified the Past," and has for epigraph Dryden's lines: "Prologues, like bells to churches, toll you in
With charming verse, till the dull plays begin."
But that perhaps is to underestimate the vitality and beauty of much of the verse. It may be that the prologue is of more interest to our generation than to any of the other literary generations which succeeded the Restoration, for in it we find, as we do not consistently again until living memory, the use of the ordinary image from everyday life—it is the poetry of common speech, with its references to Tom Dove, the Salamanca plot, Covent Garden, sweating houses, the Waters, the chair-men and the town bullies. Poetry ceased for awhile before the curtain rose to be professional; and among the prologue writers we find "actors, beaux, statesmen, soldiers, noblemen . . .", and their subjects were as wide as London life itself—" loyalty, rebellion, church, religion, recantation, playhouses, players, universities, parties, politics, audiences, taste, manners, plays, foreigners, novelties, literature, vacations, poets, women . . ." (to quote one of the editor's delightful catalogues). It must be admitted, of course, that a great many prologues were wearisome stuff ; no one of these amateurs matched the professional Dryden, and there must have been times when the audiences grew a little tired of City husbands and loose wives taking the waters, but even the buffoon Joe Haynes could turn a line worthy of Lady Winchelsea: "Wit is no Scarf upon Phantastick Hips." This collection—the result of a daunting study of 1,60o plays—includes work by Cowley, _ Crowne, Settle, D'Urfey, Banks, Behn, Lee, Shadwell, Ravens - croft, Duffett, Brown, Tat; Motteux, and many more among the professionals, besides the two monarchs, Otway and Dryden. There are biographical sketches, dissertations on such subject,. 0.5 the price of prologues, the use of animals by the speakers, the political prologue, the occasional prologue, the university prologue, prologues which were never delivered, and appendices on prolo`r7ue. and epilogue speakers, miscellanies, and booksellers and printers. This is admirably full measure, and in a day when Europe seems to be breaking up, and second-hand booksellers begin to mark their catalogues in dollars it is pleasant to realise how far afield many of these rare broadsides and folio half-sheets have been blown by time, and that Miss Wiley was able to begin her research at the University of Texas.
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