Editor's Preface xix 



might not be lost to the knowledge of posterity, with a forget - 

 fulness unbecoming of the Muses who are the daughters of 

 memory. . . I am proud to be their remembrancer : for by 

 relating how gracious you have been to them, and are to me, 

 I, in some measure, join my name to theirs ; and the con- 

 tinued descent of your favours to me is the best title which I 

 can plead for my succession.' Dryden's enemy, Shad well, 

 shared the Duke's bounty, aud dedicated to him The Virtuoso 

 and The Libertine. Flecknoe, another of the victims of 

 Dryden's satire, rhymes assiduously in praise of the Duke 

 and Duchess 1 . But Dryden's connection with Newcastle 

 was that of collaborateur as well as client. The Duke trans- 

 lated or adapted Moliere's L'Etourdi, which Dryden converted 

 into Sir Martin Mar-all. It was performed under the name 

 of the Duke, and is entered on the books of the Stationers' 

 Company as his work 2 . Not till 1697 did it appear under 

 Dryden's name, but according to Pepys the secret of its 

 authorship was well known at the time. 



Newcastle's own plays are four in number, viz. The Country 

 Captain and The Variety, published in 1649, and The Humorous 

 Lovers and Triumphant Widow, published in 1677. Of the 

 first of these Pepys observes : ' so silly a play as in all my life 

 I never saw ' ; of the third, ' the most silly thing that ever 

 came upon a stage.' 3 Shadwell, however, who knew what 

 was likely to succeed as well as most men, thought sufficiently 

 well of The Triumphant Widow to insert a large part of it into 

 his Bury Fair. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that he 

 was the real author of this portion of the Triumphant Widow, 

 and that he was only reclaiming his own property. But 

 whether original or not, the plays are certainly readable and 

 amusing. There is less to be said in favour of the Duke's 

 poems. They consist chiefly of songs in his own plays and 

 those of the Duchess, of adulatory verses prefixed to his wife's 

 publications, and some tales in verse in her Nature's Pictures, 

 They are as far inferior to her poems as his plays are superior 

 to those of the Duchess. 



Walpole, who never loses an opportunity of sneering at 



ISee Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, edited by Park, where specimens of Fleck- 

 noe's verses are given. Richard Brome also prefixes to his play of The Covent Garden 

 Weeded, verses on the Duke's play entitled The Variety. 



2 Scott's Dryden, vol. iii. 



3 See the passages quoted from Pepys on p. 203. Geneste, who describes the Duke's 

 plays (x. 73-75), sums up by saying that they ' ought not to have been forgotten '. 



