The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 07 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 459 pages of information about The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 07.

The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 07 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 459 pages of information about The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 07.

10.  The king of Navarre (Henry IV.), by his manifesto, published in
   1585, after discussing sundry points of state with the leaguers,
   defied the Duke of Guise, their loader, to mortal combat, body to
   body, or two to two, or ten to ten, or twenty to twenty.  To this
   romantic defiance the Duke returned no direct answer; but his
   partizans alleged, that as the quarrel betwixt the king of Navarre
   and their patron did not arise from private enmity, it could not
   become the subject of single combat. Davila lib. vii.]

11.  This alludes to the defacing the Duke of York’s picture at
   Guildhall; an outrage stigmatized in the epilogue to “Venice
   Preserved,” where Otway says,

     Nothing shall daunt his pen, when truth does call;
     No, not the picture-mangler at Guildhall. 
     The rebel tribe, of which that vermin’s one. 
     Have now set forward, and their course begun;
     And while that prince’s figure they deface,
       As they before had massacred his name,
     Durst their base fears but look him in the face,
       They’d use his person as they’ve used his fame;
     A face, in which such lineaments they read
     Of that great Martyr’s, whose rich blood they shed.

The picture-mangler is explained by a marginal note to be, “the rascal, that cut the Duke of York’s picture.”  The same circumstance is mentioned in “Musa Praefica, or the London Poem, or a humble Oblation on the sacred Tomb of our late gracious Monarch King Charles II., of ever blessed and eternal Memory; by a Loyal Apprentice of the honourable City of London.”  The writer mentions the Duke of York as

       —­loaded with indignity,
     Already martyred in effigy. 
     O blast the arm, that dared that impious blow! 
       Let heaven reward him with a vengeance meet,
     Who God’s anointed dared to overthrow! 
       His head had suffered, when they pierced his feet.

   Explained to allude to the Duke of York’s “picture in Guildhall,
   cut from the legs downward undiscovered.”

   In another tory ballad, we have this stanza in the character of a
   fanatic: 

     We’ll smite the idol in Guildhall,
       And then, as we are wont,
     We’ll cry it was a Popish plot,
       And swear these rogues have done’t.

12.  This speech depends on the gesticulation of the sorcerer:  Guise
   first desires him report the danger to the people,—­then bids him
   halt, and express his judgment more fully.  Malicorn makes signs of
   assassination.—­Guise goes on—­

     —­Let him if he dare. 
     But more, more, more;—­

i.e.  I have a further reason than state policy for my visit.—­Malicorn makes repeated signs of ignorance and discontent; and Guise urges him to speak out on a subject, which he himself was unwilling to open.

13.  The business of this scene is taken from the following passage.

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The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 07 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.