Happy Birthday, Dryden

Richardson, John Dryden, 1733

EPILOGUE to CONSTANTINE the GREAT

Our hero's happy in the play's conclusion,

The holy rogue at last has met confusion:

Though Arius all along appeared a saint,

The last act showed him a True Protestant.

Eusebius (for you know I read Greek authors)

Reports that after all these plots and slaughters

The court of Constantine was full of glory,

And every Trimmer turned addressing Tory;

They followed him in herds as they were mad:

When Clause was king, then all the world was glad.

Whigs kept the places they possessed before,

And most were in a way of getting more;

Which was as much as saying, gentlemen,

Here's power and money to be rogues again.

Indeed, there were a sort of peaking tools,

Some call them modest, but I call 'em fools,

Men much more loyal, though not half so loud;

But these poor devils were cast behind the crowd.

For bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,

But good men starve for want of impudence.

Besides all these, there were a sort of wights

(I think my author calls them Teckelites),

Such hearty rogues against the King and laws,

They favoured ev'n a foreign rebel's cause;

When their own damned design was quashed and awed,

At least they gave it their good word abroad:

As many a man who, for a quiet life,

Breeds out his bastard not to nose his wife.

Thus o'er their darling plot these Trimmers cry

And though they cannot keep it in their eye,

They bind it prentice to Count Teckely.

They believe not the last plot; may I be cursed

If I believe they e'er believed the first;

No wonder their own plot no plot they think —

The man that makes it never smells the stink.

And, now it comes into my head, I'll tell

Why these damned Trimmers loved the Turks so well.

Th' orig'nal Trimmer, though a friend to no man,

Yet in his heart adored a pretty woman:

He knew that Mahomet laid up for ever

Kind black-eyed rogues for every true believer;

And, which was more than mortal man e'er tasted,

One pleasure that for threescore twelve-months lasted.

To turn for this may surely be forgiven:

Who'd not be circumcised for such a heaven!

John Dryden, born on this day in 1631