SOURCE: Willson, Robert F., Jr. “Bayes Versus the Critics: The Rehearsal and False Wit.” In ‘Their Form Confounded’: Studies in the Burlesque Play from Udall to Sheridan, pp. 81-110. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton, 1975.

[In this excerpt, Willson discusses the historical context of Buckingham's play.]

1.

In evaluating Buckingham's inspired farce, we again must turn to historical context, as in the case of The Knight, Dream, and Roister Doister. The Restoration brought with it a revived interest in the theatre and the arts in general. Escaping from Puritan repression and feeling the influence of Louis XIV's worldly court, the English aristocracy took part in a vital quest for pleasure and entertainment of all kinds. As a reflection of the court's desire to foster some competition yet at the same time retain a degree of control over drama and dramatists, Charles granted patents to Killigrew and Davenant to form new acting companies and to build new theatres. As for repertoire the two men turned in the early years to the stock of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays and proceeded to divide them up for revival and revision. But the reemergent theatre could not continue to depend indefinitely upon just these chestnuts, especially since the age seemed determined to have novelty at all costs. The producers were thus faced with a dilemma: what sorts of plays should make up the staple of their acting repertoires? Should the managers urge poets to write in the vein of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher, attempting to improve on these accepted formulae? Some of this would obviously work, but clearly Elizabethan taste was less refined than that of the Restoration, and the earlier age's wit was considered by most as either dull or gross. Should Corneille and Racine and other luminaries of the French neoclassical school be translated to the English stage? There were objections and obstacles here as well: the French manner of narration and plotting was, in many critics' views, “too regular”—and dull. Should playwrights return to the classics of the Greek and Roman stage for inspiration and models?

Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) presented a mirror image of the difficult choices facing ambitious and solicitous playwrights and managers. The participants in Dryden's Platonic “quatralogue” debate the various contending positions, as well as stating preferences for particular genres: Eugenius favors the modern English plays, putting special emphasis on wit and comedy; Crites (with his somewhat august and somber manner) favors classical Greek plays, placing his emphasis upon tragedy; Lisidius favors the French school of Corneille, again emphasizing as Crites does, regular and serious plays. Neander, supposedly in the role of arbiter, finds in Ben Jonson a suitable model and compromise for all.¹ He is a classicist but writes witty comedy with engaging humor characters; his model play (Epicoene, or The Silent Woman) is regular in that it conforms to the unities; he observes the French technique of liaison des scènes; he is an Englishman but from the “last age”, and so now something of an ancient; he is a model and not the ultimate poet (as Shakespeare is) whom modern writers could not hope to excel.

Prophetically, then, Dryden's Essay points to the form of play which in fact would flourish on the Restoration stage: witty comedy of manners following Jonson's humor scheme, featuring ingenious plots, satire, and sophisticated repartee. But Dryden also infers in the Essay, if we are to judge by the cogency of Crites' argument, that the demands of serious drama must be met. Dryden also seems to have felt that this serious form ought to have as its aim some patriotic goal; after all, England was at war with Holland and its victory would surely place the country in a position of world prominence unequalled since the Armada days. The stage ought to be a place where great things as well as mundane affairs take place, where conflicts over duty and honor as well as sex and manners can be debated. So Dryden, Davenant, and others championed an invention which in effect represented the translation of epic poetic form into the idiom of the drama. Just as epic poetry requires its own special kind of hero and grave action, so heroic drama would attempt to discover such figures in new places—Spain, Peru, and Rhodes among them. Just as epic poetry calls for elevated diction and verse, so heroic drama would require the heroic couplet. Blank verse may have been the special province of the Elizabethan age, according to Neander in the Essay, but this new age demanded something unique and grander, something both balanced and extravagant, able to convey both vivid description and noble sentiments. In answer to Crites' objection that heroic verse is both unnatural and awkward (especially for directions like “Open the door!”), Neander responds with a full defense of this manner of writing:

“I answer you, therefore, by distinguishing betwixt what is nearest to the nature of Comedy, which is the imitation of common persons and ordinary speaking, and what is nearest the nature of a serious play: this last is indeed the representation of Nature, but 'tis nature wrought up to a higher pitch. The plot, the characters, the wit, the passions, the descriptions, are all exalted above the level of common converse, as high as the imagination of the poet can carry them, with proportion to verisimility.”²

Neander's rationality is impressive, but the argument overlooks the fundamental facts of English stage history before the Restoration: no successful play had ever been written entirely in heroic couplets, and the major accomplishments in the form had been in descriptive, narrative, and satiric poetry—not in dialogue. Chaucer, Jonson, and Denham were prime examples of how successfully the heroic couplet could perform in topical and topographical situations; but no one used the form on the stage. Moreover, the greatest epic in the language was to be written not in heroic couplets but in blank verse, a form more ideally suited to Milton's epic purposes and dramatic style of narration. It is probably not surprising to find in Dryden's Essay that Crites should take issue with Neander on this score; his claim that rhymed verse sounds unnatural is clearly defensible on classical critical grounds. Aristotle avers that art should imitate nature, but not necessarily “nature wrought up to a higher pitch”. As a stanch believer in the rules of the ancients as regards poetry and satire, Dryden seems to have ignored their urgings of restraint and truth to nature in defending his novel dramatic model. In so doing he falls into the pit, so to speak, where his romantic and bombastic scenes were received with loud applause.

It is clear from Dryden's descriptions of his improvements on the heroic formula he had received from Davenant (in Of Heroic Plays, prefixed to The Conquest of Granada [1672]) that heroic plays constitute an imitation of an imitation (i.e., the heroic poem), and therefore are twice removed from reality or nature. This was, it will be remembered, Plato's reason for banishing the poets from the Republic; in the case of such plays as The Conquest of Granada Dryden banishes truth-to-life from our theatrical experience. The Prefatory Essay also draws on the idea that the heroic poem gives the playwright an opportunity, indeed duty, to add variety to the action by including more characters and incidents, raising the work “to a greater height”. Such license, of course, emphasizes spectacle above plot, and Buckingham was to lose little time in showing precisely how such multiplicity of event and character destroys any unity of action. Finally, in defending the improbabilities of epic poetry, especially the presence of spirits and magic, Dryden argues this way in the Essay:

And if any man object to the improbabilities of a spirit appearing or of a palace raised by magic; I boldly answer him, that an heroic poet is not tied to a bare representation of what is true, or exceeding probable; but that he may let himself loose to visionary objects, and to the representation of such things as depending not on sense, and therefore not to be comprehended by knowledge, may give him a freer scope for imagination.³

These very lines are almost self-parodic and sound a good deal like Bayes' elaborate arguments for his peculiar type of drama, especially the phrase “not to be comprehended by knowledge”. Such an apology, moreover, works best only when the reader has free reign to fly with the poet, when he can employ his imagination to match the one present in the poem. But the stage is limiting and physical, a place where words spoken by the actors must correspond to the setting of the action, which is usually concretely represented. Any effort to reproduce the palace of Boabdelin or mountains of Peru with scenery and other effects must be severely limited by the imagination of the scene-painter and the dimensions of the stage. It is perhaps a sign of Dryden's myopia here that he cites the same reason as evidence for proving the stage a better place to portray heroic action than the page, because “it represents to view what the poem only does relate”. Dryden also argues, somewhat in the manner of one of the heroes from his extravaganzas, that the poet-playwright is obliged “to endeavor an absolute dominion over the minds of the spectators”—one can easily see how an opponent like Buckingham would extract a statement like the preceding one and travesty it by presenting his hero Bayes as a man “at war” with both spectators and actors, trying to impose his aesthetic will upon them.

This failure on Dryden's part to see the impracticability of translating the imaginary realm of heroic poetry into the idiom of the stage can be seen by tracing the genealogy of Almanzor, hero of The Conquest of Granada. Dryden defends his hero's grandiose style by citing characters like Achilles, Rinaldo, and Artaban as models, all of whom were irascible and given to ranting. Their authors, says Dryden, attempted to show us “what men of great spirits would certainly do when they were provoked, not what they were obliged to do by the strict rules of moral virtue” (p. 157). The playwright and not the critic in Dryden is here aiming to rationalize the sensational conduct of these heroes—conduct the epic poet is better able than the playwright to make acceptable through actions described and not necessarily “seen”. Moreover, the point of Homer, Tasso, and La Calprenède's treatment of these figures was to demonstrate how such lack of restraint endangered great enterprises; such touches are not present simply to humanize the characters, as Dryden claims. “If the history of the late Duke of Guise be true”, he continues, “he hazarded more and performed not less in Naples than Almanzor is feigned to have done in Granada” (p. 158). This defense of his character and method brings Dryden full circle since he argues here from a position of verisimilitude, whereas earlier he claimed his major figure was larger than life. This weakness in argument only serves to underscore the thorny problem of attempting to transfer into the theatrical realm a system and style which clearly belong in the poetic world of imagination. Bayes speaks ironically for Buckingham when, in defense of this very habit of using sources of a poetic or prosaic nature, he declares: “Sir, if you make the least scruple of the efficacy of these my rules, do but come to the play-house and you shall judge of 'em by the effects.”

2.

The surprising fact is that many did come to the playhouse and apparently judged those effects favorably; heroic drama achieved overnight popularity and continued to be a favorite with audiences throughout the eighteenth century. Clinton-Baddeley believes this is partially due to the continuation of heroic plays in the repertoires of acting companies, as well as the fact that audiences were accustomed to hearing rhymed verse in the poetry of Pope and others.⁴ But whatever the reason the most bombastic of these plays were written after and not before the appearance of The Rehearsal. Theatre audiences were obviously still moved at the beginning of the Restoration, as they had been in Elizabethan days, to see outlandish adventures and to listen to ranting verse as a way of escaping the mundane events of their own lives. And this escapism existed among both citizens and courtiers. Since such a formula as Dryden's proved to be so popular it deserves some careful scrutiny before we turn to The Rehearsal to see how its conventions were lampooned. One of the best ways of doing that is to examine the plot of one of the most successful of these plays, Dryden and Howard's (Sir Robert Howard was another satiric target in The Rehearsal) The Indian Queen.

The play was first produced by the King's (Killigrew's) Company in January, 1663/4 at the newly-built Theatre Royal.⁵ The exotic piece is set in Mexico, a country sufficiently unknown to the London audience and probably evocative of the same mystery attached to such places as the island in Shakespeare's Tempest. It is well to remember that distant settings were part of the apprentice-knight plays lampooned by Beaumont, and Tamburlaine, another popular success in the Renaissance, was likewise set in far-away and mysterious lands. In doing this the playwright could achieve greater freedom to exploit fantastic feats and events, since the audience knew little and would believe much about the magical influence in these unknown settings. Montezuma, the heroic general of Queen, appears at the opening fresh from a victory over the Mexicans, whose prince Acacis he delivers to the Inca (Montezuma is a mercenary) as a prize. The Inca in return offers his general anything his heart desires, but when Montezuma tells him his heart's desire is his daughter, the Inca turns cool. The dilemma or conflict is a typical one in romance: true lovers are frustrated by an older parent who objects to the marriage because the facts about his future son-in-law's birth are obscured. It appears as if Montezuma, though a stanch fighter, is base-born. The frustrated hero then decides to desert the Inca and join the Mexicans, while freeing his new-found friend Acacis, in order to gain revenge. This sudden reversal in the beginning of the play is typical of heroic plays, and it does have its spectacular effect; but the desertion is so rash and contrived that credulity is severely strained. Rather than escaping with his love, the hero instead departs with his friend, thereby providing Dryden with the chance to explore the theme of love versus friendship as well. Immediately we see, as would Buckingham in his parody, that plot is strained for effect, and character and “intrigue” will take precedence over it with a vengeance.

Reminiscent of Coriolanus, Montezuma defects to the army of Zempoalla, the usurping Indian queen and mother of Acacis. In ensuing battles the Inca is defeated and he and his daughter are captured by Montezuma, who now begins to woo Orazia in earnest. But he is challenged in his effort to enjoy the spoils by Traxalla, Zempoalla's general: Montezuma must give up the prisoners and consent to be ruled. Acacis intercedes, but Traxalla reports the revolt to the queen, who then authorizes her general to seize all the participants in her name. Before this can happen, however, Acacis has time to reveal to Montezuma the story of his mother's usurpation of the throne, the murder by Traxalla of the rightful king, and the escape of his queen Amexia, then big with child. No one has seen her child since. At this point in the action the hint is very strong that Montezuma is Amexia's son and that he will somehow help to restore her to the throne and regain his rightful place as heir-apparent. It is also apparent that his friend and he will soon become enemies not only because they are rivals for the throne but also because they will both find themselves in love with Orazia, thus furthering the theme of love versus honor. The weakness in such an intrigue is again one of improbability: rightful heirs rarely emerge out of thin air, only to find themselves at swords' point with their best friends. We can also detect the playwright become wizard, attempting to keep as much information from the viewers as he can for the sake of surprise. And our minds are truly dismayed when, at the close of Act II, Montezuma and Acacis, realizing they are rivals, rush off with swords drawn not to fight each other but to rescue the beautiful Orazia from the clutches of deceiving Traxalla.

Bursting into Zempoalla's court the two men are met by a revenge-mad queen who vows to sacrifice Orazia and Inca to the gods. Acacis then proceeds to plead for his new-found love, arguing that the more honorable thing to do would be to return her to the deserving Montezuma as his lawful prize. Zempoalla responds with a jaundiced definition of honor:

Honor is but an itch in youthful blood,
Of doing acts extravagantly good;
We call that virtue which is only heat
That reigns in youth, till age finds out the cheat.

(III. i. 96-99)

This kind of philosophizing on the topic of honor becomes tedious in the play, as well as making for long passages of sententious and ranting speech. In this instance the wise queen holds her ground against Acacis' pleas, and Traxalla uses the occasion to urge the killing of Montezuma once again—he is still jealous about losing control of his troops. But Traxalla is refused as it becomes apparent that Zempoalla has now fallen for Montezuma and wants him for her public and private captain. The intrigue has now reached a point of withering complexity: Zempoalla loves the hero and so wishes to rid herself of the rival Orazia; Traxalla wants revenge on Montezuma but he also seems to have fallen in love with Orazia (“lusts for her” is probably a better phrase); Acacis loves Orazia and Montezuma, thus finding himself torn between love and friendship. The demands of both love and lust begin to look ludicrous rather than interesting, and little hope now exists for unravelling such a mess without some kind of divine intervention. A hint of this future appearance of the gods comes when the queen calls on a prophet to interpret a dream she has had about a lion and dove (the dove is Amexia breaking the fetters Zempoalla has used to tie Montezuma, the lion, to her; he will in turn destroy her throne). When the god of dreams' explanation dissatisfies her, Zempoalla vows total destruction—“Victims shall bleed, and feasted altars shine”.

Act IV commences simply enough with Traxalla urging Orazia to decide whether Montezuma, asleep before them in his cell, shall live or die. Orazia falters, but in doing so gives the hero time to awake and provoke Traxalla into killing him, since Orazia will not have him and his life is now pain. Just as the general lifts his sword, however, Zempoalla enters, seizes Orazia, and threatens to kill her if Traxalla does not unhand her love. The stalemate is broken by Orazia's sudden and impassioned declaration of love for Montezuma; again, such stylized and artificial outbursts at the propitious moment transform the action into the rankest melodrama. Now both queen and general, their lust frustrated, are joined in their determination to sacrifice the young lovers. Acacis also asserts himself by secretly freeing Montezuma and at the same time revealing his love for Orazia, a revelation which again presents the hero with a dilemma related to a conflict of values: “Oh, tyrant love!” declares Montezuma, “how cruel are thy laws! I forfeit friendship or betray thy cause. That person whom I would defend from all the world, that person by my hand must fall.” (IV. ii. 37-40)

Orazia prevents the ensuing duel, urging Acacis to accept the truth and live; failing this she vows to return to her father's cell and take her own life. As the two men are about to join her in freeing her father, forgetting for the moment their quarrel, Traxalla and Zempoalla rush in and capture them after a short struggle, during which Acacis is wounded. Now all the central characters are to be sacrificed to the Indian queen's rage—even her own son. But this violent turn of events has wrenched the plot out of all proportion, and the play's action has been transformed into nothing more than a succession of sudden surprises, discoveries, and arrests. The model for such tampering with the plot can be found in Beaumont and Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy and Philaster, two plays in which the love versus honorable friendship and displaced heir-to-the-throne themes are central. Buckingham, and others, no doubt saw the obvious resemblance, since Beaumont and Fletcher continued to be popular on the Restoration stage, and decided to expose to ridicule the notion that heroic plays were something entirely new. Obviously Dryden had simply returned to a time-worn, melodramatic technique and altered it to fit the slightly more sophisticated tastes of his Restoration audience.

The sacrificial altar provides the final setting for the denouement of The Indian Queen—a scene appropriate to the ensuing slaughter as well as to the expected restoration of Mexico's rightful queen. Conflict returns in this scene between Zempoalla and Traxalla when the general urges that Montezuma die first; but the queen is apparently hoping to save him for herself. She unexpectedly seizes Traxalla and calls him traitor. Acacis, wounded and pale, then bursts in, deplores his mother's selfish acts, declares his lasting love for both Orazia and Montezuma, then stabs himself. As the sentimental favorite, Acacis's death is meant to expose the tragic results of the usurpation and to arouse as much pity as possible for his fate:

Divine Orazia!
Can you have so much mercy to forgive?
I do not ask it with design to live,
But in my death to have my torments cease.
Death is not death when it can bring no peace.

(V. i. 132-136)

What looks like the beginning of a mass suicide is interrupted by a succession of messengers announcing the arrival on the scene of Amexia and a popular army declaring their love for a displaced queen and her son, the brave Montezuma. Traxalla urges the quick murder of Montezuma once more, but instead Zempoalla cuts the cords that bound him, freeing the hero to finally silence Traxalla. Zempoalla then stabs herself in a gesture which arouses hope she will join with her son in death just as Montezuma now proceeds to rejoin his mother in their rightful place. The hero now also qualifies for the hand of Orazia, and the two are united in fitting romance fashion with the blessing of the Inca. This even-handed, symmetrical finish is underlined in the hero's final words:

How equally our joys and sorrows move!
Death's fatal triumphs, joined with those of love.
Love crowns him that lives,
Each gains the conquest which the other gives.

(V. i. 308-311)

From this resumé of The Indian Queen it may not be immediately clear what made this play and others like it excellent models for parody. The Conquest of Granada, for instance, might have better illustrated the form's inherent violence and bloodiness, piling up as it does many more bodies at the end. Much of the excess in Queen is in the verse itself, where frequent hyperbole, involving storm and planetary imagery, keeps the pitch of emotion too high, too long. A good example is Montezuma's speech (II. ii.) in which his rage suddenly turns away from Acacis to Zempoalla after discovering that she intends to kill Orazia:

That ties my hand, and turns from thee that rage
Another way, thy blood should else assuage;
The storm on our proud foes shall higher rise,
And, changing, gather blackness as it flies;
So, when winds turn, the wandering waves obey,
And all the tempest rolls the other way.

(II. iii. 62-67)

This kind of simile, nearly epic in proportion, was intended by Dryden to associate the volatile passions of his hero with tempests in nature; but such a comparison is inevitably difficult to sustain. Montezuma, after all, will say similar things in the course of the play, which sooner or later must come to sound like rant. To keep his protagonist constantly warring with himself and others admits no moments of calm (which are likewise found in nature!) to round out his character and make him seem more real. It is almost as if Dryden has replaced a Hal with a Hotspur for his central figure.

As reflected in Montezuma's simile, another weak point of the play is its excessive change in course. Montezuma, for instance, deserts Inca because his employer will not consent to his marriage with Orazia. He desires revenge until he realizes that as captives of Zempoalla the three must die anyway. His friendship with Acacis is challenged when Acacis vows love for Orazia; but the two become fast friends in an instant when they must rescue the heroine from death. Zempoalla is truly mercurial. At first she wants to sacrifice all her captives, including the hero; then she falls in love with him and maneuvers to save him. When she realizes he loves Orazia, she attempts to destroy her but is stymied by Traxalla. The solution? She decides again to sacrifice them all, but then relents, cuts Montezuma's ropes, and frees him. This type of oscillation in motive and action, which facilitates the author's efforts to portray conflicts between love and friendship, love and honor, love and lust, etc., inevitably leads to confusion about where a particular character stands at a given moment. The plot is also improbably twisted whenever convenience requires, especially so that noble sentiments might be expressed or a spectacular effect achieved. The usurped kingdom, displaced heir, the rivalry for a mistress' hand, the exotic setting, the numerous threats with swords and daggers drawn—all such touches are part of time-tested tragicomedy and romance, and this is the category into which The Indian Queen must ultimately fall.

Recognizing this fact, and at the same time observing the growing taste for plays which reflected in a stylized way the actual social life of the day, Buckingham and his collaborators no doubt felt encouraged to travesty heroic drama. He could be surer than Beaumont about a cosmopolitan and critical audience of gentlemen because the Restoration theatre had become a more cliquish realm than its Jacobean predecessor. He could also be sure of a group of literati whose personal animosities toward Dryden would encourage them to laugh at a cleverly wrought caricature. Most of all he could be confident of finding numerous elements in the plots of heroic drama which could be easily and successfully parodied. He would no doubt agree with the modern critic who so succinctly cites the major flaw in those plots:

In making fate so obvious, oppressive, and busy an agent, Dryden prevents the action from moving inexorably to its central tragic reversal; instead, we are given a succession of reversals. The solution to any one problem only introduces the next. The fortuitous world makes these characters almost comically impotent.⁶

3.

The phrase “comically impotent” hints at the approach to burlesque taken by Buckingham in his brilliant farce The Rehearsal; he seems to have seized upon the unintentional comic flaws in heroic motivation and exploited them with reference to many characters and situations.⁷ Lacy's (the actor who played Bayes) opening reference to the “strutting Heroes” who perform in “King Cambyses vein” (Prologue, line 10)⁸ sets the target of the burlesque clearly in view, just as Shakespeare did in Dream, where reference to Preston's ranting play was made as well. (Preston's subtitle was “A Lamentable Tragedie, Mixed Full of Pleasant Mirth …”). I think this allusion reflects a conscious attempt to associate the aims of this burlesque play with those of Dream and The Knight, where the Pyramus and Thisby interlude and Rafe's adventures comically attacked the ranting hero, mixing of genres, excessively sententious and hyperbolic language, and the spectacle of Senecan and chivalric drama. These excesses are also present, it should be noted, in heroic drama; and like his predecessors Buckingham again invokes the ideals of classical criticism (i.e., the unities, plot over spectacle, decorum) in order to make ludicrous the form's flaws. Lacy states this attitude explicitly when he objects, like the Boy in The Knight, to the habit among poets of “Changing Rules, of late, as if men writ In spite of Reason, Nature, Art and Wit” (lines 11-12; the italics are mine). This is a direct slap at Dryden's elaborate defense of his supposedly new form, which in fact only deviates more violently from nature in its attempt to achieve novelty. Lacy goes on to claim that poets today make us laugh at tragedy and cry at comedy—the artistic world of the theatre, in other words, has been turned topsy-turvy by “fresh” effects, which in the end simply derive from sources as old as Preston's play. The Prologue then concludes with a witty reference to the “Critiques” who come to the theatre only to jeer—Lacy says if they do not like the character he is playing he will, in the manner of Bottom, remove his wig and discover to all his real identity. This jab at the fickleness of critics is a new development in the evolution of burlesque dramatic form, and it will be expanded and modified by Fielding and Sheridan in their masterpieces. Here Buckingham chides playwrights for their fear of condemning judges, most of whom were virtuosi attempting to gain status and reputation by damning everything on the stage. Any effort to please them, as the mechanicals tried to please all in “Pyramus and Thisby”, is fated to result in chaotic scenes with little coherence.

In establishing his parodic point of view, Buckingham has employed the framing device of an audience-on-stage whose job it is to comment on the action. The method is comparable to that of the verse satirist who invents a persona to express critical opinions and otherwise act as a tool for achieving irony. The two wits who perform a similar task in The Rehearsal, Smith and Johnson, are expected to react to the turns and surprises in the performance as well as to Bayes' outbursts about the brilliance of his technique. Unlike George and Nell in The Knight, they do not superimpose their own play on the main action, nor do they champion an aesthetic which is being satirized. On the contrary, we see in the exchanges between the two men the emergence of a standard of common sense by which we in the audience can judge the incoherent action of the rehearsed play. They ask the same questions we might ask, which in the context qualifies them as sober judges in contrast with the bogus playwright. Buckingham adds some touches of characterization to help us differentiate between them—Smith is a country fellow, skeptical yet anxious to see “the strange new things” he has heard about in the city. As the action progresses Bayes becomes more and more alienated by Smith's pointed inquiries, and something of a verbal tug-of-war does take place between them. Johnson, the city friend, knows that all the newfangledness of the stage is “dull” and “fantastical”, but he is willing to let his friend see for himself and have some fun in the bargain. In fact at certain points he gleefully urges Bayes on by declaring that Smith's naive questions are only a sign of his country obtuseness: “Phoo! pr'ythee, Bayes, don't mind what he says: he is a fellow newly come out of the Country, he knows nothing of what's the relish, here, of the Town” (I. ii.). The two characters' names suggest a kind of typicality, a middle-class reasonableness against which we can easily measure both the excesses of the play and the outrageous remarks of Bayes. Further, I think Buckingham was directing his comic message at just such a reasonable element in the audience, men who paid attention to what takes place in plays and who demanded quality as well as noise. We are urged to hope through Johnson and Smith's remarks that their sense of artistic right and wrong will prevail, as we likewise feel in The Knight when the Boy speaks about unities and decorum to George and Nell. As neither “critics” nor courtiers, they do not invade the theatre but seem to belong there, ironically, with better claim than Bayes.

And what of this interloper? Johnson, in an early speech, tells us such fellows “scorns [sic] to imitate Nature; but are given altogether to elevate and surprise”, which task he says means depicting “Fighting, Loving, Sleeping, Rhyming, Dying, Dancing, Singing, Crying; and everything but thinking and Sence”. The dichotomies here are worth studying in connection with Buckingham's method of satire and caricature. “Elevate and surprise” are Dryden-like terms for heroic drama and point to its larger-than-life aims; but such a purpose is far removed from the classical-critical one, which is, according to Horace and Sidney, to “teach and delight”. Dryden's apology in Of Heroic Plays was heavily weighted on the side of spectacle, forgetting in the process the instructive aims of dramatic art and the preeminence of plot in achieving those ends. “Thinking and sense” confirm that reading of Buckingham's complaint against excess, and the whole tenor of the argument suggests that the burlesque playwright is often motivated by a belief in ancient “rules” as effective, viable guidelines for the artist. At least these standards are most often appealed to for the sake of criticism. Those who deviate risk chaos, according to this view, because they are then forced to depend solely on their own fancies, something Dryden actually defends in his Of Heroic Plays. In shaping Bayes' caricature to fit Dryden and other composers of heroic plays, Buckingham further classes him with the growing class called virtuosi, amateurs who were in Charles' reign beginning to invade all areas of endeavor, including the theatre, claiming special knowledge. These men were to be roundly attacked in Gulliver's Travels, but it is increasingly clear that as early as 1671 their antics were arousing the scorn of certain aristocrats and other gentlemen, whose classical training and backgrounds made them suspicious of novelty in general. For this reason Bayes is portrayed as a schemer, a man obsessed with the notion of innovation at all costs.

Though Dryden is probably the central model for Buckingham's mock-playwright,⁹ we should more fruitfully think of him as a satiric portrait of the newly-arrived virtuoso; the bad poet brashly pushing himself onto the stage; the popularizer determined to please unlettered taste. He is a Modern open to attack by Ancients, a fellow who scorns to imitate nature and who writes, as he tells us, not for money but “for Reputation”. His name may be an intended pun on “base” with the further suggestion that all which drops forth from his pen is “base-born”, art struggling to make it among its betters. In short, he is a prototype of the Grub Street hack who turns artist and playwright to get in on a good thing. This view is supported by Johnson in the first scene when he calls upon Bayes to explain the meaning of his last play (probably a reference to The Conquest of Granada):

Faith, Sir, the Intrigo's now quite out of my head; but I have a new one, in my pocket, that I may say is a Virgin; 't has never yet been blown upon. I must tell you one thing. 'Tis all new Wit; and tho I say it, a better than my last: and you know well enough how that took … If you and your friend will do it but the honour to see it in its Virgin attire; though perhaps, it may blush, I shall not be asham'd to discover its nakedness unto you … [Puts his hand into his pocket]

(I. i.)

Buckingham wittily uses this speech to present Bayes as a playwright-panderer—the “piece” is a “Virgin … never yet … blown upon”; he will “discover its nakedness” to Johnson and Smith at this private showing. The suggestion of pimp is perfectly appropriate to the ridiculing purpose of presenting Bayes as bogus and corrupting—he is an “artist” who ignores the “rules” for the sake of “invention”. Paradoxically, his new work turns out to be an old hag, having been handled by earlier playwrights, and the audience is about to be swindled as it has been before by this salesman. Further, Bayes' gesture of reaching into his pocket hints at the “source” of his wit. Such scatological touches are conventional in burlesque and were used by both Shakespeare and Beaumont to ridicule their mock-heroes. In informing us of how he prepares to write, Bayes is even more explicit about his regimen, which suggests that “products” of his “labor” originate somewhere other than the brain: “If I am to write familiar things, as Sonnets to Armida, and the like, I make use of Stew'd Prunes only; but when I have a grand design in hand, I ever take Phisic, and let blood: for, when you would have pure swiftness of thought, and fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive part. In fine, you must purge the Belly” (II. i.). Bayes, because of his humor-like intensity, might be fittingly called The Knight of the Burning Pen!

The portrait of Bayes as mock-hero has other intriguing dimensions. Besides being a panderer, he is also seen as constantly at war—with sense, the actors, the audience, and himself. He is a kind of general whose purpose is to outmaneuver his audience's awareness of what is happening, hoping to spring surprise attack after surprise attack on them. As the 1st Player tells us: “… the grand design upon the Stage is to keep the Auditors in suspense; for to guess presently at the plot, and the sence, tires 'em before the end of the first Act: now, here, every line surprises you, and brings in new matter” (I. ii.). This strategy openly follows the pyrotechnics of heroic drama, where sudden reversals are a crucial part of the effect. But to create his playwright as a bombastic warrior carrying on his own heroic struggle with sense is truly a witty touch by Buckingham. The fellow has done everything to insure success of his enterprise: his prologue will be delivered by a hangman, sword drawn, standing behind the author; if the audience fails to approve the argument, he will lose his head; he has passed out sheets of paper “to insinuate the Plot into the Boxes”; he has planted several friends in the pit to applaud vociferously at the proper times. His attitude toward Johnson and Smith is that they are, like most audiences, dense about this new way of writing; no amount of explanation will ever make his plot clear to them. As for the actors, they too are against him: “Aye, I gad, these fellows are able to spoil the best things in Christendome”. He blames them especially for not performing certain things that Bayes himself has neglected to include in the play. In the opening scene, for instance, his two usurpers, the King's Physician and Gentleman-Usher, whisper together without letting the audience hear what they are saying. Then later, when the two lawful kings enter, they seem to know all the details of the imminent overthrow. Bayes is infuriated with Smith's question about how they knew, charging that the actors forgot to pop in their heads to overhear the whispering. He is constantly forcing his way into their midst to demonstrate the right way to sword-fight or dance or deliver one of his brilliant similes. This touch of characterization clearly places Bayes in the tradition of obstreperous managers who try to control every phase of the production: like Bottom he wants to play all the parts and show the other actors how each role is correctly handled; like George and Nell he will impose his taste on everyone and have performed the scenes he admires whenever they suit his fancy. Echoing the greengrocer from The Knight, when asked by Smith what has happened to the action at a particular point, since the “Plot stands still”, Bayes replies: “Plot stand still! why, what a Devil is the Plot good for, but to bring in fine things?” (III. i.). This incredulous statement of contempt for control by anything beyond his own imagination is a form of comic pride, and Buckingham makes the most of it throughout his caricature of the bogus playwright.

The most devastating touch however is the representation of Bayes as plagiarist, a charge which took precedence over all others among Restoration critics.¹⁰ In this play the direct assault is launched against Dryden, Howard, Davenant, and others for having stolen the incidents, sentiments, and method of characterization of heroic drama from other sources. Bayes proudly displays his book of “Drama Common places” to Johnson and Smith in the first act, and defends its use by claiming that all artists need such helps to spur their creative faculties. His rule of “Transversion, or Regula Duplex” allows the playwright to change prose to verse or verse to prose according to some high-sounding law, which in effect is self-made. He also “Transverses” witty remarks made at the coffeehouses, taking down any usable gems as they drop from the lips of gentlemen. And if any serious need arises for invention, e.g., finding something quickly, Bayes will

never trouble my head about it, as other men do; but presently turn over this Book, and there I have, at one view, all that Perseus, Montaigne, Seneca's Tragedies, Horace, Juvenal, Claudian, Pliny, Plutarch's Lives, and the rest, have ever thought upon this subject: and so, in a trice, by leaving out a few words, or putting in others of my own, the business is done.

(I. i.)

Buckingham's exaggeration for effect is obvious here: Bayes invents the rules of composition instead of receiving them, a direct attack on the habit of heroic dramatists of borrowing scenes of spectacle from both ancient and English Elizabethan dramatists. Such pilfering from prose sources was accepted practice in the Elizabethan age; we should especially note that Bayes mentions Plutarch's Lives among his originals, a source whose words Shakespeare might be said to have transversed. But the habit is out of style, in Buckingham's view, and the clear implication is that playwrights should concern themselves about their own ages and heroes and not the legendary past, glorious and warring though it may be. He also implies that ancient writers should be used as models and not treasure troves which the poet may plunder at will. Of course, Bayes denies the very thing he does without excuse. He is forever contradicting himself over the question of his debt to preceding dramatists, as in II. i., when he declares: “I despise your Johnson and Beaumont, that borrow'd all they writ from Nature. I am for fetching it purely out of my own fancy, I.”

4.

By placing Johnson, Smith, and Bayes in the framework of a rehearsal situation, Buckingham has achieved another ingenious innovation in the burlesque format.¹¹ Beaumont, we should remember, had his commentators interrupt an actual performance to concoct their own play, while Shakespeare scattered rehearsal scenes by the mechanicals throughout his plot, inserting the actual performance before an audience on stage at the close of the action. Buckingham, however, maintains the rehearsal motif as a continuing device in order to achieve a number of comic effects. First, we notice as audience in the theatre that we are invited to peep through a keyhole to observe the absurdity of a pre-play performance—we are encouraged to laugh even more because no one on stage will notice. Someone has inadvertently left open the curtain and we can look in with no fear of being discovered. Because of the added dimension of an audience on stage, whose remarks lay bare the flaws in the play, we can direct our laughter at both author and work at the same time. Moreover, the actors can feel free to respond freely and naturally to the ridiculous things they are called upon to do, thereby adding another kind of criticism to the proceedings. Speaking as if he were describing the whole action of the piece, instead of a particular dance tune the absurd author has written, one actor complains: “Why, Sir, 'tis impossible to do anything in time, to this Tune.” This and other similar comments suggest that the actors are the real heroes of the play, since they show courage and restraint beyond the call in not throttling the bogus playwright. Indeed, the actors, Johnson and Smith, we in the audience, everyone—except Bayes—is aware that if this is the state of the play in dress rehearsal, what can possibly be done to make it stageworthy in the few short hours before performance? (Rehearsals were usually conducted in the morning with performances beginning at three o'clock.) Seeing it at this point in its development is comparable to watching the condemned man before his execution: not even a pardon from the governor (or some new twist in the plot!) will save him from destruction. This strong hint of impending chaos provides the appropriate mood of failure and patchwork. The rehearsal ends with everyone departing the theatre, leaving an empty stage to a Bayes vowing to wreak vengeance on the town:

I'l be reveng'd on them too; for I'l Lampoon 'em all. And Since they will not admit of my Plays, they shall know what a Satyrist I am. And so farewell to this Stage, I gad, forever.

(V. i.)

This is probably intended as a direct slap at Dryden, who did indeed turn to writing satire; but it also states the critical case against bad poets turned playwrights by simply removing the aesthetic objects and tools they need to function—actors and audience. The true citizens of the theatre, Buckingham seems to hope, will manage to expel the interlopers by ignoring them and their products. By depicting the action in a rehearsal framework, he makes us thankful that the “child” Bayes spoke of earlier has been destroyed before it saw the light of the playhouse.

What then are the flaws in the character of this bastard known as heroic tragedy, and how does the burlesque playwright go about the task of ridiculing them? Bayes' drama, if we can call it that, is an unmanageable catchall of the elements of heroic drama, romance, and melodrama. The plot, though it really has little, concerns two brothers whose kingdoms are usurped by their gentleman-usher and physician respectively. After the seizure takes place, prince Pretty-man is introduced to laud the beauty of his beloved, Cloris, and to argue about prices of finery with his tailor. Then news comes to the usurping kings that another prince, Volscius, has received word that his beloved, Parthenope, has committed suicide. Amaryllis, another fair maiden, is next discovered walking with a fisherman who is seized by soldiers for supposedly plotting the assassination of Volscius at the instigation of Pretty-man. We suddenly discover in the next scene that the fisherman is really Pretty-man's father, and the son is now forced to pray for his father's life.

Meanwhile, Volscius sees his beloved outside the city's walls (she is not dead after all) and declares his deep passion for her, while Cloris and Amaryllis laugh at his outbursts. Volscius then begins to pull off his boots, thus providing the appropriate setting for a self-debate over love and honor. It is not quite clear what the question of honor is, but for Bayes the occasion is ideal, since he can illustrate the hero's vacillation by having him hip-hop off the stage, one boot on, the other off. A funeral scene follows, the mourners bringing in a casket reportedly containing the remains of Lardella, sister to Drawcansir, the mock-hero of the play, with whom both the usurpers were said to have been in love. As the two men are about to commit suicide, Pallas enters wonderfully to discover a feast instead of funeral, assuring the two that their love is really alive and well. Drawcansir, however, interrupts the festivities, scorns the two usurpers, and drives them from the stage. Volscius and Pretty-man return for a verbal combat as they exchange superlatives in praise of their respective mistresses.

In a final burst of glory, the true monarchs return literally from the skies, wafted down on a magnificent machine meant to look like a cloud, and regain their empty thrones. A general shout and dance follow. But rude messengers barge in to report gathering armies (whose they are no one knows), whose presence constitutes a threat to their majesties' safety. During the ensuing battle, prepared for by a recitative account of the armies, Drawcansir kills every soldier on both sides, and the play ends with bodies piled high on the stage amid shouts of victory from the winner. As the Epilogue astutely puts it, “The Play is at an end, but where's the Plot?” We might also logically ask: what are other conventions of the form which this mad and absurd piece farcically exaggerates?

I have already mentioned the implied complaint against mixing together comic and tragic elements, stated in the Prologue, or more precisely the habit among playwrights of bringing the action to the brink of disaster, then rescuing it by means of some external force. You will recall that this is what happened in The Indian Queen with the sudden, providential appearance of Amexia, the deposed queen, and the discovery that Montezuma was her rightful son and heir. Buckingham parodies this trick of denouement by including a scene in Bayes' play (IV. i.) during which the funeral of the beautiful Lardella is transformed into a banquet by the arrival of Athene, who in her helmet “brought a Pye” and wears a “Buckler made of Cheese”.¹² The usurpers, both in love with the dead maiden, were about to commit a double suicide but the sudden appearance of a deus ex machina stopped them. The joke here is that these villains should have killed themselves—Pallas has frustrated the event which would have led to restoration of the brother kings. Instead, the deposition is delayed for another two scenes, at which point the rightful rulers drop unexpectedly out of the skies without having to engage in any kind of combat to win back their thrones! The stage direction underlines the drollness of this scene:

The two right Kings of Brentford descend in the Clouds, singing, in white garments and three Fidlers sitting before them, in green.

(V. i.)

Though such a picture seems outrageous and included solely for spectacle's sake, we should not forget that effects just as exaggerated as this were actually a part of Restoration performances, as proven by the following stage direction from Dryden's opera Albion and Albanius (1685):

The clouds divide and Juno appears in a machine drawn by peacocks; while a symphony is playing, it moves gently forward and as it descends, it opens and discovers the tail of the peacock, which is so large that it almost fills the opening of the stage between scene and scene.¹³

The hackneyed motif of usurpation is wonderfully lampooned in The Rehearsal by depicting the usurpers as Gentleman-Usher and Physician, instead of relatives or rivals from other royal families. Moreover, the motives for the act are perfectly obscured in a whispering scene, which effectively hides the details from the audience and actors. A further incongruity, and probably the crucial one of this burlesque segment, is that these two “servants” speak in the same heroic verse as the kings and noble warriors, even though most of what they say is mundane and silly. Even when seizing the throne, which is done in easy fashion, without so much as a quarrel, the Gentleman-Usher announces:

'Tis right:
And, since occasion now seems debonair,
I'l seize on this, and you shall take that Chair.

(I. iv.)

Since the deposition is accomplished with similar ease and lack of conflict, we can assume that Buckingham is focusing close attention on the weaknesses in plotting and building conflict and tension into the action of heroic plays as well. Here, the battle between soldiers, presumably supporting the opposing sides, takes place after the usurpation; in it, all the soldiers are killed, after which they arise and begin a dance with Bayes directing the choreography. Though Bayes has already told us the plot exists only to bring in fine things, we might still be expected to blanch at men seizing thrones without any conflict and dead soldiers rising from the ground to do a jig! The habit of interjecting dances and music between scenes in heroic plays is likewise being lampooned.

Extravagant similes are another feature of heroic drama which are fair game for the skilled parodist. Their presence was justified primarily on the basis of their appropriateness to the acting of fine things in epic poetry. But on the stage these similes are likely to flop, possibly because their length, intricateness, and exaggerated tone caused audiences' attention to wander, thus losing the intended impact. Mock-heroic technique is devastatingly employed in Buckingham's parody of a simile from The Conquest of Granada (II. ii.) dealing with two turtle doves caught in a storm:

So Boar and Sow, when any storm is nigh,
Snuff up, and smell it gath'ring in the sky;
Boar beckons Sow to trot in Chestnut Groves,
And there consummate their unfinish'd Loves:
Pensive in mud they wallow all alone,
And snore and gruntle to each other's moan.

(I. ii.)

As expected the goal of this mock-epic simile is debasement—the birds become pigs, the branches of trees are reduced to a mud pit, the gentle love-making is transformed into gross breeding. Buckingham's point here is that bad poets unintentionally drag sentiments through the dirt, and this natural bent is particularly noticeable in a play pretending to epic heights. Bayes, like Bottom and Rafe before him, is supremely literal: in addition to this unfortunate simile, he also adds the characters Thunder and Lightning (remember Wall and Moonshine) to depict a storm (I. ii.). Both “allegorical” characters threaten the audience, critics, gallants, and fine ladies alike, with singing and blasting if they do not applaud the play. The poetaster thus leaves nothing to the imagination, even in the matter of a storm, with the result that all is brought down to a very earthy and earthly level—especially in the expression of sentiments.

At the dead center of all heroic plays is the agonizing debate between love and honor; without it such fare would be nothing more than episodic adventure, lacking both theme and thought. But most of the typical debates with self by heroic protagonists tended to be highly artificial and often tedious to hear. Montezuma's ejaculation on the ambivalence of such situations is a good example in IV. ii. of The Indian Queen. Buckingham's parody underlines the hero's feelings of ambivalence by adding a physical dimension to the philosophical debate. Prince Volscius, leader of one of the armies (Bayes is not sure which), is in love with the fair Parthenope, whom he has just met at the town wall where her mother sells ale. Assuming this girl dressed in rags is really a high-born beauty, Volscius cannot resist her charms, even though he knows his army awaits him back at the camp. What is he to do? In an hilarious scene, Bayes has him debate the point while putting on his boots:

My Legs, the Emblem of my various thought,
Shew to what sad distraction I am brought.
Sometimes with stubborn Honour, like this Boot,
My mind is guarded, and resolv'd: to do't:
Sometimes, again, that very mind, by Love
Disarm'd, like this other Leg does prove.
Shall I to Honour or to Love give way?
Go on, cries Honour; tender Love saies, nay:
Honour, aloud, commands, pluck both Boots on;
But softer Love does whisper put on none.
What shall I do? what conduct shall I find
To lead me through this twy-light of my mind?
For as bright Day with black approach of Night
Contending, makes a doubtful puzzling light;
So does my Honour and my Love together
Puzzle me so, I can resolve for neither. (Goes out
hopping with one Boot on, and the other off)

[III. v.]

The stage direction undercuts the whole debate skillfully, but it also urges one to look back at the speech to discover more turns of a humorous sort. Love telling Volscius to “Put on none” is clearly a light sexual joke, intended to poke fun at the high-flown view of love in the heroic plays, a view considered very cynically by the morally loose courtiers like Buckingham. Volscius' legs acting as an emblem of the dilemma suggests another incongruous simile about “horns of a dilemma”, which further debases this quarrel with principles. The stage directions also tell us that Bayes is mimicking Volscius while he is undergoing his moral struggle with the boots, and this mirror image of absurdity adds even more to an audience's delight with the whole incident. Verbal parody, physical jigging and farce combine to make this one of the most successful scenes in the play; and like many of the others it does not demand from the viewers any previous knowledge about a particular speech or play. Moreover, as the reader later discovers Volscius's problem is never resolved, for as he is about to plead his case to the usurpers the true kings return, and all action is resolved in an anticlimactic battle. This treatment of the love versus honor quarrel suggests the artificiality of such debates as well as their interminable length—the question is completely forgotten when hero and heroine gain permission to be married.

But Buckingham's single boldest stroke is the hatching of Drawcansir, Bayes' ranting protagonist, “a fierce Hero, that frights his Mistress, snubs up Kings, baffles Armies, and does what he will, without regard to numbers, good manners, or justice”. The ironic truth of the caricature is that most of what is said about Drawcansir applies equally well to Bayes, suggesting that the kind of pugnacity displayed in heroic characters is just as ludicrous when seen in a real person—especially a poetaster at war with the critical world. Since Bayes urges so strongly the originality of his protagonist, he unwittingly identifies himself as the father of a freakish son. To display further ignorance of strategy or plotting, Bayes fails to introduce his hero until the last scene of Act IV, a touch which underscores the habit of suddenly bringing in the hero to display his courage by killing off any problems the complex action might have spawned. Drawcansir simply snatches bowls of wine out of the usurpers' hands, scares them off, and downs the wine with: “I drink, I huff, I strut, look big and stare; And all this I can do, because I dare.”

These lines spoken by Drawcansir are parodies of speeches by Dryden's Almanzor in The Conquest of Granada, Part II (II. iii.); and Buckingham's mock-hero was no doubt intended as a caricature of Dryden's Spanish adventurer-mercenary. The name Drawcansir is probably suggestive of the hero's habit of drawing his sword at the drop of a crown, since Almanzor is Dryden's most excitable leading man, subject to sudden changes of heart and will. He begins every struggle with pronouncements meant to prove that he is “all man, sir”. At the opening of Conquest he defends the right of King Boabdelin in battling and defeating the rebellious Duke Arcos, whom he then magnanimously offers to free. When Boabdelin understandably refuses to comply with this gesture, Almanzor leads a revolt of his own, unseats Boabdelin, and puts the friendly Prince Abdalla on the throne. But peace is a fragile thing, especially with passionate young men around. Abdalla denies Almanzor's request to marry the beautiful Almahide, presumably because nothing is known about the warrior's origin or family. As you might guess, Almanzor then turns on Abdalla, deposes him, and returns the crown to the patient Boabdelin; in a final battle, moreover, Almanzor discovers that Duke Arcos is really his father, and his royal blood now gives him license to both the throne and Almahide. (This was only the conclusion of Part I; in Part II a similar ballet goes on, with much more mayhem.) His oscillation of moods and passionate pursuit of Almahide and honor make Almanzor into a proper subject for ridicule. Instead of presenting Drawcansir as the central figure throughout, Buckingham brings him in to scare off the usurpers, then later has him throttle two opposing armies in a final slaughterhouse scene. The satire here is blatant: Drawcansir favors neither side in this grand battle, fought between foot and hobbyhorses, but murders them all! This is Bayes' way of outdoing his predecessors—he simply adds more violence and spectacle, forgetting completely about the plot. In fact, there is no reason for this final battle other than pure entertainment, since the two kings have already secured their thrones.

But as we have seen in preceding burlesque plays, anticlimax is a crucial convention. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the mechanicals' Pyramus and Thisbe play retained the suicides but forgot the reasons for them: and in The Knight Rafe enters as a spectre with an arrow through his head simply because George and Nell want to hear a Senecan ghost speech and not because the speech has anything to do with the plot. Rafe Roister Doister ended in a battle of pots and pans, representing a parody of the Trojan War (since it is fought over a woman) and the battle of the sexes. Likewise, in heroic plays the stage was required at the end of the action to be filled with corpses, even though the reason for such mass murder might not have been carefully explained. Seven characters are killed on stage in Part II of The Conquest of Granada, and others dispatched off. The stage direction in The Rehearsal (V. i.) does not specify how many soldiers were supposed to expire in front of the audience, but we can safely assume that Bayes has packed the space between scenes. After Drawcansir has succeeded in dispatching them all, he turns to the audience for his one and only heroic speech:

Others may bost a single man to kill;
But I the blood of thousands daily spill.
Let petty Kings the names of Parties know:
Where e'er I come, I slay both friend and foe.
The swiftest Horsmen my swift rage controuls,
And from their Bodies drives their trembling souls.
If they had wings, and to the Gods could flie,
I would pursue, and beat 'em, through the skie:
And make proud Jove, with all his Thunder, see
This single Arm more dreadful is, than he.

This hyperbolic declaration places Drawcansir squarely in the tradition of mock-heroes reaching back to Thersites, Roister Doister, and Sir Thopas. All boast about martial prowess and their ability to overkill, thereby qualifying as supreme examples of comic pride run rampant. Drawcansir is a caricature as well of hot-blooded fighters like Hotspur, especially in his ranting vow to pursue his victims into the sky. “I defye all your Histories, and your Romances too”, declares Bayes, “to shew me one such Conqueror as this Drawcansir”. The point is that Bayes' protagonist is a composite of the heroes from exactly the sources he mentions; his sole distinction is that he is such a perfect copy.

As soon as Drawcansir has strutted off the stage, we assume Bayes' narrative powers have been played out. At this point both actors and audience (Smith and Johnson) take their cue and depart before he does have a chance to introduce anything else. And he does plan to spring more nonsense on us. One of the players, while Bayes has gone to fetch the others who tried to escape, discovers a sheet of paper with the argument for Act V scribbled on it. This act develops a subplot involving Prince Pretty-man and Cloris and traces the dissolution of their love. Here again the vignette has nothing to do with the main action, and would if played have constituted yet another anticlimax. Left alone, Bayes' threat to turn satirist and be revenged on them all is as hollow as Malvolio's at the end of Twelfth Night. In both these plays, moreover, the appropriate punishment is found for the alien forces—they are ignored, left alone without an audience, to stand on their own merits. Bayes' rejection of the theatre is an ironic bit of rationalization—the theatre in effect has rejected him and his bogus art. To reinforce this point the Epilogue makes a special plea to the remaining viewers:

Wherefore, for ours, and for the Kingdom's peace,
May this prodigious way of writing cease.
Let's have, at least, once in our lives, a time
When we may hear some reason, not all Rhyme:
We have these ten years felt its Influence;
Pray let this prove a year of Prose and Sence.

5.

A final word should be said about the variety of styles presented here in The Rehearsal. As in The Knight and A Midsummer Night's Dream, a good deal of the wit consists in medleys of juxtaposed manners of speech. The rather urbane and conversational type of prose is used by Johnson and Smith, an appropriate form for their function as common sense standards of taste. The mode and tone are conversational, tinged with a few weak oaths and for the most part consisting of questions or simple, devastating observations like Smith's: “I find the Author will be very much obliged to the Players, if they can make any sence out of this.” This somewhat normative form is set against the more extravagant and profane idiom of Bayes' speech, filled as it is with hyperbole, oaths, Latin tags, and other signs of his humorous nature. The most consistent tone in Bayes' remarks is exclamatory, thereby indicating his role as mock-heroic jouster-with-sense. Illustrative of this is his attack on the actors, who never seem to do what he requires:

—Phoo, Pox! you are come out too late, Sir, now you may go out again if you please. I vow to gad, Mr.—a—I would not give a button for my Play, now you have done this.
PRETTY-MAN.
What Sir?
BAYES.
What Sir! 'Slife, Sir, you should have come out in a choler, rous upon the stage, just as the other went off. Must a man be eternally telling you these things?

(III. iv.)

This oath-filled banter is most effectively contrasted, however, with the heroic verse of the actors as they read the parts while Bayes intersperses his comments, as in IV. ii., where Volscius and Pretty-man are debating the beauty of their two loves:

VOLS.
Let my Parthenope at length prevail.
BAYES.
Civil, I gad.
PRET.
I'l sooner have a passion for a Whale:
In whose vast bulk, though store of Oyl doth lye,
We find more shape, more beauty, in a Fly.
SMI.
That's uncivil, I gad.
BAYES.
Yes; but as far a fetch'd fancy tho, I gad, as e're you saw.
VOLS.
Soft, Pretty-man, let not thy vain pretence
Of perfect love, defame love's excellence.
Parthenope is sure, as far above
All other loves, as above all is Love.
BAYES.
Ah! I gad, that strikes me.
PRET.
To blame my Cloris, Gods would not pretend.
BAYES.
Now mark.
VOLS.
Were all Gods join'd, they could not hope to mend
My better choice; for fair Parthenope,
Gods would, themselves, un-god themselves to see.
BAYES.
Now the Rant's acoming.
PRET.
Durst any of the Gods be so uncivil,
I'ld make that God suscribe himself a Devil.
BAYES.
Ah, Godsookers, that's well writ!
(Scratching his head, his Peruke falls off)

Such a long quotation clearly illustrates the effectiveness of the frame device of the rehearsal. Bayes must point out the ingenuity of his writing to the two gentlemen because they obviously cannot see it. His favorite word of praise is “civil”, and he even manages to work it into Pretty-man's final speech. Clearly, Bayes' conduct and his verse are both uncivil, or not in keeping with social and aesthetic etiquette: the audience and not the poet should judge the work. When the poetaster warns that the “Rant's acoming” the warning applies both to his speeches in the play and his own prose outside of it. And the loss of his peruke is another farcical touch, comparable to his pratfall in II. v. (actually, we should call it “nosefall”) and his attempts to dance, which help to underline the absurdity of this director's actions. His exaggerated physical antics reinforce his outrageous habit of speech.

Other forms of verse include the songs which are interspersed throughout the action, some of which parody Dryden's songs (see III. i.), and the recitative used to elevate the description of battle scenes in heroic plays. This latter technique, similar to operatic recitative, is cleverly parodied in V. i., when the General and Lieutenant list the bands of warriors prepared to do battle. The ironic turn is achieved here through a parody of the epic catalogue of heroes and their home countries (“Phorcys led the Phrygians”); the joke is that these fighters are all from familiar and not exotic places:

LIEUT.-GEN.
The Band you boast of, Chelse Cuirassiers,
Shall, in my Putney Pikes, now meet their Peers.
GEN.
Chiswickians aged, and renown'd in fight,
Join with the Hammersmith Brigade.
LIEUT.-GEN.
You'll find my Mortlake Boys will do them right,
Unless by Fulham numbers over-laid.

Here familiarity breeds contempt since by listing these home guard units the grandeur of battle is reduced considerably. Indeed, Bayes undercuts the epic stature of his play from the very beginning by setting it in Brentford, an area close to London, instead of staging the action in some distant and strange-sounding land. And these generals, with their recitation style, lose much of their stature as heroic figures when the scene of their struggle is put so close to the playgoers' everyday world.

A classic stichomythic exchange between Amaryllis and the Fisherman provides yet another type of dialogue to contrast with heroic verse and colloquial prose used in the rest of the play. In fact the method of parody adopted here is frequently associated with the best-known burlesque routines, such as the famous Abbott and Costello “Who's on first?” exchange:

AMA.
Villain, what Monster did corrupt thy mind
T'attaque the noblest soul of human kind?
Tell me who set thee on.
FISH.
Prince Pretty-man.
AMA.
To kill whom?
FISH.
Prince Pretty-man.
AMA.
What, did Prince Pretty-man hire you to kill Prince Pretty-man?
FISH.
No; Prince Volscius.
AMA.
To kill whom?
FISH.
Prince Volscius
AMA.
What, did Prince Volscius hire you to kill Prince Volscius?
FISH.
No; Prince Pretty-man.
AMA.
So!—drag him hence,
Till torture of the Rack produce his Sense.(14)

(III. iii.)

One can easily envision Buckingham delighting in the sheer nonsense of this passage, poking fun as he does at the needlessly complex intrigues of heroic plays. The purposely intensified rhythm of the exchanges suggests the kind of pyrotechnics heroic dramatists will use to keep their audiences awake. We remember this patch of dialogue later, when at the end of the rehearsal the witty and polished couplets of the Epilogue stand out as reasonable writing pleading for a return to “Prose and Sense”.

Buckingham's stylistic potpourri is a convention of the burlesque play, and we can see such medleys working just as effectively in The Knight and especially in A Midsummer Night's Dream, where the stately blank verse of Theseus is set against the rhymed verse of the lovers and the prosaic dialogue of the mechanicals. Yet in spite of these and other shared traits it has been claimed that most modern readers miss the fun because they are unacquainted with the heroic language and plots The Rehearsal parodies.¹⁵ This may to some degree be true, but such a claim does ignore the tradition of burlesque in which Buckingham is working, a tradition that all but insures success because of certain tested techniques. For instance, the rehearsal device, providing as it does spectators on stage, allows the playwright to establish a standard or norm with which the audience in the theatre can readily identify. They are immediately in on the joke. The creation of a mock-heroic playwright, whose manner and idiom are so obviously ridiculous, presents us with a classic comic type whom we can comfortably feel is inferior to us. Buckingham insures this impression by making Bayes the epitome of literalness, as he brings on the stage all sorts of spectacle and mayhem in an attempt to do something new. For example, his two allegorical scenes, the first involving Thunder and Lightning, his second the Sun and Moon, recall the creation of actual characters to play Wall and Moonshine in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The bogus playwright's lack of concern for coherent plot, the unities, and decorum reflects a cultivation of pure fancy, a humor which the satirist attacks by taking a classical-critical point of view. This stance conforms to those taken by preceding burlesque playwrights as well, especially Beaumont. It is most congenial to the audience, moreover, because it appeals to their intellect and sense of proportion, both of which should be at work in a comic situation. Comedy is, we should remember, a form of criticism—it traditionally has seen man as he is and not as he would like to pretend he is. Heroic drama, like chivalric literature and romance epics on which it is founded, was an attempt to elevate human motive and action above the mundane and to see man in god-like garb, defying convention—and often sense—to do great things. It is easy to see why such an aim excited the ridicule of cynical court wits like Buckingham, Butler, Rochester, Sedley, and others. The Restoration liked to see itself on the stage and preferred comedy to tragedy; it tended to be suspicious of both excessive virtue and strained debates over questions of honor, love, and friendship.

Furthermore, in The Rehearsal I think we find ample reason to laugh at the antics of Bayes and his play without knowing the main elements of heroic drama. The dramatic flaws Buckingham chooses to attack are recognizably bad theatre in any age, because they depend on twisting the medium out of shape in order to succeed: long debates by the hero with himself or another over moral and philosophical questions, deus ex machina endings, spectacle included for its own sake, lack of cogent plot, literalness, and poor taste have consistently been the targets of burlesque. There might even be some envy behind the impulse to ridicule what is popular; Buckingham was not a notably successful dramatist but more a man about town. His satiric treatment of Dryden is particularly rough here, yet we have seen in modern literature (and other media as well) that parody of current and widely-accepted books, poems, and television programs is enjoyed as much by those who have given such trends currency as those who have lampooned them. Vogues in literature, after all, die out when audiences become tired of them and not when a successful travesty has been written. A case in point is the heroic play itself, which did not begin to disappear from the boards until some ten years after The Rehearsal appeared. And as we shall see, Fielding too felt the need to burlesque a similar heroic formula when he composed Tom Thumb sixty years later. These facts should lead us to enjoy The Rehearsal as a unique work of dramatic art whose purpose, though in part to correct, is mainly to give us a memorable play and caricature, and to admire the skill which animates the witty and delightful act of ridicule.

Notes

1. Frank L. Huntley, On Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy (Ann Arbor, 1951), 47.

2. W. P. Ker, ed., Essays of John Dryden (New York, 1961), I, 100-101.

3. Ker, Essays of John Dryden, I, 153. All citations are from this edition.

4. V. C. Clinton-Baddeley, The Burlesque Tradition in the English Theatre After 1660 (London, 1952), 36.

5. See Dougald MacMillan and Howard Mumford Jones, eds., Plays of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century (New York, 1931), 28. All act and scene references to The Indian Queen are from this edition.

6. Martin Price, To the Palace of Wisdom: Studies in Order and Energy from Dryden to Blake (Garden City, New York, 1964), 34.

7. Buckingham was the chief of a group of collaborators which included Thomas Spratt, Samuel Butler, and Martin Clifford. They apparently worked over the play for a considerable time before producing it. See MacMillan and Jones, 50-51.

8. All quotes are from Montague Summers, ed., The Rehearsal (Stratford-upon-Avon: Shakespeare Head Press, 1914).

9. Legend has it that Buckingham coached Lacy, the actor who first played Bayes, urging him to copy Dryden's mannerisms. Another claim is that Buckingham brought the poet laureate to the theatre on opening night purposely to watch him squirm. Bayes uses the oath “I gad” or “I gods” numerous times in the play, and these were supposed to be notorious Drydenisms. The suggestion is also made that Bayes (Dryden) wrote the part of Amaryllis into the play for his own mistress. It is well to remember, however, that Dryden was the target of other caricaturists as well, most notably by Arrowsmith in his depiction of the poet laureate as a comic tutor in The Reformation (1673). See Dane F. Smith, Plays About the Theatre in England (London, 1936), 15.

10. John H. Wilson, A Preface to Restoration Drama (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 47.

11. Dane Smith, 10, holds that Buckingham's source for the rehearsal motif was Molière's L'Impromptu de Versailles (1663). Buckingham was in Paris in 1661, and it could be safely assumed he saw a number of Molière plays. I tend to see the motif as evolving from English rehearsal plays, especially The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Peele's Old Wives Tale, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

12. The poetaster also informs the audience here (IV. i.) that he follows the rule of romance by giving us five plays to one plot. This remark parodies the habit of dividing heroic plays into parts, as was the case with The Conquest of Granada, or of writing sequels such as The Indian Emperor to follow The Indian Queen.

13. Cited in Wilson, A Preface to Restoration Drama, 16.

14. This is probably intended to parody a scene in Act I of Mariage à la Mode, during which Polydamus questions Hermogenes concerning the fate or whereabouts of his wife and child.

15. Wilson, A Preface to Restoration Drama, 137-138.