[In the following excerpt, Thorson discusses the political themes in Durfey's Butler's Ghost,]

Thomas D'Urfey's Butler's Ghost: or, Hudibras, the Fourth Part first appeared on the English literary, political, and religious scene in March 1682 in the aftermath of the Popish Plot and Exclusion crises. The poem cannot claim to be the most famous work to grow out of the controversy, as that honor must undoubtedly go to John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (1681), but it is of real interest to students of the period as a bawdy, slashing attack on the Whig faction led by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-1683). Shaftesbury is, of course, the Achitophel of Dryden's poem as well as the object of the satire of Dryden's The Medall, which also came out of the same controversy. … Shaftesbury is also represented as Antonio in Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd (1682), and in many other literary manifestations of the controversy, but it is not my task here to look at all, or even a significant proportion of the literary productions of the period. I do believe that a review of the historical context will be helpful to those studying the poem.¹

Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723) … is not terribly famous in the twentieth century, but neither is his name totally unknown in the modern scholarly world. The casual student of English literature may come across his name in the first issue of the Tatler, where Richard Steele graciously advertises that “The Town is at present in very great Expectation of seeing a comedy now in Rehearsal, which is the 25th Production of my Honoured Friend Mr. Thomas D'Urfey; who, besides his great Abilities in the Dramatic, has a peculiar Talent in the Lyrick Way of Writing, and that with a Manner wholly new unknown to the Antient Greeks and Romans, wherein he is but faintly imitated in the Translations of the Modern Italian Operas.” The month is, of course, April 1709, and the production referred to is of The Modern Prophets; or, New Wit for a Husband, though it is more nearly D'Urfey's thirtieth than his twenty-fifth dramatic production.² There are several other references to D'Urfey in the periodical literature of the period, and most of them put him into the two artistic traditions mentioned in the initial Tatler, the dramatic and the musical.

D'Urfey's plays, at their best, are lively comedies like Sir Barnaby Whigg; or, no Wit Like a Womans (1681) and The Royalist (1682). These two are also notable for being involved in the Popish Plot and Exclusion controversies which raged from 1678 to 1682. Sir Barnaby Whigg, the title character, though not the central character of the earlier play, is described as “A Phanatical Rascal, one of Oliver's Knights; one that always pretends to fear a change of Government yet does his best to cause one.” The Royalist features a character named Kinglove, who is obviously the antithesis of Sir Barnaby, and both plays show D'Urfey's partisan involvement in the controversy which was also the stimulus for Butler's Ghost. A slightly earlier play, The Virtuous Wife; or, Good Luck at Last, which was produced in about September 1679,³ takes a considerably less partisan position, as D'Urfey demonstrated his ability to straddle a fence and to keep on reasonably good terms with most, though not all, of the politicians on various sides of the questions. He is one of the few writers of any prominence who was closely associated with the courts of both Charles II and James II who was picked up almost immediately by the court of William and Mary. He was later to boast that “when I have perform'd some of my own Things before their Majesties King CHARLES the IId, King JAMES, King WILLIAM, Queen MARY, Queen ANNE, and Prince GEORGE, I never went off without happy and commendable Approbation.”⁴ Indeed, his loyalty to those in power, whoever they might be, was notable, as was his ability to survive political changes, somewhat like the Vicar of Bray. More than twenty of his plays are comedies out of a total dramatic production of over thirty plays. Of all of these plays, only two are available in a modern one-volume edition, Madam Fickle; or, the Witty False One (1676), and A Fond Husband; or, the Plotting Sisters (1677), edited with Introductions and Notes by Jack A. Vaughan (Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1976). These two comedies from early in D'Urfey's career exhibit his humor at its best and even reveal some originality, which is lacking in many of his later efforts. In fact, as early as 1691, Gerard Langbaine commented, “He is accounted by some for an Admirable Poet, but it is by those who are not acquainted much with Authors, and therefore deceiv'd by Appearance, taking that for his own Wit, which he only borrows from Others; for Mr. Durfey like the Cuckow, makes it his business to suck other Birds Eggs.”⁵ While it is necessary to discount Langbaine's acerbity somewhat, even D'Urfey's strongest supporters cannot deny that the dramatist made free with the work of many of his predecessors, and indeed, even in Butler's Ghost we will see that he borrows much from his satiric predecessor. Among his dramatic works, the most successful were probably the three parts of The Comical History of Don Quixote (1694, 1694, and 1696), which had few pretensions to originality. He also dipped into Shakespeare for an adaptation of Cymbeline which he called The Injured Princess: Or, The Fatal Wager (1682), but this is not the place to undertake a study of D'Urfey's originality as a playwright.

Our author has been treated considerably better as a writer and editor of songs than as a dramatist. As a singer of his own songs, he apparently charmed the royal and noble audiences for whom, and occasionally with whom, he performed. Joseph Addison goes into some detail about D'Urfey's ability to charm, and even says (though in the persona of the Guardian) “I myself remember King Charles the Second leaning on Tom d'Urfey's Shoulder more than once, and humming over a Song with him.”⁶ While this is consistent with D'Urfey's own statements about his intimacy with royalty, it should be noted that Joseph Addison was only thirteen years old when Charles II died, but it makes a good story. C. L. Day has noted a number of similar comments by those who were more nearly D'Urfey's contemporaries than was Addison. Many of the anecdotes about D'Urfey which circulated concerned his severe speech impediment. He is referred to as “Poet Stutter” in Wit for Money (1691), a satiric attack on him, and it is clear that he often suffered from a speech difficulty. Nevertheless, he is said to have been able to curse vociferously without stammering and to be able to sing without hesitation. In the same Guardian quoted above, Addison writes that D'Urfey was a “diverting Companion” and an agreeable companion. He also calls him “the Delight of the most Polite Companies and Conversations from the beginning of King Charles the Second's Reign to our present Times,” and adds, “Many an honest Gentleman has got a Reputation in his Country, by pretending to have been in Company with Tom. d'Urfey.” Addison's chronology is again suspect, as D'Urfey's birth-date is given as 1653 by the Dictionary of National Biography, which says that the usual date given, 1649, was wrong. C. L. Day, whose 1930 Harvard dissertation remains the most thorough study done of D'Urfey's nondramatic works to date, supports 1653. Thus D'Urfey could have been no more than eleven years old when Charles II stepped ashore at Dover in 1660, and probably he was only seven.

Day raises some interesting questions about D'Urfey's putative legal training without putting them firmly to rest, but there is no question whatsoever that the poet was trying to piece together a living as a writer and that throughout his long career he never managed to make himself financially secure. There were essentially four routes open to a writer to support himself, and our author tried all four of them with only limited success. The four routes were royal patronage, which might bring a pension or an appointment to a post in the Court or government; patronage by a noble who either gave gifts upon dedication of works to him or took the writer into his household; writing plays for the commercial theatres which might buy them for production and give the author the third night's proceeds if the play ran that long; or selling enough works to booksellers to support the writer on the proceeds. All four ways had risks involved. From the Restoration in 1660 through the end of D'Urfey's life in 1723, the various monarchs had significant, but not unlimited patronage to dispense. Queen Anne reportedly gave D'Urfey fifty guineas for singing for her, probably because of his musical jabs at the Princess Sophia of Hanover, who had her eyes on Anne's crown, but the songwriter poet never seems to have obtained a place in the Court. Noble families, though they often entertained the poet at their country homes, never offered permanent accommodation. There are numerous authenticated stories of D'Urfey's being entertained at noble seats, such as Knole, where there is still a portrait of the poet, Badminton, and Winchendon, but there are also hints that when the holiday was over, D'Urfey returned to a garret in London. Many of his works are dedicated to peers of the realm, but he complains in Butler's Ghost that some patrons only return a “Complement” for a poem. Though his dramatic works were numerous, the theatre provided only a perilous living for most playwrights. Through most of D'Urfey's long career there were either two or, for several years, only one theatre company active in London. The painful story of Grub Street, where writers for hire proverbially lived, has been told many times, and while specific records are lacking, there are good reasons to believe that he did not become wealthy on payments for the publication of his many works. The periodical literature of the early eighteenth century mentions several theatrical performances in his benefit, which gives a strong indication that he was in need.

One of D'Urfey's final projects was the editing of the multivolume collection of songs, some five hundred of which were by D'Urfey himself, called Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy in 1719-20. The history of the publication of this collection is complicated, but suffice it to say here that the edition stands as a monument to D'Urfey's place in the history of popular songs. There is a modern selection of songs from the collection called Sixty Ribald Songs from Pills to Purge Melancholy, edited by S. A. J. Bradley and arranged for guitar by John Duarte (New York: Praeger, 1968), but the selection presents only one part of his widely varied compositions. The subject matter of his songs ranges from ribaldry and drinking to love, to politics, to horse racing, to country games, and back. D'Urfey died in 1723 and was buried at St. James's Church, Picadilly, at the expense of the Earl of Dorset, one of his occasional patrons.

D'Urfey's apparent poverty provides a convenient link to the author on whom he grafted his present work, Samuel Butler (1613-1680). Butler was purported to have died in poverty and was used by many authors as the example of the unrewarded loyal poet. The writer of the original Hudibras was undoubtedly loyal, and his poem was certainly popular. The First Part of Hudibras appeared in December 1662, and was a big hit with the London public. It went through numerous editions⁷ and was reported to have been Charles II's favorite work. The Second Part was issued at the end of 1663, but required only two editions to satisfy public demand. The two parts were issued together with additions and notes in 1674 and again in 1678. The Third Part was also published in the latter year and required several editions during the remaining two years of Butler's life.

The popularity of the first two parts, consisting of six cantos, in the early years of the Restoration is closely tied to the political and social mood of the period. The despised rule of the Puritans had come to an end with the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, and the poem ridicules with broad strokes the Presbyterian knight of the Commonwealth, Sir Hudibras, and his squire Ralpho, a member of another dissenting sect, the Independents. To the supporters of the newly restored monarchy, the hunchbacked Sir Hudibras was an appropriate butt for Butler's satiric barbs, and the poem was enjoyed by the pleasure-loving gentlemen and nobles who lived the good life around the court of Charles II. Samuel Pepys, the follower of fashions, admitted that he couldn't find the wit of Hudibras on first reading it, but as he continued to hear it cried up as a brilliant satire, he bought a second copy to try to appreciate the popular work.⁸ Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector whose death in 1658 led to the Restoration, is often alluded to in Butler's poem, as he is in D'Urfey's continuation. He is frequently referred to in Restoration literature as Oliver or Noll, while the cause of the Commonwealth is very commonly called the Good Old Cause. The association of the political group which opposed King Charles II and his Court in 1678-82 with the Commonwealth and particularly with the Parliamentary opposition in 1641 and 1648-49 was extremely common and pervades D'Urfey's poem. The Cause was also sometimes referred to in a kind of religiopolitical shorthand as “Presbytery.” The tarring of the new opposition with the brush of the Commonwealth was widespread through the late 1670s and early 1680s, and undoubtedly contributed to the renewed popularity of Butler's work.

Notes

1. The best modern history of the Plot is John Kenyon, The Popish Plot (London: Heinemann, 1972), to which I am indebted. Other works which I have consulted include David Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, 2d ed., 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1963); Jane Lane [Elaine Dakers], Titus Oates (London: Andrew Dakers, 1949); and K. H. D. Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968). Important earlier accounts which also have been consulted include Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1857; rpt. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1974) and Bishop Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Time, ed. Martin Routh, 2d ed., 6 vols. (Oxford, 1833; rpt. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1969). Many of the poems and songs about the Plot and some excellent commentary may be found in Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660-1714, vol. 2, ed. Elias F. Mengel, Jr., and vol. 3, ed. Howard H. Schless (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965, 1968). There is a good modern edition of Samuel Butler, Hudibras, ed. John Wilders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967). See also Diaries of the Popish Plot, ed. Douglas G. Greene (Delmar: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1977) and Harold Whitmore Jones, ed., Anti-Achitophel (Delmar: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1960, 1978).

2. Cyrus L. Day, Dates and Performances of Thomas D'Urfey's Plays (Charlottesville: Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 1950), p. 22. The late Professor Day also wrote a valuable dissertation at Harvard on D'Urfey: Cyrus L. Day, “The Life and Non-Dramatic Works of Thomas Durfey,” 2 vols., Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1930.

3. The London Stage 1660-1800, ed. William Van Lennep (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965), pt. 1, p. 281.

4. From the Dedication to Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (London, 1719) quoted by Jack A. Vaughn, “Introduction,” Two Comedies by Thomas D'Urfey (Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1976), p. 18.

5. Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (Oxford, 1691; rpt. New York: Garland, 1973), p. 179. D'Urfey's name has been spelled variously, but this introduction will use the preferred D'Urfey.

6. Joseph Addison, “Number 67,” The Guardian, ed. John Calhoun Stephens (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1982), p. 254. The quotation below is taken from p. 255.

7. For a detailed study of the publication history, see my own “The Publication of Hudibras,” PBSA 60 (1966): 418-38, or the Wilders edition of Hudibras cited above in n. 1.

8. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews, 11 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970-83), III, 294, and IV, 35.