388
of Caricature
Grotqfgue
and
There, frutting heraex, -with a grim-fafd train,
Shaft bra-ve the godx, in king Cambyfes vein,
Far ( changing rules, qf late, as men writ
Infpite qf reafbn, nature, art, and wit)
Our pasts make u: laugh at tragedy,
And with their eomedies they make us cry.
A fhort account of this fatire will, perhaps, be belt underfiood, if I
explain that the antagonifm of two contending kings of Granada having
been a favourite idea of Dryden in his tragedies, Buckingham is faid to
have defigned to ridicule him in making two, not rival, but alibciate kings
of Brentford, though others fay that thefe two kings of Brentford were
intended for a fueer upon king Charles II. and the duke of York. Thefe
two kings are the heroes of Bayes's play. The Firtt act of"The Rehearfal "
confifts ofa difcufiion between Bayes, Johnfon, and Smith, on the general
charaeter of the play, in which Bayes exhibits a large amount of vanity
and felf-confidence, faicl to have been a characteritiic of all thefe play-
writers of the earlier period of the Refioration, and he informs them that
he has made a prologue and an epilogue, which may both ferve for
either; that is, the prologue for the epilogue, or the epilogue for the
prologue, (do you mark!) nay, they may both ferve, too, 'egad, for any
other play as well as this." Smith obferves, "That's indeed artificial."
Finally Bayes explains, that as other authors, in their prologues, fought to
flatter and propitiate their audience, in order to gain their favourable
opinion of the plot, he, on the contrary, intended to force their applaufe
out of them by mere dint of terror, and for that purpofe, he had intro-
duced as fpeakers of his prologue, no leis perfonages than Thunder and
Lightning. This prologue, difengaged from the remarks of Bayes and his
friends, runs as follows
Enter THUNDER and LIGHTNINGZ
-I am the bold Thunder.
--The brisk Lightning I.
-I am the bravest Hector of the sky.
-And I fair Helen, that made Hector
-I strike men down.
-I fire the town.
die-
Tlnm,
