The Usurper

‘…I brought him [Peter Llewellyn] home and dined with us, and after dinner I took my wife out, for I do find that I am not able to conquer myself as to going to plays till I come to some new vowe concerning it, and that I am now come, that is to say, that I will not see above one in a month at any of the publique theatres till the sum of 50s. be spent, and then none before New Year’s Day next, unless that I do become worth 1000l. sooner than then, and then am free to come to some other terms, and so leaving him in Lombard Street I took her to the King’s house, and there met Mr. Nicholson, my old colleague, and saw “The Usurper,” which is no good play, though better than what I saw yesterday. However, we rose unsatisfied, and took coach and home, and I to the office late writing letters, and so to supper and to bed.’

“The Usurper” was one of five plays Edward Howard produced.  Samuel Pepys, who recorded in his diary seeing the play on January 2^nd, 1664, liked another Howard play better.  Of Howard’s “The Change of Crowns”, Pepys said it was "the best that I ever saw at that house [Theater royal], being a great play and serious."

Walter Scott includes Mr. Howard, and “The Usurper”, in a note comparing verse and play text, in “The Life of John Dryden”.  ‘…The honourable Edward Howard, Sir Robert’s brother, expresses himself in the preface to the “Usurper”, a play published in 1668, “not insensible to the disadvantage it may receive passing into the world upon naked feet of verse, with other works that have their measures adorned with the trappings of rhime, which, however they have succeeded in wit or design, is still thought music, as the heroic tone now goes; but whether so natural to a play, that should most nearly intimate, in some cases, our familiar converse, the judicious may easily determine.”

Comet of 1664

‘Saturday December 17, 1664…So home and to my office, where late, and then home to bed. Mighty talke there is of this Comet that is seen a’nights; and the King and Queene did sit up last night to see it, and did, it seems. And to-night I thought to have done so too; but it is cloudy, and so no stars appear. But I will endeavour it…’

The comet Samuel Pepys mentions in his diary was visible over England for several months, beginning around December 14, 1664.  Comets equal portents, to some, including, perhaps, John Dryden, as related in “The Life of John Dryden”, with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, by Walter Scott, esq,

‘A comet was seen on the 14^th of December, 1664, which lasted almost three months…Comets, it is well known, were in extremely bad repute among the astrologers of this period.  Lilly, an unquestionable authority, treats these stars with extreme severity; hardly justifiable by his blunt averment, that “truth is truth, and a horse is a horse.”  Dryden himself, not contented with turning these two blazing stars (1664 and 1665) into farthing candles, has elsewhere, in this poem, charged with causing pestilence, and the great fire of London:

The utmost malice of the stars is past;

            And two dire comets, which have scourged the town,

In hteir own plague and fire have breathed their last,

            Or dimly in their sinking sockets frown.….’ 

Edmond Malone

There are at least two points of connection between literary critic Edmond Malone and Sir Walter Scott.  Malone lived mostly earlier than Scott, being born on October 4, 1741; thirty years before Scott.  Both contributed to biographies of Samuel Johnson, Malone working James Boswell through his initial effort, and Scott contributing to Croker's update.

Both wrote about John Dryden as well.   Malone published an edition of Dryden's works, along with a memoir on Dryden.  Scott later authored a biography, "The Life of John Dryden".  Scott relied on Malone for his study of Dryden, as he comments on in the introduction to his own “The Dramatic Works of John Dryden”.

‘In the Biographical Memoir, it would have been hard to exact, that the Editor should rival the criticism of Johnson, or produce facts which had escaped the accuracy of Malone. While, however, he has availed himself with the history of his publications, without losing sight of the fate and character of the individual. How far this end has been attained, is not for the Editor to guess, especially when, as usual at the close of a work, he finds he is possessed of double the information he had when he commenced it. The kindness of Mr. Octavius Gilchrist, who undertook a journey to Northamptonshire to examine the present state of Rushton, where Dryden often lived, and of Mr. Finlay of Glasgow, who favoured the Editor with the use of some original editions, falls here to be gratefully acknowledged of the labours of both, particularly of the latter, whose industry has removed the cloud which so long hung over the events of Dryden's life, he has endeavoured to take a different and more enlarged view of the subject than that which his predecessors have presented. The general critical view of Dryden's works being sketched by Johnson with unequalled felicity, and the incidents of his life accurately discussed and ascertained by Malone, something seemed to remain for him who should consider these literary productions in their succession, as actuated by, and operating upon, the taste of an age, where they had so predominant influence; and who might, at the same time, connect the life of Dryden with the history of his publications, without losing sight of the fate and character of the individual. How far this end has been attained, is not for the Editor to guess, especially when, as usual at the close of a work, he finds he is possessed of double the information he had when he commenced it. The kindness of Mr. Octavius Gilchrist, who undertook a journey to Northamptonshire to examine the present state of Rushton, where Dryden often lived, and of Mr. Finlay of Glasgow, who favoured the Editor with the use of some original editions, falls here to be gratefully acknowledged.’