Dryden's
customary fee for a prologue was five guineas, which contented him,
until in 1682 he demanded of Southerne ten guineas for a prologue to
"The Loyal Brothers," alleging that the players had hitherto had his
goods too cheaply, and from that time forward ten guineas would be his
charge. Dryden is to be accounted the most famous and successful of
prologue writers, but it must be said that his productions of this
class are deplorably disfigured by the profligacy of his time, and
that all their brilliancy of wit does not compensate for their
uncleanness. Dryden's prologues are also remarkable, for their
frequent recognition of the critics as a class apart from the ordinary
audience; not critics as we understand them exactly, attached to
journals and reviewing plays for the instruction of the public, but
men of fashion affecting judicial airs, and expressing their opinions
in clubs and coffee-houses, and authors charged with attending the
theatres in the hope of witnessing the demolition of a rival bard. The
prologue to "All for Love" opens with the lines--
What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcase of a play!
And presently occurs the familiar passage--
Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've had to show that they can think at all.
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