LIMBERHAM.
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he extreme indelicacy of this play would, in the present timesfurnish ample and most just grounds for the unfavourable reception itmet with from the public. But in the reign of Charles II. many playswere applauded, in which the painting is, at least, as coarse as thatof Dryden. "Bellamira, or the Mistress," a gross translation by SirCharles Sedley of Terence's "Eunuchus," had been often representedwith the highest approbation. But the satire of Dryden was ratheraccounted too personal, than too loose. The character of Limberham hasbeen supposed to represent Lauderdale, whose age and uncouth figurerendered ridiculous his ungainly affectation of fashionable vices. MrMalone intimates a suspicion, that Shaftesbury was the person levelledat, whose lameness and infirmities made the satire equally poignant.In either supposition, a powerful and leading nobleman was offended,to whose party all seem to have drawn, whose loose conduct, in thatloose age, exposed them to be duped like the hero of the play. It is asingular mark of the dissolute manners of those times, that anaudience, to whom matrimonial infidelity was nightly held out, notonly as the most venial of trespasses, but as a matter of triumphantapplause, were unable to brook any ridicule, upon the mere transitoryconnection formed betwixt the keeper and his mistress. Dryden hadspared neither kind of union; and accordingly his opponents exclaimed,"That he lampooned the court, to oblige his friends in the city, andridiculed the city, to secure a promising lord at court; exposed thekind keepers of Covent Garden, to please the cuckolds of Cheapside;and drolled on the city Do-littles, to tickle the Covent-GardenLimberhams[1]." Even Langbaine, relentless as he is in criticism,seems to have considered the condemnation of Limberham as thevengeance of the faction ridiculed. "In this play, (which I take to be the best comedy of his) he so muchexposed the keeping part of the town, that the play was stopt when ithad but thrice appeared on the stage; but the author took a becomingcare, that the things that offended on the stage, were either alteredor omitted in the press. One of our modern writers, in a short satireagainst keeping, concludes thus: "Dryden, good man, thought keepers to reclaim,Writ a kind satire, call'd it Limberham.This all the herd of letchers straight alarms;From Charing-Cross to Bow was up in arms:They damn'd the play all at one fatal blow,And broke the glass, that did their picture show." Mr Malone mentions his having seen a MS. copy of this play, found byLord Bolingbroke among the sweepings of Pope's study, in which thereoccur several indecent passages, not to be found in the printed copy.These, doubtless, constituted the castrations, which, in obedience tothe public voice, our author expunged from his play, after itscondemnation. It is difficult to guess what could be the nature of theindecencies struck out, when we consider those which the poet deemedhimself at liberty to retain. The reader will probably easily excuse any remarks upon this comedy.It is not absolutely without humour, but is so disgustingly coarse, asentirely to destroy that merit. Langbaine, with his usual anxiety ofresearch, traces back a few of the incidents to the novels of CinthioGiraldi, and to those of some forgotten French authors. Plays, even of this nature, being worth preservation, as containinggenuine traces of the manners of the age in which they appear, Icannot but remark the promiscuous intercourse, which, in this comedyand others, is represented as taking place betwixt women of character,and those who made no pretensions to it. Bellamira in Sir CharlesSedley's play, and Mrs Tricksy in the following pages, are admittedinto company with the modest female characters, without the least hintof exception or impropriety. Such were actually the manners of Charlesthe II.d's time, where we find the mistresses of the king, and hisbrothers, familiar in the highest circles. It appears, from theevidence in the case of the duchess of Norfolk for adultery, that NellGwyn was living with her Grace in familiar habits; her society,doubtless, paving the way for the intrigue, by which the unfortunatelady lost her rank and reputation[2]. It is always symptomatic of atotal decay of morals, where female reputation neither confersdignity, nor excites pride, in its possessor; but is consistent withher mingling in the society of the libertine and the profligate. Some of Dryden's libellers draw an invidious comparison betwixt hisown private life and this satire; and exhort him to Be to vices, which he practised, kind. But of the injustice of this charge on Dryden's character, we havespoken fully elsewhere. Undoubtedly he had the licence of this, andhis other dramatic writings, in his mind, when he wrote the followingverses; where the impurity of the stage is traced to its radicalsource, the debauchery of the court: Then courts of kings were held in high renown,Ere made the common brothels of the town.There virgins honourable vows received,But chaste, as maids in monasteries, lived.The king himself, to nuptial rites a slave,No bad example to his poets gave;And they, not bad, but in a vicious age,Had not, to please the prince, debauched the stage._Wife of Bath's Tale._ "Limberham" was acted at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset-Garden; for,being a satire upon a court vice, it was deemed peculiarly calculatedfor that play-house. The concourse of the citizens thither is alludedto in the prologue to "Marriage-a-la-Mode." Ravenscroft also, in hisepilogue to the "Citizen turned Gentleman," acted at the same theatre,disowns the patronage of the courtiers who kept mistresses, probablybecause they Constituted the minor part of his audience: From the court party we hope no success;Our author is not one of the noblesse,That bravely does maintain his miss in town,Whilst my great lady is with speed sent down,And forced in country mansion-house to fix.That miss may rattle here in coach-and-six. The stage for introducing "Limberham" was therefore judiciouslychosen, although the piece was ill received, and withdrawn after beingonly thrice represented. It was printed in 1678.
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