John Dryden



John Henry Dryden (9 August 1631 - 1 May 1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literature of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the "Age of Dryden". Walter Scott named him "Glorious John."

Youth
Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle (near Thrapston) in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was Rector of All Saints Church. He was the eldest of 14 children born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary (Pickering), the paternal grandson of Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st Baronet (1553-1632) and wife Frances (Wilkes), Puritan landowning gentry who supported the Puritan cause and Parliament. Dryden was also a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift.

As a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire where it is also likely that he received his first education. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar where the headmaster was Dr Richard Busby, a charismatic teacher and severe disciplinarian. Having recently been re-founded by Elizabeth I, Westminster during this period embraced a very different religious and political spirit encouraging royalism and high Anglicanism. Whatever Dryden's response to this was, he clearly respected the Headmaster and would later send two of his own sons to school at Westminster.

As a humanist grammar school, Westminster maintained a curriculum which trained pupils in the art of rhetoric and the presentation of arguments for both sides of a given issue. This is a skill which would remain with Dryden and influence his later writing and thinking, as much of it displays these dialectical patterns. The Westminster curriculum also included weekly translation assignments which developed Dryden's capacity for assimilation. This was also to be exhibited in his later works. His years at Westminster were not uneventful, and his first published poem, an elegy with a strong royalist feel on the death from smallpox of his schoolmate Henry, Lord Hastings, alludes to the execution of King Charles I, which took place on 30 January 1649.

In 1650 Dryden went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he would have experienced a return to the religious and political ethos of his childhood: the Master of Trinity was a Puritan preacher by the name of Thomas Hill who had been a rector in Dryden's home village. Though there is little specific information on Dryden's undergraduate years, he would most certainly have followed the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric, and mathematics. In 1654 he earned a B.A., graduating top of the list for Trinity that year. In June of the same year Dryden's father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income, though not enough to live on.

Arriving in London during the Protectorate, Dryden found work with Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. This appointment may have been the result of influence exercised on his behalf by the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Dryden's cousin. Dryden was present at Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658, where he processed with the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. Shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, Heroique Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display. In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. In this work the interregnum is illustrated as a time of anarchy, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order.

Later life and career
After the Restoration, Dryden quickly established himself as the leading poet and literary critic of his day. Along with Astraea Redux, Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics; To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on his Coronation (1662), and To My Lord Chancellor (1662). These poems suggest that Dryden was looking to court a possible patron, but he was to instead make a living in writing for publishers, not for the aristocracy, and thus ultimately for the reading public. These, and his other nondramatic poems, are occasional - that is, they celebrate public events or occasions. Thus they are written for the nation rather than the self, and the Poet Laureate (as he would later become) is obliged to write a certain number of these per annum.

In November 1662 Dryden was proposed for membership in the Royal Society, and he was elected an early fellow. However, Dryden was inactive in Society affairs, and in 1666 was expelled for non-payment of his dues.

On 1 December 1663 Dryden married the royalist sister of Sir Robert Howard, Lady Elizabeth. Dryden's works occasionally contain outbursts against the married state but also celebrations of the same. Thus, little is known of the intimate side of his marriage. Lady Elizabeth however, was to bear him three sons and outlive him.

With the reopening of the theatres after the Puritan ban, Dryden busied himself with the composition of plays. His first play, The Wild Gallant appeared in 1663 and was not successful, but he was to have more success, and from 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company in which he was also to become a shareholder. During the 1660s and 70s theatrical writing was to be his main source of income. He led the way in Restoration comedy, his best known work being Marriage Ã la Mode (1672), as well as heroic tragedy and regular tragedy, in which his greatest success was All for Love (1678). Dryden was never satisfied with his theatrical writings and frequently suggested that his talents were wasted on unworthy audiences. He thus was making a bid for poetic fame off-stage. In 1667, around the same time his dramatic career began, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which described the events of 1666; the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London. It was a modern epic in pentameter quatrains that established him as the preeminent poet of his generation.

When the Great Plague of London closed the theatres in 1665, Dryden retreated to Wiltshire where he wrote Of Dramatick Poesie (1668), arguably the best of his unsystematic prefaces and essays. Dryden constantly defended his own literary practice, and Of Dramatick Poesie, the longest of his critical works, takes the form of a dialogue in which four characters - each based on a prominent contemporary, with Dryden himself as "Neander" - debate the merits of classical, French and English drama. The greater part of his critical works introduce problems which he is eager to discuss, and show the work of a writer of independent mind who feels strongly about his own ideas, ideas which demonstrate the incredible breadth of his reading. He felt strongly about the relation of the poet to tradition and the creative process, and his best heroic play Aureng-zebe (1675) has a prologue which denounces the use of rhyme in serious drama. His play All for Love (1678) was written in blank verse, and was to immediately follow Aureng-Zebe. In 1679 he was attacked in an alley near his home in Covent Garden by thugs hired by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, with whom he had a long-standing conflict.

Dryden's greatest achievements were in satiric verse: the mock-heroic MacFlecknoe, a more personal product of his Laureate years, was a lampoon circulated in manuscript and an attack on the playwright Thomas Shadwell. Dryden's main goal in the work is to "satirize Shadwell, ostensibly for his offenses against literature but more immediately we may suppose for his habitual badgering of him on the stage and in print." It is not a belittling form of satire, but rather one which makes his object great in ways which are unexpected, transferring the ridiculous into poetry. This line of satire continued with Absalom and Achitophel (1681) and The Medal (1682). His other major works from this period are the religious poems Religio Laici (1682), written from the position of a member of the Church of England; his 1683 edition of Plutarch's Lives Translated From the Greek by Several Hands in which he introduced the word biography to English readers; and The Hind and the Panther, (1687) which celebrates his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

When in 1688 James was deposed, Dryden's refusal to take the oaths of allegiance to the new government left him out of favour at court. Thomas Shadwell succeeded him as Poet Laureate, and he was forced to give up his public offices and live by the proceeds of his pen. Dryden translated works by Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, Lucretius, and Theocritus, a task which he found far more satisfying than writing for the stage. In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by subscription. The publication of the translation of Virgil was a national event and brought Dryden the sum of â‚¤1,400. His final translations appeared in the volume Fables Ancient and Modern (1700), a series of episodes from Homer, Ovid, and Boccaccio, as well as modernized adaptations from Geoffrey Chaucer interspersed with Dryden's own poems. The Preface to Fables is considered to be both a major work of criticism and one of the finest essays in English. As a critic and translator he was essential in making accessible to the reading English public literary works in the classical languages.

Dryden died on May 1, 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey 10 days later. He was the subject of various poetic eulogies, such as Luctus Brittannici: or the Tears of the British Muses; for the Death of John Dryden, Esq. (London, 1700), and The Nine Muses.

Writing
Dryden was the dominant literary figure and influence of his age. He established the heroic couplet as a standard form of English poetry by writing successful satires, religious pieces, fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues, and plays with it; he also introduced the alexandrine and triplet into the form. In his poems, translations, and criticism, he established a poetic diction appropriate to the Heroic couplets &mdash; Auden referred to him as "the master of the middle style" &mdash; that was a model for his contemporaries and for much of the 18th century. The considerable loss felt by the English literary community at his death was evident from the elegies that it inspired.

What Dryden achieved in his poetry was not the emotional excitement we find in the Romantic poets of the early nineteenth century, nor the intellectual complexities of the metaphysical poets. His subject-matter was often factual, and he aimed at expressing his thoughts in the most precise and concentrated way possible. Although he uses formal poetic structures such as heroic stanzas and heroic couplets, he tried to achieve the rhythms of speech. However, he knew that different subjects need different kinds of verse, and in his preface to Religio Laici he wrote that "the expressions of a poem designed purely for instruction ought to be plain and natural, yet majestic...The florid, elevated and figurative way is for the passions; for (these) are begotten in the soul by showing the objects out of their true proportion.... A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth."

Dryden's heroic couplet became the dominant poetic form of the 18th century. The most influential poet of the 18th century, Alexander Pope, was heavily influenced by Dryden, and often borrowed from him; other writers were equally influenced by Dryden and Pope. Pope famously praised Dryden's versification in his imitation of Horace's Epistle II.i: "Dryden taught to join / The varying pause, the full resounding line, / The long majestic march, and energy divine." Samuel Johnson summed up the general attitude with his remark that "the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry." His poems were very widely read, and are often quoted, for instance, in Tom Jones and Johnson's essays.

Johnson also noted, however, that "He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure." The first half of the 18th century did not mind this too much, but in later generations, this was increasingly considered a fault.

One of the first attacks on Dryden's reputation was by Wordsworth, who complained that Dryden's descriptions of natural objects in his translations from Virgil were much inferior to the originals. However, several of Wordsworth's contemporaries, such as George Crabbe, Lord Byron, and Walter Scott (who edited Dryden's works), were still keen admirers of Dryden. Besides, Wordsworth did admire many of Dryden's poems, and his famous "Intimations of Immortality" ode owes something stylistically to Dryden's "Alexander's Feast". John Keats admired the "Fables," and imitated them in his poem Lamia. Later 19th century writers had little use for verse satire, Pope, or Dryden; Matthew Arnold famously dismissed them as "classics of our prose." He did have a committed admirer in George Saintsbury, and was a prominent figure in quotation books such as Bartlett's, but the next major poet to take an interest in Dryden was T.S. Eliot, who wrote that he was "the ancestor of nearly all that is best in the poetry of the eighteenth century" and that "we cannot fully enjoy or rightly estimate a hundred years of English poetry unless we fully enjoy Dryden." However, in the same essay, Eliot accused Dryden of having a "commonplace mind." Critical interest in Dryden has increased recently, but, as a relatively straightforward writer (William Empson, another modern admirer of Dryden), compared his "flat" use of language with Donne's interest in the "echoes and recesses of words" ) his work has not occasioned as much interest as Andrew Marvell's or John Donne's or Pope's.

Dryden is also believed to be the first person to posit that English sentences should not end in prepositions because it was against the rules of Latin grammar. Dryden created the prescription against preposition stranding in 1672 when he objected to Ben Jonson's 1611 phrase the bodies that those souls were frightened from, although he didn't provide an explanation of the rationale that gave rise to his preference.

Recognition
Dryden was appointed Poet Laureate in 1668 (and historiographer royal in 1670), but was removed from the position in 1689 following the Glorious Revolution.

Many years after his death a house at Westminster School was founded in his name.

Six of his poems ("Ode," "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687," "Ah, how sweet it is to love!", "Hidden Flame," "Song to a Fair Young Lady, going out of the Town in the Spring," and "Lament of the Irish Emigrant") were included in the Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.

Poetry

 * Astraea Redux: A poem on the happy restoration and return of his sacred majesty Charles the Second. London: J.M. for Henry Herringman, 1660.
 * To His Sacred Majesty: A panegyrick on his coronation. London: Henry Herringman, 1661.
 * Annus Mirabilis: The year of wonders, 1666. London: Henry Herringman, 1667.
 * Absalom and Achitophel. London: Printed for J.T. & sold by W. Davis, 1681.
 * The Medall: A satyre against sedition. London: Jacob Tonson, 1682.
 * Mac Flecknoe; or, a satyr upon the true-blew Protestant poet T.S. [unauthorized edition]. London: D. Green, 1682.
 * Religio Laici; or, A laymans faith. London: Jacob Tonson, 1682.
 * Miscellany POems. London: Jacob Tonson, 1684. Volume II, Volume IV
 * Threnodia Augustalis: A funeral-pindarique poem sacred to the happy memory of King Charles II. London: Jacob Tonson, 1685.
 * The Hind and the Panther. London: Jacob Tonson, 1687.
 * A Song for St Cecilia's Day, 1687 (with music by Giovanni Baptista Draghi). London: T. Dring, 1687.
 * Britannia Rediviva: A poem on the birth of the Prince. London: Jacob Tonson, 1688.
 * Eleonora: A panegyrical poem dedicated to the memory of the late Countess of Abingdon. London: Jacob Tonson, 1692.
 * An Ode: On the death of Mr. Henry Purcell; late servant of his Majesty, and organist of the Chapel Royal, and of St. Peter's Westminster. London: J. Heptinstall for Henry Playford, 1696.
 * Alexander's Feast; or, The power of musique: An ode in honour of St. Cecilia's Day. London: Jacob Tonson, 1697.
 * Original Poems and Translations. London: J. & R. Tonson, 1743. Volume I
 * The Poetical Works. London: William Pickering, 1852. Volume I
 * The Poetical Works (edited by Rev. George Gilfillan). London: Ballantyne & Co., 1855. Volume I; Volume II.
 * Poetical Works. New York: Appleton, 1868.
 * The Satires: Absalom and Achitophel / The Medal / Mac Flecknoe (edited by John Churton Collins). London & New York: Macmillan, 1905.
 * The Poems (edited by James Kinsley). (4 volumes), Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1958.

Plays

 * The Rival Ladies. London: W.W. for Henry Herringman, 1664.
 * The Indian Emperour; or, The conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. London: J.M. for H. Herringman, 1667
 * second edition (with "A Defence of An Essay of Dramatique Poesie" in some copies). London: Henry Herringman, 1668.
 * Secret-Love; or, The maiden-queen. London: Henry Herringman, 1668.
 * Sr Martin Mar-All; or The feigned innocence. London: Henry Herringman, 1668.
 * The Wild Gallant. London: Tho. Newcomb for H. Herringman, 1669.
 * Tyrannick Love; or, The royal martyr. London: Henry Herringman, 1670.
 * The Tempest; or, The enchanted island (by Dryden and William Davenant). London: Henry Herringman, 1670.
 * An Evening's Love; or, The mock astrologer. London: T.N. for Henry Herringman, 1671.
 * The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards: In two parts. London: T.N. for Henry Herringman, 1672.
 * Marriage A-la-Mode. London: T.N. for Henry Herringman, 1673.
 * The Assignation; or, Love in a nunnery. London: T.N. for Henry Herringman, 1673.
 * Amboyna. London: T.N. for Henry Herringman, 1673.
 * Aureng-Zebe. London: T.N. for Henry Herringman, 1676.
 * All for Love: or, The world well lost. London: Tho. Newcomb for Henry Herringman, 1678.
 * Oedipus (by Dryden & Nathaniel Lee). London: R. Bentley & M. Magnes, 1679.
 * Troilus and Cressida; or, Truth found too late. London: Jacob Tonson & Abel Swall, 1679.
 * The Kind Keeper; or, Mr. Limberham. London: R. Bentley & M. Magnes, 1680.
 * The Duke of Guise (by Dryden and Lee). London: T.H. for R. Bentley & J. Tonson, 1683.
 * The Spanish Fryar; or, The double discovery. London: Richard Tonson & Jacob Tonson, 1681.
 * Cleomenes, The Spartan Heroe. London: Jacob Tonson, 1692.
 * Albion and Albanius (by Dryden, with music by Lewis Grabu). London: Jacob Tonson, 1685.
 * Don Sebastian, King of Portugal. London: Jo. Hindmarsh, 1690.
 * Amphitryon; or, The two Socia's (with music by Henry Purcell). London: J. Tonson & M. Tonson, 1690.
 * King Arthur; or, The British worthy (with music by Purcell). London: Jacob Tonson, 1691.
 * Love Triumphant; or, Nature will prevail. London: Jacob Tonson, 1694.
 * The Dramatick Works. London: Jacob Tonson, 1717. Volume III, Volume V, Volume VI
 * The Dramatic Works (edited by Montague Summers). (6 volumes), London: Nonesuch Press, 1931.

Non-fiction

 * To My Lord Chancellor: Presented on New-years-day. London: Henry Herringman, 1662.
 * Of Dramatick Poesie: An essay. London: Henry Herringman, 1668 [1667].
 * ([edited by Thomas Arnold). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1896.
 * Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco (by Dryden, John Crowne, and Thomas Shadwell). London: 1674.
 * The State of Innocence and Fall of Man. London: T.N. for Henry Herringman, 1677.
 * His Majesties Declaration Defended. London: T. Davies, 1681.
 * The Vindication [of the Duke of Guise;: or, The parallel of the French Holy-League, and the English League and Covenant. London: Jacob Tonson, 1683.
 * A Defence of the Papers Written by the Late King of Blessed Memory and Duchess of York. London: H. Hills, 1686.
 * An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (edited by Thomas Arnold). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1889.
 * Essays (edited by C.D. Yonge). London: Macmillan, 1895.
 * Essays (edited by W.P. Ker). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1900. Volume I

Collected editions
Volume IX, Volume X, Volume XI, Volume XII, Volume XIII, Volume XIV, Volume XV, Volume XVI, Volume XVII,  Volume XVIII''.
 * The Works (edited by Walter Scott). (18 volumes), London: William Miller, 1808 ''Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV, Volume V, Volume VI, Volume VII, Volume VIII,
 * (revised by George Saintsbury). Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1882-1893.
 * The Works [The California Dryden] ( edited by Edward Niles Hooker, H.T. Swedenberg, and others). (20 volumes), Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1955-
 * John Dryden: Of Dramatic Poesy, and other critical essays (2 volumes, edited by George Watson). (2 volumes), London: J.M. Dent / New York: E.P. Dutton, 1962.

Translated

 * Ovid's Epistles: Translated by several hands (includes a preface, and translations of three epistles, by Dryden). London: Jacob Tonson, 1680.
 * Louis Maimbourg, The History of the League (translated by Dryden). London: M. Flesher for Jacob Tonson, 1684.
 * Dominique Bouhours, The Life of St. Francis Xavier, of the Society of Jesus (translated by Dryden). London: Jacob Tonson, 1688.
 * The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis: Translated into English verse. By Mr. Dryden, and Several other eminent hands: Together with the satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus made English by Mr. Dryden ... to which is prefix'd a discourse concerning the original and progress of satire. London: Jacob Tonson, 1693 [1692].
 * The Works of Virgil: Containing his Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis (translated by Dryden. London: Jacob Tonson, 1697.
 * Fables Ancient and Modern: Translated into verse, from Homer, Ovid, Boccace, & Chaucer; with original poems (translated by Dryden). London: Jacob Tonson, 1700.

Anthologized

 * "Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings," in Lachrymae Musarum: The tears of the Muses, exprest in elegies; Written by divers persons of nobility and worth, upon the death of the most hopefull, Henry Lord Hastings. London: Thomas Newcomb, 1649.
 * "To his friend the Authour on his divine Epigrams," in Sion and Parnassus, by John Hoddesdon (London: R. Daniel for G. Eversden, 1650).
 * "Heroique Stanzas, Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of his most Serene and renowned Highnesse Oliver Late Lord Protector of this Common-Wealth, &c.," in Three poems Upon the Death of his late Highnesse Oliver Lord Protector of England, Scotland & Ireland. London: William Wilson, 1659.
 * "To My Honored Friend, Sr Robert Howard, On his Excellent Poems," in Sir Robert Howard, Poems. London: Henry Herringman, 1660).
 * "To My Honour'd Friend, Dr Charleton," in Chorea Gigantum, or The most Famous Antiquity of Great-Britain, Vulgarly called Stone-Heng, Standing on Salisbury Plain, Restored to the Danes, by Walter Charleton. London: Henry Herringman, 1663 [1662].
 * Miscellany Poems (includes the authorized version of Mac Flecknoe and 25 other contributions by Dryden). London: Jacob Tonson, 1684.
 * Sylvae; or, the Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies (includes a preface and 17 contributions by Dryden). London: Jacob Tonson, 1685.
 * Examen Poeticum: Being the Third Part of Miscellany Poems, includes 15 contributions by Dryden). London: R.E. for Jacob Tonson, 1693.

Letters

 * The Letters of John Dryden: With letters addressed to him (edited by Charles E. Ward). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1942).

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Play productions
*All for Love. London, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, probably 12 December 1677.
 * The Wild Gallant (revised from an older play, possibly by Richard Brome). London, Vere Street Theatre, 5 February 1663.
 * The Rival Ladies. London, Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, possibly autumn of 1663.
 * The Indian-Queen (by Dryden and Sir Robert Howard). London, Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, January 1664.
 * The Indian Emperour. London, Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, early months of 1665.
 * Secret Love. London, Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, final days of January 1667.
 * Sir Martin Mar-All (by Dryden and William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle). London, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 15 August 1667.
 * The Tempest (revised from William Shakespeare's play by Dryden and William Davenant). London, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 7 November 1667.
 * An Evening's Love; or, The Mock Astrologer. London, Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, 12 June 1668.
 * Tyrannic Love. London, Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, 24 June 1669.
 * The Conquest of Granada, part 1. London, Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, December 1670; part 2, January 1671.
 * Marriage A-la-Mode. London, Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, probably late November or early December 1671.
 * The Assignation; or, Love in a Nunnery. London, Lincoln's Inn Fields, not later than early autumn of 1672.
 * Amboyna. London, Lincoln's Inn Fields, possibly February 1673.
 * Aureng-Zebe., London, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 17 November 1675.
 * The Kind Keeper; or, Mr. Limberham., London, Dorset Garden Theatre, 11 March 1678.
 * Oedipus (by Dryden and Nathaniel Lee). London, Dorset Garden Theatre, autumn 1678.
 * Troilus and Cressida (revised from Shakespeare's play). London, Dorset Garden Theatre, not later than April 1679.
 * The Spanish Fryar. London, Dorset Garden Theatre, 1 November 1680.
 * The Duke of Guise (by Dryden and Lee). London, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 30 November 1682.
 * Albion and Albanius (opera with text by Dryden and music by Louis Grabu). London, Dorset Garden Theatre, 3 June 1685.
 * Don Sebastian. London, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 4 December 1689.
 * Amphitryon. London, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, probably early October 1690.
 * King Arthur (opera with text by Dryden and music by Henry Purcell). London, Dorset Garden Theatre, early June 1691.
 * Cleomenes (by Dryden and Thomas Southerne). London, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on or before 16 April 1692.
 * Love Triumphant London, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, probably late January 1694

Except where noted, play information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.