Richard Leigh (1649–1728?) is identified as a sometime commoner of Queen's at Oxford and afterwards a player at one of the theatres in London. His lively counter-attack, very much in the manner of his opponent, is entitled The Transproser Rehears'd: or the Fifth Act of Mr. Bayes's Play. It was published anonymously at Oxford, 1673.
Extracts from pp. 2–10, 29–33, 40–3, 55, 132–4.
I say, this great Author (of Playbills) having in conformity to his promising Title Transp[r]osed the Rehearsal, or at least all of Mr. Bayes his Play extant, four Acts. I thought it was great pitty so facetious and Comical a work should remain incompleat, and therefore I have continued it on, and added the Fifth, the Argument of which, and its dependance on the other Four, I shall give you an account of after a preliminary examination of the Characters and Plot in our Authors Transp[r]os'd Rehearsal.
But before I proceed to either of these, it will not be unnecessary to consider on what bottom he has erected his Animadversions, and this I find to be no other then the Preface to Bishop Bramhalls Vindication, which is as much as to say, here is a House wrought out of a Portal. ’Tis pretty I confess, and exceeds the power of common Architects. But what follows is more strange, that 100. pages (the Preface is no more by his computation) should be foundation sufficient enough to support his mighty Paper-building of 326.
Now ’tis very probable, that which gave the principal hint to our Authors Rehearsal Transpros'd, was the near accord he observes betwixt the Preface [of Parker] and Mr. Bayes his Prologue, P. 14. [I, p. 9] and here, I cannot but applaud his admirable dexterity that could extract four Acts of a Farce, from a single Pro-logue, but such is the singular felicity of some Animadverters, (and of ours amongst the rest) in their illustrating of Authors, that they have heighten'd and refin'd some of their Notions, not only above all others, but above even the intentions of the dull Authors themselves; A rare Art! and followed so well by some of our Translators of French Farce, that some of them have been luckily mistaken for Authors. For instance, the Writer of the Preface had said, He could not tell which way his Mind would work it self and its thoughts [I, p. 7, from Parker's Preface A2v]; now this our Improver of Verity [I, p. 13], according to his peculiar excellence, P. 12. [I, p. 7] resolves into Prince Volscius1 his Debate betwixt Love and Honour, and tells you more of the Authors mind in Verse, than he could do himself in Prose. And this feat is perform'd by no other Magick then Regula Duplex, turning Prose into Verse, and Verse into Prose alternativè. See what Miracles men of Art can do by Transversing Prefaces, and Transprosing Playes.
But to go on with our Prologue, (so the Animadverter will warrant me now to call the Preface) our Critick hath found a flaw in it, and what's that? It has no Plot. How, a Prologue without a Plot! It is impossible, tis a cross-graind objection this, and not easily evaded, had not our Critick plaid Mock-Apologist and answered himself, P. 11. [I, p. 7] the Intrigue was out of his head,2 which is very civil I gad.
Another weighty exception against our Prologue is, that it is written in a Stile, part Play-Book, and part Romance, p. 22. [I, p. 12]. (Which of these two is Gazett, for that the Animadverter says, is our Authors Magazine [I, p. 11]); this is more unpardonable than the former; for what can be a higher Indecorum than a Prologue written in Play-Book stile. But that we may the better understand the pertinency of this Remarque, we must desire the Reader to observe, That the Writer of the Preface had said, That the Church of Ireland was the largest Scene of the Bishops Actions [I, p. 12, from Parker's Preface A3v]. Now it will go very hard, but this Passage will be condemn'd for one guilty word or two; for Histories are Playes without Scenes, and without Action; and these two words being neither of the Historians Profession, nor Divines: the Bishops Historian must of necessity be cast, unlesse he have any hopes of benefit of Clergy; however we hope before Sentence be past, the Animadverter will inform us, what words are of the Clergy, and what of the Layity, which in Holy Orders and which not; and then their several Divisions, which Catholick, and which Schismatical; and amongst them, which Classical, Congregational, and of inferiour Sects; whether for Church of Ireland he would read Congregation, for Scene, Diocess or Pulpit, and for Actions, Spiritual Excercises or Labours.
But if at last the Animadverter intend, by Play-Book-Stile, whatever is written above the common elevation, unlesse he would have the Priest and the Poet write in two distinct Languages; I see no reason to allow him, that the Priest should make use of a less refin'd and polisht Stile than the Poet. If after all this, any one should be so impenitently inquisitive, as to demand a reason why our Prologue Critick would have a Prologue with a Plot, and not written in Play-Book-Stile, he will answer him, no doubt, because ’tis New.
From the Prologue, pass we to the Rehearsal Transpros'd, in which the Characters, the Action, and the Humour offer themselves to our consideration. The principal person concerned in this Farce is Mr. Bays, whom our Transproser makes to be of the same Character with the Writer of the Preface; for which he alledges these following reasons, pag. 15, 16 [I, pp. 9–10]…
Now though the foregoing Paralell betwixt Ecclesiastical Mr. Bays, & Mr. Bays in the Rehearsal be so exact, that it were hard to distinguish betwixt Mr. Bays, and Mr. Bayes, had not one writ a Preface, and the other a Play; Yet because in the nearest resemblances of Twins, ’tis not impossible to trace some marks of distinction and House-wives there have been upon Record, so expert, as to discern a difference even in Eggs, so as they never mistook one for another; we shall endeavour to shew, that these two are not so alike, but that they are as unlike too; nay most unlike in their nearest resemblances.
First, Then our Trans-proser craves leave to call the Writer of the Preface Mr. Bays, because he hath no name, or at least, will not own it; from whence, we may infer, That every Anonymus Author may be as well call'd Mr. Bays, as this Writer. And what may we then think of the Gentleman himself, who would be Gossip to all the nameless Off-springs of the Press, and yet has not fathered his own Bastard; but let him learn to Christen his own Brat first, before he gives Nick-names to others; for who can endure that he should undertake, as Godfather, for anothers child, that leaves his own to the Parish; Had not his brain been delivered of this By-blow, without the Mid-wifery of an Imprimatur; the Printer and the Stationer at least, would have appear'd as Sureties for the Childs behaviour, and the Issue might have been judg'd legitimate, though the Father were not publickly known.1 But now that the Infant has crept into the World without a lawfull Father, without Gossips, nay, without a name (or what is all one, without a name of its own) we cannot but expostulate with Fate; as Prince Pretty-man2 much upon the like occasion.
Was ever Child yet brought to such distress!
To be, for being a Child, made Fatherless.
Though every Nurse can readily point to Daddy's Eyes and Mouth, in the little Babies face, as if the dapper Stripling were to be heir to all the Fathers features; and a Dimple, or a Mole, if hereditary, were better Titles to an In-Heritance, than Deeds and Evidences. Yet none certainly was ever born with fairer Marks than this. For it is stigmatiz'd in the Fore-head, and bears in the Front the legible Characters of a well-meaning Zealot.
And thus much in consideration of the first Reason, that induc'd the Animadverter to call the writer of the Preface Mr. Bayes, because he hath no name: for which reason he might as well have cal'd him Bayes Anonymus in imitation of Miltons learned Bull (for that Bulls in Latin are learned ones, none will deny) who in his Answer to Salmasius, calls him Claudius Anonymus.
The second Reason is, Because he would avoid Tautologies and distastefull Repetitions of one word; and to avoid this, he has taken a sure course; for since his own Invention could not supply him with variety of names, he has run over the Dramatis Personae of the Rehearsal; and because Mr. Bays alone was not sufficient for his purpose, he has made bold with Mr. Thunderer, Draw-can-sir and Prince Volscius. These Titles he has confer'd on our Author in consideration of his Dignity, as he is a Clergy-man of Honour.
If Mr. Bayes (as you tell us, pag. 17. [I, p. 10]) was more civil then to say Villain, he might have taught his actors better manners. All these, (besides the two last verses of the event of the Battle) you have diligently Collected, and for the most part faithfully transcribed, unless in these last recited, where for Gonsalvo in the Rehearsal, you have put in Valerio,1 and by the alteration of that one word, have made it your own, just so Mr. Bayes us'd to do with many a good notion in Montaign and Seneca's Tragedies: yet though your Title promise us so fairly, you have not Transpros'd three whole Verses in all your Book. But be it the Rehearsal Trans-pros'd, or transcrib'd, or if you will, Reprinted, for your Pamphlet is little else but a second Edition of that Play, and Mr. Hales his Tract of Schism:2 though methinks you might have so much studied the Readers diversion, and your own, as to have exercised your happy talent of Rhyming, in Transversing the Treatise of Schism, and for the Titles dear sake you might have made all the Verses rung Ism in their several changes. I dare assure you Sir, the work would have been more gratefully accepted than Donns Poems turn'd into Dutch, but what talk I of that, then Prynnes Mount Orguil,3 or Milton's Paradise lost in blank Verse. But as it is, you give as quotations of whole Books, like him who wrote Zabarella quite out from the beginning to the end, professing it was so good he could leave none behind4 (how like is this to our Transcri-ber, yet whatsoever I omit, I shall have left behind more material passages, before his Edition of Hales, p. 176 [I, p. 79]). It is no absurdity now to say, your Text is all Margent, and not only all your Dishes, but your Garnish too is Pork.5 And thus much for your Regula Duplex, changing Prose into Verse, and Verse into Prose, that's your first Rule. Your second Rule, is the rule of Observation or Record, by way of Tablebook….
This is his Diary, in which our small Historian registers the proceedings of every Suburb Tumult; in this he summs up all the Billinsgate Debates and Conferences. ’tis his scolding Commonplace-book, which acquaints him with all the Moods and Figures of Railing; here he has all the terms of that Art which Smectimnuus, Marchamont Needham,1 J.Milton, or any other of the Professors ever thought of, for there is a certain form & Method in this as well as all other Arts; but yet, our Author being a well-wisher to the Railers, to encourage those that have any inclination this way, to improve that faculty, assures them. Pag. 261. [I, p. 117] That the secret is not great, nor the Process long or difficult, if a man would study it (and though in other things your knowledge may be above his, you may believe him in this, he hath made it his business). Every Scold bath it naturally. It is but crying Whore first, and having the last word. Next he instructs his Pupil in the several kinds of Railing; for besides the Common scurrilous way of calling men Buffoons, Brokers, &c. p. 2 [07]. [I, p. 93] pag. 106. [I, p. 49] in which he is so expert, that I am confident, that Fellow in Plutarch, that busied himself to find out how many several ways the Letters in the Alphabet might be rang'd, tranpos'd & alter'd,2 could not invent more changes of the Letters, than he has in instructing them to scold; There is yet another by which dumb men may be taught to rail, that is by Signs, (for there is a Language of the Hand and Head.) This is pag. 160. Where he tells us of an incorrigible Scold, that though she was duck'd over head and ears under water, yet stretch'd up her hands, with her two thumb-nails in the Nit-cracking posture, or with two fingers divaricated, to call the man still in that language, Lowsy Rascal, and Cuckold.3 It is a pretty Tale, I confess, but so miserably foisted in, that whoever will consult the fore-cited Page, cannot but allow with me, that our Disputant is better capacitated to maintain an Argument (in his own Phrase) with a rude bustling Carman, or a Porter in the street, then with an Ecclesiastical Politician.
Thus having rais'd and rang'd in order his Martial Phantomes, he sets them a fighting through all the Tropes and Figures of Rhetorick. He knew this way of resolving controversie into Ecclesiastical Combat, and deeds of Chivalry, would delight, amuse, and all that: Besides he had a politick fetch or two in it, for these Warlike Notions, and arm'd Ideas being terrible to him, he conceived they would be no less to others, and that no ans-werer would have the courage to engage such a Rhetorical Souldier, unless he were able to give him battell in all the Metaphors of War. But alas, it is not every Fight in Puppet-Shows strikes a terrour in the beholders, nor are Armies figured, in the imagination, so dreadfull.
And though I will not deny, that these hostile Shapes and Military Figures, which our Romancer had quarter'd in the three Ventricles of his Capacious Brain (his Memory, Fancy and Judgement being transform'd into Fortification and Garrison) might raise such tumults in his Sconce, & so far invade his civil Peace, as to make the Gentleman startle at his own dreams: yet to those who consider that these are but the fumes of Melancholy, such Visionary Battalia's are no more frightful than those fighting Apparitions; which Exhalations raise in the Clouds. But to indulge our Author in the love of his Chimerical conceits, struck blind with his own daz'ling Idea of the Sun, and admiring those imaginary Heights which his fancy has rais'd Since even timerous Minds are Couragious and bold enough to shape prodigious Forms and Images of Battels; & dark Souls may be illuminated with bright and shining thoughts. As, to seek no farther for an instance; the blind Author of Paradise lost (the odds betwixt a Transproser and a Blank Verse Poet, is not great) begins his third Book thus, groping for a beam of Light.
Hail, holy Light, Off-Spring of Heav'n first born,
Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam.
And a little after,
[Quotes ll.21–6.]
No doubt but the thoughts of this Vital Lamp lighted a Christ-mas Candle in his brain. What dark meaning he may have in calling this thick drop Serene, I am not able to say; but for his Eternal Coeternal, besides the absurdity of his inventive Divinity, in making Light contemporary with it's Creator, that jingling in the middle of his Verse, is more notoriously ridiculous, because the blind Bard (as he tell[s] us himself in his Apology for writing in blank Verse) studiously declin'd Rhyme as a jingling sound of like endings. Nay, what is more observable, it is the very same fault, which he was so quick-sighted, as to discover in this Verse of Halls Toothless Satyrs.
To teach each hollow Grove, and shrubby-Hill.
[His Defiance to Envy, l. 81]
This, teach each, he has upbraided the Bishop with in his Apology for his Animadversions on the Remonstrants Defence against Smectym-nuus.1
You see Sir, that I am improved too with reading the Poets, and though you may be better read in Bishop Dav'nants Gondibert;2 yet I think this Schismatick in Poetry, though non-conformable in point of Rhyme, as authentick ev'ry jot, as any Bishop Laureat of them all.
Every Age is not constellated for Heroes; such Prodigies are as rarely seen as a New-star, or a Phoenix. Once, perhaps in a Century of years, there may arise a Martin-Mar-Prelate, a Milton, or such a Brave as our present Author. Every day produces not such Wonders.
But enough of these two loathsome Beasts [Milton, Marvell], and their spitting and spauling. Now what think you of washing your mouth with a Proverb or two. For I cannot but remark this admirable way he has of Embellishing his Writings [with] Proverbial-Wit. As for instance. One night has made some men Gray, pag. 144. [I, p. 65] and better come at beginning of a Feast, then latter end of a Fray: pag. 166. [I, p. 75] Which (to express them Proverbi-ally) are all out as much to the purpose as any of Sancho Pancha's Proverbs. For the truth of this Comparison, I shall only appeal to the Leaf-turners of Don Quixot. Some there are below the Quality of the Squires Wit, and would better have become the Mouth of his Lady Joan, or any old Gammer that drops Sentences and Teeth together, As (speaking of his own Tale of the-Lake Perillous,) he saith in its Applause, this Story would have been Nuts to Mother Midnight, pag. 56. [I, p. 27] and pag. 142. [I, p. 65] A year, nay an instant at any time of a mans Life may make him Wiser. And his Adversary hath, like all other fruits his annual Maturity. Though there is one sort of Fruit trees above all the rest, that beats with its fruit, a signal Hieroglyphick of our Author; and that's a Medlar: A Fruit more remarkable for its annual maturity, because the same also is an annual rottenness.
As for his wonderful Gift in Rhyming, I could furnish him with many more of the Isms and Nesses [I, pp. 83, 86], but that I should distast a Blank Verse Friend of his, who can by no means endure a Rhyme any where but in the middle of a Verse, therein following the laudable custom of the Welsh Poets. And therefore I shall only point at some of the Nesses, the more eminent, because of the peoples Coinage; and of a Stamp as unquestionable as the Breeches, and so far more legitimate then any that have past for currant since the People left off to mind words (another Flower of their Crown which they fought for, besides Religion and Liberty) they are these, One-ness, Same-ness, Much-ness, Nothing-ness, Soul-saving-ness; to which we may add another of our Authors own, Pick-thankness; in which word (to keep our Rhyme) there is a peculiar Marvelousness.
1 Character in The Rehearsal (1672), III. ii.
2 Derives from The Rehearsal, I. i.
1 Copies of the second issue of RT I omitted the burlesque imprint, simply giving date and place of publication.
2 Character in The Rehearsal.
1 From the original version of Sir William D'Avenant's The Seige of Rhodes (1656), the first attempt at English opera.
2 Published 1642.
3 A verse description of his imprisonment for theological controversy at Mt Orgueil Castle in Jersey.
4 Francesco Zabarelli (1533–89) of Padua wrote a commentary on Aristotle; like Duns Scotus, his name became generic for one providing useless knowledge.
5 I, p. 142; deriving from Livy (trans. P.Holland, 1600, p. 916), the story is explained in RT II (pp. 307–8).
1 Smectymnuus was the title of a cabal of Presbyterians, twice defended by Milton. A Cromwellian journalist, Nedham (see No. 18) was called by his contemporaries ‘three-piled apostate.’
2 Xenocrates, cited in ‘Symposiaques,’ Bk VIII, Ninth Question of the Moralia, trans. P.Holland, p. 782.
3 I, pp. 72–3; derived from Montaigne's Essays, II, 32.
1 The remarks appear in the second of Milton's defenses, An Apology for Smectymnuus (1642), Sect. X. The Animadversions, published a year earlier, include his well-known comment on the impropriety of ‘Toothless Satyres.’
2 A moderate Calvinist, John Davenant (1576–1641) was Bishop of Salisbury; Sir William D'Avenant (1605–68), was the author of the romantic epic Gondibert.