Event Comment: [The
King's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but a letter--see 2 Jan. 1670@1--indicates that the first part had been acted before that date
and that Part II was to be shortly staged. The point of the Prologue spoken by
Ellen Gwyn seems to have derived from an incident at
Dover (see
Downes,
Roscius Anglicanus, p. 20) in May 1670, when
James Nokes attired himself in a ridiculous fashion, including "Broad wast Belts." The speakers of the Epilogue
and the Prologue to the Second Part are mentioned in
Sir William Haward's MS (
Bodl. MS Don. b., pp. 248-49); see
The Poems of John Dryden, ed.
James Kinsley (Oxford, 1958), IV, 1848-49. In Part I a song
Beneath a myrtle shade, with music by
John Bannister, is in
Choice Songs and Ayres, First Book, 1673. Another,
Wherever I am, with music by
Alphonso Marsh, is in the same collection, as is also
How unhappy a lover am I, the music by
Nicholas Staggins.
Mrs John Evelyn to
Mr Bohun, ca. Jan. 1670@1: Since my last to you I have seen
The Siege of Grenada, a play so full of ideas that the most refined romance I ever read is not to compare with it; love is made so pure,
and valour so nice, that one would image it designed for an Utopia rather than our stage. I do not quarrel with the poet, but admire one born in the decline of morality should be able to feign such exact virtue;
and as poetic fiction has been instructive in former ages, I wish this the same event in ours. As to the strict law of comedy I dare not pretend to judge: some think the division of the story is not so well if it could all have been comprehended in the day's actions (
The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed.
William Bray, IV, 25). According to
John Evelyn--see 9 Feb. 1670@1--
Robert Streeter did some of the scenes for this play. In the Preface to
The Fatal Discovery, ca. February 1697@8,
George Powell, in discussing revivals of
Dryden's plays, stated: In relation to our reviving his
Almanzor...very hard crutching up what
Hart and Mohun could not prop