A TRAGEDY.
Outos de philotimoi physeis en tais politeiais to agan me
phylaxamenai, toi agathou meizon to kakon echousi.
PLUTARCH. IN AGESILAO.
THE DUKE OF GUISE.
In the latter part of Charles the Second's reign, the stage, as well
as every other engine which could affect the popular mind, was eagerly
employed in the service of the contending factions. Settle and
Shadwell had, in tragedy and comedy, contributed their mite to the
support of the popular cause. In the stormy session of parliament, in
1680, the famous bill was moved, for the exclusion of the Duke of
York, as a papist, from the succession, and accompanied by others of a
nature equally peremptory and determined. The most remarkable was a
bill to order an association for the safety of his majesty's person,
for defence of the protestant religion, for the preservation of the
protestant liege subjects against invasion and opposition, and for
preventing any papist from succeeding to the throne of England. To
recommend these rigid measures, and to keep up that zealous hatred and
terror of the catholic religion, which the plot had inspired, Settle
wrote his forgotten tragedy of "Pope Joan," in which he revives the
old fable of a female pope, and loads her with all the crimes of which
a priest, or a woman, could possibly be guilty.
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