Note 137 — Chapter I
Reading edition
See the prologue to Dryden’s tragi-comedy, The Spanish Friar, produced early in 1681:—
A fair attempt has twice or thrice been made To hire night murderers and make death a trade. When murder’s out, what vice can we advance, Unless the new-found poisoning trick of France? And when their art of rats-bane we have got, By way of thanks, we’ll send them o’er our Plot.
Scott suggests that the allusion is to the murder of Mr. Thynne, but this did not occur till some months after the production of the play. Christie refers it to the assault made upon Dryden himself in Rose Alley in December 1679; but the reference to the plot makes it far more probable that Dryden had in his mind the murder of Godfrey and the sham attempt on Arnold eighteen months later. He would certainly class the two together, for he attributed Godfrey’s death to Oates:—
And Corah might for Agag’s murder call In terms as coarse as Samuel used to Saul.
Absalom and Achitophel, 676, 677.