ABSTRACT
Context. London companies visited Oxford at the time o f the annual Act in mid-July, and this is the first o f the prologues and epilogues which D. wrote for visits by the King’s Company (see Macdonald 137-9). The flattering tone o f this and subsequent Oxford pieces has been seen as part o f a campaign by D. for preferment there, but prologues and epilogues by other writers also express appreciation for the attentive reception which the actors received there in comparison with London (cp. Danchin nos. 123-4). In the early summer o f 1673 D. wrote to Rochester: ‘I have sent Your Lordship a pro logue and epilogue which I made for our players when they went down to Oxford. I heare, since they have succeeded; And by the event your Lordship will judge how easy ’tis to passe any thing upon an University; and how grosse flattery the learned will endure’ (Letters 10). For the players’ visits to Oxford see W. J. Lawrence, T L S 16 January 1930 43, and Sybil Rosenfeld, R ES xix (1943) 366-75.
