[112] Fresnoy employed above twenty years in finishing this poem.
[113] Our author began his translation of Virgil in the preceding year,
1694.—MALONE.
[114] In May 1664, Gio. Pietro Bellori read a discourse in the Academy of
St Luke at Rome, (Carlo Maratti being then president,) entitled—_L’Idea
del Pittore, dello Scultore, e dell’ Architetto, scelta dalle bellezze
naturali superiore alla Natura_. This discourse, from which the following
extract is taken, was afterwards prefixed to _Le Vite de Pittore_, &c. by
the same author, printed at Rome in 4to, 1672.—MALONE.
[115] The ΕΙΚΟΝΕΣ of Flavius Philostratus, who flourished in the
beginning of the third century, was first printed by Aldus in
1502.—MALONE.
[116] _i.e._ Merchant vessels. The passage seems to be so worded, as
to contain a sneer at the negligence of King William’s government in
protecting the trade. Perhaps Dryden alluded to the misfortune of
Sir Francis Wheeler, in 1693, who, being sent with a convoy into the
Mediterranean, was wrecked in the bay of Gibraltar.
[117] The principal female character in “Tyrannic Love, or The Royal
Martyr.” See Vol. III. page 343.
[118] In the epistle in which he describes our Saviour’s person and
manners.
[119] In his treatise on Epic Poetry.
[120] This line is a little misquoted. The couplets run,
Reject that vulgar error, which appears
So fair, of making perfect characters;
There’s no such thing in nature, and you’ll draw
A faultless monster, which the world _ne’er saw_.
_Essay on Poetry._
[121] Our author had previously quoted the lines here alluded to, in
defence of the indecencies of one of his comedies. Vol. VI. p. 10.
——_castum esse decet pium poetam_
_Ipsum. Versiculos nihil necesse est:_
_Qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem_
_Si sint molliculi et parum pudici._
[122] The celebrity of that action, which is generally called the
continence of Scipio, gives us a woeful idea of the gross barbarity of
the age in which he lived. What would now be said of a general, who did
not act as Scipio is said to have done? Assuredly, his refusing the
ransom would be thought more wonderful, than his dismissing, uninjured,
the betrothed princess.
[123] There is a fallacy in this, which a moment’s consideration may
detect. Painting does not present in one moment what tragedy shews in
many hours, and cannot, on the contrary, shew more than one scene, at one
minute and point of time. Doubtless, by presenting to us one striking
situation, the painting recals, if we know the story, all that has
preceded and is to follow; but this arises from association, and happens
equally if we come suddenly into a theatre where a well-known tragedy is
performing.
[124] A Dutch fair. Dryden probably recollected the pieces of Teniers.
[125] The passage alluded to is in Aristotle’s “Treatise on Poetry,”
in which he accounts for the pleasure afforded by the imitative arts,
by observing, that “to _learn_ is a natural pleasure.” “To the same
purpose (says Mr Twining,) in his ‘Rhetorick,’ lib. i. cap. xi. p. 537.
edit. Duval. Επει δε το μανθανειν, κ. τ. λ. ‘And as it is by nature
delightful to _learn_, to _admire_, and the like, hence we necessarily
receive pleasure from imitative arts, as PAINTING, SCULPTURE, and POETRY,
and from whatever is well imitated, even though the original may be
disagreeable; but our pleasure does not arise from the beauty of the
thing itself, but from the _inference_, the _discovery_ that THIS IS
THAT, &c. so that we seem to learn something.’
“Μανθανειν—to _learn_, to _know_, i.e. merely to _recognize_, _discover_,
&c.,” See Harris, On Music, Painting, &c. ch. iv. note (_b_). The meaning
is sufficiently explained by what follows.
“Dryden, who scarce ever mentions Aristotle without discovering that he
had looked only at the wrong side of the tapestry, (a translation,) says,
‘Aristotle tells us, that imitation pleases, because it affords matter
for a reasoner to inquire into the truth or falsehood of imitation,’
&c. But Aristotle is not here speaking of _reasoners_, or _inquiry_,
but, on the contrary, of the vulgar, the generality of mankind, whom he
expressly opposes to philosophers, or reasoners: and his συλλογιζεσθαι
is no more than that rapid, habitual, and imperceptible act of the
mind, that ‘_raisonnement aussi prompt que le coup d’œil_,’ (as it is
well paraphrased by M. Batteux,) by which we _collect_ or infer, from a
comparison of the picture with the image of the original in our minds,
that it was intended to represent that original.
“The fullest illustration of this passage is to be found in another work
of Aristotle, his ‘Rhetoric,’ lib. iii. cap. x. where he applies the same
principle to metaphorical language, and resolves the pleasure we receive
from such language, into that which arises from the μαθησις ΤΑΧΕΙΑ, the
exercise of our understandings in _discovering_ the meaning by a _quick_
and _easy_ perception of some quality, or qualities, common to the thing
expressed, and the thing intended; to a mirror, for example, and to the
theatre, when the latter is called metaphorically, _the mirror of human
life_.
“Dryden (Mr Twining further observes) seems to have taken his idea from
Dacier’s note on this place, (in the ‘Treatise on Poetry,’) which is
extremely confused, and so expressed, as to leave it doubtful whether
he misunderstood the original, or only explained himself awkwardly. The
use that Dryden made of French critics and translators is well known.”
_Aristotle’s Treatise on Poetry, translated, with Notes. &c. by THOMAS
TWINING, A. M._ 4to, 1789, p. 186.—MALONE.
[126] This is hardly accurate. Lopez de Vega did indeed despise the rules
laid down by others, but he made no new regulations.
[127]
O Powers divine,
Take my last thanks! no longer I repine.
I might have lived my own mishaps to mourn,
While some would pity me, but more would scorn;
For pity only on fresh objects stays,
But with the tedious sight of woes decays.
Still less and less my boiling spirits flow,
And I grow stiff, as cooling metals do.—
Farewell, Almeria.—Vol. II. p. 371.
[128] Nothing can be more hazardous for a dramatist than the introduction
of many inferior characters. In proportion to the numbers of the
_Dramatis Personæ_, the difficulty of _getting up_ a piece is increased
in a tremendous ratio; since even the awkwardness of a domestic, or the
ridiculous gait of a guard, may throw the audience into a tone of feeling
very inconsistent with tragic effect. Undoubtedly, could the expence
be supported, something might be gained by drilling underlings to such
inferior characters, and teaching even the mutes to look, as it they took
some interest in what is going forward; but, at present, the entrance and
exit of a hero, _cum suis_, has something in it irresistibly ludicrous.
Here the painter has a decisive advantage over the dramatist, since
it costs him nothing to finish his inferior personages in a style as
correspondent to truth as the principal.
[129] I retain Mr Malone’s excellent note. “This description seems at
the first view to be intended for Congreve, to whom it is certainly
sufficiently applicable, and who had produced his ‘Double Dealer’ in
the preceding year, and his ‘Love for Love’ in 1695. But beside that
Dryden’s high admiration of Congreve, which he had so strongly manifested
in the admirable verses addressed to that poet on the former play, will
not admit of such an application, the words—‘I _knew_,’ clearly denote
a _dead_ poet, and consequently will exclude Wycherley also. The person
meant therefore, I think, was Sir George Etherege, who died a few years
before. In Dryden’s Epilogue to that author’s ‘Man of Mode,’ he says,
“Sir Fopling is a _fool_ so nicely writ,
Most ladies would mistake him for a _wit_.”
[130] Nat. Lee.
[131] Dryden probably recollected, particularly, Lee’s famous rant at the
conclusion of the fourth act of Œdipus:
Fall darkness then, and everlasting night
Shadow the globe; may the sun never dawn,
The silver moon be blotted from her orb!
And for an universal rout of nature,
Through all the inmost chambers of the sky
May there not be a glimpse, one starry spark,
But gods meet gods, and jostle in the dark;
That jars may rise, and wrath divine be hurled,
Which may to atoms shake the solid world!
Vol. VI. p. 206.
[132] “Pericles, Prince of Tyre,” which has been generally imputed
to Shakespeare, though the internal evidence is not in favour of the
supposition. Dryden believed it to be one of his earliest pieces:
Shakespeare’s own muse his Pericles first bore,
The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor.
This order was probably assigned from the confessed inferiority of
Pericles to Shakespeare’s later plays. But that apology cannot be
received; for if Shakespeare had any hand in Pericles at all, it was at a
late period of his dramatic career.—See Vol. X. p. 335, and the remarks
on Pericles in Malone’s Shakespeare.
[133] Morecraft is an usurer in Beaumont and Fletcher’s comedy of the
“Scornful Lady,” who, having been cheated and discomfited, as usurers
commonly are in the drama, (I suppose to compensate their success in real
life,) at the end of the play suddenly changes his character for that of
an extravagant gallant, and assumes the denomination of _cutting_, or as
we would now say _dashing_, Morecraft.—See Vol. IV. p. 241.
[134] Mr Malone thinks this alludes to the translation of Virgil, in
which Dryden was now engaged. But I conceive it has a general reference
to his situation as a suspected and discountenanced person; restrained
from free exertion of his genius, by the necessity of considering that he
was exposed to misconstruction. He must have recollected the suppression
of “Cleomenes,” and the offence taken by government at the prologue to
the “Prophetess.” In truth, the very expression in the text is elsewhere
hitched into rhyme:
The labouring bee, when his sharp sting is gone,
Forgets his golden work, and turns a drone;
Such is a satire when you take away
That rage in which his noble vigour lay.
...
How can he show his manhood if you bind him,
To box like boys with one hand tied behind him?
_Prologue to Amphitryon_, Vol. VIII. p. 12.
[135] A comedy written by Sir Robert Stapylton, and acted by the Duke
of York’s servants, at their theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, in 1663.
Dryden has elsewhere undervalued this play, Vol. X. p. 336:
Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight,
Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces write;
But hopped about, and short excursions made }
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid; }
And each was guilty of some “Slighted Maid.” }
Sir Robert Stapylton, the author of the “Slighted Maid,” translated
Juvenal and Musæus, and wrote other two plays, called “The Step-mother,”
and “Hero and Leander.”
[136] “Otway,” says Pope, “has written but two tragedies, out of six,
that are pathetic. I believe he did it without much design, as Lillo
has done in his ‘Barnwell.’ It is a talent of nature, rather than an
effect of judgment, to write so movingly.”—SPENCE’S _Anecdotes_, quoted
by Malone. Dryden, at an early period, is said to have set no high value
upon Otway in other respects, while he allowed he excelled him in the art
of affecting the passions.
[137] “Aristotle, in the place referred to, (περι ποιητ. κ. μς.) does not
mention any third dramatic poet by name. He does indeed put the case of a
third poet, who might pursue a method different from the practice either
of Sophocles or Euripides, and represent things _as they are said, and
believed, to be_. In the same passage, (which is manifestly corrupt,) he
mentions an observation of Xenophanes, who, I believe, was the person
here in our author’s thoughts.”—MALONE.
[138] The first and third Acts.
[139] Our author has already compared the first of the lines alluded to—
_Quæ superimposito moles geminata Colosso—_
with the first line of Virgil’s Eclogues.
[140] Theb. vi. 400, 401.
Our author’s confession of the difficulty of translating these lines,
probably induced Pope to transplant them into his “Windsor Forest,” where
they are thus beautifully paraphrased:
The impatient courser pants in every vein,
And pawing seems to beat the distant plain;
Hills, vales, and floods, appear already crost,
And, ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost.
Our author trusted, as usual, to memory; for the first of the lines,
quoted from Statius, runs differently:
_Stare adeò_ miserum est——
but he was thinking on a passage in the Third Georgic:
_——tum, si qua sonum procul arma dedere,_
_Stare loco ~nescit~: micat auribus, et tremit artus;_
_Conlectumque premens volvit sub naribus ignem._—MALONE.
[141] See Volume XIII. p. 320. There are good grounds for disbelieving
this beautiful anecdote. See Malone’s note on this passage.
[142] The French translator here, as well as Mr Dryden, is
unintelligible; which happened by their mistaking the meaning of the word
_opaca_, which is not put for _dark_; but _opaque_, in opposition to
_transparent_: for a white garment may be _opaque_, &c.
[143] M. Le Brun.
[144] M. Colbert.
[145] Pliny, xxxv. 10.
[146] Quinc. x. 3.
[147] Declam. xix.
[148] Lib. ii. Sat. 7.
[149] Lib. x. Ep. xxii.
[150] _De Opt. Gen. Orat._
[151] Tableaux.
[152] That is to the eye, by diagrams and sketches, &c.
[153] In _Œconomico._
[154] _Comm. Vetus._
[155] Art of Poetry.
[156] _Pro lege Man._
[157] This depends on the age and quality of the persons. The Apollo and
Venus of Medicis have more than ten faces.
[158] The Apollo has a nose more.
[159] The Apollo has half a nose more; and the upper half of the Venus de
Medicis is to the lower part of the belly, and not to the privy parts.
[160] Polydorus, Athenodorus, and Agesander, all Rhodians.
[161] Lib. ii. Pædag. cap. 12.
[162] Plutarch
[163] A figure made of wood, or cork, turning upon joints.
[164] Lib. xxv. 12.
[165] Lib. viii. 20.
[166] Lib. v. 8.
[167] Tuscul. lib. v.
[168] Georg. iii. l. 5.
[169] Ep. xvi.
[170] 1 Off.
[171] Diss. 34.
[172] Lib. xxxv. 10.
[173] Petron. Arbiter.
[174] Veget. de Re Milit. lib. 2.
[175] Lib. 1. de fin.