By JOHN DRYDEN Esq.;
_Fungar vice cotis, acutum
Reddere quae ferrum valet, exors ipsa secandi_.
Horat. De Arte Poet.
1668
To the Right Honourable CHARLES LORD BUCKHURST.
My Lord,
_As I was lately reviewing my loose papers, amongst the rest I found this
Essay, the writing of which, in this rude and indigested manner wherein
your Lordship now sees it, served as an amusement to me in the country
[in 1665], when the violence of the last Plague had driven me from the
town. Seeing, then, our theatres shut up; I was engaged in these kind[s]
of thoughts with the same delight with which men think upon their absent
mistresses.
I confess I find many things in this Discourse, which I do not now
approve; my judgement being a little altered since the writing of it: but
whether for the better or worse, I know not. Neither indeed is it much
material in an_ Essay, _where all I have said is problematical.
For the way of writing Plays in Verse, which I have seemed to favour [p.
561]; I have, since that time, laid the practice of it aside till I have
more leisure, because I find it troublesome and slow. But I am no way
altered from my opinion of it, at least, with any reasons which have
opposed it. For your Lordship may easily observe that none are very
violent against it; but those who either have not attempted it, or who
have succeeded ill in their attempt. 'Tis enough for me, to have your
Lordship's example for my excuse in that little which I have done in it:
and I am sure my adversaries can bring no such arguments against Verse,
as the Fourth Act of_ POMPEY _will furnish me with in its defence.
Yet, my Lord! you must suffer me a little to complain of you! that you
too soon withdraw from us a contentment, of which we expected the
continuance, because you gave it us so early. 'Tis a revolt without
occasion from your Party! where your merits had already raised you to the
highest commands: and where you have not the excuse of other men that you
have been ill used and therefore laid down arms. I know no other quarrel
you can have to Verse, than that which_ SPURINA _had to his beauty; when
he tore and mangled the features of his face, only because they pleased
too well the lookers on. It was an honour which seemed to wait for you,
to lead out a New Colony of Writers from the Mother Nation; and, upon the
first spreading of your ensigns, there had been many in a readiness to
have followed so fortunate a Leader; if not all, yet the better part of
writers._
Pars, indocili melior grege, mollis et expes
Inominata perprimat cubilia.
_I am almost of opinion that we should force you to accept of the
command; as sometimes the Praetorian Bands have compelled their Captains
to receive the Empire. The Court, which is the best and surest judge of
writing, has generally allowed of Verse; and in the Town, it has found
favourers of Wit and Quality.
As for your own particular, my Lord! you have yet youth and time enough
to give part of it to the Divertisement of the of the Public, before you
enter into the serious and more unpleasant Business of the World.
That which the French Poet said of the Temple of Love, may be as well
applied to the Temple of Muses. The words, as near[ly] as I can remember
them, were these--_
La jeunesse a mauvaise grace
N'ayant pas adoré dans le Temple d'Amour;
Il faut qu'il entre: et pour le sage;
Si ce n'est son vrai sejour,
Ce'st un gîte sur son passage.
_I leave the words to work their effect upon your Lordship, in their own
language; because no other can so well express the nobleness of the
thought: and wish you may be soon called to bear a part in the affaires
of the Nation, where I know the World expects you, and wonders why you
have been so long forgotten; there being no person amongst our young
nobility, on whom the eyes of all men are so much bent. But, in the
meantime, your Lordship may imitate the Course of Nature, which gives us
the flower before the fruit; that I may speak to you in the language of
the Muses, which I have taken from an excellent Poem to the King [i.e.,_
CHARLES II.]
_As Nature, when she fruit designs, thinks fit
By beauteous blossoms to proceed to it,
And while she does accomplish all the Spring,
Birds, to her secret operations sing.
I confess I have no greater reason in addressing this Essay to your
Lordship, than that it might awaken in you the desire of writing
something, in whatever kind it be, which might be an honour to our Age
and country. And, methinks, it might have the same effect upon you,
which, HOMER tells us, the fight of the Greeks and Trojans before the
fleet had on the spirit of ACHILLES; who, though he had resolved not to
engage, yet found a martial warmth to steal upon him at the sight of
blows, the sound of trumpets, and the cries of fighting men.
For my own part, if in treating of this subject, I sometimes dissent from
the opinion of better Wits, I declare it is not so much to combat their
opinions as to defend mine own, which were first made public. Sometimes,
like a scholar in a fencing school, I put forth myself, and show my own
ill play, on purpose to be better taught. Sometimes, I stand desperately
to my arms, like the Foot, when deserted by their Horse; not in hope to
overcome, but only to yield on more honourable terms.
And yet, my Lord! this War of Opinions, you well know, has fallen out
among the Writers of all Ages, and sometimes betwixt friends: only it has
been persecuted by some, like pedants, with violence of words; and
managed, by others, like gentlemen, with candour and civility. Even TULLY
had a controversy with his dear ATTICUS; and in one of his_ Dialogues,
_makes him sustain the part of an enemy in Philosophy, who, in his_
Letters, _is his confident of State, and made privy to the most weighty
affairs of the Roman Senate: and the same respect, which was paid by
TULLY to ATTICUS; we find returned to him, afterwards, by CAESAR, on a
like occasion: who, answering his book in praise of CATO, made it not so
much his business to condemn CATO, as to praise CICERO.
But that I may decline some part of the encounter with my adversaries,
whom I am neither willing to combat, nor well able to resist; I will give
your Lordship the relation of a dispute betwixt some of our wits upon this
subject: in which, they did not only speak of Plays in Verse, but mingled,
in the freedom of discourse, some things of the Ancient, many of the
Modern Ways of Writing; comparing those with these, and the Wits of our
Nation with those of others. 'Tis true, they differed in their opinions,
as 'tis probable they would; neither do I take upon me to reconcile, but
to relate them, and that, as TACITUS professes of himself_, sine studio
partium aut ira_, "without passion or interest": leaving your Lordship to
decide it in favour of which part, you shall judge most reasonable! And
withal, to pardon the many errors of_
Your Lordship's most obedient humble servant,