Dryden's beginnings are in striking contrast with those of the poets of
the Renaissance, actors, vagabonds, soldiers, who were tossed about from
the first in all the contrasts and miseries of active life. He was born
in 1631 of a good family; his grand-father and uncle were baronets; Sir
Gilbert Pickering, his first cousin, was created a baronet by Charles I,
was a member of Parliament, chamberlain to the Protector, and one of his
Peers. Dryden was brought up in an excellent school, under Dr. Busby,
then in high repute; after which he passed four years at Cambridge.
Having inherited by his father's death a small estate, he used his
liberty and fortune only to remain in his studious life, and continued
in seclusion at the University for three years more. These are the
regular habits of an honorable and well-to-do family, the discipline of
a connected and solid education, the taste for classical and complete
studies. Such circumstances announce and prepare, not an artist, but a
man of letters.
I find the same inclination and the same signs in the remainder of his
life, private or public. He regularly spends his mornings in writing or
reading, then dines with his family. His reading was that of a man of
culture and a critical mind, who does not think of amusing or exciting
himself, but who learns and judges. Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Juvenal, and
Persius were his favorite authors; he translated several; their names
were always on his pen; he discusses their opinions and their merits,
feeding himself on that reasoning which oratorical customs had imprinted
on all the works of the Roman mind. He is familiar with the new French
literature, the heir of the Latin, with Corneille and Racine, Boileau,
Rapin, and Bossu;[377] he reasons with them, often in their spirit,
writes thoughtfully, seldom fails to arrange some good theory to justify
each of his new works. He knew very well the literature of his own
country, though sometimes not very accurately, gave to authors their due
rank, classified the different kinds of writing, went back as far as old
Chaucer, whom he translated and put into a modern dress. His mind thus
filled, he would go in the afternoon to Will's coffee-house, the great
literary rendezvous: young poets, students fresh from the University,
literary dilettante crowded round his chair, carefully placed in summer
on the balcony, in winter by the fire, thinking themselves fortunate to
listen to him, or to extract a pinch of snuff respectfully from his
learned snuff-box. For indeed he was the monarch of taste and the umpire
of letters; he criticised novelties--Racine's last tragedy, Blackmore's
heavy epic, Swift's first poems; slightly vain, praising his own
writings, to the extent of saying that "no one had ever composed or will
ever compose a finer ode" than his own "Alexander's Feast"; but full of
information, fond of that interchange of ideas which discussion never
fails to produce, capable of enduring contradiction, and admitting his
adversary to be in the right. These manners show that literature had
become a matter of study rather than of inspiration, an employment for
taste rather than for enthusiasm, a source of amusement rather than of
emotion.
His audience, his friendships, his actions, his quarrels, had the same
tendency. He lived amongst great men and courtiers, in a society of
artificial manners and measured language. He had married the daughter of
Thomas, Earl of Berkshire; he was historiographer-royal and
poet-laureate. He often saw the king and the princes. He dedicated each
of his works to some lord, in a laudatory, flunkeyish preface, bearing
witness to his intimate acquaintance with the great. He received a purse
of gold for each dedication, went to return thanks; introduces some of
these lords under pseudonyms in his "Essay on the Dramatic Art"; wrote
introductions for the works of others, called them Mæcenas, Tibullus,
or Pollio; discussed with them literary works and opinions. The
re-establishment of the court had brought back the art of conversation,
vanity, the necessity for appearing to be a man of letters and of
possessing good taste, all the company-manners which are the source of
classical literature, and which teach men the art of speaking well.[378]
On the other hand, literature, brought under the influence of society,
entered into society's interests, and first of all in petty private
quarrels. Whilst men of letters learned etiquette, courtiers learned how
to write. They soon became jumbled together, and naturally fell to
blows. The Duke of Buckingham wrote a parody on Dryden, "The Rehearsal,"
and took infinite pains to teach the chief actor Dryden's tone and
gestures. Later, Rochester took up the cudgels against the poet,
supported a cabal in favor of Settle against him, and hired a band of
ruffians to cudgel him. Besides this, Dryden had quarrels with Shadwell
and a crowd of others, and finally with Blackmore and Jeremy Collier. To
crown all, he entered into the strife of political parties and religious
sects, fought for the Tories and Anglicans, then for the Roman
Catholics; wrote "The Medal, Absalom and Achitophel" against the
Whigs: "Religio Laici" against Dissenters and Papists; then "The Hind
and Panther" for James II, with the logic of controversy and the
bitterness of party. It is a long way from this combative and
argumentative existence to the reveries and seclusion of the true poet.
Such circumstances teach the art of writing clearly and soundly,
methodical and connected discussion, strong and exact style, banter and
refutation, eloquence and satire; these gifts are necessary to make a
man of letters heard or believed, and the mind enters compulsorily upon
a track when it is the only one that can conduct it to its goal. Dryden
entered upon it spontaneously. In his second production,[379] the
abundance of well-ordered ideas, the energy and oratorical harmony, the
simplicity, the gravity, the heroic and Roman spirit, announce a classic
genius, the relative not of Shakespeare, but of Corneille, capable not
of dramas, but of discussions.