SECTION III.

_Heroic Plays--The Rehearsal--Marriage à la Mode--The Assignation--

Controversy with Clifford--with Leigh--with Ravenscroft--Massacre of

Amboyna--State of Innocence_.

The rage for imitating the French stage, joined to the successful

efforts of our author, had now carried the heroic or rhyming tragedy to

its highest pitch of popularity. The principal requisites of such a

drama are summed up by Dryden in the first two lines of the "_Orlando

Furioso_,"

"_Le Donne, i cavalier, l'arme, gli amori

Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese_."

The story thus partaking of the nature of a romance of chivalry, the

whole interest of the play necessarily turned upon love and honour,

those supreme idols of the days of knight-errantry The love introduced

was not of that ordinary sort, which exists between persons of common

mould; it was the love of Amadis and Oriana, of Oroondates and Statira;

that love which required a sacrifice of every wish, hope, and feeling

unconnected with itself, and which was expressed in the language of

prayer and of adoration. It was that love which was neither to be

chilled by absence, nor wasted by time, nor quenched by infidelity. No

caprice in the object beloved entitled her slave to emancipate himself

from her fetters; no command, however unreasonable, was to be disobeyed;

if required by the fair mistress of his affections, the hero was not

only to sacrifice his interest, but his friend, his honour, his word,

his country, even the gratification of his love itself, to maintain the

character of a submissive and faithful adorer. Much of this mystery is

summed up in the following speech of Almahide to Almanzor, and his

answer, from which it appears, that a lover of the true heroic vein

never thought himself so happy, as when he had an opportunity of thus

showing the purity and disinterestedness of his passion. Almanzor is

commanded by his mistress to stay to assist his rival, the king, her

husband. The lover very naturally asks,

_Almanz_. What recompence attends me, if I stay?

_Almah_. You know I am from recompence debarred,

But I will grant your merit a reward;

Your flame's too noble to deserve a cheat,

And I too plain to practise a deceit.

I no return of love can ever make,

But what I ask is for my husband's sake;

He, I confess, has been ungrateful too,

But he and I are ruined if you go;

Your virtue to the hardest proof I bring;

Unbribed, preserve a mistress and a king.

_Almanz_. I'll stop at nothing that appears so brave:

I'll do't, and now I no reward will have.

You've given my honour such an ample field,

That I may die, but that shall never yield.

The king, however, not perhaps understanding this nice point of honour,

grows jealous, and wishes to dismiss the disinterested ally, whom his

spouse's beauty had enlisted in his service. But this did not depend

upon him; for Almanzor exclaims,

_Almanz_. I wonnot go; I'll not be forced away:

I came not for thy sake; nor do I stay.

It was the queen who for my aid did send;

And 'tis I only can the queen defend:

I, for her sake, thy sceptre will maintain;

And thou, by me, in spite of thee, shalt reign.

The most applauded scenes in these plays turned upon nice discussions of

metaphysical passion, such as in the days of yore were wont to be

agitated in the courts and parliaments of love. Some puzzling dilemma,

or metaphysical abstraction, is argued between the personages on the

stage, whose dialogue, instead of presenting a scene of natural passion,

exhibits a sort of pleading or combat of logic, in which each endeavours

to defend his own opinion by catching up the idea expressed by the

former speaker, and returning him his illustration, or simile, at the

rebound; and where the lover hopes everything from his ingenuity, and

trusts nothing to his passion. Thus, in the following scene between

Almanzor and Almahide, the solicitations of the lover, and the denials

of the queen, are expressed in the very carte and tierce of poetical

argumentation:

_Almah_. My light will sure discover those who talk.--

Who dares to interrupt my private walk?

_Almanz_. He, who dares love, and for that love must die.

And, knowing this, dares yet love on, am I.

_Almah_. That love which you can hope, and I can pay,

May be received and given in open day;

My praise and my esteem you had before;

And you have bound yourself to ask no more.

_Almanz_. Yes, I have bound myself; but will you take

The forfeit of that bond, which force did make?

_Almah_. You know you are from recompence debarred;

But purest love can live without reward.

_Almanz_. Pure love had need be to itself a feast;

For, like pure elements, 'twill nourish least.

_Almah_. It therefore yields the only pure content;

For it, like angels, needs no nourishment.

To eat and drink can no perfection be;

All appetite implies necessity.

_Almanz_. 'Twere well, if I could like a spirit live;

But, do not angels food to mortals give?

What if some demon should my death foreshow,

Or bid me change, and to the Christians go;

Will you not think I merit some reward,

When I my love above my life regard?

_Almah_. In such a case your change must be allowed:

I would myself dispense with what you vowed.

_Almanz_. Were I to die that hour when I possess,

This minute shall begin my happiness.

_Almah_. The thoughts of death your passion would remove;

Death is a cold encouragement to love.

_Almanz_. No; from my joys I to my death would run,

And think the business of my life well done:

But I should walk a discontented ghost,

If flesh and blood were to no purpose lost.

This kind of Amoebaean dialogue was early ridiculed by the ingenious

author of "Hudibras."[1]

It partakes more of the Spanish than of the French tragedy, although it

does not demand that the parody shall be so very strict, as to re-echo

noun for noun, or verb for verb, which Lord Holland gives us as a law of

the age of Lope de Vega.[2] The English heroic poet did enough if he

displayed sufficient point in the dialogue, and alertness in adopting

and retorting the image presented by the preceding speech; though, if he

could twist the speaker's own words into an answer to his argument, it

seems to have been held the more ingenious mode of confutation.

While the hero of a rhyming tragedy was thus unboundedly submissive in

love, and dexterous in applying the metaphysical logic of amorous

jurisprudence it was essential to his character that he should possess

all the irresistible courage, and fortune of a _preux chevalier_.

Numbers, however unequal, were to be as chaff before the whirlwind of

his valour; and nothing was to be so impossible that, at the command of

his mistress, he could not with ease achieve. When, in the various

changes of fortune which such tragedies demand, he quarrelled with those

whom he had before assisted to conquer,

"Then to the vanquished part his fate he led,

The vanquished triumphed, and the victor fled."

The language of such a personage, unless when engaged in argumentative

dialogue with his mistress, was, in all respects, as magnificent and

inflated as might beseem his irresistible prowess. Witness the famous

speech of Almanzor:

_Almanz_. To live!

If from thy hands alone my death can be,

I am immortal and a god to thee.

If I would kill thee now, thy fate's so low,

That I must stoop ere I can give the blow:

But mine is fixed so far above thy crown,

That all thy men,

Piled on thy back, can never pull it down:

But, at my ease, thy destiny I send,

By ceasing from this hour to be thy friend.

Like heaven I need but only to stand still,

And, not concurring to thy life, I kill,

Thou canst no title to my duty bring;

I'm not thy subject, and my soul's thy king.

Farewell. When I am gone,

There's not a star of thine dare stay with thee:

I'll whistle thy tame fortune after me;

And whirl fate with me wheresoe'er I fly,

As winds drive storms before them in the sky.

It was expected by the audience, that the pomp of scenery, and bustle of

action, in which such tremendous heroes were engaged, should in some

degree correspond with their lofty sentiments and superhuman valour.

Hence solemn feasts, processions, and battles by sea and land, filled

the theatre. Hence, also, the sudden and violent changes of fortune, by

which the hero and his antagonists are agitated through the whole piece.

Fortune has been often compared to the sea; but in a heroic play, her

course resembled an absolute Bay of Biscay, or Race of Portland,

disturbed by an hundred contending currents and eddies, and never

continuing a moment in one steady flow.

That no engine of romantic surprise might be wanting, Dryden contends,

that the dramatist, as he is not confined to the probable in character,

so he is not limited by the bounds of nature in the action, but may let

himself loose to visionary objects, and to the representation of such

things as, not depending upon sense, leave free exercise for the

imagination. Indeed, if ghosts, magicians, and demons, might with

propriety claim a place anywhere, it must be in plays which throughout

disclaim the common rules of nature, both in the incidents narrated, and

the agents interested.[3]

Lastly, the action of the heroic drama was to be laid, not merely in the

higher, but in the very highest walk of life. No one could with decorum

aspire to share the sublimities which it annexed to character, except

those made of the "porcelain clay of the earth," dukes, princes, kings,

and kaisars. The matters agitated must be of moment, proportioned to

their characters and elevated station, the fate of cities and the fall

of kingdoms.

That the language, as well as actions and character of the _dramatis

personae_, might be raised above the vulgar, their sentiments were

delivered in rhyme, the richest and most ornate kind of verse, and the

farthest removed from ordinary colloquial diction. Dryden has himself

assigned the following reasons:--"The plot, the characters, the wit, the

passions, the descriptions, are all exalted above the level of common

converse, as high as the imagination of the poet can carry them, with

proportion to verisimility. Tragedy, we know, is wont to image to us the

minds and fortunes of noble persons, and to portray these exactly;

heroic rhyme is nearest nature, as being the noblest kind of modern

verse.

_Indignatur enim priratis et prope socco

Dignis carminibus narrari coena Thyestae_--

says Horace: and in another place,

_Effutire leves indigna tragaedia versus_.--

Blank verse is acknowledged to be too low for a poem, nay more, for a

paper of verses; but if too low for an ordinary sonnet, how much more

for tragedy, which is by Aristotle, in the dispute betwixt the epic

poesy and the dramatic, for many reasons he there alleges, ranked above

it."

When we consider these various essentials of a rhyming play, we may

perhaps, without impropriety define it to be a metrical romance of

chivalry in form of a drama. The hero is a perfect knight-errant,

invincible in battle, and devoted to his Dulcinea by a love, subtle,

metaphysical and abstracted from all the usual qualities of the

instinctive passion; his adventures diversified by splendid descriptions

of bull-feasts, battles, and tournaments; his fortune undergoing the

strangest, most causeless, and most unexpected varieties; his history

chequered by the marvellous interference of ghosts, spectres, and hell

itself; his actions effecting the change of empires, and his co-agents

being all lords, and dukes, and noble princes, in order that their rank

might, in some slight degree, correspond to the native exultation of the

champion's character.

The reader may smile at this description, and feel some surprise, how

compositions, involving such gross absurdities, were tolerated by an

audience having pretence to taste and civilisation But something may be

said for the heroic drama.

Although the manners were preposterous, and the changes of fortune rapid

and improbable, yet the former often attained a sublime, though forced

elevation of sentiment; and the latter, by rapidity of transition and of

contrast, served in no slight degree to interest as well as to surprise

the audience. If the spectators were occasionally stunned with bombast,

or hurried and confused by the accumulation of action and intrigue, they

escaped the languor of a creeping dialogue, and the taedium of a barren

plot, of which the termination is descried full three acts before it can

be attained. Besides, if these dramas were sometimes extravagant,

beautiful passages often occurred to atone for these sallies of fury. In

others, ingenuity makes some amends for the absence of natural feeling,

and the reader's fancy is pleased at the expense of his taste. In

representation, the beauty of the verse, assisted by the enunciation of

such actors as Betterton and Mohun, gilded over the defects of the

sense, and afforded a separate gratification. The splendour of scenery

also, in which these plays claimed a peculiar excellence, afforded a

different but certain road to popular favour; and thus this drama, with

all its faults, was very far from wanting the usual requisites for

success. But another reason for its general popularity may be sought in

a certain correspondence with the manners of the time.

Although in Charles the Second's reign the age of chivalry was totally

at an end, yet the sentiments, which had ceased to be motives of action,

were not so obsolete as to sound totally strange to the public ear. The

French romances of the lower class, such as "Cassandra," "Cleopatra,"

etc., were the favourite pastime of the ladies, and retained all the

extravagancies of chivalrous sentiment, with a double portion of tedious

form and metaphysical subtlety. There were occasionally individuals

romantic enough to manage their correspondence and amours on this

exploded system. The admired Mrs. Philips carried on an extensive

correspondence with ingenious persons of both sexes, in which she called

herself _Orinda_, and her husband, Mr. Wogan, by the title of _Antenor_.

Shadwell, an acute observer of nature, in one of his comedies describes

a formal coxcomb of this class, who courts his mistress out of the

"Grand Cyrus," and rejoices in an opportunity of showing, that his

passion could subsist in despite of her scorn.[4] It is probable he had

met with such an original in the course of his observation. The

_Précieuses_ of Molière, who affected a strange mixture of the romantic

heroine and modern fine lady, belong to the same class of oddities, and

had their prototypes under the observation of the satirist. But even

those who were above such foppery had been early taught to read and

admire the conceits of Donne, and the metaphysical love-poems of Cowley.

They could not object to the quaint and argumentative dialogues which we

have described; for the course of their studies had formed their taste

upon a model equally artificial and fantastic: and thus, what between

real excellence, and false brilliancy, the age had been accustomed not

only to admit, but to admire heroic plays.

Perhaps even these favourable circumstances, of taste and opportunity,

would hardly have elevated the rhyming drama so high in the public

opinion, had it been supported by less powers than those of Dryden, or

even by equal talents less happily adapted to that style of composition.

His versification flowed so easily, as to lessen the bad effects of

rhyme in dialogue; and, at the same time, abounded with such splendid

and sonorous passages, as, in the mouth of a Betterton, awed into

silence even those critics, who could distinguish that the tumid and

unnatural was sometimes substituted for the heroic and sublime. The

felicity of his language, the richness of his illustrations, and the

depth of his reflections, often supplied what the scene wanted in

natural passion; and, while enjoying the beauty of his declamation, it

was only on cool reflection that the hearer discovered it had passed

upon him for the expression of genuine feeling. Even then, the pleasure

which he actually received from the representation, was accepted as an

apology for the more legitimate delight, which the rules of criticism

entitled him to have expected. To these considerations, the high rank

and consequent influence, which Dryden already held in the fashionable

and literary circles of the time, must unquestionably be added. Nor did

he fail to avail himself of his access to the great, whose applause was

often cheaply secured by a perusal of the piece, previous to its being

presented to the public; and thus it afterwards came forth with all the

support of a party eminent for rank and literature, already prepossessed

in its favour.[5]

For all these reasons, the heroic drama appears to have gradually risen

in reputation, from the return of Charles till about the year 1670-1,

when Dryden's "Conquest of Granada" was received with such enthusiastic

applause. The reputation of the poet himself kept pace with that of his

favourite style of composition; and though posterity has judged more

correctly, it may be questioned, whether "Tyrannic Love" and the

"Conquest of Granada" did not place Dryden higher in public esteem, in

1670, than his "Virgil" and "Fables" in 1700. He was, however, now to

experience the inconveniencies of elevation, and to sustain an attack

upon the style of writing which he had vindicated and practised, as well

as to repel the efforts of rivals, who boasted of outstripping him in

the very road to distinction, which he had himself pointed out. The Duke

of Buckingham attacked the system of rhyming plays from the foundation;

Leigh [Transcriber's note: Print unclear], Clifford, and other

scribblers, wrote criticisms [Transcriber's note: Print unclear] upon

those of our author in particular; and Elkanah Settle was able to form a

faction heretical enough to maintain, that he could write such

compositions better than Dryden.

The witty farce of the "Rehearsal" is said to have been meditated by its

authors (for it was the work of several hands) so early as a year or two

after the Restoration, when Sir William Davenant's operas and tragedies

were the favourite exhibitions. The ostensible author was the witty

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham whose dissipation was marked with

shades of the darkest profligacy. He lived an unprincipled statesman, a

fickle projector, a wavering friend, a steady enemy; and died a

bankrupt, an outcast, and a proverb. The Duke was unequal to that

masculine satire, which depends for edge and vigour upon the conception

and expression of the author.[6] But he appears to have possessed

considerable powers of discerning what was ludicrous, and enough of

subordinate humour to achieve an imitation of colloquial peculiarities,

or a parody upon remarkable passages of poetry,--talents differing as

widely from real wit as mimicry does from true comic action. Besides,

Buckingham, as a man of fashion and a courtier, was master of the

_persiflage_, or jargon, of the day, so essentially useful as the medium

of conveying light humour. He early distinguished himself as an opponent

of the rhyming plays. Those of the Howards, of Davenant, and others, the

first which appeared after the Reformation, experienced his opposition.

At the representation of the "United Kingdoms," by the Honourable Edward

Howard, a brother of Sir Robert, the Duke's active share in damning the

piece was so far resented by the author and his friends that he narrowly

escaped sanguinary proofs of their displeasure.[7] This specimen of

irritation did not prevent his meditating an attack upon the whole body

of modern dramatists; in which he had the assistance of several wits,

who either respected the ancient drama, or condemned the modern style,

or were willing to make common cause with a Duke against a

poet-laureate. These were, the witty author of Hudibras, who, while

himself starving,[8] amused his misery by ridiculing his contemporaries;

Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, then Buckingham's chaplain; and

Martin Clifford, afterwards Master of the Charter-House the author of a

very scurrilous criticism upon some of Dryden's plays, to be mentioned

hereafter. By the joint efforts of this coalition, the "Rehearsal" was

produced; a lively piece, which continues to please, although the plays

which it parodies are no longer read or acted, and although the zest of

the personal satire which it contains has evaporated in the lapse of

time. This attack on the reigning taste was long threatened ere it was

made; and the precise quarter to be assailed was varied more than once.

Prior says, that Buckingham suspended his attack till he was certain

that the Earl of Dorset would not "rehearse on him again." The principal

character was termed, in the original sketch, Bilboa, a name expressing

a traveller and soldier, under which Sir Robert Howard, or Sir William

Davenant, was designated The author of the "Key to the Rehearsal"

affirms, that Sir Robert was the person meant; but Mr. Malone is of

opinion, that Davenant is clearly pointed out by the brown paper patch,

introduced in ridicule of that which Davenant really wore upon his nose.

Yet as this circumstance was retained when the character was assigned to

Dryden, the poet of the "Rehearsal" may be considered as in some degree

a knight of the shire, representing all the authors of the day, and

uniting in his person their several absurd peculiarities. The first

sketch of the "Rehearsal" was written about 1664, but the representation

was prevented by the theatres being shut upon the plague and fire of

London. When they were again opened, the plays of the Howards, of

Stapleton, etc., had fallen into contempt by their own demerit, and were

no longer a well-known or worthy object of ridicule. Perhaps also there

was a difficulty in bringing the piece forward, while, of the persons

against whom its satire was chiefly directed, Davenant was manager of

the one theatre, and Dryden a sharer in the other. The death of Davenant

probably removed this difficulty: and the success of Dryden in the

heroic drama; the boldness with which he stood forth, not only as a

practiser, but as the champion of that peculiar style; a certain

provoking tone of superiority in his critical essays, which, even when

flowing from conscious merit, is not easily tolerated by contemporaries;

and perhaps his situation as poet-laureate, a post which has been always

considered as a fair butt for the shafts of ridicule,--induced

Buckingham to resume the plan of his satire, and to place Dryden in the

situation designed originally for Davenant or Howard. That the public

might be at no loss to assign the character of Bayes to the laureate,

his peculiarities of language were strictly copied. Lacy the actor was

instructed by Buckingham himself how to mimic his voice and manner; and,

in performing the part, he wore a dress exactly resembling Dryden's

usual habit. With these ill-natured precautions, the "Rehearsal" was, in

1671, brought forward for the first time by the King's Company. As,

besides the reputation of Dryden, that of many inferior poets, but

greater men, was assailed by the Duke's satire, it would appear that the

play met a stormy reception on the first night of representation The

friends of the Earl of Orrery, of Sir Robert Howard and his brothers,

and other men of rank, who had produced heroic plays, were loud and

furious in their opposition. But, as usually happens, the party who

laughed, got the advantage over that which was angry, and finally drew

the audience to their side. When once received, the success of the

"Rehearsal" was unbounded. The very popularity of the plays ridiculed

aided the effect of the satire, since everybody had in their

recollection the originals of the passages parodied. Besides the

attraction of personal severity upon living and distinguished literary

characters, and the broad humour of the burlesque, the part of Bayes had

a claim to superior praise, as drawn with admirable attention to the

foibles of the poetic tribe. His greedy appetite for applause; his testy

repulse of censure or criticism; his inordinate and overwhelming vanity,

not unmixed with a vein of flattery to those who he hopes will gratify

him by returning it in kind; finally, that extreme, anxious, and

fidgeting attention to the minute parts of what even in whole is scarce

worthy of any,--are, I fear, but too appropriate qualities of the

"_genus vatum_"

Almost all Dryden's plays, including those on which he set the highest

value, and which he had produced, with confidence, as models of their

kind, were parodied in the "Rehearsal."[9] He alone contributed more to

the farce than all the other poets together. His favourite style of

comic dialogue, which he had declared to consist rather in a quick

sharpness of dialogue than in delineations of humour,[10] is paraphrased

in the scene between Tom Thimble and Prince Prettyman; the lyrics of his

astral spirits are cruelly burlesqued in the song of the two lawful

Kings of Brentford, as they descend to repossess their throne; above

all, Almanzor, his favourite hero, is parodied in the magnanimous

Drawcansir; and, to conclude, the whole scope of heroic plays, with

their combats, feasts, processions, sudden changes of fortune,

embarrassments of chivalrous love and honour, splendid verse and

unnatural rants, are so held up to ridicule, as usually to fix the

resemblance upon some one of his own dramas. The "Wild Gallant," the

"Maiden Queen," and "Tyrannic Love," all furnish parodies as do both

parts of the "Conquest of Granada," which had been frequently acted

before the representation of the "Rehearsal," though not printed till

after. What seems more strange, the play of "Marriage á la Mode" is also

alluded to, although it was neither acted nor printed till 1673, a year

after the appearance of the "Rehearsal". But there being no parody of

any particular passage, although the plot and conduct of the piece is

certainly ridiculed, it seems probable, that, as Dryden often showed his

plays in manuscript to those whom he accounted his patrons, the plan of

"Marriage à la Mode" may have transpired in the circles which Buckingham

frequented, who may thus have made it the subject of satire by

anticipation.[11]

It is easy to conceive what Dryden must have felt, at beholding his

labours and even his person held up to public derision, on the theatre

where he had so often triumphed. But he was too prudent to show outward

signs of resentment; and in conversation allowed, that the farce had a

great many good things in it, though so severe against himself. "Yet I

cannot help saying," he added, in a well-judged tone of contempt, "that

Smith and Johnson are two of the coolest and most insignificant fellows

I ever met with upon the stage."[12] Many years afterwards he assigned

nearly the same reason to the public for not replying to the satire.[13]

But though he veiled his resentment under this mask of indifference at

the time, he afterwards avowed that the exquisite character of Zimri in

"Absalom and Achitophel" was laboured with so much felicitous skill as a

requital in kind to the author of the "Rehearsal."[14]

The ridicule cast upon heroic plays by the "Rehearsal" did not prevent

their being still exhibited. They contained many passages of splendid

poetry, which continued to delight the audience after they had laughed

at Buckingham's parody. But the charm began to dissolve; and from the

time of that representation, they seem gradually, but perceptibly, to

have declined in favour. Accordingly, Dryden did not trust to his powers

of numbers in his next play, but produced the "Marriage à la Mode," a

tragi-comedy or rather a tragedy and comedy, the plots and scenes of

which are intermingled, for they have no natural connection with each

other. The state-intrigue bears evident marks of hurry and inattention;

and it is at least possible, that Dryden originally intended it for the

subject of a proper heroic play, but, startled at the effect of

Buckingham's satire, hastily added to it some comic scenes, either lying

by him, or composed on purpose. The higher or tragic plot is not only

grossly inartificial and improbable, but its incidents are so perplexed

and obscure, that it would have required much more action to detail them

intelligibly. Even the language has an abridged appearance, and favours

the idea, that the tragic intrigue was to have been extended into a

proper heroic play, instead of occupying a spare corner in a comedy. But

to make amends, the comic scenes are executed with spirit, and in a

style resembling those in the "Maiden Queen."[15] They contained much

witty and fashionable raillery; and the character of Melantha is

pronounced by Cibber to exhibit the most complete system of female

foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine

lady. It was admirably acted by Mrs. Montfort, afterwards Mrs.

Verbruggen. The piece thus supported was eminently successful; a

fortunate circumstance for the King's Company, who were then in

distressful circumstances. Their house in Drury-lane had been destroyed

by fire, after which disaster they were compelled to occupy the old

theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, lately deserted by the rival company

for a splendid one in Dorset Gardens. From a prologue which our author

furnished, to be spoken at the opening of this house of refuge, it would

seem that even the scenes and properties of the actors had been

furnished by the contributions of the nobility.[16] Perhaps their

present reduced situation was an additional reason with Dryden for

turning his attention to comedy, which required less splendour of

exhibition and decoration than the heroic plays.

"Marriage à la Mode" was inscribed to Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in

strains of adulation not very honourable to the dedicator. But as he

expresses his gratitude for Rochester's care, not only of his reputation

but of his fortune; for his solicitude to overcome the fatal modesty of

poets, which leads them to prefer want to importunity; and, finally, for

the good effects of his mediation in all his concerns at court; it may

be supposed some recent benefit, perhaps an active share in procuring

the appointment of poet-laureate, had warmed the heart of the author

towards the patron. The dedication was well received, and the compliment

handsomely acknowledged as we learn from a letter from Dryden to

Rochester, where he says, that the shame of being so much overpaid for

an ill dedication made him almost repent of his address. But he had

shortly afterwards rather more substantial reasons for regretting his

choice of a patron.

The same cause for abstaining from tragic composition still remaining in

force, Dryden, in 1672, brought forward a comedy, called "The

Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery." The plot was after the Spanish

model. The author seems to have apprehended, and experienced, some

opposition on account of this second name; and although he deprecates,

in the epilogue, the idea of its being a party play, or written to

gratify the Puritans with satire at the expense of the Catholics;[17]

yet he complains, in the dedication, of the number of its enemies, who

came prepared to damn it on account of the title. The Duke of York

having just made public profession of the Roman faith, any reflections

upon it were doubtless watched with a jealous eye. But, though guiltless

in this respect, the "Assignation" had worse faults. The plot is but

indifferently conducted and was neither enlivened with gay dialogue, nor

with striking character: the play, accordingly, proved unsuccessful in

the representation. Yet although, upon reading the "Assignation," we

cannot greatly wonder at this failure, still, considering the plays

which succeeded about the same time, we may be disposed to admit that

the weight of a party was thrown into the scale against its reception.

Buckingham, who shortly afterwards published a revised edition of the

"Rehearsal," failed not to ridicule the absurd and coarse trick, by

which the enamoured prince prevents his father from discovering the

domino of his mistress, which had been left in his apartment.[18] And

Dryden's rivals and enemies, now a numerous body, hailed with malicious

glee an event which seemed to foretell the decay of his popularity.

The "Assignation" was published in 1673, and inscribed, by Dryden, to

his much honoured friend Sir Charles Sedley. There are some acrimonious

passages in this dedication, referring to the controversies in which the

author had been engaged; and, obscure as these have become, it is the

biographer's duty to detail and illustrate them.

It cannot be supposed that the authors of the time saw with indifference

Dryden's rapid success, and the measures which he had taken, by his

critical essays, to guide the public attention and to fix it upon

himself and the heroic plays, in which he felt his full superiority. But

no writer of the time could hope to be listened to by the public, if he

entered a claim of personal competition against a poet so celebrated.

The defence of the ancient poets afforded a less presumptuous and more

favourable pretext for taking the field, and for assailing Dryden's

writings, and avenging the slight notice he had afforded to his

contemporaries, under the colour of defending the ancients against his

criticism. The "Essay of Dramatic Poesy" afforded a pretence for

commencing this sort of warfare. In that piece, Dryden had pointed out

the faults of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Fletcher, with less ceremony than

the height of their established reputation appeared to demand from a

young author. But the precedence which he undauntedly claimed for the

heroic drama, and, more generally, the superiority of the plays of

Dryden's own age, whether tragic or comic, over those of the earlier

part of the seventeenth century, was asserted, not only distinctly, but

irreverently, in the Epilogue to the "Conquest of Granada:"

"They who have best succeeded on the stage,

Have still conformed their genius to their age.

Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show

When men were dull, and conversation low.

Then comedy was faultless, but 'twas coarse:

Cobb's tankard was a jest, and Otter's horse.

And, as their comedy, their love was mean;

Except, by chance, in some one laboured scene,

Which must atone for an ill-written play,

They rose, but at their height could seldom stay.

Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;

And they have kept it since, by being dead.

But, were they now to write, when critics weigh

Each line, and every word, throughout a play,

None of them, no, not Jonson in his height,

Could pass, without allowing grains for weight.

Think it not envy, that these truths are told;

Our poet's not malicious, though he's bold.

'Tis not to brand them that their faults are shown,

But by their errors to excuse his own.

If love and honour now are higher raised,

'Tis not the poet, but the age is praised.

Wit's now arrived to a more high degree;

Our native language more refined and free;

Our ladies and our men now speak more wit

In conversation than those poets writ.

Then, one of these is, consequently, true;

That what this poet writes comes short of you,

And imitates you ill (which most he fears),

Or else his writing is not worse than theirs.

Yet, though you judge (as sure the critics will),

That some before him writ with greater skill,

In this one praise he has their fame surpast,

To please an age more gallant than the last."

The daring doctrine laid down in these obnoxious lines, our author

ventured to maintain in what he has termed a "Defence of the Epilogue,

or an Essay on the Dramatic Poetry of the last age." It is subjoined to

the "Conquest of Granada;" and, as that play was not printed till after

the "Rehearsal," it serves to show how little Dryden's opinions were

altered, or his tone lowered, by the success of that witty satire. It

was necessary, he says, either not to print the bold epilogue, which we

have quoted, or to show that he could defend it. He censures decidedly

the antiquated language, irregular plots, and anachronisms of

Shakespeare and Fletcher; but his main strength seems directed against

Jonson. From his works he selects several instances of harsh, inelegant,

and even inaccurate diction. In describing manners, he claims for the

modern writers a decided superiority over the poets of the earlier age,

when there was less gallantry, and when the authors were not admitted to

the best society. The manners of their low, or Dutch school of comedy,

in which Jonson led the way, by his "Bartholomew Fair," and similar

pieces, are noticed, and censured, as unfit for a polished audience. The

characters in what may be termed genteel comedy are reviewed, and

restricted to the Truewit of Jonson's "Silent Woman," the Mercutio of

Shakespeare, and Fletcher's Don John in the "Chances." Even this last

celebrated character, he observes, is better carried on in the modern

alteration of the play, than in Fletcher's original; a singular instance

of Dryden's liberality of criticism, since the alteration of the

"Chances" was made by that very Duke of Buckingham, from whom he had

just received a bitter and personal offence. Dryden proceeds to contend,

that the living poets, from the example of a gallant king and sprightly

court, have learned, in their comedies, a tone of light discourse and

raillery, in which the solidity of English sense is blended with the air

and gaiety of their French neighbours; in short, that those who call

Jonson's the golden age of poetry, have only this reason, that the

audience were then content with acorns, because they knew not the use of

bread. In all this criticism there was much undeniable truth; but

sufficient weight was not given to the excellencies of the old school,

while their faults were ostentatiously and invidiously enumerated. It

would seem that Dryden, perhaps from the rigour of a puritanical

education, had not studied the ancient dramatic models in his youth, and

had only begun to read them with attention when it was his object rather

to depreciate than to emulate them. But the time came when he did due

homage to their genius.

Meanwhile, this avowed preference of his own period excited the

resentment of the older critics, who had looked up to the era of

Shakespeare as the golden age of poetry; and no less that of the

playwrights of his own standing, who pretended to discover that Dryden

designed to establish less the reputation of his age, than of himself

individually upon the ruined fame of the ancient poets. They complained

that, as the wild bull in the Vivarambla of Granada,

"monarch-like he ranged the listed field,

And some he trampled down, and some he kill'd."

Many, therefore, advancing, under pretence of vindicating the fame of

the ancients, gratified their spleen by attacking that of Dryden, and

strove less to combat his criticisms, than to criticise his productions.

We shall have too frequent occasion to observe, that there was, during

the reign of Charles II., a semi-barbarous virulence of controversy,

even upon abstract points of literature, which would be now thought

injudicious and unfair, even by the newspaper advocates of contending

factions. A critic of that time never deemed he had so effectually

refuted the reasoning of his adversary, as when he had said something

disrespectful of his talents, person, or moral character. Thus, literary

contest was embittered by personal hatred, and truth was so far from

being the object of the combatants that even victory was tasteless

unless obtained by the disgrace and degradation of the antagonist. This

reflection may serve to introduce a short detail of the abusive

controversies in which it was Dryden's lot to be engaged.

One of those who most fiercely attacked our author's system and opinions

was Matthew[19] Clifford, already mentioned as engaged in the

"Rehearsal." At what precise time he began his Notes upon Dryden's

Poems, in Four Letters, or how they were originally published, is

uncertain. The last of the letters is dated from the Charter-House 1st

July 1672, and is signed with his name: probably the others were written

shortly before. The only edition now known was printed along with some

"Reflections on the Hind and Panther, by another Hand" (Tom Brown), in

1687. If these letters were not actually printed in 1672, they were

probably successively made public by transcripts handed about in the

coffee-houses which was an usual mode of circulating lampoons and pieces

of satire. Although Clifford was esteemed a man of wit and a scholar,

his style is rude, coarse, and ungentlemanlike, and the criticism is

chiefly verbal. In the note the reader may peruse an ample specimen of

the kind of wit, or rather banter, employed by this facetious

person.[20] The letters were written successively at different periods;

for Clifford in the last complains that he cannot extort an answer, and

therefore seems to conceive that his arguments are unanswerable.

There were several other pamphlets, and fugitive pieces, published

against Dryden at the same time. One of them, entitled "The Censure of

the Rota on Mr. Dryden's Conquest of Granada," was printed at Oxford in

1673. This was followed by a similar piece, entitled, "A description of

the Academy of Athenian Virtuosi, with a Discourse held there in

Vindication of Mr. Dryden's Conquest of Granada against the Author of

the Censure of the Rota." And a third, called "A Friendly Vindication

of Mr. Dryden from the Author of the Censure of the Rota," was printed

at Cambridge. All these appeared previous to the publication of the

"Assignation." The first, as Wood informs us, was written by Richard

Leigh, educated at Queen's College, Oxford, where he entered in 1665,

and was probably resident when this piece was there published. He was

afterwards a player in the Duke's Company, but must be carefully

distinguished from the celebrated comedian of the same name. It seems

likely that he wrote also the second tract, which is a continuation of

the first. Both are in a frothy, flippant style of raillery, of which

the reader will find a specimen in the note.[21] The Cambridge

Vindication seems to have been written by a different hand, though in

the same taste. It is singular in bringing a charge against our author

which has been urged by no other antagonist; for he is there upbraided

with exhibiting in his comedies the persons and follies of living

characters.[22]

The friends and admirers of Dryden did not see with indifference these

attacks upon his reputation for he congratulates[23] himself upon having

found defenders even among strangers alluding probably to a tract by Mr.

Charles Blount, entitled, "Mr. Dryden Vindicated, in answer to the

Friendly Vindication of Mr. Dryden, with reflections on the Rota." This

piece is written with all the honest enthusiasm of youth in defence of

that genius, which has excited its admiration. In his address to Sedley,

Dryden notices these attacks upon him with a supreme degree of

contempt[24]. In other respects, the dedication is drawn with the easy

indifference of one accustomed to the best society, towards the

authority of those who presumed to judge of modern manners, without

having access to see those of the higher circles. The picture which it

draws of the elegance of the convivial parties of the wits in that gay

time has been quoted a few pages higher.

I know not if it be here worth while to mention a pretty warfare between

Dryden and Edward Ravenscroft,[25] an unworthy scribbler, who wrote

plays, or rather altered those of Shakespeare, and imitated those of

Molière. This person, whether from a feud which naturally subsisted

between the two rival theatres, or from envy and dislike to Dryden

personally, chose, in the Prologue to the "Citizen turned Gentleman,"

acted at the Duke's House in 1672, to level some sneers at the heroic

drama, which affected particularly the "Conquest of Granada," then

acting with great applause. Ravenscroft's play, which is a bald

translation from the "_Bourgeois Gentilhomme_" of Molière, was

successful, chiefly owing to the burlesque procession of Turks employed

to dub the Citizen a _Mamamouchi_, or Paladin. Dryden, with more

indignation than the occasion warranted, retorted, in the Prologue to

the "Assignation," by the following attack on Ravenscroft's jargon and

buffoonery:

"You must have Mamamouchi, such a fop

As would appear a monster in a shop;

He'll fill your pit and boxes to the brim,

Where, ramm'd in crowds, you see yourselves in him.

Sure there's some spell our poet never knew,

In _Hullibabilah de_, and _Chu, chu, chu_;

But _Marababah sahem_ most did touch you;

That is, Oh how we love the Mamamouchi!

Grimace and habit sent you pleased away;

You damned the poet, and cried up the play."

About this time, too, the actresses in the King's theatre, to vary the

amusements of the house, represented "Marriage à la Mode" in men's

dresses. The Prologue and Epilogue were furnished by Dryden; and in the

latter, mentioning the projected union of the theatres,--

"all the women most devoutly swear,

Each would be rather a poor actress here,

Than to be made a Mamamouchi there."

Ravenscroft, thus satirised, did not fail to exult in the bad success of

the "Assignation," and celebrated his triumph in some lines of a

Prologue to the "Careless Lovers," which was acted in the vacation

succeeding the ill fate of Dryden's play. They are thrown into the note,

that the reader may judge how very unworthy this scribbler was of the

slightest notice from the pen of Dryden.[26]

And with this _Te Deum_, on the part of Ravenscroft ended a petty

controversy, which gives him his only title to be named in the life of

an English classic.

From what has been detailed of these disputes we may learn that, even at

this period, the laureate's wreath was not unmingled with thorns; and

that if Dryden still maintained his due ascendancy over the common band

of authors, it was not without being occasionally under the necessity of

descending into the _arena_ against very inferior antagonists.

In the course of these controversies, Dryden was not idle, though he

cannot be said to have been worthily or fortunately employed; his muse

being lent to the court, who were at this time anxious to awake the

popular indignation against the Dutch. It is a characteristic of the

English nation, that their habitual dislike against their neighbours is

soon and easily blown into animosity. But, although Dryden chose for his

theme the horrid massacre of Amboyna, and fell to the task with such

zeal that he accomplished it in a month, his play was probably of little

service to the cause in which it was written. The story is too

disgusting to produce the legitimate feelings of pity and terror which

tragedy should excite: the black-hole of Calcutta would be as pleasing a

subject. The character of the Hollanders is too grossly vicious and

detestable to give the least pleasure. They are neither men, nor even

devils; but a sort of lubber fiends, compounded of cruelty, avarice, and

brutal debauchery, like Dutch swabbers possessed by demons. But of this

play the author has himself admitted, that the subject is barren, the

persons low, and the writing not heightened by any laboured scenes: and,

without attempting to contradict this modest description, we may dismiss

the tragedy of "Amboyna." It was dedicated to Lord Clifford of

Chudleigh, an active member of the Cabal administration of Charles II.;

but who, as a Catholic, on the test act being passed, resigned his post

of lord high treasurer, and died shortly afterwards. There is great

reason to think that this nobleman had essentially favoured Dryden's

views in life. On a former occasion, he had termed Lord Clifford a

better Maecenas than that of Horace;[27] and, in the present dedication,

he mentions the numerous favours received through so many years as

forming one continued act of his patron's generosity and goodness; so

that the excess of his gratitude had led the poet to receive those

benefits, as the Jews received their law, with mute wonder, rather than

with outward and ceremonious acclamation. These sentiments of obligation

he continued, long after Lord Clifford's death, to express in terms

equally glowing;[28] so that we may safely do this statesman's memory

the justice to record him as an active and discerning patron of Dryden's

genius.

In the course of 1673 our author's pen was engaged in a task, which may

be safely condemned as presumptuous, though that pen was Dryden's. It

was no other than that of new-modelling the "Paradise Lost" of Milton

into a dramatic poem, called the "State of Innocence, or the Fall of

Man." The coldness with which Milton's mighty epic was received upon the

first publication is almost proverbial. The character of the author,

obnoxious for his share in the usurped government; the turn of the

language, so different from that of the age; the seriousness of a

subject so discordant with its lively frivolities--gave to the author's

renown the slowness of growth with the permanency of the oak. Milton's

merit, however, had not escaped the eye of Dryden.[29] He was acquainted

with the author, perhaps even before the Restoration; and who can doubt

Dryden's power of feeling the sublimity of the "Paradise Lost," even had

he himself not assured us, in the prefatory essay to his own piece, that

he accounts it, "undoubtedly, one of the greatest, most noble, and most

sublime poems, which either this age or nation has produced"? We are,

therefore, to seek for the motive which could have induced him, holding

this opinion, "to gild pure gold, and set a perfume on the violet."

Dennis has left a curious record upon this subject:--"Dryden," he

observes, "in his Preface before the 'State of Innocence,' appears to

have been the first, those gentlemen excepted whose verses are before

Milton's poem, who discovered in so public a manner an extraordinary

opinion of Milton's extraordinary merit. And yet Mr. Dryden at that time

knew not half the extent of his excellence, as more than twenty years

afterwards he confessed to me, and is pretty plain from his writing the

'State of Innocence.'" Had he known the full extent of Milton's

excellence, Dennis thought he would not have ventured on this

undertaking, unless he designed to be a foil to him: "but they," he

adds, "who knew Mr. Dryden, know very well, that he was not of a temper

to design to be a foil to any one."[30] We are therefore to conclude,

that it was only the hope of excelling his original, admirable as he

allowed it to be, which impelled Dryden upon this unprofitable and

abortive labour; and we are to examine the improvements which Dryden

seemed to meditate, or, in other words, the differences between his

taste and that of Milton.

And first we may observe, that the difference in their situations

affected their habits of thinking upon poetical subjects. Milton had

retired into solitude, if not into obscurity, relieved from everything

like external agency either influencing his choice of a subject, or his

mode of treating it; and in consequence, instead of looking abroad to

consult the opinion of his age, he appealed only to the judge which

heaven had implanted within him, when he was endowed with severity of

judgment, and profusion of genius. But the taste of Dryden was not so

independent. Placed by his very office at the head of what was

fashionable in literature, he had to write for those around him, rather

than for posterity; was to support a brilliant reputation in the eye of

the world; and is frequently found boasting of his intimacy with those

who led the taste of the age, and frequently quoting the

"_tamen me

Cum magnis vixisse, invita falebitur usque

Invidia._"

It followed, that Dryden could not struggle against the tide into which

he was launched, and that, although it might be expected from his

talents that he should ameliorate the reigning taste, or at least carry

those compositions which it approved to their utmost pitch of

perfection, it could not be hoped that he should altogether escape being

perverted by it, or should soar so superior to all its prejudices as at

once to admit the super-eminent excellence of a poem which ran counter

to these in so many particulars. The versification of Milton, according

to the taste of the times, was ignoble, from its supposed facility.

Dryden was, we have seen, so much possessed with this prejudice, as to

pronounce blank verse unfit even for a fugitive paper of verses. Even in

his later and riper judgment he affirms, that, whatever pretext Milton

might allege for the use of blank verse, "his own particular reason is

plainly this,--that rhyme was not his talent; he had neither the ease of

doing it, nor the graces of it: which is manifest in his 'Juvenilia,' or

verses written in his youth, where his rhyme is always constrained and

forced, and comes hardly from him, at an age when the soul is most

pliant, and the passion of love makes almost every man a rhymer, though

not a poet."

The want of the dignity of rhyme was therefore, according to his idea,

an essential deficiency in the "Paradise Lost." According to Aubrey,

Dryden communicated to Milton his intention of adding this grace to his

poem; to which the venerable bard gave a contemptuous consent, in these

words: "Ay, you may _tag_ my verses if you will." Perhaps few have read

so far into the "State of Innocence" as to discover that Dryden did not

use this licence to the uttermost and that several of the scenes are not

tagg'd with rhyme.

Dryden at this period engaged in a research recommended to him by "a

noble wit of Scotland," as he terms Sir George Mackenzie, the issue of

which, in his apprehension, pointed out further room for improving upon

the epic of Milton. This was an inquiry into the "turn of words and

thoughts" requisite in heroic poetry. These "turns," according to the

definition and examples which Dryden has given us, differ from the

points of wit, and quirks of epigram, common in the metaphysical poets,

and consist in a happy, and at the same time a natural, recurrence of

the same form of expression, melodiously varied. Having failed in his

search after these beauties in Cowley, the darling of his youth, "I

consulted," says Dryden, "a greater genius (without offence to the manes

of that noble author), I mean--Milton; but as he endeavours everywhere

to express Homer, whose age had not arrived to that fineness, I found in

him a true sublimity, lofty thoughts, which were clothed with admirable

Grecisms, and ancient words, which he had been digging from the mines of

Chaucer and Spenser, and which, with all their rusticity, had somewhat

of venerable in them. But I found not there neither that for which I

looked." This judgment Addison has proved to be erroneous, by quoting

from Milton the most beautiful example of a turn of words which can be

found in English poetry.[31] But Dryden, holding it for just, conceived,

doubtless, that in his "State of Innocence" he might exert his skill

successfully, by supplying the supposed deficiency, and for relieving

those "flats of thought" which he complains of, where Milton, for a

hundred lines together, runs on in a "track of scripture;" but which

Dennis more justly ascribes to the humble nature of his subject in those

passages. The graces, also, which Dryden ventured to interweave with the

lofty theme of Milton, were rather those of Ovid than of Virgil, rather

turns of verbal expression than of thought. Such is that conceit which

met with censure at the time:

"Seraph and cherub, careless of their charge,

And wanton, in full ease now live at large;

Unguarded leave the passes of the sky,

And all dissolved in hallelujahs lie."

"I have heard," said a petulant critic, "of anchovies dissolved in

sauce; but never of an angel dissolved in hallelujahs." But this

raillery Dryden rebuffs with a quotation from Virgil:

"_Invadunt urbem, somno vinoque sepultam_."

It might have been replied, that Virgil's analogy was familiar and

simple, and that of Dryden was far-fetched, and startling by its

novelty. The majesty of Milton's verse is strangely degraded in the

following speeches, which precede the rising of Pandaemonium. Some of

the couplets are utterly flat and bald, and, in others, the balance of

point and antithesis is substituted for the simple sublimity of the

original:

_Moloch_. Changed as we are, we're yet from homage free;

We have, by hell, at least gained liberty:

That's worth our fall; thus low though we are driven.

Better to rule in hell, than serve in heaven.

_Lucifer_. There spoke the better half of Lucifer!

_Asmoday_. 'Tis fit in frequent senate we confer,

And then determine how to steer our course;

To wage new war by fraud, or open force.

The doom's now past, submission were in vain.

_Mol_. And were it not, such baseness I disdain;

I would not stoop, to purchase all above,

And should contemn a power, whom prayer could move,

As one unworthy to have conquered me.

_Beelzebub_. Moloch, in that all are resolved, like thee

The means are unproposed; but 'tis not fit

Our dark divan in public view should sit;

Or what we plot against the Thunderer,

The ignoble crowd of vulgar devils hear.

_Lucif._ A golden palace let be raised on high;

To imitate? No, to outshine the sky!

All mines are ours, and gold above the rest:

Let this be done; and quick as 'twas exprest.

I fancy the reader is now nearly satisfied with Dryden's improvements on

Milton. Yet some of his alterations have such peculiar reference to the

taste and manners of his age, that I cannot avoid pointing them out. Eve

is somewhat of a coquette even in the state of innocence. She exclaims:

"from each tree

The feathered kind press down to look on me;

The beasts, with up-cast eyes, forsake their shade,

And gaze, as if I were to be obeyed.

Sure, I am somewhat which they wish to be,

And cannot,--I myself am proud of me."

Upon receiving Adam's addresses, she expresses, rather unreasonably in

the circumstances, some apprehensions of his infidelity; and, upon the

whole, she is considerably too knowing for the primitive state. The same

may be said of Adam, whose knowledge in school divinity, and use of

syllogistic argument, Dryden, though he found it in the original, was

under no necessity to have retained.

The "State of Innocence," as it could not be designed for the stage,

seems to have been originally intended as a mere poetical prolusion; for

Dryden, who was above affecting such a circumstance, tells us, that it

was only made public, because, in consequence of several hundred copies,

every one gathering new faults, having been dispersed without his

knowledge, it became at length a libel on the author, who was forced to

print a correct edition in his own defence. As the incidents and

language were ready composed by Milton, we are not surprised when

informed, that the composition and revision were completed in a single

month. The critics having assailed the poem even before publication, the

author has prefixed an "Essay upon Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence;" in

which he treats chiefly of the use of metaphors, and of the legitimacy

of machinery.

The Dedication of the "State of Innocence," addressed to Mary of Este,

Duchess of York, is a singular specimen of what has been since termed

the _celestial_ style of inscription. It is a strain of flattery in the

language of adoration; and the elated station of the princess is

declared so suited to her excellence, that Providence has only done

justice to its own works in placing the most perfect work of heaven

where it may be admired by all beholders. Even this flight is surpassed

by the following:--"Tis true, you are above all mortal wishes; no man

desires impossibilities, because they are beyond the reach of nature. To

hope to be a god is folly exalted into madness; but, by the laws of our

creation, we are obliged to adore him, and are permitted to love him too

at human distance. 'Tis the nature of perfection to be attractive; but

the excellency of the object refines the nature of the love. It strikes

an impression of awful reverence; 'tis indeed that love which is more

properly a zeal than passion. 'Tis the rapture which anchorites find in

prayer, when a beam of the divinity shines upon them; that which makes

them despise all worldly objects; and yet 'tis all but contemplation.

They are seldom visited from above; but a single vision so transports

them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives. Mortality cannot

bear it often: it finds them in the eagerness and height of their

devotion; they are speechless for the time that it continues, and

prostrate and dead when it departs." Such eulogy was the taste of the

days of Charles, when ladies were deified in dedications and painted as

Venus or Diana upon canvas. In our time, the elegance of the language

would be scarcely held to counterbalance the absurdity of the

compliments.

Lee, the dramatic writer, an excellent poet, though unfortunate in his

health and circumstances evinced his friendship for Dryden, rather than

his judgment, by prefixing to the "State of Innocence" a copy of verses,

in which he compliments the author with having refined the ore of

Milton. Dryden repaid this favour by an epistle, in which he beautifully

apologises for the extravagancies of his friend's poetry, and consoles

him for the censure of those cold judges, whose blame became praise when

they accused the warmth which they were incapable of feeling.[32]

Having thus brought the account of our author's productions down to

1674, from which period we date a perceptible change in his taste and

mode of composition, I have only to add, that his private situation was

probably altered to the worse, by the burning of the King's Theatre, and

the debts contracted in rebuilding it. The value of his share in that

company must consequently have fallen far short of what it was

originally. In other respects, he was probably nearly in the same

condition as in 1672. The critics, who assailed his literary reputation,

had hitherto spared his private character; and, excepting Rochester,

whose malignity towards Dryden now began to display itself, he probably

had not lost one person whom he had thought worthy to be called a

friend. Lee, who seems first to have distinguished himself about 1672,

was probably then added to the number of his intimates. Milton died

shortly before the publication of the "State of Innocence;" and we may

wish in vain to know his opinion of that piece; but if tradition can be

trusted, he said, perhaps on that undertaking, that Dryden was a good

rhymer, but no poet. Blount, who had signalised himself in Dryden's

defence, was now added to the number of his friends. This gentleman

dedicated his "_Religio Laici_" to Dryden in 1683, as his much-honoured

friend; and the poet speaks of him with kindness and respect in 1696,

three years after his unfortunate and violent catastrophe.

Dryden was, however, soon to experience the mutability of the friendship

of wits and courtiers. A period was speedily approaching, when the

violence of political faction was to effect a breach between our author

and many of those with whom he was now intimately connected; indeed, he

was already entangled in the quarrels of the great, and sustained a

severe personal outrage, in consequence of a quarrel with which he had

little individual concern.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In "Repartees between Cat and Puss at a caterwauling, in the modern

heroic way:"

"_Cat_. Forbear, foul ravisher, this rude address;

Canst thou at once both injure and caress?

_Puss_. Thou hast bewitched me with thy powerful charms,

And I, by drawing blood, would cure my harms.

_C_. He that does love would set his heart a tilt,

Ere one drop of his lady's should be spilt.

_P_. Your wounds are but without, and mine within:

You wound my heart, and I but prick your skin;

And while your eyes pierce deeper than my claws,

You blame the effect of which you are the cause.

_C_. How could my guiltless eyes your heart invade,

Had it not first been by your own betrayed?

Hence 'tis, my greatest crime has only been

(Not in mine eyes, but yours) in being seen.

_P_. I hurt to love, but do not love to hurt.

_C_. That's worse than making cruelty a sport.

_P_. Pain is the foil of pleasure and delight,

That sets it off to a more noble height.

_C_. He buys his pleasure at a rate too vain,

That takes it up beforehand of his pain.

_P_. Pain is more dear than pleasure when 'tis past.

_C_. But grows intolerable if it last," etc.

[2] Life of Lope de Vega, p. 208.

[3] Dryden was severely censured by the critics for his supernatural

persons, and ironically described as the "man, nature seemed to make

choice of to enlarge the poet's empire and to complete those discoveries

others had begun to shadow. That Shakespeare and Fletcher (as some

think) erected the pillars of poetry, is a grosse errour; this Zany of

Columbus has discovered a poeticall world of greater extent than the

naturall, peopled with Atlantick colonies of notionall creatures,

astrall spirits, ghosts, and idols, more various than ever the Indians

worshipt, and heroes more lawless than their savages."--_Censure of

the Rota_.

[4] His mistress having fallen in love with a disguised barber, a less

polished rival exclaims,--

"_Sir Hum_. Nay, for my part, madam, if you must love a cudgelled

barber, and take him for a valiant count, make much of him; I shall

desist: there are more ladies, heaven be thanked.

"_Trim_. Yes, sir, there are more ladies; but if any man affirms

that my fair Dorinda has an equal, I thus fling down my glove, and do

demand the combat for her honour.--This is a nice point of honour I

have hit."--_Bury Fair_.

[5] The author of the "Friendly Vindication of Mr. Dryden from the

Censure of the Rota" (Cambridge, 1673) mentions, "his humble and

supplicant addresses to men and ladies of honour, to whom he presented

the most of his plays to be read, and so passing through their families,

to comply with their censures before-hand; confessing ingenuously, that

had he ventured his wits upon the tenter-hooks of Fortune (like other

poets who depended more upon the merits of their pens), he had been more

severely entangled in his own lines long ago."--Page 7.

[6] Of this want of talent the reader may find sufficient proof in the

extracts from his Grace's reflections upon "Absalom and Achitophel."

[7] See "Key to the Rehearsal." "Our most noble author, to manifest his

just indignation and hatred of this fulsome new way of writing, used his

utmost interest and endeavours to stifle it at its first appearance on

the stage, by engaging all his friends to explode and run down these

plays; especially the 'United Kingdoms,' which had like to have brought

his life into danger.

"The author of it being nobly born, of an ancient and numerous family,

had many of his relations and friends in the cock-pit during the acting

of it. Some of them perceiving his Grace to head a party, who were very

active in damning the play, by hissing and laughing immoderately at the

strange conduct thereof, there were persons laid wait for him as he came

out; but there being a great tumult and uproar in the house and the

passages near it, he escaped; but he was threatened hard. However, the

business was composed in a short time, though by what means I have not

been informed." The trade of criticism was not uniformly safe in these

days. In the Preface to the "Reformation," a beau is only directed to

venture to abuse a new play, _if he knows, the author is no fighter._

[8] [Scott has Dryden's authority (in the letter to Hyde already

referred to) for this word, but it is pretty certainly rhetorical. See

article on "Butler," by the present writer, in the _Encyclopaedia

Britannica_, ninth edition.--ED.]

[9] [It may be well to mention that the editions of the "Rehearsal" are

very numerous, and that fresh parodies of fresh plays as they appeared

were incorporated in them. Scott does not seem to have been fully aware

of this.--ED.]

[10] Preface to "An Evening's Love."

[11] Mr. Malone inclines to think there is no allusion to "Marriage à la

Mode" in the "Rehearsal." But surely the whimsical distress of Prince

Prettyman, "sometimes a fisher's son, sometimes a prince," is precisely

that of Leonidas, who is first introduced as the son of a shepherd;

secondly, discovered to be the son of an unlawful king called Polydamas;

thirdly, proved anew to be the son of the shepherd, and finally proved

to be the son of neither of them, but of the lawful king, Theogenes.

Besides, the author of the "Key to the Rehearsal" points out a parallel

between the revolution of state in the farce, and that by which

Leonidas, after being carried off to execution, on a sudden snatches a

sword from one of the guards, proclaims himself rightful king, and,

without more ceremony, deposes the powerful and jealous usurper, who had

sentenced him to death.

[12] Spence's "Anecdotes," quoted by Mr. Malone, vol. i. p. 106.

[13] "I answered not the 'Rehearsal,' because I knew the author sat to

himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own

farce; because also I knew, that my betters were more concerned than I

was in that satire; and, lastly, because Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson, the

main pillars of it, were two such languishing gentlemen in their

conversation, that I could liken them to nothing but to their own

relations, those noble characters of men of wit and pleasure about the

town."--_Dedication to Juvenal_.

[14] The pains which Dryden bestowed on the character of Zimri, and the

esteem in which he held it, is evident from his quoting it as the

master-piece of his own satire. "The character of Zimri in my 'Absalom'

is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem: it is not bloody, but it is

ridiculous enough; and he, for him it was intended, was too witty to

resent it as an injury. If I had railed, I might have suffered for it

justly; but I managed my own work more happily, perhaps more

dexterously. I avoided the mention of great crimes, and applied myself

to the representing of blind-sides, and little extravagancies; to which,

the wittier a man is, he is generally the more obnoxious. It succeeded

as I wished; the jest went round, and he was laughed at in his turn who

began the frolic."

[15] In one of Cibber's moods of alteration, he combined the comic

scenes of these two plays into a comedy entitled, "The Comical Lovers."

[16]

"You are changed too, and your pretence to see

Is but a nobler name for charity;

Your own provisions furnish out our feasts,

While you, the founders, make yourselves the guests."--Vol. x.

[17]

"Some have expected, from our bills to-day,

To find a satire in our poet's ploy.

The zealous route from Coleman street did run.

To see the story of the Friar and Nun;

Or tales yet more ridiculous to hear,

Vouched by their vicar often pounds a-year,--

Nuns who did against temptation pray,

And discipline laid on the pleasant way:

Or that, to please the malice of the town,

Our poet should in some close cell have shown

Some sister, playing at content alone.

This they did hope; the other side did fear;

And both, you see, alike are cozened here."

[18]

"_Bayes._ I remember once, in a play of mine, I set off a scene,

i'gad, beyond expectation, only with a petticoat and the belly-ache.

_Smith_. Pray, how was that, sir?

_Bayes_. Why, sir, I contrived a petticoat to be brought in upon

a chair (nobody knew how), into a prince's chamber, whose father was

now to see it, that came in by chance.

_Johns_. God's-my-life, that was a notable contrivance indeed!

_Smith_. Ay, but, Mr. Bayes, how could you contrive the

belly-ache?

_Bayes._ The easiest i' the world, i'gad: I'll tell you how; I

made the prince sit down upon the petticoat, no more than so, and

pretended to his father that he had just then got the belly-ache;

whereupon his father went out to call a physician, and his man ran

away with the petticoat."--_Rehearsal_.

[19] Not Matthew, but Martin, as it is correctly printed before.--Ed.

[20] "To begin with your character of Almanzor, which you avow to have

taken from the Achilles in Homer; pray hear what Famianus Strada says of

such talkers as Mr. Dryden: _Ridere soleo, cum video homines ab Homeri

virtibus strenue declinates, si quid vero irrepsi vitii, id avide

arripientes._ But I might have spared this quotation, and you your

avowing; for this character might as well have been borrowed from some

of the stalls in Bedlam, or any of your own hair-brained cox-combs which

you call heroes, and persons of honour. I remember just such another

fuming Achilles in Shakespeare, one ancient Pistol, whom he avows to be

a man of so fiery a temper, and so impatient of an injury, even from Sir

John Falstaff his captain, and a knight, that he not only disobeyed his

commands about carrying a letter to Mrs. Page, but returned him an

answer as full of contumely, and in as opprobrious terms, as he could

imagine:

'Let vultures gripe thy guts, for gourd and Fullam holds,

And high and low beguiles the rich and poor.

Tester I'll have in pouch, when thou shalt lack,

Base Phrygian Turk,' etc.

"Let's see e'er an Abencerrago fly a higher pitch. Take him at another

turn, quarrelling with corporal Nym and old Zegri: The difference arose

about mine hostess Quickly (for I would not give a rush for a man unless

he be particular in matters of this moment); they both aimed at her

body, but Abencerrago Pistol defies his rival in these words:

'Fetch from the powdering-tub of infamy

That lazar-kite of Cressid's kind,

Doll Tearsheet, she by name, and her espouse:

I have, and I will hold,

The quondam Quickly for the only she.

And _pauca_.'

There's enough. Does not quotation sound as well as I[20a]?

"But the four sons of Aminon, the three bold Beachams, the four London

Prentices, Tamerlain, the Scythian Shepherd, Muleasses, Amurath, and

Bajazet, or any raging Turk at the Red-bull and Fortune, might as well

have been urged by you as a pattern of your Almanzor, as the Achilles in

Homer; but then our laureate had not passed for so learned a man as he

desires his unlearned admirers should esteem him.

"But I am strangely mistaken, if I have not seen this very Almanzor of

your's in some disguise about this town, and passing under another name.

Prithee tell me true, was not this huff-cap once the Indian Emperor,

and, at another time, did not he call himself Maximme? Was not Lyndaraxa

once called Almeria, I mean under Montezuma the Indian Emperor? I

protest and vow they are either the same, or so alike, that I can't for

my heart distinguish one from the other. You are, therefore, a strange

unconscionable thief, that art not content to steal from others, but

do'st rob thy poor wretched self too."

[20a] [There is no I in the original where Clifford quotes:

[Greek: Oinobares, kunos ommat echon kradiaen d elaphoio.

Daemoboros basileus.]

I owe my copy of this curious monument of belated spite to the kindness

of Mr. Austin Dobson.--ED.]

[21] "Amongst several other late exercises of the Athenian virtuosi in

the Coffee-academy, instituted by Apollo for the advancement of Gazette

Philosophy, Mercury's, Diurnalli, etc., this day was wholly taken up in

the examination of the 'Conquest of Granada.' A gentleman on the reading

of the First Part, and there in the description of the bull-baiting,

said, that Almanzor's playing at the bull was according to the standard

of the Greek heroes, who, as Mr. Dryden had learnedly observed (Essay

of Dramatic Poesy), were great beef-eaters. And why might not Almanzor

as well as Ajax, or Don Quixote, worry mutton, or take a bull by the

throat, since the author had elsewhere explained himself, by telling us

the heroes were more noble beasts of prey, in his Epistle to his

'Conquest of Granada,' distinguishing them into wild and tame; and in

his play we have Almanzor shaking his chains, and frighting his keeper,

broke loose, and tearing those that would reclaim his rage. To this he

added, that his bulls excelled other heroes, as far as his own heroes

surpassed his gods; that the champion bull was divested of flesh and

blood, and made immortal by the poet, and bellowed after death; that

the fantastic bull seemed fiercer than the true, and the dead

bellowings in verse were louder than the living; concluding with a

wish, that Mr. Dryden had the good luck to have varied that old verse

quoted in his dramatic essay:

'_Atque Ursum, el Pugiles media inter carmina poscunt

Tauros, et Pugiles pruna inter carmina posco_;'

and prefixed it to the front of his play, instead of

'_Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo,

Majus ojius moveo_.'"

--_Censure of the Rota_, p. 1.

[22] "But however, if he were taken for no good comic poet, or satirist,

he had found a way of much easier licence (though more remarkable in the

sense of some), which was, not only to libel men's persons, but to

represent them on the stage too. That to this purpose he made his

observations of men, their words, and actions, with so little disguise,

that many beheld themselves acted for their half-crown; yet, after all,

was unwilling to believe, that this was not both good comedy, and no

less good manners."--_Friendly Vindication of Mr. Dryden_, p. 8.

[23] Dedication to the "Assignation."

[24] Dryden either confines himself to two pamphlets, or, more probably,

speaks of the three as written by only two authors. Leigh is, I presume,

the contemptible pedant, and the Sir Fastidious Brisk of Oxford. The

Cambridge author, who imitated his style, is the Fungoso of the

Dedication:--"As for the errors they pretend to find in me, I could

easily show them that the greatest part of them are beauties; and for

the rest, I could recriminate upon the best poets of our nation, if I

could resolve to accuse another of little faults, whom at the same time

I admire for greater excellencies. But I have neither concernment enough

upon me to write any thing in my own defence, neither will I gratify the

ambition of two wretched scribblers, who desire nothing more than to be

answered. I have not wanted friends, even amongst strangers, who have

defended me more strongly than my contemptible pedant could attack me;

for the other, he is only like Fungoso in the play, who follows the

fashion at a distance, and adores the Fastidious Brisk of Oxford. You

can bear me witness, that I have not consideration enough for either of

them to be angry: let Mævius and Bavius admire each other; I wish to be

hated by them and their fellows, by the same reason for which I desire

to be loved by you."--_Dedication to the Assignation_, vol. iv.

[25] A student of law in the Temple, and author of that notable

alteration of "Titus Andronicus" mentioned in the commentaries on

Shakespeare. Besides the "Citizen turned Gentleman," he wrote the

"Careless Lovers," "Scaramouch, a Philosopher," the "Wrangling Lovers,"

"Edgar and Alfreda," the "English Lawyer," the "London Cuckolds,"

distinguished by Cibber as the grossest play that ever succeeded, "Dame

Dobson," the said alteration of "Titus Andronicus," the "Canterbury

Guests," and the "Italian Husband,"--in all twelve plays, not one of

which has the least merit.

[26]

"An author did, to please you, let his wit run,

Of late, much on a serving-man and cittern;

And yet, you would not like the serenade,--

Nay, and you damned his nuns in masquerade;

You did his Spanish sing-song too abhor;

_Ah! que locura con tanto rigor!_

In fine, the whole by you so much was blamed,

To act their parts, the players were ashamed.

Ah, how severe your malice was that day!

To damn, at once, the poet and his play:

But why was your rage just at that time shown,

When what the author writ was all his own?

Till then, he borrowed from romance, and did translate;

And those plays found a mere indulgent fate."

[27] "For my own part, I, who am the least among the poets, have yet the

fortune to be honoured with the _best patron_, and the best friend; for

(to omit some great persons of our court, to whom I am many ways

obliged, and who have taken care of me during the exigencies of a war.)

I have found a better Maecenas in the person of my Lord Treasurer

Clifford, and a more elegant Tibullus in that of Sir Charles Sedley."--

_Dedication to the Assignation_.

[28] In his Dedication of the Pastorals of Virgil to Hugh Lord Clifford,

he says: "I have no reason to complain of fortune, since, in the midst

of that abundance, I could not have chosen better than the worthy son of

so illustrious a father. He was the patron of my manhood, when I

flourished in the opinion of the world, though with small advantage to

my fortune, till he awakened the remembrance of my royal master. He was

that Pollio, or that Varus, _who introduced me to Augustus_."

[29] The elder Richardson has told a story, that Lord Buckhurst,

afterwards Earl of Dorset, was the first who introduced the "Paradise

Lost," then lying like waste paper in the bookseller's hands, to the

notice of Dryden. But this tradition has been justly exploded by Mr.

Malone, _Life of Dryden_, vol. i. p. 114. Indeed it is by no means

likely that Dryden could be a stranger to the very existence of a large

poem, written by a man of such political as well as literary eminence,

even if he had not happened, as was the case, to be personally known to

the author. [The various legends as to Dryden and "Paradise Lost,"

Dorset and "Paradise Lost," etc., are well handled by Professor Masson,

_Life of Milton_, vol. vi. pp. 628-635.--ED.]

[30] Dennis's Letters, quoted by Malone.

[31]

"With thee conversing, I forget all time,

All seasons, and their change; all please alike:

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,

With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun,

When first on this delightful land he spreads

His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,

Glist'ning with dew: fragrant the fertile earth

After soft showers, and sweet the coming on

Of grateful evening mild: then, silent night,

With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,

And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:

But neither breath of morn, when she ascends

With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun

On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,

Glist'ning with dew; nor fragrance after showers;

Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,

With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon;

Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet."

"The variety of images in this passage is infinitely pleasing, and the

recapitulation of each particular image, with a little varying of the

expression, makes one of the finest turns of words that I have ever

seen; which I rather mention, because Mr. Dryden has said, in his

Preface to Juvenal, that he could meet with no turn of words in

Milton."--_Tatler_, No. 114.

[32] See this Epistle. It was prefixed to "Alexander the Great;" a play,

the merits and faults of which are both in extreme.