OWN Slt. SiN nit. 1 ps 1 Me 5, <4 ed et pore. | =. = = jeads-i0 i toys -jauog-LIVES OF THE @ItGiL 1] Sit POETS. wutlec, Denham, Deyden, MK jocommon, Dorset, Sochest Otway. tl aThe Popular Short Line BETWEEN CHI ICAGO AND MILWAUKEE, DULUTH, OMAHA, MADISON, _ DES MOINES, DENVER, ST. PAUL, S/OUX CITY, SAN FRANCISCO, MINNEAPOLIS, COUNCIL BLUFFS, PORTLAND, ORE. RUNS DATS —@ Through Fast Express T rains ae UE quipped with all known appliances for the SAFETY, COMFORT and LUXURY of its passengers. its Through Trains make close Union Depot connections with trains of branch or connecting lines for all points of interest in XLLINOIS, IOWA, NEBRASKA, ‘WISCONSIN, MINNESOTA, NORTHERN MICHIGAN, DAKOTA, COLORADO, WYOMING, MONTANA, IDAHO, UTAH, OREGON, WASHINGTON TERRITORY, CALIFORNIA and BRITISH COLUMBIA. It is the Tourists’ Favorite Route to all points of interest in the ENCHANTED SUMMER LAND and HUNTING and FISHING RESORTS of the NORTH and NORTHWEST. THE ONLY ROUTE 10 THE B BLAGK HILLS. 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We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in convineing women that their labor can be mate- rially redueed by using Sapolio, but we have fallen short of our am- bition if we have failed to convinee you.LIVES OF THE ENGLISH. POETS.CASSELL’s NATIONAL LIBRARY, Fer LIVES OF THE HNGLISH POETS Butler, Aenham, Arnie, Roscommon, Spratt, Dorset, Uochester, Ottuay. CASSELL & COMPA 739 & 741 Broapway, NY, Limirzp, NEw VORK.INTRODUCTION. Lives of eight poets are given in this volume, arranged in order of seniority. Butler, the eldest, was born in 1612; Denham, whose life follows, was three years younger. Dryden was born in 1631; Roscommon was two years, Sprat three years, Dorset four years younger than Dryden. Rochester was ten years younger than Dorset ; Otway, four years younger than Rochester. The births of the eight poets were at dates extending over a period of about forty years, and they all were living writers in the reign of Charles the Second. The chief poet of the group, and the one to whom Johnson has rightly given the chief share of attention, was John Dryden; but Samuel Butler is, on his own ground, master, and lives vigorously as one of our best English writers. The others, except Otway, can only be regarded now as minor poets, although one or two of them, extravagantly praised by their contemporaries, retained in the days of Johnson a tradition of great eminence, to which opinion bowed; and still there re- mains enough of the tradition to disturb in a few minds the exercise of independent judgment. John Denham was a royalist of good family who had6 INTRODUCTION. been active in the cause of Charles the First. He had written a successful tragedy just before the Civil War, and hé had published a poem, “ Cooper’s Hill,” in the year 1643. He was knighted at the coronation of Charles the Second. Sir John Denham, being at the Restoration forty-five years old, entered the new reign as a poet who had won his reputation in the Civil War time, and was looked up to as a senior by the younger poets who had credit among the courtiers. Waller, who was ten years older than Denham, and lived almost to the time of the Revolution, enjoyed in a still higher degree the privileges of a veteran. Waller and Denham had real merits, which Johnson has recognised fully and fairly, but they were extra- vagantly overpraised by the younger poets of the Restoration. ‘Theirs were days when, in the polite world, French criticism was predominant, and the polite Englishman knew no more than the polite Frenchman about English writers who had lived, so to speak, before the Flood; the Flood being the Commonwealth. Even writers of the time of Charles the First were hardly recognised, unless they had the good fortune to be, like Waller and Denham, alive at the Restoration, to take due precedence among the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease, and who were satisfied that they had discovered among themselves, or learnt from France, the art of writing properly. Waller and Denham were supposed, therefore, by theINTRODUCTION. superior persons of those days, to have been the first to give sweetness and light to English versification. Waller, they thought, gave smoothness, Denham dignity. The language of compliment was in those days under little restraint. When Charles the Second died, he was celebrated in verse as ‘‘the best good man that ever filled a throne.” Dryden said of Denham’s “Cooper’s Hill” that ‘‘ for the majesty of style it is, and ever will be, the exact standard of good writing.” It is a poem of about 360 lines on the view (including Runnymede and distant London) from a hill near Windsor, and the thoughts suggested by that prospect; yet it was again and again spoken of as an “epic.” And even Johnson, who more properly classes ‘‘ Cooper’s Hill” as local poetry, while wrongly supposing it to be first of its kind, was so far influenced by the sur- vival of tradition that he says, Denham is deservedly considered one of the fathers of English poetry. ‘Denham and Waller” he adds, quoting Prior, ‘‘ im- proved our versification, and Dryden perfected it.” Dryden, being a great poet, could not come into con- tact with the genius of Chaucer without feeling its power; but Dryden could not read Chaucer into music, because nobody in his days paid attention to the structure of old English. We know now that Chaucer wrote verse as musical as Tennyson’s. Somebody even turned part of the “Faerie Queene” into rhyming couplets, and called his miserable production “ Spenser8 INTRODUCTION. Redivivus.” Dryden, at the close of his life, told again some tales from Chaucer, in his own best versi- fication. The harmonies of thought and verse in Chaucer could not be repeated with the instrument he used, the rhyming couplet. Of this couplet Chaucer has been sometimes thought the inventor. It had been in his hands easy, flexible, and full of music; bui when his natural “ Riding Rhyme” had been stiffened into the “ Heroic Couplet” that in the days of the Restoration came into England with the Conquerors of Taste, what new features it had made poor amends for the loss of the good music it superseded. . Denham an improvement upon Chaucer, upon Spenser! Why, the whole works of Waller, Denham, and every court poet who lived in the days of Charles the Second and set songs to sarabands and other dance tunes played upon the fiddle, could not, with all their music condensed into an essence, stand against the ring of Spenser’s “Hpithalamium,” or be named for dignity with Spenser’s “Hymns to Harthly and Heavenly Love and Beauty.” But the music and the dignity of verse dwelt, in the days of Charles the Second, with a poet unre- garded or condemned by fashionable critics, although heartily admired by Dryden, the author of ‘“ Paradise Lost.” And even Dryden, to commend Milton to the polite public of his day, turned “ Paradise Lost” into an opera. French criticism had its strong side, and its conquestINTRODUCTION. g of English opinion had substantialuse. We cannot wish it away from our past history. It quelled extravagance of a preceding fashion in the time of its decay ; it set up a standard of good sense in matter, and of purity in style; in othcr ways it assisted the advance of thought. It had also tts origin in a real elevation of French Literature, to which the intellectual influence of France in surrounding countries was then due. It prevailed in England for acentury, after which its power rapidly declined. The fact that the London booksellers, for whom Johnson wrote his “Lives,” did not think it worth their while to publish the works of English Poets who had died before the Commonwealth time, is significant of a state of opinion in Johnson’s day that was not without influence even upon his own vigorous and independent judgment. The predominance of Dryden among the poets here considered may be taken as an illustration of the souree of strength in our best Literature. Roscommon was the best of the fine gentlemen who wrote about writing. His “ EKssay on Translated Verse” is full of good thought happily worded. But the themes of Dryden were such as would better satisfy the mind that feels life to the quick. His Muse at her best taught not how to make verses, but how to take part in the struggle for solution of those vital questions of the time that went straight to the heart of the country. We may not agree with his opinions, but they represent one of theINTRODUCTION. 10 enduring strength to Butler’s “ Hudibras.” contending forms of thought that throughout all time act and re-act upon each other, for the advancement of knowledge and development of man by the right sifting of truth from error. They represent earnest thought spent not upon idle ingenuities, but on the essential problems of his day, and it is just by all that part of his work which touches the essentials of life that he maintains his fame. He does not live by his plays, planned to the passing fashions of his day, but by poems in which the life of England throbbed. ' ‘The same close union with essentials of life gives its Tt is not enough to be witty, if the wit be idly used. In “‘ Hudibras,” Butler took his side, like Dryden, as a ‘combatant in one of the great contests of opinion that helped the shaping of the future. But “ Hudibras” is not a mere pelting of wit against the Puritans. Butler so shaped his poem that, if he could have found encouragement to go on to the end, it would have touched almost every form of insincerity, while taking its worst form, religious hypocrisy, for central theme. As it was, it even included satire on the empty verse of fashionable poets, and the follies of the courtier. Charles the Second made the book his pocket com- panion, and had at his tongue’s end many a couplet from it that would serve as raillery against opponents. But the breadth of thought in the book he was ineap- able of seeing, though he could recognise in it the witINTRODUCTION. tL of a student who thought too much to be desirable as an acquaintance. So he left Butler to die neglected. Butler’s “ Hudibras,” with all its ingenious application of odd reading and its happy turns of wit, is a plea for the true spirit of religion; a condemnation of the narrow self-glorification common among those who miss its spirit in their quarrelling about its form. It fights its own good-humoured, intellectual battle for sincerity in every form of life, by playful associa- tion of pure truths with the accidents of life in his own time. Such Literature, when it has learnt how, by right utterance, to send its thought home to all sorts of men, is the Literature that will last. Eternal verities themselves will be as idle air until they are clothed in the actual. Like King Arthur desiring to be joined to Guinevere, they cannot will their will, nor work their work, until they animate the flesh and touch our life in its essentials. He MM:LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. BUTLER. OF the great author of “Hudibras” there is a life pre- fixed to the later editions of his poem by an unknown writer, and therefore of disputable authority ; and some account 1s incidentally given by Wood, who confesses the uncertainty of his own narrative ; more, however, than they knew cannot now be learned, and nothing remains but to compare and copy them. Samuel Butler was born in the parish of Strensham in Worcestershire, according to his biographer, in 1612. This account Dr. Nash finds confirmed by the register. He was christened Feb. 14. His father’s condition is variously represented. Wood mentions him as competently wealthy; but Mr. Longueville, the son of Butler’s principal friend, says he was an honest farmer with some small estate, who made a shift to educate his son at the grammar-school of Worcester, under Mr. Henry Bright, from whose care he removed for a short time to Cambridge; but, for want of money, was never made a member of any college. Wood leaves us rather doubtful whether he went to Cambridge or Oxford ; but at last makes him pass six or seven years at Cambridge, without knowing in what hall or college; yet it can hardly be imagined that he lived so long in either uni- versity, but as belonging to one house or another; and itis14 LIVES OF THE POETS. still less likely that he could have so long inhabited a place of learning with so little distinction as to leave his residence uncertain. Dr. Nash has discovered that his father was owner of a house and a little land, worth about eight pounds a year, still called Butler’s tenement. Wood has his information from his brother, whose narrative placed him at Cambridge, in opposition to that of his neighbours, which sent him to Oxford. The brother’s seems the best authority, till, by confessing his inability to tell his hall or college, he gives reason to suspect that he was resolved to bestow on him an academical education ; but durst not name a college, for fear of detection. He was for some time, according to the author of his Life, clerk to Mr. Jefferys of Harl’s Croomb in Worcester- shire, an eminent justice of the peace. In his service he had not only leisure for study, but for recreation ; his amusements were music and painting ; and the reward of his pencil was the friendship of the celebrated Cooper. Some pictures, said to be his, were shown to Dr. Nash, at Earl’s Croomb ; but, when he inquired for them some years afterwards, he found them destroyed to stop windows, and owns that they hardly deserved a better fate. He was afterwards admitted into the family of the Countess of Kent, where he had the use of a library; and so much recommended himself to Selden, that he was often employed by him in literary business. Selden, as is well known, was steward to the countess, and is supposed to have gained much of his wealth by managing her estate. In what character Butler was admitted into that lady’s service, how long he continued in it, and why he left it, 1s, like the other incidents of his life, utterly unknown. The vicissitudes of his condition placed him afterwards in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell’s officers. Here he observed so much of the character of the sectaries, that he is said to have written or begun his poemBUTLER. 15 at this time ; and it is likely that such a design would be formed in a place where he saw the principles and practices of the rebels, audacious and undisguised in the confidence of success. At length the king returned, and the time came in which loyalty hoped for its reward. Butler, however, was only made secretary to the Earl of Carbery, president of the principality of Wales, who conferred on him the steward- ship of Ludlow Castle when the Court of the Marches was revived. In this part of his life he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a good family; and lived, says Wood, upon her fortune, having studied the common law, but never practised it. A fortune she had, says his biographer, but it was lost by bad securities, In 1663 was published the first part, containing three cantos, of the poem of “ Hudibras,” which, as Prior relates, was made known at court by the taste and influence of the Harl of Dorset. When it was known, it was necessarily admired : the king quoted, the courtiers studied, and the whole party of the royalists applauded it. Every eye watched for the golden shower which was to fal] upon the author, who certainly was not without his part in the general expectation. In 1664 the second part appeared ; the curiosity of the nation was rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated. But praise was his whole reward. Clarendon, says Wood, gave him reason to hope for “ places and em- ployments of value and credit ;” but no such advantages did he ever obtain. It is reported that the king once gave him three hundred guineas; but of this temporary bounty I find no proof. Wood relates that he was secretary to Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, when he was Chancellor of Cambridge ; this is doubted by the other writer, who yet allows the duke16 LIVES OF THE POETS. to have been his frequent benefactor. That both these accounts are false there is reason to suspect, from a story told by Packe, in his account of the Life of Wycherley ; and from some verses which Mr. Thyer has published in the author’s Remains. “Mr. Wycherley,” says Packe, “ had always laid hold of an opportunity which offered of representing to the Duke of Buckingham how well Mr. Butler had deserved of the royal family, by writing his inimitable ‘ Hudibras ;’ and that it was a reproach to the court that a person of his loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did. Thedukealways seemed to hearken to him with attention enough ; and after some time undertook to recommend his pretensions to his Majesty. Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his grace to namea day, when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron. At last an ap- pointment was made, and the place of meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended accordingly ; the duke joined them; but as the d l would have it, the door of the room where they sat was open, and his grace, who had seated himself near it, ob- serving a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature, too, was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready than in doing good offices to men of desert, though no one was better qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to protect them, and from that time to the day of his death poor Butler never found the least effect of his promise !” Such is the story. The verses are written with a degree of acrimony, such as neglect and disappointment might naturally excite ; and such as it would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expressing against a man who had any claim to his gratitude. iBUTLER. Li Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, he still prosecuted his design, and in 1678 published the third part, which still leaves the poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. Norcan it be thought strange that he should stop here, however unexpectedly. To write without re- ward is sufficiently unpleasing. He had now arrived at an age when he might think it proper to be in jest no longer, and perhaps his health might now begin to fail. He died in 1680; and Mr. Longueville, having unsuc- cessfully solicited a subscription for his interment in Westminster Abbey, buried him at his own cost in the churchyard of Covent Garden. Dr. Simon Patrick read the service. Granger was informed by Dr. Pearce, who named for his authority Mr. Lowndes, of the Treasury, that Butler had a yearly pension of a hundred pounds. ‘This is con- tradicted by all tradition, by the complaints of Oldham, and by the reproaches of Dryden ; and I am afraid will never be confirmed. About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, Mayor of London, and a friend to Butler’s principles, be- stowed on him a monument in Westminster Abbey, thus inscribed : M. §. SAMUELIS BUTLERI, Qui Strenshamie in agro Vigorn. nat. 1612, obiit Eond. 1680. Vir doctus impriniis, acer, integer ; Operibus Ingenii, non item preemiis, foelix : Satyrici apud nos Carminis Artifex egregius ; Quo simulate Religionis Larvam detraxit, Et Perduellium scelera liberrimé exagitavit ; Scriptorum in suo genere, Primus et Postremus. Ne, cui vivo deerant feré omnia,POETS. LIVES OF THE Deesset etiam mortuo Tumulus, Hoc tandem posito marmore curavit JOHANNES BARBER, Civis Londinensis, 1721. After his death were published three small volumes of his posthumous works: I know not by whom collected, or by what authority ascertained ; and, lately, two volumes more have been printed by Mr. Thyer of Manchester, in- dubitably genuine. From none of these pieces can his life be traced, or his character discovered. Some verses in the last collection show him to have been among those who ridiculed the institution of the Royal Society, of which the enemies were for some time very numerous and very acrimonious, for what reason itis hard to conceive, since the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines, but to produce facts ; and the most zealous enemy of innovation must admit the gradual progress of experience, however he may oppose hypothetical temerity. In this mist of obscurity passed the life of Butler, aman whose name can only perish with his language. The mode and place of his education are unknown ; the events of his life are variously related ; and all that can be told with certainty is, that he was poor. The poem of “ Hudibras” is one of those compositions of which a nation may justly boast, as the images which it exhibits are domestic, the sentiments unborrowed and un- expected, and the strain of diction original and peculiar. We must not, however, suffer the pride, which we assume as the countrymen of Butler, to make any encroachment upon justice, nor appropriate those honours which others have a right to share. The poem of “ Hudibras” is not’ wholly English ; the original idea is to be found in the history of Don Quixote; a book to which a mind of the greatest powers may be indebted without disgrace. Cervantes shows a man, who having, by the incessant perusal of incredible tales, subjected his understanding toBUTLER. 19 his imagination, and familiarised his mind by pertinacious meditation to trains of incredible events and scenes of impossible existence, goes out in the pride of knighthood to redress wrongs and defend virgins, to rescue captive princesses and tumble usurpers from their thrones, attended by a squire, whose cunning, too low for the sus- picion of a generous mind, enables him often to cheat his master. The hero of Butler is a Presbyterian justice, who, in the confidence of legal authority and the rage of zealous ignorance, ranges the country to repress superstition and correct abuses, accompanied by an Independent clerk, dis- putatious and obstinate, with whom he often debates, but never conquers him. Cervantes had so much kindness for Don Quixote that, however he embarrasses him with absurd distresses, he gives him so much sense and virtue as may preserve our esteem : wherever he is, or whatever he does, he is madé by matchless dexterity commonly ridiculous, but never contemptible. But for poor Hudibras his poet had no tenderness ; he chooses not that any pity should be shown or respect paid him ; he gives him up at once to laughter and contempt, without any quality that can dignify or protect him. In forming the character of Hudibras, and describing his person and habiliments, the author seems to labour with a tumultuous confusion of dissimilar ideas. He had read the history of the mock knights-errant ; he knew the notions and manners -of a Presbyterian magistrate, and tried to unite the absurdities of both, however distant, in one personage. Thus he gives him that pedantic ostenta- tion of knowledge which has no relation to chivalry, and loads him with martial encumbrances that can add nothing to his civil dignity. He sends him out a colonelling, and yet never brings him within sight of war.20 LIVES OF THE POETS. If Hudibras be considered as the representative of the Presbyterians, it is not easy to say why his weapons should be represented as ridiculous or useless; for whatever judgment might be passed upon their knowledge or their arguments, experience had sufficiently shown that their swords were not to be despised. The hero, thus compounded of swaggerer and pedant, of knight and justice, is led forth to action, with his squire Ralpho, an Independent enthusiast. Of the contexture of events planned by the author, which is called the action of the poem, since it is left imperfect, no judgment can be made. It is probable that the hero was to be led through many luckless adventures, which would give occasion, like his attack upon the bear and fiddle, to expose the ridiculous rigour of the sectaries ; like his encounter with Sidrophel and Whacum, to make super- stition and credulity contemptible ; or, like his recourse to the low retailer of the law, discover the fraudulent practices of different professions. What series of events he would have formed, or in what manner he would have rewarded or punished his hero, it is now vain to conjecture. His work must have had, as it seems, the defect which Dryden imputes to Spenser ; the action could not have been one; there could only have been a succession of incidents, each of which might have happened without the rest, and which could not all co-operate to any single conclusion. The discontinuity of the action might, however, have been easily forgiven, if there had been action enough; but I believe every reader regrets the paucity of events, and complains that in the poem of “‘ Hudibras,” as in the history of Thucydides, there is more said than done. The scenes are too seldom changed, and the attention is tired with long conversation. It is indeed much more easy to form dialogues than toBUTLER. 21 contrive adventures. Every position makes way for an argument, and every objection dictates an answer. When two disputants are engaged upon a complicated and ex- tensive question, the difficulty is not to continue, but to end the controversy. But whether it be that we com- prehend but few of the possibilities of life, or that life itself affords little variety, every man who has tried knows how much labour it will cost to form such a combination of circumstances as shall have at once the grace of novelty and credibility, and delight fancy without vio- lence to reason. Perhaps the dialogue of this poem is not perfect. Some power of engaging the attention might have been added to it by quicker reciprocation, by seasonable interruptions, by sudden questions, and by a nearer approach to dramatic sprightliness ; without which, fictitious speeches will always tire, however sparkling with sentences, and how- ever variegated with allusions. The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect ; and, when expectation is disappoimted or gratified, we want to be again expecting. For this im- patience of the present, whoever would please must make provision. The skilful writer irritat, mulcet, makes a due distribution of the still and animated parts. It is for want of this artful intertexture, and those necessary changes, that the whole of a book may be tedious, though all the parts are praised. Tf unexhaustible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever leave half-read the work of Butler ; for what poet has ever brought so many remote images so happily together? It is scarcely possible to peruse a page without finding some association of images that was never found before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is delighted, and by a few more22 LIVES OF THE POETS. strained to astonishment; but astonishment is a toilsome pleasure ; he is soon weary of wondering, and longs to be diverted. Omnia vult belle Matho dicere, dic aliquando Et bene, dic neutrum, dic aliquando male. Imagination is useless without knowledge ; nature gives in vain the power of combination, unless study and observation supply materials to be combined. Butler’s treasures of knowledge appear proportioned to his ex- pense ; whatever topic employs his mind, he shows him. self qualified to expand and illustrate it with all the accessories that books can furnish: he is found not only to have travelled the beaten road, but the by-paths of literature ; not only to have taken general surveys, but to have examined particulars with minute inspection. If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of confronting them with Butler. But the most valuable parts of his performance are those which retired study and native wit cannot supply. He that merely makes a book from books may be useful, but can scarcely be great. Butler had not suffered life to glide beside him unseen or unobserved. He had watched with great diligence the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of opinion, humour, interest, and passion. From such remarks proceeded that great number of sententious distichs which have passed into conversation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general stock of practical knowledge. When any work has been viewed and admired, the first question of intelligent curiosity is, how was it per- formed? “ Hudibras” was not a hasty effusion ; it was not produced by a sudden tumult of imagination, or a short paroxysm of violent labour. To accumulate such a mass of sentiments at the call of accidental desire, or of sudden necessity, is beyond the reach andBUTLER. Oe power of the most active and comprehensive mind. Iam informed by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, the excellent editor of this author's reliques, that he could show some- thing like “ Hudibras ” in prose. He has in his possession the common-place book, in which Butler reposited not such events and precepts as are gathered by reading, but such remarks, similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or in- ferences, as occasion prompted, or meditation produced, those thoughts that were generated in his own mind, and might be usefully applied to some future purpose. Such is the labour of those who write for immortality. But human works are not easily found without a perishable part. Of the ancient poets every reader feels the mythology tedious and oppressive. Of “ Hudibras,” the manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and local,and therefore become every day less intelligible and less striking. What Cicero says of philosophy is true likewise of witand humour, that “ time effaces the fictions of opinions, and confirms the determinations of Nature.” Such manners as depend upon standing relations and general passions are co-extended with the race of man ‘ but those modifications of life and peculiarities of prac- tice, which are the progeny of error and perverseness, or at best of some accidental influence or transient persua- sion, must perish with their parents. Much therefore of that humour which transported the last century with merriment is lost to us, who do not know the sour solemnity, the sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples, of the ancient Puritans; or, if we know them, derive our in- formation only from books or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and cannot but by recollection and study. understand the lines in which they are satirised. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life ; we judge of the life by contemplating the picture.24 LIVES OF THE POETS. It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and composure of the present time, to imagine the tumult of absurdity, and clamour of contradiction, which perplexed doctrine, disordered practice, and disturbed both public and private quiet, in that age when subordination was broken, and awe was hissed away; when any unsettled imnovator, who could hatch a half-formed notion, produced it to the public ; when every man might become a preacher, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation. The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably supposed to reside in the parliament. What can be concluded of the lower classes of the people, when in one of the parlia- ments summoned by Cromwell it was seriously proposed, that all the records in the Tower should be burnt, that all memory of things passed should be effaced, and that the whole system of life should commence anew? We have never been witnesses of animosities excited by the use of mince pies and plum porridge ; nor seen with what abhorrence those who could eat them at all other times of the year would shrink from them in December. An old Puritan, who was alive in my childhood, being at one of the feasts of the church invited by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him, that if he would treat him at an alehouse with beer, brewed for all times and seasons, he should accept his kindness, but would have none of his superstitious meats or drinks. One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance ; and he that reads “ Gataker upon Lots.” may see how much learning and reason one of the first scholars of his age thought necessary to prove that it was no crime to throw a die, or play at cards, or to hidea shilling for the reckoning. Astrology, however, against which so much of the satire is directed, was not more the folly of the Puritans than of others. It had in that time a very extensive dominion.BUTLER. 25 Its predictions raised hopes and fears in minds which ought to have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous undertakings care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious planet ; and, when the king was prisoner in Carisbrook Castle an astrologer was consulted what hour would be found most favourable to an escape. What effect this poem had upon the public, whether it shamed imposture or reclaimed credulity, is not easily determined. Cheats can seldom stand long against laughter. It is certain that the credit of planetary in- telligence wore fast away, though some men of know- ledge, and Dryden among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppositions had a great part in the distribution of good or evil, and in the government of sublunary things. Poetical action ought to be probable upon certain sup- positions, and such probability as burlesque requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing can show more plainly the necessity of doing something, and the difficulty of finding something to do, than that Butler was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agreeable fiction of Cervantes ; very suitable indeed to the manners of that ageand nation, which ascribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances; but so remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibrastic time, that judgment and imagination are alike offended. The diction of this poem is grossly familiar, and the numbers purposely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by their native excellence secure themselves from violation, being such as mean language cannot express. The mode of versification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroic measure was not rather chosen. To the critical sense of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his decisions often precipitate, and his opinions immature. When he TLRS NE aR SP ETLIVES OF THE POETS. 26 wished to change the measure he probably would have been willing to change more. If he intended that when the numbers were heroic the diction should still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural composition. If he preferred a general stateliness both of sound and words, he can be only understood to wish Butler had undertaken a different work. The measure is quick, sprightly, and colloquial, suitable to the vulgarity of the words and the levity of the senti- ments. But such numbers and such diction can gain regard only when they are used by a writer whose vigour of fancy and copiousness of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and justness of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless versification, it will only be said, “ Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper.” The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may justly doom them to perish together. Nor even though another Butler should arise, would another ‘ Hudibras” obtain the same regard. Burlesque consists in a disproportion between the style and the sentiments, or between the adventitious sentiments and the fundamental subject. It therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All disproportion is unnatural ; and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a strange thing ; but when it is no longer strange, we perceive its deformity. It isa kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itself ; and the reader, learn- ing in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the spectator turns away from a second exhibition of those tricks, of which the only use is to show that they can be played.DENH AM. OF Sir John Denham very little is known but what is related of him by Wood, or by himself. He was born at Dublin in 1615, the only son of Sir John Denham, of Little Horseley in Essex, then chief baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, and of Eleanor, daughter of Sir Garret More, baron of Mellefont. Two years afterwards, his father, being made one of the barons of the Exchequer in England, brought him away from his native country, and educated him in London. In 1631 he was sent to Oxford, where he was con- sidered “as a dreaming young man, given more to dice and cards than study,” and therefore gave no prognostics of his future eminence; nor was suspected to conceal, under sluggishness and laxity, a genius born to improve the literature of his country. When he was, three years afterwards, removed to Lincoln’s Inn, he prosecuted the common law with suffi- cient appearance of application, yet did not lose his propensity to cards and dice, but was very often plundered by gamesters. Being severely reproved for this folly, he professed, and perhaps believed himself reclaimed ; and, to testify the sincerity of his repentance, wrote and published “ An Essay upon Gaming.” He seems to have divided his studies between law and28 LIVES OF THE POETS. poetry, for in 1636 he translated the second book of the /Eneid. Two years after, his father died, and then, notwith- standing his resolutions and professions, he returned again to the vice of gaming, and lost several thousand pounds that had been left him. In 1642 he published “The Sophy.” This seems to have given him his first hold of the public attention, for Waller remarked, “that he broke out like the Irish re- bellion, three score thousand strong, when nobody was aware, or in the least suspected it ;” an observation which could have had no propriety had his poetical abilities been known before. He was after that pricked for sheriff of Surrey, and made governor of Farnham Castle for the king, but he soon resigned that charge and retreated to Oxford, where in 1643 he published “ Cooper’s Hill.” This poem had such reputation as to excite the common artifice by which envy degrades excellence. A report was spread that the performance was not his own, but that he had bought it of a vicar for forty pounds. The same attempt was made to rob Addison of “ Cato,” and Pope of his ‘“ Essay on Criticism.” In 1647, the distresses of the royal family required him to engage in more dangerous employments. He was en- trusted by the queen with a message to the king, and, by whatever means, so far softened the ferocity of Hugh Peters, that by his intercession admission was procured. Of the king’s condescension he has given an account in the dedication of his works. He was afterwards employed in carrying on the king’s correspondence, and, as he says, discharged this office with great safety to the royalists ; and, being accidentally dis- covered by the adverse party’s knowledge of Mr. Cowley’s hand, he escaped happily both for himself and his friends.DENHAM. 29 He was yet engaged in a great undertaking. In April, 1648, he conveyed James, the Duke of York, from London into France, and delivered him there to the Queen and Prince of Wales. This year he published his translation of “Cato Major.” He now resided in France as one of the followers of the exiled king; and, to divert the melancholy of their condition, was sometimes enjoined by his master to write occasional verses; one of which amusements was pro- bably his ode or song upon the Embassy to Poland, by which he and Lord Crofts procured a contribution of ten thousand pounds from the Scotch that wandered over that kingdom. Poland was at that time very much fre- quented by itinerant traders, who, in a country of very little commerce and of great extent, where every man resided on his own estate, contributed very much to the accommodation of life, by bringing to every man’s house those little necessaries which it was very inconvenient to want, and very troublesome to fetch. I have formerly read, without much reflection, of the multitude of Scotchmen that travelled with their wares in Poland; and that their numbers were not small, the success of this negotiation gives sufficient evidence. About this time, what estate the war and the gamesters had left him was sold by order of the Parliament, and when in 1652 he returned to England, he was entertained by the Earl of Pembroke. Of the next years of his life there is no account. At the Restoration he obtained that which many missed, the reward of his loyalty, being made surveyor of the king’s buildings, and dignified with the Order of the Bath. He seems now to have learned some attention to money ; for Wood says, that he got by this place seven thousand pounds. After the Restoration, he wrote the poem on “Prudenceou LIVES OF LHE POSTS. and Justice,” and perhaps some of his other pieces ; and as he appears, whenever any serious question comes before him, to have been a man of piety, he consecrated his poetical powers to religion, and made a metrical version of the Psalms of David. In this attempt he has failed ; but in sacred poetry who has succeeded ? It might be hoped that the favour of his master and esteem of the public would now make him happy. But human felicity is short and uncertain. A _ second marriage brought upon him so much disquiet as for a time disordered his understanding, and Butler lampooned him for his lunacy. I know not whether the malignant lines were then made public, nor what provocation incited Butler to do that which no provocation could excuse. His frenzy lasted not long, and he seems to have re- gained his full force of mind, for he wrote afterwards his excellent poem upon the death of Cowley, whom he was not long to survive, for on the 19th of March, 1668, he was buried by his side. Denham is deservedly considered as one of the fathers of English poetry. “Denham and Waller,” says Prior, “improved our versification, and Dryden perfected it.” He has given specimens of various composition, descrip- tive, ludicrous, didactic, and sublime. He appears to have had, in common with almost all mankind, the ambition of being upon proper occasions a merry fellow, and in common with most of them to have been by nature, or by early habits, debarred from it. Nothing is less exhilarating than the ludicrousness of Denham. He does not fail for want of efforts ; he is familiar ; he is gross; but he is never merry, unless the “Speech against Peace in the close Committee” be ex- cepted. For grave burlesque, however, his imitation of Davenant shows him to be well qualified,DENHAM. 31 Of his more elevated occasional poems, there is perhaps rone that does not deserve commendation. In the verses te Fletcher, we have an image that has since been adopted : But whither am IJ stray’d? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other men’s dispraise ; Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built, Nor need thy juster title the foul guilt Of eastern kings, who, to secure their reign, Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain, After Denham, Orrery, in one of his prologues, Poets are sultans, if they had their will ; For every author would his brother kill. And Pope, Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne. But this is not the best of his little pieces ; it is excelled by his poem to Fanshaw, and his elegy on Cowley. His praise of Fanshaw’s version of Guarini contains a very sprightly and judicious character of a good trans- lator : That servile path thou nobly dost decline, Of tracing word by word, and line by line. Those are the labour’d births of slavish brains, Not the effect of poetry, but pains ; Cheap vulgar arts, whose narrowness affords No fiight for thoughts, but poorly stick at words, A new and nobler way thou dost pursue. To make translations and translators too. They but preserve the ashes ; thou the flame, True to his sense, but truer to his fame. The excellence of these lines is greater, as the truth which they contain was not at that time generally known. His poem on the death of Cowley was his last, and PRERSIR I TR a ES. aS Sore) aR Fee SRA PS a SRST cheater ST »oo LIVES OF THE POETS. among his shorter works his best performance: the numbers are musical, and the thoughts are just. “ Gooper’s Hill” is the work that confers upon him the rank and dignity of an original author. He seems to have been, at least among us, the author of a species of composition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental subject is some particular land- scape, to be poetically described, with the addition of such embellishments as may be supplied by historical re- trospection or incidental meditation. To trace a new scheme of poetry has in itself a very high claim to praise, and its praise is yet more when it is apparently copied by Garth and Pope ; after whose names little will be gained by an enumeration of smaller poets, that have left scarcely a corner of the island not dignified either by rhyme or blank verse. “ Cooper’s Hill,” if it be maliciously inspected, will not be found without its faults. The digressions are too long, the morality too frequent, and the sentiments sometimes such as will not bear a rigorous inquiry. The four verses, which since Dryden has commended them, almost every writer for a century past has imitated, are generally known : O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not dull; Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full. The lines are in themselves not perfect ; for most of the words thus artfully opposed, are to be understood simply on one side of the comparison, and metaphorically on the other; and if there be any language which does not express intellectual operations by material images, into that language they cannot be translated. But so much meaning is comprised in few words. The parti-DENHAM. 83 culars of resemblance ae so perspicaciously collected, and every mode of excellence separated from its adjacent fault by so nice a line of limitation ; the different parts of the sentence are so accurately adjusted ; and the flow of the last couplet is so smooth and sweet, that the passage, however celebrated, has not been praised above its merit. It has beauty peculiar to itself, and must be numbered among those felicities which cannot be pro- duced at will by wit and labour, but must arise unex- pectedly in some hour propitious to poetry. He appears to have been one of the first that under- stood the necessity of emancipating translation from the drudgery of counting lines and interpreting single words. How much this servile practice obscured the clearest and deformed the most beautiful parts of the ancient authors, may be discovered by a perusal of our earlier versions ; some of them are the works of men well qualified, not only by critical knowledge but by poetical genius, who yet, by a mistaken ambition of exactness, degraded at once their originals and themselves. Denham saw the better way, but has not pursued it with great success. His versions of Virgil are not pleasing ; but they taught Dryden to please better. His poetical imitation of Tully on “Old Age” has neither the clearness of prose nor the sprightliness of poetry. The “strength of Denham,” which Pope so emphatically mentions, is to be found in many lines and couplets, which convey much meaning in few words, and exhibit the sentiment with more weight than bulk. ON THE THAMES. Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold ; His genuine and less guilty wealth t’ explore, Search not his bottom, but survey his shore. B—37LIVES OF THE POETS. ON STRAFFORD. His wisdom such, as once it did appear Three kingdoms’ wonder, and three kingdoms’ fear. While single he stood forth, and seemed, although Each had an army, as an equal foe, Such was his force of eloquence, to make The hearers more concerned than he that spake : Each seemed to act that part he came to see, And none was more a looker-on than he 5 So did he move our passions, some were known To wish, for the defence, the crime their own. Now private pity strove with public hate, Reason with rage, and eloquence with fate. ON COWLEY. To him no author was unknown, Yet what he wrote was all his own 3 Horace’s wit, and Virgil’s state, He did not steal, but emulate ! And, when he would like them appear, Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear. As one of Denham’s principal claims to the regard of posterity arises from his improvement of our numbers, his versification ought to be considered. It will afford that pleasure which arises from the observation of a man of judgment, naturally right, forsaking bad copies by degrees, and advancing towards a better practice, as he gains more confidence in himself. In his translation of Virgil, written when he was about twenty-one years old, may be still found the old manner of continuing the sense ungracefully from verse to verse : Then all those Who in the dark our fury did escape, Returning, know our borrowed arms, and shape, And differing dialect ; then their numbers swell And grow upon us; first Chorcebeus fellDENHAM. Before Minerva’s altar; next did bleed Just Ripheus, whom no Trojan did exceed In virtue, yet the gods his fate decreed. Then Hypanis and Dymas, wounded by Their friends ; nor thee, Pantheus, thy piety, Nor consecrated mitre, from the same Ill fate could save ; my country’s funeral flame And Troy’s cold ashes I attest, and call To witness for myself, that in their fa]] No foes, nor death, nor danger, I declined, Did and deserved no less, my fate to find. From this kind of concatenated metre he afterwards refrained, and taught his followers the art of concluding their sense in couplets; which has perhaps been with rather too much constancy pursued. This passage exhibits one of those triplets which are not unfrequent in this essay, but which it is to be supposed his maturer judgment disapproved, since in his latter works he has totally forborne them. His rhymes are such as seem found without difficulty by following the sense; and are for the most part as exact at least as those of other poets, though now and then the reader is shifted off with what he can get: O how transformed f How much unlike that Hector, who returned Clad in Achilles’ spoils ! And again : From thence a thousand lesser poets sprung, Like petty princes from the fall of Rome. Sometimes the weight of rhyme is laid upon a word too feeble to sustain it : Troy confounded falls. From all her glories : if it might have stood By any power, by this right hand it should. —And though my outward state misfortune hath Deprest thus low, it cannot reach my faith.LIVES OF THE POETS. —Thus, by his fraud and our own faith o’ercome, A feignéd tear destroys us, against whom Tydides nor Achilles could prevail, Nor ten years’ conflict, nor a thousand sail. He is not very careful to vary the ends of his verses ; in one passage the word die rhymes three couplets in six, Most of these petty faults are in his first productions, where he was less skilful, or at least less dexterous in the use of words ; and though they had been more frequent, they could only have lessened the grace, not the strength, of his composition. He is one of the writers that im- proved our taste and advanced our language, and whom we ought therefore to read with gratitude, though, having done much, he left much to do.DRYDEN. OF the great poet whose life Iam about to delineate, the curiosity which his reputation must excite will require a display more ample than can now be given. His con- temporaries, however they reverenced his genius, left his life unwritten; and nothing, therefore, can be known beyond what casual mention and uncertain tradition have supplied. John Dryden was born August Ith, 1631, at Aldwinkle, near Oundle, the son of Erasmus Dryden of Tichmarsh, who was the third son of Sir Erasmus Dryden, Baronet, of Canons Ashby. All these places are in N orthampton- shire; but the original stock of the family was in the county of Huntingdon. He is reported by his last biographer, Derrick, to have inherited from his father an estate of £200 a year, and to have been bred, as was said, an anabaptist. For either of these particulars no authority is given. Such a fortune ought to have secured him from that poverty which seems always to have oppressed him ; or, if he had wasted it, to have made him ashamed of publishing his necessities. But though he had many enemies, who un- doubtedly examined his life with a scrutiny sufficiently malicious, I do not remember that he isever charged with waste of his patrimony. He was indeed sometimes re- proached for his first religion. I am therefore inclined to believe that Derrick’s intelligence was partly true, and partly erroneous.38 LIVES OF THE POETS. From Westminster School, where he was instructed as one of the king’s scholars by Dr. Busby, whom he long after continued to reverence, he was in 1650 elected to one of the Westminster scholarships at Cambridge. Of his school performances, has appeared only a poem on the death of Lord Hastings, composed with great ambition of such conceits as, notwithstanding the re- formation begun by Waller and Denham, the example of Cowley still kept in reputation. Lord Hastings died of the small-pox ; and his poet has made of the pustules first rosebuds, and then gems; at last exalts them into stars : and says, No comet need foretell his change drew on, Whose corpse might seem a constellation. At the university he does not appear to have been eager of poetical distinction, or to have lavished his early wit either on fictitious subjects or public occasions. He probably considered that he, who purposed to be an author, ought first to be a student. He obtained, what- ever was the reason, no fellowship in the college. Why he was excluded cannot now be known, and it is vain to guess ; had he thought himself injured, he knew how to complain. In the life of Plutarch he mentions his education in the college with gratitude; but, in a pro- logue at Oxford, he has these lines : Oxford to him a dearer name shall be Than his own mother-university : Thebes did his green, unknowing youth engage: He chooses Athens in his riper age. It was not till the death of Cromwell, in 1658, that he became a public candidate for fame, by publishing Heroic Stanzas on the late Lord Protector; which, compared with the verses of Sprat and Waller on the same occasion,DRYDEN 39 were sufficient to raise great expectations of the rising poet. When the king was restored, Dryden, like the other panegyrists of usurpation, changed his opinion, or his profession, and published Astrwa Redux, a poem on the happy Restoration and Return of his most sacred Majesty King Charles IT. The reproach of inconstancy was, on this occasion, shared with such numbers, that it produced neither hatred nor disgrace! If he changed, he changed with the nation. It was, however, not totally forgotten when his reputation raised him enemies. The same year he praised the new king in a second poem on his restoration. In the Astrza was the line, A horrid stillness first invades the ear, And in that silence we a tempest fear— for which he was persecuted with perpetual ridicule, perhaps with more than was deserved. Silence is indeed mere privation ; and, so considered, cannot invade ; but privation likewise certainly is darkness, and probably cold ; yet poetry has never been refused the right of ascribing effects or agency to them as to positive powers. No man scruples to say that darkness hinders him from his work; or that cold has killed the plants. Death is also privation ; yet who has made any difficulty of assigning to Death a dart and the power of striking? In settling the order of his works there is some difficulty ; for, even when they are important enough to be formally offered to a patron, he does not commonly date his dedication ; the time of writing and publishing is not always the same; nor can the first editions be easily found, if eyen from them could be obtained the necessary information. The time at which his first play was exhibited is notLIVES OF THE POETS. 4() certainly known, because it was not printed till it was, some years afterwards, altered and revived ; but since the plays are said to be printed in the order in which they were written, from the dates of some, those of others may be inferred; and thus it may be collected, that in 1663, in the thirty-second year of his life, he commenced a writer for the stage; compelled undoubtedly - by necessity, for he appears never to have loved that exercise of his genius, or to have much pleased himself with his own dramas. Of the stage, when he had once invaded it, he kept possession for many years; not indeed without the competition. of rivals who sometimes prevailed, or the censure of critics, which was often poignant and often just ; but with such a degree of reputation as made him at least secure of being heard, whatever might be the final determination of the public. His first piece was a comedy called the “ Wild Gallant.’ He began with no happy auguries; for his performance was so much disapproved, that he was compelled to re- call it, and change it from its imperfect state to the form in which it now appears, and which is yet sufficiently defective to vindicate the critics. I wish that there were no necessity of following the progress of his theatrical fame, or tracing the meanders of his mind through the whole series of his dramatic performances; it will be fit, however, to enumerate them, and to take especial notice of those that are dis- tinguished by any peculiarity, intrinsic or concomitant ; for the composition and fate of eight-and-twenty dramas include too much of a poetical life to be omitted. In 1664, he published the ‘ Rival Ladies,’ which he dedicated to the Earl of Orrery, a man of high reputation both as a writer and a statesman. In this play he made his essay of dramatic rhyme, which he defends, in hisDRYDEN. A] dedication, with sufficient certainty of a favourable hearing; for Orrery was himself a writer of rhyming tragedies. He then joined with Sir Robert Howard in the “Indian Queen,’ a tragedy in rhyme. The parts which either of them wrote are not distinguished. The “ Indian Emperor” was published in 1667. Itis a tragedy in rhyme, intended for a sequel to Howard’s “Indian Queen.” Of this connexion notice was given to the audience by printed bills, distributed at the door ; an expedient supposed to be ridiculed in the “ Rehearsal,” when Bayes tells how many reams he has printed to instil into the audience some conception of his plot. Jn this play is the description of Night, which Rymer has made famous by preferring it to those of all other poets. The practice of making tragedies in rhyme was intro- duced soon after the Restoration, as it seems by the Earl of Orrery, in compliance with the opinion of Charles the Second, who had formed his taste by the French theatre ; and Dryden, who wrote, and made no difficulty of declaring that he wrote only to please, and who perhaps knew that by his dexterity of versification he was more likely to excel others in rhyme than without it, very readily adopted his master’s preference. He therefore made rhyming tragedies, till, by the prevalence of manifest propriety, he seems to have grown ashamed of making them any longer. To this play is prefixed a very vehement defence of dramatic rhyme, in confutation of the preface to the “Duke of Lerma,’ in which Sir Robert Howard had censured it. In 1667 he published “Annus Mirabilis, the Year of Wonders,” which may be esteemed one of his most elaborate works. ¢42, LIVES OF THE POETS. It is addressed to Sir Robert Howard by a letter, which is not properly a dedication ; and, writing to a poet, he has interspersed many critical observations, of which some are common, and some perhaps ventured without much consideration. He began, even now, to exercise the domination of conscious genius, by recommending his own performance: “I am satisfied that as the prince and general [Rupert and Monk] are incomparably the best subjects I have ever had, so what I have written on them ss much better than what I have performed on any other. As I have endeavoured to adorn my poem with noble thoughts, so much more to express those thoughts with elocution.” It is written in quatrains, or heroic stanzas of four lines ; a measure which he had learned from the Gondi- bert of Davenant, and which he then thought the most majestic that the English language affords. Of this stanza he mentions the incumbrances, increased as they were by the exactness which the age required. It was, throughout his life, very much his custom to recommend his works by representation of the difficulties that he had encountered, without appearing to have sufiiciently considered that where there is no difficulty there is no praise. There seems to be, in the conduct of Sir Robert Howard and Dryden towards each other, something that is not now easily to be explained. Dryden, in his dedication to the Earl of Orrery, had defended dramatic rhyme; and Howard, in the preface to a collection of plays, had censured his opinion. Dryden vindicated himself in his Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry ; Howard, in his preface to the “ Duke of Lerma,” animadverted on the Vindication ; and Dryden, in a preface to the Indian Emperor, replied to the Animadversions with great asperity, and almost with contumely. The dedication to this play is dated oDRYDEN. 43 the year in which the “ Annus Mirabilis” was published. Here appears a strange inconsistence ; but Langbaine affords some help, by relating that the answer to Howard was not published in the first edition of the play, but was added when it was afterwards reprinted ; and as the ‘* Duke of Lerma ” did not appear till 1668, the same year in which the dialogue was published, there was time enough for enmity to grow up between authors, who, writing both for the theatre, were naturally rivals. He was now so much distinguished, that in 1668 he succeeded Sir William Davenant as poet-laureate. The salary of the laureate had been raised in favour of Jonson. by Charles the First, from one hundred marks to one hundred pounds a year, and a tierce of wine ; @ revenue in those days not inadequate to the conveniences of life. The same year he published his essay on Dramatic Poetry, an elegant and instructive dialogue, in which we are told, by Prior, that the principal character is meant to represent the Duke of Dorset. This work seems to have given Addison a model for his Dialogues upon Medals. “Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen” (1668), is a tragic comedy. In the preface he discusses a curious question, whether a poet can judge well of his own productions ? and determines, very justly, that, of the plan and disposi- tion, and all that can be reduced to principles of science, the author may depend upon his own opinion ; but that, in those parts where fancy predominates, self-love may easily deceive. He might have observed, that what is good only because it pleases, cannot be pronounced good till it has been found to please. “Sir Martin Marr-all” (1668) is a comedy, published without preface or dedication, and at first without the name of the author. Langbaine charges it, like most of the rest, with plagiarism ; and observes, that the song is4A LIVES OF THE POETS translated from Voiture, allowing, however, that both the sense and measure are exactly observed. “The Tempest” (1670) is an alteration of Shakespeare’s play, made by Dryden in conjunction with Davenant, “whom,” says he, “I found of so quick a fancy, that nothing was proposed to him in which he could not sud- denly produce a thought extremely pleasant and sur- prising ; and those first thoughts of his, contrary to the Latin proverb, were not always the least happy ; and as his fancy was quick, so likewise were the products of it remote and new. He borrowed not of any other ; and his imaginations were such as could not easily enter into any other man.” The effect produced by the conjunction of these two powerful minds was, that to Shakespeare's monster, Caliban, is added a sister-monster, Sycorax ; and a woman, who, in the original play, had never seen a man, is in this brought acquainted with a man that had never seen a woman. About this time, in 1673, Dryden seems to have had his quiet much disturbed by the success of the “ Empress of Morocco,” a tragedy written in rhyme by Elkanah Settle ; which was so much applauded, as to make him think his supremacy of reputation in some danger. Settle had not only been prosperous on the stage, but, in the confidence of success, had published his play, with sculptures, and a preface of defiance. Here was one offence added to another; and for the last blast of inflammation, it was acted at Whitehall by the court ladies. Dryden could not now repress these emotions, which he called indignation, and others jealousy ; but wrote upon the play and the dedication such criticism as malig- nant impatience could pour out in haste. Of Settle he gives this character : “ He’s an animal ofa most deplored understanding, without conversation. HisDRYDEN. 45 being is in a twilight of sense, and some glimmering of thought, which he can never fashion into wit or English. His style is boisterous and rough-hewn, his rhyme incor- rigibly lewd, and his numbers perpetually harsh and ill-sounding. The little talent which he has is fancy. He sometimes labours with a thought; but, with the pudder he makes to bring it into the world, ’tis com- monly still-born; so that, for want of learning and elocution, he will never be able to express anything either naturally or justly.” This is not very decent ; yet this is one of the pages in which criticism prevails most over brutal fury. He pro- ceeds: “He has a heavy hand at fools, and a great felicity in writing nonsense for them. Fools they will be, in spite of him. His King, his two Empresses, his Villain, and his Sub-villain, nay, his Hero, have all a certain natural cast of the father—their folly was born and bred in them, and something of the Elkanah will be visible.”’ This is Dryden’s general declamation ; I will not with- hold from the reader a particular remark. Having gone through the first act, he says: “To conclude this act with the most rumbling piece of nonsense spoken yet ; To flattering lightning our feign’d smiles conform, Which, back’d with thunder, do but gild & storm, Conform a smile to lightning, make a smile imitate lightning, and flattering lightning: lightning sure is a threatening thing. And this lightning must gild a storm. Now, if I must conform by smiles to lightning, then my smiles must gild a storm too: to gild with smiles is a new invention of gilding. And gild a storm by being backed with thunder. 'Thunder is part of the storm; so one part of the storm must help to gild another part, and help by backing ; as if a man would46 LIVES OF THE POETS. gild a thing the better for being backed, or having @ load upon his back. So that here is gilding by conforming, smiling, lightning, backing, and thundering. The whole igasif I should say thus: I will make my counterfeit smiles look like a flattering stone-horse, which, being backed with a trooper, does but gild the battle. I am mistaken if nonsense is not here pretty thick sown. Sure the poet writ these two lines aboard some smack in a storm, and, being sea-sick, spewed up a good lump of clotted nonsense at once.” Here is perhaps a sufficient specimen ; but as the pam- phlet, though Dryden’s, has never been thought worthy of republication, and is not easily to be found, it may gratify curiosity to quote it more largely : ‘¢ Whene’er she bleeds, He no severer a damnation needs, That dares pronounce the sentence of her death, Than the infection that attends that breath. That attends that breath.——The poet is at breath again ; breath can never ’scape him; and here he brings in a breath that must be infectious with pronouncing a sen- tence ; and this sentence is not to be pronounced till the condemned party bleeds; that is, she must be executed first, and sentenced after ; and the pronouncing of this sentence will be infectious ; that is, others will catch the disease of that sentence, and this infecting of others will torment a man’s self. The whole is thus; when she bleeds, thow needest no greater hell or torment to thyself than infecting of others by pronouncing a sentence upon her. What hodge-podge does he make here! Never was Dutch grout such clogging, thick, indigestible stuff. But this is but a taste to stay the stomach; we shall have a more plentiful mess presently.DRYDEN. 47 ‘‘ Now to dish up the poet’s broth that I promised : For when we're dead, and our freed souls enlarged, Ofnature’s grosser burden we’re discharged, Then, gentle as a happy lover’s sigh, Like wand’ring meteors through the air we'll fly And in our airy walk, as subtle guests, We'll steal into our cruel fathers’ breasts, There read their souls, and track each passion’s sphe- See how Revenge moves there, Ambition here ; And in their orbs view the dark characters Of sieges, ruins, murders, blood, and wars. We'll blot out all those hideous draughts, and write Pure and white forms ; then with a radiant light Their breasts encircle, till their passions be Gentle as nature in its infancy ; Till, soften’d by our charms, their furies cease, And their revenge resolves into a peace. Thus by our death their quarrel ends, Whom living we made foes, dead we’ll make friends. If this be not a very liberal mess, I will refer myself to the stomach of any moderate guest. And a rare mess it is, far excelling any Westminster white-broth. Itis a kind of giblet porridge, made of the giblets of a couple of young geese, stodged full of meteors, orbs, spheres, track, hideous draughts, dark characters, white forms,and radiant lights, designed not only to please appetite and indulge luxury, but it is also physical, being an approved medicine to purge choler ; for it is propounded, by Morena, as a re- ceipt to cure their fathers of their choleric humours ; and, were it written in characters as barbarous as the words, might very well pass for a doctor’s bill. Toconclude: it is porridge, ’tis a receipt, ’tis a pig with a pudding in the belly, ’tis I know not what: for, certainly, never any one that pretended to write sense had the impudence before to put such stuff as this into the mouths of those that were to speak it before an audience, whom he did not take to be all fools : and after that to print it too, and expose it48 LIVES OF THE POETS. - to the examination of the world. But let us see what we ean make of this stuff. For when we're dead, and our freed souls enlarged Here he tells us what it is to be dead ; it is to have our freed souls set free. Now, if to have a soul set free is to be dead, then to have a freed soul set free is to have a dead man die. Then, gently as a happy lover’s sigh They two like one sigh, and that one sigh like two wan- dering meteors, —Shall fly through the air-- That is, they shall mount above like falling stars, or else they shall skip like two Jacks with lanthorns, or Will with a wisp, and Madge with a candle. “ And in their airy walk steal into their cruel fathers’ breasts, like subtle guests. So that their fathers’ breasts must beinan airy walk,an airy walk of a flier. And there they will read their souls, and track the spheres of their passions. That is, these walking fliers, Jack with a lanthorn, etc., will put on his spectacles, and fall a seading souls, and put on his pumps, and fall a tracking of spheres ; so that he will read and run, walk and fly, at the same time! Oh! Nimble Jack! Then he will see how revenge here, how ambition there——The birds will hop about. And then view the dark characters of sieges, ruins, mur- ders, blood, and wars, in their orbs: Track the characters to their forms! Oh! rare sport for Jack! Never was place so full of game as these breasts! You cannot stir, but flush a sphere, start a character, or unkennel an orb !” Settle’s is said to have been the first play embellished with sculptures ; those ornaments seem to have given poor Dryden great disturbance. He tries, however, to ease his pain by venting his malice in a parody. “The poet has not only been so imprudent to expose allDRYDEN. 49 this stuff, but so arrogant to defend it with an epistle; like a saucy booth-keeper, that when he had put a cheat upon the people, would wrangle and fight with any that would not like it, or would offer to.discover it ; for which arrogance our poet receives this correction ; and, to jerk him a little the sharper, I will not transpose his verse, but by‘the help of his own words transnonsense sense, that, by my stuff, people may judge the better what his 1S; Great Boy, thy tragedy and sculptures done From press, and plates in fleets do homeward come : And, in ridiculous and humble pride, Their course in ballad-singers’ baskets guide, Whose greasy twigs do all new beauties take, > From the gay shows thy dainty sculptures make. Thy lines a mess of rhyming nonsense yield, A senseless tale with flattering fustian fill’d. No grain of sense does in one line appear, Thy words big bulks of boisterous bombast bear. With noise they move, and from players’ mouths rebound, When their tongues dance to thy words’ empty sound. By thee inspired the rumbling verses roll, As if that rhyme and bombast lent a soul: And with that soul they seem taught duty too, To huffing words does humble nonsense bow, As if it would thy worthless worth enhance, To th’ lowest rank of fops thy praise advance 3 To whom, by instinct, all thy stuff is dear: Their loud claps echo to the theatre. From breaths of fools thy commendation spreads, Fame sings thy praise with mouths of logger-heads. With noise and laughing each thy fustian greets, ’Tis clapped by quires of empty-headed cits, Who have their tribute sent, and homage given, As men in whispers send loud noise to Heaven. Thus I have daubed him with his own puddle: and now we are come from aboard his dancing, masking, re- bounding, breathing fleet ; and, as if we had landed at Gotham, we meet nothing but fools and nonsense.” TERE IT a PSP SS EL RR IDEN SEE RCN aE NIE te ms a CSS ASTRO TSS50 LIVES OF THE POETS. Such was the criticism to which the genius of Dryden could be reduced, between rage and terror; rage with little provocation, and terror with little danger. To see the highest mind thus levelled with the meanest may pro- duce some solace to the consciousness of weakness, and some mortification to the pride of wisdom. But let it be remembered, that minds are not levelled in their powers but when they are first levelled in their desires. Dryden and Settle had both placed their happiness in the claps of multitudes. “An Evening’s Love; or, the Mock Astrologer,” a comedy (1671), is dedicated to the illustrious Duke of Newcastle, whom he courts by adding to his praises those of his lady, not only as a lover but a partner of his studies. It is unpleasing to think how many names, once celebrated, are since forgotten. Of Newcastle’s works nothing is now known but his “Treatise on Horsemanship.” The Preface seems very elaborately written, and contains many just remarks on the Fathers of the English drama. Shakespeare’s plots, he says, are in the hundred novels of Cinthio; those of Beaumont and Fletcher in Spanish stories ; Jonson only made them for himself. His criti- cisms upon tragedy, comedy, and farce, are judicious and profound. He endeavours to defend the immorality of some of his comedies by the example of former writers ; which is only to say that he was not the first nor perhaps the greatest offender. Against those that accused him of plagiarism he alleges a favourable expression of the king: “He only desired that they who accuse me of thefts, would steal him plays like mine ;” and then relates how much labour he spends in fitting for the English stage what he borrows from others. “Tyrannic Love; or, the Royal Martyr” (1672), was another tragedy in rhyme, conspicuous for many passagesDRYDEN. 51 of strength and elegance, and many of empty noise and ridiculous turbulence. The rants of Maximin have been always the sport of criticism ; and were at length [1681], if his own confession may be trusted, the shame of the writer. Of this play he has taken care to let the reader know that it was contrived and written in seven weeks. Want of time was often his excuse, or perhaps shortness of time was his private boast in the form of an apology. It was written before the “Conquest of Granada,” but published after it. The design is to recommend piety. “I considered that pleasure was not the only end of Poesy ; and that even the instructions of morality were not so wholly the business of a poet, as that precepts and ex- amples of piety were to be omitted; for to leave that employment altogether to the clergy, were to forget that religion was first taught in verse, which the laziness or dulness of succeeding priesthood turned afterwards into prose.” Thus foolishly could Dryden write, rather than not show his malice to the parsons. The two parts of the “Conquest of Granada” (1672) are written with a seeming determination to glut the public with dramatic wonders, to exhibit in its highest elevation a theatrical meteor of incredible love and im- possible valour, and to leave no room for a wilder flight to the extravagance of posterity. All the rays of romantic heat, whether amorous or warlike, glow in Almanzor by a kind of concentration. He is above all laws; he is exempt from all restraints ; he ranges the world at will, and governs wherever he appears. He fights without in- quiring the cause, and loves in spite of the obligations of justice, of rejection by his mistress, and of prohibition from the dead. Yet the scenes are, for the most part, delightful; they exhibit a kind of illustrious depravity‘ and majestic madness, such as, if it is sometimes despised,52 LIVES OF THE POETS. is often reverenced, and in which the ridiculous is mingled with the astonishing. In the epilogue to the second part of the ‘ Conquest of Granada,” Dryden indulges his favourite pleasure of dis- crediting his predecessors ; and this epilogue he has de- fended by a long postcript. He had promised a second dialogue, in which he should more fully treat of the virtues and faults of the English poets, who have written in the dramatic, epic, or lyric way. This promise was never formally performed ; but, with respect to the dramatic writers, he has given usin his prefaces and in this postscript something equivalent; but his purpose being to exalt himself, by the comparison, he shows faults distinctly, and only praises excellence in general terms. A play thus written, in professed defiance of proba- bility, naturally drew upon itself the vultures of the theatre. One of the critics that attacked it was Martin Clifford, to whom Sprat addressed the Life of Cowley, with such veneration of his critical powers as might naturally excite great expectation of instruction from his remarks. But let honest credulity beware of receiving characters from contemporary writers. Clifford’s remarks, by the favour of Dr. Percy, were at last obtained ; and, that no man may ever want them more, I will extract enough to satisfy all reasonable desire. In the first letter his observation is only general : “ You do live,” says he, “in as much ignorance and darkness as you did in the womb ; your writings are like a Jack-of-all trade’s shop ; they have a variety, but nothing of value: and if thou art not the dullest plant-animal that ever the earth produced, all that I have conversed with are strangely mistaken in thee.” In the second he tells him that Almanzor is not more copied from Achilles than from Ancient Pistol. “But I am,” says he, “strangely mistaken if I have not seen thisDRYDEN. Beh very Almanzor of yours in some disguise about this town, and passing under another name. Pr’ythee tell me true, was not this Huffcap once the Indian Emperor? and at another time, did he not call himself Maximin? Was not Lyndaraxa once called Almeria? I mean under Monte- zuma, the Indian Emperor. I protest and vow they are either the same, or so alike, that I cannot, for my heart, distinguish one from the other. You are therefore a strange unconscionable thief; thou art not content to steal from others, but dost rob thy poor wretched self too.” Now was Settle’s time to take his revenge. Hewrotea vindication of his own lines ; and, if he is forced to yield anything, makes his reprisals upon his enemy. To say that his answer is equal to the censure, is no high com- mendation. ‘To expose Dryden’s method of analysing his expressions, he tries the same experiment upon the same description of the ships in the “Indian Emperor,” of which, however, he does not deny the excellence ; but in- tends to show, that by studied misconstruction everything may be equally represented as ridiculous. After so much of Dryden’s elegant animadyersions, justice requires that something of Settle’s should be exhibited. The following observations are therefore extracted from a quarto pam- phlet of ninety-five pages, > 3 ‘¢ Fate after him below with pain did move, And victory could scarce keep pace above. These two lines, if he can show me any sense or thought in, or anything but bombast and noise, he shall make me believe every word in his observations on Morocco sense. “In the ‘Empress of Morocco’ were these lines : I'll travel then to some remoter sphere, " Till I find out new worlds, and crown you there. “ On which Dryden made this remark : SOO Nn te i ISNA5A LIVES OF THE POETs. “¢Y believe our learned author tales a sphere for a country ; the sphere of Morocco! as if Morocco were the globe of earth and water ; but a globe is no sphere neither, by his leave,’ etc. “So sphere must not be sense, unless it relate to a cir- cular motion about a globe, in which sense the astrono- mers use it. I would desire him to expound those lines in Granada : I'll to the turrets of the palace go, And add new fire to those that fight below. Thence, Hero-like, with torches by my side (Far be the omen though), my Love I’ll guide. No, like his better fortune Ill appear, With open arms, loose veil, and flowing hair, Just flying forward from my rowling sphere. I wonder, if he be so strict, how he dares make so bold with sphere himself, and be so critical in other men’s writings. Fortune is fancied standing on a globe, not on a sphere, ashe told us in the first act. “ Because Eikanah’s similes are the most unlike things to what they are compared in the world, I'll venture to start a simile in his “Annus Mirabilis”: he gives this poetical description of a ship called the London : The goodly Loador ix her gallant trim, The Pheenix-dgughtercok the vanquished old, Like a rich brftie foes tO the ocean swim, And on her shadow rides in floating gold. Her flag aloft spread ruffling in the wind, And sanguine streamers seemed the flood to fire: The weaver, charm’d with what his loom designed, Goes on to sea, and knows not to retire. With roomy decks her guns of mighty strength, Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves, Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length, She seems a sea-wasp flying on the waves, What a wonderful pudder is here, to make all theseDRYDEN. 55 poetical beautifications of a ship; that is, a Phenia in the first stanza,and buta wasp in the last ; nay, tomake his humble comparison of a wasp more ridiculous, he does not say it flies upon the waves as nimbly as a wasp, or the like, but it seemed a wasp. But our author at the writing of this was not in his altitudes, to compare ships to floating palaces ; a comparison to the purpose was a perfection he did not arrive to till the Indian Emperor’s days. But, perhaps his similitude has more in it than we imagine ; this ship had a great many guns in her, and they, put all together, made the sting in the wasp’s tail ; for this is all the reason I can guess, why it seemed a wasp. But, because we will allow him all we can to help out, let it be a phenix sea-wasp, and the rarity of such an animal may do much towards heightening the fancy. “Tt had been much more to his purpose if he had designed to render the senseless play little, to have searched for some such pedantry as this: Two ifs scarce make one possibility. If Justice will take all, and nothing give, Justice, methinks, is not distributive. To die or kill you is the alternative. Rather than take your life, 1 will not live. ‘‘ Observe how prettily our author chops logic in heroic verse. Three such fustian canting words as distributive, alternative, and two ifs,no man but himself would have come within the noise of. But he’s a man of general learning, and all comes into his play. “ "Twvould have done well too if he could have met with the rant or two, worth the observation : such as, Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lover’s pace, Leave months and weeks behind thee in thy race. “ But surely the Sun, whether he flies a lover’s or not a06 LIVES OF THE POETS. lover’s pace, leaves weeks and months, nay years too, be- hind him in his race. “Poor Robin, or any other of the philo-mathematics, would have given him satisfaction in the point. If I could 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. “Now where that is, Almanzor’s fate is fixed, I cannot guess ; but, wherever it is, I believe Almanzor, and think that all Abdalla’s subjects, piled upon one another, might not pull down his fate so well as without piling ; besides, I think Abdalla so wise a man, that, if Almanzor had told him piling his men upon his back might do the feat, he would scarcely bear such a weight, for the pleasure of the exploit ; but it is a huff, and let Abdalla do it if he dare, The people like a headlong torrent go, And every dam they break or overflow. But, unopposed, they either lose their force, Or wind in volumes to their former course 3; w very pretty allusion, contrary to all sense or reason. Torrents} I take it, let them wind never so much, can never return to their former course, unless he can suppose that fountains can go upwards, which is impossible ; nay more, in the foregoing page he tells us so too; a trick of a very unfaithful memory. But can no more than fountains upward flow ; which of a torrent, which signifies a rapid stream, is much more impossible. Besides, if he goes to quibble, and say that it is possible by art water may be made re- turn, and the same water run twice in one and the same channel, then he quite confutes what he says: for it is by being opposed that it runs into its former course : forDRYDEN. 57 all engines that make water so return, doit by compulsion and opposition. Or,if he means a headlong torrent for a tide, which would be ridiculous, yet they do not wind in volumes, but come foreright back (if their upright lies straight to their former course), and that by opposition of the sea-water, that drives them back again. “ And for fancy, when he lights of anything like it, ‘tis a wonder if it be not borrowed. As here, for example of, I-find this fanciful thought in his ‘Annus Mirabilis.’ Old father Thames raised up his reverend head : But feared the fate of Simois would return ; Deep in his ooze he sought his sedgy bed, And shrunk his waters back into his urn. “This is stolen from Cowley’s ‘ Davideis,’ p. 9. Swift Jordan started, and straight backward fled, Hiding amongst thick reeds his aged head. And when the Spaniards their assault begin, At once beat those without and these within. “This Almanzor speaks of himself ; and sure for one man to conquer an army within the city, and another without the city, at once, is something difficult: but this flight is pardonable to some we meet with in Granada ; Osmin, speaking of Almanzor, Who, like a tempest that outrides the wind, Made a just battle, ere the bodies joined. Pray, what does this honourable person mean by a tem- pest that outrides the wind! a tempest that outrides itself. To suppose a tempest without wind, is as bad as supposing a man to walk without feet ; for if he supposes the tempest to be something distant from the wind, yet as being the effect of wind only, to come before the cause is a little preposterous ; so that, if he takes it one way, or if he takes it the other, those two 7f/s will scarcely make one possibility.” Enough of Settle. pare eer ah Rater cece wT spPAeaE am ah Ore PR thn Pn Rea at AS NR cl NE Naa eB S So FSR &58 LIVES OF THE POETS. “Marriage a-la-mode” (1673) is a comedy dedicated to the Earl of Rochester, whom he acknowledges not only as the defender of his poetry, but the promoter of his for- tune. Langbaine places this play in 1673. ‘The Earl of Rochester, therefore, was the famous Wilmot, whom yet tradition always represents as an enemy to Dryden, and who is mentioned by him with some disrespect in the preface to Juvenal. “The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery,” a comedy (1673), was driven off the stage, against the opinion, as the author says, of the best judges. It is dedicated, in a very elegant address, to Sir Charles Sedley ; in which he finds an opportunity for his usual complaint of hard treatment and unreasonable censure. “ Amboyna” (1673) is a tissue of mingled dialogue in verse and prose, and was perhaps written in less time than “ The Virgin Martyr ;” though the author thought not fit either ostentatiously or mournfully to tell -how little labour it cost him, or at how short a warning he produced it. It was a temporary performance, written in the time of the Dutch war, to inflame the nation against their enemies ; to whom he hopes, as he declares in his epilogue, to make his poetry not less destructive than that by which Tyrteus of old animated the Spartans. This play was written in the second Dutch war, in 1673. “ Troilus and Cressida” (1679) is a play altered from Shakespeare ; but so altered, that, even in Langbaine’s opinion, “the last scene in the third act is a master- piece.” It is introduced by a discourse “on the grounds of Criticism in Tragedy,” to which I suspect that Rymer’s book had given occasion. “The Spanish Fryar” (1681) is a tragi-comedy, eminent for the happy coincidence and coalition of the two plots. As it was written against the papists, it would naturally at that time have friends and enemies ; and partly by theDRYDEN. 59 popularity which it obtained at first, and partly by the real power both of the serious and risible part, it con- tinued long a favourite of the public. It was Dryden’s opinion, at least, for some time, and he maintains it in the dedication of this play, that the drama required an alternation of comic and tragic scenes; and that it is necessary to mitigate by alleviations of merri- ment the pressure of ponderous events, and the fatigue of toilsome passions. ‘‘ Whoever,” says he, “ cannot perform both parts, zs but half a writer for the stage. “The Duke of Guise,” a tragedy (1683), written in con- junction with Lee, as “Cidipus” had been before, seems to deserve notice only for the offence which it gave to the remnant of the Covenanters, and in general to the enemies of the court, who attacked him with great violence, and were answered by him; though at last he seems to with- draw from the conflict, by transferring the greater part of the blame or merit to his partner. It happened that a contract had been made between them, by which they were to join in writing a play ; and “he happened,” says Dryden, “to claim the promise just upon the finishing of a poem, when I would have been glad of a little respite. Two-thirds of it belonged to him; and to me only the first scene of the play, the whole fourth act, and the first half, or somewhat more, of the fifth.” This was a play written professedly for the party of the Duke of York, whose succession was then opposed. A parallel is intended between the Leaguers of France and the Covenanters of England : and this intention pro- duced the controversy. “ Albion and Albanius” (1685) is a musical drama or opera, written like the “ Duke of Guise,” against the Re- publicans. With what success it was performed I have not found. “The State of Innocence and Fall of Man” (1675) is60 LIVES OF THE POETS. termed by him an opera ; it is rather a tragedy in heroic rhyme, but of which the personages are such as cannot dece ntl be exhibited on the stage. Some such pro- duction was foreseen by Marvel, who writes thus te Milton : Or if a work so infinite be spann’d, Jealous I was lest some less skilful hand (Such as disquiet always what is well, And by ill-initating would excel) Might hence presume the whole creation’s day To change in scenes, and show it in a play. It is another of his hasty productions, for the heat of ‘his imagination raised it in a month. This composition is addressed to the Princess of Modena, then Duchess of York, in a strain of flattery which dis- graces genius, and which it was wonderful that any man that knew the meaning of his own words could use without self-detestation. It is an attempt to mingle earth and heaven, by praising human excellence in the language of religion. The preface contains an apology for heroic verse and poetic licence, by which is meant not any liberty taken in contracting or extending words, but the use of bold fictions and ambitious figures. The reason which he gives for printing what was never acted cannot be overpassed : “I was induced to it in my own defence, many hundred copies of it being dispersed abroad Wilbon my knowledge or consent ; ; and every one gathering new faults, it became at length a libel against me.” These copies, as they gathered faults, were apparently manuscript ; and he lived in an age very unlike ours, if many hundred copies of fourteen hundred lines were likely to be transcribed. An author has a right to print his own works, and need not seek an apology in falsehood ; but he that could bear to write the dedication felt no on in writing the preface.DRYDEN. 61 “Aureng Zebe” (1676), is a tragedy founded on the actions of a great prince then reigning, but over nations not likely to employ their critics upon the transactions of the English stage. If he had known and disliked his own character, our trade was not in those times secure from his resentment. His country is at such a distance, that the manners might be safely falsified, and the inci- dents feigned ; for the remoteness of place is remarked, by Racine, to afford the same conveniences to a poet as length of time. This play is written in rhyme, and has the appearance of being the most elaborate of all the dramas. The per- sonages are imperial, but the dialogue is often domestic, and therefore susceptible of sentiments accommodated to familiar incidents. The complaint of life is celebrated : and there are many other passages that may be read with pleasure. This play is addressed to the Earl of Mulgrave, after- wards Duke of Buckingham, himself, if not a poet, yet a writer of verses and a critic. In this address Dryden gave the first hints of his intention to write an epic poem. He mentions his design in terms so obscure, that he seems afraid lest his plan should be purloined, as he says happened to him when he told it more plainly in his preface to Juvenal. “The design,” says he, “ you know is great, the story English, and neither too near the pre- sent times, nor too distant from them.” “All for Love, or the World well Lost” (1678), a tragedy founded upon the story of Antony and Cleopatra, he tells us, “is the only play which he wrote for himself,” the rest were given to the people. Itis by universal con- sent accounted the work in which he has admitted the fewest improprieties of style and character ; but it has one fault equal to many, though rather moral than critical, that, by admitting the romantic omnipotence of62 LIVES OF THE POETS. love, he has recommended, as laudable and worthy of imitation, that conduct which, through all ages, the good have censured as vicious, and the bad despised as fuolish. Of this play the prologue and the epilogue, though written upon the common topics of malicious and ignorant criticism, and without any particular relation to the characters or incidents of the drama, are deservedly cele- brated for their elegance and sprightliness. “Limberham, or the Kind Keeper” (1680), is a comedy which, after the third night, was prohibited as too in- decent for the stage. What gave offence was in the printing, as the author says, altered or omitted. Dryden confesses that its indecency was objected to, but Lang- baine, who yet seldom favours him, imputes its expulsion to resentment, because it “so much exposed the keeping part of the town.” ‘“(idipus” (1679) is a tragedy formed by Dryden and Lee in conjunction, from the works of Sophocles, Seneca, and Corneille. Dryden planned the scenes, and composed the first and third acts. “Don Sebastian” (1690) is commonly esteemed either the first or second of his dramatic performances. It is too long to be all acted, and has many characters and many incidents ; and though it is not without sallies of frantic dignity, and more noise than meaning, yet, as it makes approaches to the possibilities of real life, and has some sentiments which leave a strong impression, it con- tinued long to attract attention. Amidst the distresses of princes, and the vicissitudes of empire, are inserted several scenes which the writer intended for comic, but which, I suppose, that age did not much commend, and this would not endure. There are, however, passages of excellence universally acknowledged ; the dispute and the reconciliation of Dorax and Sebastian has always been admired.DRYDEN. 63 This play was tirst,acted in 1690, after Dryden had for some years discontinued dramatic poetry. ‘Amphytrion” is a comedy derived from Plautus and Moliére. The dedication is dated Oct., 1690. This play seems to have succeeded at its first appearance, and was, I think, long considered as a very diverting entertain- ment, ““Gleomenes” (1692) is a tragedy, only remarkable as it occasioned an incident related in the “ Guardian,” and allusively mentioned by Dryden in his preface. As he came out from the representation, he was accosted thus by some airy stripling : “ Had I been left alone with a young beauty, I would not have spent my time like your Spartan.” “That, sir,’ said Dryden, “ perhaps is true, but give me leave to tell you that you are no hero.” “King Arthur” (1691) is another opera. It was the last work that Dryden performed for King Charles, who did not live to see it exhibited, and it does not seem to have been ever brought upon the stage. In the dedica- tion to the Marquis of Halifix, there is a very elegant character of Charles, and a yle sing account of his latter life. When this was first brought upon the stage, news that the Duke of Monmouth had landed was told in the theatre, upon which the company departed, and Arthur was exhibited no more. His last drama was “Love Triumphant,” a tragi- comedy. In his dedication to the Earl of Salisbury, he mentions “the lowness of fortune to which he has voluntarily reduced himself, and of which he has no reason to be ashamed.” This play appeared in 1694. It is said to have been unsuccessful. The catastrophe, proceeding merely from a change of mind, is confessed by the author to be defec- tive. Thus he began and ended his dramatic labours with ill success,64: LIVES OF THE POETS. From such a number of theatrical pieces, it will be supposed by most readers that he must have improved his fortune—at least, that such diligence with such abilities must have set penury at defiance. But in Dryden’s time the drama was very far from that universal approbation which it has now obtained. The playhouse was abhorred by the Puritans, and avoided by those who desired the character of seriousness or decency.