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might be learned, and a few hints had been given by Jonson' and Cowley; but Dryden's Essay on Dramatick Poetry was the first regular and valuable treatise on the art of writing.

He who, having formed his opinions in the present age of 195 English literature, turns back to peruse this dialogue, will not perhaps find much increase of knowledge or much novelty of instruction; but he is to remember that critical principles were then in the hands of a few, who had gathered them partly from the Ancients, and partly from the Italians and French 3. The structure of dramatick poems was not then generally understood. Audiences applauded by instinct, and poets perhaps often pleased by chance.

A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his 196 own lustre. Of an opinion which is no longer doubted, the evidence ceases to be examined. Of an art universally practised, the first teacher is forgotten. Learning once made popular is no longer learning: it has the appearance of something which we have bestowed upon ourselves, as the dew appears to rise from the field which it refreshes.

To judge rightly of an author we must transport ourselves to 197 his time, and examine what were the wants of his contemporaries, and what were his means of supplying them. That which is easy at one time was difficult at another. Dryden at least imported his science, and gave his country what it wanted before; or rather, he imported only the materials, and manufactured them by his own skill 5.

In his Timber; or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter. Jonson's Works, 1756, vii. 69. ‘Jonson, who by studying Horace had been acquainted with the rules [of the stage], yet seemed to envy to posterity that knowledge, and, like an inventor of some useful art, to make a monopoly of his learning.' DRYDEN, Works, xiii. 3.

* In his Prefaces. Eng. Poets, vii. 7; viii. 109.

Dryden throughout his Essay of Dramatic Poesy criticizes Corneille (referring no doubt to his Discours) and the rules of the French drama. In his Dedication of the Aeneis he says:-'The French are as much better critics than the English as they are worse poets.' Works, xiv.

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198 The dialogue on the Drama' was one of his first essays of criticism, written when he was yet a timorous candidate for reputation, and therefore laboured with that diligence which he might allow himself somewhat to remit when his name gave sanction to his positions, and his awe of the public was abated, partly by custom, and partly by success. It will not be easy to find in all the opulence of our language a treatise so artfully variegated with successive representations of opposite probabilities, so enlivened with imagery, so brightened with illustrations. His portraits of the English dramatists are wrought with great spirit and diligence. The account of Shakespeare3 may stand as a perpetual model of encomiastick criticism; exact without minuteness, and lofty without exaggeration. The praise lavished by Longinus, on the attestation of the heroes of Marathon by Demosthenes, fades away before it. In a few lines is exhibited a character, so extensive in its comprehension and so curious in its limitations, that nothing can be added, diminished, or reformed; nor can the editors and admirers of Shakespeare, in all their emulation of reverence, boast of much more than of having diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence, of having changed Dryden's gold for baser metal, of lower value though of greater bulk 5.

199 In this, and in all his other essays on the same subject, the criticism of Dryden is the criticism of a poet; not a dull collection of theorems, nor a rude detection of faults, which perhaps the censor was not able to have committed; but a gay and vigorous dissertation, where delight is mingled with instruction, and where the author proves his right of judgement by his power of performance.

200 The different manner and effect with which critical knowledge

compass, I was sailing in a vast ocean, without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage amongst the moderns.' Works, xiii. 3.

An Essay of English Poesy, ante, DRYDEN, 27.

2

Works, xv. 345.

3 lb. p. 344.

LONGINUS, De Sublimi, xvi; DEMOSTHENES, De Corona, 263. II. 5 Post, POPE, 128.

'Read all the prefaces of Dryden,

For these our critics much confide in;

Though merely writ at first for filling,

To raise the volume's price a shil

ling.' SWIFT, Works, xiv. 308. Not all the Prefaces were written 'for filling,' to judge by the following passage in Dryden's letter to Tonson about his Virgil:-'The Notes and Prefaces shall be short; because you shall get the more by saving paper. Works, xviii. 125.

may be conveyed was perhaps never more clearly exemplified than in the performances of Rymer and Dryden. It was said of a dispute between two mathematicians, 'malim cum Scaligero errare, quam cum Clavio recte sapere ''; that 'it was more eligible to go wrong with one than right with the other.' A tendency of the same kind every mind must feel at the perusal of Dryden's prefaces and Rymer's discourses. With Dryden we are wandering in quest of Truth, whom we find, if we find her at all, drest in the graces of elegance; and if we miss her, the labour of the pursuit rewards itself: we are led only through fragrance and flowers. Rymer, without taking a nearer, takes a rougher way; every step is to be made through thorns and brambles, and Truth, if we meet her, appears repulsive by her mien and ungraceful by her habit. Dryden's criticism has the majesty

of a queen; Rymer's has the ferocity of a tyrant 2.

As he had studied with great diligence the art of poetry, 201 and enlarged or rectified his notions by experience perpetually increasing, he had his mind stored with principles and observations: he poured out his knowledge with little labour3; for of labour, notwithstanding the multiplicity of his productions, there is sufficient reason to suspect that he was not a lover. To write con amore, with fondness for the employment, with perpetual touches and retouches, with unwillingness to take leave of his own idea, and an unwearied pursuit of unattainable perfection, was, I think, no part of his character".

His criticism may be considered as general or occasional. In 202 his general precepts, which depend upon the nature of things and the structure of the human mind, he may doubtless be safely recommended to the confidence of the reader; but his occasional and particular positions were sometimes interested, sometimes negligent, and sometimes capricious. It is not without reason

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203

that Trapp', speaking of the praises which he bestows on Palamon and Arcite, says

'Novimus [quidem Angli] judicium Drydeni [popularis nostri] de poemate quodam Chauceri, pulchro sane illo, et admodum [plurimum] laudando, nimirum quod non modo vere epicum sit, sed Iliada etiam atque Æneida æquet, imo superet 2. Sed novimus eodem tempore viri illius maximi non semper accuratissimas esse censuras, nec ad severissimam critices normam exactas: Illo judice id plerumque optimum est, quod nunc [optimum est plerumque quod ille] præ manibus habet, et in quo nunc occupatur 3.'

He is therefore by no means constant to himself. His defence and desertion of dramatick rhyme is generally known*. Spence, in his remarks on Pope's Odyssey, produces what he thinks an unconquerable quotation from Dryden's preface to the Eneid, in favour of translating an epick poem into blank verse3; but he forgets that when his author attempted the Iliad, some years afterwards, he departed from his own decision, and translated into rhyme.

was known to have written most of his critical disquisitions only to recommend the work upon which he then happened to be employed.' The Rambler, No. 93.

2

Ante, DRYDEN, 179; post, 310.
Post, DRYDEN, 314.

3 Praelectiones Poeticae, 1722, p.
386.

'We know our countryman Mr. Dryden's judgment about a poem of Chaucer's, truly beautiful indeed and worthy of praise; namely that it was not only equal, but even superior to the Iliad and Aeneid. But we know likewise that his opinion was not always the most accurate, nor formed upon the severest rules of criticism. What was in hand was generally most in esteem; if it was uppermost in his thoughts it was so in his judgment too.' TRAPP, Lectures on Poetry. Translated from the Latin, 1742, p. 348.

Dryden says of his translations of Ovid, just finished :-'They appear to me the best of all my endeavours in this kind.' Works, xii. 62.

4 Ante, DRYDEN, 20. In the Preface to The Conquest of Granada

(1672; ante, DRYDEN, 48) he writes:'Whether heroic verse ought to be admitted into serious plays is not now to be disputed; it is already in possession of the stage, and I dare confidently affirm that very few tragedies in this age shall be received without it.' Works, iv. 18. In the Preface to All for Love (1678; ante, DRYDEN,78) he writes:-'In my style I have professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare, which that I might perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme.' Ib. v. 339.

5 Spence, in his Essay on Mr. Pope's Odyssey (post, POPE, 137), ed. 1737, p. 121, quotes Dryden where he writes (Works, xiv. 211):- Hannibal Caro is a great name amongst the Italians; yet his translation of the Aeneis is most scandalously mean, though he has taken the advantage of writing in blank verse.... I will only say that he who can write well in rhyme may write better in blank verse. See also ante, MILTON, 273.

For Algarotti's criticism of Caro and Dryden see his Lettere di Polianzio al Ermogene, &c. Venice, 1745.

When he has any objection to obviate, or any license to defend, 204 he is not very scrupulous about what he asserts, nor very cautious, if the present purpose be served, not to entangle himself in his own sophistries. But when all arts are exhausted, like other hunted animals, he sometimes stands at bay; when he cannot disown the grossness of one of his plays, he declares that he knows not any law that prescribes morality to a comick poet'.

His remarks on ancient or modern writers are not always to 205 be trusted. His parallel of the versification of Ovid with that of Claudian has been very justly censured by Sewel. His comparison of the first line of Virgil with the first of Statius is not happier. Virgil, he says, is soft and gentle, and would have thought Statius mad if he had heard him thundering out

'Quæ superimposito moles geminata colosso3.'

Statius perhaps heats himself, as he proceeds, to exaggerations 206 somewhat hyperbolical; but undoubtedly Virgil would have been too hasty if he had condemned him to straw for one sounding line. Dryden wanted an instance, and the first that occurred was imprest into the service.

What he wishes to say, he says at hazard; he cited Gorbuduc, 207 which he had never seen 5; gives a false account of Chapman's

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'It is charged upon me that I make debauched persons happy in the conclusion of my play, against the law of comedy, which is to reward virtue and punish vice. I answer first, that I know no such law to have been constantly observed in comedy, either by the ancient or modern poets.' Works, iii. 246; ante, DRYDEN, 44.

2 Preface to Ovid's Metamorphoses. JOHNSON. Dryden's 'parallel' is in the Preface to Dryden's Second Miscellany, Works, xii. 286. For Sewell see post, ADDISON, 68, and Campbell's British Poets, p. 345, for some pretty verses by him.

3 Works, xvii. 330. This comparison is with the first line of the Aeneid and the first of the Sylvae. He also compares Statius's line with the first of the Eclogues. Ib. vi. 407. Dryden speaks of the soberness of Virgil,' but does not say 'he is soft and gentle.' For Statius see post, POPE, 28.

In The Guardian, No. 82, in a

list of the effects of the propertyman' at the Theatre, is a truss of straw for the madmen. £o os. 8d. See also Boswell's Johnson, ii. 374.

5 [Thomas Sackville, afterwards Lord Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset (post, POPE, 387 n.), was the joint author with Thomas Norton of Gorboduc, 'first performed at the Xmas revels at the Temple in 1561 and some three weeks afterwards (Jan. 18, 1561-2) by command before her Majesty.' It was not printed till 1565, when it was surreptitiously published by Griffith. N. & Q. 2 S. x. 261. Five years later an authorized edition appeared with the title The Tragedie of Ferrex and Porrex. In 1590 it was reprinted as an appendix to Lydgate's Serpent of Division, under the title of Gorboduc.] In the Dedication of The Rival Ladies (Works, ii. 135) Dryden cites the tragedy of Queen Gorboduc in English verse. Shakespeare was the first who invented blank verse.' Langbaine

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