Note 322 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 3)

It would form a very curious piece of comparative criticism, were the opinions and the arguments of all the critics—those of the time and of the present day—thrown into the smelting-pot. The massiness of some opinions of great authority would be reduced to a thread of wire; and even what is accepted as standard ore might shrink into “a gilt sixpence.” On one side, the condemners of D’Avenant would be Rymer, Blackwall, Granger, Knox, Hurd, and Hayley; and the advocates would be Hobbes, Waller, Cowley, Dr. Aikin, Headley, &c. Rymer opened his Aristotelian text-book. He discovers that the poet’s first lines do not give any light into his design (it is probable D’Avenant would have found it hard to have told it to Mr. Rymer); that it has neither proposition nor invocation—(Rymer might have filled these up himself); so that “he chooses to enter into the top of the house, because the mortals of mean and satisfied minds go in at the door;” and then “he has no hero or action so illustrious that the name of the poem prepared the reader for its reception.” D’Avenant had rejected the marvellous from his poem—that is, the machinery of the epic: he had resolved to compose a tale of human beings for men. “This was,” says Blackwall, another of the classical flock, “like lopping off a man’s limb, and then putting him upon running races.” Our formal critics are quite lively in their dulness on our “adventurer.” But poets, in the crisis of a poetical revolution, are more legitimate judges than all such critics. Waller and Cowley applaud D’Avenant for this very omission of the epical machinery in this new vein of invention:—

“Here no bold tales of gods or monsters swell, But human passions such as with us dwell; Man is thy theme, his virtue or his rage, Drawn to the life in each elaborate page.” Waller.

“Methinks heroic poesy, till now, Like some fantastic fairy-land did show, And all but man, in man’s best work had place.” Cowley.

Hurd’s discussion on “Gondibert,” in his “Commentaries,” is the most important piece of criticism; subtle, ingenious, and exquisitely analytical. But he holds out the fetter of authority, and he decides as a judge who expounds laws; not the best decision, when new laws are required to abrogate obsolete ones. And what laws invented by man can be immutable? D’Avenant was thus tried by the laws of a country, that of Greece or Rome, of which, it is said, he was not even a denizen.

It is remarkable that all the critics who condemn D’Avenant could not but be struck by his excellences, and are very particular in expressing their admiration of his genius. I mean all the critics who have read the poem: some assuredly have criticised with little trouble.