Act 5 — DRYDEN[92]. (continued 2)

With his praises of others, and of himself, is always intermingled a strain of discontent and lamentation, a sullen growl of resentment, or a querulous murmur of distress. His works are undervalued, his merit is unrewarded, and "he has few thanks to pay his stars that he was born among Englishmen." To his criticks he is sometimes contemptuous, sometimes resentful, and sometimes submissive. The writer who thinks his works formed for duration, mistakes his interest when he mentions his enemies. He degrades his own dignity by showing that he was affected by their censures, and gives lasting importance to names, which, left to themselves, would vanish from remembrance. From this principle Dryden did not often depart; his complaints are, for the greater part, general; he seldom pollutes his page with an adverse name. He condescended, indeed, to a controversy with Settle, in which he, perhaps, may be considered rather as assaulting than repelling; and since Settle is sunk into oblivion, his libel remains injurious only to himself.

Among answers to criticks, no poetical attacks, or altercations, are to be included; they are, like other poems, effusions of genius, produced as much to obtain praise as to obviate censure. These Dryden practised, and in these he excelled.

Of Collier, Blackmore, and Milbourne, he has made mention in the preface to his Fables. To the censure of Collier, whose remarks may be rather termed admonitions than criticisms, he makes little reply; being, at the age of sixty-eight, attentive to better things than the claps of a playhouse. He complains of Collier's rudeness, and the "horseplay of his raillery;" and asserts, that "in many places he has perverted by his glosses the meaning" of what he censures; but in other things he confesses that he is justly taxed; and says, with great calmness and candour, "I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts or expressions of mine that can be truly accused of obscenity, immorality, or profaneness, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, he will be glad of my repentance." Yet, as our best dispositions are imperfect, he left standing in the same book a reflection on Collier of great asperity, and, indeed, of more asperity than wit.

Blackmore he represents as made his enemy by the poem of Absalom and Achitophel, which "he thinks a little hard upon his fanatick patrons;" and charges him with borrowing the plan of his Arthur from the preface to Juvenal, "though he had," says he, "the baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor, but instead of it to traduce me in a libel."

The libel in which Blackmore traduced him, was a Satire upon Wit; in which, having lamented the exuberance of false wit, and the deficiency of true, he proposes that all wit should be recoined before it is current, and appoints masters of assay who shall reject all that is light or debased:

'Tis true, that, when the coarse and worthless dross Is purg'd away, there will be mighty loss: E'en Congreve, Southern, manly Wycherley, When thus refin'd, will grievous sufferers be; Into the melting-pot when Dryden comes, What horrid stench will rise, what noisome fumes! How will he shrink, when all his lewd allay, And wicked mixture, shall be purg'd away!

Thus stands the passage in the last edition; but in the original there was an abatement of the censure, beginning thus:

But what remains will be so pure, 'twill bear Th' examination of the most severe.

Blackmore, finding the censure resented, and the civility disregarded, ungenerously omitted the softer part. Such variations discover a writer who consults his passions more than his virtue; and it may be reasonably supposed that Dryden imputes his enmity to its true cause.

Of Milbourne he wrote only in general terms, such as are always ready at the call of anger, whether just or not: a short extract will be sufficient. "He pretends a quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul upon priesthood; if I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his share of the reparation will come to little. Let him be satisfied that he shall never be able to force himself upon me for an adversary; I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him.

"As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels that they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them. Blackmore and Milbourne are only distinguished from the crowd by being remembered to their infamy."

Dryden, indeed, discovered, in many of his writings, an affected and absurd malignity to priests and priesthood, which naturally raised him many enemies, and which was sometimes as unseasonably resented as it was exerted. Trapp is angry that he calls the sacrificer in the Georgicks "the holy butcher:" the translation is, indeed, ridiculous; but Trapp's anger arises from his zeal, not for the author, but the priest; as if any reproach of the follies of paganism could be extended to the preachers of truth.

Dryden's dislike of the priesthood is imputed by Langbaine, and, I think, by Brown, to a repulse which he suffered when he solicited ordination; but he denies, in the preface to his Fables, that he ever designed to enter into the church; and such a denial he would not have hazarded, if he could have been convicted of falsehood.

Malevolence to the clergy is seldom at a great distance from irreverence of religion, and Dryden affords no exception to this observation. His writings exhibit many passages, which, with all the allowance that can be made for characters and occasions, are such as piety would not have admitted, and such as may vitiate light and unprincipled minds. But there is no reason for supposing that he disbelieved the religion which he disobeyed. He forgot his duty rather than disowned it. His tendency to profaneness is the effect of levity, negligence, and loose conversation, with a desire of accommodating himself to the corruption of the times, by venturing to be wicked as far as he durst. When he professed himself a convert to popery, he did not pretend to have received any new conviction of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

The persecution of criticks was not the worst of his vexations; he was much more disturbed by the importunities of want. His complaints of poverty are so frequently repeated, either with the dejection of weakness sinking in helpless misery, or the indignation of merit claiming its tribute from mankind, that it is impossible not to detest the age which could impose on such a man the necessity of such solicitations, or not to despise the man who could submit to such solicitations without necessity.

Whether by the world's neglect, or his own imprudence, I am afraid that the greatest part of his life was passed in exigencies. Such outcries were, surely, never uttered but in severe pain. Of his supplies or his expenses no probable estimate can now be made. Except the salary of the laureate, to which king James added the office of historiographer, perhaps with some additional emoluments, his whole revenue seems to have been casual; and it is well known that he seldom lives frugally who lives by chance. Hope is always liberal; and they that trust her promises make little scruple of revelling to-day on the profits of the morrow.

Of his plays the profit was not great; and of the produce of his other works very little intelligence can be had. By discoursing with the late amiable Mr. Tonson, I could not find that any memorials of the transactions between his predecessor and Dryden had been preserved, except the following papers:

"I do hereby promise to pay John Dryden, esq. or order, on the 25th of March, 1699, the sum of two hundred and fifty guineas, in consideration of ten thousand verses, which the said John Dryden, esq. is to deliver to me, Jacob Tonson, when finished, whereof seven thousand five hundred verses, more or less, are already in the said Jacob Tonson's possession. And I do hereby further promise and engage myself, to make up the said sum of two hundred and fifty guineas three hundred pounds sterling to the said John Dryden, esq. his executors, administrators, or assigns, at the beginning of the second impression of the said ten thousand verses.

"In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this 20th day of March, 1698-9.

"JACOB TONSON.

"Sealed and delivered, being first duly stampt, pursuant to the acts of parliament for that purpose, in the presence of "BEN. PORTLOCK, "WILL. CONGREVE."

"March 24, 1698.

"Received then of Mr. Jacob Tonson the sum of two hundred sixty-eight pounds fifteen shillings, in pursuance of an agreement for ten thousand verses, to be delivered by me to the said Jacob Tonson, whereof I have already delivered to him about seven thousand five hundred, more or less; he, the said Jacob Tonson, being obliged to make up the foresaid sum of two hundred sixty-eight pounds fifteen shillings three hundred pounds, at the beginning of the second impression of the foresaid ten thousand verses;

"I say, received by me,

"JOHN DRYDEN.

"Witness, CHARLES DRYDEN."

Two hundred and fifty guineas, at 1_l_, 1_s_. 6_d_. is 268_l_. 15_s_.

It is manifest, from the dates of this contract, that it relates to the volume of Fables, which contains about twelve thousand verses, and for which, therefore, the payment must have been afterwards enlarged.

I have been told of another letter yet remaining, in which he desires Tonson to bring him money, to pay for a watch which he had ordered for his son, and which the maker would not leave without the price.

The inevitable consequence of poverty is dependence. Dryden had probably no recourse in his exigencies but to his bookseller. The particular character of Tonson I do not know; but the general conduct of traders was much less liberal in those times than in our own; their views were narrower, and their manners grosser. To the mercantile ruggedness of that race, the delicacy of the poet was sometimes exposed. Lord Bolingbroke, who in his youth had cultivated poetry, related to Dr. King, of Oxford, that one day, when he visited Dryden, they heard, as they were conversing, another person entering the house. "This," said Dryden, "is Tonson. You will take care not to depart before he goes away; for I have not completed the sheet which I promised him; and if you leave me unprotected, I must suffer all the rudeness to which his resentment can prompt his tongue."

What rewards he obtained for his poems, besides the payment of the bookseller, cannot be known. Mr. Derrick, who consulted some of his relations, was informed that his Fables obtained five hundred pounds from the dutchess of Ormond; a present not unsuitable to the magnificence of that splendid family; and he quotes Moyle, as relating that forty pounds were paid by a musical society for the use of Alexander's Feast.

In those days the economy of government was yet unsettled, and the payments of the exchequer were dilatory and uncertain: of this disorder there is reason to believe that the laureate sometimes felt the effects; for, in one of his prefaces he complains of those, who, being intrusted with the distribution of the prince's bounty, suffer those that depend upon it to languish in penury.

Of his petty habits or slight amusements, tradition has retained little. Of the only two men, whom I have found, to whom he was personally known, one told me, that at the house which he frequented, called Will's Coffee-house, the appeal upon any literary dispute was made to him; and the other related, that his armed chair, which in the winter had a settled and prescriptive place by the fire, was in the summer placed in the balcony, and that he called the two places his winter and his summer seat. This is all the intelligence which his two survivers afforded me.

One of his opinions will do him no honour in the present age, though in his own time, at least in the beginning of it, he was far from having it confined to himself. He put great confidence in the prognostications of judicial astrology. In the appendix to the Life of Congreve is a narrative of some of his predictions wonderfully fulfilled; but I know not the writer's means of information, or character of veracity. That he had the configurations of the horoscope in his mind, and considered them as influencing the affairs of men, he does not forbear to hint:

The utmost malice of the stars is past. Now frequent trines the happier lights among, And high-rais'd Jove, from his dark prison freed, Those weights took off that on his planet hung, Will gloriously the new-laid works succeed.

He has, elsewhere, shown his attention to the planetary powers; and, in the preface to his Fables, has endeavoured obliquely to justify his superstition, by attributing the same to some of the ancients. The letter, added to this narrative, leaves no doubt of his notions or practice.

So slight and so scanty is the knowledge which I have been able to collect concerning the private life and domestick manners of a man whom every English generation must mention with reverence as a critick and a poet.

Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism, as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles the merit of composition. Of our former poets, the greatest dramatist wrote without rules, conducted through life and nature by a genius that rarely misled, and rarely deserted him. Of the rest, those who knew the laws of propriety had neglected to teach them.

Two Arts of English Poetry were written in the days of Elizabeth by Webb and Puttenham, from which something 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 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. 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 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 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.

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 publick 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 Shakespeare 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.

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 judgment by his power of performance.

The different manner and effect with which critical knowledge 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.

As he had studied with great diligence the art of poetry, 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 labour; 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 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 that Trapp, speaking of the praises which he bestows on Palamon and Arcite, says, "Novimus judicium Drydeni de poemate quodam Chauceri, pulchro sane illo, et admodum laudando, nimirum quod non modo vere epicum sit, sed Iliada etiam atque Aeneada aequet, imo superet. 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 prae manibus habet, et in quo nunc occupatur."

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 Aeneid, in favour of translating an epick poem into blank verse; but he forgets that when his author attempted the Iliad, some years afterwards, he departed from his own decision, and translated into rhyme.

When he has any objection to obviate, or any license to defend, 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 be trusted. His parallel of the versification of Ovid with that of Claudian has been very justly censured by Sewel[120]. 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:

Quae superimposito moles geminata colosso.

Statius, perhaps, heats himself, as he proceeds, to exaggerations 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, which he had never seen; gives a false account of Chapman's versification; and discovers, in the preface to his Fables, that he translated the first book of the Iliad without knowing what was in the second.

It will be difficult to prove that Dryden ever made any great advances in literature. As, having distinguished himself at Westminster under the tuition of Busby, who advanced his scholars to a height of knowledge very rarely attained in grammar-schools, he resided afterwards at Cambridge, it is not to be supposed, that his skill in the ancient languages was deficient, compared with that of common students; but his scholastick acquisitions seem not proportionate to his opportunities and abilities. He could not, like Milton or Cowley, have made his name illustrious merely by his learning. He mentions but few books, and those such as lie in the beaten track of regular study; from which, if ever he departs, he is in danger of losing himself in unknown regions.

In his Dialogue on the Drama, he pronounces, with great confidence, that the Latin tragedy of Medea is not Ovid's, because it is not sufficiently interesting and pathetick. He might have determined the question upon surer evidence; for it is quoted by Quintilian as the work of Seneca; and the only line which remains of Ovid's play, for one line is left us, is not there to be found. There was, therefore, no need of the gravity of conjecture, or the discussion of plot or sentiment, to find what was already known upon higher authority than such discussions can ever reach.

His literature, though not always free from ostentation, will be commonly found either obvious, and made his own by the art of dressing it; or superficial, which, by what he gives, shows what he wanted; or erroneous, hastily collected, and negligently scattered.

Yet it cannot be said that his genius is ever unprovided of matter, or that his fancy languishes in penury of ideas. His works abound with knowledge, and sparkle with illustrations. There is scarcely any science or faculty that does not supply him with occasional images and lucky similitudes; every page discovers a mind very widely acquainted both with art and nature, and in full possession of great stores of intellectual wealth. Of him that knows much, it is natural to suppose that he has read with diligence; yet I rather believe that the knowledge of Dryden was gleaned from accidental intelligence and various conversation, by a quick apprehension, a judicious selection, and a happy memory, a keen appetite of knowledge, and a powerful digestion; by vigilance that permitted nothing to pass without notice, and a habit of reflection that suffered nothing useful to be lost. A mind like Dryden's, always curious, always active, to which every understanding was proud to be associated, and of which every one solicited the regard, by an ambitious display of himself, had a more pleasant, perhaps a nearer way to knowledge than by the silent progress of solitary reading. I do not suppose that he despised books, or intentionally neglected them; but that he was carried out, by the impetuosity of his genius, to more vivid and speedy instructors; and that his studies were rather desultory and fortuitous than constant and systematical.

It must be confessed, that he scarcely ever appears to want book-learning, but when he mentions books; and to him may be transferred the praise which he gives his master Charles:

His conversation, wit, and parts, His knowledge in the noblest useful arts, Were such, dead authors could not give, But habitudes of those that live, Who, lighting him, did greater lights receive: He drained from all, and all they knew, His apprehensions quick, his judgment true: That the most learn'd with shame confess, His knowledge more, his reading only less.

Of all this, however, if the proof be demanded, I will not undertake to give it; the atoms of probability, of which my opinion has been formed, lie scattered over all his works; and by him who thinks the question worth his notice, his works must be perused with very close attention.

Criticism, either didactick or defensive, occupies almost all his prose, except those pages which he has devoted to his patrons; but none of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They have not the formality of a settled style, in which the first half of the sentence betrays the other. The clauses are never balanced, nor the periods modelled; every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid; the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous; what is little, is gay; what fe great, is splendid. He may be thought to mention himself too frequently; but, while he forces himself upon our esteem, we cannot refuse him to stand high in his own. Every thing is excused by the play of images, and the sprightliness of expression. Though all is easy, nothing is feeble; though all seems careless, there is nothing harsh; and though since his earlier works more than a century has passed, they have nothing yet uncouth or obsolete.

He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted. Dryden is always "another and the same;" he does not exhibit a second time the same elegancies in the same form, nor appears to have any art other than that of expressing with clearness what he thinks with vigour. His style could not easily be imitated, either seriously or ludicrously; for, being always equable and always varied, it has no prominent or discriminative characters. The beauty who is totally free from disproportion of parts and features, cannot be ridiculed by an overcharged resemblance.

From his prose, however, Dryden derives only his accidental and secondary praise; the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry.

After about half a century of forced thoughts, and rugged metre, some advances towards nature and harmony had been already made by Waller and Denham; they had shown that long discourses in rhyme grew more pleasing when they were broken into couplets, and that verse consisted not only in the number but the arrangement of syllables.

But though they did much, who can deny that they left much to do? Their works were not many, nor were their minds of very ample comprehension. More examples of more modes of composition were necessary for the establishment of regularity, and the introduction of propriety in word and thought.

Every language of a learned nation necessarily divides itself into diction scholastick and popular, grave and familiar, elegant and gross: and from a nice distinction of these different parts arises a great part of the beauty of style. But if we except a few minds, the favourites of nature, to whom their own original rectitude was in the place of rules, this delicacy of selection was little known to our authors; our speech lay before them in a heap of confusion, and every man took for every purpose, what chance might offer him.

There was, therefore, before the time of Dryden no poetical diction, no system of words at once refined from the grossness of domestick use, and free from the harshness of terms appropriated to particular arts. Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions, or delightful images; and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves which they should transmit to things.

Those happy combinations of words which distinguish poetry from prose had been rarely attempted; we had few elegancies or flowers of speech; the roses had not yet been plucked from the bramble; or different colours had not been joined to enliven one another.

It may be doubted whether Waller and Denham could have overborne the prejudices which had long prevailed, fend which even then were sheltered by the protection of Cowley. The new versification, as it was called, may be considered as owing its establishment to Dryden; from whose time it is apparent that English poetry has had no tendency to relapse to its former savageness.

The affluence and comprehension of our language is very illustriously displayed in our poetical translations of ancient writers; a work which the French seem to relinquish in despair, and which we were long unable to perform with dexterity. Ben Jonson thought it necessary to copy Horace almost word by word; Feltham, his contemporary and adversary, considers it as indispensably requisite in a translation to give line for line. It is said that Sandys, whom Dryden calls the best versifier of the last age, has struggled hard to comprise every book of his English Metamorphoses in the same number of verses with the original. Holyday had nothing in view but to show that he understood his author, with so little regard to the grandeur of his diction, or the volubility of his numbers, that his metres can hardly be called verses; they cannot be read without reluctance, nor will the labour always be rewarded by understanding them. Cowley saw that such copyers were a servile race; he asserted his liberty, and spread his wings so boldly that he left his authors. It was reserved for Dryden to fix the limits of poetical liberty, and give us just rules and examples of translation.

When languages are formed upon different principles, it is impossible that the same modes of expression should always be elegant in both. While they run on together, the closest translation may be considered as the best; but when they divaricate, each must take its natural course. Where correspondence cannot be obtained, it is necessary to be content with something equivalent. "Translation, therefore," says Dryden, "is not so loose as paraphrase, nor so close as metaphrase."

All polished languages have different styles; the concise, the diffuse, the lofty, and the humble. In the proper choice of style consists the resemblance which Dryden principally exacts from the translator. He is to exhibit his author's thoughts in such a dress of diction as the author would have given them, had his language been English; rugged magnificence is not to be softened; hyperbolical ostentation is not to be repressed; nor sententious affectation to have its point blunted. A translator is to be like his author; it is not his business to excel him.

The reasonableness of these rules seems sufficient for their vindication; and the effects produced by observing them were so happy, that I know not whether they were ever opposed, but by sir Edward Sherburne, a man whose learning was greater than his powers of poetry, and who, being better qualified to give the meaning than the spirit of Seneca, has introduced his version of three tragedies by a defence of close translation. The authority of Horace, which the new translators cited in defence of their practice, he has, by a judicious explanation, taken fairly from them; but reason wants not Horace to support it.

It seldom happens that all the necessary causes concur to any great effect: will is wanting to power, or power to will, or both are impeded by external obstructions. The exigencies in which Dryden was condemned to pass his life, are reasonably supposed to have blasted his genius, to have driven out his works in a state of immaturity, and to have intercepted the full-blown elegance, which longer growth would have supplied.

Poverty, like other rigid powers, is sometimes too hastily accused. If the excellence of Dryden's works was lessened by his indigence, their number was increased; and I know not how it will be proved, that if he had written less he would have written better; or that, indeed, he would have undergone the toil of an author, if he had not been solicited by something more pressing than the love of praise.

But, as is said by his Sebastian,

What had been is unknown; what is, appears.

We know that Dryden's several productions were so many successive expedients for his support; his plays were, therefore, often borrowed; and his poems were almost all occasional.

In an occasional performance no height of excellence can be expected from any mind, however fertile in itself, and however stored with acquisitions. He whose work is general and arbitrary has the choice of his matter, and takes that which his inclination and his studies have best qualified him to display and decorate. He is at liberty to delay his publication till he has satisfied his friends and himself, till he has reformed his first thoughts by subsequent examination, and polished away those faults which the precipitance of ardent composition is likely to leave behind it. Virgil is related to have poured out a great number of lines in the morning, and to have passed the day in reducing them to fewer.

The occasional poet is circumscribed by the narrowness of his subject. Whatever can happen to man has happened so often, that little remains for fancy or invention. We have been all born; we have most of us been married; and so many have died before us, that our deaths can supply but few materials for a poet. In the fate of princes the publick has an interest; and what happens to them of good or evil, the poets have always considered as business for the muse. But after so many inauguratory gratulations, nuptial hymns, and funeral dirges, he must be highly favoured by nature, or by fortune, who says any thing not said before. Even war and conquest, however splendid, suggest no new images; the triumphal chariot of a victorious monarch can be decked only with those ornaments that have graced his predecessors.

Not only matter but time is wanting. The poem must not be delayed till the occasion is forgotten. The lucky moments of animated imagination cannot be attended; elegancies and illustrations cannot be multiplied by gradual accumulation; the composition must be despatched, while conversation is yet busy, and admiration fresh; and haste is to be made, lest some other event should lay hold upon mankind. Occasional compositions may, however, secure to a writer the praise both of learning and facility; for they cannot be the effect of long study, and must be furnished immediately from the treasures of the mind.

The death of Cromwell was the first publick event which called forth Dryden's poetical powers. His heroick stanzas have beauties and defects; the thoughts are vigorous, and, though not always proper, show a mind replete with ideas; the numbers are smooth; and the diction, if not altogether correct, is elegant and easy.

Davenant was, perhaps, at this time, his favourite author, though Gondibert never appears to have been popular; and from Davenant he learned to please his ear with the stanza of four lines alternately rhymed.

Dryden very early formed his versification; there are in this early production no traces of Donne's or Jonson's ruggedness; but he did not so soon free his mind from the ambition of forced conceits. In his verses on the restoration, he says of the king's exile:

He, toss'd by fate, Could taste no sweets of youth's desir'd age, But found his life too true a pilgrimage.

And afterwards, to show how virtue and wisdom are increased by adversity, he makes this remark:

Well might the ancient poets then confer On night the honour'd name of counsellor: Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind, We light alone in dark afflictions find.

His praise of Monk's dexterity comprises such a cluster of thoughts unallied to one another, as will not elsewhere be easily found:

'Twas Monk, whom providence design'd to loose Those real bonds false freedom did impose. The blessed saints that watch'd this turning scene Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean, To see small clues draw vastest weights along, Not in their bulk, but in their order strong.

Thus pencils can by one slight touch restore Smiles to that changed face that wept before. With ease such fond chimeras we pursue. As fancy frames for fancy to subdue; But, when ourselves to action we betake, It shuns the mint like gold that chymists make: How hard was then his task, at once to be What in the body natural we see! Man's architect distinctly did ordain The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain, Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense The springs of motion from the seat of sense: 'Twas not the hasty product of a day, But the well-ripen'd fruit of wise delay. He, like a patient angler, ere he strook, Would let them play awhile upon the hook. Our healthful food the stomach labours thus, At first embracing what it straight doth crush. Wise leeches will not vain receipts obtrude, While growing pains pronounce the humours crude; Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill, Till some safe crisis authorize their skill.

He had not yet learned, indeed he never learned well, to forbear the improper use of mythology. After having rewarded the heathen deities for their care,

With Alga who the sacred altar strows? To all the seagods Charles an offering owes; A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain; A ram to you, ye tempests of the main.

He tells us, in the language of religion,

Pray'r storm'd the skies, and ravish'd Charles from thence, As heav'n itself is took by violence.

And afterwards mentions one of the most awful passages of sacred history.

Other conceits there are, too curious to be quite omitted; as,

For by example most we sinn'd before, And, glass-like, clearness mix'd with frailty bore. How far he was yet from thinking it necessary to found his sentiments on nature, appears from the extravagance of his fictions and hyperboles:

The winds, that never moderation knew, Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew; Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge Their straiten'd lungs.

It is no longer motion cheats your view; As you meet it, the land approacheth you; The land returns, and in the white it wears The marks of penitence and sorrow bears.

I know not whether this fancy, however little be its value, was not borrowed. A French poet read to Malherbe some verses, in which he represents France as moving out of its place to receive the king: "Though this," said Malherbe, "was in my time, I do not remember it."

His poem on the Coronation has a more even tenour of thought. Some lines deserve to be quoted:

You have already quench'd sedition's brand; And zeal, that burnt it, only warms the land; The jealous sects that durst not trust their cause So far from their own will as to the laws, Him for their umpire and their synod take, And their appeal alone to Caesar make.

Here may be found one particle of that old versification, of which, I believe, in all his works, there is not another:

Nor is it duty, or our hope alone, Creates that joy, but full fruition.

In the verses to the lord chancellor Clarendon, two years afterwards, is a conceit so hopeless at the first view, that few would have attempted it; and so successfully laboured, that though, at last, it gives the reader more perplexity than pleasure, and seems hardly worth the study that it costs, yet it must be valued as a proof of a mind at once subtile and comprehensive:

In open prospect nothing bounds our eye, Until the earth seems join'd unto the sky; So in this hemisphere our utmost view Is only bounded by our king and you: Our sight is limited where you are join'd, And beyond that no farther heaven can find. So well your virtues do with his agree, That, though your orbs of different greatness be, Yet both are for each other's use dispos'd, His to enclose, and yours to be enclos'd. Nor could another in your room have been, Except an emptiness had come between.

The comparison of the chancellor to the Indies leaves all resemblance too far behind it:

And as the Indies were not found before Those rich perfumes which from the happy shore The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd, Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd; So by your counsels we are brought to view A new and undiscover'd world in you.

There is another comparison, for there is little else in the poem, of which, though, perhaps, it cannot be explained into plain prosaick meaning, the mind perceives enough to be delighted, and readily forgives its obscurity, for its magnificence:

How strangely active are the arts of peace, Whose restless motions less than wars do cease: Peace is not freed from labour, but from noise; And war more force, but not more pains employs. Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, That, like the earth's, it leaves our sense behind, While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere, That rapid motion does but rest appear. For as in nature's swiftness, with the throng Of flying orbs while ours is borne along, All seems at rest to the deluded eye, Mov'd by the soul of the same harmony: So, carry'd on by your unwearied care, We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.

To this succeed four lines, which, perhaps, afford Dryden's first attempt at those penetrating remarks on human nature, for which he seems to have been peculiarly formed:

Let envy then those crimes within you see, From which the happy never must be free; Envy that does with misery reside, The joy and the revenge of ruin'd pride.

Into this poem he seems to have collected all his powers; and after this he did not often bring upon his anvil such stubborn and unmalleable thoughts; but, as a specimen of his abilities to unite the most unsociable matter, he has concluded with lines, of which I think not myself obliged to tell the meaning:

Yet unimpair'd with labours, or with time, Your age but seems to a new youth to climb. Thus heav'nly bodies do our time beget, And measure change, but share no part of it: And still it shall without a weight increase, Like this new year, whose motions never cease. For since the glorious course you have begun Is led by Charles, as that is by the sun, It must both weightless and immortal prove, Because the centre of it is above.

In the Annus Mirabilis he returned to the quatrain, which from that time he totally quitted, perhaps from experience of its inconvenience, for he complains of its difficulty. This is one of his greatest attempts. He had subjects equal to his abilities, a great naval war, and the fire of London. Battles have always been described in heroick poetry; but a seafight and artillery had yet something of novelty. New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow every thing from their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature, or from life. Boileau was the first French writer that had ever hazarded in verse the mention of modern war, or the effects of gunpowder. We, who are less afraid of novelty, had already possession of those dreadful images: Waller had described a seafight. Milton had not yet transferred the invention of firearms to the rebellious angels.

This poem is written with great diligence, yet does not fully answer the expectation raised by such subjects and such a writer. With the stanza of Davenant, he has sometimes his vein of parenthesis, and incidental disquisition, and stops his narrative for a wise remark.

The general fault is, that he affords more sentiment than description, and does not so much impress scenes upon the fancy, as deduce consequences and make comparisons.

The initial stanzas have rather too much resemblance to the first lines of Waller's poem on the War with Spain; perhaps such a beginning is natural, and could not be avoided without affectation. Both Waller and Dryden might take their hint from the poem on the civil war of Rome: "Orbem jam totum," &c.

Of the king collecting his navy, he says,

It seems, as ev'ry ship their sov'reign knows, His awful summons they so soon obey: So hear the scaly herds when Proteus blows, And so to pasture follow through the sea.

It would not be hard to believe that Dryden had written the two first lines seriously, and that some wag had added the two latter in burlesque. Who would expect the lines that immediately follow, which are, indeed, perhaps indecently hyperbolical, but certainly in a mode totally different:

To see this fleet upon the ocean move, Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies; And heav'n, as if there wanted lights above, For tapers made two glaring comets rise.

The description of the attempt at Bergen will afford a very complete specimen of the descriptions in this poem:

And now approach'd their fleet from India, fraught With all the riches of the rising sun: And precious sand from southern climates brought, The fatal regions where the war begun.

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store, Their waylaid wealth to Norway's coast they bring: Then first the north's cold bosom spices bore, And winter brooded on the eastern spring.

By the rich scent we found our perfum'd prey, Which, flank'd with rocks, did close in covert lie; And round about their murd'ring cannon lay, At once to threaten and invite the eye.

Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard, The English undertake th' unequal war; Sev'n ships alone, by which the port is barr'd, Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those; These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy; And to such height their frantick passion grows, That what both love, both hazard to destroy:

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball, And now their odours arm'd against them fly: Some preciously by shatter'd porc'lain fall, And some by aromatick splinters die.

And though by tempests of the prize bereft, In heav'n's inclemency some ease we find; Our foes we vanquish'd by our valour left, And only yielded to the seas and wind.

In this manner is the sublime too often mingled with the ridiculous. The Dutch seek a shelter for a wealthy fleet: this, surely, needed no illustration; yet they must fly, not like all the rest of mankind on the same occasion, but "like hunted castors;" and they might with strict propriety be hunted; for we winded them by our noses—their perfumes betrayed them. The husband and the lover, though of more dignity than the castor, are images too domestick to mingle properly with the horrours of war. The two quatrains that follow are worthy of the author. The account of the different sensations with which the two fleets retired, when the night parted them, is one of the fairest flowers of English poetry:

The night comes on, we eager to pursue The combat still, and they asham'd to leave: Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew, And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive.

In th' English fleet each ship resounds with joy, And loud applause of their great leader's fame: In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy, And, slumb'ring, smile at the imagin'd flame.

Not so the Holland fleet, who, tir'd and done, Stretch'd on their decks like weary oxen lie; Faint sweats all down their mighty members run, (Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply.)

In dreams they fearful precipices tread, Or, shipwreck'd, labour to some distant shore; Or, in dark churches, walk among the dead: They wake with horrour, and dare sleep no more.

It is a general rule in poetry, that all appropriated terms of art should be sunk in general expressions, because poetry is to speak an universal language. This rule is still stronger with regard to arts not liberal, or confined to few, and, therefore, far removed from common knowledge; and of this kind, certainly, is technical navigation. Yet Dryden was of opinion, that a seafight ought to be described in the nautical language; "and certainly," says he, "as those, who in a logical disputation keep to general terms, would hide a fallacy, so those who do it in any poetical description would veil their ignorance."

Let us then appeal to experience; for by experience, at last, we learn as well what will please as what will profit. In the battle, his terms seem to have been blown away; but he deals them liberally in the dock:

So here some pick out bullets from the side, Some drive old okum through each seam and rift; Their left hand does the calking-iron guide, The rattling mallet with the right they lift.

With boiling pitch another near at hand (From friendly Sweden brought) the seams in-slops: Which, well-laid o'er, the salt sea-waves withstand, And shake them from the rising beak in drops.

Some the gall'd ropes with dauby marling bind, Or sear-cloth masts with strong tarpawling coats; To try new shrouds one mounts into the wind, And one below, their ease or stiffness notes.

I suppose there is not one term which every reader does not wish away[121].

His digression to the original and progress of navigation, with his prospect of the advancement which it shall receive from the Royal Society, then newly instituted, may be considered as an example seldom equalled of seasonable excursion and artful return.

One line, however, leaves me discontented; he says, that, by the help of the philosophers,

Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce, By which remotest regions are allied.

Which he is constrained to explain in a note "by a more exact measure of longitude." It had better become Dryden's learning and genius to have laboured science into poetry, and have shown, by explaining longitude, that verse did not refuse the ideas of philosophy.

His description of the Fire is painted by resolute meditation, out of a mind better formed to reason than to feel. The conflagration of a city, with all its tumults of concomitant distress, is one of the most dreadful spectacles which this world can offer to human eyes; yet it seems to raise little emotion in the breast of the poet; he watches the flame coolly from street to street, with now a reflection, and now a simile, till at last he meets the king, for whom he makes a speech, rather tedious in a time so busy; and then follows again the progress of the fire.

There are, however, in this part some passages that deserve attention; as in the beginning:

The diligence of trades and noiseful gain, And luxury, more late, asleep were laid; All was the night's, and in her silent reign No sound the rest of nature did invade In this deep quiet——

The expression, "all was the night's," is taken from Seneca, who remarks on Virgil's line,

Omnia noctis erant, placida composta quiete,

that he might have concluded better,

Omnia noctis erant.

The following quatrain is vigorous and animated:

The ghosts of traitors from the bridge descend, With hold fanatick spectres to rejoice; About the fire into a dance they bend, And sing their sabbath notes with feeble voice.

His prediction of the improvements which shall be made in the new city is elegant and poetical, and, with an event which poets cannot always boast, has been happily verified. The poem concludes with a simile that might have better been omitted.

Dryden, when he wrote this poem, seems not yet fully to have formed his versification, or settled his system of propriety.

From this time he addicted himself almost wholly to the stage, "to which," says he, "my genius never much inclined me," merely as the most profitable market for poetry. By writing tragedies in rhyme, he continued to improve his diction and his numbers. According to the opinion of Harte, who had studied his works with great attention, he settled his principles of versification in 1676, when he produced the play of Aureng Zebe; and, according to his own account of the short time in which he wrote Tyrannick Love, and the State of Innocence, he soon obtained the full effect of diligence, and added facility to exactness.

Rhyme has been so long banished from the theatre, that we know not its effect upon the passions of an audience; but it has this convenience, that sentences stand more independent on each other, and striking passages are, therefore, easily selected and retained. Thus the description of night in the Indian Emperor, and the rise and fall of empire in the Conquest of Granada, are more frequently repeated than any lines in All for Love, or Don Sebastian.

To search his plays for vigorous sallies and sententious elegancies, or to fix the dates of any little pieces which he wrote by chance, or by solicitation, were labour too tedious and minute.

His dramatick labours did not so wholly absorb his thoughts, but that he promulgated the laws of translation in a preface to the English Epistles of Ovid; one of which he translated himself, and another in conjunction with the earl of Mulgrave.

Absalom and Achitophel is a work so well known, that particular criticism is superfluous. If it be considered as a poem political and controversial, it will be found to comprise all the excellencies of which the subject is susceptible; acrimony of censure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of characters, variety and vigour of sentiment, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to such a height as can scarcely be found in any other English composition.

It is not, however, without faults; some lines are inelegant or improper, and too many are irreligiously licentious. The original structure of the poem was defective; allegories drawn to great length will always break; Charles could not run continually parallel with David.

The subject had likewise another inconvenience; it admitted little imagery or description; and a long poem of mere sentiments easily becomes tedious; though all the parts are forcible, and every line kindles new rapture, the reader, if not relieved by the interposition of something that sooths the fancy, grows weary of admiration, and defers the rest.

As an approach to historical truth was necessary, the action and catastrophe were not in the poet's power; there is, therefore, an unpleasing disproportion between the beginning and the end. We are alarmed by a faction formed out of many sects various in their principles, but agreeing in their purpose of mischief, formidable for their numbers, and strong by their supports, while the king's friends are few and weak. The chiefs on either part are set forth to view; but when expectation is at the height, the king makes a speech, and

Henceforth a series of new times began.

Who can forbear to think of an enchanted castle, with a wide moat and lofty battlements, walls of marble and gates of brass, which vanishes at once into air, when the destined knight blows his horn before it?

In the second part, written by Tate, there is a long insertion, which, for poignancy of satire, exceeds any part of the former. Personal resentment, though no laudable motive to satire, can add great force to general principles. Self-love is a busy prompter.

The Medal, written upon the same principles with Absalom and Achitophel, but upon a narrower plan, gives less pleasure, though it discovers equal abilities in the writer. The superstructure cannot extend beyond the foundation; a single character or incident cannot furnish as many ideas, as a series of events, or multiplicity of agents. This poem, therefore, since time has left it to itself, is not much read, nor, perhaps, generally understood; yet it abounds with touches both of humorous and serious satire. The picture of a man whose propensions to mischief are such, that his best actions are but inability of wickedness, is very skilfully delineated and strongly coloured:

Power was his aim; but, thrown from that pretence, The wretch turn'd loyal in his own defence, And malice reconcil'd him to his prince. Him, in the anguish of his soul, he serv'd; Rewarded faster still than he deserv'd: Behold him now exalted into trust; His counsels oft convenient, seldom just. Ev'n in the most sincere advice he gave, He had a grudging still to be a knave. The frauds he learnt in his fanatick years, Made him uneasy in his lawful gears: At least as little honest as he could; And, like white witches, mischievously good. To this first bias, longingly he leans; And rather would be great by wicked means.

The Threnodia, which, by a term I am afraid neither authorized nor analogical, he calls Augustalis, is not among his happiest productions. Its first and obvious defect is the irregularity of its metre, to which the ears of that age, however, were accustomed. What is worse, it has neither tenderness nor dignity; it is neither magnificent nor pathetick. He seems to look round him for images which he cannot find, and what he has he distorts by endeavouring to enlarge them. "He is," he says, "petrified with grief;" but the marble sometimes relents, and trickles in a joke:

The sons of art all med'cines try'd, And ev'ry noble remedy apply'd:

With emulation each essay'd His utmost skill; nay, more, they prayd; Was never losing game with better conduct play'd.

He had been a little inclined to merriment before upon the prayers of a nation for their dying sovereign; nor was he serious enough to keep heathen fables out of his religion:

With him th' innumerable crowd of armed prayers Knock'd at the gates of heav'n, and knock'd aloud; The first well-meaning rude petitioners All for his life assail'd the throne; All would have brib'd the skies by off'ring up their own. So great a throng not heav'n itself could bar; 'Twas almost borne by force, as in the giants' war. The pray'rs, at least, for his reprieve were heard: His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferr'd.

There is, throughout the composition, a desire of splendour without wealth. In the conclusion he seems too much pleased with the prospect of the new reign to have lamented his old master with much sincerity.

He did not miscarry in this attempt for want of skill either in lyrick or elegiack poetry. His poem on the death of Mrs. Killigrew is, undoubtedly, the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows with a torrent of enthusiasm: "Fervet immensusque ruit." All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one continued diamond; the gems must be held together by some less valuable matter.

In his first ode for Cecilia's day, which is lost in the splendour of the second, there are passages which would have dignified any other poet. The first stanza is vigorous and elegant, though the word diapason is too technical, and the rhymes are too remote from one another:

From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high. Arise, ye more than dead.

Then cold and hot, and moist and dry, In order to their stations leap, And musick's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began; From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man.

The conclusion is likewise striking; but it includes an image so awful in itself, that it can owe little to poetry; and I could wish the antithesis of musick untuning had found some other place:

As from the power of sacred lays The spheres began to move. And sung the great creator's praise To all the bless'd above:

So, when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And musick shall untune the sky.

Of his skill in elegy he has given a specimen in his Eleonora, of which the following lines discover their author:

Though all these rare endowments of the mind Were in a narrow space of life confin'd, The figure was with full perfection crown'd; Though not so large an orb, as truly round: As when in glory, through the publick place, The spoils of conquer'd nations were to pass, And but one day for triumph was allow'd, The consul was constrain'd his pomp to crowd; And so the swift procession hurry'd on, That all, tho' not distinctly, might be shown; So, in the straiten'd bounds of life confin'd, She gave but glimpses of her glorious mind: And multitudes of virtues pass'd along; Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng, Ambitious to be seen, and then make room For greater multitudes that were to come.

Yet unemployed no minute slipp'd away; Moments were precious in so short a stay. The haste of heaven to have her was so great, That some were single acts, though each complete; And ev'ry act stood ready to repeat.

This piece, however, is not without its faults; there is so much likeness in the initial comparison, that there is no illustration. As a king would be lamented, Eleonora was lamented:

As, when some great and gracious monarch dies, Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs rise Among the sad attendants; then the sound Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around, Through town and country, till the dreadful blast Is blown to distant colonies at last; Who then, perhaps, were off'ring vows in vain, For his long life, and for his happy reign: So slowly, by degrees, unwilling fame Did matchless Eleonora's fate proclaim, Till publick as the loss the news became.

This is little better than to say in praise of a shrub, that it is as green as a tree; or of a brook, that it waters a garden, as a river waters a country.

Dryden confesses that he did not know the lady whom he celebrates: the praise being, therefore, inevitably general, fixes no impression upon the reader, nor excites any tendency to love, nor much desire of imitation. Knowledge of the subject is to the poet what durable materials are to the architect.

The Religio Laici, which borrows its title from the Religio Medici of Browne, is almost the only work of Dryden which can be considered as a voluntary effusion; in this, therefore, it might be hoped, that the full effulgence of his genius would be found. But, unhappily, the subject is rather argumentative than poetical; he intended only a specimen of metrical disputation:

And this unpolish'd rugged verse I chose As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose.

This, however, is a composition of great excellence in its kind, in which the familiar is very properly diversified with the solemn, and the grave with the humorous; in which metre has neither weakened the force, nor clouded the perspicuity of argument; nor will it be easy to find another example equally happy of this middle kind of writing, which, though prosaick in some parts, rises to high poetry in others, and neither towers to the skies, nor creeps along the ground.

Of the same kind, or not far distant from it, is the Hind and Panther, the longest of all Dryden's original poems; an allegory intended to comprise and to decide the controversy between the Romanists and protestants. The scheme of the work is injudicious and incommodious; for what can be more absurd, than that one beast should counsel another to rest her faith upon a pope and council? He seems well enough skilled in the usual topicks of argument, endeavours to show the necessity of an infallible judge, and reproaches the reformers with want of unity; but is weak enough to ask, why, since we see without knowing how, we may not have an infallible judge without knowing where?

The hind, at one time, is afraid to drink at the common brook, because she may be worried; but, walking home with the panther, talks by the way of the Nicene fathers, and at last declares herself to be the catholick church.

This absurdity was very properly ridiculed in the City Mouse and Country Mouse of Montague and Prior; and, in the detection and censure of the incongruity of the fiction, chiefly consists the value of their performance, which, whatever reputation it might obtain by the help of temporary passions, seems, to readers almost a century distant, not very forcible or animated.

Pope, whose judgment was, perhaps, a little bribed by the subject, used to mention this poem as the most correct specimen of Dryden's versification. It was, indeed, written when he had completely formed his manner, and may be supposed to exhibit, negligence excepted, his deliberate and ultimate scheme of metre. We may, therefore, reasonably infer, that he did not approve the perpetual uniformity which confines the sense to couplets, since he has broken his lines in the initial paragraph:

A milk-white hind, immortal and unchang'd. Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd: Without unspotted, innocent within, She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin. Yet had she oft been chas'd with horns and hounds, And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds Aim'd at her heart; was often forc'd to fly, And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.

These lines are lofty, elegant, and musical, notwithstanding the interruption of the pause, of which the effect is rather increase of pleasure by variety, than offence by ruggedness.

To the first part it was his intention, he says, "to give the majestick turn of heroick poesy;" and, perhaps, he might have executed his design not unsuccessfully, had not an opportunity of satire, which he cannot forbear, fallen sometimes in his way. The character of a presbyterian, whose emblem is the wolf, is not very heroically majestick:

More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race Appear with belly gaunt and famish'd face: Never was so deform'd a beast of grace. His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears, Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears, And pricks up his predestinating ears.

His general character of the other sorts of beasts that never go to church, though sprightly and keen, has, however, not much of heroick poesy:

These are the chief; to number o'er the rest, And stand like Adam naming ev'ry beast, Were weary work; nor will the muse describe A slimy-born, and sun-begotten tribe,

Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound, In fields their sullen conventicles found. These gross, half-animated lumps I leave; Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive; But, if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher Than matter, put in motion, may aspire; Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay, So drossy, so divisible are they, As would but serve pure bodies for allay: Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things As only buzz to heaven with evening wings; Strike in the dark, offending but by chance; Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance. They know no being, and but hate a name; To them the hind and panther are the same.

One more instance, and that taken from the narrative part, where style was more in his choice, will show how steadily he kept his resolution of heroick dignity:

For when the herd, suffic'd, did late repair To ferny heaths and to their forest lair, She made a mannerly excuse to stay, Proff'ring the hind to wait her half the way; That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk Might help her to beguile the tedious walk. With much good-will the motion was embrac'd, To chat awhile on their adventures past: Nor had the grateful hind so soon forgot Her friend and fellow-suff'rer in the plot. Yet, wond'ring how of late she grew estrang'd, Her forehead cloudy and her count'nance chang'd, She thought this hour th' occasion would present To learn her secret cause of discontent, Which well she hop'd might be with ease redress'd, Consid'ring her a well-bred civil beast. And more a gentlewoman than the rest. After some common talk what rumours ran, The lady of the spotted muff began.

The second and third parts he professes to have reduced to diction more familiar and more suitable to dispute and conversation; the difference is not, however, very easily perceived; the first has familiar, and the two others have sonorous, lines. The original incongruity runs through the whole: the king is now Caesar, and now the Lion; and the name Pan is given to the supreme being.

But when this constitutional absurdity is forgiven, the poem must be confessed to be written with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images; the controversy is embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and enlivened by sallies of invective. Some of the facts to which allusions are made are now become obscure, and, perhaps, there may be many satirical passages little understood.

As it was by its nature a work of defiance, a composition which would naturally be examined with the utmost acrimony of criticism, it was probably laboured with uncommon attention; and there are, indeed, few negligencies in the subordinate parts. The original impropriety, and the subsequent unpopularity of the subject, added to the ridiculousness of its first elements, has sunk it into neglect; but it may be usefully studied, as an example of poetical ratiocination, in which the argument suffers little from the metre.

In the poem on the Birth of the Prince of Wales, nothing is very remarkable but the exorbitant adulation, and that insensibility of the precipice on which the king was then standing, which the laureate apparently shared with the rest of the courtiers. A few months cured him of controversy, dismissed him from court, and made him again a playwright and translator.

Of Juvenal there had been a translation by Stapylton, and another by Holiday; neither of them is very poetical. Stapylton is more smooth; and Holiday's is more esteemed for the learning of his notes. A new version was proposed to the poets of that time, and undertaken by them in conjunction. The main design was conducted by Dryden, whose reputation was such that no man was unwilling to serve the muses under him.

The general character of this translation will be given when it is said to preserve the wit, but to want the dignity of the original. The peculiarity of Juvenal is a mixture of gaiety and stateliness, of pointed sentences and declamatory grandeur. His points have not been neglected; but his grandeur none of the band seemed to consider as necessary to be imitated, except Creech, who undertook the thirteenth satire. It is, therefore, perhaps, possible to give a better representation of that great satirist, even in those parts which Dryden himself has translated, some passages excepted, which will never be excelled.

With Juvenal was published Persius, translated wholly by Dryden. This work, though like all the other productions of Dryden it may have shining parts, seems to have been written merely for wages, in an uniform mediocrity without any eager endeavour after excellence, or laborious effort of the mind.

There wanders an opinion among the readers of poetry that one of these satires is an exercise of the school. Dryden says, that he once translated it at school; but not that he preserved or published the juvenile performance.

Not long afterwards he undertook, perhaps, the most arduous work of its kind, a translation of Virgil, for which he had shown how well he was qualified, by his version of the Pollio, and two episodes, one of Nisus and Euryalus, the other of Mezentius and Lausus.

In the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the discriminative excellence of Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, and that of Virgil is grace and splendour of diction. The beauties of Homer are, therefore, difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained. The massy trunk of sentiment is safe by its solidity, but the blossoms of elocution easily drop away. The author, having the choice of his own images, selects those which he can best adorn; the translator must, at all hazards, follow his original, and express thoughts which, perhaps, he would not have chosen. When to this primary difficulty is added the inconvenience of a language so much inferiour in harmony to the Latin, it cannot be expected that they who read the Georgicks and the Aeneid should be much delighted with any version.

All these obstacles Dryden saw, and all these he determined to encounter. The expectation of his work was undoubtedly great; the nation considered its honour as interested in the event. One gave him the different editions of his author, and another helped him in the subordinate parts. The arguments of the several books were given him by Addison.

The hopes of the publick were riot disappointed. He produced, says Pope, "the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language." It certainly excelled whatever had appeared in English, and appears to have satisfied his friends, and, for the most part, to have silenced his enemies. Milbourne, indeed, a clergyman, attacked it; but his outrages seem to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than bad poetry can excite, and previously resolved not to be pleased.

His criticism extends only to the Preface, Pastorals, and Georgicks; and, as he professes to give his antagonist an opportunity of reprisal, he has added his own version of the first and fourth Pastorals, and the first Georgick. The world has forgotten his book; but, since his attempt has given him a place in literary history, I will preserve a specimen of his criticism, by inserting his remarks on the invocation before the first Georgick, and of his poetry, by annexing his own version.

Ver. 1.

"What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn.

"It's unlucky, they say, to stumble at the threshold: but what has a plenteous harvest to do here? Virgil would not pretend to prescribe rules for that which depends not on the husbandman's care, but the disposition of heaven altogether. Indeed, the plenteous crop depends somewhat on the good method of tillage; and where the _land'_s ill-manur'd, the corn, without a miracle, can be but indifferent; but the harvest may be good, which is its properest epithet, tho' the husbandman's skill were never so indifferent. The next sentence is too literal: and when to plough had been Virgil's meaning, and intelligible to every body; and when to sow the corn, is a needless addition.

Ver. 3.

"The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine, And when to geld the lambs, and shear the swine,

"would as well have fallen under the cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit pecori, as Mr. D.'s deduction of particulars.

Ver. 5

"The birth and genius of the frugal bee I sing, Maecenas, and I sing to thee.

"But where did experientia ever signify birth andgenius? or what ground was there for such a figure in this place? How much more manly is Mr. Ogylby's version?

"What makes rich grounds, in what celestial signs 'Tis good to plough, and marry elms with vines: What best fits cattle, what with sheep agrees, And several arts improving frugal bees; I sing, Maecenas.

"Which four lines, though faulty enough, are yet much more to the purpose than Mr. D.'s six.

Ver. 22.

"From fields and mountains to my song repair.

"For patrium linquens nemus, saltusque Lycaei—Very well explained!

Ver. 23, 24.

"Inventor Pallas, of the fatt'ning oil, Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman's toil!

"Written as if these had been Pallas's invention. The ploughman's toil's impertinent.

Ver. 25.

"The shroud-like cypress——

"Why shroud-like? Is a cypress pulled up by the roots, which the sculpture in the last Eclogue fills Silvanus's hand with, so very like a shroud? Or did not Mr. D. think of that kind of cypress used often for scarves and hatbands, at funerals formerly, or for widows' veils, &c. ? If so, 'twas a deep, good thought.

Ver. 26.

"That wear The royal honours, and increase the year.

"What's meant by increasing the year? Did the gods or goddesses add more months, or days, or hours, to it? Or how can arva tueri signify to wear rural honours? Is this to translate, or abuse an author? The next couplet is borrowed from Ogylby, I suppose, because less to the purpose than ordinary.

Ver. 33.

"The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard.

"Idle, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense of the precedent couplet; so again, he interpolates Virgil with that and the round circle of the year to guide powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st around; a ridiculous Latinism, and an impertinent addition; indeed the whole period is but one piece of absurdity and nonsense, as those who lay it with the original must find.

Ver. 42, 43.

"And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.

"Was he consul or dictator there?

"And wat'ry virgins for thy bed shall strive.

"Both absurd interpolations."

Ver. 47, 48.

"Where in the void of heaven a place is free.

"Ah, happy D——n, were that place for thee!

"But where is that void? Or, what does our translator mean by it? He knows what Ovid says God did to prevent such a void in heaven; perhaps this was then forgotten: but Virgil talks more sensibly.

Ver. 49.

"The scorpion ready to receive thy laws.

"No, he would not then have gotten out of his way so fast.

Ver. 56.

"Though Proserpine affects her silent seat.

"What made her then so angry with Ascalaphus, for preventing her return? She was now mus'd to Patience under the determinations of Fate, rather than fond of her residence,

Ver. 61, 62, 63.

"Pity the poet's and the ploughman's cares, Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs, And use thyself betimes to hear our prayers.

"Which is such a wretched perversion of Virgil's noble thought as Vicars would have blushed at; but Mr. Ogylby makes us some amends, by his better lines:

"O, wheresoe'er thou art, from thence incline, And grant assistance to my bold design! Pity, with me, poor husbandmen's affairs, And now, as if translated, hear our prayers.

"This is sense, and to the purpose: the other, poor mistaken stuff."

Such were the strictures of Milbourne, who found few abetters, and of whom it may be reasonably imagined, that many who favoured his design were ashamed of his insolence.

When admiration had subsided, the translation was more coolly examined, and found, like all others, to be sometimes erroneous, and sometimes licentious. Those who could find faults, thought they could avoid them; and Dr. Brady attempted, in blank verse, a translation of the Aeneid, which, when dragged into the world, did not live long enough to cry, I have never seen it; but that such a version there is, or has been, perhaps some old catalogue informed me.

With not much better success, Trapp, when his Tragedy and his Prelections had given him reputation, attempted another blank version of the Aeneid; to which, notwithstanding the slight regard with which it was treated, he had afterwards perseverance enough to add the Eclogues and Georgicks. His book may continue its existence as long as it is the clandestine refuge of schoolboys.

Since the English ear has been accustomed to the mellifluence of Pope's numbers, and the diction of poetry has become more splendid, new attempts have been made to translate Virgil; and all his works have been attempted by men better qualified to contend with Dryden. I will not engage myself in an invidious comparison by opposing one passage to another; a work of which there would be no end, and which might be often offensive without use.

It is not by comparing line with line, that the merit of great works is to be estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate result. It is easy to note a weak line, and write one more vigorous in its place; to find a happiness of expression in the original, and transplant it by force into the version: but what is given to the parts may be subducted from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the critick may commend. Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain, which the reader throws away. He only is the master, who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day [122].

By his proportion of this predomination I will consent that Dryden should be tried; of this, which, in opposition to reason, makes Ariosto the darling and the pride of Italy; of this, which, in defiance of criticism, continues Shakespeare the sovereign of the drama.

His last work was his Fables, in which he gave us the first example of a mode of writing, which the Italians call refaccimento, a renovation of ancient writers, by modernizing their language. Thus the old poem of Boiardo has been new dressed by Domenichi and Berni. The works of Chaucer, upon which this kind of rejuvenescence has been bestowed by Dryden, require little criticism. The tale of the Cock seems hardly worth revival; and the story of Palamon and Arcite, containing an action unsuitable to the times in which it is placed, can hardly be suffered to pass without censure of the hyperbolical commendation which Dryden has given it in the general preface, and in a poetical dedication, a piece where his original fondness of remote conceits seems to have revived.

Of the three pieces borrowed from Boccace, Sigismunda may be defended by the celebrity of the story. Theodore and Honoria, though it contains not much moral, yet afforded opportunities of striking description. And Cymon was formerly a tale of such reputation, that, at the revival of letters, it was translated into Latin by one of the Beroalds.

Whatever subjects employed his pen, he was still improving our measures and embellishing our language.

In this volume are interspersed some short original poems, which, with his prologues, epilogues, and songs, may be comprised in Congreve's remark, that even those, if he had written nothing else, would have entitled him to the praise of excellence in his kind.

One composition must, however, be distinguished. The ode for St. Cecilia's Day, perhaps the last effort of his poetry, has been always considered as exhibiting the highest flight of fancy, and the exactest nicety of art. This is allowed to stand without a rival. If, indeed, there is any excellence beyond it, in some other of Dryden's works, that excellence must be found. Compared with the ode on Killigrew, it may be pronounced, perhaps, superiour in the whole; but without any single part equal to the first stanza of the other.

It is said to have cost Dryden a fortnight's labour; but it does not want its negligences: some of the lines are without correspondent rhymes; a defect, which I never detected, but after an acquaintance of many years, and which the enthusiasm of the writer might hinder him from perceiving.

His last stanza has less emotion than the former; but it is not less elegant in the diction. The conclusion is vitious; the musick of Timotheus, which "raised a mortal to the skies," had only a metaphorical power; that of Cecilia, which "drew an angel down," had a real effect: the crown, therefore, could not reasonably be divided.

In a general survey of Dryden's labours, he appears to have a mind very comprehensive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compositions are the effects of a vigorous genius operating upon large materials.

The power that predominated in his intellectual operations, was rather strong reason than quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were presented, he studied rather than felt, and produced sentiments not such as nature enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental passions, as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted; and seldom describes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of society, and confused in the tumults and agitations of life.

What he says of love may contribute to the explanation of his character:

Love various minds does variously inspire; It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire, Like that of incense on the altar laid; But raging flames tempestuous souls invade:

A fire which ev'ry windy passion blows, With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows.

Dryden's was not one of the "gentle bosoms:" love, as it subsists in itself, with no tendency but to the person loved, and wishing only for correspondent kindness; such love as shuts out all other interest; the love of the golden age, was too soft and subtile to put his faculties in motion. He hardly conceived it but in its turbulent effervescence with some other desires; when it was inflamed by rivalry, or obstructed by difficulties: when it invigorated ambition, or exasperated revenge.

He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetick; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure; and, for the first part of his life, he looked on Otway with contempt, though, at last, indeed very late, he confessed that in his play "there was nature, which is the chief beauty."

We do not always know our own motives. I am not certain whether it was not rather the difficulty which he found in exhibiting the genuine operations of the heart, than a servile submission to an injudicious audience, that filled his plays with false magnificence. It was necessary to fix attention; and the mind can be captivated only by recollection, or by curiosity; by reviving natural sentiments, or impressing new appearances of things. Sentences were readier at his call than images; he could more easily fill the ear with some splendid novelty, than awaken those ideas that slumber in the heart.

The favourite exercise of his mind was ratiocination; and, that argument might not be too soon at an end, he delighted to talk of liberty and necessity, destiny and contingence; these he discusses in the language of the school with so much profundity, that the terms which he uses are not always understood. It is, indeed, learning, but learning out of place.

When once he had engaged himself in disputation, thoughts flowed in on either side: he was now no longer at a loss; he had always objections and solutions at command; "verbaque provisam rem"—give him matter for his verse, and he finds, without difficulty, verse for his matter.

In comedy, for which he professes himself not naturally qualified, the mirth which he excites will, perhaps, not be found so much to arise from any original humour, or peculiarity of character nicely distinguished and diligently pursued, as from incidents and circumstances, artifices and surprises; from jests of action rather than of sentiment. What he had of humorous or passionate, he seems to have had not from nature, but from other poets; if not always as a plagiary, at least as an imitator.

Next to argument, his delight was in wild and daring sallies of sentiment, in the irregular and eccentrick violence of wit. He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning, where light and darkness begin to mingle; to approach the precipice of absurdity, and hover over the abyss of unideal vacancy. This inclination sometimes produced nonsense, which he knew; as,

Move swiftly, sun, and fly a lover's pace, Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race. Amamel flies To guard thee from the demons of the air; My flaming sword above them to display, All keen, and ground upon the edge of day.

And sometimes it issued in absurdities, of which, perhaps, he was not conscious:

Then we upon our orb's last verge shall go, And see the ocean leaning on the sky; From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry.

These lines have no meaning; but may we not say, in imitation of Cowley on another book,

'Tis so like sense 'twill serve the turn as well?

This endeavour after the grand and the new, produced sentiments either great or bulky, and many images either just or splendid:

I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

—'Tis but because the living death ne'er knew, They fear to prove it, as a thing that's new: Let me th' experiment before you try, I'll show you first how easy 'tis to die.

—There with a forest of their darts he strove, And stood like Capaneus defying Jove, With his broad sword the boldest beating down, While fate grew pale, lest he should win the town, And turn'd the iron leaves of his dark book To make new dooms, or mend what it mistook.

—I beg no pity for this mouldering clay; For if you give it burial, there it takes Possession of your earth; If burnt, and scatter'd in the air, the winds That strew my dust diffuse my royalty, And spread me o'er your clime; for where one atom Of mine shall light, know there Sebastian reigns.

Of these quotations the two first may be allowed to be great, the two latter only tumid.

Of such selection there is no end. I will add only a few more passages; of which the first, though it may, perhaps, not be quite clear in prose, is not too obscure for poetry, as the meaning that it has is noble[123]:

No, there is a necessity in fate, Why still the brave bold man is fortunate;

He keeps his object ever full in sight; And that assurance holds him firm and right; True, 'tis a narrow way that leads to bliss, But right before there is no precipice; Fear makes men look aside, and so their footing miss.

Of the images which the two following citations afford, the first is elegant, the second magnificent; whether either be just, let the reader judge:

What precious drops are these, Which silently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?

Resign your castle——

—Enter, brave sir; for, when you speak the word, The gates shall open of their own accord; The genius of the place its lord shall meet, And bow its tow'ry forehead at your feet.

These bursts of extravagance, Dryden calls the "Dalilahs" of the theatre; and owns that many noisy lines of Maximin and Almanzor call out for vengeance upon him: "but I knew," says he, "that they were bad enough to please, even when I wrote them." There is, surely, reason to suspect that he pleased himself, as well as his audience; and that these, like the harlots of other men, had his love, though not his approbation.

He had, sometimes, faults of a less generous and splendid kind. He makes, like almost all other poets, very frequent use of mythology, and sometimes connects religion and fable too closely without distinction.

He descends to display his knowledge with pedantick ostentation; as when, in translating Virgil, he says, "tack to the larboard,"—and "veer starboard;" and talks, in another work, of "virtue spooning before the wind."—His vanity now and then betrays his ignorance:

They nature's king through nature's opticks view'd; Revers'd, they view'd him lessen'd to their eyes.

He had heard of reversing a telescope, and unluckily reverses the object. He is, sometimes, unexpectedly mean. When he describes the supreme being as moved by prayer to stop the fire of London, what is his expression?

A hollow crystal pyramid he takes, In firmamental waters dipp'd above, Of this a broad extinguisher he makes, And hoods the flames that to their quarry strove.

When he describes the last day, and the decisive tribunal, he intermingles this image:

When rattling bones together fly, From the four quarters of the sky.

It was, indeed, never in his power to resist the temptation of a jest. In his elegy on Cromwell:

No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embrac'd, Than the light monsieur the grave don outweigh'd; His fortune turn'd the scale——

He had a vanity, unworthy of his abilities, to show, as may be suspected, the rank of the company with whom he lived, by the use of French words, which had then crept into conversation; such as fraicheur for coolness, fougue for turbulence, and a few more, none of which the language has incorporated or retained. They continue only where they stood first, perpetual warnings to future innovators.

These are his faults of affectation; his faults of negligence are beyond recital. Such is the unevenness of his compositions, that ten lines are seldom found together without something of which the reader is ashamed. Dryden was no rigid judge of his own pages; he seldom struggled after supreme excellence, but snatched in haste what was within his reach; and when he could content others, was himself contented. He did not keep present to his mind an idea of pure perfection; nor compare his works, such as they were, with what they might be made. He knew to whom he should be opposed. He had more musick than Waller, more vigour than Donham, and more nature than Cowley; and from his contemporaries he was in no danger. Standing, therefore, in the highest place, he had no care to rise by contending with himself; but while there was no name above his own, was willing to enjoy fame on the easiest terms.

He was no lover of labour. What he thought sufficient, he did not stop to make better; and allowed himself to leave many parts unfinished, in confidence that the good lines would overbalance the bad. What he had once written, he dismissed from his thoughts; and, I believe, there is no example to be found of any correction or improvement made by him after publication. The hastiness of his productions might be the effect of necessity; but his subsequent neglect could hardly have any other cause than impatience of study.