Act 5 — DRYDEN[92]. (continued 3)

What can be said of his versification, will be little more than a dilatation of the praise given it by Pope:

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full resounding line, The long majestick march, and energy divine.

Some improvements had been already made in English numbers; but the full force of our language was not yet felt; the verse that was smooth was commonly feeble. If Cowley had sometimes a finished line, he had it by chance. Dryden knew how to choose the flowing and the sonorous words; to vary the pauses, and adjust the accents; to diversify the cadence, and yet preserve the smoothness of his metre.

Of triplets and alexandrines, though he did not introduce the use, he established it. The triplet has long subsisted among us. Dryden seems not to have traced it higher than to Chapman's Homer; but it is to be found in Phaer's Virgil, written in the reign of Mary; and in Hall's Satires, published five years before the death of Elizabeth.

The alexandrine was, I believe, first used by Spenser, for the sake of closing his stanza with a fuller sound. We had a longer measure of fourteen syllables, into which the Aeneid was translated by Phaer, and other works of the ancients by other writers; of which Chapman's Iliad was, I believe, the last.

The two first lines of Phaer's third Aeneid will exemplify this measure:

When Asia's state was overthrown, and Priam's kingdom stout, All guiltless, by the power of gods above was rooted out.

As these lines had their break, or caesura, always at the eighth syllable, it was thought, in time, commodious to divide them: and quatrains of lines, alternately, consisting of eight and six syllables, make the most soft and pleasing of our lyrick measures; as,

Relentless time, destroying pow'r, Which stone and brass obey, Who giv'st to ev'ry flying hour To work some new decay.

In the alexandrine, when its power was once felt, some poems, as Drayton's Polyolbion, were wholly written; and sometimes the measures of twelve and fourteen syllables were interchanged with one another. Cowley was the first that inserted the alexandrine at pleasure among the heroick lines of ten syllables, and from him Dryden professes to have adopted it[124].

The triplet and alexandrine are not universally approved. Swift always censured them, and wrote some lines to ridicule them. In examining their propriety, it is to be considered that the essence of verse is regularity, and its ornament is variety. To write verse, is to dispose syllables and sounds harmonically by some known and settled rule; a rule, however, lax enough to substitute similitude for identity, to admit change without breach of order, and to relieve the ear without disappointing it. Thus a Latin hexameter is formed from dactyls and spondees, differently combined; the English heroick admits of acute or grave syllables, variously disposed. The Latin never deviates into seven feet, or exceeds the number of seventeen syllables; but the English alexandrine breaks the lawful bounds, and surprises the reader with two syllables more than he expected.

The effect of the triplet is the same: the ear has been accustomed to expect a new rhyme in every couplet; but is on a sudden surprised with three rhymes together, to which the reader could not accommodate his voice, did he not obtain notice of the change from the braces of the margins. Surely there is something unskilful in the necessity of such mechanical direction.

Considering the metrical art simply as a science, and, consequently, excluding all casualty, we must allow that triplets and alexandrines, inserted by caprice, are interruptions of that constancy to which science aspires. And though the variety which they produce may very justly be desired, yet, to make our poetry exact, there ought to be some stated mode of admitting them.

But till some such regulation can be formed, I wish them still to be retained in their present state. They are sometimes grateful to the reader, and sometimes convenient to the poet. Fenton was of opinion, that Dryden was too liberal, and Pope too sparing, in their use.

The rhymes of Dryden are commonly just, and he valued himself for his readiness in finding them; but he is sometimes open to objection.

It is the common practice of our poets to end the second line with a weak or grave syllable:

Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly, Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy.

Dryden sometimes puts the weak rhyme in the first:

Laugh all the powers that favour tyranny, And all the standing army of the sky.

Sometimes he concludes a period or paragraph with the first line of a couplet, which, though the French seem to do it without irregularity, always displeases in English poetry.

The alexandrine, though much his favourite, is not always very diligently fabricated by him. It invariably requires a break at the sixth syllable; a rule which the modern French poets never violate, but which Dryden sometimes neglected:

And with paternal thunder vindicates his throne.

Of Dryden's works it was said by Pope, that he "could select from them better specimens of every mode of poetry than any other English writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion, of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. By him we are taught "sapere et fari," to think naturally and express forcibly. Though Davies has reasoned in rhyme before him, it may be, perhaps, maintained that he was the first who joined argument with poetry. He showed us the true bounds of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome, adorned by Augustus, may be applied by an easy metaphor to English poetry, embellished by Dryden, "lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit." He found it brick, and he left it marble.

The invocation before the Georgicks is here inserted from Mr. Milbourne's version, that, according to his own proposal, his verses may be compared with those which he censures:

What makes the richest tilth, beneath what signs To plough, and when to match your elms and vines;

What care with flocks, and what with herds agrees, And all the management of frugal bees; I sing, Maecenas! Ye immensely clear, Vast orbs of light, which guide the rolling year; Bacchus, and mother Ceres, if by you We fatt'ning corn for hungry mast pursue, If, taught by you, we first the cluster prest, And thin cold streams with sprightly juice refresht; Ye fawns, the present numens of the field, Wood nymphs and fawns, your kind assistance yield; Your gifts I sing! And thou, at whose fear'd stroke From rending earth the fiery courser broke, Great Neptune, O assist my artful song! And thou to whom the woods and groves belong, Whose snowy heifers on her flow'ry plains In mighty herds the Caean isle maintains! Pan, happy shepherd, if thy cares divine E'er to improve thy Maenalas incline, Leave thy Lycaean wood and native grove, And with thy lucky smiles our work approve! Be Pallas too, sweet oil's inventor, kind; And he who first the crooked plough design'd! Sylvanus, god of all the woods, appear, Whose hands a new-drawn tender cypress bear! Ye gods and goddesses, who e'er with love Would guard our pastures and our fields improve! You, who new plants from unknown lands supply, And with condensing clouds obscure the sky, And drop 'em softly thence in fruitful show'rs; Assist my enterprise, ye gentler pow'rs!

And thou, great Caesar! though we know not yet Among what gods thou'lt fix thy lofty seat; Whether thou'lt be the kind tutelar god Of thy own Rome; or with thy awful nod Guide the vast world, while thy great hand shall bear The fruits and seasons of the turning year, And thy bright brows thy mother's myrtles wear; Whether thou'lt all the boundless ocean sway, And seamen only to thyself shall pray, Thule, the farthest island, kneel to thee, And, that thou may'st her son by marriage be,

Tethys will for the happy purchase yield To make a dowry of her wat'ry field; Whether thou'lt add to heaven a brighter sign, And o'er the summer months serenely shine; Where between Cancer and Erigone, There yet remains a spacious room for thee; Where the hot Scorpion too his arms declines, And more to thee than half his arch resigns; Whate'er thou'lt be; for sure the realms below No just pretence to thy command can show: No such ambition sways thy vast desires, Though Greece her own Elysian fields admires. And now, at last, contented Proserpine Can all her mother's earnest pray'rs decline. Whate'er thou'lt be, O guide our gentle course; And with thy smiles our bold attempts enforce; With me th' unknowing rustics' wants relieve, And, though on earth, our sacred vows receive!

Mr. Dryden, having received from Rymer his Remarks on the Tragedies of the last Age, wrote observations on the blank leaves; which, having been in the possession of Mr. Garrick, are, by his favour, communicated to the publick, that no particle of Dryden may be lost:

"That we may the less wonder why pity and terrour are not now the only springs on which our tragedies move, and that Shakespeare may be more excused, Rapin confesses that the French tragedies, now all run on the tendre; and gives the reason, because love is the passion which most predominates in our souls, and that, therefore, the passions represented become insipid, unless they are conformable to the thoughts of the audience. But it is to be concluded, that this passion works not now amongst the French so strongly as the other two did amongst the ancients. Amongst us, who have a stronger genius for writing, the operations from the writing are much stronger; for the raising of Shakespeare's passions is more from the excellency of the words and thoughts, than the justness of the occasion; and if he has been able to pick single occasions, he has never founded the whole reasonably: yet, by the genius of poetry in writing, he has succeeded.

"Rapin attributes more to the dictio, that is, to the words and discourse of a tragedy, than Aristotle has done, who places them in the last rank of beauties; perhaps, only last in order, because they are the last product of the design, of the disposition or connexion of its parts; of the characters, of the manners of those characters, and of the thoughts proceeding from those manners. Rapin's words are remarkable: 'Tis not the admirable intrigue, the surprising events, and extraordinary incidents, that make the beauty of a tragedy; 'tis the discourses, when they are natural and passionate: so are Shakespeare's.

"The parts of a poem, tragick or heroick, are,

"1. The fable itself.

"2. The order or manner of its contrivance, in relation of the parts to the whole.

"3. The manners, or decency, of the characters, in speaking or acting what is proper for them, and proper to be shown by the poet.

"4. The thoughts which express the manners.

"5. The words which express those thoughts.

"In the last of these Homer excels Virgil; Virgil all other ancient poets; and Shakespeare all modern poets.

"For the second of these, the order: the meaning is, that a fable ought to have a beginning, middle, and an end, all just and natural; so that that part, e.g. which is the middle, could not naturally be the beginning or end, and so of the rest: all depend on one another, like the links of a curious chain. If terrour and pity are only to be raised, certainly this author follows Aristotle's rules, and Sophocles' and Euripides' example: but joy may be raised too, and that doubly, either by seeing a wicked man punished, or a good man at last fortunate; or, perhaps, indignation, to see wickedness prosperous, and goodness depressed: both these may be profitable to the end of tragedy, reformation of manners; but the last improperly, only as it begets pity in the audience: though Aristotle, I confess, places tragedies of this kind in the second form.

"He who undertakes to answer this excellent critique of Mr. Rymer, in behalf of our English poets against the Greek, ought to do it in this manner: either by yielding to him the greatest part of what he contends for, which consists in this, that the 'mithos', i. e. the design and conduct of it, is more conducing in the Greeks to those ends of tragedy, which Aristotle and he propose, namely, to cause terrour and pity; yet the granting this does not set the Greeks above the English poets.

"But the answerer ought to prove two things: first, that the fable is not the greatest masterpiece of a tragedy, though it be the foundation of it.

"Secondly, that other ends, as suitable to the nature of tragedy, may be found in the English, which were not in the Greek.

"Aristotle places the fable first; not 'quoad dignitatem, sed quoad fundamentum:' for a fable, never so movingly contrived to those ends of his, pity and terrour, will operate nothing on our affections, except the characters, manners, thoughts, and words, are suitable.

"So that it remains for Mr. Rymer to prove, that in all those, or the greatest part of them, we are inferiour to Sophocles and Euripides: and this he has offered at, in some measure; but, I think, a little partially to the ancients.

"For the fable itself, 'tis in the English more adorned with episodes, and larger than in the Greek poets; consequently more diverting. For, if the action be but one, and that plain, without any counterturn of design or episode, i.e. underplot, how can it be so pleasing as the English, which have both underplot and a turned design, which keeps the audience in expectation of the catastrophe? whereas in the Greek poets we see through the whole design at first.

"For the characters, they are neither so many nor so various in Sophocles and Euripides, as in Shakespeare and Fletcher; only they are more adapted to those ends of tragedy which Aristotle commends to us, pity and terrour.

"The manners flow from the characters, and, consequently, must partake of their advantages and disadvantages.

"The thoughts and words, which are the fourth and fifth beauties of tragedy, are certainly more noble and more poetical in the English than in the Greek, which must be proved by comparing them somewhat more equitably than Mr. Rymer has done.

"After all, we need not yield, that the English way is less conducing to move pity and terrour, because they often show virtue oppressed and vice punished; where they do not both, or either, they are not to be defended.

"And if we should grant that the Greeks performed this better, perhaps it may admit of dispute, whether pity and terrour are either the prime, or, at least, the only ends of tragedy.

"'Tis not enough that Aristotle has said so; for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides; and, if he had seen ours, might have changed his mind. And chiefly we have to say (what I hinted on pity and terrour, in the last paragraph save one,) that the punishment of vice and reward of virtue are the most adequate ends of tragedy, because most conducing to good example of life. Now, pity is not so easily raised for a criminal (and the ancient tragedy always represents its chief person such) as it is for an innocent man; and the suffering of innocence and punishment of the offender is of the nature of English tragedy: contrarily, in the Greek, innocence is unhappy often, and the offender escapes. Then we are not touched with the sufferings of any sort of men so much as of lovers; and this was almost unknown to the ancients; so that they neither administered poetical justice, of which Mr. Rymer boasts, so well as we; neither knew they the best commonplace of pity, which is love.

"He, therefore, unjustly blames us for not building on what the ancients left us; for it seems, upon consideration of the premises, that we have wholly finished what they began.

"My judgment on this piece is this: that it is extremely learned, but that the author of it is better read in the Greek than in the English poets; that all writers ought to study this critique, as the best account I have ever seen of the ancients; that the model of tragedy he has here given is excellent, and extremely correct; but that it is not the only model of all tragedy, because it is too much circumscribed in plot, characters, &c.; and, lastly, that we may be taught here justly to admire and imitate the ancients, without giving them the preference with this author, in prejudice to our own country.

"Want of method in this excellent treatise makes the thoughts of the author sometimes obscure.

"His meaning, that pity and terrour are to be moved, is, that they are to be moved, as the means conducing to the ends of tragedy, which are pleasure and instruction.

"And these two ends may be thus distinguished. The chief end of the poet is to please; for his immediate reputation depends on it.

"The great end of the poem is to instruct, which is performed by making pleasure the vehicle of that instruction; for poesy is an art, and all arts are made to profit. Rapin.

"The pity, which the poet is to labour for, is for the criminal, not for those or him whom he has murdered, or who have been the occasion of the tragedy. The terrour is likewise in the punishment of the same criminal; who, if he be represented too great an offender, will not be pitied: if altogether innocent, his punishment will be unjust.

"Another obscurity is, where he says, Sophocles perfected tragedy by introducing the third actor; that is, he meant, three kinds of action; one company singing, or speaking; another playing on the musick; a third dancing.

"To make a true judgment in this competition betwixt the Greek poets and the English, in tragedy:

"Consider, first, how Aristotle has defined a tragedy. Secondly, what he assigns the end of it to be. Thirdly, what he thinks the beauties of it. Fourthly, the means to attain the end proposed.

"Compare the Greek and English tragick poets justly, and without partiality, according to those rules.

"Then, secondly, consider whether Aristotle has made a just definition of tragedy; of its parts, of its ends, and of its beauties; and whether he, having not seen any others but those of Sophocles, Euripides, &c. had or truly could determine what all the excellencies of tragedy are, and wherein they consist.

"Next, show in what ancient tragedy was deficient: for example, in the narrowness of its plots, and fewness of persons; and try whether that be not a fault in the Greek poets; and whether their excellency was so great, when the variety was visibly so little; or whether what they did was not very easy to do.

"Then make a judgment on what the English have added to their beauties: as, for example, not only more plot, but also new passions; as, namely, that of love, scarcely touched on by the ancients, except in this one example of Phaedra, cited by Mr. Rymer; and in that how short they were of Fletcher!

"Prove also that love, being an heroick passion, is fit for tragedy, which cannot be denied, because of the example alleged of Phaedra; and how far Shakespeare has outdone them in friendship, &c.

"To return to the beginning of this inquiry; consider if pity and terrour be enough for tragedy to move: and I believe, upon a true definition of tragedy, it will be found that its work extends farther, and that it is to reform manners, by a delightful representation of human life in great persons, by way of dialogue. If this be true, then not only pity and terrour are to be moved, as the only means to bring us to virtue, but generally love to virtue, and hatred to vice; by showing the rewards of one, and punishments of the other; at least, by rendering virtue always amiable, though it be shown unfortunate; and vice detestable, though it be shown triumphant.

"If, then, the encouragement of virtue and discouragement of vice be the proper ends of poetry in tragedy, pity and terrour, though good means, are not the only. For all the passions, in their turns, are to be set in a ferment: as joy, anger, love, fear, are to be used as the poet's commonplaces; and a general concernment for the principal actors is to be raised, by making them appear such in their characters, their words, and actions, as will interest the audience in their fortunes.

"And if, after all, in a larger sense, pity comprehends this concernment for the good, and terrour includes detestation for the bad, then let us consider whether the English have not answered this end of tragedy as well as the ancients, or perhaps better.

"And here Mr. Rymer's objections against these plays are to be impartially weighed, that we may see whether they are of weight enough to turn the balance against our countrymen.

"'Tis evident those plays, which he arraigns, have moved both those passions in a high degree upon the stage.

"To give the glory of this away from the poet, and to place it upon the actors, seems unjust.

"One reason is, because whatever actors they have found, the event has been the same; that is, the same passions have been always moved: which shows, that there is something of force and merit in the plays themselves, conducing to the design of raising these two passions: and suppose them ever to have been excellently acted, yet action only adds grace, vigour, and more life, upon the stage; but cannot give it wholly where it is not first. But, secondly, I dare appeal to those who have never seen them acted, if they have not found these two passions moved within them: and if the general voice will carry it, Mr. Rymer's prejudice will take off his single testimony.

"This, being matter of fact, is reasonably to be established by this appeal; as, if one man says it is night, when the rest of the world conclude it to be day, there needs no farther argument against him, that it is so.

"If he urge, that the general taste is depraved, his arguments to prove this can, at best, but evince that our poets took not the best way to raise those passions; but experience proves against him, that those means, which they have used, have been successful, and have produced them.

"And one reason of that success is, in my opinion, this: that Shakespeare and Fletcher have written to the genius of the age and nation in which they lived; for though nature, as he objects, is the same in all places, and reason too the same; yet the climate, the age, the disposition of the people, to whom a poet writes, may be so different, that what pleased the Greeks would not satisfy an English audience.

"And if they proceeded upon a foundation of truer reason to please the Athenians, than Shakespeare and Fletcher to please the English, it only shows that the Athenians were a more judicious people; but the poet's business is certainly to please the audience.

"Whether our English audience have been pleased, hitherto, with acorns, as he calls it, or with bread, is the next question; that is, whether the means which Shakespeare and Fletcher have used, in their plays, to raise those passions before named, be better applied to the ends by the Greek poets than by them. And, perhaps, we shall not grant him this wholly: let it be granted, that a writer is not to run down with the stream, or to please the people by their usual methods, but rather to reform their judgments, it still remains to prove that our theatre needs this total reformation.

"The faults, which he has found in their designs, are rather wittily aggravated in many places than reasonably urged; and as much may be returned on the Greeks, by one who were as witty as himself.

"They destroy not, if they are granted, the foundation of the fabrick: only take away from the beauty of the symmetry: for example, the faults in the character of the king, in King and No King, are not, as he makes them, such as render him detestable, but only imperfections which accompany human nature, and are, for the most part, excused by the violence of his love; so that they destroy not our pity or concernment for him: this answer may be applied to most of his objections of that kind.

"And Rollo committing many murders, when he is answerable but for one, is too severely arraigned by him; for, it adds to our horrour and detestation of the criminal; and poetick justice is not neglected neither; for we stab him in our minds for every offence which he commits; and the point, which the poet is to gain on the audience, is not so much in the death of an offender as the raising an horrour of his crimes.

"That the criminal should neither be wholly guilty, nor wholly innocent, but so participating of both as to move both pity and terrour, is certainly a good rule, but not perpetually to be observed; for that were to make all tragedies too much alike; which objection he foresaw, but has not fully answered.

"To conclude, therefore; if the plays of the ancients are more correctly plotted, ours are more beautifully written. And, if we can raise passions as high on worse foundations, it shows our genius in tragedy is greater; for in all other parts of it the English have manifestly excelled them."

The original of the following letter is preserved in the library at Lambeth, and was kindly imparted to the publick by the reverend Dr. Vyse.

Copy of an original letter from John Dryden, esq. to his sons in Italy, from a MS. in the Lambeth library, marked No. 933, p. 56.

(Superscribed)

"All' illustrissimo Sig're Carlo Dryden, Camariere d'Honore a S.S.

"In Roma.

"Franca per Mantoua.

"DEAR SONS,

"Sept. the 3d, our style.

"Being now at sir William Bowyer's in the country, I cannot write at large, because I find myself somewhat indisposed with a cold, and am thick of hearing, rather worse than I was in town. I am glad to find, by your letter of July 26th, your style, that you are both in health; but wonder you should think me so negligent as to forget to give you an account of the ship in which your parcel is to come. I have written to you two or three letters concerning it, which I have sent by safe hands, as I told you, and doubt not but you have them before this can arrive to you. Being out of town, I have forgotten the ship's name, which your mother will inquire, and put it into her letter, which is joined with mine. But the master's name I remember: he is called Mr. Ralph Thorp; the ship is bound to Leghorn, consigned to Mr. Peter and Mr. Thomas Ball, merchants. I am of your opinion, that by Tonson's means almost all our letters have miscarried for this last year. But, however, he has missed of his design in the dedication, though he had prepared the book for it; for in every figure of Aeneas he has caused him to be drawn like king William, with a hooked nose. After my return to town, I intend to alter a play of sir Robert Howard's, written long since, and lately put by him into my hands; 'tis called the Conquest of China by the Tartars. It will cost me six weeks' study, with the probable benefit of a hundred pounds. In the mean time, I am writing a song for St. Cecilia's Feast, who, you know, is the patroness of musick. This is troublesome, and no way beneficial; but I could not deny the stewards of the feast, who came in a body to me to desire that kindness, one of them being Mr. Bridgman, whose parents are your mother's friends. I hope to send you thirty guineas between Michaelmas and Christmas, of which I will give you an account when I come to town. I remember the counsel you give me in your letter; but dissembling, though lawful in some cases, is not my talent; yet, for your sake, I will struggle with the plain openness of my nature, and keep in my just resentments against that degenerate order. In the mean time I flatter not myself with any manner of hopes, but do my duty, and suffer for God's sake; being assured, beforehand, never to be rewarded, though the times should alter. Towards the latter end of this month, September, Charles will begin to recover his perfect health, according to his nativity, which, casting it myself, I am sure is true, and all things hitherto have happened accordingly to the very time that I predicted them: I hope, at the same time, to recover more health, according to my age. Remember me to poor Harry, whose prayers I earnestly desire. My Virgil succeeds in the world beyond its desert or my expectation. You know the profits might have been more; but neither my conscience nor my honour would suffer me to take them: but I never can repent of my constancy, since I am thoroughly persuaded of the justice of the cause for which I suffer. It has pleased God to raise up many friends to me amongst my enemies, though they who ought to have been my friends are negligent of me. I am called to dinner, and cannot go on with this letter, which I desire you to excuse; and am

"Your most affectionate father,

"JOHN DRYDEN."

[Footnote 92: The life of Dryden is written with more than Johnson's usual copiousness of biography, and with peculiar vigour and justness of criticism. "None, perhaps, of the Lives of the Poets," says the Edinburgh Review, for October, 1808, "is entitled to so high a rank. No prejudice interfered with his judgment; he approved his politics; he could feel no envy of such established fame; he had a mind precisely formed to relish the excellencies of Dryden—more vigorous than refined; more reasoning than impassioned." Edinburgh Review, xxv. p. 117. Many dates, however, and little facts have been rectified by Mr. Malone, in his most minute Account of the Life and Writings of John Dryden; and sir Walter Scott, in the life prefixed to his edition of Dryden's works, has been still more industrious in the collection of incidents and contemporary writings, that can only interest the antiquary. Those to whom Johnson's life seems not sufficiently ample, we refer to the above works. For an eulogy on Dryden's powers, as a satirist, see the notes on the Pursuits of Literature. ED.]

[Footnote 93: Mr. Malone has lately proved, that there is no satisfactory evidence for this date. The inscription on Dryden's monument says only "natus 1632." See Malone's Life of Dryden, prefixed to his Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works, p. 5. note. C.]

[Footnote 94: Of Cumberland. Ibid. p. 10. C.]

[Footnote 95: Mr. Malone has furnished us with a detailed account of our poet's circumstances, from which it appears, that although he was possessed of a sufficient income, in the early part of his life, he was considerably embarrassed at its close. See Malone's Life, p. 440.]

[Footnote 96: Mr. Derrick's Life of Dryden was prefixed to a very beautiful and correct edition of Dryden's Miscellanies, published by the Tonsons, in 1760,4 vols. 8vo. Derrick's part, however, was poorly executed, and the edition never became popular. C.]

[Footnote 97: He went off to Trinity college, and was admitted to a bachelor's degree in Jan. 1653-4, and in 1657 was made M.A.]

[Footnote 98: This is a mistake; his poem on the death of lord Hastings appeared in a volume entitled Tears of the Muses on the death of Henry Lord Hastings. 8vo. 1649. M.]

[Footnote 99: The order of his plays has been accurately ascertained by Mr. Malone. C.]

[Footnote 100: The duke of Guise was his first attempt in the drama, but laid aside, and afterwards new modelled. See Malone, p. 51.]

[Footnote 101: See Malone, p. 91.]

[Footnote 102: He did not obtain the laurel till Aug. 18, 1670, but Mr. Malone informs us, the patent had a retrospect, and the salary commenced from the Midsummer after Davenant's death. C.]

[Footnote 103: Downes says it was performed on a very unlucky day, viz. that on which the duke of Monmouth landed in the west; and he intimates, that the consternation into which the kingdom was thrown by this event, was a reason why it was performed but six times, and was in general ill received. H.]

[Footnote 104: This is a mistake. It was set to musick by Purcell, and well received, and is yet a favourite entertainment. H.]

[Footnote 105: Johnson has here quoted from memory. Warburton is the original relater of this anecdote, who says he had it from Southern himself. According to him, Dryden's usual price had been four guineas, and he made Southern pay six. In the edition of Southern's plays, 1774, we have a different deviation from the truth, five and ten guineas. M.]

[Footnote 106: Dr. Johnson, in this assertion, was misled by Langbaine. Only one of these plays appeared in 1678. Nor were there more than three in any one year. The dates are now added from the original editions. R.]

[Footnote 107: It was published in 1672. R.]

[Footnote 108: This remark, as Mr. Malone observes, is founded upon the erroneous dates with which Johnson was supplied by Langbaine. The Rehearsal was played in 1671, but not published till the next year; The Wild Gallant was printed in 1669, The Maiden Queen in 1668, Tyrannick Love in 1670; the two parts of Granada were performed in 1669 and 1670, though not printed till 1672. Additions were afterwards made to The Rehearsal, and among these are the parodies on Assignation, which are not to be found in Buckingham's play as it originally appeared. Mr. Malone denies that there is any allusion to Marriage a-la-mode. See Malone, p. 100. J. B.]

[Footnote 109: It is mentioned by A. Wood, Athen, Oxon. vol. ii. p. 804. 2nd ed. C.]

[Footnote 110: Dryden translated two entire epistles, Canace to Macareus, and Dido to Aeneas. Helen to Paris was translated by him and lord Mulgrave. Malone, J.B.]

[Footnote 111: Azaria and Hushai was written by Samuel Pordage, a dramatick writer of that time.]

[Footnote 112: Dr. John Reynolds, who lived temp. Jac. I. was at first a zealous papist, and his brother William as earnest a protestant; but by mutual disputation each converted the other. See Fuller's Church History, p. 47. book x. II.]

[Footnote 113: This is a mistake. See Malone, p. 194, &c.]

[Footnote 114: All Dryden's biographers have misdated this poem, which Mr. Malone's more accurate researches prove to have been published on the 4th of Oct. 1682.]

[Footnote 115: Albion and Albanius must, however, be excepted. R.]

[Footnote 116: This story has been traced to its source, and clearly proved to be a fabrication, by Mr. Malone. See Malone's Life, 347.]

[Footnote 117: An earlier account of Dryden's funeral than that above cited, though without the circumstances that preceded it, is given by Edward Ward, who, in his London Spy, published in 1706, relates, that on the occasion there was a performance of solemn musick at the college, and that at the procession, which himself saw, standing at the end of Chancery lane, Fleet street, there was a concert of hautboys and trumpets. The day of Dryden's interment, he says, was Monday, the 13th of May, which, according to Johnson, was twelve days after his decease, and shows how long his funeral was in suspense. Ward knew not that the expense of it was defrayed by subscription; but compliments lord Jefferies for so pious an undertaking. He also says, that the cause of Dryden's death was an inflammation in his toe, occasioned by the flesh growing over the nail, which, being neglected, produced a mortification in his leg. H.]

[Footnote 118: In the register of the College of Physicians, is the following entry: "May 3, 1700. Comitiis Censoriis ordinariis. At the request of several persons of quality, that Mr. Dryden might be carried from the College of Physicians to be interred at Westminster, it was unanimously granted by the president and censors."

This entry is not calculated to afford any credit to the narrative concerning lord Jefferies. R.]

[Footnote 119: See what is said on this head with regard to Cowley and Addison, in their respective lives.]

[Footnote 120: Preface to Ovid's Metamorphoses. Dr. J.]

[Footnote 121: We are not about to attempt a justification of Dryden's strange use, in the above stanzas, of nautical phrases, but we must remark, that Johnson's antipathy to ships, and every thing connected with them, made him unusually sensitive of any thing like naval technicalities. And yet surely the occasional and judicious use of them in description is quite as allowable as the introduction of allusions to the printing office or bookseller's shop, with which Johnson happened to be familiar, and, therefore, did not disapprove. St. Paul did not disdain to adopt naval phraseology in his exquisite narrative of his own perils by sea. ED.]

[Footnoteb 122: A heart-sinking and painful depression has been experienced by most of us on concluding a favourite author; but the sensation has never been more vividly portrayed in language, than in the above passage. ED.]

[Footnote 123: I cannot see why Johnson has thought there was any want of clearness in this passage even in prose. Addison has given us almost the very same thought in very good prose: "If we look forward to him [the deity] for help, we shall never be in danger of falling down those precipices which our imagination is apt to create. Like those who walk upon a line, if we keep our eye fixed upon one point, we may step forward securely; whereas an imprudent or cowardly glance on either side will infallibly destroy us." Spectator, No. 615. J.B.]

[Footnote 124: This is an error. The alexandrine inserted among heroick lines of ten syllables is found in many of the writers of queen Elizabeth's reign. It will be sufficient to mention Hall, who has already been quoted for the use of the triplet:

As tho' the staring world hang'd on his sleeve. Whenever he smiles to laugh, and when he sighs to grieve.

Hall's Sat. book i. sat. 7.

Take another instance:

For shame! or better write or Labeo write none.

Hall's Sat. book ii. sat 1. J.B.]