The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Part 24

[24] This I learn from _Honori Sacellum_, a Funeral Poem, to the Memory of William, Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, 1707:

"'Twas so, when the destroyer's dreadful dart Once pierced through ours, to fair Maria's heart.

From his state-helm then some short hours he stole, T'indulge his melting eyes, and bleeding soul: Whilst his bent knees, to those remains divine, Paid their last offering to that royal shrine."

On which lines occurs this explanatory note:--"An Ode, composed by His Grace, on the death of the late Queen Mary, justly adjudged by the ingenious Mr. Dryden to have exceeded all that had been written on that occasion."

[25] Dr. Birch refers to the authority of Richard Graham, junior; but no such letter has been recovered.

[26] The authority, however respectable, has a very long chain of links.

Warton heard it from A, who heard it from B, who heard it from Pope, who heard it from Bolingbroke.--Ed.

[27] This discovery was made by the researches of Mr. Malone. Dr. Burney describes Clarke as excelling in the tender and plaintive, to which he was prompted by a temperament of natural melancholy. In the agonies which arose from an unfortunate attachment, he committed suicide in July 1707. See a full account of the catastrophe in Malone's "Life of Dryden," p. 299.

[28] It was first performed on February 19, 1735-6, at opera prices.

"The public expectations and the effects of this representation (says Dr. Burney) seem to have been correspondent, for the next day we are told in the public papers [London Daily Post, and General Advertiser, Feb. 20,] that 'there never was, upon the like occasion, so numerous and splendid an audience at any theatre in London, there being at least thirteen hundred persons present; and it is judged that the receipts of the house could not amount to less than 450. It met with general applause, though attended with the inconvenience of having the performers placed at too great a distance from the audience, which we hear will be rectified the next time of performance."--_Hist. of Music_, iv. 391.

[29] See vol. xviii.

[30] "Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age Can best, if any can, support the stage, Which to declines, that shortly we may see Players and plays reduced to second infancy.

Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown, They plot not on the stage, but on the town; And in despair their empty pit to fill, Set up some foreign monster in a bill: Thus they jog on, still tricking, never thriving, And murth'ring plays, which they miscall--reviving.

Our sense is nonsense, through their pipes conveyed; Scarce can a poet know the play he made, 'Tis so disguised in death; nor thinks 'tis he That suffers in the mangled tragedy: Thus Itys first was killed, and after dressed For his own sire, the chief invited guest."

This gave great offence to the players; one of whom (Powell) made a petulant retort, which the reader will find in a note upon the Epistle itself, vol. xi.

[31] Milbourne, in a note on that pa.s.sage in the dedication to the Aeneid--"_He who can write well in rhyme, may write better in blank verse_," says,--"We shall know that, when we see how much better Dryden's Homer will be than his Virgil."

[32] "Much the same character he gave of it (_i.e._ Paradise Lost) to a north-country gentleman, to whom I mentioned the book, he being a great reader, but not in a right train, coming to town seldom, and keeping little company. Dryden amazed him with speaking so loftily of it. 'Why, Mr. Dryden, says he (Sir W.L. told me the thing himself), 'tis not in rhyme.' 'No, [replied Dryden;] _nor would I have done_ Virgil _in rhyme, if I was to begin it again._'"--This conversation is supposed by Mr. Malone to have been held with Sir Wilfrid Lawson, of Isell in c.u.mberland.

[33] See a letter to Mrs. Thomas, vol. xviii.

[34] "Some of these poets, to excuse their guilt, allege for themselves, that the degeneracy of the age makes their lewd way of writing necessary: they pretend the auditors will not be pleased, unless they are thus entertained from the stage; and to please, they say, is the chief business of the poet. But this is by no means a just apology: it is not true, as was said before, that the poet's chief business is to please. His chief business is to instruct, to make mankind wiser and better; and in order to this, his care should be to please and entertain the audience with all the wit and art he is master of. Aristotle and Horace, and all their critics and commentators all men of wit and sense agree, that this is the end of poetry. But they say, it is their profession to write for the stage; and that poets must starve, if they will not in this way humour the audience: the theatre will be as unfrequented as the churches, and the poet and the parson equally neglected. Let the poet then abandon his profession, and take up some honest lawful calling, where, joining industry to his great wit, he may soon get above the complaints of poverty, so common among these ingenious men, and lie under no necessity of prost.i.tuting his wit to any such vile purposes as are here censured. This will-be a course of life more profitable and honourable to himself, and more useful to others.

And there are among these writers _some, who think they might have risen to the highest dignities in other professions, had they employed their wit in those ways._ It is a mighty dishonour and reproach to any man that is capable of being useful to the world in any _liberal and virtuous_ profession, _to lavish out his life and wit in propagating vice and corruption of manners_, and in battering from the stage the strongest entrenchments and best works of religion and virtue. Whoever makes this his choice, when the other was in his power, may he go off the stage unpitied, _complaining of neglect and poverty, the just punishments of his irreligion and folly!_"

[35] Mr. Malone conceives, that the Fables were published before the "Satire upon Wit;" but he had not this evidence of the contrary before him. It is therefore clear, that Dryden endured a second attack from Blackmore, before making any reply.

[36] Since Scott wrote, the Collier-Congreve controversy has been the subject of well-known essays by Lamb, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, and Macaulay.

Very recently a fresh and excellent account of Collier's book has appeared in M.A. Beljame's _Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au xviiieme siecle_ (Paris: Hachette, 1881), a remarkable volume, to which, and to its author, I owe much.--Ed.

[37] In his apology for "The Tale of a Tub," he points out to the resentment of the clergy, "those heavy illiterate scribblers, prost.i.tute in their reputations, vicious in their lives, and ruined in their fortunes, who, to the shame of good sense, as well as piety, are greedily read, merely upon the strength of bold, false, impious a.s.sertions, mixed with unmannerly reflections on the priesthood." And, after no great interval, he mentions the pa.s.sage quoted, p. 375 "in which Dryden, L'Estrange, and some others I shall not name, are levelled at; who, having spent their lives in faction, and apostasies, and all manner of vice, pretended to be sufferers for loyalty and religion. So Dryden tells us, in one of his prefaces, of his merits and sufferings, and thanks G.o.d that he possesses his soul in patience. In other places he talks at the same rate."

[38] Vol. xviii.

[39] Thus in a lampoon already quoted (footnote 29, Section VI)

"Quitting my duller hopes, the poor renown Of Eton College, or a Dublin gown."

Tom Brown makes the charge more directly. "But, prithee, why so severe always on the priesthood, Mr. Bayes? What have they merited to pull down your indignation? I thought the ridiculing men of that character upon the stage, was by this time a topic as much worn out with you, as love and honour in the play, or good fulsome flattery in the dedication. But you, I find, still continue your old humour, to date from the year of Hegira, the loss of Eton, or since orders were refused you. Whatever hangs out, either black or green colours is presently your prize: and you would, by your good will, be as mortifying a vexation to the whole tribe, as an unbegetting year, a concatenation of briefs, or a voracious visitor; so that I am of opinion, you had much better have written in your t.i.tle-page,

Manet alta mente repostum Judicium _Cleri_, spretaeque injuria _Musoe_."

The same reproach is urged by Settle. See vol. ix.

[40] Vol. xviii. [The _Diary_ had not been deciphered when Scott wrote.

--ED.]

[41] There was, to be sure, in the provoking scruples of that rigid sect, something peculiarly tempting to a satirist. How is it possible to forgive Baxter, for the affectation with which he records the enormities of his childhood?

"Though my conscience," says he, "would trouble me when I sinned, yet divers sins I was addicted to, and oft committed against my conscience, which, for the warning of others, I will here confess to my shame. I was much addicted to the _excessive gluttonous eating of apples and pears_, which I think laid the foundation of the imbecility and flatulency of my stomach, which caused the bodily calamities of my life. To this end, and to concur with naughty boys that gloried in evil, I have oft gone into other men's orchards, and stolen the fruit, when I had enough at home."

There are six other retractions of similar enormities, when he concludes: "These were my sins in my childhood, as to which, conscience troubled me for a great while before they were overcome." Baxter was a pious and worthy man; but can any one read this confession without thinking of Tartuffe, who subjected himself to penance for killing a flea, with too much anger?

[42] See vol. xviii. Mr. Malone thinks tradition has confounded a present made to the poet himself probably of 100, with a legacy bequeathed to his son Charles, which last did amount to 500, but which Charles lived not to receive.

[43] She is distinguished for beauty and virtue, by the author of "The Court at Kensington." 1699-1700.

"So Ormond's graceful mien attracts all eyes, And nature needs not ask from art supplies; An heir of grandeur s.h.i.+nes through every part, And in her beauteous form is placed the n.o.blest heart: In vain mankind adore, unless she were By Heaven made less virtuous, or less fair."

[44] Gildon, in his "Comparison between the Stages."--"Nay then," says the whole party at Drury-lane, "we'll even put 'The Pilgrim' upon him."

"Ay, 'faith, so we will," says Dryden: "and if you'll let my son have the profits of the third night, I'll give you a Secular Masque." "Done,"

says the House; and so the bargain was struck.

[45] _i.e._ Upon the 25th March 1700; it being supposed (as by many in our own time) that the century was concluded so soon as the hundredth year commenced; as if a play was ended at the _beginning of the fifth act._

[46] It was again set by Dr. Boyce, and in 1749 performed in the Drury-lane theatre, with great success.

[47] By a letter to Mrs. Steward, dated the 11th April 1700, it appears they were then only in his contemplation, and the poet died upon the first of the succeeding month. Vol. xviii.

[48]

"Quick Maurus, though he never took degrees In either of our universities, Yet to be shown by Rome kind wit he looks, Because he played the fool, and writ three books.

But if he would be worth a poet's pen, He must be more a fool, and write again: For all the former fustian stuff he wrote Was dead-born doggrel, or is quite forgot; His man of Uz, stript of his Hebrew robe, Is just the proverb, and 'As poor as Job.'

One would have thought he could no longer jog; But Arthur was a level, Job's a bog.

_There_ though he crept, yet still he kept in sight; But _here_ he founders in, and sinks downright.

Had he prepared us, and been dull by rule, Tobit had first been turned to ridicule; But our bold Briton, without fear or awe, O'erleaps at once the whole Apocrypha; Invades the Psalms with rhymes, and leaves no room For any Vandal Hopkins yet to come.

But when, if, after all, this G.o.dly gear Is not so senseless as it would appear, Our mountebank has laid a deeper train; His cant, like Merry Andrew's n.o.ble vein, Cat-calls the sects to draw them in again.

At leisure hours in epic song he deals, Writes to the rumbling of his coach's wheels; Prescribes in haste, and seldom kills by rule, But rides triumphant between stool and stool.

Well, let him go,--'tis yet too early day To get himself a place in farce or play; We know not by what name we should arraign him, For no one category can contain him.

A pedant,--canting preacher,--and a quack, Are load enough to break an a.s.s's back.

At last, grown wanton, he presumed to write, Traduced two kings, their kindness to requite; One made the doctor, and one dubbed the knight."

[49] One of these well-meaning persons insulted the ashes of Dryden while they were still warm, in "An Epistle to Sir Richard Blackmore, occasioned by the New Session of the Poets." Marked by Mr. Luttrell, 1st November 1700.

"His mighty Dryden to the shades is gone, And Congreve leaves successor of his throne: Though long before his final exit hence, He was himself an abdicated Prince; Disrobed of all regalities of state, Drawn by a hind and panther from his seat.

Heir to his plays, his fables, and his tales, Congreve is the poetic prince of Wales; Not at St. Germains, but at Will's, his court, Whither the subjects of his dad resort; Where plots are hatched, and councils yet unknown, How young Ascanius may ascend the throne, That in despite of all the Muses' laws, He may revenge his injured father's cause, Go, nauseous rhymers, into darkness go, And view your monarch in the shades below, Who takes not now from Helicon his drink, But sips from Styx a liquor black as ink; Like Sisyphus a restless stone he turns, And in a pile of his own labours burns; Whose curling flames most ghastly fiends do raise, Supplied with fuel from his impious plays; And when he fain would puff away the flame, One stops his mouth with bawdy Limberham; There, to augment the terrors of the place, His Hind and Panther stare him in the face; They grin like devils at the cursed toad, Who made [them] draw on earth so vile a load.

Could some infernal painter draw the sight, And once transmit it to the realms of light, It might our poets from their sins affright; Or could they hear, how there the sons of verse In dismal yells their tortures do express; How scorched with ballads on the Stygian sh.o.r.e, They horrors in a dismal chorus roar; Or see how the laureate does his grandeur bear, Crowned with a wreath of flaming sulphur there.

This, sir, 's your fate, cursed critics you oppose, The most tyrannical and cruel foes; Dryden, their huntsman dead, no more he wounds, But now you must engage his pack of hounds."

[50] According to Ward, his expressions were, "that he was an old man, and had not long to live by course of nature, and therefore did not care to part with one limb, at such an age, to preserve an uncomfortable life on the rest."--_London Spy_, Part xviii.

[51] "I come now from Mr. Dryden's funeral, where we had an Ode in Horace sung, instead of David's Psalms; whence you may find, that we don't think a poet worth Christian burial. The pomp of the ceremony was a kind of rhapsody, and fitter, I think, for Hudibras, than him; because the cavalcade was mostly burlesque: but he was an extraordinary man, and buried after an extraordinary fas.h.i.+on; for I do believe there was never such another burial seen. The oration, indeed, was great and ingenious, worthy the subject, and like the author; whose prescriptions can restore the living, and his pen embalm the dead. And so much for Mr. Dryden; whose burial was the same as his life,--variety, and not of a piece:-- the quality and mob, farce and heroics; the sublime and ridicule mixed in a piece;--great Cleopatra in a hackney coach."