The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Part 28

[8] ["The Bacon of the rhyming tribe," as Landor has since called him in a vigorous description (_Works_, vol. viii. p. 137).--ED.]

[9] [Transcriber's note: "See page 39" in original. This is to be found in Section I.]

[10] "_Novimus judicium Drydeni de poemate quodam Chauceri, pulchro sane illo, et admodum laudando, nimirum quod non modo vere epicura sit, sed Iliada etiam alque 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_."

[11] Dryden was not the first who translated this tale of terror. There is in the collection of the late John, Duke of Roxburghe, "A Notable History of Nastagio and Traversari, no less pitiful than pleasaunt; translated out of Italian into English verse, by C.T. London, 1569."

[12] "_Amor puo troppo piu, che ne voi ne io possiamo_." This sentiment loses its dignity amid the "levelling of mountains and raising plains,"

with which Dryden has chosen to ill.u.s.trate it.

[13] An emblem of a similar kind is said to have been found in the palace of Tippoo Sultan.

[14] As "Near bliss, and yet not blessed." And this merciless quibble, where Arcite complains of the flames he endures for Emily:--

"Of such a G.o.ddess no time leaves record, Who burnt the temple where she was adored."--Vol. xi.

Yet Dryden, in the preface, declaims against the "_inopem me copia fecit_," and similar jingles of Ovid.

[15] [Transcriber's note: "See p. 258" in original. This is to be found in Section VI.]

[16]

"The longest tyranny that ever swayed, Was that wherein our ancestors betrayed Their free-born reason to the Stagyrite, And made his torch their universal light.

So truth, while only one supplied the state, Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.

Still it was bought, like emp'ric wares, or charms, Hard words sealed up with Aristotle's arms."

[17] These I found quaintly summed up in an old rhyme: "With a red man read thy rede, With a brown man break thy bread, On a pale man draw thy knife, From a black man keep thy wife."

[18] See the introduction to Britannia Rediviva, vol. x.

[19] Vol. x.

[20] It is twice stated in these volumes (p. 246, and vol. x.), on the authority of the "Life of Southerne," that Dryden had originally five guineas for each prologue, and raised the sum to ten guineas on occasion of Southerne's requiring such a favour for his first play. But I am convinced the sum is exaggerated; and incline now to believe, with Dr.

Johnson, that the advance was from _two_ to _three_ guineas only. [See note _supra_, l.c.--ED.]

[21] Life of Lucian, vol. xviii.

[22] [Is it possible that in this famous pa.s.sage "Veer" is a clerical error or a misprint for "Ware"? This would at once make sense and a literal version.--ED.]

[23] Poems from the Bannatyne Ma.n.u.script, p. 228.

[24] Shakespeare has _capricious, conversation_, fatigate (if not _fatigue_), _figure, gallant, good graces; incendiary_ is in Minshew's "Guide to the Tongues," ed. 1627. _Tender_ often occurs in Shakespeare both as a substantive and verb. And many other of the above words may be detected by those who have time and inclination to search for them, in authors prior to Dryden's time. [See, for a discussion of Dryden's Gallicisms, vol. xviii. of the present edition.--ED.]

[24] The remarkable phrase, "to possess the soul in patience," occurs in "The Hind and Panther;" and in the Essay on Satire, vol. xiii., we have nearly the same expression. The image of a bird's wing flagging in a damp atmosphere occurs in Don Sebastian, and in prose elsewhere, though I have lost the reference. The same thought is found in "The Hind and Panther," but is not there used metaphorically:--

"Nor need they fear the dampness of the sky Should flag their wings, and hinder them to fly."

Dryden is ridiculed by an imitator of Rabelais, for the recurrence of the phrase by which he usually prefaces his own defensive criticism: "_If it be allowed me to speak so much in my own commendation;--_ see Dryden's preface to his Fables, or to any other of his works that you please." The full t.i.tle of this whimsical tract, from which Sterne borrowed several hints, is "An Essay towards the theory of the intelligible world intuitively considered. Designed for forty-nine parts. Part Third, consisting of a preface, a postscript, and a little something between, by Gabriel Johnson; enriched by a faithful account of his ideal voyages, and ill.u.s.trated with poems by several hands, as likewise with other strange things not insufferably clever, nor furiously to the purpose; printed in the year 17," etc. [The phrase mentioned first is perhaps less remarkable than Scott's apparent forgetfulness of its Biblical origin.--ED.]

[25] Introduction to Book Fifth of "Tom Jones."

END .