Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Since love and verse, as well as wine,
Are brisker where the sun does shine,
'Tis something to lose two degrees,
Now age itself begins to freeze:
Yet this I patiently could bear, }
If the rough Danube's beauties were }
But only two degrees less fair }
Than the bright nymphs of gentle Thames,
Who warm me hither with their beams:
Such power they have, they can dispense
Five hundred miles their influence.
But hunger forces men to eat,
Though no temptation's in the meat.
How would the ogling sparks despise
The darling damsel of my eyes,
Should they behold her at a play,
As she's tricked up on holiday,
When the whole family combine,
For public pride, to make her shine!
Her locks, which long before lay matted,
Are on this day combed out and plaited;
A diamond bodkin in each tress,
The badges of her nobleness;
For every stone, as well as she,
Can boast an ancient pedigree.
These formed the jewel erst did grace
The cap of the first Grave[36] o' the race,
Preferred by Graffin[37] Marian
To adorn the handle of her fan;
And, as by old record appears,
Worn since in Kunigunda's years,
Now sparkling in the froein's hair;[38] }
No rocket breaking in the air }
Can with her starry head compare. }
Such ropes of pearl her arms encumber,
She scarce can deal the cards at omber;
So many rings each finger freight,
They tremble with the mighty weight.
The like in England ne'er was seen,
Since Holbein drew Hal[39] and his queen:
But after these fantastic flights,
The lustre's meaner than the lights.
The thing that bears this glittering pomp
Is but a tawdry ill-bred romp,
Whose brawny limbs and martial face
Proclaim her of the Gothic race,
More than the mangled pageantry
Of all the father's heraldry.
But there's another sort of creatures,
Whose ruddy look and grotesque features
Are so much out of nature's way,
You'd think them stamped on other clay,
No lawful daughters of old Adam.
'Mongst these behold a city madam,
With arms in mittins, head in muff,
A dapper cloak, and reverend ruff:
No farce so pleasant as this maukin,
And the soft sound of High-Dutch talking.
Here, unattended by the Graces,
The queen of love in a sad case is.
Nature, her active minister,
Neglects affairs, and will not stir;
Thinks it not worth the while to please,
But when she does it for her ease.
Even I, her most devout adorer,
With wandering thoughts appear before her,
And when I'm making an oblation, }
Am fain to spur imagination }
With some sham London inclination: }
The bow is bent at German dame,
The arrow flies at English game.
Kindness, that can indifference warm,
And blow that calm into a storm,
Has in the very tenderest hour
Over my gentleness a power;
True to my country-women's charms,
When kissed and pressed in foreign arms.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 35: Charles, 2d Earl of Middleton, a man of some literary accomplishment. He had been Envoy Extraordinary to the Emperor of Germany, and was now one of the secretaries of state for Scotland.]

[Footnote 36: Graf, or Count.]

[Footnote 37: Countess.]

[Footnote 38: _Quere_, Did Pope think of this passage in his famous account of Belinda's bodkin?]

[Footnote 39: Henry VIII.]

EPISTLE THE NINTH.

To you, who live in chill degree,
As map informs, of fifty-three,[40]
And do not much for cold atone,
By bringing thither fifty-one,
Methinks all climes should be alike,
From tropic even to pole artique;
Since you have such a constitution
As no where suffers diminution.
You can be old in grave debate,
And young in love affairs of state;
And both to wives and husbands show
The vigour of a plenipo.
Like mighty missioner you come
_Ad Partes Infidelium_.
A work of wonderous merit sure,
So far to go, so much t'endure;
And all to preach to German dame,
Where sound of Cupid never came.
Less had you done, had you been sent
As far as Drake or Pinto went,
For cloves or nutmegs to the line-a,
Or even for oranges to China.
That had indeed been charity, }
Where love-sick ladies helpless lie, }
Chapt, and, for want of liquor, dry. }
But you have made your zeal appear
Within the circle of the Bear.
What region of the earth's so dull,
That is not of your labours full?
Triptolemus (so sung the Nine)
Strewed plenty from his cart divine;
But spite of all these fable-makers,
He never sowed on Almain acres.
No, that was left by fate's decree
To be performed and sung by thee.
Thou break'st through forms with as much ease
As the French king through articles.
In grand affairs thy days are spent, }
In waging weighty compliment, }
With such as monarchs represent. }
They, whom such vast fatigues attend,
Want some soft minutes to unbend,
To shew the world that, now and then,
Great ministers are mortal men.
Then Rhenish rummers walk the round;
In bumpers every king is crowned;
Besides three holy mitred Hectors,[41]
And the whole college of Electors.
No health of potentate is sunk,
That pays to make his envoy drunk.
These Dutch delights, I mentioned last,
Suit not, I know, your English taste:
For wine to leave a whore or play,
Was ne'er your Excellency's way.[42]
Nor need this title give offence,
For here you were your Excellence;
For gaming, writing, speaking, keeping,
His Excellence for all--but sleeping.
Now if you tope in form, and treat, }
'Tis the sour sauce to the sweet meat, }
The fine you pay for being great. }
Nay, here's a harder imposition,
Which is indeed the court's petition,
That, setting worldly pomp aside,
Which poet has at font denied,
You would be pleased in humble way
To write a trifle called a Play.
This truly is a degradation, }
But would oblige the crown and nation }
Next to your wise negotiation. }
If you pretend, as well you may, }
Your high degree, your friends will say, }
The duke St Aignon made a play. }
If Gallic wit convince you scarce,
His grace of Bucks has made a farce,
And you, whose comic wit is terse all,
Can hardly fall below Rehearsal.
Then finish what you have began,
But scribble faster if you can;
For yet no George, to our discerning,
Has writ without a ten years warning.[43]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 40: The map does not convey any such information. Ratisbon lies in latitude 48° 58´ N. Dryden alludes to the commencement of Etherege's epistle to Middleton, in which he mentions having gone three degrees northward, London being 41° 15´ N. Dryden transfers Ratisbon into a high latitude, merely to suit the rhyme, and produce the antithesis of 53 degrees latitude, to 52 years of age.]

[Footnote 41: The three ecclesiastical Electors WERE, the Electors of Treves, Cologne, and Mentz. At this time the Diet of the empire was sitting at Ratisbon.]

[Footnote 42: Etherege has been pleased to confirm our author's opinion of the German jollity, and his own inclination to softer pleasures, by the following passage of a letter to the Duke of Buckingham.

"I find that to this day, they (_i.e._ the Germans) make good the observation that Tacitus made of their ancestors; I mean, that their affairs (let them be never so serious and pressing) never put a stop to good eating and drinking, and that they debate their weightiest negociations over their cups.

"'Tis true, they carry this humour by much too far for one of my complexion; for which reason I decline appearing among them, but when my master's concerns make it necessary for me to come to their assemblies: They are, indeed, a free-hearted open sort of gentlemen that compose the Diet, without reserve, affectation, and artifice; but they are such unmerciful plyers of the bottle, so wholly given up to what our sots call good-fellowship, that 'tis as great a constraint upon my nature to sit out a night's entertainment with them, as it would be to hear half a score long-winded Presbyterian divines cant successively one after another.

"To unbosom myself frankly and freely to your grace, I always looked upon drunkenness to be an unpardonable crime in a young fellow, who, without any of these foreign helps, has fire enough in his veins to enable him to do justice to Cælia whenever she demands a tribute from him. In a middle-aged man, I consider the bottle only as subservient to the nobler pleasures of love; and he that would suffer himself to be so far infatuated by it, as to neglect the pursuit of a more agreeable game, I think deserves no quarter from the ladies: In old age, indeed, when it is convenient very often to forget and even steal from ourselves, I am of opinion, that a little drunkenness, discreetly used, may as well contribute to our health of body as tranquillity of soul.

"Thus I have given your grace a short system of my morals and belief in these affairs. But the gentlemen of this country go upon a quite different scheme of pleasure; the best furniture of their parlours, instead of innocent china, are tall overgrown rummers; and they take more care to enlarge their cellars, than their patrimonial estates. In short, drinking is the hereditary sin of this country; and that hero of a deputy here, that can demolish, at one sitting, the rest of his brother envoys, is mentioned with as much applause as the Duke of Lorain for his noble exploits against the Turks, and may claim a statue, erected at the public expence, in any town in Germany.

"Judge, then, my lord, whether a person of my sober principles, and one that only uses wine (as the wiser sort of Roman Catholics do images,) to raise up my imagination to something more exalted, and not to terminate my worship upon it, must not be reduced to very mortifying circumstances in this place; where I cannot pretend to enjoy conversation, without practising that vice that directly ruins it."]

[Footnote 43: This is the only mention that our author makes of the "Rehearsal" in poetry: In prose he twice notices that satirical farce with some contempt. The length of time which the Duke spent upon it, or at least which elapsed between the first concoction and the representation, is mentioned by Duke in his character of Villerius:

But with play-houses, wars, immortal wars,
He waged, and ten years rage produced a farce.
As many rolling years he did employ, }
And hands almost as many, to destroy }
Heroic rhyme, as Greece to ruin Troy. }
Once more, says fame, for battle he prepares,
And threatens rhymers with a second farce;
But if as long for this as that we stay,
He'll finish Cliveden sooner than his play.

The last line alludes to the magnificent structure at Cliveden, which Buckingham planned, but never completed. Another satirist has the same idea:

I come to his farce, which must needs well be done, }
For Troy was no longer before it was won, }
Since 'tis more than ten years since this farce was begun. }
]

EPISTLE THE TENTH.

TO

MR SOUTHERNE,

ON HIS COMEDY

CALLED

THE WIVES' EXCUSE,

ACTED IN 1692.

SOUTHERNE,--well known to the present age as a tragic writer, for his Isabella has been ranked among the first-rate parts of our inimitable Siddons,--was also distinguished by his contemporaries as a successful candidate for the honours of the comic muse. Two of his comedies, "The Mother in Fashion," and "Sir Anthony Love," had been represented with success, when, in 1692, the "Wives' Excuse, or Cuckolds make Themselves," was brought forward. The tone of that piece approaches what we now call genteel comedy: but, whether owing to the flatness into which such plays are apt to slide, for want of the _vis comica_ which enlivens the more animated, though coarser, effusions of the lower comedy, or to some strokes of satire directed against music meetings, and other places of fashionable resort, "The Wives' Excuse" was unfortunate in the representation. The author, in the dedication of the printed play,[44] has hinted at the latter cause as that of his defeat; and vindicates himself from the idea of reflecting upon music meetings, or any other resort of the people of fashion, by urging, that although a _billet doux_ is represented as being there delivered, "such a thing has been done before now in a church, without the place being thought the worse of." But Southerne consoles himself for the disapprobation of the audience with the favour of Dryden, who, says he, "speaking of this play, has publicly said, the town was kind to 'Sir Anthony Love;' I needed them only to be just to this." And, after mentioning that Dryden had intrusted to him, upon the credit of this play, the task of completing "Cleomenes,"[45] he triumphantly adds,--"If modesty be sometimes a weakness, what I say can hardly be a crime: in a fair English trial, both parties are allowed to be heard; and without this vanity of mentioning Mr Dryden, I had lost the best evidence of my cause." Dryden, not satisfied with a verbal exertion of his patronage, consoled his friend under his discomfiture, by addressing to him the following Epistle, in which his failure is ascribed to the taste for bustling intrigue, and for low and farcical humour.

It is not the Editor's business to trace Southerne's life, or poetical career. He was born in the county of Dublin, in 1659; and produced, in his twenty-third year, the tragedy of "The Loyal Brother," which Dryden honoured with a prologue. On this occasion, Southerne's acquaintance with our bard took place, under the whimsical circumstances mentioned Vol. X. p. 372. The aged bard furnished also a prologue to Southerne's "Disappointment, or Mother in Fashion;" and as he had repeatedly ushered him to success, he presented him with the following lines to console him under disappointment. The poets appear to have continued on the most friendly terms until Dryden's death. Southerne survived him many years, and lived to be praised by the rising generation of a second century, for mildness of manners, and that cheerful and amiable disposition, which rarely is found in old age, unless from the happy union of a body at ease, and a conscience void of offence. When this dramatist was sixty-five, his last play, called "Money the Mistress," was acted, with a prologue by Welsted, containing the following beautiful lines:[46]

To you, ye fair, for patronage he sues;
O last defend, who first inspired his muse!
In your soft service he has past his days,
And gloried to be born for woman's praise:
Deprest at length, and in your cause decayed,
The good old man to beauty bends for aid;
That beauty, he has taught so oft to moan! }
That ne'er let Imoinda weep alone, }
And made his Isabella's griefs its own! }
Ere you arose to life, ye blooming train;
Ere time brought forth our pleasure and our pain;
He melted hearts, to monarchs' vows denied,
And softened to distress unconquered pride:
O! then protect, in his declining years,
The man, that filled your mother's eyes with tears!
The last of Charles's bards! The living name,
That rose, in that Augustan age, to fame!
And you, his brother authors, bravely dare
To join to-night the squadrons of the fair;
With zeal protect your veteran writer's page,
And save the drama's father, in his age:
Nor let the wreath from his grey head be torn,
For half a century with honour worn!
His merits let your tribe to mind recal;
Of some the patron, and the friend to all!
In him the poets' Nestor ye defend!
Great Otway's peer, and greater Dryden's friend.

Southerne, on his eighty-first birth day, was complimented with a copy of verses by Pope; and on 26th May, 1746, he died at the advanced age of eighty-five and upwards.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 44: To the honourable Thomas Wharton, Esq. comptroller of his majesty's household.]

[Footnote 45: See the introductory remarks on that play, Vol. VIII.]

[Footnote 46: Welsted, "howe'er insulted by the spleen of Pope," was a poet of merit. His fate is an instance, among a thousand, of the disadvantage sustained by an inferior genius, who enters into collision with one of supereminent talents. It is the combat of a gun-boat with a frigate; and many an author has been run down in such an encounter, who, had he avoided it, might have still enjoyed a fair portion of literary reputation. The apologue of the iron and earthen pot contains a moral applicable to such circumstances.]

EPISTLE THE TENTH.

Sure there's a fate in plays, and 'tis in vain
To write, while these malignant planets reign.
Some very foolish influence rules the pit,
Not always kind to sense, or just to wit;
And whilst it lasts, let buffoonry succeed,
To make us laugh, for never was more need.
Farce, in itself, is of a nasty scent;
But the gain smells not of the excrement.
The Spanish nymph, a wit and beauty too,
With all her charms, bore but a single show;
But let a monster Muscovite appear,
He draws a crowded audience round the year.
May be thou hast not pleased the box and pit; }
Yet those who blame thy tale applaud thy wit: }
So Terence plotted, but so Terence writ. }
Like his, thy thoughts are true, thy language clean;
Even lewdness is made moral in thy scene.[47]
The hearers may for want of Nokes[48] repine;
But rest secure, the readers will be thine.
Nor was thy laboured drama damned or hissed,
But with a kind civility dismissed;
With such good manners as the Wife[49] did use,
Who, not accepting, did but just refuse.
There was a glance at parting; such a look,
As bids thee not give o'er for one rebuke.
But if thou wouldst be seen, as well as read,
Copy one living author, and one dead.
The standard of thy style let Etherege be;
For wit, the immortal spring of Wycherly.
Learn, after both, to draw some just design,
And the next age will learn to copy thine.

[Footnote 47: The moral of the "Wives' Excuse" is as bad as possible; but the language of the play is free from that broad licence which disgraces the dramatic taste of the age.]

[Footnote 48: Nokes was then famous for parts of low humour. Cibber thus describes him: "This celebrated comedian was of the middle size, his voice clear and audible, his natural countenance grave and sober; but the moment he spoke, the settled seriousness of his features was utterly discharged, and a dry, drolling, or laughing levity, took such full possession of him, that I can only refer the idea of him to your imagination. In some of his low characters, that became it, he had a shuffling shamble in his gait, with so contented an ignorance in his aspect, and an aukward absurdity in his gesture, that, had you not known him, you could not have believed, that naturally he could have had a grain of common sense." Our author insinuates, that the audience had been so accustomed to the presence of this facetious actor, that they could not tolerate a play where his low humour was excluded.]

[Footnote 49: Alluding to the character of Mrs Friendall in "The Wives' Excuse."]

EPISTLE THE ELEVENTH.

TO

HENRY HIGDEN, ESQ.

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF

THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.

HENRY HIGDEN was a member of the honourable society of the Middle Temple, and during the reigns of James II. and William III. held some rank among the wits of the age. He wrote a play called "Sir Noisy Parrot, or the Wary Widow," represented in 1693, which seems to have been most effectually damned; for in the preface the author complains, that "the theatre was by faction transformed into a bear-garden, hissing, mimicking, ridiculing, and cat-calling." I mention this circumstance, because amongst the poetical friends who hastened to condole with Mr Higden on the bad success of his piece, there is one who attributes it to the influence of our author over the inferior wits at Will's coffee-house.[50] But it seems more generally admitted, as the cause of the downfall of the "Wary Widow," that the author being a man of a convivial temper, had introduced too great a display of good eating and drinking into his piece; and that the actors, although Mr Higden complains of their general negligence, entered into these convivial scenes with great zeal, and became finally incapable of proceeding in their parts.[51] The prologue was written by Sir Charles Sedley, in which the following lines seem to be levelled at Dryden's critical prefaces:

But against old, as well as new, to rage,
Is the peculiar phrenzy of this age;
Shakespeare must down, and you must praise no more
Soft Desdemona, or the jealous Moor.
Shakespeare, whose fruitful genius, happy wit,
Was framed and finished at a lucky hit;
The pride of nature, and the shame of schools,
Born to create, and not to learn from rules,
Must please no more. His bastards now deride
Their father's nakedness, they ought to hide;
But when on spurs their Pegasus they force,
Their jaded muse is distanced in the course.

If the admirers of Dryden were active in the condemnation of Higden's play, the offence probably lay in these verses.

It seems likely that Higden's translation, of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, which I have never seen, was printed before Dryden published his own version, in 1693; consequently, before the damnation of the "Wary Widow," acted in the same year, which seems to have been attended with a quarrel between Dryden and the author. It is therefore very probable, that this Epistle should have stood earlier in the arrangement: but, having no positive evidence, the Editor has not disturbed the former order.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 50:

From spawn of Will's, these wits of future tense,
He now appeals to men of riper sense;
And hopes to find some shelter from the wrath
Of furious critics of implicit faith;
Whose judgment always ebb, but zeal flows high,
Who for these truths upon the church rely.
Will's is the mother-church: From thence their creed,
And as that censures, poets must succeed.
Here the great patriarch of Parnassus sits,
And grants his bulls to the subordinate wits.
From this hot-bed with foplings we're opprest,
That crowd the boxes, and the pit infest;
Who their great master's falling spittle lick,
And at the neighbouring playhouse judge on tick.
Thus have I seen from some decaying oak,
A numerous toad-stool brood his moisture suck,
And as the reverend log his verdure sheds,
The fungous offspring flourishes and spreads.

_Verses prefixed to "Sir Noisy Parrot," 4to, 1693._
]

[Footnote 51: This circumstance is noticed by one of Higden's poetical comforters:

Friend Harry, some squeamish pretenders to thinking,
Say, thy play is encumbered with eating and drinking;
That too oft, in conscience, thy table's brought out,
And unmerciful healths fly like hail-shot about.
Such a merry objection who ere could expect,
That does on the town or its pleasures reflect?
Is a treat and a bottle grown quite out of fashion,
Or have the spruce beaus found a new recreation?
At a tavern I'm certain they seldom find fault,
When flask after flask in due order is brought:
Why then should the fops be so monstrous uncivil,
As to damn at a play, what they like at the _Devil_?

Begging pardon of this apologist, who subscribes himself Tho. Palmer, there is some difference between the satisfaction of eating a good dinner at a tavern, and seeing one presented on the stage.]

EPISTLE THE ELEVENTH.

The Grecian wits, who satire first began,
Were pleasant Pasquins on the life of man;
At mighty villains, who the state opprest, }
They durst not rail, perhaps; they lashed, at least, }
And turned them out of office with a jest. }
No fool could peep abroad, but ready stand
The drolls to clap a bauble[52] in his hand.
Wise legislators never yet could draw
A fop within the reach of common law;
For posture, dress, grimace, and affectation,
Though foes to sense, are harmless to the nation.
Our last redress is dint of verse to try,
And satire is our court of chancery.
This way took Horace to reform an age,
Not bad enough to need an author's rage:
But yours,[53] who lived in more degenerate times,
Was forced to fasten deep, and worry crimes.
Yet you, my friend, have tempered him so well,
You make him smile in spite of all his zeal;
An art peculiar to yourself alone,
To join the virtues of two styles in one.
Oh! were your author's principle received, }
Half of the labouring world would be relieved; }
For not to wish is not to be deceived. }
Revenge would into charity be changed,
Because it costs too dear to be revenged;
It costs our quiet and content of mind,
And when 'tis compassed leaves a sting behind.
Suppose I had the better end o'the staff,
Why should I help the ill-natured world to laugh?
'Tis all alike to them, who get the day;
They love the spite and mischief of the fray.
No; I have cured myself of that disease;
Nor will I be provoked, but when I please:
But let me half that cure to you restore;
You give the salve, I laid it to the sore.
Our kind relief against a rainy day, }
Beyond a tavern, or a tedious play, }
We take your book, and laugh our spleen away. }
If all your tribe, too studious of debate,
Would cease false hopes and titles to create,
Led by the rare example you begun,
Clients would fail, and lawyers be undone.

[Footnote 52: A truncheon, with a fool's head and cap upon one end. It was carried by the ancient jester, and is often alluded to in old plays.]

[Footnote 53: Juvenal.]

EPISTLE THE TWELFTH.

TO MY DEAR FRIEND

MR CONGREVE,

ON HIS COMEDY

CALLED

THE DOUBLE DEALER.

This admirable Epistle is addressed to Congreve, whose rising genius had early attracted our author's attention and patronage. When Congreve was about to bring out "The Old Bachelor," the manuscript was put by Southerne into Dryden's hands, who declared, that he had never seen such a first play, and bestowed considerable pains in adapting it to the stage. It was received with the most unbounded approbation. "The Double Dealer" was acted in November 1693, but without that universal applause which attended "The Old Bachelor." The plot was perhaps too serious, and the villainy of Maskwell too black and hateful for comedy. It was the opinion too of Dryden, that the fashionable world felt the satire too keenly.[54] The play, however, cannot be said to have failed; for it rose by degrees against opposition. The epistle is one of the most elegant and apparently heart-felt effusions of friendship, that our language boasts; and the progress of literature from the Restoration, is described as Dryden alone could describe it. A critic of that day, whose candour seems to have been on a level with his taste, has ventured to insinuate, that _huffing Dryden_, as he prophanely calls our poet, had purposely deluded Congreve into presumption, by his praise, in order that he might lead him to make shipwreck of his popularity. But such malevolent constructions have been always put upon the conduct of men of genius, by the mean jealousy of the vulgar.[55]

[Footnote 54: Mr Malone quotes part of a letter from Dryden on the subject of "The Double Dealer," and his own tragi-comedy of "Love Triumphant." It is addressed to Mr Walsh, and runs thus:

"Congreve's 'Double Dealer' is much censured by the greater part of the town, and is defended only by the best judges, who, you know, are commonly the fewest. Yet it gains ground daily, and has already been acted eight times. The women think he has exposed ----; and the gentlemen are offended with him for the discovery of their follies, and the way of their intrigue under the notions of friendship to their ladies' husbands.

"I am afraid you discover not your own opinion concerning my irregular use of tragi-comedy, in my _doppia favola_. I will never defend that practice, for I know it distracts the hearers; but know withal, that it has hitherto pleased them for the sake of variety, and for the particular taste which they have to low comedy."]

[Footnote 55: "The first that was acted was Mr Congreve's, called 'The Double Dealer.' It has fared with that play, as it generally does with beauties officiously cried up; the mighty expectation which was raised of it made it sink, even beneath its own merit. The character of the Double Dealer is artfully writ; but the action being but single, and confined within the rules of true comedy, it could not please the generality of our audience, who relish nothing but variety, and think any thing dull and heavy which does not border upon farce. The critics were severe upon this play, which gave the author occasion to lash them in his epistle dedicatory, in so defying or hectoring a style, that it was counted rude even by his best friends; so that 'tis generally thought he has done his business, and lost himself; a thing he owes to Mr Dryden's treacherous friendship, who, being jealous of the applause he had got by his 'Old Bachelor,' deluded him into a foolish imitation of his own way of writing angry prefaces."--See MALONE'S _History of the English Stage, prefaced to Shakespeare's Plays_.]

EPISTLE THE TWELFTH.

Well, then, the promised hour is come at last,
The present age of wit obscures the past:
Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ,
Conquering with force of arms, and dint of wit:
Theirs was the giant race, before the flood;
And thus, when Charles returned, our empire stood.
Like Janus, he the stubborn soil manured,
With rules of husbandry the rankness cured;
Tamed us to manners when the stage was rude,
And boisterous English wit with art endued.
Our age was cultivated thus at length;
But what we gained in skill we lost in strength.
Our builders were with want of genius curst;
The second temple was not like the first;
Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length,
Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.
Firm Doric pillars found your solid base; }
The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space: }
Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace. }
In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise;
He moved the mind, but had not power to raise:
Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please;
Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease.
In differing talents both adorned their age;
One for the study, t'other for the stage.
But both to Congreve justly shall submit,
One matched in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit.
In him all beauties of this age we see, }
Etherege his courtship, Southerne's purity, }
The satire, wit, and strength, of manly Wycherly. }
All this in blooming youth you have atchieved;
Nor are your foiled contemporaries grieved.
So much the sweetness of your manners move,
We cannot envy you, because we love.
Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw
A beardless consul made against the law,
And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome,
Though he with Hannibal was overcome.
Thus old Romano bowed to Raphael's fame,
And scholar to the youth he taught became.
O that your brows my laurel had sustained!
Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned:
The father had descended for the son;
For only you are lineal to the throne.
Thus, when the state one Edward did depose,
A greater Edward in his room arose:
But now not I, but poetry, is cursed;
For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.[56]
But let them not mistake my patron's part,
Nor call his charity their own desert.
Yet this I prophecy,--Thou shalt be seen,
(Though with some short parenthesis between,)
High on the throne of wit, and, seated there,
Not mine,--that's little,--but thy laurel wear.[57]
Thy first attempt an early promise made;
That early promise this has more than paid.
So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,
That your least praise is to be regular.
Time, place, and action, may with pains be wrought,
But genius must be born, and never can be taught.
This is your portion, this your native store; }
Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, }
To Shakespeare gave as much,--she could not give him more. }
Maintain your post; that's all the fame you need;
For 'tis impossible you should proceed.
Already I am worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage;
Unprofitably kept at heaven's expence,
I live a rent-charge on his providence:
But you, whom every muse and grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
Be kind to my remains; and O defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
But shade those laurels which descend to you:[58]
And take for tribute what these lines express;
You merit more, nor could my love do less.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 56: Shadwell, who, at the Revolution, was promoted to Dryden's posts of poet-laureat, and royal historiographer, died in 1692: was succeeded in his office of laureat by Nahum Tate, and in that of historiographer by Thomas Rymer. Our author was at present on bad terms with Rymer; to whom, not to Tate, he applies the sarcastic title of Tom the Second. Yet his old co-adjutor, Nahum, is probably included in the warning, that they should not mistake the Earl of Dorset's charity for the recompense of their own merit. We have often remarked, that the Earl of Dorset, although, as lord-chamberlain, he was obliged to dispose of Dryden's offices to persons less politically obnoxious, bestowed at the same time such marks of generosity on the abdicated laureat, that Dryden, here, and elsewhere, honours him with the title of "his patron." For the quarrel between Rymer and Dryden, see the Introduction to the "Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses," Vol. XII. p. 46. Rymer was an useful antiquary, as his edition of the _Fœdera_ bears witness; but he was a miserable critic, and a worse poet. His tragedy of "Edgar" is probably alluded to in the Epistle as one of the productions of his reign. It was printed in 1678; but appeared under the new title of "_The English Monarch_," in 1691.]

[Footnote 57: It was augured by Southerne and by Higgons, that Congreve would succeed to the literary empire exercised by Dryden. The former has these lines addressed to the future monarch:

Dryden has long extended his command,
By right divine, quite through the Muses' land,
Absolute lord; and holding now from none
But great Apollo his undoubted crown,--
That empire settled, and grown old in power,--
Can wish for nothing but a successor;
Not to enlarge his limits, but maintain
Those provinces, which he alone could gain.
His eldest, Wycherley, in wise retreat,
Thought it not worth his quiet to be great;
Loose wandering Etherege, in wild pleasure tost,
And foreign interests, to his hopes long lost;
Poor Lee and Otway dead; Congreve appears
The darling and last comfort of his years.
May'st thou live long in thy great master's smiles,
And, growing under him, adorn these isles!
But when--when part of him, (but that be late!)
His body yielding, must submit to fate;
Leaving his deathless works, and thee, behind.
The natural successor of his mind,
Then may'st thou finish what he has begun;
Heir to his merit, be in fame his son!

In the same strain, Bevill Higgons:

What may'n't we then, great youth, of thee presage
Whose art and wit so much transcend thy age!
How wilt thou shine in thy meridian light,
Who, at thy rising, give so vast a light!
When Dryden, dying, shall the world deceive,
Whom we immortal as his works believe,
Thou shalt succeed, the glory of the stage,
Adorn and entertain the coming age.
]

[Footnote 58: Congreve discharged the sacred duty thus feelingly imposed. See his Preface to Dryden's Plays, Vol. II. p. 7.]

EPISTLE THE THIRTEENTH.

TO

MR GRANVILLE,

ON HIS EXCELLENT TRAGEDY,

CALLED

HEROIC LOVE.

George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne of Biddiford, was distinguished, by the friendship of Dryden and Pope, from the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease. He copied Waller, a model perhaps chosen from a judicious consideration of his own powers. His best piece is his "Essay on unnatural Flights in Poetry," in which he elegantly apologizes for Dryden having suffered his judgment to be swayed by a wild audience. Granville's play of the "Heroic Love, or the cruel Separation," was acted in 1698 with great applause. It is a mythological drama on the love of Agamemnon and Briseis; and this being said, it is hardly necessary to add, that it now scarcely bears reading. Granville's unshaken attachment to Tory principles, as well as his excellent private character, probably gained him favour in our poet's eyes. Lord Lansdowne (for such became Granville's title when Queen Anne created twelve peers to secure a majority to ministry in the House of Lords) died on the 30th January, 1735.

EPISTLE THE THIRTEENTH.

Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend,
How could I envy, what I must commend!
But since 'tis nature's law, in love and wit,
That youth should reign, and withering age submit,
With less regret those laurels I resign,
Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine.
With better grace an ancient chief may yield
The long contended honours of the field,
Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise:
Old monarchs, though successful, still in doubt,
Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.
Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age
Can best, if any can, support the stage;
Which so 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 murdering plays, which they miscal reviving.[59]
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.
I say not this of thy successful scenes,
Where thine was all the glory, theirs the gains.
With length of time, much judgment, and more toil,
Not ill they acted what they could not spoil.
Their setting-sun still shoots a glimmering ray,
Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay;
And better gleanings their worn soil can boast,
Than the crab-vintage of the neighbouring coast.
This difference yet the judging world will see;
Thou copiest Homer, and they copy thee.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 59: These sarcasms are levelled at the players; one of whom, George Powel, took it upon him to retort in the following very singular strain of effrontery, which Mr Malone transfers from the preface of a tragedy; called "The Fatal Discovery, or Love in Ruins," published in 4to, 1698.

"Here I am afraid he makes but a coarse compliment, when this great wit, with his treacherous memory, forgets, that he had given away his laurels upon record twice before, viz. once to Mr Congreve, and another time to Mr Southerne. Pr'ythee, old Œdipus, expound this mystery! Dost thou set up thy transubstantiation miracle in the donation of thy idol bays, that thou hast them fresh, new, and whole, to give them three times over?

"For the most mortal stroke at us, he charges us with downright _murdering of plays, which we call reviving_. I will not derogate from the merit of those senior actors of both sexes, of the other house, that shine in their several perfections, in whose lavish praises he is so highly transported; but, at the same time, he makes himself but an arbitrary judge on our side, to condemn unheard, and that under no less a conviction than murder, when I cannot learn, for a fair judgment upon us, that his reverend crutches have ever brought him within our doors since the division of the companies [1695]. 'Tis true, I think, we have revived some pieces of Dryden, as his "Sebastian," "Maiden Queen," "Marriage A-la-Mode," "King Arthur," &c. But here let us be tried by a Christian jury, the audience, and not receive the bow-string from his Mahometan Grand Signiorship. 'Tis true, his more particular pique against us, as he has declared himself, is in relation to our reviving his "Almanzor." There, indeed, he has reason to be angry for our waking that sleepy dowdy, and exposing his nonsense, not ours; and if that dish did not please him, we have a Scotch proverb for our justification, viz. _'twas rotten roasted, because_, &c. and the world must expect, 'twas very hard crutching up what Hart and Mohun before us could not prop. I confess, he is a little severe, when he will allow our best performance to bear no better fruit than a crab vintage. Indeed, if we young actors spoke but half as sourly as his old gall scribbles, we should be crab all over."]

EPISTLE THE FOURTEENTH.

TO MY FRIEND

MR MOTTEUX,

ON HIS TRAGEDY

CALLED

BEAUTY IN DISTRESS,

PUBLISHED IN 1698.

Peter Anthony Motteux was a French Huguenot, born at Rohan, in Normandy, in l660. He emigrated upon the revocation of the edict of Nantz; and having friends in England of opulence and respectability, he became a merchant and bookseller of some eminence; besides enjoying a place in the Post-office, to which his skill as a linguist recommended him. This must have been considerable, if we judge by his proficiency in the language of England, certainly not the most easy to be commanded by a foreigner. Nevertheless, Motteux understood it so completely, as not only to write many occasional pieces of English poetry, but to execute a very good translation of "Don Quixote," and compose no less than fifteen plays, several of which were very well received. He also conducted the "Gentleman's Journal." On the 19th February, 1717-18, this author was found dead in a house of bad fame, in the parish of St Clement Danes, not without suspicion of murder.

Motteux appears to have enjoyed the countenance of Dryden, who, in the following verses, consoles him under the censure of those who imputed to his play of "Beauty in Distress" an irregularity of plot, and complication of incident. But the preliminary and more important part of the verses regards Jeremy Collier's violent attack upon the dramatic authors of the age for immorality and indecency. To this charge, our author, on this as on other occasions, seems to plead guilty, while he deprecates the virulence, and sometimes unfair severity of his adversary. The reader may compare the poetical defence here set up with that in the prose dedication to the "Fables," and he will find in both the same grumbling, though subdued, acquiescence under the chastisement of the moralist; the poet much resembling an over-matched general, who is unwilling to surrender, though conscious of his inability to make an effectual resistance. See also Vol. VIII. p. 462.

EPISTLE THE FOURTEENTH.

'Tis hard, my friend, to write in such an age,
As damns not only poets, but the stage.
That sacred art, by heaven itself infused,
Which Moses, David, Solomon, have used,
Is now to be no more: the Muses' foes
Would sink their Maker's praises into prose.
Were they content to prune the lavish vine
Of straggling branches, and improve the wine,
Who, but a madman, would his thoughts defend?
All would submit; for all but fools will mend.
But when to common sense they give the lie,
And turn distorted words to blasphemy,
They give the scandal; and the wise discern,
Their glosses teach an age, too apt to learn.
What I have loosely, or prophanely, writ,
Let them to fires, their due desert, commit:
Nor, when accused by me, let them complain;
Their faults, and not their function, I arraign.[60]
Rebellion, worse than witchcraft, they pursued;
The pulpit preached the crime, the people rued.
The stage was silenced; for the saints would see
In fields performed their plotted tragedy.
But let us first reform, and then so live,
That we may teach our teachers to forgive;
Our desk be placed below their lofty chairs,
Ours be the practice, as the precept theirs.
The moral part, at least we may divide,
Humility reward, and punish pride;
Ambition, interest, avarice, accuse;
These are the province of a tragic muse.
These hast thou chosen; and the public voice
Has equalled thy performance with thy choice.
Time, action, place, are so preserved by thee, }
That e'en Corneille might with envy see }
The alliance of his tripled unity. }
Thy incidents, perhaps, too thick are sown,
But too much plenty is thy fault alone.
At least but two can that good crime commit,
Thou in design, and Wycherly in wit.
Let thy own Gauls condemn thee, if they dare,
Contented to be thinly regular:
Born there, but not for them, our fruitful soil
With more increase rewards thy happy toil.
Their tongue, enfeebled, is refined too much,
And, like pure gold, it bends at every touch.
Our sturdy Teuton yet will art obey,
More fit for manly thought, and strengthened with allay.
But whence art thou inspired, and thou alone,
To flourish in an idiom not thy own?
It moves our wonder, that a foreign guest
Should overmatch the most, and match the best.
In under-praising thy deserts, I wrong;
Here find the first deficience of our tongue:
Words, once my stock, are wanting, to commend
So great a poet, and so good a friend.

[Footnote 60: The poet here endeavours to vindicate himself from the charge of having often, and designedly, ridiculed the clerical function.]

EPISTLE THE FIFTEENTH.

TO MY HONOURED KINSMAN

JOHN DRIDEN,

OF

CHESTERTON, IN THE COUNTY OF

HUNTINGDON, ESQ.

The person to whom this epistle is addressed was Dryden's first cousin; being the second son of Sir John Driden, elder brother of the poet's father Erasmus. He derived from his maternal grandfather, Sir Robert Bevile, the valuable estate of Chesterton, near Stilton, where latterly our author frequently visited him, and where it is said he wrote the first four verses of his Virgil with a diamond on a glass pane. The mansion-house is at this time (spring, 1807,) about to be pulled down, and the materials sold. The life of Mr John Driden, for he retained the ancient spelling of the name, seems to have been that of an opulent and respectable country gentleman, more happy, perhaps, in the quiet enjoyment of a large landed property, than his cousin in possession of his brilliant poetical genius. He represented the county of Huntingdon in parliament, in 1690, and from 1700 till his death in 1707-8.

The panegyric of our author is an instance, among a thousand, how genius can gild what it touches; for the praise of this lofty rhyme, when minutely examined, details the qualities of that very ordinary, though very useful and respectable, character, a wealthy and sensible country squire. "Just, good, and wise," contending neighbours referred their disputes to his decision; in humble prose, he was an active justice of peace. That he was hospitable, and kept a good pack of hounds, was a fox-hunter while young, and now followed beagles or harriers, that he represented his county, and voted against ministry, sums up his excellencies; for I will not follow my author, by numbering among them his living and dying a bachelor.[61] Yet these annals, however simple and vulgar, illuminated by the touch of our author's pen, shine like the clouds under the influence of a setting sun. The greatest illustration of our author's genius is, that the praise, though unusually applied, is appropriate, and hardly exaggerated; we lay down the book, and recollect to how little this laboured character amounts; and when we resume it, are again hurried away by the magic of the poet. But in this epistle, besides the compliment to his cousin, Dryden had a further intention in view, which was, to illustrate the character of a good English member of Parliament, whom, in conformity with his own prejudice, he represents as inclining to oppose the ministry. It was coincidence in this sentiment which had done much to reconcile Dryden and his cousin; and thus politics reunited relations, whom political disputes had long parted. At this time we learn from one of our author's letters, that Mr Dryden of Chesterton, although upon different principles, was in as warm opposition as his cousin could have wished him.[62] Our poet, however, who had felt the hand of power, did not venture on this portrait without such an explanation to Charles Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax, as he thought sufficient to avert any risk of misconstruction.[63]

There has not been found any early edition of this epistle separate from the volume of Fables; of which therefore it probably made an original part, and was first published with them in 1700. It supplies one instance among many, that the poet's lamp burned clear to the close of life. It is said that his cousin acknowledged the honour done him by the poet, by a handsome gratuity. The amount has been alleged to be five hundred pounds, which is probably exaggerated. Mr Driden of Chesterton bequeathed that sum to Charles Dryden, the poet's son, who did not live to profit by the legacy. As the report of the present to Dryden himself depends only on tradition,[64] it is possible the two circumstances may have been more or less confounded together.

The reader may be pleased to see the epitaph of John Driden of Chesterton, which concludes with some lines from this epistle. It is in the church of the village of Chesterton:

_M.S._
JOHANNIS DRIDEN, _Arm.
F. Natu secundi Johannis Driden
de Canons Ashby in agro Northampton Bart.
ex Honorâ F. et cohærede, e tribus unâ,
Roberti Bevile, Bart.
unde sortem maternam
in hâc viciniâ de Chesterton et Haddon
adeptus,
prædia dein latè,
per comitatum Huntington
adjecit;
nec sui profusus nec alieni appetens:
A litibus ipse abhorrens,
Et qui aliorum lites
Æquissimo sæpe arbitrio diremit,
Vivus,
adeo Amicitiam minimè fucatam coluit,
et publicam Patriæ salutem asseruit strenuè,
ut illa vicissim Eum summis quibus potuit
Honoribus cumulârit;
lubens sæpiusq. Senatorem voluerit:
vel moriens,
honorum atq. beneficiorum non immemor,
maximè vero Religiosæ charitatis interitu,
largam sui censûs partem_
_ad valorem 16 Millium plus minus Librarum,
vel in locis ubi res et commercium,
vel inter familiares quibus necessitudo
cum eo vivo intercesserat,
erogavit
Marmor hoc P.
Nepos et Hæres Viri multum desiderati
Robertus Pigott, Arm.
Obiit Cœlebs 3 Non. Jan. Anno Dom. 1707, Æt. 72._

JUST, GOOD, AND WISE, CONTENDING NEIGHBOURS COME, }
FROM YOUR AWARD TO WAIT THEIR FINAL DOOM; }
AND, FOES BEFORE, RETURN IN FRIENDSHIP HOME. }
WITHOUT THEIR COST, YOU TERMINATE THE CAUSE,
AND SAVE THE EXPENCE OF LONG LITIGIOUS LAWS;
WHERE SUITS ARE TRAVERSED, AND SO LITTLE WON,
THAT HE WHO CONQUERS IS BUT LAST UNDONE.

Vide p. 75.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 61: There is a report admitted into the "Baronetage," that this gentleman and his three brothers took upon them a vow to die unmarried; and it must be owned, that the praises of our author, on the score of celibacy, argue his cousin to have been a most obstinate and obdurate old bachelor. But Mr Malone produces the evidence of an old lady descended of the family, in disproof of this ungallant anecdote.--See _Baronetage_, Vol. II. p. 92. MALONE'S _Life of Dryden_, p. 324.]

[Footnote 62: "'Tis thought the king will endeavour to keep up a standing army, and make the stir in Scotland his pretence for it: My cousin Dryden, and the country party, will, I suppose, be against it; for when a spirit is raised, 'tis hard conjuring him down again."]

[Footnote 63: "In the description which I have made of a Parliament-man, I think I have not only drawn the features of my worthy kinsman, but have also given my own opinion of what an Englishman in Parliament ought to be; and deliver it as a memorial of my own principles to all posterity. I have consulted the judgment of my unbiassed friends, who have some of them the honour to be known to you; and they think there is nothing which can justly give offence in that part of the poem. I say not this, to cast a blind on your judgement, (which I could not do if I endeavoured it,) but to assure you, that nothing relating to the public shall stand without your permission; for it were to want common sense to desire your patronage, and resolve to disoblige you: And as I will not hazard my hopes of your protection, by refusing to obey you in any thing which I can perform with my conscience, or my honour, so I am very confident you will never impose any other terms on me."--_Letter to the Honourable Charles Montague._]

[Footnote 64: In the family of Pigott, descended from John Dryden of Chesterton.]

EPISTLE THE FIFTEENTH.