Chapter XII: Canto IV (1)

In Florence dwelt a doctor of renown,
The scourge of God, and terror of the town,
Who all the cant of physic had by heart,
And never murdered but by rules of art.
The public mischief was his private gain:
Children their slaughtered parents sought in vain;
A brother here his poisoned brother wept;
Some bloodless died, and some by opium slept;
Colds, at his presence, would to phrenzies turn,
And agues, like malignant fevers, burn.
Hated, at last, his practice gives him o'er;
One friend, unkilled by drugs, of all his store,
In his new country-house affords him place;
('Twas a rich abbot, and a building ass.)
Here first the doctor's talent came in play;
He seems inspired, and talks like Wren or May;
Of this new portico condemns the face,
And turns the entrance to a better place;
Designs the stair-case at the other end:
His friend approves, does for his mason send.
He comes; the doctor's arguments prevail;
In short, to finish this our humorous tale,
He Galen's dangerous science does reject,
And from ill doctor turns good architect.
In this example we may have our part;
Rather be mason, ('tis a useful art,)
Than a dull poet; for that trade accurst,
Admits no mean betwixt the best and worst.
In other sciences, without disgrace,
A candidate may fill a second place;
But poetry no medium can admit,
No reader suffers an indifferent wit:
The ruined stationers against him bawl,
And Herringman[77] degrades him from his stall.
Burlesque at least our laughter may excite;
But a cold writer never can delight.
The Counter-scuffle[78] has more wit and art,
Than the stiff formal style of Gondibert.
Be not affected with that empty praise
Which your vain flatterers will sometimes raise;
And when you read, with ecstasy will say,
"The finished piece! the admirable play!"
Which, when exposed to censure and to light,
Cannot endure a critic's piercing sight.
A hundred authors' fates have been foretold,
And Shadwell's works are printed, but not sold.
Hear all the world; consider every thought;
A fool by chance may stumble on a fault:
Yet, when Apollo does your muse inspire,
Be not impatient to expose your fire;
Nor imitate the Settles of our times,
Those tuneful readers of their own dull rhymes,
Who seize on all the acquaintance they can meet,
And stop the passengers that walk the street:
There is no sanctuary you can chuse
For a defence from their pursuing muse.
I've said before, be patient when they blame;
To alter for the better is no shame.
Yet yield not to a fool's impertinence;
Sometimes conceited sceptics, void of sense,
By their false taste condemn some finished part,
And blame the noblest flights of wit and art.
In vain their fond opinions you deride,
With their loved follies they are satisfied;
And their weak judgment, void of sense and light,
Thinks nothing can escape their feeble sight:
Their dangerous counsels do not cure, but wound; }
To shun the storm they run your verse aground, }
And thinking to escape a rock, are drowned. }
Chuse a sure judge to censure what you write,
Whose reason leads, and knowledge gives you light,
Whose steady hand will prove your faithful guide,
And touch the darling follies you would hide:
He, in your doubts, will carefully advise,
And clear the mist before your feeble eyes.
'Tis he will tell you, to what noble height
A generous muse may sometimes take her flight;
When too much fettered with the rules of art,
May from her stricter bounds and limits part:
But such a perfect judge is hard to see,
And every rhymer knows not poetry;
Nay some there are for writing verse extolled,
Who know not Lucan's dross from Virgil's gold.
Would you in this great art acquire renown?
Authors, observe the rules I here lay down.
In prudent lessons every where abound;
With pleasant join the useful and the sound:
A sober reader a vain tale will slight;
He seeks as well instruction as delight.
Let all your thoughts to virtue be confined,
Still offering nobler figures to our mind:
I like not those loose writers, who employ
Their guilty muse, good manners to destroy;
Who with false colours still deceive our eyes,
And show us vice dressed in a fair disguise.
Yet do I not their sullen muse approve,
Who from all modest writings banish love;
That stript the playhouse of its chief intrigue,
And make a murderer of Roderigue:
The lightest love, if decently exprest,
Will raise no vitious motions in our breast.
Dido in vain may weep, and ask relief;
I blame her folly, whilst I share her grief.
A virtuous author, in his charming art,
To please the sense needs not corrupt the heart:
His heat will never cause a guilty fire:
To follow virtue then be your desire.
In vain your art and vigour are exprest;
The obscene expression shows the infected breast.
But, above all, base jealousies avoid,
In which detracting poets are employed.
A noble wit dares liberally commend,
And scorns to grudge at his deserving friend.
Base rivals, who true wit and merit hate,
Caballing still against it with the great,
Maliciously aspire to gain renown,
By standing up, and pulling others down.
Never debase yourself by treacherous ways,
Nor by such abject methods seek for praise:
Let not your only business be to write;
Be virtuous, just, and in your friends delight.
'Tis not enough your poems be admired;
But strive your conversation be desired:
Write for immortal fame; nor ever chuse
Gold for the object of a generous muse.
I know a noble wit may, without crime,
Receive a lawful tribute for his time:
Yet I abhor those writers, who despise
Their honour, and alone their profits prize;
Who their Apollo basely will degrade,
And of a noble science make a trade.
Before kind reason did her light display,
And government taught mortals to obey,
Men, like wild beasts, did nature's laws pursue,
They fed on herbs, and drink from rivers drew;
Their brutal force, on lust and rapine bent,
Committed murder without punishment:
Reason at last, by her all-conquering arts,
Reduced these savages, and tuned their hearts;
Mankind from bogs, and woods, and caverns calls,
And towns and cities fortifies with walls:
Thus fear of justice made proud rapine cease,
And sheltered innocence by laws and peace.
These benefits from poets we received;
From whence are raised those fictions since believed,
That Orpheus, by his soft harmonious strains,
Tamed the fierce tygers of the Thracian plains;
Amphion's notes, by their melodious powers,
Drew rocks and woods, and raised the Theban towers:
These miracles from numbers did arise;
Since which, in verse heaven taught his mysteries,
And by a priest, possessed with rage divine,
Apollo spoke from his prophetic shrine.
Soon after, Homer the old heroes praised,
And noble minds by great examples raised;
Then Hesiod did his Grecian swains incline
To till the fields, and prune the bounteous vine.
Thus useful rules were, by the poet's aid,
In easy numbers to rude men conveyed,
And pleasingly their precepts did impart;
First charmed the ear, and then engaged the heart;
The muses thus their reputation raised,
And with just gratitude in Greece were praised.
With pleasure mortals did their wonders see,
And sacrificed to their divinity;
But want, at last, base flattery entertained,
And old Parnassus with this vice was stained;
Desire of gain dazzling the poets' eyes,
Their works were filled with fulsome flatteries.
Thus needy wits a vile revenue made,
And verse became a mercenary trade.
Debase not with so mean a vice thy art;
If gold must be the idol of thy heart,
Fly, fly the unfruitful Heliconian strand!
Those streams are not enriched with golden sand;
Great wits, as well as warriors, only gain
Laurels and honours for their toil and pain.
But what? an author cannot live on fame,
Or pay a reckoning with a lofty name:
A poet, to whom fortune is unkind,
Who when he goes to bed has hardly dined,
Takes little pleasure in Parnassus' dreams,
Or relishes the Heliconian streams;
Horace had ease and plenty when he writ, }
And free from cares for money or for meat, }
Did not expect his dinner from his wit. }
'Tis true; but verse is cherished by the great,
And now none famish who deserve to eat:
What can we fear, when virtue, arts, and sense,
Receive the stars' propitious influence;
When a sharp-sighted prince, by early grants,
Rewards your merits, and prevents your wants?
Sing then his glory, celebrate his fame;
Your noblest theme is his immortal name.
Let mighty Spenser raise his reverend head,
Cowley and Denham start up from the dead;
Waller his age renew, and offerings bring,
Our monarch's praise let bright-eyed virgins sing:
Let Dryden with new rules our stage refine,
And his great models form by this design.
But where's a second Virgil, to rehearse
Our hero's glories in his epic verse?
What Orpheus sing his triumphs o'er the main,
And make the hills and forests move again;
Shew his bold fleet on the Batavian shore,
And Holland trembling as his cannons roar;
Paint Europe's balance in his steady hand,}
Whilst the two worlds in expectation stand}
Of peace or war, that wait on his command?}
But, as I speak, new glories strike my eyes,
Glories, which heaven itself does give, and prize,
Blessings of peace; that with their milder rays
Adorn his reign, and bring Saturnian days.
Now let rebellion, discord, vice, and rage,
That have in patriots' forms debauched our age,
Vanish with all the ministers of hell;
His rays their poisonous vapours shall dispel:
'Tis he alone our safety did create, }
His own firm soul secured the nation's fate, }
Opposed to all the boutefeus[79] of the state. }
Authors, for him your great endeavours raise;
The loftiest numbers will but reach his praise.
For me, whose verse in satire has been bred,
And never durst heroic measures tread;
Yet you shall see me, in that famous field,
With eyes and voice, my best assistance yield;
Offer you lessons, that my infant muse
Learnt, when she Horace for her guide did chuse;
Second your zeal with wishes, heart, and eyes,
And afar off hold up the glorious prize.
But pardon too, if, zealous for the right,
A strict observer of each noble flight,
From the fine gold I separate the allay,
And show how hasty writers sometimes stray;
Apter to blame, than knowing how to mend;
A sharp, but yet a necessary friend.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 60: William Sallust, Seigneur Du Bartas, who wrote a huge poem, quaintly divided into "weeks and days," narrating the Scriptural history and miracles in vile bombastic and conceited verse. He found a kindred translator in Joshua Sylvester, who published a version of these and other poems about the beginning of the 17th century. Dubartas was a soldier and a Huguenot, and followed the banners of Henry IV. in the civil wars of France. Sylvester was an English merchant adventurer.]

[Footnote 61: Written by Duffet, a low author, employed by the players of the King's-house to compose parodies on the operas, by which the Duke's company at one time attracted large audiences. Accordingly he wrote a "Mock Tempest," "Psyche Debauched," and other pieces of the same kind. The first was so indecent, that in Dublin the ladies and people of rank left the house to the rabble when it was acted. See LANGBAINE, p. 177. Duffet was a milliner in the New Exchange.]

[Footnote 62: _Des mourans et des morts cent montagnes plaintives._ A line from Brebeuf's translation of Lucan.]

[Footnote 63: This passage occurs in the following notable account of the wardrobe of our ancestor Adam after the fall, translated by Sylvester from Du Bartas. It has the honour to be elsewhere alluded to by Dryden:

But when the winter's keener breath began,
To crystallize the Baltic Ocean;
To glaze the lakes, and bridle up the floods,
And periwig with wool the baldpate woods,
Our grandsire shrinking, 'gan to shake and shiver,
His teeth to chatter, and his beard to shiver:
Spying therefore a flock of muttons coming,
(Whose freeze-clad bodies feel not winter's mumming,)
He takes the fairest, and he knocks it down,
Then by good hap, finding upon the down,
A sharp great fish-bone, which long time before
The roaring flood had cast upon the shore;
He cuts the throat, flays it, and spreads the fell;
Then dries it, pares it, and he scrapes it well;
Then clothes his wife therewith; and of such hides,
Slops, hats, and doublets, for himself provides.

_Fourth Part of the first day of the second week.
The Handy-crafts._
]

[Footnote 64: Edward Fairfax, natural son of Sir Thomas Fairfax, of Denton, in Yorkshire, who executed a most beautiful translation of the "Jerusalem Delivered," which was published in 1600. Collins, in apostrophizing Tasso, does not forget his congenial translator:

How have I sate while piped the pensive wind,
To hear thy harp by British Fairfax strung;
Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders that he sung.

_Ode on Scottish Superstitions._

Fairfax also wrote the History of Edward the Black Prince, which has never been published.]

[Footnote 65: This is a hasty conclusion; Spenser's pastorals, at least the greater number of them, have little claim to the title. It seems, however, to have been a favourite idea of this poet; for, at the beginning of the Essay, he assigns heroic poetry as the sphere of Waller, and pastoral as that of Spenser.]

[Footnote 66: D'Avenant's "Gondibert," which contains many highly poetical passages, was ridiculed when published, and has been neglected ever since. See Vol. III. p. 97.]

[Footnote 67: A pedantic translation of the Latin phrase _festina lente_.]

[Footnote 68: It is difficult to guess who is meant. Certainly the description does not apply to Thomas Randolph, whose pastorals are rather ornate, and duly garnished with classical names; witness a dialogue between Tityrus and Alexis, "occasioned by two doctors disputing on predestination." Still less do I think Robert Randal was the person intended, whom Ritson has introduced among the English poets, in virtue of his "Woeful Song," and his "Woeful and Sorrowful Complaint," licensed two days after the execution of his son and him, at St Thomas-a-Waterings, 21st February, 1593. Probably Dryden, if he filled up this name, was contented to speak at large, from a general recollection, that Thomas Randolph, the adopted son of Ben Jonson, had written pastorals. The corresponding author named by Boileau, is Pierre Ronsard, who, in singing of Henry and Charles of France, degraded them into Henriot and Carlin.]

[Footnote 69: These concluding lines are probably Dryden's; being marked with his usual inveteracy against Elkanah Settle, and his peculiar sense of that bard's presumption in prefixing an engraving of his portrait to the "Empress of Morocco"--a circumstance which Dryden took more to heart than was necessary, or becoming: David Logan was the engraver of this offensive plate.]

[Footnote 70: These lines in the original, are translated with uncommon spirit and accuracy in his Life of Lopez de Vega:

The Spanish bard, who no nice censure fears,
In one short day includes a lapse of years;
In those rude acts the hero lives so fast,
Child in the first, he's grey-beard in the last.
]

[Footnote 71: The following concise account of the origin of the mysteries, or religious plays, (still, I believe, acted in some parts of Flanders,) is extracted from a lively and popular miscellany. "It is generally allowed, that pilgrims introduced these devout spectacles. Those who returned from the Holy-Land, or rather consecrated places, composed canticles of their travels, and amused their religious fancies by interweaving scenes, of which Christ, the apostles, and other objects of devotion, served as the themes. Menestrier informs us, that these pilgrims travelled in troops, and stood in the public streets, where they recited their poems, with their staff in hand; while their chaplets and cloaks, covered with shells and images of various colours, formed a picturesque exhibition, which at length excited the piety of the citizens to erect, occasionally, a stage on an extensive spot of ground. These spectacles served as the amusement and instruction of the people. So attractive were these gross exhibitions in the dark ages, that they formed one of the principal ornaments of the reception which was given to princes when they entered towns."--_D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature._]

[Footnote 72: The absurdity of converting ancient history into romance, and all her heroes into whining lovers, as where Cyrus is introduced a knight-errant, under the assumed name of Artamenes, was well ridiculed by Boileau, in a separate dialogue.]

[Footnote 73: See some specimens of this bombast piece, Vol. VI. p. 376.]

[Footnote 74: I suspect here an attack on Milton.]

[Footnote 75: A whimsical character in Jonson's "Epicœne."]

[Footnote 76: In the "Volpone," or Fox, of Ben Jonson, Sir Politic Woudbe, a foolish politician, as his name intimates, disguises himself as a tortoise, and is detected on the stage;--a machine much too farcical for the rest of the piece.]

[Footnote 77: A bookseller mentioned in "Mac-Flecnoe;" a great publisher of plays and poetry.]

[Footnote 78: A burlesque poem on a quarrel and scuffle in the Counter-prison, which occurs in Dryden's Miscellanies, Vol. III. It is written with considerable humour, though too long to be supported throughout.]

[Footnote 79: _Boutefeu_, a gallicism for _incendiary:_ in Dryden's time it was a word of good reputation, but is now obsolete.]

TARQUIN AND TULLIA.

This piece, and that which immediately follows, bear no trace of Dryden's hand. They have been attributed, by Mr Malone, with much probability, to Mr Mainwaring, a violent Jacobite. The satire is coarse and intemperate, without having that easy flow of verse, and felicity of expression, which always distinguishes the genuine productions of our author.

The comparison of William and Mary with Tarquin and Tullia, was early insisted upon as a topic of reproach. It occurs in a letter concerning the coronation medal, which, as is well known, represented, on the reverse, the destruction of Phaeton. The letter-writer says, that "one gentleman seeing the chariot, but not understanding the Latin inscription, and having heard the town talk of Tullia, who instigated her husband Tarquinius to kill her father Servius Tullius king of the Romans, that he might succeed him in the throne, and, as Livy says, caused her chariot to be driven over his mangled body, cried out, 'Is this Tullia's chariot?' This I say shocked me, and raised my anger against the contriver, who had chosen so ill an emblem, which, upon so superficial a view, brought such an odious history into men's minds." SOMERS' _Tracts_, p. 333.

TARQUIN AND TULLIA.

In times when princes cancelled nature's law,
And declarations which themselves did draw;
When children used their parents to dethrone,
And gnaw their way, like vipers, to the crown;
Tarquin, a savage, proud, ambitious prince,
Prompt to expel, yet thoughtless of defence,
The envied sceptre did from Tullius snatch,
The Roman king, and father by the match.
To form his party, histories report, }
A sanctuary was opened in his court, }
Where glad offenders safely might resort. }
Great was the crowd, and wonderous the success,
For those were fruitful times of wickedness;
And all that lived obnoxious to the laws,
Flocked to prince Tarquin, and embraced his cause.
'Mongst these a pagan priest for refuge fled;
A prophet deep in godly faction read;[80]
A sycophant, that knew the modish way
To cant and plot, to flatter and betray,
To whine and sin, to scribble and recant,
A shameless author, and a lustful saint.
To serve all times he could distinctions coin,
And with great ease flat contradictions join:
A traitor now, once loyal in extreme,
And then obedience was his only theme:
He sung in temples the most passive lays,
And wearied monarchs with repeated praise;
But managed awkwardly that lawful part, }
To vent foul lies and treason was his art, }
And pointed libels at crowned heads to dart. }
This priest, and others, learned to defame,
First murder injured Tullius in his name;
With blackest calumnies their sovereign load,
A poisoned brother, and dark league abroad;
A son unjustly top'd upon the throne,[81]
Which yet was proved undoubtedly his own;
Though, as the law was then, 'twas his behoof,
Who dispossessed the heir, to bring the proof.
This hellish charge they backed with dismal frights,
The loss of property, and sacred rights,
And freedom; words which all false patriots use
As surest names the Romans to abuse;
Jealous of kings, and always malcontent,
Forward in change, yet certain to repent.
Whilst thus the plotters needful fears create,
Tarquin with open force invades the state.
Lewd nobles join him with their feeble might,
And atheist fools for dear religion fight.
The priests their boasted principles disown,
And level their harangues against the throne.
Vain promises the people's minds allure:
Slight were these ills, but desperate the cure.
'Tis hard for kings to steer an equal course,
And they who banish one oft gain a worse.
Those heavenly bodies we admire above,
Do every day irregularly move;
Yet Tullius, 'tis decreed, must lose the crown,
For faults that were his council's, not his own.
He now in vain commands even those he payed, }
By darling troops deserted and betrayed, }
By creatures which his generous warmth had made. }
Of these a captain of the guards was worst,[82]
Whose memory to this day stands accurst.
This rogue, advanced to military trust
By his own whoredom, and his sister's lust,
Forsook his master, after dreadful vows,
And plotted to betray him to his foes;
The kindest master to the vilest slave,
As free to give, as he was sure to crave.
His haughty female, who, as books declare,[83]
Did always toss wide nostrils in the air,
Was to the younger Tullia governess, }
And did attend her, when, in borrowed dress, }
She fled by night from Tullius in distress. }
This wretch, by letters, did invite his foes,
And used all arts her father to depose;
A father, always generously bent,
So kind, that even her wishes he'd prevent.
'Twas now high time for Tullius to retreat,
When even his daughter hastened his defeat;
When faith and duty vanished, and no more
The name of father and of king he bore:
A king, whose right his foes could ne'er dispute;
So mild, that mercy was his attribute;
Affable, kind, and easy of access;
Swift to relieve, unwilling to oppress;
Rich without taxes, yet in payment just;
So honest, that he hardly could distrust:
His active soul from labours ne'er did cease,
Valiant in war, and vigilant in peace;
Studious with traffic to enrich the land,
Strong to protect, and skilful to command
Liberal and splendid, yet without excess;
Prone to relieve, unwilling to distress:
In sum, how godlike must his nature be,
Whose only fault was too much piety!
This king removed, the assembled states thought fit,
That Tarquin in the vacant throne should sit;
Voted him regent in their senate-house,
And with an empty name endowed his spouse.[84]
The elder Tullia, who, some authors feign,
Drove o'er her father's corse a rumbling wain:
But she, more guilty, numerous wains did drive,
To crush her father and her king alive;
And in remembrance of his hastened fall,
Resolved to institute a weekly ball.[85]
The jolly glutton grew in bulk and chin,
Feasted on rapine, and enjoyed her sin;
With luxury she did weak reason force,
Debauched good-nature, and cram'd down remorse;
Yet when she drank cold tea in liberal sups,
The sobbing dame was maudling in her cups.
But brutal Tarquin never did relent,
Too hard to melt, too wicked to repent;
Cruel in deeds, more merciless in will,
And blest with natural delight in ill.
From a wise guardian he received his doom
To walk the change, and not to govern Rome.
He swore his native honours to disown,
And did by perjury ascend the throne.
Oh! had that oath his swelling pride represt,
Rome had been then with peace and plenty blest.
But Tarquin, guided by destructive fate,
The country wasted, and embroiled the state,
Transported to their foes the Roman pelf,
And by their ruin hoped to save himself.
Innumerable woes oppress the land,
When it submitted to his cursed command.
So just was heaven, that 'twas hard to tell,
Whether its guilt or losses did excel.
Men that renounced their God for dearer trade,
Were then the guardians of religion made.
Rebels were sainted, foreigners did reign, }
Outlaws returned, preferment to obtain, }
With frogs, and toads, and all their croaking train. }
No native knew their features nor their birth;
They seemed the greasy offspring of the earth.
The trade was sunk, the fleet and army spent;
Devouring taxes swallowed lesser rent;
Taxes imposed by no authority;
Each lewd collection was a robbery.
Bold self-creating men did statutes draw,
Skilled to establish villany by law;
Fanatic drivers, whose unjust careers
Produced new ills exceeding former fears:
Yet authors here except a faithful band,
Which the prevailing faction did withstand;
And some, who bravely stood in the defence
Of baffled justice, and their exiled prince.
These shine to after-times; each sacred name
Stands still recorded in the rolls of fame.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 80: The famous Gilbert Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Sarum. See Vol. X. p. 267.]

[Footnote 81: The alleged poisoning of Charles II., and the imposition of a spurious Prince of Wales, both falsely charged upon James II.]

[Footnote 82: John Lord Churchill, afterwards the famous Duke of Marlborough. Although loaded with favours by James, he felt himself at liberty to join the Prince on the Revolution.]

[Footnote 83: Sarah Lady Churchill, afterwards Duchess of Marlborough. She instigated the flight of the Princess Anne from her father's palace, and accompanied her to Northampton.]

[Footnote 84: On the 8th February, 1688-9, the lords resolved, that, notwithstanding the joint sovereignty of the Prince and Princess of Orange, the Prince alone should possess the regal power, and exercise it in the name of both.]

[Footnote 85: When the Princess of Orange arrived from Holland, she displayed, in the confusion of spirits incidental to her uncommon situation, a womanish levity, for which she was much censured by the friends of the late King. DALRYMPLE'S _Memoirs_, Vol. II. p. 290. Edit. 1790.]

ON THE YOUNG STATESMEN.

The following verses have been ascribed to Dryden upon slight authority, and contrary to internal evidence. They display a good deal of the turn of wit, and structure of verse, which may be observed in similar _jeux d'esprit_ of Dorset, to whom I am tempted to ascribe them, though the name of Dryden may have been borrowed, to give them publicity.

They ought to have preceded, in point of time, those entitled "Tarquin and Tullia," but were accidentally misplaced.

As nicknames are easily perpetuated, I observe, that these verses entailed upon the young statesmen, the names of Chit Sunderland, Chit Lory, &c. in the satires of the day. This administration came into office in the latter years of Charles II.'s reign. The satire turns on a comparison between them and their predecessors of what was called the Cabal. There is a parody on these lines in the "State Poems," in which they are applied to Stillingfleet.

ON

THE YOUNG STATESMEN.

Clarendon[86] had law and sense,
Clifford[87] was fierce and brave;
Bennet's[88] grave look was a pretence,
And Danby's[89] matchless impudence
Helped to support the knave.

But Sunderland, Godolphin, Lory,[90]
These will appear such chits in story,
'Twill turn all politics to jests,
To be repeated like John Dory,
When fidlers sing at feasts.
Protect us, mighty Providence!
What would these madmen have?
First, they would bribe us without pence,
Deceive us without common sense,
And without power enslave.

Shall free-born men, in humble awe,
Submit to servile shame,
Who from consent and custom draw
The same right to be ruled by law,
Which kings pretend, to reign?

The Duke shall wield his conquering sword,
The chancellor make a speech,
The king shall pledge his honest word,
The pawned revenue sums afford,
And then, come kiss my breech.

So have I seen a king in chess,
(His rooks and knights withdrawn,
His queen and bishops in distress,)
Shifting about grow less and less,
With here and there a pawn.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 86: The famous Chancellor.]

[Footnote 87: Lord Clifford, of Chudleigh, a member of the Cabal administration.]

[Footnote 88: Bennet, Earl of Arlington, also of the Cabal.]

[Footnote 89: Osborne, Earl of Danby.]

[Footnote 90: Lawrence, Earl of Rochester, son of Lord Clarendon.]

SUUM CUIQUE.

_This poem was probably composed by Mainwaring. Like "Tarquin and
Tullia," it has the rudeness of Oldham's satirical effusions,
instead of the strength and harmony of Dryden._

When lawless men their neighbours dispossess,
The tenants they extirpate or oppress,
And make rude havoc in the fruitful soil,
Which the right owners ploughed with careful toil.
The same proportion does in kingdoms hold;
A new prince breaks the fences of the old,
And will o'er carcases and deserts reign,
Unless the land its rightful lord regain.
He gripes the faithless owners of the place, }
And buys a foreign army to deface }
The feared and hated remnant of their race; }
He starves their forces, and obstructs their trade;
Vast sums are given, and yet no native paid.
The church itself he labours to assail,
And keeps fit tools to break the sacred pale.
Of those let him the guilty roll commence,[91]
Who has betrayed a master and a prince;
A man, seditious, lewd, and impudent;
An engine always mischievously bent;
One who from all the bans of duty swerves,
No tie can hold but that which he deserves;
An author dwindled to a pamphleteer;
Skilful to forge, and always insincere;
Careless exploded practices to mend;
Bold to attack, yet feeble to defend.
Fate's blindfold reign the atheist loudly owns,
And providence blasphemously dethrones.
In vain the leering actor strains his tongue
To cheat, with tears and empty noise, the throng;
Since all men know, whate'er he says or writes,
Revenge, or stronger interest, indites;
And that the wretch employs his venal wit
How to confute what formerly he writ.
Next him the grave Socinian claims a place,
Endowed with reason, though bereft of grace;
A preaching pagan of surpassing fame,
No register records his borrowed name.
O, had the child more happily been bred,
A radiant mitre would have graced his head:
But now unfit, the most he should expect,
Is to be entered of T---- F----'s sect.[92]
To him succeeds, with looks demurely sad,
A gloomy soul, with revelation mad;
False to his friend, and careless of his word;
A dreaming prophet, and a griping lord;
He sells the livings which he can't possess,
And forms that sinecure, his diocese.
Unthinking man! to quit thy barren see }
And vain endeavours in chronology, }
For the more fruitless care of royal charity. }
Thy hoary noddle warns thee to return,
The treason of old age in Wales to mourn;
Nor think the city-poor may less sustain,
Thy place may well be vacant in this reign.
I should admit the booted prelate now,[93]
But he is even for lampoon too low;
The scum and outcast of a royal race,
The nation's grievance, and the gown's disgrace.
None so unlearned did e'er at London sit;
This driveller does the sacred chair besh----t.
I need not brand the spiritual parricide,
Nor draw the weapon dangling by his side;
The astonished world remembers that offence,
And knows he stole the daughter of his prince.
'Tis time enough, in some succeeding age,
To bring this mitred captain on the stage.
These are the leaders in apostacy,
And the blind guides of poor elective majesty;
A thing which commonwealths-men did devise,
Till plots were ripe, to catch the people's eyes.
Their king's a monster, in a quagmire born,
Of all the native brutes the grief and scorn;
With a big snout, cast in a crooked mould,
Which runs with glanders and an inborn cold;
His substance is of clammy snot and phlegm;
Sleep is his essence, and his life a dream.
To Caprea this Tiberius does retire,
To quench with catamite his feeble fire.
Dear catamite! who rules alone the state, }
While monarch dozes on his unpropt height, }
Silent, yet thoughtless, and secure of fate. }
Could you but see the fulsome hero led
By loathing vassals to his noble bed!
In flannel robes the coughing ghost does walk,
And his mouth moats like cleaner breech of hawk;
Corruption, springing from his cankered breast,
Furs up the channel, and disturbs his rest.
With head propt up, the bolstered engine lies;
If pillow slip aside, the monarch dies.

* * * * *

To these poems ascribed to Dryden, may be added the following; which, however, have so little mark of his hand, that the Editor thinks it most proper to degrade them into a note. Indeed Dryden could not have written the first of these without being guilty of gross ingratitude, a fault which was entirely inconsistent with his character.

_Epitaph on the Earl of Rochester's being dismissed from the Treasury, in 1687._

Here lies a creature of indulgent fate,
From Tory Hyde, raised to a chit of state;
In chariot now, Elijah-like, he's hurled
To the upper empty regions of the world.
The airy thing cuts through the yielding sky,
And as it goes does into atoms fly;
While we on earth see, with no small delight,
The bird of prey changed to a paper kite;
With drunken pride and rage he did so swell,
The hated thing without compassion fell;
By powerful force of universal prayer,
The ill-blown bubble now is turned to air;
To his first less than nothing he is gone,
By his preposterous transaction.

_Epigram on the Duchess of Portsmouth's Picture._

Sure we do live by Cleopatra's age,
Since Sunderland does govern now the stage;
She of Septimius had nothing made,
Pompey had been alone by her betrayed;
Were she a poet, she would surely boast,
That all the world for pearls had well been lost.

_The Soliloquy of a Royal Exile._

Unhappy I! who, once ordained to bear
God's justice-sword, and be's vicegerent here,
Am now deposed--'gainst me my children rise,
My life must be their only sacrifice;
Highly they me accuse, but nothing prove,
But this is out of tenderness and love.
They seek to spill my blood; 'tis that alone
Must for the nation's crying sins atone.
But careful heaven forewarned me in a dream,
And shewed me that my dangers were extreme;
The heavenly vision spoke, and bade me flee
The ungrateful brood, that were not worthy me;
Alarmed, I fled at the appointed time,
And mere necessity became my crime!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 91: Lord Halifax, whose correspondence with the Prince of Orange may be seen in Dalrymple's "Memoirs." He wrote several tracts about the time of the Revolution, and was in religious principle a Free-thinker.]

[Footnote 92: Who is here meant I am ignorant. T. F., as chief of the Socinians, is mentioned in a very satirical pamphlet in Somers' Tracts, entitled, "Remarks from the Country upon the two Letters relating to the Convocation, and Alterations in the Liturgy."]

[Footnote 93: Compton, Bishop of London, who took up arms in person on the Revolution, and escorted the Princess, afterwards Queen Anne, from London. See Vol. IX. p. 303.]

DRYDEN'S

ORIGINAL

PROSE WORKS.

ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY.

----_Fungar vice cotis, acutum
Reddere quæ ferrum valet, exors ipsa secandi._

This Essay contains the first detailed view of our author's opinions concerning the Drama. In many things, particularly in the main point of preference given to rhyme, he afterwards saw cause to retract some of the principles here laid down. We have endeavoured elsewhere to trace the progress and alteration of Dryden's sentiments upon these subjects.[94] But the reader's attention may be here called to the elegant form into which he has thrown his Essay, and which has been so often in vain followed by clumsy imitators. The scene of the dialogue, and the striking incident by which it is introduced, have the happiest effect in arresting the attention; and infinite address is displayed in conducting the subject, from the distant noise of a bloody sea-fight, into the academic prolusions of dramatic criticism.

The speakers in the dialogue are four; three of whom are persons "whom their wit and quality have made known to all the town." The fourth, of whose properties the author speaks more modestly, is NEANDER, under which feigned appellation Dryden himself is figured. In corroboration of this, Mr Malone produces two instances, in which Dryden is called Neander by the famous Corinna, or Eliza Thomas.[95] Moreover, the curious reader must be informed, that there is an anagram in the name of the second personage, LISIDEIUS, which points him out to be Sir Charles Sedley, or Sidley, for his name was spelled both ways.[96] CRITES, the advocate for blank verse, is Sir Robert Howard, our author's friend and brother-in-law; who, in the preface to his plays, published in 1665, had censured rhiming tragedies as unnatural. Prior has assured us, that EUGENIUS means the witty Earl of Dorset, then Lord Buckhurst.[97] A very critical observer may remark an inaccuracy in introducing his lordship as listening to the sound of a sea-fight, in which he was himself actually engaged.[98] But Dryden did not mean to identify his speakers, and those shadowed out under them, otherwise than in their capacity of critics and authors.

Dryden has, with infinite address, avoided, or overcome, the obstacles which commonly attend an argumentative discussion, in form of a dialogue. The author of such disputations, in general, so obviously favours one of the combatants, that we as soon expect Hector to slay Achilles, or Turnus to defeat Æneas, as nourish the least hope of the unfriended champion making any effectual resistance. Besides, in prepared arguments of this sort, as in prepared jests on the stage, there is an obvious opening left for those thrusts on which the author chiefly depends for success; so that, instead of admiring the victor, we are angry at the bad address of his antagonist. All these obstacles Dryden has contrived to surmount, by the number of his characters, and the variety of their dialogue, where not only the argument of Neander's antagonists is fairly stated, but the topics are so judiciously varied, that the reader is brought to the point which the author aims at, without stiffness or constraint, as if in the ordinary flow of literary conversation. Thus, as we never see the purpose which Dryden wishes to attain, we arrive at his conclusion without fatigue or prejudice.

The "Essay on Dramatic Poetry" was assailed by several critics. Martin Clifford, of the Charter-House, accused our author of pilfering from the French critics, in the second of four very abusive letters. The only existing edition of these diatribes is one in 1687; but, from their date and import, this may have been a reprint. Sir Robert Howard also attacked the Essay, in the preface to his "Duke of Lerma," which led Dryden to assert his preference of rhyming tragedies, in the Defence prefixed to the "Indian Emperor." See Vol. III. p. 263.

This Essay was first published in 1668, or perhaps in the December preceding. Sixteen years afterwards, Dryden bestowed on it a thorough revisal; and having, in many places, altered and amended the expression with unusual care, he published a second edition in 1684, with the following dedication to Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 94: See the remarks on Dryden's dramatic criticism, subjoined to his Life, Vol. I]

[Footnote 95: In an elegy on his death, and in a poem addressed to Captain Gibbon.--_Malone_, Vol. I. p. 63. For aught I know, an imperfect anagram may be intended; for the letters in the name of Dryden, with a very little aid, will make out the word _Neander_.]

[Footnote 96: For Dryden's connection with this gay writer, see the dedication of the "Assignation," Vol. IV. p. 348. Lisideius is Sidleius, a little changed.]

[Footnote 97: "The most eminent masters in their several ways appealed to his determination. Waller thought it an honour to consult him in the softness and harmony of his verse, and Dr Sprat in the delicacy and turn of his prose. Dryden determines by him, under the character of Eugenius, as to the laws of dramatic poetry." This occurs in Prior's dedication of his poems to Lionel, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, in which he gives his father's character at length, 8vo Edit. 1709.]

[Footnote 98: The evening before the battle, he is said to have composed the lively song, beginning,

To all you ladies now at land.

Prior gives the following account of the matter. "In the first Dutch war, he went a volunteer with the Duke of York: his behaviour during that campaign was such, as distinguished the Sackvill, descended from that Hildebrand of the name, who was one of the greatest captains that came into England with the Conqueror. But his making a song the night before the engagement, and it is one of the prettiest that ever was made, carries with it so sedate a presence of mind, and such an unusual gallantry, that it deserves as much to be recorded as Alexander's jesting with his soldiers before he past the Granicus, or William the First of Orange giving order over night for a battle, and desiring to be called in the morning, lest he should happen to sleep too long."]

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE</sc>

CHARLES,

EARL OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX,

LORD CHAMBERLAIN OF THEIR MAJESTIES' HOUSEHOLD, KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, &c.

MY LORD,

As I was lately reviewing my loose papers, amongst the rest I found this Essay; the writing of which, in this rude and indigested manner, wherein your lordship now sees it, served as an amusement to me in the country, when the violence of the last plague had driven me from the town.[99] Seeing, then, our theatres shut up, I was engaged in these kind of thoughts with the same delight, with which men think upon their absent mistresses. I confess I find many things in this discourse, which I do not now approve; my judgment being not a little altered since the writing of it, but whether for the better, or the worse, I know not: neither, indeed, is it much material in an Essay, where all I have said is problematical. For the way of writing plays in verse, which I have seemed to favour, I have, since that time, laid the practice of it aside, till I have more leisure, because I find it troublesome and slow: But I am no way altered from my opinion of it, at least with any reasons which have opposed it.[100] For your lordship may easily observe, that none are very violent against it, but those who either have not attempted it, or who have succeeded ill in their attempt. It is enough for me to have your lordship's example for my excuse in that little which I have done in it; and I am sure my adversaries can bring no such arguments against verse, as those with which the fourth act of "Pompey" will furnish me in its defence.[101] Yet, my lord, you must suffer me a little to complain of you, that you too soon withdraw from us a contentment, of which we expected the continuance, because you gave it us so early. It is a revolt, without occasion, from your party, where your merits had already raised you to the highest commands, and where you have not the excuse of other men, that you have been ill used, and therefore laid down arms. I know no other quarrel you can have to verse, than that which Spurina had to his beauty, when he tore and mangled the features of his face, only because they pleased too well the sight.[102] It was an honour which seemed to wait for you, to lead out a new colony of writers from the mother-nation: and, upon the first spreading of your ensigns, there had been many in a readiness to have followed so fortunate a leader; if not all, yet the better part of poets:

_Pars, indocili melior grege; mollis et exspes
Inominata perprimat cubilia_.

I am almost of opinion, that we should force you to accept of the command, as sometimes the prætorian bands have compelled their captains to receive the empire. The court, which is the best and surest judge of writing, has generally allowed of verse; and, in the town, it has found favourers of wit and quality. As for your own particular, my lord, you have yet youth and time enough to give part of them to the divertisement of the public, before you enter into the serious and more unpleasant business of the world. That which the French poet said of the temple of Love, may be as well applied to the temple of the Muses. The words, as near as I can remember them, were these:

_Le jeune homme à mauvaise grace,
N'ayant pas adoré dans le Temple d'Amour;
Il faut qu'il entre; et pour le sage
Si ce n'est pas son vrai sejour,
C'est un gîte sur son passage_.

I leave the words to work their effect upon your lordship in their own language, because no other can so well express the nobleness of the thought; and wish you may be soon called to bear a part in the affairs of the nation, where I know the world expects you, and wonders why you have been so long forgotten; there being no person amongst our young nobility, on whom the eyes of all men are so much bent. But, in the mean time, your lordship may imitate the course of nature, who gives us the flower before the fruit; that I may speak to you in the language of the Muses, which I have taken from an excellent poem to the king:

As Nature, when she fruit designs, thinks fit
By beauteous blossoms to proceed to it;
And while she does accomplish all the spring,
Birds to her secret operations sing.[103]

I confess, I have no greater reason, in addressing this Essay to your lordship, than that it might awaken in you the desire of writing something, in whatever kind it be, which might be an honour to our age and country. And methinks it might have the same effect on you, which Homer tells us the fight of the Greeks and Trojans before the fleet, had on the spirit of Achilles; who, though he had resolved not to engage, yet found a martial warmth to steal upon him at the sight of blows, the sound of trumpets, and the cries of fighting men. For my own part, if, in treating of this subject, I sometimes dissent from the opinion of better wits, I declare it is not so much to combat their opinions, as to defend my own, which were first made public.[104] Sometimes, like a scholar in a fencing-school, I put forth myself, and show my own ill play, on purpose to be better taught. Sometimes I stand desperately to my arms, like the foot when deserted by their horse, not in hope to overcome, but only to yield on more honourable terms. And yet, my lord, this war of opinions, you well know, has fallen out among the writers of all ages, and sometimes betwixt friends. Only it has been prosecuted by some, like pedants, with violence of words; and managed by others like gentlemen, with candour and civility. Even Tully had a controversy with his dear Atticus; and in one of his dialogues makes him sustain the part of an enemy in philosophy, who, in his letters, is his confident of state, and made privy to the most weighty affairs of the Roman senate. And the same respect which was paid by Tully to Atticus, we find returned to him afterwards by Cæsar, on a like occasion, who, answering his book in praise of Cato, made it not so much his business to condemn Cato, as to praise Cicero.

But that I may decline some part of the encounter with my adversaries, whom I am neither willing to combat, nor well able to resist; I will give your lordship the relation of a dispute betwixt some of our wits on the same subject, in which they did not only speak of plays in verse, but mingled, in the freedom of discourse, some things of the ancient, many of the modern, ways of writing; comparing those with these, and the wits of our nation with those of others: it is true they differed in their opinions, as it is probable they would: neither do I take upon me to reconcile, but to relate them; and that, as Tacitus professes of himself, _Sine studio partium, aut irâ_, without passion, or interest; leaving your lordship to decide it in favour of which part you shall judge most reasonable, and withal, to pardon the many errors of

Your lordship's
Most obedient humble servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 99: The great pestilence in 1663.]

[Footnote 100: As early as 1676, Dryden confesses that he had grown weary of "his long-loved mistress, Rhyme." See the prologue to "Aureng-Zebe," the last rhyming tragedy which he ever wrote. See Vol. V. p. 188. But although Dryden sometimes chose to abandon his own opinions, there is no instance of his owning conversion by the arguments of his adversaries.]

[Footnote 101: The tragedy of "Pompey the Great," 4to, 1664, translated out of French by certain persons of honour. Waller wrote the first act; Lord Buckhurst, it would seem, translated the fourth.]

[Footnote 102: Valerius Maximus, Lib. IV. Cap. 5.]

[Footnote 103: "Poem to the King's most sacred Majesty."--_D'Avenant's Works_, folio, 1673, p. 268.]

[Footnote 104: See the dedication to the "Rival Ladies," which is elaborately written in the cause of Rhyme against Blank Verse. Vol. II. p. 113.]

TO THE READER.

The drift of the ensuing discourse was chiefly to vindicate the honour of our English writers, from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before them. This I intimate, lest any should think me so exceeding vain, as to teach others an art which they understand much better than myself. But if this incorrect Essay, written in the country without the help of books, or advice of friends, shall find any acceptance in the world, I promise to myself a better success of the Second Part, wherein I shall more fully treat of the virtues and faults of the English poets, who have written either in this, the epic, or the lyric way.[105]

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 105: This promise our author never fully performed; although the "Essay on Epic Poetry," and other parts of his critical works, exhibit the materials of the proposed Second Part.]

AN

ESSAY

OF

DRAMATIC POESY.

It was that memorable day, in the first summer of the late war, when our navy engaged the Dutch;[106] a day wherein the two most mighty and best appointed fleets which any age had ever seen, disputed the command of the greater half of the globe, the commerce of nations, and the riches of the universe: while these vast floating bodies, on either side, moved against each other in parallel lines, and our countrymen, under the happy conduct of his Royal Highness,[107] went breaking, by little and little, into the line of the enemies; the noise of the cannon from both navies reached our ears about the city; so that all men being alarmed with it, and in a dreadful suspense of the event, which they knew was then deciding, every one went following the sound as his fancy led him; and leaving the town almost empty, some took towards the Park, some cross the river, others down it; all seeking the noise in the depth of silence.

Amongst the rest, it was the fortune of Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander, to be in company together: three of them persons whom their wit and quality have made known to all the town; and whom I have chose to hide under these borrowed names, that they may not suffer by so ill a relation as I am going to make of their discourse.