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IntroductionIntroductory Note
Introductory Note
The age of Elizabeth, memorable for so many reasons in the history of
England, was especially brilliant in literature, and, within literature, in
the drama. With some falling off in spontaneity, the impulse to great dramatic
production lasted till the Long Parliament closed the theaters in 1642; and
when they were reopened at the Restoration, in 1660, the stage only too
faithfully reflected the debased moral tone of the court society of Charles
II.
John Dryden (1631-1700), the great representative figure in the
literature of the latter part of the seventeenth century, exemplifies in his
work most of the main tendencies of the time. He came into notice with a poem
on the death of Cromwell in 1658, and two years later was composing couplets
expressing his loyalty to the returned king. He married Lady Elizabeth Howard,
the daughter of a royalist house, and for practically all the rest of his life
remained an adherent of the Tory Party. In 1663 he began writing for the
stage, and during the next thirty years he attempted nearly all the current
forms of drama. His "Annus Mirabilis" (1666), celebrating the English naval
victories over the Dutch, brought him in 1670 the Poet Laureateship. He had,
meantime, begun the writing of those admirable critical essays, represented in
the present series by his Preface to the "Fables" and his Dedication to the
translation of Virgil. In these he shows himself not only a critic of sound
and penetrating judgment, but the first master of modern English prose style.
With "Absalom and Achitophel," a satire on the Whig leader, Shaftesbury,
Dryden entered a new phase, and achieved what is regarded as "the finest of
all political satires." This was followed by "The Medal," again directed
against the Whigs, and this by "Mac Flecknoe," a fierce attack on his enemy
and rival Shadwell. The Government rewarded his services by a lucrative
appointment.
After triumphing in the three fields of drama, criticism, and satire,
Dryden appears next as a religious poet in his "Religio Laici," an exposition
of the doctrines of the Church of England from a layman`s point of view. In
the same year that the Catholic James II ascended the throne, Dryden joined
the Roman Church, and two years later defended his new religion in "The Hind
and the Panther," an allegorical debate between two animals standing
respectively for Catholicism and Anglicanism.
The Revolution of 1688 put an end to Dryden`s prosperity; and after a
short return to dramatic composition, he turned to translation as a means of
supporting himself. He had already done something in this line; and after a
series of translations from Juvenal, Persius, and Ovid, he undertook, at the
age of sixty-three, the enormous task of turning the entire works of Virgil
into English verse. How he succeeded in this, readers of the "Aeneid" in a
companion volume of these classics can judge for themselves. Dryden`s
production closes with the collection of narrative poems called "Fables,"
published in 1700, in which year he died and was buried in the Poet`s Corner
in Westminster Abbey.
Dryden lived in an age of reaction against excessive religious idealism,
and both his character and his works are marked by the somewhat unheroic
traits of such a period. But he was, on the whole, an honest man, open-
minded, genial, candid, and modest; the wielder of a style, both in verse and
prose, unmatched for clearness, vigor, and sanity.
Three types of comedy appeared in England in the time of Dryden - the
comedy of humors, the comedy of intrigue, and the comedy of manners - and in
all he did Dryden`s work classed him with the ablest of his contemporaries. He
developed the somewhat bombastic type of drama known as the heroic play, and
brought it to its height in his "Conquest of Granada;" then, becoming
dissatisfied with this form, he cultivated the French classic tragedy on the
model of Racine. This he modified by combining with the regularity of the
French treatment of dramatic action a richness of characterization in which he
showed himself a disciple of Shakespeare, and of this mixed type his best
example is "All for Love." Here he has the daring to challenge comparison with
his master, and the greatest testimony to his achievement is the fact that, as
Professor Noyes has said, "fresh from Shakespeare`s `Antony and Cleopatra,` we
can still read with intense pleasure Dryden`s version of the story."
Dedication
To the Right Honourable, Thomas, Earl of Danby, Viscount Latimer, and
Baron Osborne of Kiveton, in Yorkshire; Lord High Treasurer of England, one of
His Majesty`s Most Honourable Privy Council, and Knight of the Most Noble
Order of the Garter.
My Lord,
The gratitude of poets is so troublesome a virtue to great men, that you
are often in danger of your own benefits: for you are threatened with some
epistle, and not suffered to do good in quiet, or to compound for their
silence whom you have obliged. Yet, I confess, I neither am or ought to be
surprised at this indulgence; for your lordship has the same right to favour
poetry, which the great and noble have ever had -
Carmen amat, quisquis carmine digna gerit.
There is somewhat of a tie in nature betwixt those who are born for
worthy actions, and those who can transmit them to posterity; and though ours
be much the inferior part, it comes at least within the verge of alliance; nor
are we unprofitable members of the commonwealth, when we animate others to
those virtues, which we copy and describe from you.
It is indeed their interest, who endeavour the subversion of governments,
to discourage poets and historians; for the best which can happen to them, is
to be forgotten. But such who, under kings, are the fathers of their country,
and by a just prudent ordering of affairs preserve it, have the same reason to
cherish the chroniclers of their actions, as they have to lay up in safety the
deeds and evidences of their estates; for such records are their undoubted
titles to the love and reverence of after ages. Your lordship`s administration
has already taken up a considerable part of the English annals; and many of
its most happy years are owing to it. His Majesty, the most knowing judge of
men, and the best master, has acknowledged the ease and benefit he receives in
the incomes of his treasury, which you found not only disordered, but
exhausted. All things were in the confusion of a chaos, without form or
method, if not reduced beyond it, even to annihilation; so that you had not
only to separate the jarring elements, but (if that boldness of expression
might be allowed me) to create them. Your enemies had so embroiled the
management of your office, that they looked on your advancement as the
instrument of your ruin. And as if the clogging of the revenue, and the
confusion of accounts, which you found in your entrance, were not sufficient,
they added their own weight of malice to the public calamity, by forestalling
the credit which should cure it. Your friends on the other side were only
capable of pitying, but not of aiding you; no further help or counsel was
remaining to you, but what was founded on yourself; and that indeed was your
security; for your diligence, your constancy, and your prudence, wrought most
surely within, when they were not disturbed by any outward motion. The highest
virtue is best to be trusted with itself; for assistance only can be given by
a genius superior to that which it assists; and it is the noblest kind of
debt, when we are only obliged to God and nature. This then, my lord, is your
just commendation, and that you have wrought out yourself a way to glory, by
those very means that were designed for your destruction: You have not only
restored but advanced the revenues of your master, without grievance to the
subject; and, as if that were little yet, the debts of the exchequer, which
lay heaviest both on the crown, and on private persons, have by your conduct
been established in a certainty of satisfaction. An action so much the more
great and honourable, because the case was without the ordinary relief of
laws; above the hopes of the afflicted and beyond the narrowness of the
treasury to redress, had it been managed by a less able hand. It is certainly
the happiest, and most unenvied part of all your fortune, to do good to many,
while you do injury to none; to receive at once the prayers of the subject,
and the praises of the prince; and, by the care of your conduct, to give him
means of exerting the chiefest (if any be the chiefest) of his royal virtues,
his distributive justice to the deserving, and his bounty and compassion to
the wanting. The disposition of princes towards their people cannot be better
discovered than in the choice of their ministers; who, like the animal spirits
betwixt the soul and body, participate somewhat of both natures, and make the
communication which is betwixt them. A king, who is just and moderate in his
nature, who rules according to the laws, whom God has made happy by forming
the temper of his soul to the constitution of his government, and who makes us
happy, by assuming over us no other sovereignty than that wherein our welfare
and liberty consists; a prince, I say, of so excellent a character, and so
suitable to the wishes of all good men, could not better have conveyed himself
into his people`s apprehensions, than in your lordship`s person; who so lively
express the same virtues, that you seem not so much a copy, as an emanation of
him. Moderation is doubtless an establishment of greatness; but there is a
steadiness of temper which is likewise requisite in a minister of state; so
equal a mixture of both virtues, that he may stand like an isthmus betwixt the
two encroaching seas of arbitrary power, and lawless anarchy. The undertaking
would be difficult to any but an extraordinary genius, to stand at the line,
and to divide the limits; to pay what is due to the great representative of
the nation, and neither to enhance, nor to yield up, the undoubted
prerogatives of the crown. These, my lord, are the proper virtues of a noble
Englishman, as indeed they are properly English virtues; no people in the
world being capable of using them, but we who have the happiness to be born
under so equal, and so well - poised a government; - a government which has
all the advantages of liberty beyond a commonwealth, and all the marks of
kingly sovereignty, without the danger of a tyranny. Both my nature, as I am
an Englishman, and my reason, as I am a man, have bred in me a loathing to
that specious name of a republic; that mock appearance of a liberty, where all
who have not part in the government, are slaves; and slaves they are of a
viler note, than such as are subjects to an absolute dominion. For no
Christian monarchy is so absolute, but it is circumscribed with laws; but when
the executive power is in the law - makers, there is no further check upon
them; and the people must suffer without a remedy, because they are oppressed
by their representatives. If I must serve, the number of my masters, who were
born my equals, would but add to the ignominy of my bondage. The nature of our
government, above all others, is exactly suited both to the situation of our
country, and the temper of the natives; an island being more proper for
commerce and for defence, than for extending its dominions on the Continent;
for what the valour of its inhabitants might gain, by reason of its
remoteness, and the casualties of the seas, it could not so easily preserve:
And, therefore, neither the arbitrary power of One, in a monarchy, nor of
Many, in a commonwealth, could make us greater than we are. It is true, that
vaster and more frequent taxes might be gathered, when the consent of the
people was not asked or needed; but this were only by conquering abroad, to be
poor at home; and the examples of our neighbours teach us, that they are not
always the happiest subjects, whose kings extend their dominions farthest.
Since therefore we cannot win by an offensive war, at least, a land war, the
model of our government seems naturally contrived for the defensive part; and
the consent of a people is easily obtained to contribute to that power which
must protect it. Felices nimium, bona si sua norint, Angligenae! And yet
there are not wanting malcontents among us, who, surfeiting themselves on too
much happiness, would persuade the people that they might be happier by a
change. It was indeed the policy of their old forefather, when himself was
fallen from the station of glory, to seduce mankind into the same rebellion
with him, by telling him he might yet be freer than he was; that is more free
than his nature would allow, or, if I may so say, than God could make him. We
have already all the liberty which freeborn subjects can enjoy, and all beyond
it is but licence. But if it be liberty of conscience which they pretend, the
moderation of our church is such, that its practice extends not to the
severity of persecution; and its discipline is withal so easy, that it allows
more freedom to dissenters than any of the sects would allow to it. In the
meantime, what right can be pretended by these men to attempt innovation in
church or state? Who made them the trustees, or to speak a little nearer their
own language, the keepers of the liberty of England? If their call be
extraordinary, let them convince us by working miracles; for ordinary vocation
they can have none, to disturb the government under which they were born, and
which protects them. He who has often changed his party, and always has made
his interest the rule of it, gives little evidence of his sincerity for the
public good; it is manifest he changes but for himself, and takes the people
for tools to work his fortune. Yet the experience of all ages might let him
know, that they who trouble the waters first, have seldom the benefit of the
fishing; as they who began the late rebellion enjoyed not the fruit of their
undertaking, but were crushed themselves by the usurpation of their own
instrument. Neither is it enough for them to answer, that they only intend a
reformation of the government, but not the subversion of it: on such pretence
all insurrections have been founded; it is striking at the root of power,
which is obedience. Every remonstrance of private men has the seed of treason
in it; and discourses, which are couched in ambiguous terms, are therefore the
more dangerous, because they do all the mischief of open sedition, yet are
safe from the punishment of the laws. These, my lord, are considerations,
which I should not pass so lightly over, had I room to manage them as they
deserve; for no man can be so inconsiderable in a nation, as not to have a
share in the welfare of it; and if he be a true Englishman, he must at the
same time be fired with indignation, and revenge himself as he can on the
disturbers of his country. And to whom could I more fitly apply myself than to
your lordship, who have not only an inborn, but an hereditary loyalty? The
memorable constancy and sufferings of your father, almost to the ruin of his
estate, for the royal cause, were an earnest of that which such a parent and
such an institution would produce in the person of a son. But so unhappy an
occasion of mani festing your own zeal, in suffering for his present majesty,
the providence of God, and the prudence of your administration, will, I hope,
prevent; that, as your father`s fortune waited on the unhappiness of his
sovereign, so your own may participate of the better fate which attends his
son. The relation which you have by alliance to the noble family of your lady,
serves to confirm to you both this happy augury. For what can deserve a
greater place in the English chronicle, than the loyalty and courage, the
actions and death, of the general of an army, fighting for his prince and
country? The honour and gallantry of the Earl of Lindsey is so illustrious a
subject, that it is fit to adorn an heroic poem; for he was the proto - martyr
of the cause, and the type of his unfortunate royal master.
Yet after all, my lord, if I may speak my thoughts, you are happy rather
to us than to yourself; for the multiplicity, the cares, and the vexations of
your employment, have betrayed you from yourself, and given you up into the
possession of the public. You are robbed of your privacy and friends, and
scarce any hour of your life you can call your own. Those, who envy your
fortune, if they wanted not good - nature, might more justly pity it; and when
they see you watched by a crowd of suitors, whose importunity it is impossible
to avoid, would conclude, with reason, that you have lost much more in true
content, than you have gained by dignity; and that a private gentleman is
better attended by a single servant, than your lordship with so clamorous a
train. Pardon me, my lord, if I speak like a philosopher on this subject; the
fortune which makes a man uneasy, cannot make him happy; and a wise man must
think himself uneasy, when few of his actions are in his choice.
This last consideration has brought me to another, and a very seasonable
one for your relief; which is, that while I pity your want of leisure, I have
impertinently detained you so long a time. I have put off my own business,
which was my dedication, till it is so late, that I am now ashamed to begin
it; and therefore I will say nothing of the poem, which I present to you,
because I know not if you are like to have an hour, which, with a good
conscience, you may throw away in perusing it; and for the author, I have only
to beg the continuance of your protection to him, who is,
My Lord,
Your Lordship`s most obliged,
Most humble, and
Most obedient, servant,
John Dryden.
Preface
The death of Antony and Cleopatra is a subject which has been treated by
the greatest wits of our nation, after Shakespeare; and by all so variously,
that their example has given me the confidence to try myself in this bow of
Ulysses amongst the crowd of suitors, and, withal, to take my own measures, in
aiming at the mark. I doubt not but the same motive has prevailed with all of
us in this attempt; I mean the excellency of the moral: For the chief persons
represented were famous patterns of unlawful love; and their end accordingly
was unfortunate. All reasonable men have long since concluded, that the hero
of the poem ought not to be a character of perfect virtue, for then he could
not, without injustice, be made unhappy; nor yet altogether wicked, because he
could not then be pitied. I have therefore steered the middle course; and have
drawn the character of Antony as favourably as Plutarch, Appian, and Dion
Cassius would give me leave; the like I have observed in Cleopatra. That which
is wanting to work up the pity to a greater height, was not afforded me by the
story; for the crimes of love, which they both committed, were not occasioned
by any necessity, or fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary; since our
passions are, or ought to be, within our power. The fabric of the play is
regular enough, as to the inferior parts of it; and the unities of time,
place, and action, more exactly observed, than perhaps the English theatre
requires. Particularly, the action is so much one, that it is the only one of
the kind without episode, or underplot; every scene in the tragedy conducing
to the main design, and every act concluding with a turn of it. The greatest
error in the contrivance seems to be in the person of Octavia; for, though I
might use the privilege of a poet, to introduce her into Alexandria, yet I had
not enough considered, that the compassion she moved to herself and children
was destructive to that which I reserved for Antony and Cleopatra; whose
mutual love being founded upon vice, must lessen the favour of the audience to
them, when virtue and innocence were oppressed by it. And, though I justified
Antony in some measure, by making Octavia`s departure to proceed wholly from
herself; yet the force of the first machine still remained; and the dividing
of pity, like the cutting of a river into many channels, abated the strength
of the natural stream. But this is an objection which none of my critics have
urged against me; and therefore I might have let it pass, if I could have
resolved to have been partial to myself. The faults my enemies have found are
rather cavils concerning little and not essential decencies; which a master of
the ceremonies may decide betwixt us. The French poets, I confess, are strict
observers of these punctilios: They would not, for example, have suffered
Cleopatra and Octavia to have met; or, if they had met, there must have only
passed betwixt them some cold civilities, but no eagerness of repartee, for
fear of offending against the greatness of their characters, and the modesty
of their sex. This objection I foresaw, and at the same time contemned; for I
judged it both natural and probable, that Octavia, proud of her new - gained
conquest, would search out Cleopatra to triumph over her; and that Cleopatra,
thus attacked, was not of a spirit to shun the encounter: And it is not
unlikely, that two exasperated rivals should use such satire as I have put
into their mouths; for, after all, though the one were a Roman, and the other
a queen, they were both women. It is true, some actions, though natural, are
not fit to be represented; and broad obscenities in words ought in good
manners to be avoided: expressions therefore are a modest clothing of our
thoughts, as breeches and petticoats are of our bodies. If I have kept myself
within the bounds of modesty, all beyond, it is but nicety and affectation;
which is no more but modesty depraved into a vice. They betray themselves who
are too quick of apprehension in such cases, and leave all reasonable men to
imagine worse of them, than of the poet.
Honest Montaigne goes yet further: Nous ne sommes que ceremonie; la
ceremonie nous emporte, et laissons la substance des choses. Nous nous tenons
aux branches, et abandonnons le tronc et le corps. Nous avons appris aux dames
de rougir, oyans seulement nommer ce qu`elles ne craignent aucunement a faire:
Nous n`osons appeller a droit nos membres, et ne craignons pas de les employer
a toute sorte de debauche. La ceremonie nous defend d`exprimer par paroles les
choses licites et naturelles, et nous l`en croyons; la raison nous defend de
n`en faire point d`illicites et mauvaises, et personne ne l`en croit. My
comfort is, that by this opinion my enemies are but sucking critics, who would
fain be nibbling ere their teeth are come.
Yet, in this nicety of manners does the excellency of French poetry
consist. Their heroes are the most civil people breathing; but their good
breeding seldom extends to a word of sense; all their wit is in their
ceremony; they want the genius which animates our stage; and therefore it is
but necessary, when they cannot please, that they should take care not to
offend. But as the civilest man in the company is commonly the dullest, so
these authors, while they are afraid to make you laugh or cry, out of pure
good manners make you sleep. They are so careful not to exasperate a critic,
that they never leave him any work; so busy with the broom, and make so clean
a riddance that there is little left either for censure or for praise: For no
part of a poem is worth our discommending, where the whole is insipid; as when
we have once tasted of palled wine, we stay not to examine it glass by glass.
But while they affect to shine in trifles, they are often careless in
essentials. Thus, their Hippolytus is so scrupulous in point of decency, that
he will rather expose himself to death, than accuse his stepmother to his
father; and my critics I am sure will commend him for it. But we of grosser
apprehensions are apt to think that this excess of generosity is not
practicable, but with fools and madmen. This was good manners with a
vengeance; and the audience is like to be much concerned at the misfortunes of
this admirable hero. But take Hippolytus out of his poetic fit, and I suppose
he would think it a wiser part to set the saddle on the right horse, and
choose rather to live with the reputation of a plain - spoken, honest man,
than to die with the infamy of an incestuous villain. In the meantime we may
take notice, that where the poet ought to have preserved the character as it
was delivered to us by antiquity, when he should have given us the picture of
a rough young man, of the Amazonian strain, a jolly huntsman, and both by his
profession and his early rising a mortal enemy to love, he has chosen to give
him the turn of gallantry, sent him to travel from Athens to Paris, taught him
to make love, and transformed the Hippolytus of Euripides into Monsieur
Hippolyte. I should not have troubled myself thus far with French poets, but
that I find our Chedreux critics wholly form their judgments by them. But for
my part, I desire to be tried by the laws of my own country; for it seems
unjust to me, that the French should prescribe here, till they have conquered.
Our little sonneteers, who follow them, have too narrow souls to judge of
poetry. Poets themselves are the most proper, though I conclude not the only
critics. But till some genius, as universal as Aristotle, shall arise, one who
can penetrate into all arts and sciences, without the practice of them, I
shall think it reasonable, that the judgment of an artificer in his own art
should be preferable to the opinion of another man; at least where he is not
bribed by interest, or prejudiced by malice. And this, I suppose, is manifest
by plain inductions: For, first, the crowd cannot be presumed to have more
than a gross instinct of what pleases or displeases them: Every man will grant
me this; but then, by a particular kindness to himself, he draws his own stake
first, and will be distinguished from the multitude, of which other men may
think him one. But, if I come closer to those who are allowed for witty men,
either by the advantage of their quality, or by common fame, and affirm that
neither are they qualified to decide sovereignly concerning poetry, I shall
yet have a strong party of my opinion; for most of them severally will exclude
the rest, either from the number of witty men, or at least of able judges. But
here again they are all indulgent to themselves; and every one who believes
himself a wit, that is, every man, will pretend at the same time to a right of
judging. But to press it yet further, there are many witty men, but few poets;
neither have all poets a taste of tragedy. And this is the rock on which they
are daily splitting. Poetry, which is a picture of nature, must generally
please; but it is not to be understood that all parts of it must please every
man; therefore is not tragedy to be judged by a witty man, whose taste is only
confined to comedy. Nor is every man, who loves tragedy, a sufficient judge of
it; he must understand the excellences of it too, or he will only prove a
blind admirer, not a critic. From hence it comes that so many satires on
poets, and censures of their writings, fly abroad. Men of pleasant
conversation (at least esteemed so), and endued with a trifling kind of fancy,
perhaps helped out with some smattering of Latin, are ambitious to distinguish
themselves from the herd of gentlemen, by their poetry -
Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa
Fortuna.
And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what
fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but they
must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their nakedness to
public view? Not considering that they are not to expect the same approbation
from sober men, which they have found from their flatterers after the third
bottle. If a little glittering in discourse has passed them on us for witty
men, where was the necessity of undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an
ill title to an estate, but yet is in possession of it; would he bring it of
his own accord, to be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the
talent, yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can
be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to
scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous?
Horace was certainly in the right, where he said, "That no man is satisfied
with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because he is not rich; and
the rich are discontented, because the poets will not admit them of their
number. Thus the case is hard with writers: If they succeed not, they must
starve; and if they do, some malicious satire is prepared to level them, for
daring to please without their leave. But while they are so eager to destroy
the fame of others, their ambition is manifest in their concernment; some poem
of their own is to be produced, and the slaves are to be laid flat with their
faces on the ground, that the monarch may appear in the greater majesty.
Dionysius and Nero had the same longings, but with all their power they
could never bring their business well about. `Tis true, they proclaimed
themselves poets by sound of trumpet; and poets they were, upon pain of death
to any man who durst call them otherwise. The audience had a fine time on`t,
you may imagine; they sat in a bodily fear, and looked as demurely as they
could: for it was a hanging matter to laugh unseasonably; and the tyrants were
suspicious, as they had reason, that their subjects had them in the wind; so,
every man, in his own defence, set as good a face upon the business as he
could. It was known beforehand that the monarchs were to be crowned laureates;
but when the show was over, and an honest man was suffered to depart quietly,
he took out his laughter which he had stifled, with a firm resolution never
more to see an emperor`s play, though he had been ten years a - making it. In
the meantime the true poets were they who made the best markets: for they had
wit enough to yield the prize with a good grace, and not contend with him who
had thirty legions. They were sure to be rewarded, if they confessed
themselves bad writers, and that was somewhat better than to be martyrs for
their reputation. Lucan`s example was enough to teach them manners; and after
he was put to death, for overcoming Nero, the emperor carried it without
dispute for the best poet in his dominions. No man was ambitious of that
grinning honour; for if he heard the malicious trumpeter proclaiming his name
before his betters, he knew there was but one way with him. Maecenas took
another course, and we know he was more than a great man, for he was witty
too: But finding himself far gone in poetry, which Seneca assures us was not
his talent, he thought it his best way to be well with Virgil and with Horace;
that at least he might be a poet at the second hand; and we see how happily it
has succeeded with him; for his own bad poetry is forgotten, and their
panegyrics of him still remain. But they who should be our patrons are for no
such expensive ways to fame; they have much of the poetry of Maecenas, but
little of his liberality. They are for prosecuting Horace and Virgil, in the
persons of their successors; for such is every man who has any part of their
soul and fire, though in a less degree. Some of their little zanies yet go
further; for they are persecutors even of Horace himself, as far as they are
able, by their ignorant and vile imitations of him; by making an unjust use of
his authority, and turning his artillery against his friends. But how would he
disdain to be copied by such hands! I dare answer for him, he would be more
uneasy in their company, than he was with Crispinus, their forefather, in the
Holy Way; and would no more have allowed them a place amongst the critics,
than he would Demetrius the mimic, and Tigellius the buffoon;
------- Demetri, teque, Tigelli,
Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.
With what scorn would he look down on such miserable translators, who make
doggerel of his Latin, mistake his meaning, misapply his censures, and often
contradict their own? He is fixed as a landmark to set out the bounds of
poetry -
------- Saxum antiquum, ingens, -
Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis.
But other arms than theirs, and other sinews are required, to raise the
weight of such an author; and when they would toss him against enemies -
Genua labant, gelidus concrevit frigore sanguis.
Tum lapis ipse viri, vacuum per inane volatus,
Nec spatium evasit totum, nec pertulit ictum.
For my part, I would wish no other revenge, either for myself, or the rest of
the poets, from this rhyming judge of the twelve - penny gallery, this
legitimate son of Sternhold, than that he would subscribe his name to his
censure, or (not to tax him beyond his learning) set his mark: For, should he
own himself publicly, and come from behind the lion`s skin, they whom he
condemns would be thankful to him, they whom he praises would choose to be
condemned; and the magistrates, whom he has elected, would modestly withdraw
from their employment, to avoid the scandal of his nomination. The sharpness
of his satire, next to himself, falls most heavily on his friends, and they
ought never to forgive him for commending them perpetually the wrong way, and
sometimes by contraries. If he have a friend, whose hastiness in writing is
his greatest fault, Horace would have taught him to have minced the matter,
and to have called it readiness of thought, and a flowing fancy; for
friendship will allow a man to christen an imperfection by the name of some
neighbour virtue -
Vellem in amicitia sic erraremus; et isti
Errori nomen virtus posuisset honestum.
But he would never allowed him to have called a slow man hasty, or a hasty
writer a slow drudge, as Juvenal explains it -
------- Canibus pigris, scabieque vestusta
Laevibus, et siccae lambentibus ora lucernae,
Nomen erit, Pardus, Tigris, Leo; si quid adhuc est
Quod fremit in terris violentius.
Yet Lucretius laughs at a foolish lover, even for excusing the imperfections
of his mistress -
Nigra mehixpoos est, immunda et foetida akoomos
Balba loqui non quit, tpavhisel; muta pudens est, etc.
But to drive it ad Aethiopem cygnum is not to be endured. I leave him to
interpret this by the benefit of his French version on the other side, and
without further considering him, than I have the rest of my illiterate
censors, whom I have disdained to answer, because they are not qualified for
judges. It remains that I acquiant the reader, that I have endeavoured in this
play to follow the practice of the ancients, who, as Mr. Rymer has judiciously
observed, are and ought to be our masters. Horace likewise gives it for a rule
in his art of poetry -
------- Vos exemplaria Graeca
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.
Yet, though their models are regular, they are too little for English
tragedy; which requires to be built in a larger compass. I could give an
instance in the Oedipus Tyrannus, which was the masterpiece of Sophocles; but
I reserve it for a more fit occasion, which I hope to have hereafter. In my
style, I have professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare; which that I might
perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme. Not that I
condemn my former way, but that this is more proper to my present purpose. I
hope I need not to explain myself, that I have not copied my author servilely:
Words and phrases must of necessity receive a change in succeeding ages; but
it is almost a miracle that much of his language remains so pure; and that he
who began dramatic poetry amongst us, untaught by any, and as Ben Jonson tells
us, without learning, should by the force of his own genius perform so much,
that in a manner he has left no praise for any who come after him. The
occasion is fair, and the subject would be pleasant to handle the difference
of styles betwixt him and Fletcher, and wherein, and how far they are both to
be imitated. But since I must not be over - confident of my own performance
after him, it will be prudence in me to be silent. Yet, I hope, I may affirm,
and without vanity, that, by imitating him, I have excelled myself throughout
the play; and particularly, that I prefer the scene betwixt Antony and
Ventidius in the first act, to anything which I have written in this kind.
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