The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Part 11

_Thersites_. Nay, cheats heaven too with entrails and with offals; Gives it the garbage of a sacrifice, And keeps the best for private luxury.

Troilus_. Thou hast deserved thy life for cursing priests.

Let me embrace thee; thou art beautiful: That back, that nose, those eyes are beautiful: Live; thou art honest, for thou hat'st a priest."

Dryden prefixed to "Troilus and Cressida" his excellent remarks on the Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, giving up, with dignified indifference the faults even of his own pieces, when they contradict the rules his later judgment had adopted. How much his taste had altered since his "Essay of Dramatic Poesy," or at least since his "Remarks on Heroic Plays," will appear from the following abridgment of his new maxims. The plot, according to these remarks, ought to be simply and naturally detailed from its commencement to its conclusion,--a rule which excluded the crowded incidents of the Spanish drama; and the personages ought to be dignified and virtuous, that their misfortunes might at once excite pity and terror. The plots of Shakespeare and Fletcher are meted by this rule, and p.r.o.nounced inferior in mechanic regularity to those of Ben Jonson. The character of the agents, or persons, are next to be considered; and it is required that their manner shall be at once marked, dramatic, consistent, and natural. And here the supereminent power of Shakespeare, in displaying the manners, bent, and inclination of his characters, is pointed out to the reader's admiration. The copiousness of his invention, and his judgment in sustaining the ideas which he started, are ill.u.s.trated by referring to Caliban, a creature of the fancy, begot by an incubus upon a witch, and furnished with a person, language, and character befitting his pedigree on both sides.

The pa.s.sions are then considered as included in the manners; and Dryden, at once and peremptorily, condemns both the extravagance of language, which subst.i.tutes noise for feeling, and those points and turns of wit, which misbecome one actuated by real and deep emotion. He candidly gives an example of the last error from his own Montezuma who, pursued by his enemies, and excluded from the fort, describes his situation in a long simile, taken besides from the sea, which he had only heard of for the first time in the first act. As a description of natural pa.s.sion, the famous procession of King Richard in the train of the fortunate usurper is quoted, in justice to the divine author. From these just and liberal rules of criticism, it is easy to discover that Dryden had already adopted a better taste, and was disgusted with comedies, where the entertainment arose from bustling incident, and tragedies, where sounding verse was subst.i.tuted for the delineation of manners and expression of feeling. These opinions he pointedly expresses in the Prologue to "Troilus and Cressida," which was spoken by Betterton, representing the ghost of Shakespeare:

"See, my loved Britons, see your Shakespeare rise, An awful ghost confessed to human eyes!

Unnamed, methinks, distinguished I had been, From other shades, by this eternal green, About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive, And, with a touch, their withered bays revive.

Untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age, I found not, but created first the stage.

And if I drained no Greek or Latin store, 'Twas that my own abundance gave me more.

On foreign trade I needed not rely, Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply.

In this, my rough-drawn play, you shall behold Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold, That he who meant to alter, found 'em such; He shook, and thought it sacrilege to touch.

Now, where are the successors to my name?

What bring they to fill out a poet's fame?

Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age; Scarce living to be christened on the stage!

For humour _farce_, for love they _rhyme_ dispense, That tolls the knell for their departed sense."

It is impossible to read these lines, remembering Dryden's earlier opinions, without acknowledging the truth of the ancient proverb, _Magna est veritas, et praevalebit_.

The "Spanish Friar," our author's most successful comedy, succeeded "Troilus and Cressida." Without repeating the remarks which are prefixed to the play in the present edition,[34] we may briefly notice, that in the tragic scenes our author has attained that better strain of dramatic poetry which he afterwards evinced in "Sebastian." In the comic part, the well-known character of Father Dominic, though the conception only embodies the abstract idea which the ignorant and prejudiced fanatics of the day formed to themselves of a Romish priest, is brought out and ill.u.s.trated with peculiar spirit. The gluttony, avarice, debauchery, and meanness of Dominic are qualified with the talent and wit necessary to save him from being utterly detestable; and, from the beginning to the end of the piece, these qualities are so happily tinged with insolence hypocrisy, and irritability, that they cannot be mistaken for the avarice, debauchery, gluttony, and meanness of any other profession than that of a bad churchman. In the tragic plot, we princ.i.p.ally admire the general management of the opening, and chiefly censure the cold-blooded barbarity and perfidy of the young queen, in instigating the murder of the deposed sovereign, and then attempting to turn the guilt on her accomplice. I fear Dryden here forgot his own general rule, that the tragic hero and heroine should have so much virtue as to ent.i.tle their distress to the tribute of compa.s.sion. Altogether, however, the "Spanish Friar," in both its parts, is an interesting, and almost a fascinating play; although the tendency, even of the tragic scenes, is not laudable, and the comedy, though more decent in language, is not less immoral in tendency than was usual in that loose age.

Dryden attached considerable importance to the art with which the comic and tragic scenes of the "Spanish Friar" are combined; and in doing so he has received the sanction of Dr. Johnson. Indeed, as the ardour of his mind ever led him to prize that task most highly, on which he had most lately employed his energy, he has affirmed, in the dedication to the "Spanish Friar," that there was an absolute necessity for combining two actions in tragedy, for the sake of variety. "The truth is," he adds, "the audience are grown weary of continued melancholy scenes; and I dare venture to prophesy, that few tragedies, except those in verse, shall succeed in this age, if they are not lightened with a course of mirth; for the feast is too dull and solemn without the fiddles." The necessity of the relief alluded to may be admitted, without allowing that we must subst.i.tute either the misplaced charms of versification, or a secondary comic plot, to relieve the solemn weight and monotony of tragedy. It is no doubt true, that a highly-buskined tragedy, in which all the personages maintain the funereal pomp usually required from the victims of Melpomene, is apt to be intolerably tiresome, after all the pains which a skilful and elegant poet can bestow upon finishing it. But it is chiefly tiresome, because it is unnatural; and, in respect of propriety, ought no more to be relieved by the introduction of a set of comic scenes, independent of those of a mournful complexion, than the _sombre_ air of a funeral should be enlivened by a concert of fiddles.

There appear to be two legitimate modes of interweaving tragedy with something like comedy. The first and most easy, which has often been resorted to, is to make the lower or less marked characters of the drama, like the porter in "Macbeth," or the fool in "King Lear," speak the language appropriated to their station, even in the midst of the distresses of the piece; nay, they may be permitted to have some slight under-intrigue of their own. This, however, requires the exertion of much taste and discrimination; for if we are once seriously and deeply interested in the distress of the play, the intervention of anything like buffoonery may unloosen the hold which the author has gained on the feelings of the audience. If such subordinate comic characters are of a rank to intermix in the tragic dialogue, their mirth ought to be chastened, till their language bears a relation to that of the higher persons. For example, nothing can be more absurd than in "Don Sebastian," and some of Southerne's tragedies, to hear the comic character answer in prose, and with a would-be witticism, to the solemn, unrelaxed blank verse of his tragic companion.[35] Mercutio is, I think, one of the best instances of such a comic person as may be reasonably and with propriety admitted into tragedy: from which, however, I do not exclude those lower characters, whose conversation appears absurd if much elevated above their rank. There is, however, another mode, yet more difficult to be used with address, but much more fortunate in effect when it has been successfully employed. This is, when the princ.i.p.al personages themselves do not always remain in the buckram of tragedy, but reserve, as in common life, lofty expressions for great occasions, and at other times evince themselves capable of feeling the lighter, as well as the more violent or more deep, affections of the mind. The shades of comic humour in Hamlet, in Hotspur, and in Falconbridge, are so far from injuring, that they greatly aid the effect of the tragic scenes, in which these same persons take a deep and tragical share. We grieve with them, when grieved, still more because we have rejoiced with them when they rejoiced; and, on the whole, we acknowledge a deeper _frater feeling_, as Burns has termed it, in men who are actuated by the usual changes of human temperament, than in those who, contrary to the nature of humanity, are eternally actuated by an unvaried strain of tragic feeling. But whether the poet diversifies his melancholy scenes by the pa.s.sing gaiety of subordinate characters; or whether he qualifies the tragic state of his heroes by occasionally a.s.signing lighter tasks to them; or whether he chooses to employ both modes of relieving the weight of misery through live long acts; it is obviously unnecessary that he should distract the attention of his audience, and destroy the regularity of his play, by introducing a comic plot with personages and interest altogether distinct, and intrigue but slightly connected with that of the tragedy. Dryden himself afterwards acknowledged that though he was fond of the "Spanish Friar," he could not defend it from the imputation of Gothic and unnatural irregularity; "for mirth and gravity destroy each other, and are no more to be allowed for decent, than a gay widow laughing in a mourning habit."[36]

The "Spanish Friar" was brought out in 1681-2, when the nation was in a ferment against the Catholics on account of the supposed plot. It is dedicated to John, Lord Haughton, as _protestant play_ inscribed to a _protestant patron_. It was also the last dramatic work, excepting the political play of the "Duke of Guise," and the masque of "Albion and Albanius," brought out by our author before the Revolution. And in political tendency, the "Spanish Friar" has so different colouring from these last pieces, that it is worth while to pause to examine the private relations of the author when he composed it.

Previous to 1678, Lord Mulgrave, our author's constant and probably effectual patron, had given him an opportunity of discoursing over his plan of an epic poem to the king and Duke of York; and in the preface to "Aureng-Zebe" in that year, the poet intimates an indirect complaint that the royal brothers had neglected his plan.[37] About two years afterwards, Mulgrave seems himself to have fallen into disgrace, and was considered as in opposition to the court.[38] Dryden was deprived of his intercession, and seems in some degree to have shared his disgrace. The "Essay on Satire" became public in November 1679, and being generally imputed to Dryden, it is said distinctly by one libeller, that his pension was for a time interrupted.[39] This does not seem likely; it is more probable, that Dryden shared the general fate of the household of Charles II., whose appointments were but irregularly paid; but perhaps his supposed delinquency made it more difficult for him than others to obtain redress. At this period broke out the pretended discovery of the Popish Plot, in which Dryden, even in "Absalom and Achitophel," evinces a partial belief.[40] Not encouraged, if not actually discountenanced, at court; sharing in some degree the discontent of his patron Mulgrave; above all, obliged by his situation to please the age in which he lived, Dryden did not probably hold the reverence of the Duke of York so sacred, as to prevent his making the ridicule of the Catholic religion the means of recommending his play to the pa.s.sions of the audience.

Neither was his situation at court in any danger from his closing on this occasion with the popular tide. Charles, during the heat of the Popish plot, was so far from being in a situation to incur odium by dismissing a laureate for having written a _Protestant play_, that he was obliged for a time to throw the reins of government into the hands of those very persons to whom the Papists were most obnoxious. The inference drawn from Dryden's performance was that he had deserted the court; and the Duke of York was so much displeased with the tenor of the play, that it was the only one of which, on acceding to the crown, he prohibited the representation. The "Spanish Friar" was often objected to the author by his opponents, after he had embraced the religion there satirised. Nor was the idea of his apostasy from the court an invention of his enemies after his conversion, for it prevailed at the commencement of the party-disputes; and the name of Dryden is, by a partisan of royalty, ranked with that of his bitter foe Shadwell, as followers of Shaftesbury in 1680.[41] But whatever cause of coolness or disgust our author had received from Charles or his brother, was removed, as usual, so soon as his services became necessary; and thus the supposed author of a libel on the king became the ablest defender of the cause of monarchy, and the author of the "Spanish Friar" the advocate and convert of the Catholic religion.

In his private circ.u.mstances Dryden must have been even worse situated than at the close of the last Section. His contract with the King's Company was now ended, and long before seems to have produced him little profit. If Southerne's biographer can be trusted, Dryden never made by a single play more than one hundred pounds; so that, with all his fertility, he could not, at his utmost exertion, make more than two hundred a year by his theatrical labours.[42] At the same time, they so totally engrossed his leisure, that he produced no other work of consequence after the "_Annus Mirabilis._"[43] If, therefore, the payment of his pension was withheld, whether from the resentment of the court, or the poverty of the exchequer, he might well complain of the "unsettled state" which doomed him to continue these irksome and ill-paid labours.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Malone, vol. i. p. 124.

[2] Dennis's account of these feuds, though not strictly accurate is lively, and too curious to be suppressed. "Nothing," says Dennis, "is more certain, than that Mr. Settle, who is now (1717) the city poet, was formerly a poet of the court. And at what time was he so? Why, in the reign of King Charles the Second, when that court was more gallant and more polite than ever the English court perhaps had been before; when there was at court the present and the late Duke of Buckingham, the late Earl of Dorset, Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, famous for his wit and poetry, Sir Charles Sedley, Mr. Saville, Mr. Buckley, and several others.

"Mr. Settle's first tragedy, 'Cambyses, King of Persia,' was acted for three weeks together. The second, which was 'The Empress of Morocco,'

was acted for a month together; and was in such high esteem both with the court and town that it was acted at Whitehall before the king by the gentlemen and ladies of the court; and the prologue, which was spoken by the Lady Betty Howard, was writ by the famous Lord Rochester. The bookseller who printed it, depending upon the prepossession of the town, ventured to distinguish it from all the plays that had been ever published before; for it was the first play that ever was sold in England for two shillings, and the first that ever was printed with cuts. The booksellers at that time of day had not discovered so much of the weakness of their gentle readers as they have done since, nor so plainly discovered that fools, like children, are to be drawn in by gewgaws.--Well; but what was the event of this great success? Mr. Settle began to grow insolent, as any one may see, who reads the epistle dedicatory to 'The Empress of Morocco.' Mr. Dryden, Mr. Shadwell, and Mr. Crowne, began to grow jealous; and they three in confederacy wrote 'Remarks on the Empress of Morocco.' Mr. Settle answered them; and, according to the opinion which the town then had of the matter (for I have utterly forgot the controversy), had by much the better of them all. In short, Mr. Settle was then a formidable rival to Mr. Dryden; and I remember very well, that not only the town, but the university of Cambridge, was very much divided in their opinions about the preference that ought to be given to them; and in both places the younger fry inclined to Elkanah."

[3] Lord Mulgrave wrote the prologue when Settle's play was first acted at court; Lord Rochester's was written for the second occasion; both were spoken by the beautiful Lady Elizabeth Howard.

[4] See this offensive dedication in the account of Settle's controversy with Dryden.

[5] A copy of this rare edition (the gift of my learned friend, the Rev.

Henry White of Lichfield) is now before me. The engravings are sufficiently paltry; and had the play been published even in the present day, it would have been accounted dear at two shillings. The name of the publisher is William Cademan, the date 1673. [See H. Morley, "English Plays," pp. 351, 352.--ED.]

[6] This t.i.tle is omitted in subsequent editions.

[7] Of whom it was said, that he spoke "to the tune of a good speech."

[8] As, for example, this stage-direction: "Here a company of villains in ambush from behind the scenes discharge their guns at Muly-Hamet; at which Muly-Hamet starting and turning, Hametalhaz from under his priest's habit draws a sword and pa.s.ses at Muly-H., which pa.s.s is intercepted by Abdeleader. They engage in a very fierce fight with the villains, who also draw and a.s.sist Hametalhaz, and go off several ways fighting; after the discharge of other guns heard from within, and the clashing of swords, enter again Muly-Hamet, driving in some of the former villains, which he kills."

[9] In the fifth act the scene draws and discovers Crimalhaz cast down on the _guanches_, i.e. hung on a wall set with spikes, scythe-blades, and hooks of iron; which scene (to judge from the engraving) exhibited the mangled limbs and wasted bones of former sufferers, suspended in agreeable confusion. With this pleasing display the piece concluded.

[10] Settle's pamphlet was contumaciously ent.i.tled, "Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco revised, with some few erratas; to be printed instead of the Postscript with the next Edition of the Conquest of Granada, 1674." See some quotations from this piece, vol.

xv.

[11] His comedy of "Sir Courtly Nice" exhibits marks of comic power.

[The condemnation of his other work is a little too sweeping.--ED.]

[12] See vol. x.

[13] [As is the case with many other circ.u.mstances of the life of Dryden, this business of _Calisto_ has been much exaggerated. The amount of positive evidence of Rochester's interference is exceedingly small, and of his ill offices in regard to the epilogue there is no proof whatever.--ED.]

[14] So called, according to the communicative old correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine in 1745, from the unalterable stiffness of his long cravat.

[15] "I am well satisfied I had the greatest party of men of wit and sense on my side: amongst which I can never enough acknowledge the unspeakable obligations I received from the Earl of R., who, far above what I am ever able to deserve from him, seemed almost to make it his business to establish it in the good opinion of the king and his royal highness; from both of which I have since received confirmations of their good-liking of it, and encouragement to proceed. And it is to him, I must, in all grat.i.tude, confess, I owe the greatest part of my good success in this and on whose indulgency I extremely build my hopes of a next." Accordingly, next year, Otway's play of "t.i.tus and Berenice" is inscribed to Rochester, "his good and generous patron."

[16]

"Tom Otway came next, Tom Shailwell's dear zany, And swears for heroics he writes best of any; 'Don Carlos' his pockets so amply had filled, That his mange was quite cured, and his lice were all killed.

But Apollo had seen his face on the stage, And prudently did not think fit to engage The sc.u.m of a playhouse for the prop of an age."

[17] "Though a certain writer, that shall be nameless (but you may guess at him by what follows), being ask'd his opinion of this play, very gravely c.o.c.k't, and cry'd, _I'gad_ he knew not a line in it he would be authour of. But he is a fine facetious witty person, as my friend Sir Formal has it; and to be even with him, I know a comedy of his, that has not so much as a quibble in it which I would be authour of. And so, reader, I bid him and thee farewell." The use of Dryden's interjection, well known through Bayes's employing it, ascertains him to be the poet meant.

[18]

"Well, sir, 'tis granted; I said Dryden's rhymes Were stolen, unequal, nay dull many times; What foolish patron is there found of his, So blindly partial to deny me this?

But that his plays, embroidered up and down With learning, justly pleased the town, In the same paper I as freely own.

Yet, having this allowed, the heavy ma.s.s, That stuffs up his loose volumes, must not pa.s.s; For by that rule I might as well admit Crowne's tedious scenes for poetry and wit.

'Tis therefore not enough when your false sense Hits the false judgment of an audience Of clapping fools a.s.sembling, a vast crowd, Till the thronged playhouse cracked with the dull load; Though even that talent merits, in some sort, That can divert the rabble and the court; Which blundering Settle never could obtain, And puzzling Otway labours at in vain."

He afterwards mentions Etherege's seductive poetry, and adds:

"Dryden in vain tried this nice way of wit; For he, to be a tearing blade, thought fit To give the ladies a dry bawdy bob; And thus he got the name of _Poet Squab_.

But to be just, 'twill to his praise be found, His excellencies more than faults abound; Nor dare I from his sacred temples tear The laurel, which he best deserves to wear.

But does not Dryden find even Jonson dull?

Beaumont and Fletcher uncorrect, and full Of lewd lines, as he calls them? Shakespeare's style Stiff and affected? To his own the while Allowing all the justice that his pride So arrogantly had to these denied?

And may not I have leave impartially To search and censure Dryden's works, and try If those gross faults his choice pen doth commit, Proceed from want of judgment, or of wit?

Or if his lumpish fancy does refuse Spirit and grace, to his loose slattern muse?

Five hundred verses every morning writ, Prove him no more a poet than a wit."

[19]

"Rochester I despise for's mere want of wit, Though thought to have a tail and cloven feet; For while he mischief means to all mankind, Himself alone the ill effects does find; And so, like witches, justly suffers shame, Whose harmless malice is so much the same.

False are his words, affected is his wit, So often does he aim, so seldom hit.

To every face he cringes while he speaks, But when the back is turned, the head he breaks.

Mean in each action, lewd in every limb, Manners themselves are mischievous in him; A proof that chance alone makes every creature,-- A very Killigrew, without good-nature.

For what a [Transcriber's note: "Bessus?" Print unclear] has he always lived, And his own kickings notably contrived; For (there's the folly that's still mixed with fear) Cowards more blows than any hero bear.

Of fighting sparks Fame may her pleasure say, But 'tis a bolder thing to run away.