The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Part 12

The world may well forgive him all his ill, For every fault does prove his penance still.

Falsely he lulls into some dangerous noose, And then as meanly labours to get loose.

A life so infamous is better quitting; Spent in base injury and low submitting.-- I'd like to have left out his poetry, Forgot by all almost as well as me.

Sometimes he has some humour, never wit, And if it rarely, very rarely hit, 'Tis under such a nasty rubbish laid, To find it out's the cinder-woman's trade; Who for the wretched remnants of a fire, Must toil all day in ashes and in mire.

So lewdly dull his idle works appear, The wretched text deserves no comments here; Where one poor thought sometime's left all alone, For a whole page of dulness to atone: 'Mongst forty bad, one tolerable line, Without expression, fancy, or design."

[20] "Whereas John Dryden, Esq., was on Monday the 18th instant, at night, barbarously a.s.saulted, and wounded in Rose-street, in Covent-garden, by divers men unknown; if any person shall make discovery of the said offenders to the said Mr. Dryden, or to any justice of the peace, he shall not only receive fifty pounds, which is deposited in the hands of Mr. Blanchard, goldsmith, next door to Temple-bar, for the said purpose; but if he be a princ.i.p.al, or an accessory, in the said fact, his Majesty is graciously pleased to promise him his pardon for the same."--_London Gazette_, from December 18th to December 22d, 1679. Mr. Malone mentions the same advertis.e.m.e.nt in a newspaper, ent.i.tled, "Domestic Intelligence or News from City and Country."

[21] I might also mention the sentiment of Count Conigsmarck, who allowed, that the barbarous a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr. Thynne by his bravoes was a slain on his blood, but such a one as a good action in the wars, or a lodging on a counterscarp, would easily wash out. See his Trial, "State Trials," vol. iv. But Conigsmarck was a foreigner.

[22] For example, a rare broadside in ridicule of Benjamin Harris the Whig publisher, ent.i.tled, "The Saint turned Courtezan, or a new Plot discovered by a precious Zealot of an a.s.sault and Battery designed upon the Body of a sanctified Sister,

"Who, in her husband's absence, with a brother Did often use to comfort one another, Till wide-mouthed Crop, who is an old Italian, Took his mare nappy, and surprised her stallion, Who, steal of entertainment from his mistress, Did meet a cudgelling not matched in histories."

"Who's there?" quoth watchful Argus.

"Tis I, in longing pa.s.sion, Give me a kiss."

Quoth Ben, "Take this, _A Dryden salutation_."

"Help Care, Vile, Smith, and Curtes, Each zealous covenanter!

What wonder the atheist L'Estrange should turn papist, When a zealot turns a ranter."

[23] Vol. xiii.

[24] Cibber's Apology, 4to, p. 74.

[25] Vol. xv.

[26] Vol. v.

[27] Vol. v.

[28] This distinction our author himself points out in the Prologue. The poet there says,

"His hero, whom you wits his bully call, Bates of his mettle, and scarce rants at all; He's somewhat lewd, but a well-meaning mind, Weeps much, fights little, but is wondrous kind."--Vol. v.

[29] See Footnote 26, Section II, this volume.

[30] Mr. Malone has seen a MS. copy of "Limberham" in its original state, found by Bolingbroke in the sweepings of Pope's study. It contained several exceptionable pa.s.sages, afterwards erased or altered.

[31] Vol. vi.

[32] By allusion to the act for burying in woollen.

[33] [Transcriber's note: "See their Pet.i.tion, page 88" in original.

This is to be found in Footnote 26, Section II.]

[34] Vol. vi.

[35] This is ridiculed in "Chrononhotonthologos."

[36] Parallel of Poetry and Painting, vol. xvii.

[37] [Transcriber's note: "See page 181" in original. This approximates to paragraphs preceding reference [26] in text, Section IV.]

[38] He is said to have cast the eyes of ambitious affection on the Lady Anne (afterwards queen), daughter of the Duke of York; at which presumption Charles was so much offended, that when Mulgrave went to relieve Tangier in 1680, he is said to have been appointed to a leaky and frail vessel, in hopes that he might perish; an injury which he resented so highly, as not to permit the king's health to be drunk at his table till the voyage was over. On his return from Tangier he was refused the regiment of the Earl of Plymouth; and, considering his services as neglected, for a time joined those who were discontented with the government. He was probably reclaimed by receiving the government of Hull and lieutenancy of Yorkshire. See vol. ix.

[39] In a poem called "The Laureat," the satirist is so ill informed, as still to make Dryden the author of the "Essay on Satire." Surely it is unlikely to suppose, that he should have submitted to the loss of a pension, which he so much needed, rather than justify himself, where justification was so easy. Yet his resentment is said to have been

"For Pension lost, and justly, without doubt: When servants snarl we ought to kick them out.

That lost, the visor changed, you turn about, And straight a true-blue Protestant crept out.

The _Friar_ now was wrote; and some will say, They smell a malcontent through all the play."

See the whole pa.s.sage, vol. vi.

[40] See, for this point also, the volume last quoted.

[41] In "A Modest Vindication of Antony, Earl of Shaftesbury, in a Letter to a Friend concerning his having been elected King of Poland,"

Dryden is named poet-laureate to the supposed king-elect, and Shadwell his deputy. See vol. ix.

[42] "Dryden being very desirous of knowing how much Southerne had made by the profits of one of his plays, the other, conscious of the little success Dryden had met with in theatrical compositions, declined the question, and answered, he was really ashamed to acquaint him. Dryden continuing to be solicitous to be informed, Southerne owned he had cleared by his last play 700; which appeared astonishing to Dryden, who was perhaps ashamed to confess, that he had never been able to acquire, by any of his most successful pieces, more than 100."--_Life of Southerne_ prefixed to his Plays.

[43] There was published, 1679, a translation of Appian, printed for John Amery at the Peac.o.c.k, against St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet-street.

It is inscribed by the translator, J.D., to the Earl of Ossory; and seems to have been undertaken by his command. This work is usually termed in catalogues, Dryden's Appian. I presume it may be the work of that Jonathan Dryden who is mentioned in p 26.

SECTION V.

_Dryden engages in Politics--Absalom and Achitophel, Part First--The Medal--MacFlecknoe--Absalom and Achitophel, Part Second--The Duke of Guise._

The controversies, in which Dryden had hitherto been engaged, were of a private complexion, arising out of literary disputes and rivalry. But the country was now deeply agitated by political faction; and so powerful an auxiliary was not permitted by his party to remain in a state of inactivity. The religion of the Duke of York rendered him obnoxious to a large proportion of the people, still agitated by the terrors of the Popish Plot. The Duke of Monmouth, handsome, young, brave, and courteous, had all the external requisites for a popular idol; and what he wanted in mental qualities was amply supplied by the Machiavel subtlety of Shaftesbury. The life of Charles was the only isthmus between these contending tides, "which, mounting, viewed each other from afar, and strove in vain to meet." It was already obvious, that the king's death was to be the signal of civil war. His situation was doubly embarra.s.sing, because, in all probability, Monmouth, whose claims were both unjust in themselves and highly derogatory to the authority of the crown, was personally amiable, and more beloved by Charles than was his inflexible and bigoted brother. But to consent to the bill for excluding the lawful heir from the crown, would have been at the same time putting himself in a state of pupillage for the rest of his reign, and evincing to his subjects, that they had nothing to expect from attachment to his person, or defence of his interest. This was a sacrifice not to be thought of so long as the dreadful recollection of the wars in the preceding reign determined a large party to support the monarch, while he continued willing to accept of their a.s.sistance.

Charles accordingly adopted a determined course; and, to the rage rather than confusion of his partisans, Monmouth was banished to Holland, from whence he boldly returned without the king's licence, and openly a.s.sumed the character of the leader of a party. Estranged from court, he made various progresses through the country, and employed every art which the genius of Shaftesbury could suggest, to stimulate the courage, and to increase the number, of his partisans. The press, that awful power, so often and so rashly misused, was not left idle. Numbers of the booksellers were distinguished as Protestant or fanatical publishers; and their shops teemed with the furious declamations of Ferguson, the inflammatory sermons of Hickeringill, the political disquisitions of Hunt, and the party plays and libellous poems of Settle and Shadwell. An host of rhymers, inferior even to those last named, attacked the king, the Duke of York, and the ministry, in songs and libels, which, however paltry, were read, sung, rehea.r.s.ed, and applauded. It was time that some champion should appear in behalf of the crown, before the public should have been irrecoverably alienated by the incessant and slanderous clamour of its opponents. Dryden's place, talents, and mode of thinking, qualified him for this task. He was the poet-laureate and household servant of the king thus tumultuously a.s.sailed. His vein of satire was keen, terse, and powerful, beyond any that has since been displayed.

From the time of the Restoration, he had been a favourer of monarchy, perhaps more so, because the opinion divided him from his own family. If he had been for a time neglected, the smiles of a sovereign soon make his coldness forgotten; and if his narrow fortune was not increased, or even rendered stable, he had promises of provision, which inclined him to look to the future with hope, and endure the present with patience.

If he had shared in the discontent which for a time severed Mulgrave from the royal party, that cause ceased to operate when his patron was reconciled to the court, and received a share of the spoils of the disgraced Monmouth.[1] If there wanted further impulse to induce Dryden, conscious of his strength, to mingle in an affray where it might be displayed to advantage, he had the stimulus of personal attachment and personal enmity, to sharpen his political animosity. Ormond, Halifax, and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, among the n.o.bles, were his patrons; Lee and Southerne, among the poets, were his friends. These were partisans of royalty. The Duke of York, whom the "Spanish Friar" probably had offended, was conciliated by a prologue on his visiting the theatre at his return from Scotland,[2] and it is said, by the omission of certain peculiarly offensive pa.s.sages, so soon as the play was reprinted.[3] The opposite ranks contained Buckingham, author of the "Rehearsal;"

Shadwell, with whom our poet now urged open war; and Settle, the insolence of whose rivalry was neither forgotten nor duly avenged. The respect due to Monmouth was probably the only consideration to be overcome: but his character was to be handled with peculiar lenity; and his d.u.c.h.ess, who, rather than himself, had patronised Dryden, was so dissatisfied with the politics, as well as the other irregularities, of her husband, that there was no danger of her taking a gentle correction of his ambition as any affront to herself. Thus stimulated by every motive, and withheld by none, Dryden composed, and on the 17th November 1681 published, the satire of "Absalom and Achitophel."

The plan of the satire was not new to the public. A Catholic poet had, in 1679, paraphrased the scriptural story of Naboth's vine-yard and applied it to the condemnation of Lord Stafford, on account of the Popish Plot.[4] This poem is written in the style of a scriptural allusion; the names and situations of personages in the holy text being applied to those contemporaries, to whom the author a.s.signed a place in his piece. Neither was the obvious application of the story of Absalom and Achitophel to the persons of Monmouth and Shaftesbury first made by our poet. A prose paraphrase, published in 1080, had already been composed upon this allusion.[5] But the vigour of the satire, the happy adaptation, not only of the incidents, but of the very names to the individuals characterised, gave Dryden's poem the full effect of novelty. It appeared a very short time after Shaftesbury had been committed to the Tower, and only a few days before the grand jury were to take under consideration the bill preferred against him for high treason. Its sale was rapid beyond example; and even those who were most severely characterised, were compelled to acknowledge the beauty, if not the justice, of the satire. The character of Monmouth, an easy and gentle temper, inflamed beyond its usual pitch by ambition, and seduced by the arts of a wily and interested a.s.sociate, is touched with exquisite delicacy. The poet is as careful of the offending Absalom's fame, as the father in Scripture of the life of his rebel son. The fairer side of his character is industriously presented, and a veil drawn over all that was worthy of blame. But Shaftesbury pays the lenity with which Monmouth is dismissed. The traits of praise, and the tribute paid to that statesman's talents, are so qualified and artfully blended with censure, that they seem to render his faults even more conspicuous, and more hateful. In this skilful mixture of applause and blame lies the nicest art of satire. There must be an appearance of candour on the part of the poet, and just so much merit allowed, even to the object of his censure, as to make his picture natural. It is a child alone who fears the aggravated terrors of a Saracen's head; the painter, who would move the awe of an enlightened spectator, must delineate his tyrant with human features. It seems likely, that Dryden considered the portrait of Shaftesbury, in the first edition of "Absalom and Achitophel," as somewhat deficient in this respect; at least the second edition contains twelve additional lines, the princ.i.p.al tendency of which is to praise the ability and integrity with which Shaftesbury had discharged the office of lord high chancellor. It has been reported, that this mitigation was intended to repay a singular exertion of generosity on Shaftesbury's part, who, while smarting under the lash of Dryden's satire, and in the short interval between the first and second edition of the poem, had the liberality to procure admission for the poet's son upon the foundation of the Charterhouse, of which he was then governor.

But Mr. Malone has fully confuted this tale, and shown, from the records of the seminary, that Dryden's son Erasmus was admitted upon the recommendation of the king himself.[6] The insertion, therefore, of the lines in commemoration of Shaftesbury's judicial character, was a voluntary effusion on the part of Dryden, and a tribute which he seems to have judged it proper to pay to the merit even of an enemy. Others of the party of Monmouth, or rather of the opposition party (for it consisted, as is commonly the case, of a variety of factions, agreeing in the single principle of opposition to the government), were stigmatised with severity, only inferior to that applied to Achitophel.

Among these we distinguish the famous Duke of Buckingham, with whom, under the character of Zimri, our author balanced accounts for his share in the "Rehearsal;" Bethel, the Whig sheriff, whose scandalous avarice was only equalled by his factious turbulence; and t.i.tus Oates, the pretended discoverer of the Popish Plot. The account of the Tory chiefs, who retained, in the language of the poem, their friendship for David at the expense of the popular hatred, included, of course, most of Dryden's personal protectors. The aged Duke of Ormond is panegyrised with a beautiful apostrophe to the memory of his son, the gallant Earl of Ossory. The Bishops of London and Rochester; Mulgrave our author's constant patron, now reconciled with Charles and his government; the plausible and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g Halifax; and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, second son to the great Clarendon, appear in this list. The poet having thus arrayed and mustered the forces on each side, some account of the combat is naturally expected; and Johnson complains, that, after all the interest excited, the story is but lamely winded up by a speech from the throne, which produces the instantaneous and even marvellous effect, of reconciling all parties, and subduing the whole phalanx of opposition.

Even thus, says the critic, the walls, towers, and battlements of an enchanted castle disappear, when the destined knight winds his horn before it. Spence records in his Anecdotes, that Charles himself imposed on Dryden the task of paraphrasing the speech to his Oxford parliament, at least the most striking pa.s.sages, as a conclusion to his poem of "Absalom and Achitophel."

But let us consider whether the nature of the poem admitted of a different management in the close. Incident was not to be attempted; for the poet had described living characters and existing factions, the issue of whose contention was yet in the womb of fate, and could not safely be antic.i.p.ated in the satire. Besides, the dissolution of the Oxford parliament with that memorable speech, was a remarkable era in the contention of the factions, after which the Whigs gradually declined, both in spirit, in power, and in popularity. Their boldest leaders were for a time appalled;[7] and when they resumed their measures, they gradually approached rather revolution than reform, and thus alienated the more temperate of their own party, till at length their schemes terminated in the Rye-house Conspiracy. The speech having such an effect, was therefore not improperly adopted as a termination to the poem of "Absalom and Achitophel."

The success of this wonderful satire was so great, that the court had again recourse to the a.s.sistance of its author. Shaftesbury was now liberated from the Tower; for the grand jury, partly influenced by deficiency of proof, and partly by the principles of the Whig party, out of which the sheriffs had carefully selected them, refused to find the bill of high treason against him. This was a subject of unbounded triumph to his adherents, who celebrated his acquittal by the most public marks of rejoicing. Amongst others, a medal was struck, bearing the head and name of Shaftesbury, and on the reverse, a sun, obscured with a cloud, rising over the Tower and city of London, with the date of the refusal of the bill (24th November 1681), and the motto LAETAMUR.

These medals, which his partisans wore ostentatiously at their bosoms, excited the general indignation of the Tories; and the king himself is said to have suggested it as a theme for the satirical muse of Dryden, and to have rewarded his performance with an hundred broad pieces. To a poet of less fertility, the royal command, to write again upon a character which, in a former satire, he had drawn with so much precision and felicity, might have been as embarra.s.sing at least as honourable.

But Dryden was inexhaustible; and easily discovered, that, though he had given the outline of Shaftesbury in "Absalom and Achitophel," the finished colouring might merit another canvas. About the sixteenth of March 1681, he published, anonymously "The Medal, a Satire against Sedition," with the apt motto,