Of the king collecting his navy, he says,
It seems, as ev'ry ship their sov'reign knows,His awful summons they so soon obey:So hear the scaly herds when Proteus blows,And so to pasture follow through the sea.
It would not be hard to believe that Dryden had written the two first lines seriously, and that some wag had added the two latter in burlesque. Who would expect the lines that immediately follow, which are, indeed, perhaps indecently hyperbolical, but certainly in a mode totally different:
To see this fleet upon the ocean move,Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies;And heav'n, as if there wanted lights above,For tapers made two glaring comets rise.
The description of the attempt at Bergen will afford a very complete specimen of the descriptions in this poem:
And now approach'd their fleet from India, fraughtWith all the riches of the rising sun:And precious sand from southern climates brought,The fatal regions where the war begun.
Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,Their waylaid wealth to Norway's coast they bring:Then first the north's cold bosom spices bore,And winter brooded on the eastern spring.
By the rich scent we found our perfum'd prey,Which, flank'd with rocks, did close in covert lie;And round about their murd'ring cannon lay,At once to threaten and invite the eye.
Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard,The English undertake th' unequal war;Sev'n ships alone, by which the port is barr'd,Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.
These fight like husbands, but like lovers those;These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy;And to such height their frantick passion grows,That what both love, both hazard to destroy:
Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,And now their odours arm'd against them fly:Some preciously by shatter'd porc'lain fall,And some by aromatick splinters die.
And though by tempests of the prize bereft,In heav'n's inclemency some ease we find;Our foes we vanquish'd by our valour left,And only yielded to the seas and wind.
In this manner is the sublime too often mingled with the ridiculous. The Dutch seek a shelter for a wealthy fleet: this, surely, needed no illustration; yet they must fly, not like all the rest of mankind on the same occasion, but "like hunted castors;" and they might with strict propriety be hunted; for we winded them by our noses—theirperfumesbetrayed them. Thehusbandand thelover, though of more dignity than the castor, are images too domestick to mingle properly with the horrours of war. The two quatrains that follow are worthy of the author. The account of the different sensations with which the two fleets retired, when the night parted them, is one of the fairest flowers of English poetry:
The night comes on, we eager to pursueThe combat still, and they asham'd to leave:Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew,And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive.
In th' English fleet each ship resounds with joy,And loud applause of their great leader's fame:In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy,And, slumb'ring, smile at the imagin'd flame.
Not so the Holland fleet, who, tir'd and done,Stretch'd on their decks like weary oxen lie;Faint sweats all down their mighty members run,(Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply.)
In dreams they fearful precipices tread,Or, shipwreck'd, labour to some distant shore;Or, in dark churches, walk among the dead:They wake with horrour, and dare sleep no more.
It is a general rule in poetry, that all appropriated terms of art should be sunk in general expressions, because poetry is to speak an universal language. This rule is still stronger with regard to arts not liberal, or confined to few, and, therefore, far removed from common knowledge; and of this kind, certainly, is technical navigation. Yet Dryden was of opinion, that a seafight ought to be described in the nautical language; "and certainly," says he, "as those, who in a logical disputation keep to general terms, would hide a fallacy, so those who do it in any poetical description would veil their ignorance."
Let us then appeal to experience; for by experience, at last, we learn as well what will please as what will profit. In the battle, his terms seem to have been blown away; but he deals them liberally in the dock:
So here some pick out bullets from the side,Some drive oldokumthrough eachseamand rift;Their left hand does thecalking-ironguide,The rattlingmalletwith the right they lift.
With boiling pitch another near at hand(From friendly Sweden brought) theseams in-slops:Which, well-laid o'er, the salt sea-waves withstand,And shake them from the rising beak in drops.
Some thegall'dropes with daubymarlingbind,Or sear-cloth masts with strongtarpawlingcoats;To try newshroudsone mounts into the wind,And one below, their ease or stiffness notes.
I suppose there is not one term which every reader does not wish away[121].
His digression to the original and progress of navigation, with his prospect of the advancement which it shall receive from the Royal Society, then newly instituted, may be considered as an example seldom equalled of seasonable excursion and artful return.
One line, however, leaves me discontented; he says, that, by the help of the philosophers,
Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce,By which remotest regions are allied.
Which he is constrained to explain in a note "by a more exact measure of longitude." It had better become Dryden's learning and genius to have laboured science into poetry, and have shown, by explaining longitude, that verse did not refuse the ideas of philosophy.
His description of the Fire is painted by resolute meditation, out of a mind better formed to reason than to feel. The conflagration of a city, with all its tumults of concomitant distress, is one of the most dreadful spectacles which this world can offer to human eyes; yet it seems to raise little emotion in the breast of the poet; he watches the flame coolly from street to street, with now a reflection, and now a simile, till at last he meets the king, for whom he makes a speech, rather tedious in a time so busy; and then follows again the progress of the fire.
There are, however, in this part some passages that deserve attention; as in the beginning:
The diligence of trades and noiseful gain,And luxury, more late, asleep were laid;All was the night's, and in her silent reignNo sound the rest of nature did invadeIn this deep quiet——
The expression, "all was the night's," is taken from Seneca, who remarks on Virgil's line,
Omnia noctis erant, placida composta quiete,
that he might have concluded better,
Omnia noctis erant.
The following quatrain is vigorous and animated:
The ghosts of traitors from the bridge descend,With hold fanatick spectres to rejoice;About the fire into a dance they bend,And sing their sabbath notes with feeble voice.
His prediction of the improvements which shall be made in the new city is elegant and poetical, and, with an event which poets cannot always boast, has been happily verified. The poem concludes with a simile that might have better been omitted.
Dryden, when he wrote this poem, seems not yet fully to have formed his versification, or settled his system of propriety.
From this time he addicted himself almost wholly to the stage, "to which," says he, "my genius never much inclined me," merely as the most profitable market for poetry. By writing tragedies in rhyme, he continued to improve his diction and his numbers. According to the opinion of Harte, who had studied his works with great attention, he settled his principles of versification in 1676, when he produced the play of Aureng Zebe; and, according to his own account of the short time in which he wrote Tyrannick Love, and the State of Innocence, he soon obtained the full effect of diligence, and added facility to exactness.
Rhyme has been so long banished from the theatre, that we know not its effect upon the passions of an audience; but it has this convenience, that sentences stand more independent on each other, and striking passages are, therefore, easily selected and retained. Thus the description of night in the Indian Emperor, and the rise and fall of empire in the Conquest of Granada, are more frequently repeated than any lines in All for Love, or Don Sebastian.
To search his plays for vigorous sallies and sententious elegancies, or to fix the dates of any little pieces which he wrote by chance, or by solicitation, were labour too tedious and minute.
His dramatick labours did not so wholly absorb his thoughts, but that he promulgated the laws of translation in a preface to the English Epistles of Ovid; one of which he translated himself, and another in conjunction with the earl of Mulgrave.
Absalom and Achitophel is a work so well known, that particular criticism is superfluous. If it be considered as a poem political and controversial, it will be found to comprise all the excellencies of which the subject is susceptible; acrimony of censure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of characters, variety and vigour of sentiment, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to such a height as can scarcely be found in any other English composition.
It is not, however, without faults; some lines are inelegant or improper, and too many are irreligiously licentious. The original structure of the poem was defective; allegories drawn to great length will always break; Charles could not run continually parallel with David.
The subject had likewise another inconvenience; it admitted little imagery or description; and a long poem of mere sentiments easily becomes tedious; though all the parts are forcible, and every line kindles new rapture, the reader, if not relieved by the interposition of something that sooths the fancy, grows weary of admiration, and defers the rest.
As an approach to historical truth was necessary, the action and catastrophe were not in the poet's power; there is, therefore, an unpleasing disproportion between the beginning and the end. We are alarmed by a faction formed out of many sects various in their principles, but agreeing in their purpose of mischief, formidable for their numbers, and strong by their supports, while the king's friends are few and weak. The chiefs on either part are set forth to view; but when expectation is at the height, the king makes a speech, and
Henceforth a series of new times began.
Who can forbear to think of an enchanted castle, with a wide moat and lofty battlements, walls of marble and gates of brass, which vanishes at once into air, when the destined knight blows his horn before it?
In the second part, written by Tate, there is a long insertion, which, for poignancy of satire, exceeds any part of the former. Personal resentment, though no laudable motive to satire, can add great force to general principles. Self-love is a busy prompter.
The Medal, written upon the same principles with Absalom and Achitophel, but upon a narrower plan, gives less pleasure, though it discovers equal abilities in the writer. The superstructure cannot extend beyond the foundation; a single character or incident cannot furnish as many ideas, as a series of events, or multiplicity of agents. This poem, therefore, since time has left it to itself, is not much read, nor, perhaps, generally understood; yet it abounds with touches both of humorous and serious satire. The picture of a man whose propensions to mischief are such, that his best actions are but inability of wickedness, is very skilfully delineated and strongly coloured:
Power was his aim; but, thrown from that pretence,The wretch turn'd loyal in his own defence,And malice reconcil'd him to his prince.Him, in the anguish of his soul, he serv'd;Rewarded faster still than he deserv'd:Behold him now exalted into trust;His counsels oft convenient, seldom just.Ev'n in the most sincere advice he gave,He had a grudging still to be a knave.The frauds he learnt in his fanatick years,Made him uneasy in his lawful gears:At least as little honest as he could;And, like white witches, mischievously good.To this first bias, longingly he leans;And rather would be great by wicked means.
The Threnodia, which, by a term I am afraid neither authorized nor analogical, he calls Augustalis, is not among his happiest productions. Its first and obvious defect is the irregularity of its metre, to which the ears of that age, however, were accustomed. What is worse, it has neither tenderness nor dignity; it is neither magnificent nor pathetick. He seems to look round him for images which he cannot find, and what he has he distorts by endeavouring to enlarge them. "He is," he says, "petrified with grief;" but the marble sometimes relents, and trickles in a joke:
The sons of art all med'cines try'd,And ev'ry noble remedy apply'd:
With emulation each essay'dHis utmost skill;nay, more, they prayd;Was never losing game with better conduct play'd.
He had been a little inclined to merriment before upon the prayers of a nation for their dying sovereign; nor was he serious enough to keep heathen fables out of his religion:
With him th' innumerable crowd of armed prayersKnock'd at the gates of heav'n, and knock'd aloud;The first well-meaning rude petitionersAll for his life assail'd the throne;All would have brib'd the skies by off'ring up their own.So great a throng not heav'n itself could bar;'Twas almost borne by force,as in the giants' war.The pray'rs, at least, for his reprieve were heard:His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferr'd.
There is, throughout the composition, a desire of splendour without wealth. In the conclusion he seems too much pleased with the prospect of the new reign to have lamented his old master with much sincerity.
He did not miscarry in this attempt for want of skill either in lyrick or elegiack poetry. His poem on the death of Mrs. Killigrew is, undoubtedly, the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows with a torrent of enthusiasm: "Fervet immensusque ruit." All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one continued diamond; the gems must be held together by some less valuable matter.
In his first ode for Cecilia's day, which is lost in the splendour of the second, there are passages which would have dignified any other poet. The first stanza is vigorous and elegant, though the worddiapasonis too technical, and the rhymes are too remote from one another:
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,This universal frame began:When nature underneath a heap of jarring atoms lay,And could not heave her head,The tuneful voice was heard from high.Arise, ye more than dead.
Then cold and hot, and moist and dry,In order to their stations leap,And musick's power obey.From harmony, from heavenly harmony,This universal frame began;From harmony to harmonyThrough all the compass of the notes it ran,The diapason closing full in man.
The conclusion is likewise striking; but it includes an image so awful in itself, that it can owe little to poetry; and I could wish the antithesis ofmusick untuninghad found some other place:
As from the power of sacred laysThe spheres began to move.And sung the great creator's praiseTo all the bless'd above:
So, when the last and dreadful hourThis crumbling pageant shall devour,The trumpet shall be heard on high,The dead shall live, the living die,And musick shall untune the sky.
Of his skill in elegy he has given a specimen in his Eleonora, of which the following lines discover their author:
Though all these rare endowments of the mindWere in a narrow space of life confin'd,The figure was with full perfection crown'd;Though not so large an orb, as truly round:As when in glory, through the publick place,The spoils of conquer'd nations were to pass,And but one day for triumph was allow'd,The consul was constrain'd his pomp to crowd;And so the swift procession hurry'd on,That all, tho' not distinctly, might be shown;So, in the straiten'd bounds of life confin'd,She gave but glimpses of her glorious mind:And multitudes of virtues pass'd along;Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng,Ambitious to be seen, and then make roomFor greater multitudes that were to come.
Yet unemployed no minute slipp'd away;Moments were precious in so short a stay.The haste of heaven to have her was so great,That some were single acts, though each complete;And ev'ry act stood ready to repeat.
This piece, however, is not without its faults; there is so much likeness in the initial comparison, that there is no illustration. As a king would be lamented, Eleonora was lamented:
As, when some great and gracious monarch dies,Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs riseAmong the sad attendants; then the soundSoon gathers voice, and spreads the news around,Through town and country, till the dreadful blastIs blown to distant colonies at last;Who then, perhaps, were off'ring vows in vain,For his long life, and for his happy reign:So slowly, by degrees, unwilling fameDid matchless Eleonora's fate proclaim,Till publick as the loss the news became.
This is little better than to say in praise of a shrub, that it is as green as a tree; or of a brook, that it waters a garden, as a river waters a country.
Dryden confesses that he did not know the lady whom he celebrates: the praise being, therefore, inevitably general, fixes no impression upon the reader, nor excites any tendency to love, nor much desire of imitation. Knowledge of the subject is to the poet what durable materials are to the architect.
The Religio Laici, which borrows its title from the Religio Medici of Browne, is almost the only work of Dryden which can be considered as a voluntary effusion; in this, therefore, it might be hoped, that the full effulgence of his genius would be found. But, unhappily, the subject is rather argumentative than poetical; he intended only a specimen of metrical disputation:
And this unpolish'd rugged verse I choseAs fittest for discourse, and nearest prose.
This, however, is a composition of great excellence in its kind, in which the familiar is very properly diversified with the solemn, and the grave with the humorous; in which metre has neither weakened the force, nor clouded the perspicuity of argument; nor will it be easy to find another example equally happy of this middle kind of writing, which, though prosaick in some parts, rises to high poetry in others, and neither towers to the skies, nor creeps along the ground.
Of the same kind, or not far distant from it, is the Hind and Panther, the longest of all Dryden's original poems; an allegory intended to comprise and to decide the controversy between the Romanists and protestants. The scheme of the work is injudicious and incommodious; for what can be more absurd, than that one beast should counsel another to rest her faith upon a pope and council? He seems well enough skilled in the usual topicks of argument, endeavours to show the necessity of an infallible judge, and reproaches the reformers with want of unity; but is weak enough to ask, why, since we see without knowing how, we may not have an infallible judge without knowing where?
The hind, at one time, is afraid to drink at the common brook, because she may be worried; but, walking home with the panther, talks by the way of the Nicene fathers, and at last declares herself to be the catholick church.
This absurdity was very properly ridiculed in the City Mouse and Country Mouse of Montague and Prior; and, in the detection and censure of the incongruity of the fiction, chiefly consists the value of their performance, which, whatever reputation it might obtain by the help of temporary passions, seems, to readers almost a century distant, not very forcible or animated.
Pope, whose judgment was, perhaps, a little bribed by the subject, used to mention this poem as the most correct specimen of Dryden's versification. It was, indeed, written when he had completely formed his manner, and may be supposed to exhibit, negligence excepted, his deliberate and ultimate scheme of metre. We may, therefore, reasonably infer, that he did not approve the perpetual uniformity which confines the sense to couplets, since he has broken his lines in the initial paragraph:
A milk-white hind, immortal and unchang'd.Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd:Without unspotted, innocent within,She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.Yet had she oft been chas'd with horns and hounds,And Scythian shafts, and many winged woundsAim'd at her heart; was often forc'd to fly,And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.
These lines are lofty, elegant, and musical, notwithstanding the interruption of the pause, of which the effect is rather increase of pleasure by variety, than offence by ruggedness.
To the first part it was his intention, he says, "to give the majestick turn of heroick poesy;" and, perhaps, he might have executed his design not unsuccessfully, had not an opportunity of satire, which he cannot forbear, fallen sometimes in his way. The character of a presbyterian, whose emblem is the wolf, is not very heroically majestick:
More haughty than the rest, the wolfish raceAppear with belly gaunt and famish'd face:Never was so deform'd a beast of grace.His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears,Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears,And pricks up his predestinating ears.
His general character of the other sorts of beasts that never go to church, though sprightly and keen, has, however, not much of heroick poesy:
These are the chief; to number o'er the rest,And stand like Adam naming ev'ry beast,Were weary work; nor will the muse describeA slimy-born, and sun-begotten tribe,
Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound,In fields their sullen conventicles found.These gross, half-animated lumps I leave;Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive;But, if they think at all, 'tis sure no higherThan matter, put in motion, may aspire;Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay,So drossy, so divisible are they,As would but serve pure bodies for allay:Such souls as shards produce, such beetle thingsAs only buzz to heaven with evening wings;Strike in the dark, offending but by chance;Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance.They know no being, and but hate a name;To them the hind and panther are the same.
One more instance, and that taken from the narrative part, where style was more in his choice, will show how steadily he kept his resolution of heroick dignity:
For when the herd, suffic'd, did late repairTo ferny heaths and to their forest lair,She made a mannerly excuse to stay,Proff'ring the hind to wait her half the way;That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talkMight help her to beguile the tedious walk.With much good-will the motion was embrac'd,To chat awhile on their adventures past:Nor had the grateful hind so soon forgotHer friend and fellow-suff'rer in the plot.Yet, wond'ring how of late she grew estrang'd,Her forehead cloudy and her count'nance chang'd,She thought this hour th' occasion would presentTo learn her secret cause of discontent,Which well she hop'd might be with ease redress'd,Consid'ring her a well-bred civil beast.And more a gentlewoman than the rest.After some common talk what rumours ran,The lady of the spotted muff began.
The second and third parts he professes to have reduced to diction more familiar and more suitable to dispute and conversation; the difference is not, however, very easily perceived; the first has familiar, and the two others have sonorous, lines. The original incongruity runs through the whole: the king is now Caesar, and now the Lion; and the name Pan is given to the supreme being.
But when this constitutional absurdity is forgiven, the poem must be confessed to be written with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images; the controversy is embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and enlivened by sallies of invective. Some of the facts to which allusions are made are now become obscure, and, perhaps, there may be many satirical passages little understood.
As it was by its nature a work of defiance, a composition which would naturally be examined with the utmost acrimony of criticism, it was probably laboured with uncommon attention; and there are, indeed, few negligencies in the subordinate parts. The original impropriety, and the subsequent unpopularity of the subject, added to the ridiculousness of its first elements, has sunk it into neglect; but it may be usefully studied, as an example of poetical ratiocination, in which the argument suffers little from the metre.
In the poem on the Birth of the Prince of Wales, nothing is very remarkable but the exorbitant adulation, and that insensibility of the precipice on which the king was then standing, which the laureate apparently shared with the rest of the courtiers. A few months cured him of controversy, dismissed him from court, and made him again a playwright and translator.
Of Juvenal there had been a translation by Stapylton, and another by Holiday; neither of them is very poetical. Stapylton is more smooth; and Holiday's is more esteemed for the learning of his notes. A new version was proposed to the poets of that time, and undertaken by them in conjunction. The main design was conducted by Dryden, whose reputation was such that no man was unwilling to serve the muses under him.
The general character of this translation will be given when it is said to preserve the wit, but to want the dignity of the original. The peculiarity of Juvenal is a mixture of gaiety and stateliness, of pointed sentences and declamatory grandeur. His points have not been neglected; but his grandeur none of the band seemed to consider as necessary to be imitated, except Creech, who undertook the thirteenth satire. It is, therefore, perhaps, possible to give a better representation of that great satirist, even in those parts which Dryden himself has translated, some passages excepted, which will never be excelled.
With Juvenal was published Persius, translated wholly by Dryden. This work, though like all the other productions of Dryden it may have shining parts, seems to have been written merely for wages, in an uniform mediocrity without any eager endeavour after excellence, or laborious effort of the mind.
There wanders an opinion among the readers of poetry that one of these satires is an exercise of the school. Dryden says, that he once translated it at school; but not that he preserved or published the juvenile performance.
Not long afterwards he undertook, perhaps, the most arduous work of its kind, a translation of Virgil, for which he had shown how well he was qualified, by his version of the Pollio, and two episodes, one of Nisus and Euryalus, the other of Mezentius and Lausus.
In the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the discriminative excellence of Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, and that of Virgil is grace and splendour of diction. The beauties of Homer are, therefore, difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained. The massy trunk of sentiment is safe by its solidity, but the blossoms of elocution easily drop away. The author, having the choice of his own images, selects those which he can best adorn; the translator must, at all hazards, follow his original, and express thoughts which, perhaps, he would not have chosen. When to this primary difficulty is added the inconvenience of a language so much inferiour in harmony to the Latin, it cannot be expected that they who read the Georgicks and the Aeneid should be much delighted with any version.
All these obstacles Dryden saw, and all these he determined to encounter. The expectation of his work was undoubtedly great; the nation considered its honour as interested in the event. One gave him the different editions of his author, and another helped him in the subordinate parts. The arguments of the several books were given him by Addison.
The hopes of the publick were riot disappointed. He produced, says Pope, "the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language." It certainly excelled whatever had appeared in English, and appears to have satisfied his friends, and, for the most part, to have silenced his enemies. Milbourne, indeed, a clergyman, attacked it; but his outrages seem to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than bad poetry can excite, and previously resolved not to be pleased.
His criticism extends only to the Preface, Pastorals, and Georgicks; and, as he professes to give his antagonist an opportunity of reprisal, he has added his own version of the first and fourth Pastorals, and the first Georgick. The world has forgotten his book; but, since his attempt has given him a place in literary history, I will preserve a specimen of his criticism, by inserting his remarks on the invocation before the first Georgick, and of his poetry, by annexing his own version.
Ver. 1.
"What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turnThe fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn.
"It'sunlucky, they say,to stumble at the threshold: but what has aplenteous harvestto do here? Virgil would not pretend to prescriberulesforthatwhich depends not on thehusbandman'scare, but thedisposition of heavenaltogether. Indeed, theplenteous cropdepends somewhat on thegood method of tillage; and where the _land'_s ill-manur'd, thecorn, without a miracle, can be butindifferent; but theharvestmay begood, which is itsproperestepithet, tho' thehusbandman's skillwere never soindifferent. The nextsentenceistoo literal: andwhen to ploughhad beenVirgil'smeaning, and intelligible to every body; andwhen to sow the corn, is a needlessaddition.
Ver. 3.
"The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine,And when to geld the lambs, and shear the swine,
"would as well have fallen under thecura boum, qui cultus habendo sit pecori, as Mr. D.'sdeductionof particulars.
Ver. 5
"The birth and genius of the frugal beeI sing, Maecenas, and I sing to thee.
"But where didexperientiaever signifybirth andgenius? or what ground was there for such afigurein this place? How much more manly is Mr. Ogylby's version?
"What makes rich grounds, in what celestial signs'Tis good to plough, and marry elms with vines:What best fits cattle, what with sheep agrees,And several arts improving frugal bees;I sing, Maecenas.
"Which four lines, though faulty enough, are yet much more to the purpose than Mr. D.'s six.
Ver. 22.
"From fields and mountains to my song repair.
"Forpatrium linquens nemus, saltusque Lycaei—Very well explained!
Ver. 23, 24.
"Inventor Pallas, of the fatt'ning oil,Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman's toil!
"Written as ifthesehad beenPallas's invention. Theploughman's toil'simpertinent.
Ver. 25.
"The shroud-like cypress——
"Whyshroud-like? Is acypresspulled up by theroots, which thesculpturein thelast EcloguefillsSilvanus'shand with, so very like ashroud? Or did not Mr. D. think of that kind ofcypressused often forscarves and hatbands, at funerals formerly, or forwidows' veils, &c. ? If so, 'twas adeep, good thought.
Ver. 26.
"That wearThe royal honours, and increase the year.
"What's meant byincreasing the year? Did thegodsorgoddessesadd moremonths, ordays, orhours, to it? Or how canarva tuerisignify towear rural honours? Is this totranslate, orabuseanauthor? The nextcoupletis borrowed from Ogylby, I suppose, becauseless to the purposethan ordinary.
Ver. 33.
"The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard.
"Idle, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense of theprecedent couplet; so again,he interpolates Virgilwith that andthe round circle of the year to guide powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st around; a ridiculousLatinism, and animpertinent addition; indeed the wholeperiodis but one piece ofabsurdityandnonsense, as those who lay it with theoriginalmust find.
Ver. 42, 43.
"And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.
"Was heconsulordictatorthere?
"And wat'ry virgins for thy bed shall strive.
"Both absurdinterpolations."
Ver. 47, 48.
"Where in the void of heaven a place is free.
"Ah, happyD——n,werethat place forthee!
"But where isthat void? Or, what does ourtranslatormean by it? He knows what Ovid says God did to prevent such a void in heaven; perhaps this was then forgotten: but Virgil talks more sensibly.
Ver. 49.
"The scorpion ready to receive thy laws.
"No, he would not then havegotten out of his wayso fast.
Ver. 56.
"Though Proserpine affects her silent seat.
"What made her then soangrywithAscalaphus, for preventing her return? She was now mus'd toPatienceunder thedeterminations of Fate, rather thanfondof herresidence,
Ver. 61, 62, 63.
"Pity the poet's and the ploughman's cares,Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs,And use thyself betimes to hear our prayers.
"Which is such a wretchedperversionof Virgil'snoble thoughtas Vicars would have blushed at; but Mr. Ogylby makes us some amends, by his better lines:
"O, wheresoe'er thou art, from thence incline,And grant assistance to my bold design!Pity, with me, poor husbandmen's affairs,And now, as if translated, hear our prayers.
"This issense, andto the purpose: the other, poormistaken stuff."
Such were the strictures of Milbourne, who found few abetters, and of whom it may be reasonably imagined, that many who favoured his design were ashamed of his insolence.
When admiration had subsided, the translation was more coolly examined, and found, like all others, to be sometimes erroneous, and sometimes licentious. Those who could find faults, thought they could avoid them; and Dr. Brady attempted, in blank verse, a translation of the Aeneid, which, when dragged into the world, did not live long enough to cry, I have never seen it; but that such a version there is, or has been, perhaps some old catalogue informed me.
With not much better success, Trapp, when his Tragedy and his Prelections had given him reputation, attempted another blank version of the Aeneid; to which, notwithstanding the slight regard with which it was treated, he had afterwards perseverance enough to add the Eclogues and Georgicks. His book may continue its existence as long as it is the clandestine refuge of schoolboys.
Since the English ear has been accustomed to the mellifluence of Pope's numbers, and the diction of poetry has become more splendid, new attempts have been made to translate Virgil; and all his works have been attempted by men better qualified to contend with Dryden. I will not engage myself in an invidious comparison by opposing one passage to another; a work of which there would be no end, and which might be often offensive without use.
It is not by comparing line with line, that the merit of great works is to be estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate result. It is easy to note a weak line, and write one more vigorous in its place; to find a happiness of expression in the original, and transplant it by force into the version: but what is given to the parts may be subducted from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the critick may commend. Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain, which the reader throws away. He only is the master, who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day [122].
By his proportion of this predomination I will consent that Dryden should be tried; of this, which, in opposition to reason, makes Ariosto the darling and the pride of Italy; of this, which, in defiance of criticism, continues Shakespeare the sovereign of the drama.
His last work was his Fables, in which he gave us the first example of a mode of writing, which the Italians callrefaccimento, a renovation of ancient writers, by modernizing their language. Thus the old poem of Boiardo has been new dressed by Domenichi and Berni. The works of Chaucer, upon which this kind of rejuvenescence has been bestowed by Dryden, require little criticism. The tale of the Cock seems hardly worth revival; and the story of Palamon and Arcite, containing an action unsuitable to the times in which it is placed, can hardly be suffered to pass without censure of the hyperbolical commendation which Dryden has given it in the general preface, and in a poetical dedication, a piece where his original fondness of remote conceits seems to have revived.
Of the three pieces borrowed from Boccace, Sigismunda may be defended by the celebrity of the story. Theodore and Honoria, though it contains not much moral, yet afforded opportunities of striking description. And Cymon was formerly a tale of such reputation, that, at the revival of letters, it was translated into Latin by one of the Beroalds.
Whatever subjects employed his pen, he was still improving our measures and embellishing our language.
In this volume are interspersed some short original poems, which, with his prologues, epilogues, and songs, may be comprised in Congreve's remark, that even those, if he had written nothing else, would have entitled him to the praise of excellence in his kind.
One composition must, however, be distinguished. The ode for St. Cecilia's Day, perhaps the last effort of his poetry, has been always considered as exhibiting the highest flight of fancy, and the exactest nicety of art. This is allowed to stand without a rival. If, indeed, there is any excellence beyond it, in some other of Dryden's works, that excellence must be found. Compared with the ode on Killigrew, it may be pronounced, perhaps, superiour in the whole; but without any single part equal to the first stanza of the other.
It is said to have cost Dryden a fortnight's labour; but it does not want its negligences: some of the lines are without correspondent rhymes; a defect, which I never detected, but after an acquaintance of many years, and which the enthusiasm of the writer might hinder him from perceiving.
His last stanza has less emotion than the former; but it is not less elegant in the diction. The conclusion is vitious; the musick of Timotheus, which "raised a mortal to the skies," had only a metaphorical power; that of Cecilia, which "drew an angel down," had a real effect: the crown, therefore, could not reasonably be divided.
In a general survey of Dryden's labours, he appears to have a mind very comprehensive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compositions are the effects of a vigorous genius operating upon large materials.
The power that predominated in his intellectual operations, was rather strong reason than quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were presented, he studied rather than felt, and produced sentiments not such as nature enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental passions, as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted; and seldom describes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of society, and confused in the tumults and agitations of life.
What he says of love may contribute to the explanation of his character:
Love various minds does variously inspire;It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire,Like that of incense on the altar laid;But raging flames tempestuous souls invade:
A fire which ev'ry windy passion blows,With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows.
Dryden's was not one of the "gentle bosoms:" love, as it subsists in itself, with no tendency but to the person loved, and wishing only for correspondent kindness; such love as shuts out all other interest; the love of the golden age, was too soft and subtile to put his faculties in motion. He hardly conceived it but in its turbulent effervescence with some other desires; when it was inflamed by rivalry, or obstructed by difficulties: when it invigorated ambition, or exasperated revenge.
He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetick; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure; and, for the first part of his life, he looked on Otway with contempt, though, at last, indeed very late, he confessed that in his play "there was nature, which is the chief beauty."
We do not always know our own motives. I am not certain whether it was not rather the difficulty which he found in exhibiting the genuine operations of the heart, than a servile submission to an injudicious audience, that filled his plays with false magnificence. It was necessary to fix attention; and the mind can be captivated only by recollection, or by curiosity; by reviving natural sentiments, or impressing new appearances of things. Sentences were readier at his call than images; he could more easily fill the ear with some splendid novelty, than awaken those ideas that slumber in the heart.
The favourite exercise of his mind was ratiocination; and, that argument might not be too soon at an end, he delighted to talk of liberty and necessity, destiny and contingence; these he discusses in the language of the school with so much profundity, that the terms which he uses are not always understood. It is, indeed, learning, but learning out of place.
When once he had engaged himself in disputation, thoughts flowed in on either side: he was now no longer at a loss; he had always objections and solutions at command; "verbaque provisam rem"—give him matter for his verse, and he finds, without difficulty, verse for his matter.
In comedy, for which he professes himself not naturally qualified, the mirth which he excites will, perhaps, not be found so much to arise from any original humour, or peculiarity of character nicely distinguished and diligently pursued, as from incidents and circumstances, artifices and surprises; from jests of action rather than of sentiment. What he had of humorous or passionate, he seems to have had not from nature, but from other poets; if not always as a plagiary, at least as an imitator.
Next to argument, his delight was in wild and daring sallies of sentiment, in the irregular and eccentrick violence of wit. He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning, where light and darkness begin to mingle; to approach the precipice of absurdity, and hover over the abyss of unideal vacancy. This inclination sometimes produced nonsense, which he knew; as,
Move swiftly, sun, and fly a lover's pace,Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.Amamel fliesTo guard thee from the demons of the air;My flaming sword above them to display,All keen, and ground upon the edge of day.
And sometimes it issued in absurdities, of which, perhaps, he was not conscious:
Then we upon our orb's last verge shall go,And see the ocean leaning on the sky;From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,And on the lunar world securely pry.
These lines have no meaning; but may we not say, in imitation of Cowley on another book,
'Tis so likesense'twill serve the turn as well?
This endeavour after the grand and the new, produced sentiments either great or bulky, and many images either just or splendid:
I am as free as nature first made man,Ere the base laws of servitude began,When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
—'Tis but because the living death ne'er knew,They fear to prove it, as a thing that's new:Let me th' experiment before you try,I'll show you first how easy 'tis to die.
—There with a forest of their darts he strove,And stood like Capaneus defying Jove,With his broad sword the boldest beating down,While fate grew pale, lest he should win the town,And turn'd the iron leaves of his dark bookTo make new dooms, or mend what it mistook.
—I beg no pity for this mouldering clay;For if you give it burial, there it takesPossession of your earth;If burnt, and scatter'd in the air, the windsThat strew my dust diffuse my royalty,And spread me o'er your clime; for where one atomOf mine shall light, know there Sebastian reigns.
Of these quotations the two first may be allowed to be great, the two latter only tumid.
Of such selection there is no end. I will add only a few more passages; of which the first, though it may, perhaps, not be quite clear in prose, is not too obscure for poetry, as the meaning that it has is noble[123]:
No, there is a necessity in fate,Why still the brave bold man is fortunate;
He keeps his object ever full in sight;And that assurance holds him firm and right;True, 'tis a narrow way that leads to bliss,But right before there is no precipice;Fear makes men look aside, and so their footing miss.
Of the images which the two following citations afford, the first is elegant, the second magnificent; whether either be just, let the reader judge:
What precious drops are these,Which silently each other's track pursue,Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?
Resign your castle——
—Enter, brave sir; for, when you speak the word,The gates shall open of their own accord;The genius of the place its lord shall meet,And bow its tow'ry forehead at your feet.
These bursts of extravagance, Dryden calls the "Dalilahs" of the theatre; and owns that many noisy lines of Maximin and Almanzor call out for vengeance upon him: "but I knew," says he, "that they were bad enough to please, even when I wrote them." There is, surely, reason to suspect that he pleased himself, as well as his audience; and that these, like the harlots of other men, had his love, though not his approbation.
He had, sometimes, faults of a less generous and splendid kind. He makes, like almost all other poets, very frequent use of mythology, and sometimes connects religion and fable too closely without distinction.
He descends to display his knowledge with pedantick ostentation; as when, in translating Virgil, he says, "tack to the larboard,"—and "veer starboard;" and talks, in another work, of "virtue spooning before the wind."—His vanity now and then betrays his ignorance:
They nature's king through nature's opticks view'd;Revers'd, they view'd him lessen'd to their eyes.
He had heard of reversing a telescope, and unluckily reverses the object. He is, sometimes, unexpectedly mean. When he describes the supreme being as moved by prayer to stop the fire of London, what is his expression?
A hollow crystal pyramid he takes,In firmamental waters dipp'd above,Of this a broadextinguisherhe makes,Andhoodsthe flames that to their quarry strove.
When he describes the last day, and the decisive tribunal, he intermingles this image:
When rattling bones together fly,From the four quarters of the sky.
It was, indeed, never in his power to resist the temptation of a jest. In his elegy on Cromwell:
No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embrac'd,Than thelight monsieurthegrave donoutweigh'd;His fortune turn'd the scale——
He had a vanity, unworthy of his abilities, to show, as may be suspected, the rank of the company with whom he lived, by the use of French words, which had then crept into conversation; such asfraicheurforcoolness, fougueforturbulence, and a few more, none of which the language has incorporated or retained. They continue only where they stood first, perpetual warnings to future innovators.
These are his faults of affectation; his faults of negligence are beyond recital. Such is the unevenness of his compositions, that ten lines are seldom found together without something of which the reader is ashamed. Dryden was no rigid judge of his own pages; he seldom struggled after supreme excellence, but snatched in haste what was within his reach; and when he could content others, was himself contented. He did not keep present to his mind an idea of pure perfection; nor compare his works, such as they were, with what they might be made. He knew to whom he should be opposed. He had more musick than Waller, more vigour than Donham, and more nature than Cowley; and from his contemporaries he was in no danger. Standing, therefore, in the highest place, he had no care to rise by contending with himself; but while there was no name above his own, was willing to enjoy fame on the easiest terms.
He was no lover of labour. What he thought sufficient, he did not stop to make better; and allowed himself to leave many parts unfinished, in confidence that the good lines would overbalance the bad. What he had once written, he dismissed from his thoughts; and, I believe, there is no example to be found of any correction or improvement made by him after publication. The hastiness of his productions might be the effect of necessity; but his subsequent neglect could hardly have any other cause than impatience of study.
What can be said of his versification, will be little more than a dilatation of the praise given it by Pope:
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to joinThe varying verse, the full resounding line,The long majestick march, and energy divine.
Some improvements had been already made in English numbers; but the full force of our language was not yet felt; the verse that was smooth was commonly feeble. If Cowley had sometimes a finished line, he had it by chance. Dryden knew how to choose the flowing and the sonorous words; to vary the pauses, and adjust the accents; to diversify the cadence, and yet preserve the smoothness of his metre.
Of triplets and alexandrines, though he did not introduce the use, he established it. The triplet has long subsisted among us. Dryden seems not to have traced it higher than to Chapman's Homer; but it is to be found in Phaer's Virgil, written in the reign of Mary; and in Hall's Satires, published five years before the death of Elizabeth.
The alexandrine was, I believe, first used by Spenser, for the sake of closing his stanza with a fuller sound. We had a longer measure of fourteen syllables, into which the Aeneid was translated by Phaer, and other works of the ancients by other writers; of which Chapman's Iliad was, I believe, the last.
The two first lines of Phaer's third Aeneid will exemplify this measure:
When Asia's state was overthrown, and Priam's kingdom stout,All guiltless, by the power of gods above was rooted out.
As these lines had their break, or caesura, always at the eighth syllable, it was thought, in time, commodious to divide them: and quatrains of lines, alternately, consisting of eight and six syllables, make the most soft and pleasing of our lyrick measures; as,
Relentless time, destroying pow'r,Which stone and brass obey,Who giv'st to ev'ry flying hourTo work some new decay.
In the alexandrine, when its power was once felt, some poems, as Drayton's Polyolbion, were wholly written; and sometimes the measures of twelve and fourteen syllables were interchanged with one another. Cowley was the first that inserted the alexandrine at pleasure among the heroick lines of ten syllables, and from him Dryden professes to have adopted it[124].
The triplet and alexandrine are not universally approved. Swift always censured them, and wrote some lines to ridicule them. In examining their propriety, it is to be considered that the essence of verse is regularity, and its ornament is variety. To write verse, is to dispose syllables and sounds harmonically by some known and settled rule; a rule, however, lax enough to substitute similitude for identity, to admit change without breach of order, and to relieve the ear without disappointing it. Thus a Latin hexameter is formed from dactyls and spondees, differently combined; the English heroick admits of acute or grave syllables, variously disposed. The Latin never deviates into seven feet, or exceeds the number of seventeen syllables; but the English alexandrine breaks the lawful bounds, and surprises the reader with two syllables more than he expected.
The effect of the triplet is the same: the ear has been accustomed to expect a new rhyme in every couplet; but is on a sudden surprised with three rhymes together, to which the reader could not accommodate his voice, did he not obtain notice of the change from the braces of the margins. Surely there is something unskilful in the necessity of such mechanical direction.
Considering the metrical art simply as a science, and, consequently, excluding all casualty, we must allow that triplets and alexandrines, inserted by caprice, are interruptions of that constancy to which science aspires. And though the variety which they produce may very justly be desired, yet, to make our poetry exact, there ought to be some stated mode of admitting them.
But till some such regulation can be formed, I wish them still to be retained in their present state. They are sometimes grateful to the reader, and sometimes convenient to the poet. Fenton was of opinion, that Dryden was too liberal, and Pope too sparing, in their use.
The rhymes of Dryden are commonly just, and he valued himself for his readiness in finding them; but he is sometimes open to objection.
It is the common practice of our poets to end the second line with a weak or grave syllable:
Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly,Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy.
Dryden sometimes puts the weak rhyme in the first:
Laugh all the powers that favourtyranny,And all the standing army of the sky.
Sometimes he concludes a period or paragraph with the first line of a couplet, which, though the French seem to do it without irregularity, always displeases in English poetry.
The alexandrine, though much his favourite, is not always very diligently fabricated by him. It invariably requires a break at the sixth syllable; a rule which the modern French poets never violate, but which Dryden sometimes neglected:
And with paternal thunder vindicates his throne.
Of Dryden's works it was said by Pope, that he "could select from them better specimens of every mode of poetry than any other English writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion, of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. By him we are taught "sapere et fari," to think naturally and express forcibly. Though Davies has reasoned in rhyme before him, it may be, perhaps, maintained that he was the first who joined argument with poetry. He showed us the true bounds of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome, adorned by Augustus, may be applied by an easy metaphor to English poetry, embellished by Dryden, "lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit." He found it brick, and he left it marble.
The invocation before the Georgicks is here inserted from Mr. Milbourne's version, that, according to his own proposal, his verses may be compared with those which he censures:
What makes the richesttilth, beneath what signsToplough, and when to match yourelms and vines;
What care withflocks, and what withherdsagrees,And all the management of frugalbees;I sing, Maecenas! Ye immensely clear,Vast orbs of light, which guide the rolling year;Bacchus, and mother Ceres, if by youWe fatt'ningcornfor hungrymastpursue,If, taught by you, we first theclusterprest,Andthin cold streamswithsprightly juicerefresht;Yefawns, the presentnumensof the field,Wood nymphsandfawns, your kind assistance yield;Your gifts I sing! And thou, at whose fear'd strokeFrom rending earth the fierycourserbroke,Great Neptune, O assist my artful song!And thou to whom the woods and groves belong,Whose snowy heifers on her flow'ry plainsIn mighty herds the Caean isle maintains!Pan, happy shepherd, if thy cares divineE'er to improve thy Maenalas incline,Leave thyLycaean woodandnative grove,And with thy lucky smiles our work approve!Be Pallas too, sweet oil's inventor, kind;And he who first the crookedploughdesign'd!Sylvanus, god of all the woods, appear,Whose hands a new-drawn tendercypressbear!Yegodsandgoddesses, who e'er with loveWould guard our pastures and our fields improve!You, who new plants from unknown lands supply,And with condensing clouds obscure the sky,And drop 'em softly thence in fruitful show'rs;Assist my enterprise, ye gentler pow'rs!
And thou, great Caesar! though we know not yetAmong what gods thou'lt fix thy lofty seat;Whether thou'lt be the kindtutelargodOf thy own Rome; or with thy awful nodGuide the vast world, while thy great hand shall bearThe fruits and seasons of the turning year,And thy bright brows thy mother's myrtles wear;Whether thou'lt all the boundless ocean sway,And seamen only to thyself shall pray,Thule, the farthest island, kneel to thee,And, that thou may'st her son by marriage be,
Tethys will for the happy purchase yieldTo make adowryof her wat'ry field;Whether thou'lt add to heaven abrighter sign,And o'er thesummer monthsserenely shine;Where between Cancer and Erigone,There yet remains a spaciousroomfor thee;Where the hotScorpiontoo his arms declines,And more to thee than half hisarchresigns;Whate'er thou'lt be; for sure the realms belowNo just pretence to thy command can show:No such ambition sways thy vast desires,Though Greece her ownElysian fieldsadmires.And now, at last, contented ProserpineCan all her mother's earnest pray'rs decline.Whate'er thou'lt be, O guide our gentle course;And with thy smiles our bold attempts enforce;With me th' unknowingrustics' wants relieve,And, though on earth, our sacred vows receive!
Mr. Dryden, having received from Rymer his Remarks on the Tragedies of the last Age, wrote observations on the blank leaves; which, having been in the possession of Mr. Garrick, are, by his favour, communicated to the publick, that no particle of Dryden may be lost:
"That we may the less wonder why pity and terrour are not now the only springs on which our tragedies move, and that Shakespeare may be more excused, Rapin confesses that the French tragedies, now all run on thetendre; and gives the reason, because love is the passion which most predominates in our souls, and that, therefore, the passions represented become insipid, unless they are conformable to the thoughts of the audience. But it is to be concluded, that this passion works not now amongst the French so strongly as the other two did amongst the ancients. Amongst us, who have a stronger genius for writing, the operations from the writing are much stronger; for the raising of Shakespeare's passions is more from the excellency of the words and thoughts, than the justness of the occasion; and if he has been able to pick single occasions, he has never founded the whole reasonably: yet, by the genius of poetry in writing, he has succeeded.
"Rapin attributes more to thedictio, that is, to the words and discourse of a tragedy, than Aristotle has done, who places them in the last rank of beauties; perhaps, only last in order, because they are the last product of the design, of the disposition or connexion of its parts; of the characters, of the manners of those characters, and of the thoughts proceeding from those manners. Rapin's words are remarkable: 'Tis not the admirable intrigue, the surprising events, and extraordinary incidents, that make the beauty of a tragedy; 'tis the discourses, when they are natural and passionate: so are Shakespeare's.
"The parts of a poem, tragick or heroick, are,
"1. The fable itself.
"2. The order or manner of its contrivance, in relation of the parts to the whole.
"3. The manners, or decency, of the characters, in speaking or acting what is proper for them, and proper to be shown by the poet.
"4. The thoughts which express the manners.
"5. The words which express those thoughts.
"In the last of these Homer excels Virgil; Virgil all other ancient poets; and Shakespeare all modern poets.
"For the second of these, the order: the meaning is, that a fable ought to have a beginning, middle, and an end, all just and natural; so that that part, e.g. which is the middle, could not naturally be the beginning or end, and so of the rest: all depend on one another, like the links of a curious chain. If terrour and pity are only to be raised, certainly this author follows Aristotle's rules, and Sophocles' and Euripides' example: but joy may be raised too, and that doubly, either by seeing a wicked man punished, or a good man at last fortunate; or, perhaps, indignation, to see wickedness prosperous, and goodness depressed: both these may be profitable to the end of tragedy, reformation of manners; but the last improperly, only as it begets pity in the audience: though Aristotle, I confess, places tragedies of this kind in the second form.
"He who undertakes to answer this excellent critique of Mr. Rymer, in behalf of our English poets against the Greek, ought to do it in this manner: either by yielding to him the greatest part of what he contends for, which consists in this, that the 'mithos', i. e. the design and conduct of it, is more conducing in the Greeks to those ends of tragedy, which Aristotle and he propose, namely, to cause terrour and pity; yet the granting this does not set the Greeks above the English poets.
"But the answerer ought to prove two things: first, that the fable is not the greatest masterpiece of a tragedy, though it be the foundation of it.
"Secondly, that other ends, as suitable to the nature of tragedy, may be found in the English, which were not in the Greek.
"Aristotle places the fable first; not 'quoad dignitatem, sed quoad fundamentum:' for a fable, never so movingly contrived to those ends of his, pity and terrour, will operate nothing on our affections, except the characters, manners, thoughts, and words, are suitable.
"So that it remains for Mr. Rymer to prove, that in all those, or the greatest part of them, we are inferiour to Sophocles and Euripides: and this he has offered at, in some measure; but, I think, a little partially to the ancients.
"For the fable itself, 'tis in the English more adorned with episodes, and larger than in the Greek poets; consequently more diverting. For, if the action be but one, and that plain, without any counterturn of design or episode, i.e. underplot, how can it be so pleasing as the English, which have both underplot and a turned design, which keeps the audience in expectation of the catastrophe? whereas in the Greek poets we see through the whole design at first.