and say, that "The Empress of Morocco" must have acted _to the tune_ of a good heroic play. It had all the outward and visible requisites of splendid scenery, prisons, palaces, fleets, combats of desperate duration and uncertain issue,[8] a.s.sa.s.sinations, a dancing tree, a rainbow, a shower of hail, a criminal executed,[9] and h.e.l.l itself opening upon the stage. The rhyming dialogue too, in which the play was written, had an imperative and tyrannical sound; and to a foreigner, ignorant of the language, might have appeared as magnificent as that of Dryden. But it must raise our admiration, that the witty court of Charles could patiently listen to a "tale told by an idiot, full of noise and fury, signifying nothing," and give it a preference over the poetry of Dryden. The following description of a hail-storm will vindicate our wonder:
"This morning, as our eyes we upward cast, The desert regions of the air lay waste.
But straight, as if it had some penance bore, A mourning garb of thick black clouds it wore.
But on the sudden, Some aery demon changed its form, and now That which looked black above looked white below; The clouds dishevelled from their crusted locks, Something like gems coined out of crystal rocks.
The ground was with this strange bright issue spread, As if heaven in affront to nature had Designed some new-found tillage of its own, And on the earth these unknown seeds had sown.
Of these I reached a grain, which to my sense Appeared as cool as virgin-innocence; And like that too (which chiefly I admired), Its ravished whiteness with a touch expired.
At the approach of heat, this candid rain Dissolved to its first element again.
_Muly-H._ Though showers of hail Morocco never see, Dull priest, what does all this portend to me?
_Ham_. It does portend--
_Muly._ What?
_Ham_. That the fates design--
_Muly_. To tire me with impertinence like thine."
Such were the strains once preferred to the magnificent verses of Dryden; whose very worst bombast is sublimity compared to them. To prove which, the reader need only peruse the Indian"s account of the Spanish fleet in the "Indian Emperor," to which the above lines are a parallel; each being the description of an object familiar to the audience, but new to the describer. The poet felt the disgraceful preference more deeply than was altogether becoming; but he had levelled his powers, says Johnson, when he levelled his desires to those of Settle, and placed his happiness in the claps of mult.i.tudes. The moral may be carried yet further; for had not Dryden stooped to call to the aid of his poetry the auxiliaries of scenery, gilded truncheons, and verse of more noise than meaning, it is impossible his plays could have been drawn into comparison with those of Settle. But the meretricious ornaments which he himself had introduced were within the reach of the meanest capacity; and, having been among the first to debauch the taste of the public, it was retributive justice that he should experience their inconstancy. Indeed Dryden seems himself to admit, that the princ.i.p.al difference between his heroic plays and "The Empress of Morocco," was, that the former were good sense, that looked like nonsense, and the latter nonsense, which yet looked very like sense. A nice distinction, and which argued some regret at having opened the way to such a rival.
The feelings of contempt ought to have suppressed those of anger; but Dryden, who professedly lived to please his own age, had not temper to wait till time should do him justice. Angry he was; and unfortunately he determined to shew the world that he did well in being so. With this view, in conjunction with Shadwell and Crowne, two brother-dramatists, equally jealous of Settle"s success, he composed a pamphlet, ent.i.tled "Remarks upon the Empress of Morocco." This piece is written in the same tone of boisterous and vulgar raillery with which Clifford and Leigh had a.s.sailed Dryden himself; and little resembles our poet"s general style of controversy. He seems to have exchanged his satirical scourge for the clumsy flail of Shadwell, when he stooped to use such raillery as the following description of Settle: "In short, he is an animal of a most deplored understanding, without reading and conversation: his being is in a twilight of sense, and some glimmering of thought, which he can never fashion either into wit or English. His style is boisterous and rough-hewn; his rhyme incorrigibly lewd, and his numbers perpetually harsh and ill-sounding."
Settle, nothing dismayed with this vehement attack, manfully retorted the abuse which had been thrown upon him, and answered the insulting clamour of his three antagonists with clamorous insult.[10] It was obvious that the weaker poet must be the winner by this contest in abuse; and Dryden gained no more by his dispute with Settle, than a well-dressed man who should condescend to wrestle with a chimney-sweeper. The feud between them was carried no further, until, after the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel," party animosity added spurs to literary rivalry.
We must now return to Rochester, who, observing Settle"s rise to his unmerited elevation in the public opinion, became as anxious to lower his presumption as he had formerly been to diminish the reputation of Dryden. With this view, that tyrannical person of honour availed himself of his credit to recommend Crowne to write the masque of "Calisto,"
which was acted by the lords and ladies of the court of Charles in 1675.
Nothing could be more galling towards Dryden, a part of whose duty as poet-laureate was to compose the pieces designed for such occasions.
Crowne, though he was a tolerable comic writer,[11] had no turn whatever for tragedy, or indeed for poetry of any kind. But the splendour of the scenery and dresses, the quality of the performers, selected from the first n.o.bility, and the favour of the sovereign, gave "Calisto" a run of nearly thirty nights. Dryden, though mortified, tendered his services in the shape of an epilogue, to be spoken by Lady Henrietta Maria Wentworth.[12] But the influence of his enemy, Rochester, was still predominant, and the epilogue of the laureate was rejected.[13]
The author of "Calisto" also lost his credit with Rochester, so soon as he became generally popular; and shortly after the representation of that piece, its fickle patron seems to have recommended to the royal protection, a rival more formidable to Dryden than either Settle or "starch Johnny Crowne."[14] This was no other than Otway, whose "Don Carlos" appeared in 1676, and was hailed as one of the best heroic plays which had been written. The author avows in his preface the obligations he owed to Rochester, who had recommended him to the king and the duke, to whose favour he owed his good success, and on whose indulgence he reckoned as insuring that of his next attempt.[15] These effusions of grat.i.tude did not, as Mr. Malone observes, withhold Rochester, shortly after, from lampooning Otway, with circ.u.mstances of gross insult, in the "Session of the Poets."[16] In the same preface, Otway, in very intelligible language, bade defiance to Dryden whom he charges with having spoken slightly of his play.[17] But although Dryden did not admire the general structure of Otway"s poetry, he is said, even at this time, to have borne witness to his power of moving the pa.s.sions; an acknowledgment which he long afterwards solemnly repeated. Thus Otway, like many others, mistook the character of a pretended friend, and did injustice to that of a liberal rival. Dryden and he indeed never appear to have been personal friends, even when they both wrote in the Tory interest. It was probably about this time that Otway challenged Settle, whose courage appears to have failed him upon the occasion.
Rochester was not content with exciting rivals against Dryden in the public opinion, but a.s.sailed him personally in an imitation of Horace, which he quaintly ent.i.tled, "An Allusion to the Tenth Satire." It came out anonymously about 1678, but the town was at no loss to guess that Rochester was the patron or author. Much of the satire was bestowed on Dryden, whom Rochester for the first time distinguishes by a ridiculous nickname, which was afterwards echoed by imitating dunces in all their lampoons. The lines are more cutting, because mingled with as much praise as the writer probably thought necessary to gain the credit of a candid critic.[18] Dryden, on his part, did not view with indifference these repeated direct and indirect attacks on his literary reputation by Rochester. In the preface to "All for Love," published in 1678, he gives a severe rebuke to those men of rank, who, having acquired the credit of wit, either by virtue of their quality, or by common fame, and finding themselves possessed of some smattering of Latin, become ambitious to distinguish themselves by their poetry from the herd of gentlemen. "And is not this," he exclaims, "a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their nakedness to public view? Not considering that they are not to expect the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their flatterers after the third bottle. If a little glittering in discourse has pa.s.sed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill t.i.tle to an estate, but yet is in possession of it; would he bring it of his own accord to be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talent, yet have the excuse, that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble out of mere wantonness, take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right, where he said, "That no man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented, because the poets will not admit them of their number. Thus the case is hard with writers: if they succeed not, they must starve; and if they do, some malicious satire is prepared to level them, for daring to please without their leave. But while they are so eager to destroy the fame of others, their ambition is manifest in their concernment; some poem of their own is to be produced, and the slaves are to be laid flat with their faces on the ground, that the monarch may appear in the greater majesty." This general censure of the persons of wit and honour about town, is fixed on Rochester in particular not only by the marked allusion in the last sentence, to the despotic tyranny which he claimed over the authors of his time, but also by a direct attack upon such imitators of Horace, who make doggrel of his Latin, misapply his censures, and often contradict their own. It is remarkable, however, that he ascribes this imitation rather to some zany of the great, than to one of their number; and seems to have thought Rochester rather the patron than the author.
At the expense of antic.i.p.ating the order of events, and that we may bring Dryden"s dispute with Rochester to a conclusion, we must recall to the reader"s recollection our author"s friendship with Mulgrave. This appears to have been so intimate, that, in 1675, that n.o.bleman intrusted him with the task of revising his "Essay upon Satire:" a poem which contained dishonourable mention of many courtiers of the time, and was particularly severe on Sir Car Scrope and Rochester. The last of these is taxed with cowardice, and a thousand odious and mean vices; upbraided with the grossness and scurrility of his writings, and with the infamous profligacy of his life.[19] The versification of the poem is as flat and inharmonious, as the plan is careless and ill-arranged; and though the imputation was to cost Dryden dear, I cannot think that any part of the "Essay on Satire" received additions from his pen. Probably he might contribute a few hints for revision; but the author of "Absalom and Achitophel" could never completely disguise the powers which were shortly to produce that brilliant satire. Dryden"s verses must have shone among Mulgrave"s as gold beside copper. The whole Essay is a mere stagnant level, no one part of it so far rising above the rest as to bespeak the work of a superior hand. The thoughts, even when conceived with some spirit, are clumsily and unhappily brought out; a fault never to be traced in the beautiful language of Dryden, whose powers of expression were at least equal to his force of conception. Besides, as Mr. Malone has observed, he had now brought to the highest excellence his system of versification; and is it possible he could neglect it so far as to write the rugged lines in the note, where all manner of elliptical barbarisms are resorted to, for squeezing the words into a measure "lame and o"erburdened, and screaming its wretchedness"? The "Essay on Satire" was finally subjected by the n.o.ble author to the criticism of Pope, who, less scrupulous than Dryden, appears to have made large improvements; but after having undergone the revision of two of the first names in English poetry, it continues to be a very indifferent performance.
In another point of view, it seems inconsistent with Dryden"s situation to suppose he had any active share in the "Essay on Satire." The character of Charles is treated with great severity, as well as those of the d.u.c.h.esses of Portsmouth and Cleveland, the royal mistresses. This was quite consistent with Mulgrave"s disposition, who was at this time discontented with the ministry; but certainly would not have beseemed Dryden, who held an office at court. Sedley also, with whom Dryden always seems to have lived on friendly terms, is harshly treated in the "Essay on Satire." It may be owned, however, that these reasons were not held powerful at the time, since they must, in that case, have saved Dryden from the inconvenient suspicion which, we will presently see, attached to him. The public were accustomed to see the friendship of wits end in mutual satire; and the good-natured Charles was so generally the subject of the ridicule which he loved, that no one seems to have thought there was improbability in a libel being composed on him by his own laureate.
The "Essay on Satire," though written, as appears from the t.i.tle-page of the last edition, in 1675, was not made public until 1679, when several copies were handed about in ma.n.u.script. Rochester sends one of these to his friend Henry Saville, on the 21st of November 1679, with this observation:--"I have sent you herewith a libel, in which my own share is not the least. The king, having perused it, is no way dissatisfied with his. The author is apparently Mr. Dr[yden], his patron, Lord M[ulgrave,] having a panegyric in the midst." From hence it is evident, that Dryden obtained the reputation of being the author; in consequence of which, Rochester meditated the base and cowardly revenge which he afterwards executed; and he thus coolly expressed his intention in another of his letters:--"You write me word, that I"m out of favour with a certain poet, whom I have admired for the disproportion of him and his attributes. He is a rarity which I cannot but be fond of, as one would be of a hog that could fiddle, or a singing owl. If he falls on me at the blunt, which is his very good weapon in wit, I will forgive him if you please; and _leave the repartee to black Will with a cudgel_."
In pursuance of this infamous resolution, Dryden, upon the night of the 18th December 1679, was waylaid by hired ruffians, and severely beaten, as he pa.s.sed through Rose-street, Covent-garden returning from Will"s Coffee-house to his own house in Gerrard-street. A reward of 50 was in vain offered, in the London Gazette and other newspapers, for the discovery of the perpetrators of this outrage.[20] The town was, however, at no loss to pitch upon Rochester as the employer of the bravoes, with whom the public suspicion joined the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, equally concerned in the supposed affront thus avenged. In our time, were a n.o.bleman to have recourse to hired bravoes to avenge his personal quarrel against any one, more especially a person holding the rank of a gentleman, he might lay his account with being hunted out of society. But in the age of Charles, the ancient high and chivalrous sense of honour was esteemed Quixotic, and the civil war had left traces of ferocity in the manners and sentiments of the people. Rencounters, where the a.s.sailants took all advantages of number and weapons, were as frequent, and held as honourable, as regular duels. Some of these approached closely to a.s.sa.s.sination; as in the famous case of Sir John Coventry, who was waylaid, and had his nose slit by some young men of high rank, for a reflection upon the king"s theatrical amours. This occasioned the famous statute against maiming and wounding, called the Coventry Act; an Act highly necessary, since so far did our ancestors"
ideas of manly forbearance differ from ours, that Killigrew introduces the hero of one of his comedies, a cavalier, and the fine gentleman of the piece, lying in wait for, and slashing the face of a poor courtezan, who had cheated him.[21] It will certainly be admitted, that a man, surprised in the dark and beaten by ruffians, loses no honour by such a misfortune. But, if Dryden had received the same discipline from Rochester"s own hand without resenting it, his drubbing could not have been more frequently made a matter of reproach to him;--a sign surely of the penury of subjects for satire in his life and character, since an accident, which might have happened to the greatest hero who ever lived, was resorted to as an imputation on his honour. The Rose-alley ambuscade became almost proverbial;[22] and even Mulgrave, the real author of the satire, and upon whose shoulders the blows ought in justice to have descended, mentions the circ.u.mstance in his "Art of Poetry;" with a cold and self-sufficient complacent sneer:
"Though praised and punished for another"s rhymes, His own deserve as great applause _sometimes_."
To which is added in a note, "A libel for which he was both applauded and wounded, though entirely ignorant of the whole matter." This flat and conceited couplet, and note, the n.o.ble author judged it proper to omit in the corrected edition of his poem. Otway alone, no longer the friend of Rochester, and perhaps no longer the enemy of Dryden, has spoken of the author of this dastardly outrage with the contempt his cowardly malice deserved:
"Poets in honour of the truth should write, With the same spirit brave men for it fight; And though against him causeless hatreds rise, And daily where he goes, of late, he spies The scowls of sullen and revengeful eyes; "Tis what he knows with much contempt to bear, And serves a cause too good to let him fear: He fears no poison from incensed drab, No ruffian"s five-foot sword, nor rascal"s stab; Nor any other snares of mischief laid, _Not a Rose-alley cudgel ambuscade_; From any private cause where malice reigns, Or general pique all blockheads have to brains."
It does not appear that Dryden ever thought it worth his while to take revenge on Rochester; and the only allusion to him in his writings may be found in the Essay prefixed to the translation of Juvenal, where he is mentioned as a man of quality, whose ashes our author was unwilling to disturb, and who had paid Dorset, to whom that piece is inscribed, the highest compliment which his self-sufficiency could afford to any one. Perhaps Dryden remembered Rochester among others, when, in the same piece, he takes credit for resisting opportunities and temptation to take revenge, even upon those by whom he had been notoriously and wantonly provoked.[23]
The detail of these quarrels has interrupted our account of Dryden"s writings, which we are now to resume.
"Aureng-Zebe" was his first performance after the failure of the "a.s.signation." It was acted in 1675 with general applause. "Aureng-Zebe"
is a heroic, or rhyming play, but not cast in a mould quite so romantic as the "Conquest of Granada." There is a grave and moral turn in many of the speeches, which brings it nearer the style of a French tragedy. It is true, the character of Moral borders upon extravagance; but a certain licence has been always given to theatrical tyrants, and we excuse bombast in him more readily than in Almanzor. There is perhaps some reason for this indulgence. The possession of unlimited power, vested in active and mercurial characters, naturally drives them to an extravagant indulgence of pa.s.sion, bordering upon insanity; and it follows, that their language must outstrip the modesty of nature. Propriety of diction in the drama is relative, and to be referred more to individual character than to general rules: to make a tyrant sober-minded is to make a madman rational. But this discretion must be used with great caution by the writer, lest he should confound the terrible with the burlesque. Two great actors, Kynaston and Booth, differed in their style of playing Morat.
The former, who was the original performer, and doubtless had his instructions from the author, gave full force to the sentiments of avowed and barbarous vainglory, which mark the character. When he is determined to spare Aureng-Zebe, and Nourmahal pleads,
"Twill not be safe to let him live an hour,"
Kynaston gave all the stern and haughty insolence of despotism to his answer,
"I"ll do"t to show my arbitrary power."[24]
But Booth, with modest caution, avoided marking and pressing upon the audience a sentiment hovering between the comic and terrible, however consonant to the character by whom it was delivered. The princ.i.p.al incident in "Aureng-Zebe" was suggested by King Charles himself. The tragedy is dedicated to Mulgrave, whose patronage had been so effectual, as to introduce Dryden and his poetical schemes to the peculiar notice of the king and duke. The dedication and the prologue of this piece throw considerable light upon these plans, as well as upon the revolution which had gradually taken place in Dryden"s dramatic taste.
During the s.p.a.ce which occurred between writing the "Conquest of Granada" and "Aureng-Zebe", our author"s researches into the nature and causes of harmony of versification been unremitted, and he had probably already collected the materials of his intended English _Prosodia_.
Besides this labour, he had been engaged in a closer and more critical examination of the ancient English poets, than he had before bestowed upon them. These studies seem to have led Dryden to two conclusions: first, that the drama ought to be emanc.i.p.ated from the fetters of rhyme; and secondly, that he ought to employ the system of versification, which he had now perfected, to the more legitimate purpose of epic poetry.
Each of these opinions merits consideration.
However hardily Dryden stood forward in defence of the heroic plays, he confessed, even in the heat of argument, that Rhyme, though he was brave and generous, and his dominion pleasing, had still somewhat of the usurper in him. A more minute inquiry seems to have still further demonstrated the weakness of this usurped dominion; and our author"s good taste and practice speedily pointed out deficiencies and difficulties, which Sir Robert Howard, against whom he defended the use of rhyme, could not show, because he never aimed at the excellencies which they impeded. The perusal of Shakespeare, on whom Dryden had now turned his attention, led him to feel, that something further might be attained in tragedy than the expression of exaggerated sentiment in smooth verse, and that the scene ought to represent not a fanciful set of agents exerting their superhuman faculties in a fairy-land of the poet"s own creation, but human characters, acting from the direct and energetic influence of human pa.s.sions, with whose emotions the audience might sympathise, because akin to the feelings of their own hearts. When Dryden had once discovered, that fear and pity were more likely to be excited by other causes than the logic of metaphysical love, or the dictates of fantastic honour, he must have found, that rhyme sounded as unnatural in the dialogue of characters drawn upon the usual scale of humanity, as the plate and mail of chivalry would have appeared on the persons of the actors. The following lines of the Prologue to "Aureng-Zebe," although prefixed to a rhyming play, the last which he ever wrote, express Dryden"s change of sentiment on these points:
"Our author, by experience, finds it true, "Tis much more hard to please himself than you: And, out of no feigned modesty, this day d.a.m.ns his laborious trifle of a play: Not that it"s worse than what before he writ, But he has now another taste of wit; And, to confess a truth, though out of time, Grows weary of his long-loved mistress, Rhyme.
Pa.s.sion"s too fierce to be in fetters bound, And Nature flies him like enchanted ground: What verse can do, he has performed in this, Which he presumes the most correct of his; But spite of all his pride, a secret shame Invades his breast at Shakespeare"s sacred name: Awed when he hears his G.o.dlike Romans rage, He, in a just despair, would quit the stage; And to an age less polished, more unskilled, Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield."
It is remarkable, as a trait of character, that, though our author admitted his change of opinion on this long disputed point, he would not consent that it should be imputed to any arguments which his opponents had the wit to bring against him. On this subject he enters a protest in the Preface to his revised edition of the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy" in 1684:--"I confess, I find many things in this discourse which I do not now approve; my judgment being not a little altered since the writing of it; but whether for the better or the worse, I know not: neither indeed is it much material, in an essay, where all I have said is problematical. For the way of writing plays in verse, which I have seemed to favour, I have, since that time, laid the practice of it aside, till I have more leisure, because I find it troublesome and slow: but I am no way altered from my opinion of it, _at least with any reasons which have opposed it_; for your lordship may easily observe, that none are very violent against it, but those who either have not attempted it, or who have succeeded ill in their attempt."[25] Thus cautious was Dryden in not admitting a victory, even in a cause which, he had surrendered.
But although the poet had admitted, that, with powers of versification superior to those possessed by any earlier English author, and a taste corrected by the laborious study both of the language and those who had used it, he found rhyme unfit for the use of the drama, he at the same time discovered a province where it might be employed in all its splendour. We have the mortification to learn, from the Dedication of "Aureng-Zebe," that Dryden only wanted encouragement to enter upon the composition of an epic poem, and to abandon the thriftless task of writing for the promiscuous audience of the theatre,--a task which, rivalled as he had lately been by Crowne and Settle, he most justly compares to the labour of Sisyphus. His plot, he elsewhere explains, was to be founded either upon the story of Arthur, or of Edward the Black Prince; and he mentions it to Mulgrave in the following remarkable pa.s.sage, which argues great dissatisfaction with dramatic labour, arising perhaps from a combined feeling of the bad taste of rhyming plays, the degrading dispute with Settle, and the failure of the "a.s.signation," his last theatrical attempt:--"If I must be condemned to rhyme, I should find some ease in my change of punishment. I desire to be no longer the Sisyphus of the stage; to roll up a stone with endless labour, which, to follow the proverb, _gathers no moss_; and which is perpetually falling down again. I never thought myself very fit for an employment, where many of my predecessors have excelled me in all kinds; and some of my contemporaries, even in my own partial judgment, have outdone me in comedy. Some little hopes I have yet remaining (and those too, considering my abilities, may be vain), that I may make the world some part of amends for my ill plays, by an heroic poem. Your lordship has been long acquainted with my design; the subject of which you know is great, the story English, and neither too far distant from the present age, nor too near approaching it. Such it is in my opinion, that I could not have wished a n.o.bler occasion to do honour by it to my king, my country, and my friends; most of our ancient n.o.bility being concerned in the action. And your lordship has one particular reason to promote this undertaking because you were the first who gave me the opportunity of discoursing it to his majesty, and his royal highness; they were then pleased both to commend the design, and to encourage it by their commands; but the unsettledness of my condition has. .h.i.therto put a stop to my thoughts concerning it. As I am no successor to Homer in his wit, so neither do I desire to be in his poverty. I can make no rhapsodies, nor go a begging at the Grecian doors, while I sing the praises of their ancestors. The times of Virgil please me better, because he had an Augustus for his patron; and, to draw the allegory nearer you, I am sure I shall not want a Maecenas with him. It is for your lordship to stir up that remembrance in his majesty, which his many avocations of business have caused him, I fear, to lay aside; and, as himself and his royal brother are the heroes of the poem, to represent to them the images of their warlike predecessors; as Achilles is said to be roused to glory with the sight of the combat before the ships. For my own part, I am satisfied to have offered the design; and it may be to the advantage of my reputation to have it refused me."[26]
Dr. Johnson and Mr. Malone remark, that Dryden observes a mystery concerning the subject of his intended epic, to prevent the risk of being antic.i.p.ated, as he finally was by Sir Richard Blackmore on the topic of Arthur. This, as well as other pa.s.sages in Dryden"s life, allows us the pleasing indulgence of praising the decency of our own time. Were an author of distinguished merit to announce his having made choice of a subject for a large poem, the writer would have more than common confidence who should venture to forestall his labours. But, in the seventeenth century, such an intimation would, it seems, have been an instant signal for the herd of scribblers to souse upon it, like the harpies on the feast of the Trojans, and leave its mangled relics too polluted for the use of genius:--
"_Turba sonans praedam pedibus circ.u.mvolat uncis; Polluit ore dopes_.
_Semesam praedam et vestigia foeda relinquunt._"
"Aureng-Zebe" was followed, in 1678, by "All for Love," the only play Dryden ever wrote for himself; the rest, he says, were given to the people. The habitual study of Shakespeare, which seems lately to have occasioned, at least greatly aided, the revolution in his taste, induced him, among a crowd of emulous shooters, to try his strength in this bow of Ulysses. I have, in some preliminary remarks to the play, endeavoured to point out the difference between the manner of these great artists in treating the misfortunes of Antony and Cleopatra.[27] If these are just, we must allow Dryden the praise of greater regularity of plot, and a happier combination of scene; but in sketching the character of Antony, he loses the majestic and heroic tone which Shakespeare has a.s.signed him. There is too much of the love-lorn knight-errant, and too little of the Roman warrior, in Dryden"s hero. The love of Antony, however overpowering and destructive in its effects, ought not to have resembled the love of a sighing swain of Arcadia. This error in the original conception of the character must doubtless be ascribed to Dryden"s habit of romantic composition. Montezuma and Almanzor were, like the prophet"s image, formed of a mixture of iron and clay; of stern and rigid demeanour to all the universe, but unbounded devotion to the ladies of their affections. In Antony, the first cla.s.s of attributes are discarded: he has none of that tumid and outrageous dignity which characterised the heroes of the rhyming plays, and in its stead is gifted with even more than an usual share of devoted attachment to his mistress.[28] In the preface, Dryden piques himself upon venturing to introduce the quarrelling scene between Octavia and Cleopatra, which a French writer would have rejected, as contrary to the decorum of the theatre. But our author"s idea of female character was at all times low; and the coa.r.s.e, indecent violence, which he has thrown into the expressions of a queen and a Roman matron, is misplaced and disgusting, and contradicts the general and well-founded observation on the address and self-command with which even women of ordinary dispositions can veil mutual dislike and hatred, and the extreme keenness with which they can arm their satire, while preserving all the external forms of civil demeanour. But Dryden more than redeemed this error in the scene between Antony and Ventidius, which he himself preferred to any that he ever wrote, and perhaps with justice, if we except that between Dorax and Sebastian: both are avowedly written in imitation of the quarrel between Brutus and Ca.s.sius. "All for Love" was received by the public with universal applause. Its success, with that of "Aureng-Zebe," gave fresh l.u.s.tre to the author"s reputation, which had been somewhat tarnished by the failure of the "a.s.signation," and the rise of so many rival dramatists. We learn from the Players" pet.i.tion to the Lord Chamberlain, that "All for Love" was of service to the author"s fortune as well as to his fame, as he was permitted the benefit of a third night, in addition to his profits as a sharer with the company.[29] The play was dedicated to the Earl of Danby, then a minister in high power, but who, in the course of a few months, was disgraced and imprisoned at the suit of the Commons. As Danby was a great advocate for prerogative, Dryden fails not to approach him with an encomium on monarchical government, as regulated and circ.u.mscribed by law. In reprobating the schemes of those innovators, who, surfeiting on happiness, endeavoured to persuade their fellow-subjects to risk a change, he has a pointed allusion to the Earl of Shaftesbury, who, having left the royal councils in disgrace, was now at the head of the popular faction.
In 1678 Dryden"s next play, a comedy, ent.i.tled "Limberham," was acted at Dorset-garden theatre, but was endured for three nights only. It was designed, the author informs us, as a satire on "the crying sin of keeping;" and the crime for which it suffered was, that "it expressed too much of the vice which it decried." Grossly indelicate as this play still is, it would seem, from the Dedication to Lord Vaughan, that much which offended on the stage was altered, or omitted, in the press;[30]
yet more than enough remains to justify the sentence p.r.o.nounced against it by the public. Mr. Malone seems to suppose Shaftesbury"s party had some share in its fate, supposing that the character of Limberham had reference to their leader. Yet surely, although Shaftesbury was ridiculous for aiming at gallantry, from which his age and personal infirmity should have deterred him, Dryden would never have drawn the witty, artful politician, as a silly, henpecked cully. Besides, Dryden was about this time supposed even himself to have some leaning to the popular cause; a supposition irreconcilable with his caricaturing the foibles of Shaftesbury.
The tragedy of "Oedipus" was written by Dryden in conjunction with Lee; the entire first and third acts were the work of our author, who also arranged the general plan, and corrected the whole piece. Having offered some observations[31] elsewhere upon this play, and the mode in which its celebrated theme has been treated by the dramatists of different nations, I need not here resume the subject. The time of the first representation is fixed to the beginning of the playing season, in winter 1678-9, although it was not printed until 1679.[32] Both "Limberham" and "Oedipus" were acted at the Duke"s theatre; so that it would seem that our author was relieved from his contract with the King"s house, probably because the shares were so much diminished in value, that his appointment was now no adequate compensation for his labour. The managers of the King"s company complained to the Lord Chamberlain, and endeavoured, as we have seen, by pleading upon the contract, to a.s.sert their right to the play of "Oedipus."[33] But their claim to reclaim the poet and the play appears to have been set aside, and Dryden continued to give his performances to the Duke"s theatre until the union of the two companies.
Dryden was now to do a new homage to Shakespeare, by refitting for the stage the play of "Troilus and Cressida," which the author left in a state of strange imperfection, resembling more a chronicle, or legend, than a dramatic piece. Yet it may be disputed whether Dryden has greatly improved it even in the particulars which he censures in his original.
His plot, though more artificial, is at the same time more trite than that of Shakespeare. The device by which Troilus is led to doubt the constancy of Cressida is much less natural than that she should have been actually inconstant; her vindication by suicide is a clumsy, as well as a hackneyed expedient; and there is too much drum and trumpet in the grand _finale_, where "Troilus and Diomede fight, and both parties engage at the same time. The Trojans make the Greeks retire, and Troilus makes Diomede give ground, and hurts him. Trumpets sound. Achilles enters with his Myrmidons, on the backs of the Trojans, who fight in a ring, encompa.s.sed round. Troilus, singling Diomede, gets him down, and kills him; and Achilles kills Troilus upon him. All the Trojans die upon the place, Troilus last." Such a _bellum internecinum_ can never be waged to advantage upon the stage. One extravagant pa.s.sage in this play serves strongly to evince Dryden"s rooted dislike to the clergy. Troilus exclaims,--
"That I should trust the daughter of a priest!
Priesthood, that makes a merchandise of heaven!
Priesthood, that sells even to their prayers and blessings, And forces us to pay for our own cozenage!