"_Per Graium populos, mediaeque per Elidis urbem Ibat ovans; Divumque sibi poscebat honores._"
In this satire, Shaftesbury"s history; his frequent political apostasies; his licentious course of life, so contrary to the stern rigour of the fanatics, with whom he had a.s.sociated; his arts in instigating the fury of the anti-monarchists; in fine, all the political and moral bearings of his character sounded and exposed to contempt and reprobation, the beauty of the poetry adding grace to the severity of the satire. What impression these vigorous and well-aimed darts made upon Shaftesbury, who was so capable of estimating their sharpness and force, we have no means to ascertain; but long afterwards, his grandson, the author of the "Characteristics," speaks of Dryden and his works with a bitter affectation of contempt, offensive to every reader of judgment, and obviously formed on prejudice against the man, rather than dislike to the poetry.[8] It is said, that he felt more resentment on account of the character of imbecility adjudged to his father in "Absalom and Achitophel," than for all the pungent satire, there and in the "Medal,"
bestowed upon his grandfather; an additional proof, how much more easy it is to bear those reflections which render ourselves or our friends hateful, than those by which they are only made ridiculous and contemptible. The Whig poets, for many a.s.sumed that t.i.tle, did not behold these attacks upon their leader and party with patience or forbearance; but they rushed to the combat with more zeal, or rather fury, than talent or policy. Their efforts are numbered and described elsewhere;[9] so that we need here only slightly notice those which Dryden thought worthy of his own animadversion. Most of them adopted the clumsy and obvious expedient of writing their answers in the style of the successful satire which had provoked them. Thus, in reply to "Absalom and Achitophel," Pordage and Settle imitated the plan of bestowing scriptural names on their poem and characters the former ent.i.tling his piece "Azaria and Hushai," the latter, "Absalom Senior, or Absalom and Achitophel transposed." But these attempts to hurl back the satire at him by whom it was first launched, succeeded but indifferently, and might have convinced the authors that the charm of "Absalom and Achitophel" lay not in the plan, but in the power of execution. It was easy to give Jewish t.i.tles to their heroes, but the difficulty lay in drawing their characters with the force and precision of their prototype. Buckingham himself was rash enough to engage in this conflict; but, whether his anger blunted his wit, or that his share in the "Rehearsal" was less even than what is generally supposed, he loses, by his "Reflections on Absalom and Achitophel," the credit we are disposed to allow him for talent on the score of that lively piece.[10]
A nonconformist clergyman published two pieces, which I have never seen, one ent.i.tled, "A Whip for the Fool"s Back, who styles honourable Marriage a cursed confinement, in his profane Poem of Absalom and Achitophel;" the other, "A Key, with the Whip, to open the Mystery and Iniquity of the Poem called Absalom and Achitophel." Little was to be hoped or feared from poems bearing such absurd t.i.tles: I throw, however, into the note, the specimen which Mr. Malone has given of their contents.[11] The reverend gentleman having announced, that Achitophel, in Hebrew, means "the brother of a fool," Dryden retorted, with infinite coolness, that in that case the author of the discovery might pa.s.s with his readers for next akin, and that it was probably the relation which made the kindness.
"The Medal" was answered by the same authors who replied to "Absalom and Achitophel," as if the Whigs had taken in sober earnest the advice which Dryden bestowed on them in the preface to that satire. And moreover (as he there expressly recommends) they railed at him abundantly, without a glimmering of wit to enliven their scurrility. Hickeringill, a crazy fanatic, began the attack with a sort of mad poem, called "The Mushroom." It was written and sent to press the very day on which "The Medal" appeared; a circ.u.mstance on which the author valued himself so highly, as to ascribe it to divine inspiration.[12] With more labour, and equal issue, Samuel Pordage, a minor poet of the day, produced "The Medal Reversed;" for which, and his former aggression, Dryden brands him, in a single line of the Second Part of "Absalom and Achitophel," as
"Lame Mephibosheth, the wizard"s[13] son."
There also appeared "The Loyal Medal Vindicated," and a piece ent.i.tled "Dryden"s Satire to his Muse," imputed to Lord Somers, but which, in conversation with Pope, he positively disavowed. All these, and many other pieces, the fruits of incensed and almost frantic party fury, are marked by the most coa.r.s.e and virulent abuse. The events in our author"s life were few, and his morals, generally speaking, irreproachable; so that the topics for the malevolence of his antagonists were both scanty and strained. But they ceased not, with the true pertinacity of angry dulness, to repeat, in prose and verse, in couplet, ballad, and madrigal, the same unvaried accusations, amounting in substance to the following: That Dryden had been bred a puritan and republican; that he had written an elegy on Cromwell (which one wily adversary actually reprinted); that he had been in poverty at the Restoration; that Lady Elizabeth Dryden"s character was tarnished by the circ.u.mstances attending their nuptials; that Dryden had written the "Essay on Satire,"
in which the king was libelled; that he had been beaten by three men in Rose-alley; finally, that he was a Tory, and a tool of arbitrary power.
This cuckoo song, garnished with the burden of _Bayes_ and _Poet Squab_,[14] was rung in the ear of the public again and again, and with an obstinacy which may convince us how little there was to be said, when that little was so often repeated. Feeble as these attacks were, their number, like that of the gnats described by Spenser,[15] seems to have irritated Dryden to exert the power of his satire, and, like the blast of the northern wind, to sweep away at once these clamorous and busy, though ineffectual a.s.sailants. Two, in particular, claimed distinction from the nameless crowd; Settle, Dryden"s ancient foe, and Shadwell, who had been originally a dubious friend.
Of Dryden"s controversy with Settle we have already spoken fully; but we may here add, that, in addition to former offences of a public and private nature, Elkanah, in the Prologue to the "Emperor of Morocco,"
acted in March 1681-2, had treated Dryden with great irreverence.[16]
Shadwell had been for some time in good habits with Dryden; yet an early difference of taste and practice in comedy, not only existed between them, but was the subject of reciprocal debate, and something approaching to rivalry.
Dryden, as we have seen, had avowed his preference of lively dialogue in comedy to delineation of character, or, in other words, of wit and repartee to what was then called humour. On this subject Shadwell early differed from the laureate. Conscious of considerable powers in observing nature, while he was deficient in that liveliness of fancy which is necessary to produce vivacity of dialogue, Shadwell affected, or perhaps entertained, a profound veneration for the memory of Ben Jonson, and proposed him as his model in the representation of such characters as were to be marked by _humour_, or an affectation of singularity of manners, speech, and behaviour. Dryden, on the other hand, was no great admirer either of Jonson"s plays in general, or of the low and coa.r.s.e characters of vice and folly, in describing which lay his chief excellency; and this opinion he had publicly intimated in the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy." In the preface to the very first of Shadwell"s plays, printed in 1668, he takes occasion bitterly, and with a direct application to Dryden, to a.s.sail the grounds of this criticism and the comedies of the author who had made it.[17] If this petulance produced any animosity, it was not lasting; for in the course of their controversy, Dryden appeals to Shadwell, whether he had not rather countenanced than impeded his first rise in public favour; and, in 1674, they made common cause with Crowne to write those Remarks, which were to demolish Settle"s "Empress of Morocco." Even in 1670, while Shadwell expresses the same dissent from Dryden"s opinion concerning the merit of Jonson"s comedy, it is in very respectful terms, and with great deference to his respected and admired friend, of whom, though he will not say his is the best way of writing, he maintains his manner of writing it is most excellent[18]. But the irreconcilable difference in their taste soon after broke out in less seemly terms; for Shadwell permitted himself to use some very irreverent expressions towards Dryden"s play of "Aureng-Zebe," in the Prologue and Epilogue to his comedy of the "Virtuoso;" and in the Preface to the same piece he plainly intimated, that he wanted nothing but a pension to enable him to write as well as the poet-laureate.[19] This attack was the more intolerable, as Dryden, in the Preface to that very play of "Aureng-Zebe,"
probably meant to include Shadwell among those contemporaries who, even in his own judgment excelled him in comedy. In 1678 Dryden accommodated with a prologue Shadwell"s play of the "True Widow;" but to write these occasional pieces was part of his profession, and the circ.u.mstance does not prove that the breach between these rivals for public applause was ever thoroughly healed; on the contrary, it seems likely, that, in the case of Shadwell, as in that of Settle, political hatred only gangrened a wound inflicted by literary rivalry. After their quarrel became desperate, Dryden resumed his prologue, and adapted it to a play by Afra Behn, called the "Widow Ranter, or Bacon in Virginia."[20] Whatever was the progress of the dispute, it is certain that Shadwell, as zealously attached to the Whig faction as Dryden to the Tories, buckled on his armour among their other poetasters to encounter the champion of royalty. His answer to "The Medal" is ent.i.tled "The Medal of John Bayes:" it appeared in autumn 1681, and is distinguished by scurrility, even among the scurrilous lampoons of Settle, Care, and Pordage. Those, he coolly says, who know Dryden, know there is not an untrue word spoke of him in the poem; although he is there charged with the most gross and infamous crimes. Shadwell also seems to have had a share in a lampoon, ent.i.tled "The Tory Poets," in which both Dryden and Otway were grossly reviled.[21] On both occasions, his satire was as clumsy as his overgrown person, and as brutally coa.r.s.e as his conversation: for Shadwell resembled Ben Jonson in his vulgar and intemperate pleasures, as well as in his style of comedy and corpulence of body.[22] Dryden seems to have thought, that such reiterated attacks, from a contemporary of some eminence, whom he had once called friend, merited a more severe castigation than could be administered in a general satire. He therefore composed "Mac-Flecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant Poet, T.S., by the Author of Absalom and Achitophel," which was published 4th October 1682. Richard Flecknoe, from whom the piece takes its t.i.tle, was so distinguished as a wretched poet, that his name had become almost proverbial. Shadwell is represented as the adopted son of this venerable monarch, who so long
"In prose and verse was owned without dispute, Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute."
The solemn inauguration of Shadwell as his successor in this drowsy kingdom, forms the plan of the poem; being the same which Pope afterwards adopted on a broader canvas for his "Dunciad." The vices and follies of Shadwell are not concealed, while the awkwardness of his pretensions to poetical fame are held up to the keenest ridicule. In an evil hour, leaving the composition of low comedy, in which he held an honourable station, he adventured upon the composition of operas and pastorals. On these the satirist falls without mercy; and ridicules, at the same time, his pretensions to copy Ben Jonson:
"Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson"s hostile name; Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.
Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part: What share have we in nature or in art?
Where did his wit on learning fix a brand, And rail at arts he did not understand?
Where made he love in Prince Nicander"s vein, Or swept the dust in Psyche"s humble strain?"
This unmerciful satire was sold off in a very short time; and it seems uncertain whether it was again published until 1084, when it appeared with the author"s name in Tonson"s first Miscellany. It would seem that Dryden did not at first avow it, though, as the t.i.tle-page a.s.signed it to the author of "Absalom and Achitophel," we cannot believe Shadwell"s a.s.sertion, that he had denied it with oaths and imprecations. Dryden, however, omits this satire in the [first [23]] printed list of his plays and poems, along with the Eulogy on Cromwell. But he was so far from disowning it, that, in his "Essay on Satire," he quotes "Mac-Flecknoe"
as an instance given by himself of the Varronian satire. Poor Shadwell was extremely disturbed by this attack upon him; the more so, as he seems hardly to have understood its tendency. He seriously complains, that he is represented by Dryden as an Irishman, "when he knows that I never saw Ireland till I was three-and-twenty years old, and was there but for four months." He had understood Dryden"s parable literally; so true it is, that a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
"Mac-Flecknoe," though so cruelly severe, was not the only notice which Shadwell received of Dryden"s displeasure at his person and politics.
"Absalom and Achitophel," and "The Medal," having been so successful, a second part to the first poem was resolved on, for the purpose of sketching the minor characters of the contending factions. Dryden probably conceiving that he had already done his part, only revised this additional book, and contributed about two hundred lines. The body of the poem was written by Nahum Tate, one of those second-rate bards, who, by dint of pleonasm and expletive can find smooth lines if any one will supply them with ideas. The Second Part of "Absalom and Achitophel" is, however, much beyond his usual pitch, and exhibits considerable marks of a careful revision by Dryden, especially in the satirical pa.s.sages; for the eulogy on the Tory chiefs is in the flat and feeble strain of Tate himself, as is obvious when it is compared with the description of the Green-Dragon Club, the character of Corah, and other pa.s.sages exhibiting marks of Dryden"s hand.
But if the Second Part of "Absalom and Achitophel" fell below the first in its general tone, the celebrated pa.s.sage inserted by Dryden possessed even a double portion of the original spirit. The victims whom he selected out of the partisans of Monmouth and Shaftesbury for his own particular severity, were Robert Ferguson, afterwards well known by the name of The Plotter; Forbes; Johnson, author of the parallel between James, Duke of York, and Julian the Apostate; but, above all, Settle and Shadwell, whom, under the names of Doeg and Og, he has depicted in the liveliest colours his poignant satire could afford. They who have patience to look into the lampoons which these worthies had published against Dryden, will, in reading his retort, be reminded of the combats between the giants and knights of romance. His antagonists came on with infinite zeal and fury, discharged their ill-aimed blows on every side, and exhausted their strength in violent and ineffectual rage. But the keen and trenchant blade of Dryden never makes a thrust in vain, and never strikes but at a vulnerable point. This, we have elsewhere remarked, is a peculiar attribute of his satire;[24] and it is difficult for one a.s.sailed on a single ludicrous foible to make good his respectability though possessed of a thousand valuable qualities; as it was impossible for Achilles, invulnerable everywhere else, to survive the wound which a dexterous archer had aimed at his heel. With regard to Settle, there is a contempt in Dryden"s satire which approaches almost to good-humour, and plainly shows how far our poet was now from entertaining those apprehensions of rivalship, which certainly dictated his portion of the "Remarks on the Empress of Morocco." Settle had now found his level, and Dryden no longer regarded him with a mixture of rage and apprehension, but with more appropriate feelings of utter contempt. This poor wight had acquired by practice, and perhaps from nature, more of a poetical ear than most of his contemporaries were gifted with. His "blundering melody," as Dryden terms it, is far sweeter to the ear than the flat and ineffectual couplets of Tate; nor are his verses always dest.i.tute of something approaching to poetic fancy and spirit. He certainly, in his transposition of "Absalom and Achitophel,"
mimicked the harmony of his original with more success than was attained by Shadwell, Buckingham or Pordage.[25] But in this facility of versification all his merit began and ended; in our author"s phrase,
"Doeg, though without knowing how or why, Made still a blundering kind of melody; Spurred boldly on, and dashed though thick and thin, Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in; Free from all meaning, whether good or bad, And, in one word, heroically mad.
He was too warm on picking-work to dwell, But f.a.ggoted his notions as they fell, And, if they rhymed and rattled, all was well."
Ere we take leave of Settle, it is impossible to omit mentioning his lamentable conclusion; a tale often told and moralised upon, and in truth a piece of very tragical mirth. Elkanah, we have seen, was at this period a zealous Whig; nay, he was so far in the confidence of Shaftesbury that, under his direction, and with his materials, he had been intrusted to compose a noted libel against the Duke of York, ent.i.tled, "The Character of a Popish Successor." Having a genius for mechanics, he was also exalted to be manager of a procession for burning the Pope; which the Whigs celebrated with great pomp, as one of many artifices to inflame the minds of the people.[26] To this, and to the fireworks which attended its solemnisation, Dryden alludes in the lines to which Elkanah"s subsequent disasters gave an air of prophecy:--
"In fireworks give him leave to vent his spite, Those are the only servants he can write; The height of his ambition is, we know, But to be master of a puppet-show; On that one stage his works may yet appear, And a month"s harvest keeps him all the year."
Notwithstanding the rank he held among the Whig authors,[27] Settle, perceiving the cause of his patron Shaftesbury was gradually becoming weaker, fairly abandoned him to his fate, and read a solemn recantation of his political errors in a narrative published in 1683. The truth seems to be, that honest Doeg was poet-laureate to the city, and earned some emolument by composing verses for pageants and other occasions of civic festivity; so that when the Tory interest resumed its ascendency among the magistrates, he had probably no alternative but to relinquish his principles or his post, and Elkanah, like many greater men, held the former the easier sacrifice. Like all converts, he became outrageous in his new faith, wrote a libel on Lord Russell a few days after his execution; indited a panegyric on Judge Jefferies; and, being _tam Marte quam Mercurio_, actually joined as a trooper the army which King James encamped upon Hounslow Heath. After the Revolution, he is enumerated, with our author and Tate, among those poets whose strains had been stifled by that great event.[28] He continued, however, to be the city-laureate;[29] but, in despite of that provision, was reduced by want to write plays, like Ben Jonson"s Littlewit, for the profane _motions_, or puppet-shows, of Smithfield and Bartholomew fairs. Nay, having proceeded thus far in exhibiting the truth of Dryden"s prediction, he actually mounted the stage in person among these wooden performers, and combated St. George for England in a green dragon of his own proper device. Settle was admitted into the Charterhouse in his old age, and died there in 1723. The lines of Pope on poor Elkanah"s fate are familiar to every poetical reader:--
"In Lud"s old walls though long I ruled, renowned Far as loud Bow"s stupendous bells resound; Though my own aldermen conferred the bays, To me committing their eternal praise, Their full-fed heroes, their pacific mayors, Their annual trophies and their monthly wars; Though long my party built on me their hopes, For writing pamphlets, and for roasting popes; Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on!
Reduced at last to hiss in my own dragon.
Avert it, heaven! that thou, or Cibber, e"er Should wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair!
Like the vile straw that"s blown about the streets, The needy poet sticks to all he meets; Coached, carted, trod upon, now loose, now fast, And carried off in some dog"s tail at last."
As Dryden was probably more apprehensive of Shadwell, who, though a worse poet than Settle, has excelled even Dryden in the lower walks of comedy, he has treated him with sterner severity. His person, his morals, his manners and his politics, all that had escaped or been but slightly touched upon in "Mac-Flecknoe," are bitterly reviewed in the character of Og; and there probably never existed another poet, who, at the distance of a month, which intervened between the publication of the two poems, could resume an exhausted theme with an energy which gave it all the charms of novelty. Shadwell did not remain silent beneath the lash; but his clamorous exclamations only tended to make his castigation more ludicrous.[30]
The Second Part of "Absalom and Achitophel" was followed by the "_Religio Laici_," a poem which Dryden published in the same month of November 1682. Its tendency, although of a political nature, is so different from that of the satires, that it will be most properly considered when we can place it in contrast to the "Hind and Panther."
It was addressed to Henry d.i.c.kinson, a young gentleman, who had just published a translation of Simon"s "Critical History of the New Testament."
As the publication of the two Parts of "Absalom and Achitophel," "The Medal," and "Mac-Flecknoe," all of a similar tone, and rapidly succeeding each other, gave to Dryden, hitherto chiefly known as a dramatist, the formidable character of an inimitable satirist, we may here pause to consider their effect upon English poetry. The witty Bishop Hall had first introduced into our literature that species of poetry; which, though its legitimate use be to check vice and expose folly, is so often applied by spleen or by faction to destroy domestic happiness, by a.s.sailing private character. Hall possessed a good ear for harmony; and, living in the reign of Elizabeth, might have studied it in Spenser, Fairfax, and other models. But from system, rather than ignorance or inability, he chose to be "hard of conceit, and harsh of style," in order that his poetry might correspond with the sharp, sour, and crabbed nature of his theme.[31] Donne, his successor, was still more rugged in his versification, as well as more obscure in his conceptions and allusions. The satires of Cleveland (as we have indeed formerly noticed) are, if possible, still harsher and more strained in expression than those of Donne. Butler can hardly be quoted as an example of the sort of satire we are treating of. "Hudibras" is a burlesque tale, in which the measure is intentionally and studiously rendered as ludicrous as the characters and incidents. Oldham, who flourished in Dryden"s time, and enjoyed his friendship, wrote his satires in the crabbed tone of Cleveland and Donne. Dryden, in the copy of verses dedicated to his memory, alludes to this deficiency, and seems to admit the subject as an apology:--
"O early ripe! to thy abundant store What could advancing age have added more!
It might (what nature never gives the young) Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line."
Yet the apology which he admitted for Oldham, Dryden disdained to make use of himself. He did not, as has been said of Horace, wilfully untune his harp when he commenced satirist. Aware that a wound may be given more deeply with a burnished than with a rusty blade, he bestowed upon the versification of his satires the same pains which he had given to his rhyming plays and serious poems. He did not indeed, for that would have been pains misapplied, attempt to smooth his verses into the harmony of those in which he occasionally celebrates female beauty; but he gave them varied tone, correct rhyme, and masculine energy, all which had hitherto been strangers to the English satire.
Thus, while Dryden"s style resembled that of Juvenal rather than Horace, he may claim a superiority, for uniform and undeviating dignity, over the Roman satirist. The age, whose appet.i.te for scandal had been profusely fed by lampoons and libels, now learned, that there was a more elevated kind of satire, in which poignancy might be united with elegance, and energy of thought with harmony of versification. The example seems to have produced a strong effect. No poet, not even Settle (for even the worst artist will improve from beholding a masterpiece), afterwards conceived he had sufficiently accomplished his task by presenting to the public, thoughts, however witty or caustic he might deem them, clothed in the hobbling measure of Donne or Cleveland; and expression and harmony began to be consulted, in satire, as well as sarcastic humour or powerful ill.u.s.tration.
"Mac-Flecknoe," in some degree, differs from the other satires which Dryden published at this time. It is not confined to the description of character, but exhibits an imaginary course of incidents, in which the princ.i.p.al personage takes a ludicrous share. In this it resembles "Hudibras;" and both are quoted by Dryden himself as examples of the Varronian satire. But there was this pointed difference, that Butler"s poem is burlesque, and Dryden"s mock-heroic. "Mac-Flecknoe" is, I rather believe, the first poem in the English language, in which the dignity of a harmonised and lofty style is employed, not only to excite pleasure in itself, but to increase, by contrast, the comic effect of the scenes which it narrates; the subject being ludicrous, while the verse is n.o.ble. The models of satire afforded by Dryden, as they have never been equalled by any succeeding poet, were in a tone of excellence superior far to all that had preceded them.
These reflections on the nature of Dryden"s satires, have, in some degree, interrupted our account of his political controversies. Not only did he pour forth these works, one after another, with a fertility which seemed to imply delight in his new labour; but, as if the spirit of the time had taught him speed, he found leisure to oppose the Whigs in the theatre, where the audience was now nearly as much divided as the kingdom by the contending factions. Settle had produced the tragedy of "Pope Joan," Shadwell the comedy of the "Lancashire Witches," to expose to hatred and ridicule the religion of the successor to the crown. Otway and D"Urfey, Crowne and Southerne, names unequal in fame, vied in producing plays against the Whigs, which might counterbalance the effect of these popular dramas. A licence similar to that of Aristophanes was introduced on the English stage; and living personages were exhibited under very slight disguises.[32] In the prologues and epilogues, which then served as a sort of moral to the plays, the veil, thin as it was, was completely raised, and the political a.n.a.logies pointed out to such of the audience as might otherwise have been too dull to apprehend them.
In this sharp though petty war Dryden bore a considerable share. His necessities obliged him, among other modes of increasing his income, to accept of a small pecuniary tribute for furnishing prologues on remarkable occasions, or for new plays; and his principles determined their tendency.[33] But this was not all the support which his party expected, and which he afforded them on the theatre, even while labouring in their service in a different department.
When Dryden had but just finished his "_Religio Laici_," Lee, who had a.s.sisted in the play of "Oedipus," claimed Dryden"s promise to requite the obligation. It has been already noticed, that Dryden had, in the year succeeding the Restoration, designed a play on the subject of the Duke of Guise; and he has informed us he had preserved one or two of the scenes. These, therefore, were revised, and inserted in the new play, of which Dryden wrote the first scene, the whole fourth act, and great part of the fifth. Lee composed the rest of "The Duke Of Guise." The general parallel between the League in France and the Covenant in England, was too obvious to escape early notice; but the return of Monmouth to England against the king"s express command, in order to head the opposition, perhaps the insurrection, of London, presented a still closer a.n.a.logy to the entry of the Duke of Guise into Paris, under similar circ.u.mstances, on the famous day of the barricades. Of this remarkable incident, the united authors of "The Duke of Guise" naturally availed themselves; though with such precaution, that almost the very expressions of the scene are taken from the prose of Davila. Yet the plot, though capable of an application so favourable for the royal party, contained circ.u.mstances of offence to it. If the parallel between Guise and Monmouth was on the one hand felicitous, as pointing out the nature of the Duke"s designs, the moral was revolting, as seeming to recommend the a.s.sa.s.sination of Charles"s favourite son. The king also loved Monmouth to the very last; and was slow and reluctant in permitting his character to be placed in a criminal or odious point of view.[34] The play, therefore, though ready for exhibition before midsummer 1682, remained in the hands of Arlington the lord-chamberlain for two months without being licensed for representation. But during that time the scene darkened. The king had so far suppressed his tenderness for Monmouth, as to authorise his arrest at Stafford; and the influence of the Duke of York at court became daily more predominant.
Among other evident tokens that no measures were hence-forward to be kept between the king and Monmouth, the representation of "The Duke of Guise" was at length authorised.
The two companies of players, after a long and expensive warfare, had now united their forces; on which occasion Dryden furnished them with a prologue, full of violent Tory principles. By this united company "The Duke of Guise" was performed on the 30th December 1682. It was printed with a dedication to Hyde, Earl of Rochester, subscribed by both authors, but evidently the work of Dryden. It is written in a tone of defiance to the Whig authors, who had a.s.sailed the dedicators, it alleges, "like footpads in the dark," though their blows had done little harm, and the objects of their malice yet lived to vindicate their loyalty in open day. The play itself has as determined a political character as the dedication. Besides the general parallel between the leaguers and the fanatical sectaries, and the more delicate, though not less striking, connection between the story of Guise and of Monmouth, there are other collateral allusions in the piece to the history of that unfortunate n.o.bleman, and to the state of parties. The whole character of Marmoutiere, high-spirited, loyal, and exerting all her influence to deter Guise from the prosecution of his dangerous schemes, corresponds to that of Anne, d.u.c.h.ess of Monmouth.[35] The love too which the king professes to Marmoutiere, and which excites the jealousy of Guise, may bear a remote and delicate allusion to that partiality which the Duke of York is said to have entertained for the wife of his nephew.[36] The amiable colours in which Marmoutiere is painted, were due to the d.u.c.h.ess of Monmouth, Dryden"s especial patroness. Another more obvious and more offensive parallel existed between the popular party in the city, with the Whig sheriffs at their head, and that of the _Echevins_, or sheriffs of Paris, violent demagogues and adherents to the League, and who, in the play, are treated with great contumely by Grillon and the royal guards. The tumults which had taken place at the election of these magistrates were warm in the recollection of the city; and the commitment of the ex-sheriffs, Shute and Pilkington, to the Tower, under pretext of a riot, was considered as the b.u.t.t of the poet"s satire.
Under these impressions the Whigs made a violent opposition to the representation of the piece, even when the king gave it his personal countenance. And although, in despite of them, "The Duke of Guise" so far succeeded, as "to be frequently acted, and never without a considerable attendance," we may conclude from these qualified expressions of the author himself, that the play was never eminently popular. He, who writes for a party, can only please at most one half of his audience.
It was not to be expected that, at a time so very critical, a public representation, including such bold allusions, or rather parallels, should pa.s.s without critical censure. "The Duke of Guise" was attacked by Dryden"s old foe Shadwell, in some verses, ent.i.tled, "A Lenten Prologue refused by the Players;"[37] and more formally, in "Reflections on the pretended Parallel in the Play called the Duke of Guise." In this pamphlet Shadwell seems to have been a.s.sisted by a gentleman of the Temple, so zealous for the popular cause, that Dryden says he was detected disguised in a livery-gown, proffering his vote at the Common-hall. Thomas Hunt, a barrister,[38] likewise stepped forth on this occasion; and in his "Defence of the Charter of London," then challenged by the famous process of _Quo Warranto_, he accuses Dryden of having prepared the way for that arbitrary step, by the degrading representation of their magistrates executed in effigy upon the stage.
Dryden thought these pamphlets of consequence enough to deserve an answer, and published, soon after, "The Vindication of the Duke of Guise." In perusing the controversy, we may admire two circ.u.mstances, eminently characteristical of the candour with which such controversies are usually maintained: First, the anxiety with which the critics labour to fix upon Dryden a disrespectful parallel between Charles II. and Henry II. [III.] of France, which certainly our author did not propose to carry farther than their common point of situation; and secondly, the labour with which he disavows what he unquestionably did intend,--a parallel between the rebellious conduct of Monmouth and of Guise. The Vindication is written in a tone of sovereign contempt for the adversaries, particularly for Shadwell. Speaking of Thomas Hunt, Dryden says,--"Even this their celebrated writer knows no more of style and English than the Northern dictator; as if dulness and clumsiness were fatal to the name of _Tom_. It is true, he is a fool in three languages more than the poet; for, they say, "he understands Latin, Greek, and Hebrew," from all which, to my certain knowledge, I acquit the other. Og may write against the king, if he pleases, so long as he drinks for him, and his writings will never do the government so much harm, as his drinking does it good; for true subjects will not be much perverted by his libels; but the wine-duties rise considerably by his claret. He has often called me an atheist in print; I would believe more charitably of him, and that he only goes the broad way, because the other is too narrow for him. He may see, by this, I do not delight to meddle with his course of life, and his immoralities, though I have a long bead-roll of them. I have hitherto contented myself with the ridiculous part of him, which is enough, in all conscience, to employ one man; even without the story of his late fall at the Old Devil, where he broke no ribs, because the hardness of the stairs could reach no bones; and, for my part, I do not wonder how he came to fall, for I have always known him heavy: the miracle is, how he got up again. I have heard of a sea captain as fat as he, who, to escape arrests, would lay himself flat upon the ground, and let the bailiffs carry him to prison, if they could. If a messenger or two, nay, we may put in three or four, should come, he has friendly advertis.e.m.e.nt how to escape them. But to leave him, who is not worth any further consideration, now I have done laughing at him,--would every man knew his own talent, and that they, who are only born for drinking, would let both poetry and prose alone!" This was the last distinct and prolonged animadversion which our author bestowed upon his corpulent antagonist.
Soon after this time Dryden wrote a biographical preface to Plutarch"s Lives, of which a new translation, by several hands, was in the press.
The dedication is addressed to the Duke of Ormond, the Barzillai of "Absalom and Achitophel," whom Charles, after a long train of cold and determined neglect, had in emergency recalled to his favour and his councils. The first volume of Plutarch"s Lives, with Dryden"s Life of the author, appeared in 1683.
About the same time, the king"s express command engaged Dryden in a work, which may be considered as a sort of ill.u.s.tration of the doctrines laid down in the "Vindication of the Duke of Guise." It was the translation of Maimbourg"s "History of the League," expressly composed to draw a parallel between the Huguenots of France and the Leaguers, as both equal enemies of the monarchy. This comparison was easily transferred to the sectaries of England, and the a.s.sociation proposed by Shaftesbury. The work was published with unusual solemnity of t.i.tle-page and frontispiece; the former declaring that the translation was made by his Majesty"s command; the latter representing Charles on his throne, surrounded by emblems expressive of hereditary and indefeasible right.[39] The dedication to the king contains sentiments which savour strongly of party violence, and even ferocity. The forgiving disposition of the king is, according to the dedicator, the encouragement of the conspirators. Like Antaeus they rise refreshed from a simple overthrow.
"These sons of earth are never to be trusted in their mother element; they must be hoisted into the air, and strangled." Thus exasperated were the most gentle tempers in these times of doubt and peril. The rigorous tone adopted, confirms the opinion of those historians who observe, that, after the discovery of the Rye-house Plot, Charles was fretted out of his usual debonair ease, and became more morose and severe than had been hitherto thought consistent with his disposition.
This translation was to be the last service which Dryden was to render his good-humoured, selfish, and thoughtless patron. While the laureate was preparing for the stage the opera of "Albion and Albanius," intended to solemnise the triumph of Charles over the Whigs, or, as the author expressed it, the double restoration of his sacred Majesty, the king died of an apoplexy upon the 6th February 1684-5. His death opened to many, and to Dryden among others, new hopes, and new prospects, which were, in his instance, doomed to terminate in disappointment and disgrace. We may therefore pause, and review the private life of the poet during the period which has occupied our last Sections.
The vigour and rapidity with which Dryden poured forth his animated satire, plainly intimates, that his mind was pleased with the exercise of that formidable power. It was more easy for him, he has himself told us, to write with severity, than with forbearance; and indeed, where is the expert swordsman, who does not delight in the flourish of his weapon? Neither could this self-complacent feeling be much allayed, by the vague and abusive ribaldry with which his satire was repaid. This was natural to the controversy, was no more than he expected and was easily retorted with terrible interest. "As for knave," says he, "and sycophant and rascal, and impudent, and devil, and old serpent, and a thousand such good morrows, I take them to be only names of parties; and could return murderer, and cheat, and whig-napper, and sodomite; and, in short, the goodly number of the seven deadly sins, with all their kindred and relations, which are names of parties too; but saints will be saints in spite of villainy." With such feelings, we may believe Dryden"s rest was little disturbed by the litter of libels against him:--
"Sons of a day just buoyant on the flood, Then numbered with the puppies in the mud."
But he who keenly engages in political controversy must not only encounter the vulgar abuse, which he may justly contemn, but the altered eye of friends, whose regard is chilled, or alienated. That Dryden sustained such misfortune we cannot doubt, when he informs us, that, out of the large party in opposition, comprehending, doubtless, many men of talent and eminence, who were formerly familiar with him, he had, during the course of a whole year, only spoken to four, and to those but casually and cursorily, and only to express a wish, that the times might come when the names of Whig and Tory might be abolished, and men live together as they had done before they were introduced.
Neither did the protecting zeal of his party-friends compensate for the loss of those whom Dryden had alienated in their service. True it is, that a host of Tory rhymers came forward with complimentary verses to the author of "Absalom and Achitophel," and of "The Medal." But of all payment, that in kind is least gratifying to a poverty-struck bard, and the courtly patrons of Dryden were in no haste to make him more substantial requital. A gratuity of an hundred broad pieces is said to have been paid him by Charles for one of his satires; but no permanent provision was made for him. He was coolly left to increase his pittance by writing occasional pieces; and it was probably with this view that he arranged for publication a miscellaneous collection of poetry, which he afterwards continued. It was published for Tonson in 1683-4, and contained several versions of Epistles from Ovid, and translations of detached pieces of Virgil, Horace, and Theocritus, with some smaller pieces by Dryden himself, and a variety of poems by other hands. The Epistles had appeared in 1680, in a version of the original by several hands, to which Dryden also contributed an introductory discourse on translation. Contrary to our author"s custom, the miscellany appeared without either preface or dedication.
The miscellany, among other minor poems of Dryden, contained many of his occasional prologues and epilogues, the composition of which his necessity had rendered so important a branch of income, that, in the midst of his splendour of satirical reputation, the poet was obliged to chaffer about the scanty recompence which he drew from such petty sources. Such a circ.u.mstance attended the commencement of his friendship with Southerne. That poet then opening his dramatic career with the play of the "Loyal Brother," came, as was usual, to request a prologue from Dryden, and to offer him the usual compliment of five guineas. But the laureate demurred, and insisted upon double the sum, "not out of disrespect," he added, "to you, young man; but the players have had my goods too cheap." Hence Southerne, who was peculiarly fortunate in his dramatic revenue, is designed by Pope as