Part 14

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 passage, 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 "Assignation," 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 nobler occasion to do honour by it to my king, my country, and my friends; most of our ancient nobility 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 hitherto 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 anticipated, as he finally was by Sir Richard Blackmore on the topic of Arthur. This, as well as other passages 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 circumvolat 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 assigned 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 class 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 coarse, 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 Cassius. "All for Love" was received by the public with universal applause. Its success, with that of "Aureng-Zebe," gave fresh lustre to the author's reputation, which had been somewhat tarnished by the failure of the "Assignation," and the rise of so many rival dramatists. We learn from the Players' petition 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 circumscribed 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, entitled "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 pronounced 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 assert 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, encompassed 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 passage 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!

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

Troilus_. Thou hast deserved thy life for cursing priests. Let me embrace thee; thou art beautiful: That back, that nose, those eyes are beautiful: Live; thou art honest, for thou hat'st a priest."

Dryden prefixed to "Troilus and Cressida" his excellent remarks on the Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, giving up, with dignified indifference the faults even of his own pieces, when they contradict the rules his later judgment had adopted. How much his taste had altered since his "Essay of Dramatic Poesy," or at least since his "Remarks on Heroic Plays," will appear from the following abridgment of his new maxims. The plot, according to these remarks, ought to be simply and naturally detailed from its commencement to its conclusion,--a rule which excluded the crowded incidents of the Spanish drama; and the personages ought to be dignified and virtuous, that their misfortunes might at once excite pity and terror. The plots of Shakespeare and Fletcher are meted by this rule, and pronounced inferior in mechanic regularity to those of Ben Jonson. The character of the agents, or persons, are next to be considered; and it is required that their manner shall be at once marked, dramatic, consistent, and natural. And here the supereminent power of Shakespeare, in displaying the manners, bent, and inclination of his characters, is pointed out to the reader's admiration. The copiousness of his invention, and his judgment in sustaining the ideas which he started, are illustrated by referring to Caliban, a creature of the fancy, begot by an incubus upon a witch, and furnished with a person, language, and character befitting his pedigree on both sides. The passions are then considered as included in the manners; and Dryden, at once and peremptorily, condemns both the extravagance of language, which substitutes noise for feeling, and those points and turns of wit, which misbecome one actuated by real and deep emotion. He candidly gives an example of the last error from his own Montezuma who, pursued by his enemies, and excluded from the fort, describes his situation in a long simile, taken besides from the sea, which he had only heard of for the first time in the first act. As a description of natural passion, the famous procession of King Richard in the train of the fortunate usurper is quoted, in justice to the divine author. From these just and liberal rules of criticism, it is easy to discover that Dryden had already adopted a better taste, and was disgusted with comedies, where the entertainment arose from bustling incident, and tragedies, where sounding verse was substituted for the delineation of manners and expression of feeling. These opinions he pointedly expresses in the Prologue to "Troilus and Cressida," which was spoken by Betterton, representing the ghost of Shakespeare:

"See, my loved Britons, see your Shakespeare rise, An awful ghost confessed to human eyes! Unnamed, methinks, distinguished I had been, From other shades, by this eternal green, About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive, And, with a touch, their withered bays revive. Untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age, I found not, but created first the stage. And if I drained no Greek or Latin store, 'Twas that my own abundance gave me more. On foreign trade I needed not rely, Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply. In this, my rough-drawn play, you shall behold Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold, That he who meant to alter, found 'em such; He shook, and thought it sacrilege to touch. Now, where are the successors to my name? What bring they to fill out a poet's fame? Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age; Scarce living to be christened on the stage! For humour _farce_, for love they _rhyme_ dispense, That tolls the knell for their departed sense."

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

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

Dryden attached considerable importance to the art with which the comic and tragic scenes of the "Spanish Friar" are combined; and in doing so he has received the sanction of Dr. Johnson. Indeed, as the ardour of his mind ever led him to prize that task most highly, on which he had most lately employed his energy, he has affirmed, in the dedication to the "Spanish Friar," that there was an absolute necessity for combining two actions in tragedy, for the sake of variety. "The truth is," he adds, "the audience are grown weary of continued melancholy scenes; and I dare venture to prophesy, that few tragedies, except those in verse, shall succeed in this age, if they are not lightened with a course of mirth; for the feast is too dull and solemn without the fiddles." The necessity of the relief alluded to may be admitted, without allowing that we must substitute either the misplaced charms of versification, or a secondary comic plot, to relieve the solemn weight and monotony of tragedy. It is no doubt true, that a highly-buskined tragedy, in which all the personages maintain the funereal pomp usually required from the victims of Melpomene, is apt to be intolerably tiresome, after all the pains which a skilful and elegant poet can bestow upon finishing it. But it is chiefly tiresome, because it is unnatural; and, in respect of propriety, ought no more to be relieved by the introduction of a set of comic scenes, independent of those of a mournful complexion, than the _sombre_ air of a funeral should be enlivened by a concert of fiddles. There appear to be two legitimate modes of interweaving tragedy with something like comedy. The first and most easy, which has often been resorted to, is to make the lower or less marked characters of the drama, like the porter in "Macbeth," or the fool in "King Lear," speak the language appropriated to their station, even in the midst of the distresses of the piece; nay, they may be permitted to have some slight under-intrigue of their own. This, however, requires the exertion of much taste and discrimination; for if we are once seriously and deeply interested in the distress of the play, the intervention of anything like buffoonery may unloosen the hold which the author has gained on the feelings of the audience. If such subordinate comic characters are of a rank to intermix in the tragic dialogue, their mirth ought to be chastened, till their language bears a relation to that of the higher persons. For example, nothing can be more absurd than in "Don Sebastian," and some of Southerne's tragedies, to hear the comic character answer in prose, and with a would-be witticism, to the solemn, unrelaxed blank verse of his tragic companion.[35] Mercutio is, I think, one of the best instances of such a comic person as may be reasonably and with propriety admitted into tragedy: from which, however, I do not exclude those lower characters, whose conversation appears absurd if much elevated above their rank. There is, however, another mode, yet more difficult to be used with address, but much more fortunate in effect when it has been successfully employed. This is, when the principal personages themselves do not always remain in the buckram of tragedy, but reserve, as in common life, lofty expressions for great occasions, and at other times evince themselves capable of feeling the lighter, as well as the more violent or more deep, affections of the mind. The shades of comic humour in Hamlet, in Hotspur, and in Falconbridge, are so far from injuring, that they greatly aid the effect of the tragic scenes, in which these same persons take a deep and tragical share. We grieve with them, when grieved, still more because we have rejoiced with them when they rejoiced; and, on the whole, we acknowledge a deeper _frater feeling_, as Burns has termed it, in men who are actuated by the usual changes of human temperament, than in those who, contrary to the nature of humanity, are eternally actuated by an unvaried strain of tragic feeling. But whether the poet diversifies his melancholy scenes by the passing gaiety of subordinate characters; or whether he qualifies the tragic state of his heroes by occasionally assigning lighter tasks to them; or whether he chooses to employ both modes of relieving the weight of misery through live long acts; it is obviously unnecessary that he should distract the attention of his audience, and destroy the regularity of his play, by introducing a comic plot with personages and interest altogether distinct, and intrigue but slightly connected with that of the tragedy. Dryden himself afterwards acknowledged that though he was fond of the "Spanish Friar," he could not defend it from the imputation of Gothic and unnatural irregularity; "for mirth and gravity destroy each other, and are no more to be allowed for decent, than a gay widow laughing in a mourning habit."[36]

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