Part 1
THE WORKS OF JOHN DRYDEN.
THE WORKS OF JOHN DRYDEN, NOW FIRST COLLECTED _IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES_.
ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES, HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY, AND A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, BY WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.
VOL. XVII.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET, BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH. 1808.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME SEVENTEENTH.
PAGE. The Life of Plutarch, 1 Dedication to the Duke of Ormond, &c. 5
Specimen of the Translation of the History of the League, 77 Dedication to the King, 81 The Author’s Advertisement to the Reader, 93 The History of the League, Book III. 101 Postscript to the History of the League, 150
Controversy between Dryden and Stillingfleet concerning the Duchess of York’s Paper, 185 Copy of a Paper written by the late Duchess of York, &c. 189 An Answer to the Duchess’s Paper by the Rev. Edward Stillingfleet, 194 A Defence of the Paper written by the Duchess of York, against the Answer made to it, 208 An Answer to the Defence of the Third Paper, 252
The Art of Painting, by C. A. Du Fresnoy, with Remarks, translated into English; with an original Preface, containing a Parallel between Painting and Poetry, 279 A Parallel of Poetry and Painting, 286 The Preface of M. de Piles, the French Translator, 333
THE LIFE OF PLUTARCH.
THE LIFE OF PLUTARCH.
In 1683, appeared the first volume of a translation of Plutarch’s Lives, executed by several hands. Among the persons engaged in this undertaking, Mr Malone enumerates “Richard Duke, and Knightly Chetwood, Fellows of Trinity College, in Cambridge; Paul Rycaut, Esq.; Thomas Creech, of Wadham College, Oxford, the translator of Horace, &c.; Edward Brown, M.D. author of Travels in Germany, &c.; Dr Adam Littleton, author of the Latin Dictionary; John Caryl, Esq. I believe the friend of Pope; Mr Joseph Arrowsmith; Thomas Rymer, Esq.; Dr William Oldys; John Evelyn, Esq.; and Mr Somers, afterwards Lord Somers, who translated the Life of Alcibiades, though his name is not prefixed to it. Beside the persons here enumerated, twenty-nine others were engaged in this work: so that the total number of the translators was forty-one. Dryden translated none of the Lives.”
Dryden was induced to honour this work, so creditable to those who had undertaken it, with a Dedication, and Life of Plutarch. The Dedication is addressed to the great Duke of Ormond, whom Dryden had celebrated, in “Absalom and Achitophel,” under the name of Barzillai. The reader will find some account of that nobleman, in the note upon that passage, Vol. IX. p. 294. It is doing no injustice to the other great qualities of Ormond, to say, that his generous and unwearied protection of Dryden will not be the soonest forgotten. The poet’s feelings towards this noble family were expressed in the preface to the “Fables,” his last great work.
The publication and translation of “Plutarch’s Lives” was not completed until 1686, when the last volume appeared. The following remarkable advertisement was prefixed to the work; which, from internal evidence, Mr Malone ascribes to our author, although bearing the name, and written in the character, of Jacob Tonson, the publisher of the work.
“You have here the first volume of “Plutarch’s Lives” turned from the Greek into English; and give me leave to say, the first attempt of doing it from the originals. You may expect the remainder in four more, one after another, as fast as they may conveniently be dispatched from the press. It is not my business, or pretence, to judge of a work of this quality; neither do I take upon me to recommend it to the world, any farther than under the office of a fair and careful publisher, and in discharge of a trust deposited in my hands for the service of my country, and for a common good. I am not yet so insensible of the authority and reputation of so great a name, as not to consult the honour of the author, together with the benefit and satisfaction of the bookseller, as well as of the reader, in this undertaking. In order to which ends, I have, with all possible respect and industry, besought, solicited, and obtained, the assistance of persons equal to the enterprize, and not only critics in the tongue, but men of known fame and abilities for style and ornament; but I shall rather refer you to the learned and ingenious translators of this first part, (whose names you will find in the next page,) as a specimen of what you may promise yourself from the rest.
“After this right done to the Greek author, I shall not need to say what profit and delight will accrue to the English reader from this version, when he shall see this illustrious piece in his own mother tongue, and the very spirit of the original transfused into the traduction; and in one word, “Plutarch’s Worthies” made yet more famous, by a translation that gives a farther lustre even to Plutarch himself.
“Now as to the bookseller’s part, I must justify myself, that I have done all that to me belonged; that is to say, I have been punctually faithful to all my commissions toward the correctness and decency of the work; and I have said to myself, that which I now say to the public,—It is impossible but a book that comes into the world with so many circumstances of dignity, usefulness, and esteem, must turn to account.”
TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ORMOND, &c.
MY LORD,
Lucretius, endeavouring to prove from the principles of his philosophy, that the world had a casual beginning from the concourse of atoms, and that men, as well as the rest of animals, were produced from the vital heat and moisture of their mother earth, from the same principles is bound to answer this objection,—why men are not daily formed after the same manner; which he tells us, is, because the kindly warmth and procreative faculty of the ground is now worn out; the sun is a disabled lover; and the earth is past her teeming time.
Though religion has informed us better of our origin, yet it appears plainly, that not only the bodies, but the souls of men, have decreased from the vigour of the first ages; that we are not more short of the stature and strength of those gigantic heroes, than we are of their understanding and their wit. To let pass those happy patriarchs who were striplings at fourscore, and had afterwards seven or eight hundred years before them to beget sons and daughters, and to consider man in reference only to his mind, and that no higher than the age of Socrates, how vast a difference is there betwixt the productions of those souls, and these of ours? How much better Plato, Aristotle, and the rest of the philosophers understood nature; Thucydides and Herodotus adorned history; Sophocles, Euripides, and Menander advanced poetry, than those dwarfs of wit and learning who succeeded them in after times? That age was most famous amongst the Greeks which ended with the death of Alexander; amongst the Romans, learning seemed again to revive and flourish in the century which produced Cicero, Varro, Sallust, Livy, Lucretius, and Virgil: and after a short interval of years, wherein nature seemed to take a breathing time for a second birth, there sprung up under the Vespasians, and those excellent princes who succeeded them, a race of memorable wits, such as were the two Plinies, Tacitus, and Suetonius; and, as if Greece was emulous of the Roman learning, under the same favourable constellation was born the famous philosopher and historian, Plutarch; than whom antiquity has never produced a man more generally knowing, or more virtuous; and no succeeding age has equalled him.
His Lives, both in his own esteem and that of others, accounted the noblest of his works, have been long since rendered into English; but as that translation was only from the French,[1] so it suffered this double disadvantage; first, that it was but a copy of a copy, and that too but lamely taken from the Greek original; secondly, that the English language was then unpolished, and far from the perfection which it has since attained; so that the first version is not only ungrammatical and ungraceful, but in many places almost unintelligible. For which reasons, and lest so useful a piece of history should lie oppressed under the rubbish of antiquated words, some ingenious and learned gentlemen have undertaken this task; and what would have been the labour of one man’s life, will, by the several endeavours of many, be accomplished in the compass of a year. How far they have succeeded in this laudable attempt, to me it belongs not to determine, who am too much a party to be a judge. But I have the honour to be commissioned from the translators of this volume to inscribe their labours and my own, with all humility, to your Grace’s name and patronage; and never was any man more ambitious of an employment of which he was so little worthy. Fortune has at last gratified that earnest desire I have always had to shew my devotion to your Grace, though I despair of paying you my acknowledgments. And of all other opportunities, I have happened on the most favourable to myself, who, having never been able to produce any thing of my own, which could be worthy of your view, am supplied by the assistance of my friends, and honoured with the presentation of their labours. The author they have translated, has been long familiar to you, who have been conversant in all sorts of history both ancient and modern, and have formed the idea of your most noble life from the instructions and examples contained in them, both in the management of public affairs, and in the private offices of virtue; in the enjoyment of your better fortune, and sustaining of your worse; in habituating yourself to an easy greatness; in repelling your enemies, in succouring your friends; and in all traverses of fortune, in every colour of your life, maintaining an inviolable fidelity to your Sovereign. It is long since that I have learned to forget the art of praising, but here the heart dictates to the pen; and I appeal to your enemies, (if so much generosity and good nature can have left you any,) whether they are not conscious to themselves that I have not flattered.
It is an age, indeed, which is only fit for satire, and the sharpest I have shall never be wanting to lance its villainies, and its ingratitude to the government. There are few men in it, who are capable of supporting the weight of a just and deserved commendation; but amongst those few there must always stand excepted the illustrious names of Ormond and of Ossory; a father and a son only worthy of each other. Never was one soul more fully infused into another’s breast; never was so strong an impression made of virtue as that of your Grace’s into him; but though the stamp was deep, the subject which received it was of too fine a composition to be durable. Were not priority of time and nature in the case, it might have been doubted which of you had been most excellent; but heaven snatched away the copy, to make the original more precious. I dare trust myself no farther on this subject; for after years of mourning, my sorrow is yet so green upon me, that I am ready to tax Providence for the loss of that heroic son: three nations had a general concernment in his death, but I had one so very particular, that all my hopes are almost dead with him; and I have lost so much, that I am past the danger of a second shipwreck. But he sleeps with an unenvied commendation; and has left your Grace the sad legacy of all those glories which he derived from you: an accession which you wanted not, who were so rich before in your own virtues, and that high reputation which is the product of them.
A long descent of noble ancestors was not necessary to have made you great, but heaven threw it in as overplus when you were born. What you have done and suffered for two royal masters has been enough to render you illustrious; so that you may safely wave the nobility of your birth, and rely on your actions for your fame. You have cancelled the debt which you owed to your progenitors, and reflect more brightness on their memory than you received from them.
Your native country, which Providence gave you not leave to preserve under one king, it has given you opportunity under another to restore. You could not save it from the chastisement which was due to its rebellion, but you raised it from ruin after its repentance; so that the trophies of war were the portion of the conqueror, but the triumphs of peace were reserved for the vanquished. The misfortunes of Ireland were owing to itself, but its happiness and restoration to your Grace. The rebellion against a lawful prince was punished by an usurping tyrant, but the fruits of his victory were the rewards of a loyal subject. How much that noble kingdom has flourished under your Grace’s government, both the inhabitants and the crown are sensible: the riches of Ireland are increased by it, and the revenues of England are augmented. That which was a charge and burden of the government, is rendered an advantage and support; the trade and interest of both countries are united in a mutual benefit; they conspire to make each other happy; the dependance of the one is an improvement of its commerce, the pre-eminence of the other is not impaired by the intercourse, and common necessities are supplied by both. Ireland is no more a scion, to suck the nourishment from the mother tree; neither is it overtopped, or hindered from growth by the superior branches; but the roots of England diving, if I may dare to say it, underneath the seas, rise at a just distance on the neighbouring shore, and there shoot up, and bear a product scarce inferior to the trunk from whence they sprung.
I may raise the commendation higher, and yet not fear to offend the truth; Ireland is a better penitent than England. The crime of rebellion was common to both countries, but the repentance of one island has been steady; that of the other, to its shame, has suffered a relapse; which shews the conversions of their rebels to have been real, that of ours to have been but counterfeit. The sons of guilty fathers there have made amends for the disloyalty of their families; but here the descendants of pardoned rebels have only waited their time to copy the wickedness of their parents, and, if possible, to outdo it. They disdain to hold their patrimonies by acts of grace and of indemnity; and by maintaining their old treasonable principles, make it apparent that they are still speculative traitors; for whether they are zealous sectaries, or prophane republicans, (of which two sorts they are principally composed,) both our reformers of church and state pretend to a power superior to kingship. The fanatics derive their authority from the Bible, and plead religion to be antecedent to any secular obligation; by virtue of which argument, taking it for granted that their own worship is only true, they arrogate to themselves the right of disposing the temporal power according to their pleasure,—as that which is subordinate to the spiritual; so that the same reasons and scriptures which are urged by popes for the deposition of princes, are produced by sectaries for altering the succession. The episcopal reformation has manumized kings from the usurpation of Rome, for it preaches obedience and resignation to the lawful secular power; but the pretended reformation of our schismatics, is to set up themselves in the papal chair, and to make their princes only their trustees; so that, whether they or the Pope were uppermost in England, the royal authority were equally depressed: the prison of our kings would be the same; the gaolers only would be altered. The broad republicans are generally men of atheistic principles, nominal Christians, who are beholding to the font only, that they are so called; otherwise Hobbists in their politics and morals. Every church is obliged to them that they own themselves of none, because their lives are too scandalous for any. Some of the sectaries are so proud, that they think they cannot sin; those commonwealth men are so wicked, that they conclude there is no sin. Lewdness, rioting, cheating, and debauchery, are their work-a-day practice; their more solemn crimes are unnatural lusts, and horrid murders.[2] Yet these are the patrons of the nonconformists; these are the swords and bucklers of God’s cause, if His cause be that of separatists and rebels. It is not but these associates know each other at the bottom as well as Simeon knew Levi: the republicans are satisfied that the schismatics are hypocrites, and the schismatics are assured that the republicans are atheists; but their common principles of government are the chains that link them; for both hold kings to be creatures of their own making, and by inference to be at their own disposing; with this difference, notwithstanding, that the canting party face their pretences with a call from God, the debauched party with a commission from the people. So that if ever this ill-contrived and equivocal association should get uppermost, they would infallibly contend for the supreme right; and as it was formerly on their money, so now it would be in their interest; “God with us” would be set up on one side, and “The Commonwealth of England” on the other.[3] But I the less wonder at the mixture of these two natures, because two savage beasts of different species and sexes shut up together, will forget their enmity, to satisfy their common lust; and it is no matter what kind of monster is produced betwixt them, so the brutal appetite be served. I more admire at a third party, who were loyal when rebellion was uppermost, and have turned rebels, (at least in principle,) since loyalty has been triumphant. Those of them whose services have not been rewarded, have some pretence for discontent; and yet they give the world to understand, that their honour was not their principle, but their interest. If they are old royalists, it is a sign their virtue is worn out, and will bear no longer; if sons to royalists, they have probably been grafted on whig stocks, and grown out of kind,—like China oranges in Portugal; their mother’s part has prevailed in them, and they are degenerated from the loyalty of their fathers.
But if they are such, as many of them evidently are, whose service has been not only fully but lavishly recompensed with honours and preferment, theirs is an ingratitude without parallel; they have destroyed their former merits, disowned the cause for which they fought, belied their youth, dishonoured their age; they have wrought themselves out of present enjoyments for imaginary hopes, and can never be trusted by their new friends, because they have betrayed their old. The greater and the stronger ties which some of them have had, are the deeper brands of their apostacy; for archangels were the first and most glorious of the whole creation; they were the morning work of God, and had the first impressions of his image, what creatures could be made; they were of kin to eternity itself, and wanting only that accession to be deities. Their fall was therefore more opprobrious than that of man, because they had no clay for their excuse; though I hope and wish the latter part of the allegory may not hold, and that repentance may be yet allowed them. But I delight not to dwell on so sad an object; let this part of the landscape be cast into shadows, that the heightenings of the other may appear more beautiful. For, as contraries, the nearer they are placed are brighter, and the Venus is illustrated by the neighbourhood of the lazar, so the unblemished loyalty of your Grace will shine more clearly, when set in competition with their stains.
When the malady which had seized the nobler parts of Britain threw itself out into the limbs, and the first sores of it appeared in Scotland, yet no effects of it reached your province; Ireland stood untainted with that pest; the care of the physician prevented the disease, and preserved the country from infection. When that ulcer was rather stopped than cured, (for the causes of it still remained,) and that dangerous symptoms appeared in England; when the royal authority was here trodden under foot; when one plot was prosecuted openly, and another secretly fomented, yet even then was Ireland free from our contagion. And if some venomous creatures were produced in that nation, yet it appeared they could not live there; they shed their poison without effect; they despaired of being successfully wicked in their own country, and transported their evidence to another, where they knew it was vendible; where accusation was a trade, where forgeries were countenanced, where perjuries were rewarded, where swearing went for proof, and where the merchandize of death was gainful. That their testimony was at least discredited, proceeded not from its incoherence, for they were known by their own party when they first appeared; but their folly was then managed by the cunning of their tutors; they had still been believed had they still followed their instructors; but when their witness fell foul upon their friends, then they were proclaimed villains, discarded and disowned by those who sent for them; they seemed then first to be discovered for what they had been known too well before; they were decried as inventors of what only they betrayed; nay their very wit was magnified, lest, being taken for fools, they might be thought too simple to forge an accusation.[4] Some of them still continue here detested by both sides, believed by neither; (for even their betters are at last uncased;) and some of them have received their hire in their own country. For perjury, which is malice to mankind, is always accompanied with other crimes; and though not punishable by our laws with death, yet draws a train of vices after it. The robber, the murderer, and the sodomite, have often hung up the foresworn villain; and what one sin took on trust, another sin has paid. These travelling locusts are at length swallowed up in their own Red Sea. Ireland, as well as England, is delivered from that flying plague; for the sword of justice in your Grace’s hand, like the rod of Moses, is stretched out against them; and the third part of his Majesty’s dominions is owing for its peace to your loyalty and vigilance.