_Ille promissi dubius superni,
Perdidit promptæ modulos loquelæ;
Sed reformasti gemitus peremptæ
Organa vocis_.
_Ventris abstruso recubans cubili,
Senseras regem, thalamo manentem;
Hinc Parens nati meritis uterque
Abdita pandit_.
[26] [Some matter concerning Dryden and Etherege will find, perhaps,
most appropriate place in commenting on this Poem, vol. xi.--ED.]
[27] Vol. x.
[28]
"Here duly swarm prodigious wights,
And strange variety of sights,
As ladies lewd, and foppish knights,
Priests, poets, pimps, and parasites;
Which now we'll spare, and only mention
The hungry bard that writes for pension;
Old Squib (who's sometimes here, I'm told),
That oft has with his prince made bold,
Called the late king a saunt'ring cully,
To magnify the Gallic bully,
Who lately put a senseless banter
Upon the world, with Hind and Panther,
Making the beasts and birds o'the wood
Doubt, what he ne'er understood,
Deep secrets in philosophy,
And mysteries in theology,
All sung in wretched poetry;
Which rumbling piece is as much farce all,
As his true mirror, the "Rehearsal;"
For which he has been soundly banged,
But ha'n't his just reward till hanged."
_Poem on the Camp at Hounslow_.
[29] Extracts from "The Address of John Dryden, Laureat, to his Highness
the Prince of Orange:"
"In all the hosannas our whole world's applause,
Illustrious champion of our church and laws!
Accept, great Nassau! from unworthy me,
Amongst the adoring crowd, a bonded knee;
Nor scruple, sir, to hear my echoing lyre,
Strung, tuned, and joined to the universal choir;
From my suspected mouth thy glories told,
A known out-lyer from the English fold."
After renewing the old reproach about Cromwell:
"If thus all this I could unblushing write,
Fear not that pen that shall thy praise indite,
When high-born blood my adoration draws,
Exalted glory and unblemished cause;
A theme so all divine my muse shall wing,
What is't for thee, great prince, I will not sing?
No bounds shall stop my Pegasean flight,
I'll spot my Hind, and make my Panther white.
* * * * *
But if, great prince, my feeble strength shall fail,
Thy theme I'll to my successors entail;
My heirs the unfinished subject shall complete:
I have a son, and he, by all that's great,
That very son (and trust my oaths, I swore
As much to my great master James before)
Shall, by his sire's example, Rome renounce,
For he, young stripling, has turned but once;
That Oxford nursling, that sweet hopeful boy,
His father's and that once Ignatian joy,
Designed for a new Bellarmin Goliah,
Under the great Gamaliel, Obadiah!
This youth, great sir, shall your fame's trumpets blow,
And soar when my dull wings shall flag below.
* * * * *
Why should I blush to turn, when my defence
And plea's so plain?--for if Omnipotence
Be the highest attribute that heaven can boast,
That's the truest church that heaven resembles most.
The tables then are turned: and 'tis confest,
The strongest and the mightiest is the best:
In all my changes I'm on the right side,
And by the same great reason justified.
When the bold Crescent late attacked the Cross,
Resolved the empire of the world to engross,
Had tottering Vienna's walls but failed,
And Turkey over Christendom prevailed,
Long ere this I had crossed the Dardanello,
And reigned the mighty Mahomet's hail fellow;
Quitting my duller hopes, the poor renown
Of Eton College, or a Dublin gown,
And commenced graduate in the grand divan,
Had reigned a more immortal Mussulman."
The lines which follow are taken from "The Deliverance," a poem to the
Prince of Orange, by a Person of Quality. 9th February, 1688-9.
"Alas! how cruel is a poet's fate!
Or who indeed would be a laureate,
That must or fall or turn with every change of state?
Poor bard! if thy hot zeal for loyal Wem[29a]
Forbids thy tacking, sing his requiem;
Sing something, prithee, to ensure thy thumb;
Nothing but conscience strikes a poet dumb.
Conscience, that dull chimera of the schools,
A learned imposition upon fools,
Thou, Dryden, art not silenced with such stuff,
Egad thy conscience has been large enough.
But here are loyal subjects still, and foes,
Many to mourn, for many to oppose.
Shall thy great master, thy almighty Jove,
Whom thou to place above the gods bust strove,
Shall be from David's throne so early fall,
And laureate Dryden not one tear let fall;
Nor sings the bard his exit in one poor pastoral?
Thee fear confines, thee, Dryden, fear confines,
And grief, not shame, stops thy recanting lines.
Our Damon is as generous as great,
And well could pardon tears that love create,
Shouldst thou, in justice to thy vexed soul,
Not sing to him but thy lost lord condole.
But silence is a damning error, John;
I'd or my master or myself bemoan."
[29a] _Lord Jeffries, Baron of Wem._
[30] In the dedication of "Bury-Fair" to his patron the Earl of Dorset,
he claims the merit due to his political constancy and sufferings: "I
never could recant in the worst of times, when my ruin was designed, and
my life was sought, and for near ten years I was kept from the exercise
of that profession which had afforded me a competent subsistence; and
surely I shall not now do it, when there is a liberty of speaking common
sense, which, though not long since forbidden, is now grown current."
[31] See Cibber or Shiels's Life of Shadwell.
[32]
"These wretched poГ«titos, who got praise
For writing most confounded loyal plays,
With viler, coarser jests than at Bear-garden,
And silly Grub-street songs worse than Tom-farthing.
If any noble patriot did excel,
His own and country's rights defending well,
These yelping curs were straight loo'd on to bark,
On the deserving man to set a mark.
These abject, fawning parasites and knaves,
Since they were such, would have all others slaves.
'Twas precious loyalty that was thought fit
To atone for want of honesty and wit.
No wonder common-sense was all cried down,
And noise and nonsense swaggered through the town.
Our author, then opprest, would have you know it,
Was silenced for a nonconformist poet;
In those hard times he bore the utmost test,
And now he swears he's loyal as the best.
Now, sirs, since common-sense has won the day,
Be kind to this, as to his last year's play.
His friends stood firmly to him when distressed;
He hopes the number is not now decreased.
He found esteem from those he valued most;
Proud of his friends, he of his foes could boast."
_Prologue to Bury-Fair._
[33] Vol. xi.
[34] _Ibid_.
[35] Introduct. to "Spanish Friar," vol. vi.
[36] Vol. vii.
[37] "A play well-dressed, you know, is half in half, as a great writer
says. The Morocco dresses when new, formerly for 'Sebastian,' they say,
enlivened the play as much as the 'pudding and dumpling' song did
Merlin."--_The Female Wits_, a comedy by Mountfort.
[38]
"The labouring bee, when his sharp sting is gone,
Forgets his golden work, and turns a drone:
Such is a satire, when you take away
That rage, in which his noble vigour lay.
What gain you by not suffering him to tease ye?
He neither can offend you now, nor please ye.
The honey-bag and venom lay so near,
That both together you resolved to tear;
And lost your pleasure to secure your fear.
How can he show his manhood, if you bind him
To box, like boys, with one hand tied behind him?
This is plain levelling of wit; in which
The poor has all the advantage, not the rich.
The blockhead stands excused, for wanting sense;
And wits turn blockheads in their own defence."
[39] [Transcriber's note: "See page 251" in original. This approximates
to paragraphs preceding reference [1] in text, Section VI.]
[40] [Transcriber's note: "See page 253" in original. This approximates
to paragraphs preceding reference [2] in text, Section VI.]
[41] [Transcriber's note: "See a preceding note, p. 300" in original.
This note is Footnote 37 above.]
[42] For example, in a Session of the Poets, under the fictitious name
of Matthew Coppinger, Dryden is thus irreverently introduced:
"A reverend grisly elder first appeared,
With solemn pace through the divided herd;
Apollo, laughing at his clumsy mien,
Pronounced him straight the poets' alderman.
His labouring muse did many years excel
In ill inventing, and translating well,
Till 'Love Triumphant' did the cheat reveal.
* * * * *
So when appears, midst sprightly births, a sot,
Whatever was the other offspring's lot,
This we are sure was lawfully begot."
[43] [This list requires a certain amount of correction and completion.
In the Appendix to the present edition (vol. xviii.) a separate article
will be given to it.--ED.]
SECTION VII.
_State of Dryden's Connections in Society after the Revolution--Juvenal
and Persius--Smaller Pieces--Eleonora--Third Miscellany--Virgil--Ode to
St. Cecilia--Dispute with Milbourne--With Blackmore--Fables--The
Author's Death and Funeral--His private Character--Notices of his
Family._
The evil consequences of the Revolution upon Dryden's character and
fortunes began to abate sensibly within a year or two after that event.
It is well known, that King William's popularity was as short-lived as
it had been universal. All parties gradually drew off from the king,
under their ancient standards. The clergy returned to their maxims of
hereditary right, the Tories to their attachment to the house of Stuart,
the Whigs to their jealousy of the royal authority. Dryden, we have
already observed, so lately left in a small and detested party, was now
among multitudes who, from whatever contradictory motives, were joined
in opposition to the government and some of his kinsmen; particularly
with John Driden of Chesterton, his first cousin; with whom, till his
death, he lived upon terms of uninterrupted friendship. The influence of
Clarendon and Rochester, the Queen's uncles, were, we have seen, often
exerted in the poet's favour; and through them, he became connected with
the powerful families with which they were allied. Dorset, by whom he
had been deprived of his office, seems to have softened this harsh,
though indispensable, exertion of authority, by a liberal present; and
to his bounty Dryden had frequently recourse in cases of emergency.[1]
Indeed, upon one occasion it is said to have been administered in a mode
savouring more of ostentation than delicacy; for there is a tradition
that Dryden and Tom Brown, being invited to dine with the lord
chamberlain, found under their covers, the one a bank-note for ВЈ100, the
other for ВЈ50. I have already noticed, that these pecuniary benefactions
were not held so degrading in that age as at present; and, probably,
many of Dryden's opulent and noble friends, took, like Dorset,
occasional opportunities of supplying wants, which neither royal
munificence, nor the favour of the public, now enabled the poet fully to
provide for.
If Dryden's critical empire over literature was at any time interrupted
by the mischances of his political party, it was in _abeyance_ for a
very short period; since, soon after the Revolution, he appears to have
regained, and maintained till his death, that sort of authority in
Will's coffeehouse, to which we have frequently had occasion to allude.
His supremacy, indeed, seems to have been so effectually established,
that a "pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box"[2] was equal to taking a degree
in that academy of wit. Among those by whom it was frequented, Southerne
and Congreve were principally distinguished by Dryden's friendship. His
intimacy with the former, though oddly commenced, seems soon to have
ripened into such sincere friendship, that the aged poet selected
Southerne to finish "Cleomenes," and addressed to him an epistle of
condolence on the failure of "The Wives' Excuse," which, as he
delicately expresses it, "was with a kind civility dismissed" from the
scene. This was indeed an occasion in which even Dryden could tell, from
experience, how much the sympathy of friends was necessary to soothe the
injured feelings of an author. But Congreve seems to have gained yet
further than Southerne upon Dryden's friendship. He was introduced to
him by his first play, the celebrated "Old Bachelor," being put into the
poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations to
fit it for the stage, returned it to the author with the high and just
commendation that it was the best first play he had ever seen. In truth,
it was impossible that Dryden could be insensible to the brilliancy of
Congreve's comic dialogue, which has never been equalled by any English
dramatist, unless by Mr. Sheridan. Less can be said for the tragedies of
Southerne, and for "The Mourning Bride." Although these pieces contain
many passages of great interest, and of beautiful poetry, I know not but
they contributed more than even the subsequent homilies of Rowe, to
chase natural and powerful expression of passion from the English stage,
and to sink it into that maudlin, and affected, and pedantic style of
tragedy, which haunted the stage till Shakespeare awakened at the call
of Garrick. "The Fatal Marriage" of Southerne is an exception to this
false taste; for no one who has seen Mrs. Siddons in Isabella, can deny
Southerne the power of moving the passions, till amusement becomes
bitter and almost insupportable distress. But these observations are
here out of place. Addison paid an early tribute to Dryden's fame, by
the verses addressed to him on his translations. Among Dryden's less
distinguished intimates, we observe Sir Henry Shere, Dennis the critic,
Moyle, Motteux, Walsh, who lived to distinguish the youthful merit of
Pope, and other men of the second rank in literature. These, as his
works testify, he frequently assisted with prefaces, occasional verses,
or similar contributions. But among our author's followers and admirers,
we must not reckon Swift, although related to him,[3] and now coming
into notice. It is said, that Swift had subjected to his cousin's
perusal, some of those performances, entitled _Odes_, which appear in
the seventh volume of the last edition of his works. Even the eye of
Dryden was unable to discover the wit and the satirist in the clouds of
incomprehensible pindaric obscurity in which he was enveloped; and the
aged bard pronounced the hasty, and never to be pardoned sentence,--
"Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet."[4] A doom which he, on whom it
was passed, attempted to repay, by repeated, although impotent, attacks
upon the fame of Dryden, everywhere scattered through his works. With
the exception of Swift, no author of eminence, whose labours are still
in request, has ventured to assail the poetical fame of Dryden.
Shortly after the Revolution, Dryden had translated several satires of
Juvenal; and calling in the aid of his two sons, of Congreve, Creech,
Tate, and others, he was enabled, in 1692, to give a complete version
both of that satirist, and of Persius. In this undertaking he himself
bore a large share, translating the whole of Persius, with the first,
third, sixth, tenth, and sixteenth satires of Juvenal. To this version
is prefixed the noted Essay on Satire, inscribed to the Earl of Dorset
and Middlesex. In that treatise, our author exhibits a good deal of that
sort of learning which was in fashion among the French critics; and, I
suspect, was contented rather to borrow something from them, than put
himself to the trouble of compiling more valuable materials. Such is the
disquisition concerning the origin of the word _Satire_, which is
chiefly extracted from Casaubon, Dacier, and Rigault. But the poet's own
incidental remarks upon the comparative merits of Horace, Juvenal, and
Persius, his declamation against the abuse of satire, his incidental
notices respecting epic poetry, translation, and English literature in
general, render this introduction highly valuable.
Without noticing the short prefaces to Walsh's "Essay upon Woman," a
meagre and stiff composition, and to Sir Henry Shere's wretched
translation of Polybius, published in 1691 and 1692, we hasten to the
elegy on the Countess of Abingdon, entitled Eleonora. This lady died
suddenly, 31st May 1691, in a ball-room in her own house, just then
prepared for an entertainment. The disconsolate husband, who seems to
have been a patron of the Muses,[5] not satisfied with the volunteer
effusions of some minor poets, employed a mutual friend to engage Dryden
to compose a more beautiful tribute to his consort's memory. The poet,
it would seem, neither knew the lord nor the lady, but was doubtless
propitiated upon the mournful occasion;[6] nor was the application and
fee judged more extraordinary than that probably offered, on the same
occasion, to the divine who was to preach the Countess's funeral sermon.
The leading and most characteristic features of the lady's character
were doubtless pointed out to our author as subjects for illustration;
yet so difficult is it, even for the best poet, to feign a sorrow which
he feels not, or to describe with appropriate and animated colouring a
person whom he has never seen, that Dryden's poem resembles rather an
abstract panegyric on an imaginary being, than an elegy on a real
character. The elegy was published early in 1692.
In 1693, Tonson's Third Miscellany made its appearance, with a
dedication to Lord Ratcliffe, eldest son of the Earl of Derwentwater,
who was himself a pretender to poetry, though our author thought so
slightly of his attempts in that way, that he does not even deign to
make them enter into his panegyric, but contents himself with saying,
"what you will be hereafter, may be more than guessed by what you are at
present." It is probable that the rhyming peer was dissatisfied with
Dryden's unusual economy of adulation; at least he disappointed some
expectations which the poet and bookseller seem to have entertained of
his liberality.[7] This dedication indicates, that a quarrel was
commenced between our author and the critic Rymer. It appears from a
passage in a letter to Tonson, that Rymer had spoken lightly of him in
his last critique (probably in the short view of tragedy), and that the
poet took this opportunity, as he himself expresses it, to snarl again.
He therefore acquaints us roundly, that the corruption of a poet was the
generation of a critic; exults a little over the memory of Rymer's
"Edgar," a tragedy just reeking from damnation; and hints at the
difference which the public is likely to experience between the present
royal historiographer and him whose room he occupied. In his epistle to
Congreve, alluding to the same circumstance of Rymer's succeeding to the
office of historiographer, as Tate did to the laurel, on the death of
Thomas Shadwell, in 1692, Dryden has these humorous lines:
"O that your brows my laurel had sustained!
Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned:
The father had descended for the son;
For only you are lineal to the throne.
Thus, when the state one Edward did depose,
A greater Edward in his room arose:
But now not I, but poetry, is cursed;
For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.
But let them not mistake my patron's part,
Nor call his charity their own desert."
From the letter to Tonson above referred to, it would seem that the
dedication of the Third Miscellany gave offence to Queen Mary, being
understood to reflect upon her government, and that she had commanded
Rymer to return to the charge, by a criticism on Dryden's plays. But the
breach does not appear to have become wider; and Dryden has elsewhere
mentioned Rymer with civility.
The Third Miscellany contained, of Dryden's poetry, a few songs, the
first book, with part of the ninth and sixteenth books of the
Metamorphoses, and the parting of Hector and Andromache, from the Iliad.
It was also to have had the poem of Hero and Leander, from the Greek;
but none such appeared, nor is it clear whether Dryden ever executed the
version, or only had it in contemplation. The contribution, although
ample, was not satisfactory to old Jacob Tonson, who wrote on the
subject a most mercantile expostulatory letter[8] to Dryden, which is
fortunately the minutiae of a literary bargain in the 17th century.
Tonson, with reference to Dryden having offered a strange bookseller six
hundred lines for twenty guineas, enters into a question in the rule of
three, by which he discovers, and proves, that for fifty guineas he has
only 1446 lines, which he seems to take more unkindly, as he had not
_counted_ the lines until he had paid the money; from all which Jacob
infers, that Dryden ought, out of generosity, at least to throw him in
something to the bargain, especially as he had used him more kindly in
Juvenal, which, saith the said Jacob, is not reckoned so easy to
translate as Ovid. What weight was given to this supplication does not
appear; probably very little, for the translations were not extended,
and as to getting back any part of the copy-money, it is not probable
Tonson's most sanguine expectation ever reached that point. Perhaps the
songs were thrown in as a make-weight. There was a Fourth Miscellany
published in 1694; but to this Dryden only gave a version of the third
Georgic, and his Epistle to Sir Godfrey Kneller, the requital of a copy
of the portrait of Shakespeare.[9]
In 1963, Dryden addressed the beautiful lines to Congreve, on the cold
reception of his "Double Dealer." He was himself under a similar cloud,
from the failure of "Love Triumphant," and therefore in a fit mood to
administer consolation to his friend. The epistle contains, among other
striking passages, the affecting charge of the care of his posthumous
fame, which Congreve did not forget when Dryden was no more.
But, independently of occasional exertions, our author, now retired from
the stage, had bent his thoughts upon one great literary task, the
translation of Virgil. This weighty and important undertaking was
probably suggested by the experience of Tonson, the success of whose
"Miscellanies" had taught him the value placed by the public on Dryden's
translations from the classics. From hints thrown out by contemporary
scheme was meditated, even before 1964; but in that year the poet, in a
letter to Dennis, speaks of it as under his immediate contemplation. The
names of Virgil and Dryden were talismans powerful to arrest the eyes of
all that were literary in England, upon the progress of the work. Mr.
Malone has recorded the following particulars concerning it, with pious
enthusiasm.
"Dr. Johnson has justly remarked, that the nation seemed to consider its
honour interested in the event. Mr. Gilbert Dolben gave him the various
editions of his author: Dr. Knightly Chetwood furnished him with the
life of Virgil, and the Preface to the Pastorals; and Addison supplied
the arguments of the several books, and an Essay on the Georgics. The
first lines of this great poet which he translated, he wrote with a
diamond on a pane of glass in one of the windows of Chesterton House, in
Huntingdonshire, the residence of his kinsman and namesake, John Driden,
Esq.[10] The version of the first Georgic, and a great part of the last
Aeneid, was made at Denham Court, in Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir
William Bowyer, Baronet; and the seventh Г†neid was translated at
Burleigh, the noble mansion of the Earl of Exeter. These circumstances,
which must be acknowledged to be of no great importance, I yet have
thought it proper to record, because they will for ever endear those
places to the votaries of the Muses, and add to them a kind of
celebrity, which neither the beauties of nature, nor the exertions of
art, can bestow."
Neither was the liberality of the nation entirely disproportioned to the
general importance attached to the translation of Virgil, by so eminent
a poet. The researches of Mr. Malone have ascertained, in some degree,
the terms. There were two classes of subscribers, the first set of whom
paid five guineas apiece to adorn the work with engravings; beneath each
of which, in due and grateful remembrance, was blazoned the arms of a
subscriber: this class amounted to one hundred and one persons, a list
of whom appears in this edition, in vol. xiii., and presents an
assemblage of noble names, few of whom are distinguished more to their
credit than by the place they there occupy. The second subscribers were
two hundred and fifty in number, at two guineas each. But from these
sums was to be deducted the expense of the engravings, though these were
only the plates used for Ogilby's Virgil, a little retouched. Besides
the subscriptions, it would seem, that Dryden received from Tonson fifty
pounds for each Book of the "Georgics" and "Г†neid," and probably the
same for the Pastorals collectively.[11] On the other hand, it is
probable that Jacob charged a price for the copies delivered to the
subscribers, which, with the expense of the plates, reduced Dryden's
profit to about twelve or thirteen hundred pounds;--a trifling sum when
compared to what Pope received for the "Iliad," which was certainly
between ВЈ5,000 and ВЈ6,000; yet great in proportion to what the age of
Dryden had ever afforded, as an encouragement to literature. It must
indeed be confessed, that the Revolution had given a new impulse and
superior importance to literary pursuits. The semi-barbarous age, which
succeeded the great civil war, had been civilised by slow degrees. It is
true, the king and courtiers, among their disorderly and dissolute
pleasures, enumerated songs and plays, and, in the course of their
political intrigues, held satires in request; but they had neither money
nor time to spare for the encouragement or study of any of the higher
and more elaborate departments of poetry. Meanwhile, the bulk of the
nation neglected verse, as what they could not understand, or, with
puritanical bigotry, detested as sinful the use, as well as the abuse,
of poetical talent. But the lapse of thirty years made a material change
in the manners of the English people. Instances began to occur of
individuals, who, rising at first into notice for their proficience in
the fine arts, were finally promoted for the active and penetrating
talents, which necessarily accompany a turn towards them. An outward
reformation of manners, at least the general abjuration of grosser
profligacy, was also favourable to poetry,--
Still first to fly where
sensual joys invade.
This was wrought, partly by the religious manners of Mary; partly by
the cold and unsocial temper of William, who shunned excess, not
perhaps because it was criminal, but because it was derogatory; partly
by the political fashion of the day, which was to disown the profligacy
that marked the partisans of the Stuarts; but, most of all, by the
general increase of good taste, and the improvement of education. All
these contributed to the encouragement of Dryden's great undertaking,
which promised to rescue Virgil from the degraded version of Ogilby, and
present him in a becoming form to a public, now prepared to receive him
with merited admiration.
While our author was labouring in this great work, and the public were
waiting the issue with impatience and attention, a feud, of which it is
now impossible to trace the cause, arose between the bard and his
publisher. Their union before seems to have been of a nature more
friendly than interest alone could have begotten; for Dryden, in one
letter, talks with gratitude of Tonson's affording him his company down
to Northamptonshire; and this friendly intimacy Jacob neglected not to
cultivate, by those occasional compliments of fruit and wine, which are
often acknowledged in the course of their correspondence. But a quarrel
broke out between them, when the translation of Virgil had advanced so
far as the completion of the seventh Aeneid; at which period Dryden
charges Tonson bitterly, with an intention, from the very beginning, to
deprive him of all profit by the second subscriptions; alluding, I
presume, to the price which the bookseller charged him upon the volumes
delivered to the subscribers. The bibliopolist seems to have bent before
the storm, and pacified the incensed bard, by verbal submission, though
probably without relaxing his exactions and drawbacks in any material
degree. Another cause of this dissension appears to have been the Notes
upon "Virgil," for which Tonson would allow no additional emolument to
the author, although Dryden says, "that to make them good, would cost
six months' labour at least," and elsewhere tells Tonson ironically,
that, since not to be paid, they shall be short, "for the saving of the
paper." I cannot think that we have sustained any great loss by Tonson's
penurious economy on this occasion. In his prefaces and dedications,
Dryden let his own ideas freely forth to the public; but in his Notes
upon the Classics, witness those on "Juvenal" and "Persius," he neither
indulged in critical dissertations on particular beauties and defects,
nor in general remarks upon the kind of poetry before him; but contented
himself with rendering into English the antiquarian dissertations of
Dacier and other foreign commentators, with now and then an explanatory
paraphrase of an obscure passage. The parodies of Martin Scriblerus had
not yet consigned to ridicule the verbal criticism, and solemn trifling,
with which the ancient schoolmen pretended to illustrate the classics.
But beside the dispute about the notes in particular, and the various
advantages which Dryden suspected Tonson of attempting in the course of
the transaction, he seems to have been particularly affronted at a
presumptuous plan of that publisher (a keen Whig, and secretary of the
Kit-cat club) to drive him into inscribing the translation of Virgil to
King William. With this view, Tonson had an especial care to make the
engraver aggravate the nose of Aeneas in the plates into a sufficient
resemblance of the hooked promontory of the Deliverer's countenance;[12]
and, foreseeing Dryden's repugnance to this favourite plan, he had
recourse, it would seem, to more unjustifiable means to further it; for
the poet expresses himself as convinced that, through Tonson's means,
his correspondence with his sons, then at Rome, was intercepted.[13] I
suppose Jacob, having fairly laid siege to his author's conscience, had
no scruple to intercept all foreign supplies, which might have confirmed
him in his pertinacity. But Dryden, although thus closely beleaguered,
held fast his integrity; and no prospect of personal advantage, or
importunity on the part of Tonson, could induce him to take a step
inconsistent with his religious and political sentiments. It was
probably during the course of these bickerings with his publisher, that
Dryden, incensed at some refusal of accommodation on the part of Tonson,
sent him three well-known coarse and forcible satirical lines,
descriptive of his personal appearance:
"With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair,
And frowzy pores, that taint the ambient air."
"Tell the dog," said the poet to the messenger, "that he who wrote these
can write more." But Tonson, perfectly satisfied with this single
triplet, hastened to comply with the author's request, without requiring
any further specimen of his poetical powers. It would seem, however,
that when Dryden neglected his stipulated labour, Tonson possessed
powers of animadversion, which, though exercised in plain prose, were
not a little dreaded by the poet. Lord Bolingbroke, already a votary of
the Muses, and admitted to visit their high priest, was wont to relate,
that one day he heard another person enter the house. "This," said
Dryden, "is Tonson: you will take care not to depart before he goes
away: for I have not completed the sheet which I promised him; and if
you leave me unprotected, I shall suffer all the rudeness to which his
resentment can prompt his tongue."[14] But whatever occasional subjects
of dissension arose between Dryden and his bookseller appears always to
have brought them together, after the first ebullition of displeasure
had subsided. There might, on such occasions, be room for acknowledging
faults on both sides; for, if we admit that the bookseller was penurious
and churlish, we cannot deny that Dryden seems often to have been
abundantly captious, and irascible. Indeed, as the poet placed, and
justly, more than a mercantile value upon what he sold, the trader, on
his part, was necessarily cautious not to afford a price which his
returns could not pay; so that while, in one point of view, the author
sold at an inadequate price, the purchaser, in another, really got no
more than value for his money. That literature is ill recompensed, is
usually rather the fault of the public than the bookseller, whose trade
can only exist by buying that which can be sold to advantage. The
trader, who purchased the "Paradise Lost" for ten pounds, had probably
no very good bargain.[15]
However fretted by these teasing and almost humiliating discussions,
Dryden continued steadily advancing in his great labour; and about three
years after it had been undertaken, the translation of Virgil, "the most
noble and spirited," said Pope, "which I know in any language," was
given to the public in July 1697. So eager was the general expectation,
that the first edition was exhausted in a few months, and a second
published early in the next year. "It satisfied," says Johnson, "his
friends, and, for the most part, silenced his enemies." But, although
this was generally the case, there wanted not some to exercise the
invidious task of criticism, or rather of malevolent detraction. Among
those, the highest name is that of Swift; the most distinguished for
venomous and persevering malignity, that of Milbourne.
In his Epistle to Prince Posterity, prefixed to the "Tale of a Tub,"
Swift, in the character of the dedicator, declares, "upon the word of a
sincere man, that there is now actually in being a certain poet called
John Dryden, whose translation of Virgil was lately printed in a large
folio, well-bound, and, if diligent search were made, for aught I know,
is yet to be seen." In his "Battle of the Books," he tells us, "that
Dryden, who encountered Virgil, soothed the good ancient by the
endearing title of 'father,' and, by a large deduction of genealogies,
made it appear, that they were nearly related, and humbly proposed an
exchange of armour; as a mark of hospitality, Virgil consented, though
his was of gold, and cost an hundred beeves, the other's but of rusty
iron. However, this glittering armour became the modern still worse than
his own. Then they agreed to exchange horses; but, when it came to the
trial, Dryden was afraid, and utterly unable to mount." A yet more
bitter reproach is levelled by the wit against the poet, for his triple
dedication of the Pastorals, Georgics, and Aeneid, to three several
patrons, Clifford, Chesterfield, and Mulgrave.[16] But, though the
recollection of the contemned Odes, like the _spretae injuria formae_ of
Juno, still continued to prompt these overflowings of Swift's satire, he
had too much taste and perception of poetry to attempt, gravely, to
undermine, by a formal criticism, the merits of Dryden's Virgil.
This was reserved for Luke Milbourne, a clergyman, who, by that
assurance, has consigned his name to no very honourable immortality.
This person appears to have had a living at Great Yarmouth,[17] which,
Dryden hints, he forfeited by writing libels on his parishioners; and
from another testimony, he seems to have been a person of no very strict
morals.[18] Milbourne was once an admirer of our poet, as appears from
his letter concerning "Amphitryon," vol. viii. But either poetical
rivalry, for he had also thought of translating Virgil himself,[19] or
political animosity, for he seems to have held revolution principles, or
deep resentment for Dryden's sarcasms against the clergy, or, most
probably, all these united, impelled Milbourne to publish a most furious
criticism, entitled, "Notes on Dryden's Virgil, in a Letter to a
Friend." "And here," said he, "in the first place, I must needs own
Jacob Tonson's ingenuity to be greater than the translator's, who, in
the inscription of his fine gay (title) in the front of the book, calls
it very honestly Dryden's Virgil, to let the reader know, that this is
not that Virgil so much admired in the Augustaean age, an author whom
Mr. Dryden once thought untranslatable, but a Virgil of another stamp,
of a coarser allay; a silly, impertinent, nonsensical writer, of a
various and uncertain style, a mere Alexander Ross, or somebody inferior
to him; who could never have been known again in the translation, if the
name of Virgil had not been bestowed upon him in large characters in the
frontispiece, and in the running title. Indeed, there is scarce the
_magni nominis umbra_ to be met with in this translation, which being
fairly intimated by Jacob, he needs add no more, but _si populus vult
decipi, decipiatur._"
With an assurance which induced Pope to call him the fairest of critics,
not content with criticising the production of Dryden, Milbourne was so
ill advised as to produce, and place in opposition to it, a rickety
translation of his own, probably the fragments of that which had been
suppressed by Dryden's version. A short specimen, both of his criticism
and poetry, will convince the reader, that the powers of the former
were, as has been often the case, neutralised by the insipidity of the
latter; for who can rely on the judgment of a critic so ill qualified to
illustrate his own precepts? I take the remarks on the tenth Eclogue, as
a specimen, at hazard. "This eclogue is translated in a strain too
luscious and effeminate for Virgil, who might bemoan his friend, but
does it in a noble and a manly style, which Mr. Ogilby answers better
than Mr. D., whose paraphrase looks like one of Mrs. Behn's, when
somebody had turned the original into English prose before.
"Where Virgil says,
_Lauri et myricae flevГЄre_,
the figure's beautiful; where Mr. D. says,
the laurel stands in tears,
And hung with humid pearls, the lowly shrub appears,
the figure is lost, and a foolish and impertinent representation comes
in its place; an ordinary dewy morning might fill the laurels and shrubs
with Mr. D.'s tears, though Gallus had not been concerned in it.
And yet the queen of beauty blest his bed--
"Here Mr. D. comes with his ugly patch upon a beautiful face: what had
the queen of beauty to do here? Lycoris did not despise her lover for
his meanness, but because she had a mind to be a Catholic whore. Gallus
was of quality, but her spark a poor inferior fellow. And yet the queen
of beauty, etc., would have followed there very well, but not where
wanton Mr. D. has fixt her."
Flushed were his cheeks, and glowing were his eyes.
"This character is fitter for one that is drunk than one in an
amazement, and is a thought unbecoming Virgil."
And for thy rival, tempts the raging sea,
The forms of horrid war, and heaven's inclemency.
"Lycoris, doubtless, was a jilting baggage, but why should Mr. D. belie
her? Virgil talks nothing of her going to sea, and perhaps she had a
mind to be only a camp laundress, which office she might be advanced to
without going to sea: 'the forms of horrid war,' for _horrida castra_,
is incomparable."
his brows, a country crown
Of fennel, and of nodding lilies drown,
"is a very odd figure: Sylvanus had swinging brows to drown such a crown
as that, _i.e._ to make it invisible, to swallow it up; if it be a
country crown, drown his brows, it is false English."
The meads are sooner drunk with morning dews.
"_Rivi_ signifies no such thing; but then, that bees should be drunk
with flowery shrubs, or goats be drunk with brouze, for drunk's the
verb, is a very quaint thought."
After much more to the same purpose, Milbourne thus introduces his own
version of the first Eclogue, with a confidence worthy of a better
cause:--"That Mr. Dryden might be satisfied that I'd offer no foul play,
nor find faults in him, without giving him an opportunity of
retaliation, I have subjoined another metaphrase or translation of the
first and fourth pastoral, which I desire may be read with his by the
original.
TITYRUS.
ECLOGUE I.
_Mel._ Beneath a spreading beech you, Tityrus, lie,
And country songs to humble reeds apply;
We our sweet fields, our native country fly,
We leave our country; you in shades may lie,
And Amaryllis fair and blythe proclaim,
And make the woods repeat her buxom name.
_Tit._ O Melibaeus! 'twas a bounteous God,
These peaceful play-days on our muse bestowed;
At least, he'st alway be a God to me;
My lambs shall oft his grateful offerings be.
Thou seest, he lets my herds securely stray,
And me at pleasure on my pipe to play.
_Mel._ Your peace I don't with looks of envy view,
But I admire your happy state, and you.
In all our farms severe distraction reigns,
No ancient owner there in peace remains.
Sick, I, with much ado, my goats can drive,
This Tityrus, I scarce can lead alive;
On the bare stones, among yon hazels past,
Just now, alas! her hopeful twins she cast.
Yet had not all on's dull and senseless been,
We'd long agon this coming stroke foreseen.
Oft did the blasted oaks our fate unfold,
And boding choughs from hollow trees foretold.
But say, good Tityrus! tell me who's the God,
Who peace, so lost to us, on you bestow'd?"
Some critics there were, though but few, who joined Milbourne in his
abortive attempt to degrade our poet's translation. Oldmixon, celebrated
for his share in the games of the Dunciad,[20] and Samuel Parker,[21] a
yet more obscure name, have informed us of this, by volunteering in
Dryden's defence. But Dryden needed not their assistance. The real
excellencies of his version were before the public, and it was rather to
clear himself from the malignant charges against his moral principles,
which Melbourne had mingled with his criticism, than for any other
purpose, that the poet deemed his antagonist worthy of the following
animadversion:--"Milbourne, who is in orders, pretends amongst the rest
this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on priesthood: if I have, I
am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the
reparation will come to little. Let him be satisfied, that he shall not
he able to force himself upon me for an adversary. I contemn him too
much to enter into competition with him. His own translations of Virgil
have answered his criticisms on mine. If (as they say he has declared in
print) he prefers the version of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him
the same compliment; for it is agreed on all hands, that he writes even
below Ogilby. That, you will say, is not easily to be done; but what
cannot Milbourne bring about? I am satisfied, however, that while he and
I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It
looks as if I had desired him underhand to write so ill against me; but
upon my honest word, I have not bribed him to do me this service, and am
wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. It is true, I should be glad if I
could persuade him to continue his good offices, and write such another
critique on anything of mine; for I find, by experience, he has a great
stroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the
world have a better opinion of them. He has taken some pains with my
poetry; but nobody will be persuaded to take the same with his. If I had
taken to the Church (as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts),
I should have had more sense, if not more grace, than to have turned
myself out of my benefice by writing libels on my parishioners. But his
account of my manners, and my principles, are of a piece with his cavils
and his poetry; and so I have done with him for ever."[22]
While Dryden was engaged with his great translation, he found two
months' leisure to execute a prose version of Fresnoy's "Art of
Painting," to which he added an ingenious Preface, the work of twelve
mornings, containing a parallel between that art and poetry; of which
Mason has said, that though too superficial to stand the test of strict
criticism, yet it will always give pleasure to readers of taste, even
when it fails to convince their judgment. This version appeared in 1695.
Mr. Malone conjectures that our author was engaged in this task by his
friends Closterman, and Sir Godfrey Kneller, artists, who had been
active in procuring subscriptions for his Virgil. He also wrote a "Life
of Lucian," for a translation of his works, by Mr. Walter Moyle, Sir
Henry Shere, and other gentlemen of pretension to learning. This
version, although it did not appear till after his death, and although
he executed no part of the translation, still retains the title of
"Dryden's Lucian."
There was one event of political importance which occurred in December
1695, and which the public seem to have expected should have employed
the pen of Dryden;--this was the death of Mary, wife of William the
Third. It is difficult to conceive in what manner the poet laureate of
the unfortunate James could have treated the memory of his daughter.
Satire was dangerous, and had indeed been renounced by the poet; and
panegyric was contrary to the principles for which he was suffering.
Yet, among the swarm of rhymers who thrust themselves upon the nation on
that mournful occasion, there are few who do not call, with friendly or
unfriendly voice, upon our poet to break silence.[23] But the voice of
praise and censure was heard in vain, and Dryden's only interference
was, in character of the first judge of his time, to award the prize to
the Duke of Devonshire, as author of the best poem composed on occasion
of the Queen's death.[24]
Virgil was hardly finished, when our author distinguished himself by the
immortal Ode to Saint Cecilia, commonly called "Alexander's Feast."
There is some difference of evidence concerning the time occupied in
this splendid task. He had been solicited to undertake it by the
stewards of the Musical Meeting, which had for several years met to
celebrate the feast of St. Cecilia, their patroness, and whom he had
formerly gratified by a similar performance. In September 1697, Dryden
writes to his son:--"In the meantime, I am writing a song for St.
Cecilia's feast; who, you know, is the patroness of music. This is
troublesome, and no way beneficial; but I could not deny the stewards,
who came in a body to my house to desire that kindness, one of them
being Mr. Bridgeman, whose parents are your mother's friends." This
account seems to imply, that the Ode was a work of some time; which is
countenanced by Dr. Birch's expression, that Dryden himself "observes,
in an original letter of his, that he was employed for almost a
fortnight in composing and correcting it."[25] On the other hand, the
following anecdote is told upon very respectable authority. "Mr. St.
John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, happening to pay a morning visit to
Dryden, whom he always respected, found him in an unusual agitation of
spirits, even to a trembling. On inquiring the cause, 'I have been up
all night,' replied the old bard: 'my musical friends made me promise to
write them an Ode for their feast of St. Cecilia: I have been so struck
with the subject which occurred to me, that I could not leave it till I
had _completed_ it; here it is, _finished_ at one sitting.' And
immediately he showed him _this_ Ode, which places the British lyric
poetry above that of any other nation."[26] These accounts are not,
however, so contradictory as they may at first sight appear. It is
possible that Dryden may have completed, at one sitting, the whole Ode,
and yet have employed a fortnight, or much more, in correction. There is
strong internal evidence to show that the poem was, speaking with
reference to its general structure, wrought off at once. A halt or
pause, even of a day, would perhaps have injured that continuous flow of
poetical language and description which argues the whole scene to have
arisen at once upon the author's imagination. It seems possible, more
especially in lyrical poetry, to discover where the author has paused
for any length of time; for the union of the parts is rarely so perfect
as not to show a different strain of thought and feeling. There may be
something fanciful, however, in this reasoning, which I therefore
abandon to the reader's mercy; only begging him to observe, that we have
no mode of estimating the exertions of a quality so capricious as a
poetic imagination; so that it is very possible, that the Ode to St.
Cecilia may have been the work of twenty-four hours, whilst correction
and emendations, perhaps of no very great consequence, occupied the
author as many days. Derrick, in his "Life of Dryden," tells us, upon
the authority of Walter Moyle, that the society paid Dryden ВЈ40 for this
sublime Ode, which, from the passage in his letter above quoted, seems
to have been more than the bard expected at commencing his labour. The
music for this celebrated poem was originally composed by Jeremiah
Clarke,[27] one of the stewards of the festival, whose productions where
more remarkable for deep pathos and delicacy than for fire and energy.
It is probable that, with such a turn of mind and taste, he may have
failed in setting the sublime, lofty, and daring flights of the Ode to
St. Cecilia. Indeed his composition was not judged worthy of
publication. The Ode, after some impertinent alterations, made by
Hughes, at the request of Sir Richard Steele, was set to music by
Clayton, who, with Steele, managed a public concert in 1711; but neither
was this a successful essay to connect the poem with the art it
celebrated. At length, in 1736, "Alexander's Feast" was set by Handel,
and performed in the Theatre-Royal, Covent Garden, with the full success
which the combined talents of the poet and the musician seemed to
insure.[28] Indeed, although the music was at first less successful, the
poetry received, even in the author's time, all the applause which its
unrivalled excellence demanded. "I am glad to hear from all hands," says
Dryden, in a letter to Tonson, "that my Ode is esteemed the best of all
my poetry, by all the town. I thought so myself when I writ it; but,
being old, I mistrusted my own judgment." Mr. Malone has preserved a
tradition, that the father of Lord Chief-Justice Marlay, then a Templar,
and frequenter of Will's coffeehouse, took an opportunity to pay his
court to Dryden, on the publication of "Alexander's Feast;" and,
happening to sit next him, congratulated him on having produced the
finest and noblest Ode that had ever been written in any language. "You
are right, young gentleman (replied Dryden), a nobler Ode never _was_
produced, nor ever _will_." This singularly strong expression cannot be
placed to the score of vanity. It was an inward consciousness of merit,
which burst forth, probably almost involuntarily, and I fear must be
admitted as prophetic.
