"But I am strangely mistaken, if I have not seen this very Almanzor of
your's in some disguise about this town, and passing under another name.
Prithee tell me true, was not this huff-cap once the Indian Emperor,
and, at another time, did not he call himself Maximme? Was not Lyndaraxa
once called Almeria, I mean under Montezuma the Indian Emperor? I
protest and vow they are either the same, or so alike, that I can't for
my heart distinguish one from the other. You are, therefore, a strange
unconscionable thief, that art not content to steal from others, but
do'st rob thy poor wretched self too."

[20a] [There is no I in the original where Clifford quotes:

  [Greek: Oinobares, kunos ommat echon kradiaen d elaphoio.
  Daemoboros basileus.]

I owe my copy of this curious monument of belated spite to the kindness
of Mr. Austin Dobson.--ED.]

[21] "Amongst several other late exercises of the Athenian virtuosi in
the Coffee-academy, instituted by Apollo for the advancement of Gazette
Philosophy, Mercury's, Diurnalli, etc., this day was wholly taken up in
the examination of the 'Conquest of Granada.' A gentleman on the reading
of the First Part, and there in the description of the bull-baiting,
said, that Almanzor's playing at the bull was according to the standard
of the Greek heroes, who, as Mr. Dryden had learnedly observed (Essay
of Dramatic Poesy), were great beef-eaters. And why might not Almanzor
as well as Ajax, or Don Quixote, worry mutton, or take a bull by the
throat, since the author had elsewhere explained himself, by telling us
the heroes were more noble beasts of prey, in his Epistle to his
'Conquest of Granada,' distinguishing them into wild and tame; and in
his play we have Almanzor shaking his chains, and frighting his keeper,
broke loose, and tearing those that would reclaim his rage. To this he
added, that his bulls excelled other heroes, as far as his own heroes
surpassed his gods; that the champion bull was divested of flesh and
blood, and made immortal by the poet, and bellowed after death; that
the fantastic bull seemed fiercer than the true, and the dead
bellowings in verse were louder than the living; concluding with a
wish, that Mr. Dryden had the good luck to have varied that old verse
quoted in his dramatic essay:

  '_Atque Ursum, el Pugiles media inter carmina poscunt
  Tauros, et Pugiles pruna inter carmina posco_;'

and prefixed it to the front of his play, instead of

  '_Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo,
  Majus ojius moveo_.'"

--_Censure of the Rota_, p. 1.

[22] "But however, if he were taken for no good comic poet, or satirist,
he had found a way of much easier licence (though more remarkable in the
sense of some), which was, not only to libel men's persons, but to
represent them on the stage too. That to this purpose he made his
observations of men, their words, and actions, with so little disguise,
that many beheld themselves acted for their half-crown; yet, after all,
was unwilling to believe, that this was not both good comedy, and no
less good manners."--_Friendly Vindication of Mr. Dryden_, p. 8.

[23]  Dedication to the "Assignation."

[24] Dryden either confines himself to two pamphlets, or, more probably,
speaks of the three as written by only two authors. Leigh is, I presume,
the contemptible pedant, and the Sir Fastidious Brisk of Oxford. The
Cambridge author, who imitated his style, is the Fungoso of the
Dedication:--"As for the errors they pretend to find in me, I could
easily show them that the greatest part of them are beauties; and for
the rest, I could recriminate upon the best poets of our nation, if I
could resolve to accuse another of little faults, whom at the same time
I admire for greater excellencies. But I have neither concernment enough
upon me to write any thing in my own defence, neither will I gratify the
ambition of two wretched scribblers, who desire nothing more than to be
answered. I have not wanted friends, even amongst strangers, who have
defended me more strongly than my contemptible pedant could attack me;
for the other, he is only like Fungoso in the play, who follows the
fashion at a distance, and adores the Fastidious Brisk of Oxford. You
can bear me witness, that I have not consideration enough for either of
them to be angry: let Mævius and Bavius admire each other; I wish to be
hated by them and their fellows, by the same reason for which I desire
to be loved by you."--_Dedication to the Assignation_, vol. iv.

[25] A student of law in the Temple, and author of that notable
alteration of "Titus Andronicus" mentioned in the commentaries on
Shakespeare. Besides the "Citizen turned Gentleman," he wrote the
"Careless Lovers," "Scaramouch, a Philosopher," the "Wrangling Lovers,"
"Edgar and Alfreda," the "English Lawyer," the "London Cuckolds,"
distinguished by Cibber as the grossest play that ever succeeded, "Dame
Dobson," the said alteration of "Titus Andronicus," the "Canterbury
Guests," and the "Italian Husband,"--in all twelve plays, not one of
which has the least merit.

[26]
  "An author did, to please you, let his wit run,
  Of late, much on a serving-man and cittern;
  And yet, you would not like the serenade,--
  Nay, and you damned his nuns in masquerade;
  You did his Spanish sing-song too abhor;
  _Ah! que locura con tanto rigor!_
  In fine, the whole by you so much was blamed,
  To act their parts, the players were ashamed.
  Ah, how severe your malice was that day!
  To damn, at once, the poet and his play:
  But why was your rage just at that time shown,
  When what the author writ was all his own?
  Till then, he borrowed from romance, and did translate;
  And those plays found a mere indulgent fate."

[27] "For my own part, I, who am the least among the poets, have yet the
fortune to be honoured with the _best patron_, and the best friend; for
(to omit some great persons of our court, to whom I am many ways
obliged, and who have taken care of me during the exigencies of a war.)
I have found a better Maecenas in the person of my Lord Treasurer
Clifford, and a more elegant Tibullus in that of Sir Charles Sedley."--
_Dedication to the Assignation_.

[28] In his Dedication of the Pastorals of Virgil to Hugh Lord Clifford,
he says: "I have no reason to complain of fortune, since, in the midst
of that abundance, I could not have chosen better than the worthy son of
so illustrious a father. He was the patron of my manhood, when I
flourished in the opinion of the world, though with small advantage to
my fortune, till he awakened the remembrance of my royal master. He was
that Pollio, or that Varus, _who introduced me to Augustus_."

[29] The elder Richardson has told a story, that Lord Buckhurst,
afterwards Earl of Dorset, was the first who introduced the "Paradise
Lost," then lying like waste paper in the bookseller's hands, to the
notice of Dryden. But this tradition has been justly exploded by Mr.
Malone, _Life of Dryden_, vol. i. p. 114. Indeed it is by no means
likely that Dryden could be a stranger to the very existence of a large
poem, written by a man of such political as well as literary eminence,
even if he had not happened, as was the case, to be personally known to
the author. [The various legends as to Dryden and "Paradise Lost,"
Dorset and "Paradise Lost," etc., are well handled by Professor Masson,
_Life of Milton_, vol. vi. pp. 628-635.--ED.]

[30] Dennis's Letters, quoted by Malone.

[31]
  "With thee conversing, I forget all time,
  All seasons, and their change; all please alike:
  Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
  With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun,
  When first on this delightful land he spreads
  His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
  Glist'ning with dew: fragrant the fertile earth
  After soft showers, and sweet the coming on
  Of grateful evening mild: then, silent night,
  With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
  And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
  But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
  With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
  On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
  Glist'ning with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
  Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,
  With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon;
  Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet."

"The variety of images in this passage is infinitely pleasing, and the
recapitulation of each particular image, with a little varying of the
expression, makes one of the finest turns of words that I have ever
seen; which I rather mention, because Mr. Dryden has said, in his
Preface to Juvenal, that he could meet with no turn of words in
Milton."--_Tatler_, No. 114.

[32] See this Epistle. It was prefixed to "Alexander the Great;" a play,
the merits and faults of which are both in extreme.




SECTION IV.


_Dryden's Controversy with Settle--with Rochester--He is assaulted in
Rose-street--Aureng-Zebe--Dryden meditates an Epic Poem--All for Love--
Limberham--Oedipus--Troilus and Cressida--The Spanish Friar--Dryden
supposed to be in opposition to the Court._

"The State of Innocence" was published in 1674, and "Aureng-Zebe,"
Dryden's next tragedy, appeared in 1675. In the interval, he informs us,
his ardour for rhyming plays had considerably abated. The course of
study which he imposed on himself doubtless led him to this conclusion.
But it is also possible, that he found the peculiar facilities of that
drama had excited the emulation of very inferior poets, who, by dint of
show, rant, and clamorous hexameters, were likely to divide with him the
public favour. Before proceeding, therefore, to state the gradual
alteration in Dryden's own taste, we must perform the task of detailing
the literary quarrels in which he was at this period engaged. The chief
of his rivals was Elkanah Settle, a person afterwards utterly
contemptible; but who, first by the strength of a party at court, and
afterwards by a faction in the state, was, for a time, buoyed up in
opposition to Dryden. It is impossible to detail the progress of the
contest for public favour between these two ill-matched rivals, without
noticing at the same time Dryden's quarrel with Rochester, who appears
to have played off Settle in opposition to him, as absolutely, and
nearly as successfully, as Settle ever played off the literary
[literal?] puppets, for which, in the ebb of his fortune, he
wrote dramas.

In the year 1673, Dryden and Rochester were on such friendly terms, that
our poet inscribed to his lordship his favourite play of "Marriage Г  la
Mode;" not without acknowledgment of the deepest gratitude for favours
done to his fortune and reputation. The dedication, we have seen, was so
favourably accepted by Rochester, that the reception called forth a
second tribute of thanks from the poet to the patron. But at this point,
the interchange of kindness and of civility received a sudden and
irrecoverable check. This was partly owing to Rochester's fickle and
jealous temper, which induced him alternately to raise and depress the
men of parts whom he loved to patronise; so that no one should ever
become independent of his favour, or so rooted in the public opinion as
to be beyond the reach of his satire; but it may also in part be
attributed to Dryden's attachment to Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave,
afterwards Duke of Buckingham, then Rochester's rival in wit and
court-favour, and from whom he had sustained a deadly affront, on an
occasion, which, as the remote cause of a curious incident in Dryden's
life, I have elsewhere detailed in the words of Sheffield himself.
Rochester, who was branded as a coward in consequence of this
transaction, must be reasonably supposed to entertain a sincere hatred
against Mulgrave; with whom he had once lived on such friendly terms as
to inscribe to him an Epistle on their mutual poems. But, as his nerves
had proved unequal to a personal conflict with his brother peer, his
malice prompted the discharge of his spleen upon those men of literature
whom his antagonist cherished and patronised. Among these Dryden held a
distinguished situation; for about 1675 he was, as we shall presently
see, sufficiently in Sheffield's confidence to correct and revise that
nobleman's poetry;[1] and in 1676 dedicated to him the tragedy of
"Aureng-Zebe," as one who enjoyed not only his favour, but his love and
conversation. Thus Dryden was obnoxious to Rochester, both as holding a
station among the authors of the period, grievous to the vanity of one
who aimed, by a levelling and dividing system, to be the tyrant, or at
least the dictator, of wit; and also as the friend, and even the
confidant, of Mulgrave, by whom the witty profligate had been baffled
and humiliated. Dryden was therefore to be lowered in the public
opinion; and for this purpose, Rochester made use of Elkanah Settle,
whom, though he gratified his malice by placing him in opposition to
Dryden, he must, in his heart, have thoroughly despised.[2]

This playwright, whom the jealous spleen of a favourite courtier, and
the misjudging taste of a promiscuous audience, placed for some time in
so high a station, came into notice in 1671, on the representation of
his first play, "Cambyses, King of Persia," which was played six nights
successively. This run of public favour gave Rochester some pretence to
bring Settle to the notice of the king; and, through the efforts of this
mischievous wit, joined to the natural disposition of the people to be
carried by show, rant, and tumult, Settle's second play, "The Empress of
Morocco," was acted with unanimous and overpowering applause for a month
together. To add to Dryden's mortification, Rochester had interest
enough to have this tragedy of one whom he had elevated into the rank of
his rival, first acted at Whitehall by the lords and ladies of the
court; an honour which had never been paid to any of Dryden's
compositions, however more justly entitled to it, both from intrinsic
merit, and by the author's situation as poet-laureate. Rochester
contributed a prologue upon this brilliant occasion to add still more
grace to Settle's triumph; but what seems yet more extraordinary, and
has, I think, been unnoticed in all accounts of the controversy,
Mulgrave,[3] Rochester's rival and the friend of Dryden, did the same
homage to "The Empress of Morocco." From the king's private theatre,
"The Empress of Morocco" was transferred, in all its honours, to the
public stage in Dorset Gardens, and received with applause corresponding
to the expectation excited by its favour at Whitehall. While the court
and city were thus worshipping the idol which Rochester had set up, it
could hardly be expected of poor Settle, that he should be first to
discern his own want of desert. On the contrary, he grew presumptuous on
success; and when he printed his performance, the dedication to the Earl
of Norwich was directly levelled against the poet-laureate who termed it
the "most arrogant, calumniatory, ill-mannered, and senseless preface he
ever saw."[4] And, to add gall to bitterness, the bookseller thought
"The Empress of Morocco" worthy of being decorated with engravings, and
sold at the advanced price of two shillings; being the first drama
advanced to such honourable distinction.[5] Moreover, the play is
ostentatiously stated in the title to be written by Elkanah Settle,
_Servant to His Majesty_;[6] an addition which the laureate had assumed
with greater propriety.

If we are asked the merit of a performance which made such an impression
at the time, we may borrow an expression applied to a certain orator,[7]
and say, that "The Empress of Morocco" must have acted _to the tune_ of
a good heroic play. It had all the outward and visible requisites of
splendid scenery, prisons, palaces, fleets, combats of desperate
duration and uncertain issue,[8] assassinations, a dancing tree, a
rainbow, a shower of hail, a criminal executed,[9] and hell itself
opening upon the stage. The rhyming dialogue too, in which the play was
written, had an imperative and tyrannical sound; and to a foreigner,
ignorant of the language, might have appeared as magnificent as that of
Dryden. But it must raise our admiration, that the witty court of
Charles could patiently listen to a "tale told by an idiot, full of
noise and fury, signifying nothing," and give it a preference over the
poetry of Dryden. The following description of a hail-storm will
vindicate our wonder:

  "This morning, as our eyes we upward cast,
  The desert regions of the air lay waste.
  But straight, as if it had some penance bore,
  A mourning garb of thick black clouds it wore.
  But on the sudden,
  Some aery demon changed its form, and now
  That which looked black above looked white below;
  The clouds dishevelled from their crusted locks,
  Something like gems coined out of crystal rocks.
  The ground was with this strange bright issue spread,
  As if heaven in affront to nature had
  Designed some new-found tillage of its own,
  And on the earth these unknown seeds had sown.
  Of these I reached a grain, which to my sense
  Appeared as cool as virgin-innocence;
  And like that too (which chiefly I admired),
  Its ravished whiteness with a touch expired.
  At the approach of heat, this candid rain
  Dissolved to its first element again.

  _Muly-H._ Though showers of hail Morocco never see,
  Dull priest, what does all this portend to me?

  _Ham_. It does portend--

  _Muly._ What?

  _Ham_. That the fates design--

  _Muly_. To tire me with impertinence like thine."

Such were the strains once preferred to the magnificent verses of
Dryden; whose very worst bombast is sublimity compared to them. To prove
which, the reader need only peruse the Indian's account of the Spanish
fleet in the "Indian Emperor," to which the above lines are a parallel;
each being the description of an object familiar to the audience, but
new to the describer. The poet felt the disgraceful preference more
deeply than was altogether becoming; but he had levelled his powers,
says Johnson, when he levelled his desires to those of Settle, and
placed his happiness in the claps of multitudes. The moral may be
carried yet further; for had not Dryden stooped to call to the aid of
his poetry the auxiliaries of scenery, gilded truncheons, and verse of
more noise than meaning, it is impossible his plays could have been
drawn into comparison with those of Settle. But the meretricious
ornaments which he himself had introduced were within the reach of the
meanest capacity; and, having been among the first to debauch the taste
of the public, it was retributive justice that he should experience
their inconstancy. Indeed Dryden seems himself to admit, that the
principal difference between his heroic plays and "The Empress of
Morocco," was, that the former were good sense, that looked like
nonsense, and the latter nonsense, which yet looked very like sense. A
nice distinction, and which argued some regret at having opened the way
to such a rival.

The feelings of contempt ought to have suppressed those of anger; but
Dryden, who professedly lived to please his own age, had not temper to
wait till time should do him justice. Angry he was; and unfortunately he
determined to shew the world that he did well in being so. With this
view, in conjunction with Shadwell and Crowne, two brother-dramatists,
equally jealous of Settle's success, he composed a pamphlet, entitled
"Remarks upon the Empress of Morocco." This piece is written in the same
tone of boisterous and vulgar raillery with which Clifford and Leigh had
assailed Dryden himself; and little resembles our poet's general style
of controversy. He seems to have exchanged his satirical scourge for the
clumsy flail of Shadwell, when he stooped to use such raillery as the
following description of Settle: "In short, he is an animal of a most
deplored understanding, without reading and conversation: his being is
in a twilight of sense, and some glimmering of thought, which he can
never fashion either into wit or English. His style is boisterous and
rough-hewn; his rhyme incorrigibly lewd, and his numbers perpetually
harsh and ill-sounding."

Settle, nothing dismayed with this vehement attack, manfully retorted
the abuse which had been thrown upon him, and answered the insulting
clamour of his three antagonists with clamorous insult.[10] It was
obvious that the weaker poet must be the winner by this contest in
abuse; and Dryden gained no more by his dispute with Settle, than a
well-dressed man who should condescend to wrestle with a
chimney-sweeper. The feud between them was carried no further, until,
after the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel," party animosity added
spurs to literary rivalry.

We must now return to Rochester, who, observing Settle's rise to his
unmerited elevation in the public opinion, became as anxious to lower
his presumption as he had formerly been to diminish the reputation of
Dryden. With this view, that tyrannical person of honour availed himself
of his credit to recommend Crowne to write the masque of "Calisto,"
which was acted by the lords and ladies of the court of Charles in 1675.
Nothing could be more galling towards Dryden, a part of whose duty as
poet-laureate was to compose the pieces designed for such occasions.
Crowne, though he was a tolerable comic writer,[11] had no turn whatever
for tragedy, or indeed for poetry of any kind. But the splendour of the
scenery and dresses, the quality of the performers, selected from the
first nobility, and the favour of the sovereign, gave "Calisto" a run of
nearly thirty nights. Dryden, though mortified, tendered his services in
the shape of an epilogue, to be spoken by Lady Henrietta Maria
Wentworth.[12] But the influence of his enemy, Rochester, was still
predominant, and the epilogue of the laureate was rejected.[13]

The author of "Calisto" also lost his credit with Rochester, so soon as
he became generally popular; and shortly after the representation of
that piece, its fickle patron seems to have recommended to the royal
protection, a rival more formidable to Dryden than either Settle or
"starch Johnny Crowne."[14] This was no other than Otway, whose "Don
Carlos" appeared in 1676, and was hailed as one of the best heroic plays
which had been written. The author avows in his preface the obligations
he owed to Rochester, who had recommended him to the king and the duke,
to whose favour he owed his good success, and on whose indulgence he
reckoned as insuring that of his next attempt.[15] These effusions of
gratitude did not, as Mr. Malone observes, withhold Rochester, shortly
after, from lampooning Otway, with circumstances of gross insult, in the
"Session of the Poets."[16] In the same preface, Otway, in very
intelligible language, bade defiance to Dryden whom he charges with
having spoken slightly of his play.[17] But although Dryden did not
admire the general structure of Otway's poetry, he is said, even at this
time, to have borne witness to his power of moving the passions; an
acknowledgment which he long afterwards solemnly repeated. Thus Otway,
like many others, mistook the character of a pretended friend, and did
injustice to that of a liberal rival. Dryden and he indeed never appear
to have been personal friends, even when they both wrote in the Tory
interest. It was probably about this time that Otway challenged Settle,
whose courage appears to have failed him upon the occasion.

Rochester was not content with exciting rivals against Dryden in the
public opinion, but assailed him personally in an imitation of Horace,
which he quaintly entitled, "An Allusion to the Tenth Satire." It came
out anonymously about 1678, but the town was at no loss to guess that
Rochester was the patron or author. Much of the satire was bestowed on
Dryden, whom Rochester for the first time distinguishes by a ridiculous
nickname, which was afterwards echoed by imitating dunces in all their
lampoons. The lines are more cutting, because mingled with as much
praise as the writer probably thought necessary to gain the credit of a
candid critic.[18] Dryden, on his part, did not view with indifference
these repeated direct and indirect attacks on his literary reputation by
Rochester. In the preface to "All for Love," published in 1678, he gives
a severe rebuke to those men of rank, who, having acquired the credit of
wit, either by virtue of their quality, or by common fame, and finding
themselves possessed of some smattering of Latin, become ambitious to
distinguish themselves by their poetry from the herd of gentlemen. "And
is not this," he exclaims, "a wretched affectation, not to be contented
with what fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their
estates, but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly
expose their nakedness to public view? Not considering that they are
not to expect the same approbation from sober men, which they have found
from their flatterers after the third bottle. If a little glittering in
discourse has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity
of undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate,
but yet is in possession of it; would he bring it of his own accord to
be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talent, yet have
the excuse, that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged
in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble
out of mere wantonness, take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace
was certainly in the right, where he said, 'That no man is satisfied
with his own condition.' A poet is not pleased, because he is not rich;
and the rich are discontented, because the poets will not admit them of
their number. Thus the case is hard with writers: if they succeed not,
they must starve; and if they do, some malicious satire is prepared to
level them, for daring to please without their leave. But while they are
so eager to destroy the fame of others, their ambition is manifest in
their concernment; some poem of their own is to be produced, and the
slaves are to be laid flat with their faces on the ground, that the
monarch may appear in the greater majesty." This general censure of the
persons of wit and honour about town, is fixed on Rochester in
particular not only by the marked allusion in the last sentence, to the
despotic tyranny which he claimed over the authors of his time, but also
by a direct attack upon such imitators of Horace, who make doggrel of
his Latin, misapply his censures, and often contradict their own. It is
remarkable, however, that he ascribes this imitation rather to some zany
of the great, than to one of their number; and seems to have thought
Rochester rather the patron than the author.

At the expense of anticipating the order of events, and that we may
bring Dryden's dispute with Rochester to a conclusion, we must recall to
the reader's recollection our author's friendship with Mulgrave. This
appears to have been so intimate, that, in 1675, that nobleman intrusted
him with the task of revising his "Essay upon Satire:" a poem which
contained dishonourable mention of many courtiers of the time, and was
particularly severe on Sir Car Scrope and Rochester. The last of these
is taxed with cowardice, and a thousand odious and mean vices; upbraided
with the grossness and scurrility of his writings, and with the infamous
profligacy of his life.[19] The versification of the poem is as flat and
inharmonious, as the plan is careless and ill-arranged; and though the
imputation was to cost Dryden dear, I cannot think that any part of the
"Essay on Satire" received additions from his pen. Probably he might
contribute a few hints for revision; but the author of "Absalom and
Achitophel" could never completely disguise the powers which were
shortly to produce that brilliant satire. Dryden's verses must have
shone among Mulgrave's as gold beside copper. The whole Essay is a mere
stagnant level, no one part of it so far rising above the rest as to
bespeak the work of a superior hand. The thoughts, even when conceived
with some spirit, are clumsily and unhappily brought out; a fault never
to be traced in the beautiful language of Dryden, whose powers of
expression were at least equal to his force of conception. Besides, as
Mr. Malone has observed, he had now brought to the highest excellence
his system of versification; and is it possible he could neglect it so
far as to write the rugged lines in the note, where all manner of
elliptical barbarisms are resorted to, for squeezing the words into a
measure "lame and o'erburdened, and screaming its wretchedness"? The
"Essay on Satire" was finally subjected by the noble author to the
criticism of Pope, who, less scrupulous than Dryden, appears to have
made large improvements; but after having undergone the revision of two
of the first names in English poetry, it continues to be a very
indifferent performance.

In another point of view, it seems inconsistent with Dryden's situation
to suppose he had any active share in the "Essay on Satire." The
character of Charles is treated with great severity, as well as those of
the Duchesses of Portsmouth and Cleveland, the royal mistresses. This
was quite consistent with Mulgrave's disposition, who was at this time
discontented with the ministry; but certainly would not have beseemed
Dryden, who held an office at court. Sedley also, with whom Dryden
always seems to have lived on friendly terms, is harshly treated in the
"Essay on Satire." It may be owned, however, that these reasons were not
held powerful at the time, since they must, in that case, have saved
Dryden from the inconvenient suspicion which, we will presently see,
attached to him. The public were accustomed to see the friendship of
wits end in mutual satire; and the good-natured Charles was so generally
the subject of the ridicule which he loved, that no one seems to have
thought there was improbability in a libel being composed on him by his
own laureate.

The "Essay on Satire," though written, as appears from the title-page of
the last edition, in 1675, was not made public until 1679, when several
copies were handed about in manuscript. Rochester sends one of these to
his friend Henry Saville, on the 21st of November 1679, with this
observation:--"I have sent you herewith a libel, in which my own share
is not the least. The king, having perused it, is no way dissatisfied
with his. The author is apparently Mr. Dr[yden], his patron, Lord
M[ulgrave,] having a panegyric in the midst." From hence it is evident,
that Dryden obtained the reputation of being the author; in consequence
of which, Rochester meditated the base and cowardly revenge which he
afterwards executed; and he thus coolly expressed his intention in
another of his letters:--"You write me word, that I'm out of favour with
a certain poet, whom I have admired for the disproportion of him and his
attributes. He is a rarity which I cannot but be fond of, as one would
be of a hog that could fiddle, or a singing owl. If he falls on me at
the blunt, which is his very good weapon in wit, I will forgive him if
you please; and _leave the repartee to black Will with a cudgel_."

In pursuance of this infamous resolution, Dryden, upon the night of the
18th December 1679, was waylaid by hired ruffians, and severely beaten,
as he passed through Rose-street, Covent-garden returning from Will's
Coffee-house to his own house in Gerrard-street. A reward of ВЈ50 was in
vain offered, in the London Gazette and other newspapers, for the
discovery of the perpetrators of this outrage.[20] The town was,
however, at no loss to pitch upon Rochester as the employer of the
bravoes, with whom the public suspicion joined the Duchess of
Portsmouth, equally concerned in the supposed affront thus avenged. In
our time, were a nobleman to have recourse to hired bravoes to avenge
his personal quarrel against any one, more especially a person holding
the rank of a gentleman, he might lay his account with being hunted out
of society. But in the age of Charles, the ancient high and chivalrous
sense of honour was esteemed Quixotic, and the civil war had left traces
of ferocity in the manners and sentiments of the people. Rencounters,
where the assailants took all advantages of number and weapons, were as
frequent, and held as honourable, as regular duels. Some of these
approached closely to assassination; as in the famous case of Sir John
Coventry, who was waylaid, and had his nose slit by some young men of
high rank, for a reflection upon the king's theatrical amours. This
occasioned the famous statute against maiming and wounding, called the
Coventry Act; an Act highly necessary, since so far did our ancestors'
ideas of manly forbearance differ from ours, that Killigrew introduces
the hero of one of his comedies, a cavalier, and the fine gentleman of
the piece, lying in wait for, and slashing the face of a poor courtezan,
who had cheated him.[21] It will certainly be admitted, that a man,
surprised in the dark and beaten by ruffians, loses no honour by such a
misfortune. But, if Dryden had received the same discipline from
Rochester's own hand without resenting it, his drubbing could not have
been more frequently made a matter of reproach to him;--a sign surely of
the penury of subjects for satire in his life and character, since an
accident, which might have happened to the greatest hero who ever lived,
was resorted to as an imputation on his honour. The Rose-alley ambuscade
became almost proverbial;[22] and even Mulgrave, the real author of the
satire, and upon whose shoulders the blows ought in justice to have
descended, mentions the circumstance in his "Art of Poetry;" with a cold
and self-sufficient complacent sneer:

  "Though praised and punished for another's rhymes,
  His own deserve as great applause _sometimes_."

To which is added in a note, "A libel for which he was both applauded
and wounded, though entirely ignorant of the whole matter." This flat
and conceited couplet, and note, the noble author judged it proper to
omit in the corrected edition of his poem. Otway alone, no longer the
friend of Rochester, and perhaps no longer the enemy of Dryden, has
spoken of the author of this dastardly outrage with the contempt his
cowardly malice deserved:

  "Poets in honour of the truth should write,
  With the same spirit brave men for it fight;
  And though against him causeless hatreds rise,
  And daily where he goes, of late, he spies
  The scowls of sullen and revengeful eyes;
  'Tis what he knows with much contempt to bear,
  And serves a cause too good to let him fear:
  He fears no poison from incensed drab,
  No ruffian's five-foot sword, nor rascal's stab;
  Nor any other snares of mischief laid,
  _Not a Rose-alley cudgel ambuscade_;
  From any private cause where malice reigns,
  Or general pique all blockheads have to brains."

It does not appear that Dryden ever thought it worth his while to take
revenge on Rochester; and the only allusion to him in his writings may
be found in the Essay prefixed to the translation of Juvenal, where he
is mentioned as a man of quality, whose ashes our author was unwilling
to disturb, and who had paid Dorset, to whom that piece is inscribed,
the highest compliment which his self-sufficiency could afford to any
one. Perhaps Dryden remembered Rochester among others, when, in the same
piece, he takes credit for resisting opportunities and temptation to
take revenge, even upon those by whom he had been notoriously and
wantonly provoked.[23]

The detail of these quarrels has interrupted our account of Dryden's
writings, which we are now to resume.

"Aureng-Zebe" was his first performance after the failure of the
"Assignation." It was acted in 1675 with general applause. "Aureng-Zebe"
is a heroic, or rhyming play, but not cast in a mould quite so romantic
as the "Conquest of Granada." There is a grave and moral turn in many of
the speeches, which brings it nearer the style of a French tragedy. It
is true, the character of Moral borders upon extravagance; but a certain
licence has been always given to theatrical tyrants, and we excuse
bombast in him more readily than in Almanzor. There is perhaps some
reason for this indulgence. The possession of unlimited power, vested in
active and mercurial characters, naturally drives them to an extravagant
indulgence of passion, bordering upon insanity; and it follows, that
their language must outstrip the modesty of nature. Propriety of diction
in the drama is relative, and to be referred more to individual
character than to general rules: to make a tyrant sober-minded is to
make a madman rational. But this discretion must be used with great
caution by the writer, lest he should confound the terrible with the
burlesque. Two great actors, Kynaston and Booth, differed in their style
of playing Morat.

The former, who was the original performer, and doubtless had his
instructions from the author, gave full force to the sentiments of
avowed and barbarous vainglory, which mark the character. When he is
determined to spare Aureng-Zebe, and Nourmahal pleads,

  "Twill not be safe to let him live an hour,"

Kynaston gave all the stern and haughty insolence of despotism to his
answer,

  "I'll do't to show my arbitrary power."[24]

But Booth, with modest caution, avoided marking and pressing upon the
audience a sentiment hovering between the comic and terrible, however
consonant to the character by whom it was delivered. The principal
incident in "Aureng-Zebe" was suggested by King Charles himself. The
tragedy is dedicated to Mulgrave, whose patronage had been so effectual,
as to introduce Dryden and his poetical schemes to the peculiar notice
of the king and duke. The dedication and the prologue of this piece
throw considerable light upon these plans, as well as upon the
revolution which had gradually taken place in Dryden's dramatic taste.

During the space which occurred between writing the "Conquest of
Granada" and "Aureng-Zebe", our author's researches into the nature and
causes of harmony of versification been unremitted, and he had probably
already collected the materials of his intended English _Prosodia_.
Besides this labour, he had been engaged in a closer and more critical
examination of the ancient English poets, than he had before bestowed
upon them. These studies seem to have led Dryden to two conclusions:
first, that the drama ought to be emancipated from the fetters of rhyme;
and secondly, that he ought to employ the system of versification, which
he had now perfected, to the more legitimate purpose of epic poetry.
Each of these opinions merits consideration.

However hardily Dryden stood forward in defence of the heroic plays, he
confessed, even in the heat of argument, that Rhyme, though he was brave
and generous, and his dominion pleasing, had still somewhat of the
usurper in him. A more minute inquiry seems to have still further
demonstrated the weakness of this usurped dominion; and our author's
good taste and practice speedily pointed out deficiencies and
difficulties, which Sir Robert Howard, against whom he defended the use
of rhyme, could not show, because he never aimed at the excellencies
which they impeded. The perusal of Shakespeare, on whom Dryden had now
turned his attention, led him to feel, that something further might be
attained in tragedy than the expression of exaggerated sentiment in
smooth verse, and that the scene ought to represent not a fanciful set
of agents exerting their superhuman faculties in a fairy-land of the
poet's own creation, but human characters, acting from the direct and
energetic influence of human passions, with whose emotions the audience
might sympathise, because akin to the feelings of their own hearts. When
Dryden had once discovered, that fear and pity were more likely to be
excited by other causes than the logic of metaphysical love, or the
dictates of fantastic honour, he must have found, that rhyme sounded as
unnatural in the dialogue of characters drawn upon the usual scale of
humanity, as the plate and mail of chivalry would have appeared on the
persons of the actors. The following lines of the Prologue to
"Aureng-Zebe," although prefixed to a rhyming play, the last which he
ever wrote, express Dryden's change of sentiment on these points:

  "Our author, by experience, finds it true,
  'Tis much more hard to please himself than you:
  And, out of no feigned modesty, this day
  Damns his laborious trifle of a play:
  Not that it's worse than what before he writ,
  But he has now another taste of wit;
  And, to confess a truth, though out of time,
  Grows weary of his long-loved mistress, Rhyme.
  Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound,
  And Nature flies him like enchanted ground:
  What verse can do, he has performed in this,
  Which he presumes the most correct of his;
  But spite of all his pride, a secret shame
  Invades his breast at Shakespeare's sacred name:
  Awed when he hears his godlike Romans rage,
  He, in a just despair, would quit the stage;
  And to an age less polished, more unskilled,
  Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield."

It is remarkable, as a trait of character, that, though our author
admitted his change of opinion on this long disputed point, he would not
consent that it should be imputed to any arguments which his opponents
had the wit to bring against him. On this subject he enters a protest in
the Preface to his revised edition of the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy" in
1684:--"I confess, I find many things in this discourse which I do not
now approve; my judgment being not a little altered since the writing of
it; but whether for the better or the worse, I know not: neither indeed
is it much material, in an essay, where all I have said is
problematical. For the way of writing plays in verse, which I have
seemed to favour, I have, since that time, laid the practice of it
aside, till I have more leisure, because I find it troublesome and slow:
but I am no way altered from my opinion of it, _at least with any
reasons which have opposed it_; for your lordship may easily observe,
that none are very violent against it, but those who either have not
attempted it, or who have succeeded ill in their attempt."[25] Thus
cautious was Dryden in not admitting a victory, even in a cause which,
he had surrendered.

But although the poet had admitted, that, with powers of versification
superior to those possessed by any earlier English author, and a taste
corrected by the laborious study both of the language and those who had
used it, he found rhyme unfit for the use of the drama, he at the same
time discovered a province where it might be employed in all its
splendour. We have the mortification to learn, from the Dedication of
"Aureng-Zebe," that Dryden only wanted encouragement to enter upon the
composition of an epic poem, and to abandon the thriftless task of
writing for the promiscuous audience of the theatre,--a task which,
rivalled as he had lately been by Crowne and Settle, he most justly
compares to the labour of Sisyphus. His plot, he elsewhere explains, was
to be founded either upon the story of Arthur, or of Edward the Black
Prince; and he mentions it to Mulgrave in the following remarkable
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.