John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  The want of the dignity of rhyme was therefore, according to his idea, an essential deficiency in the “Paradise Lost.” According to Aubrey, Dryden communicated to Milton his intention of adding this grace to his poem; to which the venerable bard gave a contemptuous consent, in these words: “Ay, you may tag my verses if you will.” Perhaps few have read so far into the “State of Innocence” as to discover that Dryden did not use this licence to the uttermost and that several of the scenes are not tagg’d with rhyme.

  Dryden at this period engaged in a research recommended to him by “a noble wit of Scotland,” as he terms Sir George Mackenzie, the issue of which, in his apprehension, pointed out further room for improving upon the epic of Milton. This was an inquiry into the “turn of words and thoughts” requisite in heroic poetry. These “turns,” according to the definition and examples which Dryden has given us, differ from the points of wit, and quirks of epigram, common in the metaphysical poets, and consist in a happy, and at the same time a natural, recurrence of the same form of expression, melodiously varied. Having failed in his search after these beauties in Cowley, the darling of his youth, “I consulted,” says Dryden, “a greater genius (without offence to the manes of that noble author), I mean — Milton; but as he endeavours everywhere to express Homer, whose age had not arrived to that fineness, I found in him a true sublimity, lofty thoughts, which were clothed with admirable Grecisms, and ancient words, which he had been digging from the mines of Chaucer and Spenser, and which, with all their rusticity, had somewhat of venerable in them. But I found not there neither that for which I looked.” This judgment Addison has proved to be erroneous, by quoting from Milton the most beautiful example of a turn of words which can be found in English poetry. But Dryden, holding it for just, conceived, doubtless, that in his “State of Innocence” he might exert his skill successfully, by supplying the supposed deficiency, and for relieving those “flats of thought” which he complains of, where Milton, for a hundred lines together, runs on in a “track of scripture;” but which Dennis more justly ascribes to the humble nature of his subject in those passages. The graces, also, which Dryden ventured to interweave with the lofty theme of Milton, were rather those of Ovid than of Virgil, rather turns of verbal expression than of thought. Such is that conceit which met with censure at the time:

  ”Seraph and cherub, careless of their charge,

  And wanton, in full ease now live at large;

  Unguarded leave the passes of the sky,

  And all dissolved in hallelujahs lie.”

  “I have heard,” said a petulant critic, “of anchovies dissolved in sauce; but never of an angel dissolved in hallelujahs.” But this raillery Dryden rebuffs with a quotation from Virgil:

  “Invadunt urbem, somno vinoque sepultam.”

  It might have been replied, that Virgil’s analogy was familiar and simple, and that of Dryden was far-fetched, and startling by its novelty. The majesty of Milton’s verse is strangely degraded in the following speeches, which precede the rising of Pandaemonium. Some of the couplets are utterly flat and bald, and, in others, the balance of point and antithesis is substituted for the simple sublimity of the original:

  Moloch. Changed as we are, we’re yet from homage free;

  We have, by hell, at least gained liberty:

  That’s worth our fall; thus low though we are driven.

  Better to rule in hell, than serve in heaven.

  Lucifer. There spoke the better half of Lucifer!

  Asmoday. ’Tis fit in frequent senate we confer,

  And then determine how to steer our course;

  To wage new war by fraud, or open force.

  The doom’s now past, submission were in vain.

  Mol. And were it not, such baseness I disdain;

  I would not stoop, to purchase all above,

  And should contemn a power, whom prayer could move,

  As one unworthy to have conquered me.

  Beelzebub. Moloch, in that all are resolved, like thee

  The means are unproposed; but ’tis not fit

  Our dark divan in public view should sit;

  Or what we plot against the Thunderer,

  The ignoble crowd of vulgar devils hear.

  Lucif. A golden palace let be raised on high;

  To imitate? No, to outshine the sky!

  All mines are ours, and gold above the rest:

  Let this be done; and quick as ’twas exprest.

  I fancy the reader is now nearly satisfied with Dryden’s improvements on Milton. Yet some of his alterations have such peculiar reference to the taste and manners of his age, that I cannot avoid pointing them out. Eve is somewhat of a coquette even in the state of innocence. She exclaims:

  ”from each tree

  The feathered kind press down to look on me;

  The beasts, with up-cast eyes, forsake their shade,

  And gaze, as if I were to be obeyed.

  Sure, I am somewhat which they wish to be,

  And cannot, — I myself am proud of me.”

  Upon receiving Adam’s addresses, she expresses, rather unreasonably in the circumstances, some apprehensions of his infidelity; and, upon the whole, she is considerably too knowing for the primitive state. The same may be said of Adam, whose knowledge in school divinity, and use of syllogistic argument, Dryden, though he found it in the original, was under no necessity to have retained.

  The “State of Innocence,” as it could not be designed for the stage, seems to have been originally intended as a mere poetical prolusion; for Dryden, who was above affecting such a circumstance, tells us, that it was only made public, because, in consequence of several hundred copies, every one gathering new faults, having been dispersed without his knowledge, it became at length a libel on the author, who was forced to print a correct edition in his own defence. As the incidents and language were ready composed by Milton, we are not surprised when informed, that the composition and revision were completed in a single month. The critics having assailed the poem even before publication, the author has prefixed an “Essay upon Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence;” in which he treats chiefly of the use of metaphors, and of the legitimacy of machinery.

  The Dedication of the “State of Innocence,” addressed to Mary of Este, Duchess of York, is a singular specimen of what has been since termed the celestial style of inscription. It is a strain of flattery in the language of adoration; and the elated station of the princess is declared so suited to her excellence, that Providence has only done justice to its own works in placing the most perfect work of heaven where it may be admired by all beholders. Even this flight is surpassed by the following:— “Tis true, you are above all mortal wishes; no man desires impossibilities, because they are beyond the reach of nature. To hope to be a god is folly exalted into madness; but, by the laws of our creation, we are obliged to adore him, and are permitted to love him too at human distance. ’Tis the nature of perfection to be attractive; but the excellency of the object refines the nature of the love. It strikes an impression of awful reverence; ’tis indeed that love which is more properly a zeal than passion. ’Tis the rapture which anchorites find in prayer, when a beam of the divinity shines upon them; that which makes them despise all worldly objects; and yet ’tis all but contemplation. They are seldom visited from above; but a single vision so transports them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives. Mortality cannot bear it often: it finds them in the eagerness and height of their devotion; they are speechless for the time that it continues, and prostrate and dead when it departs.” Such eulogy was the taste of the days of Charles, when ladies were deified in dedications and painted as Venus or Diana upon canvas. In our time, the elegance of the language would be scarcely held to counterbalance the absurdity of the compliments.

  Lee, the dramatic writer, an excellent poet, though unfortunate in his health and circumstances evinced his friendship for Dryden, rather than his judgment, by prefixing to the “State of Innocence” a copy of verses, i
n which he compliments the author with having refined the ore of Milton. Dryden repaid this favour by an epistle, in which he beautifully apologises for the extravagancies of his friend’s poetry, and consoles him for the censure of those cold judges, whose blame became praise when they accused the warmth which they were incapable of feeling.

  Having thus brought the account of our author’s productions down to 1674, from which period we date a perceptible change in his taste and mode of composition, I have only to add, that his private situation was probably altered to the worse, by the burning of the King’s Theatre, and the debts contracted in rebuilding it. The value of his share in that company must consequently have fallen far short of what it was originally. In other respects, he was probably nearly in the same condition as in 1672. The critics, who assailed his literary reputation, had hitherto spared his private character; and, excepting Rochester, whose malignity towards Dryden now began to display itself, he probably had not lost one person whom he had thought worthy to be called a friend. Lee, who seems first to have distinguished himself about 1672, was probably then added to the number of his intimates. Milton died shortly before the publication of the “State of Innocence;” and we may wish in vain to know his opinion of that piece; but if tradition can be trusted, he said, perhaps on that undertaking, that Dryden was a good rhymer, but no poet. Blount, who had signalised himself in Dryden’s defence, was now added to the number of his friends. This gentleman dedicated his “Religio Laici” to Dryden in 1683, as his much-honoured friend; and the poet speaks of him with kindness and respect in 1696, three years after his unfortunate and violent catastrophe.

  Dryden was, however, soon to experience the mutability of the friendship of wits and courtiers. A period was speedily approaching, when the violence of political faction was to effect a breach between our author and many of those with whom he was now intimately connected; indeed, he was already entangled in the quarrels of the great, and sustained a severe personal outrage, in consequence of a quarrel with which he had little individual concern.

  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 à 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; 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.

  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, 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.” 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. Moreover, the play is ostentatiously stated in the title to be written by Elkanah
Settle, Servant to His Majesty; 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, 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, assassinations, a dancing tree, a rainbow, a shower of hail, a criminal executed, 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