John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  ”See, my loved Britons, see your Shakespeare rise,

  An awful ghost confessed to human eyes!

  Unnamed, methinks, distinguished I had been,

  From other shades, by this eternal green,

  About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive,

  And, with a touch, their withered bays revive.

  Untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age,

  I found not, but created first the stage.

  And if I drained no Greek or Latin store,

  ’Twas that my own abundance gave me more.

  On foreign trade I needed not rely,

  Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply.

  In this, my rough-drawn play, you shall behold

  Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold,

  That he who meant to alter, found ‘em such;

  He shook, and thought it sacrilege to touch.

  Now, where are the successors to my name?

  What bring they to fill out a poet’s fame?

  Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age;

  Scarce living to be christened on the stage!

  For humour farce, for love they rhyme dispense,

  That tolls the knell for their departed sense.”

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

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

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

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

  Previous to 1678, Lord Mulgrave, our aut
hor’s constant and probably effectual patron, had given him an opportunity of discoursing over his plan of an epic poem to the king and Duke of York; and in the preface to “Aureng-Zebe” in that year, the poet intimates an indirect complaint that the royal brothers had neglected his plan. About two years afterwards, Mulgrave seems himself to have fallen into disgrace, and was considered as in opposition to the court. Dryden was deprived of his intercession, and seems in some degree to have shared his disgrace. The “Essay on Satire” became public in November 1679, and being generally imputed to Dryden, it is said distinctly by one libeller, that his pension was for a time interrupted. This does not seem likely; it is more probable, that Dryden shared the general fate of the household of Charles II., whose appointments were but irregularly paid; but perhaps his supposed delinquency made it more difficult for him than others to obtain redress. At this period broke out the pretended discovery of the Popish Plot, in which Dryden, even in “Absalom and Achitophel,” evinces a partial belief. Not encouraged, if not actually discountenanced, at court; sharing in some degree the discontent of his patron Mulgrave; above all, obliged by his situation to please the age in which he lived, Dryden did not probably hold the reverence of the Duke of York so sacred, as to prevent his making the ridicule of the Catholic religion the means of recommending his play to the passions of the audience. Neither was his situation at court in any danger from his closing on this occasion with the popular tide. Charles, during the heat of the Popish plot, was so far from being in a situation to incur odium by dismissing a laureate for having written a Protestant play, that he was obliged for a time to throw the reins of government into the hands of those very persons to whom the Papists were most obnoxious. The inference drawn from Dryden’s performance was that he had deserted the court; and the Duke of York was so much displeased with the tenor of the play, that it was the only one of which, on acceding to the crown, he prohibited the representation. The “Spanish Friar” was often objected to the author by his opponents, after he had embraced the religion there satirised. Nor was the idea of his apostasy from the court an invention of his enemies after his conversion, for it prevailed at the commencement of the party-disputes; and the name of Dryden is, by a partisan of royalty, ranked with that of his bitter foe Shadwell, as followers of Shaftesbury in 1680. But whatever cause of coolness or disgust our author had received from Charles or his brother, was removed, as usual, so soon as his services became necessary; and thus the supposed author of a libel on the king became the ablest defender of the cause of monarchy, and the author of the “Spanish Friar” the advocate and convert of the Catholic religion.

  In his private circumstances Dryden must have been even worse situated than at the close of the last Section. His contract with the King’s Company was now ended, and long before seems to have produced him little profit. If Southerne’s biographer can be trusted, Dryden never made by a single play more than one hundred pounds; so that, with all his fertility, he could not, at his utmost exertion, make more than two hundred a year by his theatrical labours. At the same time, they so totally engrossed his leisure, that he produced no other work of consequence after the “Annus Mirabilis.” If, therefore, the payment of his pension was withheld, whether from the resentment of the court, or the poverty of the exchequer, he might well complain of the “unsettled state” which doomed him to continue these irksome and ill-paid labours.

  SECTION V.

  Dryden engages in Politics — Absalom and Achitophel, Part First — The Medal — MacFlecknoe — Absalom and Achitophel, Part Second — The Duke of Guise.

  The controversies, in which Dryden had hitherto been engaged, were of a private complexion, arising out of literary disputes and rivalry. But the country was now deeply agitated by political faction; and so powerful an auxiliary was not permitted by his party to remain in a state of inactivity. The religion of the Duke of York rendered him obnoxious to a large proportion of the people, still agitated by the terrors of the Popish Plot. The Duke of Monmouth, handsome, young, brave, and courteous, had all the external requisites for a popular idol; and what he wanted in mental qualities was amply supplied by the Machiavel subtlety of Shaftesbury. The life of Charles was the only isthmus between these contending tides, “which, mounting, viewed each other from afar, and strove in vain to meet.” It was already obvious, that the king’s death was to be the signal of civil war. His situation was doubly embarrassing, because, in all probability, Monmouth, whose claims were both unjust in themselves and highly derogatory to the authority of the crown, was personally amiable, and more beloved by Charles than was his inflexible and bigoted brother. But to consent to the bill for excluding the lawful heir from the crown, would have been at the same time putting himself in a state of pupillage for the rest of his reign, and evincing to his subjects, that they had nothing to expect from attachment to his person, or defence of his interest. This was a sacrifice not to be thought of so long as the dreadful recollection of the wars in the preceding reign determined a large party to support the monarch, while he continued willing to accept of their assistance. Charles accordingly adopted a determined course; and, to the rage rather than confusion of his partisans, Monmouth was banished to Holland, from whence he boldly returned without the king’s licence, and openly assumed the character of the leader of a party. Estranged from court, he made various progresses through the country, and employed every art which the genius of Shaftesbury could suggest, to stimulate the courage, and to increase the number, of his partisans. The press, that awful power, so often and so rashly misused, was not left idle. Numbers of the booksellers were distinguished as Protestant or fanatical publishers; and their shops teemed with the furious declamations of Ferguson, the inflammatory sermons of Hickeringill, the political disquisitions of Hunt, and the party plays and libellous poems of Settle and Shadwell. An host of rhymers, inferior even to those last named, attacked the king, the Duke of York, and the ministry, in songs and libels, which, however paltry, were read, sung, rehearsed, and applauded. It was time that some champion should appear in behalf of the crown, before the public should have been irrecoverably alienated by the incessant and slanderous clamour of its opponents. Dryden’s place, talents, and mode of thinking, qualified him for this task. He was the poet-laureate and household servant of the king thus tumultuously assailed. His vein of satire was keen, terse, and powerful, beyond any that has since been displayed. From the time of the Restoration, he had been a favourer of monarchy, perhaps more so, because the opinion divided him from his own family. If he had been for a time neglected, the smiles of a sovereign soon make his coldness forgotten; and if his narrow fortune was not increased, or even rendered stable, he had promises of provision, which inclined him to look to the future with hope, and endure the present with patience. If he had shared in the discontent which for a time severed Mulgrave from the royal party, that cause ceased to operate when his patron was reconciled to the court, and received a share of the spoils of the disgraced Monmouth. If there wanted further impulse to induce Dryden, conscious of his strength, to mingle in an affray where it might be displayed to advantage, he had the stimulus of personal attachment and personal enmity, to sharpen his political animosity. Ormond, Halifax, and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, among the nobles, were his patrons; Lee and Southerne, among the poets, were his friends. These were partisans of royalty. The Duke of York, whom the “Spanish Friar” probably had offended, was conciliated by a prologue on his visiting the theatre at his return from Scotland, and it is said, by the omission of certain peculiarly offensive passages, so soon as the play was reprinted. The opposite ranks contained Buckingham, author of the “Rehearsal;” Shadwell, with whom our poet now urged open war; and Settle, the insolence of whose rivalry was neither forgotten nor duly avenged. The respect due to Monmouth was probably the only consideration to be overcome: but his character was to be handled with peculiar lenity; and his duchess, who, rather than himself, had patronised Dryden, was so dissatisfied with the politics, as well as the oth
er irregularities, of her husband, that there was no danger of her taking a gentle correction of his ambition as any affront to herself. Thus stimulated by every motive, and withheld by none, Dryden composed, and on the 17th November 1681 published, the satire of “Absalom and Achitophel.”

  The plan of the satire was not new to the public. A Catholic poet had, in 1679, paraphrased the scriptural story of Naboth’s vine-yard and applied it to the condemnation of Lord Stafford, on account of the Popish Plot. This poem is written in the style of a scriptural allusion; the names and situations of personages in the holy text being applied to those contemporaries, to whom the author assigned a place in his piece. Neither was the obvious application of the story of Absalom and Achitophel to the persons of Monmouth and Shaftesbury first made by our poet. A prose paraphrase, published in 1080, had already been composed upon this allusion. But the vigour of the satire, the happy adaptation, not only of the incidents, but of the very names to the individuals characterised, gave Dryden’s poem the full effect of novelty. It appeared a very short time after Shaftesbury had been committed to the Tower, and only a few days before the grand jury were to take under consideration the bill preferred against him for high treason. Its sale was rapid beyond example; and even those who were most severely characterised, were compelled to acknowledge the beauty, if not the justice, of the satire. The character of Monmouth, an easy and gentle temper, inflamed beyond its usual pitch by ambition, and seduced by the arts of a wily and interested associate, is touched with exquisite delicacy. The poet is as careful of the offending Absalom’s fame, as the father in Scripture of the life of his rebel son. The fairer side of his character is industriously presented, and a veil drawn over all that was worthy of blame. But Shaftesbury pays the lenity with which Monmouth is dismissed. The traits of praise, and the tribute paid to that statesman’s talents, are so qualified and artfully blended with censure, that they seem to render his faults even more conspicuous, and more hateful. In this skilful mixture of applause and blame lies the nicest art of satire. There must be an appearance of candour on the part of the poet, and just so much merit allowed, even to the object of his censure, as to make his picture natural. It is a child alone who fears the aggravated terrors of a Saracen’s head; the painter, who would move the awe of an enlightened spectator, must delineate his tyrant with human features. It seems likely, that Dryden considered the portrait of Shaftesbury, in the first edition of “Absalom and Achitophel,” as somewhat deficient in this respect; at least the second edition contains twelve additional lines, the principal tendency of which is to praise the ability and integrity with which Shaftesbury had discharged the office of lord high chancellor. It has been reported, that this mitigation was intended to repay a singular exertion of generosity on Shaftesbury’s part, who, while smarting under the lash of Dryden’s satire, and in the short interval between the first and second edition of the poem, had the liberality to procure admission for the poet’s son upon the foundation of the Charterhouse, of which he was then governor. But Mr. Malone has fully confuted this tale, and shown, from the records of the seminary, that Dryden’s son Erasmus was admitted upon the recommendation of the king himself. The insertion, therefore, of the lines in commemoration of Shaftesbury’s judicial character, was a voluntary effusion on the part of Dryden, and a tribute which he seems to have judged it proper to pay to the merit even of an enemy. Others of the party of Monmouth, or rather of the opposition party (for it consisted, as is commonly the case, of a variety of factions, agreeing in the single principle of opposition to the government), were stigmatised with severity, only inferior to that applied to Achitophel. Among these we distinguish the famous Duke of Buckingham, with whom, under the character of Zimri, our author balanced accounts for his share in the “Rehearsal;” Bethel, the Whig sheriff, whose scandalous avarice was only equalled by his factious turbulence; and Titus Oates, the pretended discoverer of the Popish Plot. The account of the Tory chiefs, who retained, in the language of the poem, their friendship for David at the expense of the popular hatred, included, of course, most of Dryden’s personal protectors. The aged Duke of Ormond is panegyrised with a beautiful apostrophe to the memory of his son, the gallant Earl of Ossory. The Bishops of London and Rochester; Mulgrave our author’s constant patron, now reconciled with Charles and his government; the plausible and trimming Halifax; and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, second son to the great Clarendon, appear in this list. The poet having thus arrayed and mustered the forces on each side, some account of the combat is naturally expected; and Johnson complains, that, after all the interest excited, the story is but lamely winded up by a speech from the throne, which produces the instantaneous and even marvellous effect, of reconciling all parties, and subduing the whole phalanx of opposition. Even thus, says the critic, the walls, towers, and battlements of an enchanted castle disappear, when the destined knight winds his horn before it. Spence records in his Anecdotes, that Charles himself imposed on Dryden the task of paraphrasing the speech to his Oxford parliament, at least the most striking passages, as a conclusion to his poem of “Absalom and Achitophel.”