John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  ‘Pol. He is a prince, and you are meanly born.

  Leon. Love either finds equality, or makes it.’

  ‘For this glory, after I have seen The canopy of state spread wide above In the abyss of heaven, the court of stars, The blushing morning, and the rising sun, What greater can I see?’

  — a thought borrowed from Menander.

  Continuing our survey of Dryden’s plays, rather according to subject than to chronological order, we arrive at the tragi-comedy of The Spanish Friar (1681), one of the most esteemed of his lighter pieces, but whose praise, we must agree with Mr. Saintsbury, has outstripped its desert. The comic portion is certainly very drastic, but it is not comedy of a high order. It exhibits a distinct declension from Marriage à la Mode, where the quartette of Mitschuldiger are well individualized personages. The sinners in The Spanish Friar are of the most ordinary type — a stage rake, a stage coquette, a stage miser, and a stage friar. Dominick is, indeed, exceedingly amusing, but is more farcical than truly comic. He is painted in broad, staring colours, without delicacy of gradation, with the same brush as the author’s Morats and Almanzors, only dipped into a different paint. Like so many of Dryden’s personages, he is better adapted for the stage than the closet. Every word and gesture would tell in the hands of a good actor, and in Dryden’s time the stage was richer in first-class performers than it ever was before, and probably than it has ever been since. Dryden himself, it must be recorded, attached a high value to his piece, and Dryden was an excellent critic of himself as well as of others. The merit on which he lays chief stress, however, is the ingenious blending of the tragic and comic action. ‘The tragic part,’ says Mr. Churton Collins, ‘helps out the comic, and the comic relieves naturally and appropriately the tragic. In this work, tragi-comedy, from an artistic point of view, has achieved perhaps its highest success.’ This, however, is the achievement of a playwright; in one passage alone do we find the poet. It is the highly imaginative series of descriptions of the distant noises from the Moorish camp, boding assault to the beleaguered city, of the panic in the city itself, and of the far-off, uncertain battle:

  ‘From the Moorish camp, an hour and more, There has been heard a distant humming noise, Like bees disturbed, and arming in their hives.’

  ‘Never was known a night of such distraction; Noise so confused and dreadful, jostling crowds, That run, and know not whither; torches gliding, Like meteors, by each other in the streets.’

  ‘From the Moors’ camp the noise grows louder still: Rattling of armour, trumpets, drums, and atabals; And sometimes peals of shouts that rend the heavens, Like victory; then groans again, and howlings, Like those of vanquished men, but every echo Goes fainter off, and dies in distant sounds.’

  The next play of Dryden’s which it is necessary to notice here might have ranked among his masterpieces if it had been entirely or even principally his own. It is sufficient praise for him to have followed Plautus and Molière with no unequal steps, and while borrowing, as he could not help, the substance of his piece from them, to have enriched their groundwork with original conceptions of his own. The plot of Amphitryon may be considered common property. A better subject for the comic theatre cannot be conceived than the equivocations occasioned by Jupiter’s assumption of Amphitryon’s appearance, doubled, and, as it were, parodied over again by the comic poet’s happy thought of introducing Mercury in the disguise of Amphitryon’s valet. It is surprising that the theme should not have attracted the best poets of the Athenian Middle Comedy. So far as we know, however, it was only treated by a single author, and he not one of the highest reputation, Archippus. How far Plautus translated Archippus must remain a question, but considering that the Greek play attained no especial reputation, while the Latin is one of the best we have, it is only fair to give Plautus credit for having introduced a good deal of his own. His comedy has unfortunately reached us in a mutilated condition, wanting, probably, not less than three hundred verses in the fourth act, but enough remains to show how the action was conducted. Molière, the greatest of comic poets, could not fail to improve upon his model. The substance of the piece admitted of no material alteration, but Molière has greatly enriched and embellished it — first by the happy idea of the prologue between Mercury and Night, for which, however, he is as much indebted to Lucian as he is to Plautus for the rest — and even more by the amusing scene between Sosia and Cleanthis. His play, unlike most of his other performances, is written in a lyrical metre, and the language is a model of elegance, harmony, and polish. Dryden, writing in prose or negligent blank verse, could not rival Molière in this respect; but while losing nothing of the vis comica of either of his predecessors, he has heightened the humour of the piece by a still further elaboration of the hints given by Molière. He was himself well acquainted with Lucian, from whom he has borrowed several additional strokes; and he has doubled the entertainment of the situation between Sosia and Cleanthis by the creation of Phædra, whose intrigue with Mercury makes the comedy of errors absolutely complete.

  We have now to consider the two plays of Dryden’s on which his fame as a dramatist principally rests, and which, if in some respects less interesting than his other dramatic writings, as less intensely characteristic of the man and his age, are for that very reason better equipped for competition for a place among the dramas of all time.

  All for Love (1678) is, Dryden tells us, the only play he wrote entirely to please his own taste, and composed professedly in imitation of ‘the divine Shakespeare.’ He did not, as in his unfortunate alteration of Troilus and Cressida, select a piece of Shakespeare’s which, not understanding, he rashly thought himself able to improve, but, in a spirit of true reverence, set himself to copy one which he held in high esteem. It should be remembered, to the honour of Dryden’s critical judgment, that the two plays of Shakespeare’s most warmly commended by him, Antony and Cleopatra and Richard the Second, were generally underrated even by Shakespeare’s most devoted worshippers, until Coleridge taught us better. In All for Love he found a subject suitable to his genius, and, in our opinion, achieved very decidedly his best play. It is, indeed, almost as good as a play on the French model can be, inferior to its prototypes only from the lack of brilliant declamation, scarcely practicable without rhyme, but more than compensating this inferiority by the greater freedom and flexibility of its blank verse. Its defects are mainly those of its species, and would be less apparent if it did not so directly court comparison with one of the greatest examples of Shakespeare’s art. It would have been impossible for a greater genius than Dryden to have done justice to his theme within the confines prescribed by the classical drama. The demeanour of Antony during the period of his downfall, as recorded by history, is below the dignity of tragedy. Some weakness may be forgiven in a hero, but the heroism of the real Antony is swallowed up in weakness. We can but pity, and pity is largely leavened with contempt. There is but one remedy, to create a Cleopatra so wondrous and fascinating as fairly to counterbalance the empire which Antony throws away for her sake. Shakespeare’s art is equal to the occasion; his Cleopatra is dæmonic, and at the same time so intensely feminine that the purest and meekest of her sex may see much of themselves in her. She is at once an epitome and an encyclopædia, and the reader can hardly despise Antony for being the slave of a spell which he feels so strongly himself. Dryden’s Cleopatra wants this character of universality, which, indeed, none but Shakespeare could have given, and Shakespeare himself could not have given if in bondage to the unities. She is a fine, passionate, sensuous woman, a kind of Mary Stuart, interesting, but not to the point at which it could be felt that the world were well lost for her. The inferiority of Cleopatra reacts grievously upon Antony. Shakespeare’s Cleopatra is so grand that her lover is exalted by the admiration which, in spite of her perfidies, she manifestly feels for him. The beloved of such a woman must be heroic, an impression skilfully assisted by the effect Antony produces upon the prudent and politic Augustus. Dryden’s Cleopatra can b
estow no such patent of distinction. By so much as the chief personages are inferior to their exemplars, by so much also is the puny, starved action of Dryden’s tragedy, restricted to one day and seven characters, inferior to the opulence of Shakespeare’s, ranging over the Roman world, crowded with personages, and gathering up every trait from Plutarch that could contribute picturesqueness to its prodigality of incident and sentiment. Nor is Dryden entirely successful in the conduct of his plot. The introduction of Octavia is a happy idea, but she appears at too late a period of Antony’s history. The implication that his return to her could have availed him in so desperate an extremity is more contrary to historical truth and common reason than any of the anachronisms for which Dryden derides Elizabethan poets. The intrigue by which Dolabella is made to excite Antony’s jealousy is more worthy of comedy than of heroic tragedy, besides being inconsistent with the manly character of its promoter, Ventidius. This gallant veteran is indeed a fine creation; too fine, for he sometimes seems to eclipse Antony and Cleopatra both, and assumes more prominence in the action than Shakespeare would have allowed him. Alexas is the hasty and much marred outline of a character which might have been hardly less impressive had Dryden been at the pains to work out the conception adumbrated in the first act. When all these imperfections are admitted, and they should not be passed over in silence after Scott’s ill-judged parallel of Dryden’s performance with Shakespeare’s, it remains true that All for Love is a very fine play, energetic, passionate, and steeped in that atmosphere of nobility which half redeems the literary defects of The Conquest of Granada. The poetry is frequently very fine, as in Octavia’s speech to Antony, remarkable as perhaps the sole instance of genuine pathos throughout the entire range of Dryden’s dramatic writings:

  ‘Look on these; Are they not yours? or stand they thus neglected As they are mine? Go to him, children, go; Kneel to him, take him by the hand, speak to him; For you may speak, and he may own you, too, Without a blush; and so he cannot all His children. Go, I say, and pull him to me, And pull him to yourselves, from that bad woman. You, Agrippina, hang upon his arms; And you, Antonia, clasp about his waist: If he will shake you off, if he will dash you Against the pavement, you must bear it, children, For you are mine, and I was born to suffer.’

  Antony’s sarcasms upon Augustus reveal the ripening satirist of Absalom and Achitophel:

  ‘Ant. Octavius is the minion of blind chance, But holds from virtue nothing.

  Vent. Has he courage?

  Ant. But just enough to season him from coward. O, ’tis the coldest youth upon a charge, The most deliberate fighter! if he ventures, (As in Illyria once, they say, he did, To storm a town) ’tis when he cannot choose; When all the world have fixt their eyes upon him; And then he lives on that for seven years after; But, at a close revenge he never fails.

  Vent. I heard you challenged him.

  Ant. I did, Ventidius. What think’st thou was his answer? ’Twas so tame! — He said, he had more ways than one to die; I had not.

  Vent. Poor!

  Ant. He has more ways than one; But he would choose them all before that one.

  Vent. He first would choose an ague, or a fever.

  Ant. No; it must be an ague, not a fever; He has not warmth enough to die by that.

  Vent. Or old age and a bed.

  Ant. Ay, there’s his choice. He would live, like a lamp, to the last wink, And crawl upon the utmost verge of life. O, Hercules! Why should a man like this, Who dares not trust his fate for one great action, Be all the care of heaven? Why should he lord it O’er fourscore thousand men, of whom each one Is braver than himself?

  Vent. You conquer’d for him: Philippi knows it; there you shared with him That empire, which your sword made all your own.

  Ant. Fool that I was, upon my eagle’s wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, And now he mounts above me. Good heavens, is this, — is this the man who braves me? Who bids my age make way? drives me before him To the world’s ridge, and sweeps me off like rubbish?’

  Don Sebastian (1690) is generally regarded as Dryden’s dramatic masterpiece. It did not please upon its first appearance, owing to its excessive length. Dryden ingenuously confesses that he was obliged to sacrifice twelve hundred lines, which he restored when the play was printed. Mr. Saintsbury more than hints a preference for All for Love, which we entirely share. Were even the serious part of the respective dramas of equal merit, the scale would be turned in favour of All for Love by the wretchedness of the comic scenes which constitute so large a portion of the rival drama. They are at best indifferent farce, and cannot be even called excrescences on the main action, inasmuch as they do not grow out of it at all. In unity of action, therefore, and uniformity of literary merit, All for Love excels its competitor, and its personages are more truthful and more interesting. Sebastian, though a gallant, chivalrous figure, takes no such hold on the imagination as Antony and Ventidius; and Almeyda, one of the least interesting of Dryden’s heroines, is a sorry exchange for Cleopatra. Muley Moloch and Benducar are wholly stagey. Nothing, then, remains but Dorax, and his capabilities are chiefly evinced in one great scene. Even this is in some respects inartificially conducted. The spectator is insufficiently prepared for it. The special ground of Dorax’s resentment comes upon us as a surprise; and his repentance is too hasty and sudden. A similar defect may be alleged against the whole of the tragic action. The centre of interest is gradually shifted, not intentionally, but from the author’s omission to foreshadow the events to come after the fashion of a masterpiece he must have studied, the Œdipus Tyrannus. At first all our interest is enlisted for Sebastian’s life, and it is with a sort of puzzlement that we feel ourselves at last listening to a story of incest. Muley Moloch and Benducar have disappeared, and their place is occupied by a new character, Alvarez. In every respect, therefore, regarded as a work of art, Don Sebastian fails to sustain comparison with All for Love, and there is no countervailing superiority in the diction, whose general nobility and spirit occasionally swell into bombast. The worst fault remains to be told: Dorax’s ludicrous escape from death by reason of being poisoned by two enemies at once. If either the Emperor or the Mufti would have let him alone he would never have lived to be reconciled to Sebastian, but the fiery drug of the one is neutralized by the icy bane of the other, and vice versâ. Dryden thinks it sufficient excuse that a similar incident is vouched for by Ausonius, but really there is nothing so farcical in the Rehearsal. On the whole, we cannot but consider Don Sebastian a very imperfect play, redeemed from mediocrity by the general vigour and animation of the diction, and the loftiness of soul which seldom forsakes Dryden, except when he wilfully panders to the popular taste.

  But little space can here be devoted to Dryden’s other plays. Some are not worth criticism. The Mock Astrologer, largely borrowed from French and Spanish sources, contains some of his best lyrics. Many parts of Cleomenes are very noble, but it is somewhat heavy as a whole. King Arthur, a musical and spectacular drama, is an excellent specimen of its class. Dryden’s portion of Œdipus, written in conjunction with Lee, shows how finely he, like his model Lucan, could deal with the supernatural. This is by no means the case with his State of Innocence and Fall of Man, which is, nevertheless, one of his pieces most worthy of perusal. It measures the prodigious fall from the age of Cromwell to the age of Charles; while Dryden yet displays such fine poetical gifts as to command respect amid all the absurdities of his unintentional burlesque of Milton.

  Dryden undeniably took up the profession of playwright without an effectual call. He became a dramatist, as clever men in our day become journalists, discerning in the stage the shortest literary cut to fame and fortune. He can hardly be said to have possessed any strictly dramatic gift in any exceptional degree, but he had enough of all to make a tolerable figure on the stage, and was besides a great poet and an admirable critic. His poetry redeems the defects of his serious plays, if we except such a mere pièce de circonstance as Amboyna. The best of them
have very bad faults, but even the worst are impressed with the stamp of genius. It is only in comedy that his failure is sometimes utter and irretrievable; yet a perception of the humorous cannot be denied to the author of Amphitryon. But we nowhere find evidence of any supreme dramatic faculty, anything that would have constrained him to write plays if plays had not happened to be in fashion. As he was not born a dramatic poet he had to be made one, and he became one mainly in virtue of his eminent critical endowment. His prefaces are a most interesting study. They exhibit the steady advance of a slow, strong, sure mind from rudimentary conceptions to as just views of the requisites of dramatic poetry as could well be attained in an age encumbered with venerable fallacies. Dryden’s manly sense, homely sagacity, and piercing shrewdness, break through many trammels, as when, in the preface to All for Love, he vindicates his breach of the conventions of the French stage. In that to Troilus and Cressida he compares Shakespeare with Fletcher, and pronounces decidedly in favour of the former, a preference far from universal in his day. The preface to The Spanish Friar is the most remarkable of any, and shows how much he had learned and unlearned. We shall, nevertheless, find his special glory in his character as the most truly representative dramatist of his time. Otway might have been an Elizabethan, Dryden never could. If we seek for the dramatic author to whom he is on the whole nearest of kin, we may perhaps find him in Byron. Byron had no more genuine dramatic vocation than Dryden had, but, like Dryden, produced memorable works by force and flexibility of genius. From the theatrical point of view Dryden’s plays are greatly superior to Byron’s; if the latter’s rank higher as literature the main cause is the existence of more favourable conditions. Dryden’s worst faults would have been impossible in the nineteenth century; and his treatment of the supernatural, his frequent visitations of speculation, and the lofty tone of his heroic passages, prove that he could have drawn a Manfred, a Cain, or a Myrrha, if he had lived like Byron in a renovated age.