nature; we see her features in a glass darkly. It is a style formed after the rules of criticism, from arbitrary opinions and narrow views; its illustrations are tedious, its events improbable, its catastrophes ridiculous. It is wanting in real force, and rapidity of thought and language: it gives no emphatic imitation of real individual character, no strong representation of powerful feeling; the perfume is drawn through a limbec before it reaches us. In Shaksp are, it comes with all the woodland fragrance on its wing, fresh blowing from the violet banks, and breathing the vernal odours. Dryden's composition is like the artificial grotto raised amid level plains, sparkling with import ed minerals, and glittering with reflected and unnatural lights. The old drama resembles rather the cavern, hewn from the marble rock by nature's hand, whose lofty portals, winding labyrinths, and gigantic chambers, fill the mind with wonder and delight. The one opens into decora ed gardens, trellised howers, and smooth and shaven lawns; the other lies amid nature's richest and wildest scenes, the glacier, and the granite hills above,-wild flowers, and viny glens and sunlit lakes below. The play of Amphitryon is founded on the old comedy of Plautus, with some necessary alterations of the plot, and some few improve ments in the incidents. Dryden did not judge incorrectly of the taste of his audience, for it was favourably received, and Scott considers it as one of the most favourable specimens of his comic muse, but taste has grown more capricious, or more refined in modern days. A few years since I was present at its revival, when the skill and cleverness of the best comic actors could not save it from disgrace. The feelings of the audience did not seem from the first to be engaged in the exhibition. The manner of thinking was not theirs; the incidents were strange, the characters and customs beyond the common line of observation, the wit was cold and did not strike. In the days of Plautus, it probably kept the benches in a roar, and the original play, even now, when the mind, through the language, is thrown back into the feelings of the time; and when the improbabili'ies of the dramatic scene are softened down in the perusal, may be read with much pleasure. That the gods were wont occasionally to descend from Olympus for earthly recreation, and to assume the shape of •Malone recovered from Tonson's papers a let ter and copy of verses, addressed to the publisher, on the merits of Amphitryon, by Milbourne, who afterwards attacked Dryden with such bitterness and malignity; they are full of praise. See Works, vol. viii. p. 5. men was an established belief, or a familiar tale. Jupiter and Mercury, as Amphitryon and Sosia, were old friends to the smutched artificers and shopkeepers of the Tiber, while the dresses and masks rendered the illusion perfect. I remember that the endearing terms of greedy cupidity in which Phædra addresses the golden goblet, that was offered as a bribe, seemed to disgust the audience as something unnatural; the character of the impudent, cheating household slave in Sosia, and the drollery, the disguise, the knavish tricks of Mercury, which made the children of Romulus chuckle, appeared in its humour and conceits coarse and low. The play was heard throughout with impatience and dislike. The opera of King Arthur was performed in 1691 its own merits, and Purcell's beautiful music, ensured its success. Dryden had long hoped, as I before mentioned, to have enjoyed leisure and competence sufficient to enable him to devote himself to the composition of an Epic poem on the History of Arthur. That time, however, unfortunately never arrived: and we have lost, according to Sir Walter Scott's opinion, a poem probably formed upon the model of the Ancients, classical and correct, though wanting in the force, which reality of painting and description never fails to give to Epic narrative. Arthur would have reminded us of Achilles, and the sameness of a copy would have been substituted for the spirit of z characteristic original; but we should have found picturesque narrative detailed in most manly and majestic verse, and interfused with lessons teaching us to know human life, maxims proper to guide it, and sentiments which ought to adorn it. Certainly, if this poem had been executed with the spirit, the elegance, the picturesque narrative, the masculine language, the 'long resounding march of verse' that distinguishes his fables, it would have formed a rich and noble addition to his fame, and to our poetry. We must regret, says his biographer, that ava rice or negligence withheld from him the means of a comfortable support: when he had abandoned all hopes of executing his greater work, he adapted his intended subject to an opera, fairy tale in verse. Scott says, the scene in which Emmeline recovers her sight, when well represented, never fails to excite the most pleas ing testimony of interest and applause. The language and ministry of Grimbald, the fierce earthly demon, are painted with some touches that arise even to sublimity. The conception •See Scott's Dryden, vol. vill. p. 110. The principal incident in King Arthur is copied from the adventures of Rinaldo, in the haunted Prove on Mount Olivet, in the Gier. Liber. of Tasso of Philidel, a fallen angel, retaining some of the hue of heaven, who is touched with repentance, and not without hopes of being finally received, is an idea, so far as I know, entirely original. This piece was written for the conclusion of the reign of Charles, and had a political tendency, but the Revolution ruined Dryden's prospects of preferment, and put a strong restraint on the avowal of his opinions; consequently his poem sank into a pleasing description of the wonders and adventures of a fairy tale. It was received with great applause, and is the only one of Dryden's plays which keeps possession of the stage.* I shall observe, if any one conversant with the poetry of Milton, will attentively read this play, and Don Sebastian, he will acknowledge that Dryden had now diligen ly studied the works of that great poet, and transplanted, with taste and judicious selection, some of his fine combinations of language, and beautiful expressions of thought. The lyrical dialogue between Cupid and the genius, was in the recollection of Gray, when he wrote the Descent of Odin. In May, 1692, his tragedy of Cleomenes was acted: Dryden was too ill to finish it, and it was obligingly completed by his friend Southerne. This is one of the most successful specimens of the heroic drama which he left; nor do I know that any thing can be well added to the observations which his last eminent biographer and critic has made. The character of Cleomenes, Dryden has drawn with admirable spirit and precision. It was peculiarly suited to his genius, for though some times deficient in the pathos, and natural expressions of violent passion, he never fails in expressing, in the most noble language, the sentiments of that stoical philosophy, which considers sufferings rather as subjects of moral reflection, than of natural feeling. Dryden has softened the character of his Spartan Hero by the influence of those chaste and tender romantic affections which thrive best in bosoms rendered by nature and philosophy inaccessible to selfish feeling. The haughty and unbending spirit, the love of war, the thirst of honour proper to the Lacedæmonians, complete the character of Cleomenes. Cleonidas is a model of a Spartan youth, which seems to be taken from the character of Hengo in the Bonduca of •The battle between Arthur and Oswald, with sponges in their hands filled with blood, which they occasionally squeeze on each other, heats any stage direction in absunlity that I ever remember; it would have formed a fine duel in Tom Thumb. ↑ Southerne revised and finished the latter half of the fifth act. See the Dedication to his Play, called The Wife's Excuse.' Malene erroneously reads the 'fifth act' for half the fifth act. Beaumont and Fletcher. The wife and mother of Cleomenes seem to be sketched after those of Coriolanus: the former exhibiting the mild gentle disposition, the latter the high souled magnanimity of a Spartan matron. Ptolemy is a silly tyrant, Sosy bius a wily minister, and Cleanthes a friend and confidant, such as tyrants, ministers, and confidants in tragedies usually are. Cassandra is not sketched with any peculiar care; her snares are of a nature not very perilous to Spartan virtue, for her manners are too openly licentious. She may be considered as furnishing the original hint for the much more highly finished character of Zara in Congreve's Mourning Bride. The rabble scene, the poet tells us, was introduced to gratify the more barbarous part of the audience. This play, when first published, met with opposition from the government, being supposed to allude to the situation of the exiled king. The exertions, however, of Lord Rochester and others, as well as the evidence of its inoffensive nature, removed this. Mrs. Barry* distinguished her self by her representation of the first character. There is nothing in this play strongly to ex cite the passions, or to awaken a thrilling inte rest in the fortunes of the characters; but the Spartan courage, lofty virtue, unbending firmness, generous and affectionate disposition of Cleomenes, are felt with delight. The character of Cassandra would have admitted a finer touch, and more varied colouring; the plot brings with it few changes that surprise, and its termination, though faithful to history, does not satisfy the mind, as it involves only the innocent and brave in misfortune, and leaves the guilty and the weak, the voluptuous tyrant and his abandoned mistress, unpunished and secure.' We are now arrived at the close of Dryden's dramatic efforts; he had possession of the stage for a period of thirty years, from 1664 to 1694, and during that time his industry and fertility of invention bestowed on it no less than seven and twenty dramatic performances. I am surry to add that his last piece, Love Triumphant, was condemned by the universal consent of the town. This unsuccessful play is so inferior to some of his later productions, that I have often, while reading it, considered, whether in the hard necessities of his later days, he might not have produced a piece written in earlier lifet and which had been deservedly ne • See Cibber's account of Mrs. Barry at this time, In his Life, as quoted by Malone, vol. iii. p. 227. ↑ Scott owns that the turn of the dialogue is in our poet's early manner, and in the most laboured scenes, he has recourse to rhyme, which he had su long discarded: my conjecture, therefore, I think, is not improbable. Scott says, 'If we except Am. glected by him, while the unimpaired vigour and luxuriance of his genius supplied him without difficulty. The plot turns on the indulgence of that incestuous passion which I have observed and censured before; and on which the genius of Dryden seemed to look without a sufficient consideration of its offensive nature.* There are no characters which command our respect or love. Veramond's feelings towards Alphonso are those of aversion; the incidents are strained and improbable: and the termination is effected by a sudden and inconsistent change in the feelings of the king which the speech of Celidea effected. But as Scott observes, the hatred and aversion of Veramond was not likely to be abated by the objects of them turning out to be father and son, nor much soothed by the circumstance of their making him prisoner in his own metropolis. Yet the tyrant of Arragon alters his whole family arrange ments and habits of mind, and takes his hated foes into his family and bosom, merely in order that the play may be concluded.† Literary exertion was now doubly necessary to secure to Dryden the means of livelihood: and from this time to the close of his life, he will be found assiduously and laboriously employed. He translated three of the satires of Juvenal, and the whole of Persius; and with boyna, our author never produced a play when the tragic part had less interest, or the comic less hu mour." See a letter preserved by Malone on the fortune of this play, 22d March, 1673-4, when the writer says: The success of Southerne's Fatal Marriage will vex huffing Dryden and Congreve to madness. Dryden's play is a Tragi-Comedy, but in my opinion, one of the worst he ever wrote, if not the very worst; the comical part descends beneath the style and show of a Bartholomew Fair Drill. It was damned by the universal cry of the town, nemine contradicente, not the conceited poet. He says in his prologue that this is the last the town must expect from him; he had done himself a kindness, had he taken his leave before. For a character of this translation, see Gifford's Introduction to Persius, p. vi. The majestical flow of his verse, the energy and beauty of particular passages, and the inimitable purity and simplicity which pervade much of his language, place him above the hope of rivalry, and are better calculated to generate despair, than to excite emulation; but Dryden is sometimes negligent, and sometimes unfaithful. He wanders with licentious foot, careless alike of his author and his reader, and seems to make a wanton sacrifice of his own learning. It is Impossible to read a page of his translation with the assistance of his sens, and Messrs. Duke and Creech, he gave to the public a complete translation of the two great satirical poets. In 1691, he wrote a short preface to Walsh's Dialogue on Women; and in February of the same year, he composed an elegy on the Countess of Abingdon, under the name of Eleonora. It has been observed that one singularity attended this production. It was written on a person whom he had not seen, at the request of another whom he did not know. He prefixed, in 1692, an account of Polybius to Sir Henry Sheare's translation, and in 1693, he published the third volume of his miscellanies. Some poems of Ovid and the poetry of Hector and Andromache in the Iliad are from his pen. Messrs. Yalden, C. Hopkins, and N. Higgens, are the heroes who shine in this volume; and Johnny Crowne closed it with the translation of the Lutrin. An unfinished poem on the civil wars by Cowley, from a manuscript, formed an attraction to the book. At this time, Congreve astonished the public by such an early display of brilliant wit, comic force, and knowledge of character, as could be expected only to result from a familiar acquaintance with society, and extensive observation of mankind. Yet Congreve was scarcely of age,* when his first play, the Old Bachelor, was performed. I am not aware that any English poet, with the exception perhaps of Chatterton, ever exhibited such a precocity of talent : and this was shown in a department of poetry in which the minds of youthful poets are seldom seen to expatiate. Congreve, however, sought neither the flowery meadow, nor the purling stream,' but was seen with his youthful pencil lightly sketching the foibles, analyzing the passions, and tracing the characters of mankind. We know, that at a far more advanced age than this, Dryden considered a comedy required such powers of execution and such a delicacy of conception, as to make him regret his rashness in intruding himself to the out seeing that he was intimately acquainted with the original, and yet every page betrays a disre gard of its sense. By nature Dryden was eminently gifted for a translator of Persius. He had much of his austerity of manner and closeness of reason. ing. Yet by some unaccountable obliquity, he has messed those characteristic qualities so habitual to him, and made the poet flippant and unconsequen tial.' Wycherly wrote his first play, Love in a Wood, at nineteen. The Plain Dealer, when he was twenty-five, which he wrote in three weeks. As regards both Wycherly and Congreve, I believe it must be conceded, that the mirror which their Thalia held up, did not reflect with truth the manners of their age: I believe it is Madame de Stael, who says, Nothing is less like English manners than English comedy;' truc, for it was but an imi tation of the French. public under the auspices of Thalia. In preparing this play for the stage, Dryden willingly lent the assistance of his great experience to the Young poet; by whom he was repaid, with a very sincere attachment, and a kindness that extended beyond his life. Some lines prefixed to the Double Dealer, are given to Dryden, of which Malone says, they are of such excellence, that however often they are perused, they can never cease to be read with delight and admiration.' In 1694 Tonson published the Annual Miscellany, to which Dryden contributed a version of the third Georgic, and an Epistle to Sir Godfrey Kneller. Dismissing now all inferior engagements, having relinquished the stage for ever, and anxious, by the success of some great work, to save himself from the approach of poverty, in his declining life; Dryden, in the full maturity of his practised powers, with great knowledge of the laws of poetry, and with all the dexterity and grace that arises from experience and exercise, commenced his translation of Virgil's Æneid.* Johnson says, that the nation considered its honour interested in the event. Sir William Dolben gave him the various editions of the author. Dr. Knightly Chetwood furnished him with the Life of Virgil, and the preface to the Pastorals; Addison supplied the arguments of the several books, and an Essay on the Georgics. The first lines of this great poet, which he translated, he wrote with a diamond on a pane of glass in one of the windows of Chesterton House, in Huntingdonshire, then the residence of his kinsman and namesake. To those who look with reverence to the Genius Loci, which virtue and talent have sanctified by their residence, it will be far from uninteresting to hear, that the version of the first Georgic and a great part of the last Eneid were made at Denham Court, in Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir William Bowyer; and that the seventh Eneid was translated at Lord Exeter's, at Burleigh: thus the venerable oaks, and the gray battlements of that princely mansion, are hung with poetic tablets and noble recollections of departed genius; no less are the grottoes of Twickenham and the glades of Dawly filled with the fondest remembrances of the past; the gardens which Pope loved, and the retreat which Bolingbroke adorned, will ever have an interest to the mind of taste, beyond what the charms of nature could alone impart. This feeling will preserve its emotions, though it must Supped at Mr. Edward Sheldon's, where was Mr. Dryden the poet, who now intended to write no more plays, being intent on his translation of Virgil. He read over his Prologue and Epilogue to his Valedictory Play, now shortly to be acted. Evelyn's Diary, p. 89. be attracted with a delightful curiosity, where By the agreement, dated June 15, 1694, Dryden was to receive for the translation of Virgil the sum of 2004., at stated intervals, and one hundred copies of the work upon large paper, which Tonson was to sell for him at 51. 58. each to subscribers; Dryden was also to have any additional number of copies, on paying the difference between the price of the penses, and had only the proceeds of the small small and the large paper. Tonson paid all expaper copies. Dryden also received to himself the ment of any sums he had received of Tonson. Conpower of cancelling the agreement, on the repaygreve was one of the witnesses to the instrument. About eleven years ago, a tragedy, called (Edipus, was acted at the minor theatre in Tottenham Court Road. It was formed on the drama of Dryden and Lee, intermixed with some passages from Maurice's translation of Edipus Tyrannus The part of Jocasta was played by Mrs Glover Edipus came on the stage throned in a triumphal car, drawn by real horses. The piece was performed many nights with success. The Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles was acted at Stanmore, by the scholars of Dr. Parr, in the original Greek, before Dr. Samuel Johnson, and a great body of foreign and British literati, in the year 1776: this I learn from Maurice's preface to his translation of the play in question. See Scott's ed. of Dryden's Works, vol. xiii. p. 281, where is a list of the two sets of subscribers. Tonson seems to have driven some hard (not to say not quite honest) bargains with our poet. In very scrupulously received. In the last which you one letter he says, You know now money is did me the favour to change for my wife, besides the clipped money, there were at least forty whit such as I have had formerly. I am not obliged to linge brass. Again, I expect 502. in good silver, not take gold, neither will I, nor stay for it, four and ed I should get nothing by the second subscriptwenty hours after it is due. You always Intendtions, as I found from first to last. Again, upon trial, I find all your trade are sharpers; and you not more than others, therefore I have not wholly left you. It appears that the translation of Virgil was sent to the press when only eight books of it were finished. Dryden received more than twelve hundred pounds. Pope gained by his Homer above five thousand. Much has been said in dispraise of Dryden, for having lavished his dedications too plentifully on his patrons in this work, but it was in the taste of the age; there was, at that time, no republic of letters, a few men of literature and rank were the arbiters and guides of public judgment. The booksellers looked to their fiat to regulate their bargains with the author; besides,the nobles of that time were liberal and rich; there were no manufacturers, or merchant princes to rival them in opulence, and exceed them in prodigality, and they were so separated by wealth and rank from the common order of society, many of them being men of very cultivated minds and elegant knowledge, and not a few themselves authors, that praise* might be offered without meanness, and assistance solicited without servility. It is sufficient vindication of Dryden's integrity to say, that he resisted Tonson's urgent importunity to dedicate the works to King William. The disappointed bookseller turned for assistance to the engraver, who placed a hooked nose on all the plates representing Eneas,† in honour of the Nassau prince. Dr. Johnson has spoken of the merits of this translation, though he has not entered into a critical exposition ofits beauties; but as it seems to have united the suffrage of the critics, and the approbation of the public, I shall just observe, that while I confess it to possess many and various excellencies, while I believe that it has enriched our language with new forms of expression, and new modulations of verse, I do not think that it adequately represents the peculiar beauties of the original poem. Dryden does not seem fully aware of what has been well called the rich economy' of Virgil's expression, the exquisite structure and magic of his words, to attain which he has pushed the power of his language to the extreme verge of its structure, and transplanted those graces • See Burke's opinion of Dryden's dedications in conversation with Malone. P. Works, ii. p. 322. Dryden had frequent recourse to the bounty of the Earl of Dorset. This is proved by some manuscript letters of his in the possession of the Dorset family, and which contain some particulars unfit for publication. MS. Harl. p. 3, Brit. Mus. are the following well known verses: Old Jacob, by deep judgment sway'd, Has placed old Nassau's hook nosed face from its parent tongue which his native idiom did not supply; nor has Dryden kept in mind, that he who treads in the footsteps of the Ro man poet must not deviate without error from the path that has been prescribed.* Hence the grace, the fineness of touch, the tender bloom, of Virgil's language is lost; and that finished and innate delicacy of taste which seemed in stinctively to feel how to arrange the rich me terials which it had collected, and which pre sents all that is appropriate and all that is select;† which admits no figure into its composition that does not produce the intended effect; this cannot with justice be said to have been successfully attained by the translator. Almost every epic poem has its own peculiar level, from which it rises, its own presiding tone of diction. The style of Virgil is elegant, orna mented, and graceful, giving him scope to make gentle descents on the wing, or occasionally to soar, without unnatural effort, into the higher regions of imaginative creation; while his lan guage has such a transparent and crystal clearness, as to reflect with precision every image deposited within it. In awakening the finer sen sibilities, in delineating the movement of the varying passions, in portraying the deep emotions of the heart, Dryden always failed, and such power here was imperiously demanded; yet we must allow that the general character of his poem is dignified, majestic, and harmonious, that it flows on' with varied sweetness and with varied force,' that it possesses many passages of surprising vigour and energy, and examples of versification splendid and successful. Perhaps, as he himself suspected, he should have chosen an author of a different kind: perhaps, under any skill or talent, our language cannot reflect the exquisite beauties of the original. Certainly it must be said, that no one has yet eclipsed the fame which Dryden has so long enjoyed. I must now enumerate some works of less importance and labour. Dryden translated • Dryden has not attended sufficiently to the tenses used by Virgil; while Pope is particularly defective in rendering the force of the particles used by Homer: indeed, he seems almost entirely to have neglected them, to the great detriment of his translation. ↑ Virgil's great distinctive excellence and delicacy of sentiment and expression, joined to the most consummate technical skill, and just feeling in dressing out every circumstance or incident that he employs: but in the appropriation of those in cidents and circumstances he is less happy. P. Knight on Taste, p. 312. Swift's ridicule of this translation, in his Tale of the Tub, is well known. Luke Milbourne was distinguished for his venomous and persevering malignity. Oldmixon and J. Parker volunteered in Dryden's defence. |