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An English Garner: Critical Essays & Literary Fragments

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Title: An English Garner: Critical Essays & Literary Fragments

Editor: Edward Arber

Author of introduction, etc.: John Churton Collins

Editor: Thomas Seccombe


        
Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #10489]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ENGLISH GARNER: CRITICAL ESSAYS & LITERARY FRAGMENTS ***

AN ENGLISH GARNER


CRITICAL ESSAYS
AND
LITERARY FRAGMENTS


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
J. CHURTON COLLINS


1903


PUBLISHERS' NOTE

The texts contained in the present volume are reprinted with very slight
alterations from the _English Garner_ issued in eight volumes (1877-1890,
London, 8vo.) by Professor Arber, whose name is sufficient guarantee for
the accurate collation of the texts with the rare originals, the old
spelling being in most cases carefully modernised. The contents of the
original _Garner_ have been rearranged and now for the first time
classified, under the general editorial supervision of Mr. Thomas
Seccombe. Certain lacunae have been filled by the interpolation of fresh
matter. The Introductions are wholly new and have been written specially
for this issue. The references to volumes of the _Garner_ (other than the
present volume) are for the most part to the editio princeps, 8 vols.
1877-90.




CONTENTS

   I. Extract from Thomas Wilson's _Art of Rhetoric_, 1554
  II. Sir Philip Sidney's _Letter to his brother Robert_, 1580
 III. Extract from Francis Meres's _Palladis Tamia_, 1598
  IV. Dryden's _Dedicatory Epistle to the Rival Ladies_, 1664
   V. Sir Robert Howard's _Preface to four new Plays_, 1665
  VI. Dryden's _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, 1668
 VII. Extract from Thomas Ellwood's _History of Himself_, describing
        his relations with Milton, 1713
VIII. Bishop Copleston's Advice to a Young Reviewer, 1807
  IX. The Bickerstaff and Partridge Tracts, 1708
   X. Gay's _Present State of Wit_, 1711
  XI. Tickell's Life of Addison, 1721
 XII. Steele's Dedicatory Epistle to Congreve, 1722
XIII. Extract from Chamberlayne's Angliae Notitia, 1669
 XIV. Eachard's Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy
        and of Religion, 1670
  XV. Bickerstaff's Miseries of the Domestic Chaplain, 1710
 XVI. Franklin's Poor Richard Improved, 1757




INTRODUCTION

The miscellaneous pieces comprised in this volume are of interest and
value, as illustrating the history of English literature and of an
important side of English social life, namely, the character and status
of the clergy in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They
have been arranged chronologically under the subjects with which they are
respectively concerned. The first three--the excerpt from Wilson's _Art of
Rhetoric_, Sir Philip Sidney's _Letter_ to his brother Robert, and the
dissertation from Meres's _Palladis Tamia_--are, if minor, certainly
characteristic examples of pre-Elizabethan and Elizabethan literary
criticism. The next three--the _Dedicatory Epistle to the Rival Ladies_,
Howard's _Preface to Four New Plays_, and the _Essay of Dramatic
Poesy_--not only introduce us to one of the most interesting critical
controversies of the seventeenth century, but present us, in the last
work, with an epoch-marking masterpiece, both in English criticism and in
English prose composition. Bishop Copleston's brochure brings us to the
early days of the _Edinburgh Review_, and to the dawn of the criticism
with which we are, unhappily, only too familiar in our own time. From
criticism we pass, in the extract from Ellwood's life of himself, to
biography and social history, to the most vivid account we have of Milton
as a personality and in private life. Next comes a series of pamphlets
illustrating social and literary history in the reigns of Anne and George
I., opening with the pamphlets bearing on Swift's inimitable Partridge
hoax, now for the first time collected and reprinted, and preceding Gay's
_Present State of Wit_, which gives a lively account of the periodic
literature current in 1711. Next comes Tickell's valuable memoir of his
friend Addison, prefixed, as preface, to his edition of Addison's works,
published in 1721, with Steele's singularly interesting strictures on the
memoir, being the dedication of the second edition of the _Drummer_ to
Congreve. The reprint of Eachard's _Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt
of the Clergy and Religion Enquired into_, with the preceding extract from
Chamberlayne's _Angliae Notitia_ and the succeeding papers of Steele's in
the _Tatler_ and _Guardian_, throws light on a question which is not only
of great interest in itself, but which has been brought into prominence
through the controversies excited by Macaulay's famous picture of the
clergy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Last comes what is by
general consent acknowledged to be one of the most valuable contributions
ever made to the literature of proverbs, Franklin's summary of the maxims
in _Poor Richard's Almanack_.

Our first excerpt is the preface to a work which is entitled to the
distinction of being the first systematic contribution to literary
criticism written in the English language. It appeared in 1553, and was
entitled _The Art of Rhetorique, for the use of all suche as are studious
of eloquence, sette foorthe in Englishe by Thomas Wilson_, and it was
dedicated to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick. Thomas Wilson--erroneously
designated Sir Thomas Wilson, presumably because he has been confounded
with a knight of that name--was born about 1525, educated at Eton and
subsequently at King's College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in
1549. In life he played many parts, as tutor to distinguished pupils,
notably Henry and Charles Brandon, afterwards Dukes of Suffolk, as
diplomatist and ambassador to various countries, as a Secretary of State
and a Privy Councillor, as one of the Masters of Requests, and as Master
of St. Catherine's Hospital at the Tower, at which place and in which
capacity he terminated a very full and busy life on June 16th, 1581. The
pupil of Sir John Cheke and of Sir Thomas Smith, and the intimate friend
of Roger Ascham, Wilson was one of the most accomplished scholars in
England, being especially distinguished by his knowledge of Greek. He is
the author of a translation, of a singularly vigorous translation, of the
_Olynthiacs_ and _Philippics_ of Demosthenes, published in 1570. His most
popular work, judging at least from the quickly succeeding editions,
appears to have been his first, _The Rule of Reason, conteinynge the Art
of Logique set forth in Englishe_, published by Grafton in 1551, and
dedicated to Edward VI. _The Art of Rhetorique_ is said to have been
published at the same time, but the earliest known copy is dated January
1553. The interest of this Art of Rhetoric is threefold. It is the work
of a writer intelligently familiar with the Greek and Roman classics, and
it thus stands beside Elyot's _Governour_, which appeared two years
before, as one of the earliest illustrations of the influence of the
Renaissance on our vernacular literature. It is one of the earliest
examples, not only of the employment of the English language in the
treatment of scholastic subjects, but of the vindication of the use of
English in the treatment of such subjects; and, lastly, it is remarkable
for its sound and weighty good sense. His friend, Ascham, had already
said: 'He that wyll wryte well in any tongue muste folowe thys councel of
Aristotle, to speake as the common people do, to think as wise men do, and
so shoulde every man understande hym. Many English writers have not done
so, but usinge straunge words, as Latin, French, and Italian, do make all
thinges darke and harde.' And it is indeed by no means improbable that
this work, which is written to inculcate all that Ascham upheld, may have
been suggested by Ascham. It is in three books, and draws largely on
Quintilian, the first two books being substantially little more than a
compilation, but a very judicious one, from the _Institutes of Oratory_.
But Wilson is no pedant, and has many excellent remarks on the nature of
the influence which the classics should exercise on English composition.
One passage is worth transcribing--

'Among all other lessons, this should first be learned, that we never
affect any straunge ynkhorne termes, but to speake as is commonly
received, neither seeking to be over fine, nor yet being over carelesse,
using our speeche as most men doe, and ordering our wittes as the fewest
have done. Some seke so far outlandishe English, that thei forget
altogether their mothers language. And I dare sweare this, if some of
their mothers were alive, thei were not able to tell what thei saie; and
yet these fine English clerkes will saie thei speake in their mother
tongue--if a man should charge them for counterfeityng the kinges
Englishe.... The unlearned or foolish phantasicalle that smelles but of
learnyng (suche fellowes as have seen learned men in their daies) will so
Latin their tongues that the simple can not but wonder at their talke, and
thinke surely thei speake by some revelation. I know them that thinke
Rhetorique to stand wholie upon darke woordes; and he that can catche an
ynke horne terme by the taile him thei coumpt to bee a fine Englisheman
and a good Rhetorician.'

In turning to Wilson's own style, we are reminded of Butler's sarcasm--

    'All a rhetorician's rules
    Teach nothing but to name his tools.'

He is not, indeed, deficient, as the excerpt given shows, in dignity and
weightiness, but neither there nor elsewhere has he any of the finer
qualities of style, his rhythm being harsh and unmusical, his diction
cumbrous and diffuse.

The excerpt which comes next in this miscellany is by the author of that
treatise which is, with the exceptions, perhaps, of George Puttenham's
_Art of English Poesie_ and Ben Jonson's _Discoveries_, the most precious
contribution to criticism made in the Elizabethan age; but, indeed, the
_Defence of Poesie_ stands alone: alone in originality, alone in
inspiring eloquence. The letter we print is taken from Arthur Collins's
_Sydney Papers_, vol. i. pp. 283-5, and was written by Sir Philip Sidney
to his brother Robert, afterwards (August 1618) second Earl of Leicester,
then at Prague. From letters of Sir Henry Sidney in the same collection
(see letters dated March 25th and October 1578) we learn that Robert,
then in his eighteenth year, had been sent abroad to see the world and to
acquire foreign languages, that he was flighty and extravagant, and had in
consequence greatly annoyed his father, who had threatened to recall him
home. 'Follow,' Sir Henry had written, 'the direction of your most loving
brother. Imitate his virtues, exercyses, studyes and accyons, hee ys a
rare ornament of thys age.' This letter was written at a critical time in
Sidney's life. With great courage and with the noblest intentions, though
with extraordinary want of tact, for he was only in his twenty-sixth
year, he had presumed to dissuade Queen Elizabeth from marrying the Duke
of Anjou. The Queen had been greatly offended, and he had had to retire
from Court. The greater part of the year 1580 he spent at Wilton with his
sister Mary, busy with the _Arcadia_. In August he had, through the
influence of his uncle Leicester, become reconciled with the Queen, and a
little later took up his residence at Leicester House, from which this
letter is dated. It is a mere trifle, yet it illustrates very strikingly
and even touchingly Sidney's serious, sweet, and beautiful character. The
admirable remarks on the true use of the study of history, such as 'I
never require great study in Ciceronianism, the chief abuse of Oxford,
_qui dum verba sectantur, res ipsas negligunt_,' remind us of the author
of the _Defence_; while the 'great part of my comfort is in you,' 'be
careful of yourself, and I shall never have cares,' and the 'I write this
to you as one that for myself have given over the delight in the world,'
show that he had estimated royal reconciliations at their true value, and
anticipate the beautiful and pathetic words with which he is said to have
taken leave of the world. Short and hurried as this letter is, we feel it
is one of those trifles which, as Plutarch observes, throw far more light
on character than actions of importance often do.

Between 1580 and the appearance of Meres's work in 1598 there was much
activity in critical literature. Five years before the date of Sidney's
letter George Gascogne had published his _Certayne Notes of Instruction
concerning the makyng of Verse in Rhyme_. This was succeeded in 1584 by
James I.'s _Ane Short Treatise conteining some rewles and cautelis to be
observit_. Then came William Webbe's _Discourse of English Poesie_, 1586,
which had been preceded by Sidney's charming _Defence of Poetry_, composed
in or about 1579, but not published till 1593. This and Puttenham's
elaborate treatise, _The Art of English Poesie contrived into three
books_ (1589), had indeed marked an epoch in the history of criticism.
Memorable, too, in this branch of literature is Harington's _Apologie for
Poetry_ (1591), prefixed to his translation of the _Orlando Furioso_. But
it was not criticism only which had been advancing. The publication of
the first part of Lyly's _Euphues_ and of Spenser's _Shepherd's Calendar_
in 1579 may be said to have initiated the golden age of our literature.
The next twenty years saw Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Kyd, Shakespeare,
Chapman, Decker, and Ben Jonson at the head of our drama; Spenser,
Warner, Daniel, and Drayton leading narrative poetry; the contributors to
_England's Helicon_, published a year later, at the head of our sonneteers
and lyric poets; and Sidney, Lyly, Greene, and Hooker in the van of our
prose literature. The history of Meres's work, a dissertation from which
is here extracted, is curious. In or about 1596, Nicholas Ling and John
Bodenham conceived the idea of publishing a series of volumes containing
proverbs, maxims, and sententious reflections on religion, morals, and
life generally. Accordingly in 1597 appeared a small volume containing
various apothegms, extracted principally from the Classics and the
Fathers, compiled by Nicholas Ling and dedicated to Bodenham. It was
entitled _Politeuphuia_: _Wits Commonwealth_. In the following year
appeared '_Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury_: _Being the Second Part of Wits
Commonwealth_. By Francis Meres, Maister of Arts in both Universities.' On
the title-page is the motto '_Vivitur ingenio, cetera mortis erunt_.' It
was printed by P. Short for Cuthbert Burbie. From the address to the
reader, which does not appear in the first edition, though it was
apparently intended for that edition, we learn that it had been
undertaken because of the extraordinary popularity of _Wits
Commonwealth_, which 'thrice within one year had runne thorough the
Presse.' Meres's work differs importantly from _Wits Commonwealth_. It is
not merely a compilation, but contains original matter, generally by way
of commentary. The extracts are much fuller, many being taken from modern
writers, notably Robert Greene, Lyly, Warner, and Sir Philip Sidney. In
1634 the work was re-issued under another title, _Wits Commonwealth, The
Second Part: A Treasurie of Divine, Moral, and Phylosophical Similes and
Sentences generally useful. But more particular published for the Use of
Schools_. In 1636 it was again reprinted. The only part of Meres's work
which is of interest now is what is here reprinted. It belongs to that
portion of his compilation which treats of studies and reading, the
preceding sections discussing respectively of 'books,' of 'reading of
books,' of 'choice to be had in reading of books,' of 'the use of reading
many books,' of 'philosophers,' of 'poetry,' of 'poets,' consisting for
the most part of remarks compiled from Plutarch, and in one or two
instances from Sir Philip Sidney's _Defence of Poetry. A portion of the
passage which immediately precedes the _Discourse_ may be transcribed
because of its plain speaking about the indifference of Elizabeth and her
ministers to the fortune of poets; though this, with curious
inconsistency, is flatly contradicted, probably for prudential reasons,
in the _Discourse_ itself--

    'As the Greeke and Latin Poets have wonne immortal credit to their
    native speech, being encouraged and graced by liberal patrones and
    bountiful benefactors; so our famous and learned Lawreate masters
    of England would entitle our English to far greater admired
    excellency, if either the Emperor Augustus or Octavia his sister
    or noble Maecenas were alive to reward and countenance them; or if
    witty Comedians and stately Tragedians (the glorious and goodlie
    representers of all fine witte, glorified phrase and great action)
    bee still supported and uphelde, by which meanes (O ingrateful and
    damned age) our Poets are soly or chiefly maintained, countenanced
    and patronized.'

Of the author of this work, Francis Meres or Meers, comparatively little
is known. He sprang from an old and highly respectable family in
Lincolnshire, and was born in 1565, the son of Thomas Meres, of Kirton in
Holland in that county. After graduating from Pembroke College, Cambridge,
in 1587, proceeding M.A. in 1591 at his own University, and subsequently
by _ad eundem_ at Oxford, he settled in London, where in 1597, having
taken orders, he was living in Botolf Lane. He was presented in July 1602
to the rectory of Wing in Rutland, keeping a school there. He remained at
Wing till his death, in his eighty-first year, January 29, 1646-7. As
Charles FitzGeoffrey, in a Latin poem in his _Affaniae_ addressed to
Meres, speaks of him as '_Theologus et poeta_', it is possible that the
'F.M.' who was a contributor to the _Paradise of Dainty Devices_ is to be
identified with Meres. In addition to the _Palladis Tamia_, Meres was the
author of a sermon published in 1597, a copy of which is in the Bodleian,
and of two translations from the Spanish, neither of which is of any
interest.

Meres's _Discourse_ is, like the rest of his work, mainly a compilation,
with additions and remarks of his own. Much of it is derived from the
thirty-first chapter of the first book of Puttenham; with these
distinctions, that Meres's includes the poets who had come into
prominence between 1589 and 1598, and instituted parallels, biographical
and critical, between them and the ancient Classics. It is the notices of
these poets, and more particularly the references to Shakespeare's
writings, which make this treatise so invaluable to literary students.
Thus we are indebted to Meres for a list of the plays which Shakespeare
had produced by 1598, and for a striking testimony to his eminence at
that date as a dramatic poet, as a narrative poet, and as a writer of
sonnets. The perplexing reference to _Love's Labour's Won_ has never
been, and perhaps never will be, satisfactorily explained. To assume that
it is another title for _All's Well that Ends Well_ in an earlier form is
to cut rather than to solve the knot. It is quite possible that it refers
to a play that has perished. The references to the imprisonment of Nash
for writing the _Isle of Dogs_, to the unhappy deaths of Peele, Greene,
and Marlowe, and to the high personal character of Drayton are of great
interest. Meres was plainly a man of muddled and inaccurate learning, of
no judgment, and of no critical power, a sort of Elizabethan Boswell
without Boswell's virtues, and it is no paradox to say that it is this
which gives his _Discourse_ its chief interest. It probably represents
not his own but the judgments current on contemporary writers in
Elizabethan literary circles. And we cannot but be struck with their
general fairness. Full justice is done to Shakespeare, who is placed at
the head of the dramatists; full justice is done to Spenser, who is
styled divine, and placed at the head of narrative poets; to Sidney, both
as a prose writer and as a poet; to Drayton, to Daniel, and to Hall,
Lodge, and Marston, as satirists. We are surprised to find such a high
place assigned to Warner, 'styled by the best wits of both our
universities the English Homer,' and a modern critic would probably
substitute different names, notably those of Lodge and Campion, for those
of Daniel and Drayton in a list of the chief lyric poets then in activity.
In Meres's remarks on painters and musicians, there is nothing to detain
us.

Of a very different order is the important critical treatise which comes
next, Dryden's _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, to which are prefixed as
prolegomena Dryden's _Dedicatory Epistle to The Rival Ladies_, Sir Robert
Howard's _Preface to Four New Plays_, and, as supplementary, Howard's
_Preface to The Duke of Lerma_, and Dryden's _Defence of the Essay of
Dramatic Poesy_. As Dryden's _Essay_, like almost all his writings, both
in verse and prose, was of a more or less occasional character, it will
be necessary to explain at some length the origin of the controversy out
of which it sprang, as well as the immediate object with which it was
written.

The Restoration found Dryden a literary adventurer, with a very slender
patrimony and with no prospects. Poetry was a drug in the market;
hack-work for the booksellers was not to his taste; and the only chance
of remunerative employment open to him was to write for the stage. To
this he accordingly betook himself. He began with comedy, and his comedy
was a failure. He then betook himself to a species of drama, for which
his parts and accomplishments were better fitted. Dryden had few or none
of the qualifications essential in a great dramatist; but as a
rhetorician, in the more comprehensive sense of the term, he was soon to
be unrivalled. In the rhymed heroic plays, as they were called, he found
just the sphere in which he was most qualified to excel. The taste for
these dramas, which owed most to France and something to Italy and Spain,
had come in with the Restoration. Their chief peculiarities were the
complete subordination of the dramatic to the rhetorical element, the
predominance of pageant, and the substitution of rhymed for blank verse.
Dryden's first experiment in this drama was the _Rival Ladies_, in which
the tragic portions are composed in rhyme, blank verse being reserved for
the parts approaching comedy. In his next play, the _Indian Queen_,
written in conjunction with Howard, blank verse is wholly discarded. The
dedication of the _Rival Ladies_ to Orrery is appropriate. Roger Boyle,
Baron Broghill, and first Earl of Orrery, was at this time Lord President
of Munster, and it was he who had revived these rhymed plays in his _Henry
V._, which was brought out in the same year as Dryden's comedy. Whoever
has read this drama and Orrery's subsequent experiments, _Mustapha_
(1665), the _Black Prince_ (1667), _Tryphon_ (1668), will be able to
estimate Dryden's absurd flattery at its proper value.

But these dramatic innovations were sure not to pass without protest,
though the protest came from a quarter where it might least have been
expected. Sir Robert Howard was the sixth son of Thomas, first Earl of
Berkshire. He had distinguished himself on the Royalist side in the Civil
War, and had paid the penalty for his loyalty by an imprisonment in
Windsor Castle during the Commonwealth. At the Restoration he had been
made an Auditor of the Exchequer. Dryden seems to have made his
acquaintance shortly after arriving in London. In 1660 Howard published a
collection of poems and translations, to which Dryden prefixed an address
'to his honoured friend' on 'his excellent poems.' Howard's rank and
position made him a useful friend to Dryden, and Dryden in his turn was
no doubt of much service to Howard. Howard introduced him to his family,
and in December 1663 Dryden married his friend's eldest sister, the Lady
Elizabeth Howard. In the following year Dryden assisted his
brother-in-law in the composition of the _Indian Queen_. There had
probably been some misunderstanding or dispute about the extent of the
assistance which Dryden had given, which accounts for what follows. In
any case Howard published in 1665, professedly under pressure from
Herringman, four plays, two comedies, _The Surprisal_ and _The
Committee_, and two tragedies, the _Vestal Virgin_ and _Indian Queen_;
and to the volume he prefixed the preface, which is here reprinted. It
will be seen that though he makes no reference to Dryden, he combats all
the doctrines laid down in the preface to the _Rival Ladies_. He exalts
the English drama above the French, the Italian, and the Spanish; and
vindicates blank verse against rhymed, making, however, a flattering
exception of Orrery's dramas. If Dryden was not pleased, he appears to
have had the grace to conceal his displeasure. For he passed the greater
part of 1666 at his father-in-law's house, and dedicated to Howard his
_Annus Mirabilis_. But Howard was to have his answer. In the _Essay of
Dramatic Poesy_ he is introduced in the person of Crites, and in his
mouth are placed all the arguments advanced in the _Preface_ that they
may be duly refuted and demolished by Dryden in the person of Neander. At
this mode of retorting Howard became really angry; and in the _Preface to
the Duke of Lerma_, published in the middle of 1668, he replied in a tone
so contemptuous and insolent that Dryden, in turn, completely lost his
temper. The sting of Howard's _Preface_ lies, it will be seen, in his
affecting the air of a person to whom as a statesman and public man the
points in dispute are mere trifles, hardly worth consideration, and in
the patronising condescension with which he descends to a discussion with
one to whom as a mere _litterateur_ such trifles are of importance. The
_Defence of the Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ Dryden prefixed to the second
edition of the _Indian Emperor_, one of the best of his heroic plays. The
seriously critical portion of this admirable little treatise deals with
Howard's attacks on the employment of rhyme in tragedy, on the observance
of strict rules in dramatic composition, and on the observance of the
unities. But irritated by the tone of Howard's tract, Dryden does not
confine himself to answering his friend's arguments. He ridicules, what
Shadwell had ridiculed before, Howard's coxcombical affectation of
universal knowledge, makes sarcastic reference to an absurdity of which
his opponent had been guilty in the House of Commons, mercilessly exposes
his ignorance of Latin, and the uncouthness and obscurity of his English.
The brothers-in-law afterwards became reconciled, and in token of that
reconciliation Dryden cancelled this tract.

The _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ was written at Charleton Park in the latter
part of 1665, and published by Herringman in 1668. It was afterwards
carefully revised, and republished with a dedication to Lord Buckhurst in
1684. Dryden spent more pains than was usual with him on the composition
of this essay, though he speaks modestly of it as 'rude and indigested,'
and it is indeed the most elaborate of his critical disquisitions. It
was, he said, written 'chiefly to vindicate the honour of our English
writers from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before
them.' Its more immediate and particular object was to regulate dramatic
composition by reducing it to critical principles, and these principles
he discerned in a judicious compromise between the licence of romantic
drama as represented by Shakespeare and his School, and the austere
restraints imposed by the canons of the classical drama. Assuming that a
drama should be 'a just and lively image of human nature, representing
its passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is
subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind,' it is shown that
this end can only be attained in a drama founded on such a compromise;
that the ancient and modern classical drama fails in nature; that the
Shakespearian drama fails in art. At the conclusion of the essay he
vindicates the employment of rhyme, a contention which he afterwards
abandoned. The dramatic setting of the essay was no doubt suggested by
the Platonic _Dialogues_, or by Cicero, and the essay itself may have
been suggested by Flecknoe's short _Discourse of the English Stage_,
published in 1664.

The _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ may be said to make an era in the history
of English criticism, and to mark an era in the history of English prose
composition. It was incomparably the best purely critical treatise which
had hitherto appeared in our language, both synthetically in its
definition and application of principles, and particularly in its lucid,
exact, and purely discriminating analysis. It was also the most striking
and successful illustration of what may be called the new prose style, or
that style which, initiated by Hobbes and developed by Sprat, Cowley, and
Denham[1] blended the ease and plasticity of colloquy with the solidity
and dignity of rhetoric, of that style in which Dryden was soon to become
a consummate master.

The _Advice to a Young Reviewer_ brings us into a very different sphere
of criticism, and has indeed a direct application to our own time. It was
written by Edward Copleston, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's and Bishop of
Llandaff. Born in February 1776 at Offwell, in Devonshire, Copleston
gained in his sixteenth year a scholarship at Corpus Christi College,
Oxford. After carrying off the prize for Latin verse, he was elected in
1795 Fellow of Oriel. In 1800, having been ordained priest, he became
Vicar of St. Mary's. In 1802 he was elected Professor of Poetry, in which
capacity he delivered the lectures subsequently published under the title
of _Praelectiones Academicae_--a favourite book of Cardinal Newman's. In
1814 he succeeded Dr. Eveleigh as Provost of Oriel. In 1826 he was made
Dean of Chester, in 1828 Bishop of Llandaff and Dean of St. Paul's. He
died at Llandaff, on October 14th, 1849. Copleston is one of the fathers
of modern Oxford, and from his provostship date many of the reforms which
transformed the University of Gibbon and Southey into the University of
Whateley, of Newman, of Keble, and of Pusey. The brochure which is
printed here was written when Copleston was Fellow and Tutor of Oriel. It
was immediately inspired, not, as is commonly supposed, by the critiques
in the _Edinburgh Review_, but by the critiques in the _British Critic_,
a periodical founded in 1793, and exceedingly influential between that
time and about 1812. Archbishop Whateley, correcting a statement in the
_Life_ of Copleston by W.J. Copleston, says that it was occasioned by a
review of Mant's poems in the _British Critic_[2]. But on referring to
the review of these poems, which appeared in the November number of 1806,
plainly the review referred to, we find nothing in it to support
Whateley's assertion. That the reviews in the _British Critic_ are,
however, what Copleston is parodying in the critique of _L'Allegro_ is
abundantly clear, but what he says about voyages and travels and about
science and recondite learning appear to have reference to articles
particularly characteristic of the _Edinburgh Review_. It was not,
however, till after the date of Copleston's parody that the _Edinburgh
Review_ began conspicuously to illustrate what Copleston here satirises;
it was not till a time more recent still that periodical literature
generally exemplified in literal seriousness what Copleston intended as
extravagant irony. It is interesting to compare with Copleston's remarks
what Thackeray says on the same subjects in the twenty-fourth chapter of
_Pendennis_, entitled 'The Pall Mall Gazette.' This brochure is evidently
modelled on Swift's 'Digression Concerning Critics' in the third section
of the _Tale of a Tub_, and owes something also to the _Treatise on the
Bathos_ in Pope's and Swift's _Miscellanies_, as the title may have been
suggested by Shaftesbury's _Advice to an Author_. The _Advice_ itself and
the supplementary critique of Milton are clever and have good points, but
they will not bear comparison with the satire of Swift and Pope.

The excerpt which comes next in this Miscellany links with the name of
the author of the _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ the name of the most
illustrious of his contemporaries. The difference, indeed, between Milton
and Dryden is a difference not in degree merely, but in kind, so
immeasurably distant and alien is the sphere in which they moved and
worked both as men and as writers. It has sometimes been questioned
whether Dryden is a poet. Few would dispute that Milton divides with
Shakespeare the supremacy in English poetry. In Dryden as a man there is
little to attract or interest us. In character and in private life he
appears to have been perfectly commonplace. We close his biography, and
our curiosity is satisfied. With Milton it is far otherwise. We feel
instinctively that he belongs to the demi-gods of our race. We have the
same curiosity about him as we have about Homer, Aeschylus, and
Shakespeare, so that the merest trifles which throw any light on his
personality assume an interest altogether out of proportion to their
intrinsic importance. Our debt to Ellwood is, it must be admitted, much
less than it might have been, if he had thought a little more of Milton
and a little less of his somewhat stupid self and the sect to which he
belonged. But, as the proverb says, we must not look a gift-horse in the
mouth, and we are the richer for the Quaker's reminiscences. With
Ellwood's work, the _History of Thomas Ellwood, written by Himself_, we
are only concerned so far as it bears on his relation with Milton. Born
in 1639, the son of a small squire and justice of the peace at Crowell in
Oxfordshire, Ellwood had, in 1659, been persuaded by Edward Burrough, one
of the most distinguished of Fox's followers, to join the Quakers. He was
in his twenty-fourth year when he first met Milton. Milton was then living
in Jewin Street, having removed from his former lodging in Holborn, most
probably in the autumn of 1661. The restoration had terminated his work
as a controversialist and politician. For a short time his life had been
in peril, but he had received a pardon, and could at least live in peace.
He could no longer be of service as a patriot, and was now occupied with
the composition of _Paradise Lost_. Since 1650 he had been blind, and for
study and recreation was dependent on assistance. Having little domestic
comfort as a widower, he had just married his third wife.

Ellwood's narrative tells its own story. What especially strikes us in
it, and what makes it particularly interesting, is that it presents
Milton in a light in which he is not presented elsewhere. Ellwood seems
to have had the same attraction for him as Bonstetten had for Gray. No
doubt the simplicity, freshness, and enthusiasm of the young Quaker
touched and interested the lonely and world-wearied poet who, when
Ellwood first met him, had entered on his fifty-fifth year; he had no
doubt, too, the scholar's sympathy with a disinterested love of learning.
In any case, but for Ellwood, we should never have known the softer side
of Milton's character, never have known of what gentleness, patience, and
courtesy he was capable. And, indeed, when we remember Milton's position
at this time, as tragical as that of Demosthenes after Chaeronea, and of
Dante at the Court of Verona, there is something inexpressibly touching
in the picture here given with so much simplicity and with such evident
unconsciousness on the part of the painter of the effect produced. There
is one passage which is quite delicious, and yet its point may be, as it
commonly is, easily missed. It illustrates the density of Ellwood's
stupidity, and the delicate irony of the sadly courteous poet. Milton had
lent him, it will be seen, the manuscript of _Paradise Lost_; and on
Ellwood returning it to him, 'he asked me how I liked it, and what I
thought of it, which I modestly but freely told him, and after some
further discourse about it I pleasantly said to him, "Thou has said much
here of Paradise Lost, but what has thou to say of Paradise Found?"' Now
the whole point and scope of Paradise Lost is Paradise Found--the
redemption--the substitution of a spiritual Eden within man for a
physical Eden without man, a point emphasised in the invocation, and
elaborately worked out in the closing vision from the Specular Mount. It
is easy to understand the significance of what follows: 'He made me no
answer, but sat sometime in a muse; then broke off that discourse, and
fell upon another subject.' The result no doubt of that 'muse' was the
suspicion, or, perhaps, the conviction, that the rest of the world would,
in all probability, be as obtuse as Ellwood; and to that suspicion or
conviction we appear to owe _Paradise Regained_. The Plague over, Milton
returned to London, settling in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields. 'And when
afterwards I went to wait on him there ... he shewed me his second poem,
called _Paradise Regained_, and in a pleasant tone said to me, "This is
owing to you, for you put it into my head by the question you put to me
at Chalfont, which before I had not thought of."' In 'the pleasant tone'
more, and much more, is implied, of that we may be very sure, than meets
the ear. We should like to have seen the expression on Milton's face both
on this occasion and also when, on Dryden requesting his permission to
turn _Paradise Lost_ into an opera, he replied; 'Oh, certainly, you may
tug my verses if you please, Mr. Dryden.' It may be added that _Paradise
Lost_ was not published till 1667, and _Paradise Regained_ did not see
the light till 1671. Ellwood seems to imply that _Paradise Regained_ was
composed between the end of August or the beginning of September 1665,
and the end of the autumn of the same year, which is, of course,
incredible and quite at variance with what Phillips tells us. Ellwood is,
no doubt, expressing himself loosely, and his 'afterwards' need not
necessarily relate to his first, or to his second, or even to his third
visit to Milton after the poet's return to Artillery Walk, but refers
vaguely to one of those 'occasions which drew him to London.' When he
last saw Milton we have no means of knowing. He never refers to him
again. His autobiography closes with the year 1683.

For the rest of his life Ellwood was engaged for the most part in
fighting the battles of the Quakers-esoterically in endeavouring to
compose their internal feuds, exoterically in defending them and their
tenets against their common enemies--and in writing poetry, which it is
to be hoped he did not communicate to his 'master.' After the death of
his father in 1684 he lived in retirement at Amersham. His most important
literary service was his edition of George Fox's _Journal_, the manuscript
of which he transcribed and published. He died at his house on Hunger
Hill, Amersham, in March 1714, and lies with Penn in the Quaker's
burying-ground at New Jordan, Chalfont St. Giles.

We have now arrived at the pamphlets in our Miscellany bearing on the
reign of Queen Anne. First come the Partridge tracts. The history of the
inimitable hoax of which they are the record is full of interest. In
November 1707 Swift, then Vicar of Laracor, came over to England on a
commission from Archbishop King. His two satires, the _Battle of the
Books_ and the _Tale of a Tub_, published anonymously three years before,
had given him a foremost place among the wits, for their authorship was an
open secret. Though he was at this time principally engaged in the cause
of the Established Church, in active opposition to what he considered the
lax latitudinarianism of the Whigs on the one hand and the attacks of the
Freethinkers on the other, he found leisure for doing society another
service. Nothing was more detestable to Swift than charlatanry and
imposture. From time immemorial the commonest form which quackery has
assumed has been associated with astrology and prophecy. It was the
frequent theme or satire in the New Comedy of the Greeks and in the
Comedy of Rome; it has fallen under the lash of Horace and Juvenal;
nowhere is Lucian more amusing than when dealing with this species of
roguery. Chaucer with exquisite humour exposed it and its kindred alchemy
in the fourteenth century, and Ben Jonson and the author of _Albumazar_ in
the seventeenth. Nothing in _Hudibras_ is more rich in wit and humour than
the exposure of Sidrophel, and one of the best of Dryden's comedies is the
_Mock Astrologer_. But it was reserved for Swift to produce the most
amusing satire which has ever gibbeted these mischievous mountebanks.

John Partridge, whose real name is said to have been Hewson, was born on
the 18th of January 1644. He began life, it appears, as a shoemaker; but
being a youth of some abilities and ambition, had acquired a fair
knowledge of Latin and a smattering of Greek and Hebrew. He had then
betaken himself to the study of astrology and of the occult sciences.
After publishing the _Nativity of Lewis XIV._ and an astrological essay
entitled _Prodromus_, he set up in 1680 a regular prophetic almanac,
under the title of _Merlinus Liberatus_. A Protestant alarmist, for such
he affected to be, was not likely to find favour under the government of
James II., and Partridge accordingly made his way to Holland. On his
return he resumed his Almanac, the character of which is exactly
described in the introduction to the _Predictions_, and it appears to
have had a wide sale. Partridge, however, was not the only impostor of
his kind, but had, as we gather from notices in his Almanac and from his
other pamphlets, many rivals. He was accordingly obliged to resort to
every method of bringing himself and his Almanac into prominence, which
he did by extensive and impudent advertisements in the newspapers and
elsewhere. In his Almanac for 1707 he issues a notice warning the public
against impostors usurping his name. It was this which probably attracted
Swift's attention and suggested his mischievous hoax.

The pamphlets tell their own tale, and it is not necessary to tell it
here. The name, Isaac Bickerstaff, which has in sound the curious
propriety so characteristic of Dickens's names, was, like so many of the
names in Dickens, suggested by a name on a sign-board, the name of a
locksmith in Long Acre. The second tract, purporting to be written by a
revenue officer, and giving an account of Partridge's death, was, of
course, from the pen of Swift. The verses on Partridge's death appeared
anonymously on a separate sheet as a broadside. It is amusing to learn
that the tract announcing Partridge's death, and the approaching death of
the Duke of Noailles, was taken quite seriously, for Partridge's name was
struck off the rolls of Stationers' Hall, and the Inquisition in Portugal
ordered the tract containing the treasonable prediction to be burned. As
Stationers' Hall had assumed that Partridge was dead--a serious matter
for the prospects of his Almanac--it became necessary for him to
vindicate his title to being a living person. Whether the next tract,
_Squire Bickerstaff Detected_, was, as Scott asserts, the result of an
appeal to Rowe or Yalden by Partridge, and they, under the pretence of
assisting him, treacherously making a fool of him, or an independent
_j'eu d'esprit_, is not quite clear. Nor is it easy to settle with any
certainty the authorship. In the Dublin edition of Swift's works, it is
attributed to Nicholas Rowe; Scott assigns it to Thomas Yalden, the
preacher of Bridewell and a well-known poet. Congreve is also said to
have had a hand in it. It would have been well for Partridge had he
allowed matters to rest here, but unhappily he inserted in the November
issue of his Almanac another solemn assurance to the public that he was
still alive; and was fool enough to add, that he was not only alive at
the time he was writing, but was also alive on the day on which
Bickerstaff had asserted that he was dead. Swift saw his opportunity, and
in the most amusing of this series of tracts proceeded to prove that
Partridge, under whatever delusions as to his continued existence he
might be labouring, was most certainly dead and buried.

The tracts here printed by no means exhaust the literature of the
Partridge hoax, but nothing else which appeared is worth reviving. It is
surprising that Scott should include in Swift's works a vapid and
pointless contribution attributed to a 'Person of Quality.' The effect of
all this on poor Partridge was most disastrous; for three years his
Almanac was discontinued. When it was revived, in 1714, he had discovered
that his enemy was Swift. What comments he made will be found at the end
of these tracts. Partridge did not long survive the resuscitation of his
Almanac. What had been fiction became fact on June 24th, 1715, and his
virtues and accomplishments, delineated by a hand more friendly than
Swift's, were long decipherable, in most respectable Latin, on his tomb
in Mortlake Churchyard.

The Partridge hoax has left a permanent trace in our classical
literature. When, in the spring of 1709, Steele was about to start the
_Tatler_, he thought he could best secure the ear of the public by
adopting the name with which Englishmen were then as familiar as a
century and a half afterwards they became with the name of Pickwick. It
was under the title of the _Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff_ that the
essays which initiated the most attractive and popular form of our
periodical literature appeared.

The next tract, Gay's _Present State of Wit_, takes up the history of our
popular literature during the period which immediately succeeded the
discomfiture of poor Partridge. Its author, John Gay, who is, as we need
scarcely add, one of the most eminent of the minor poets of the Augustan
age, was at the time of its appearance almost entirely unknown. Born in
September 1685, at Barnstaple, of a respectable but decayed family, he
had received a good education at the free grammar school of that place.
On leaving school he had been apprenticed to a silk mercer in London. But
he had polite tastes, and employed his leisure time in scribbling verses
and in frequenting with his friend, Aaron Hill, the literary
coffee-houses. In 1708 he published a vapid and stupid parody, suggested
by John Philip's _Splendid Shilling_ and _Cider_, entitled _Wine_. His
next performance was the tract which is here printed, and which is dated
May 3rd, 1711. It is written with skill and sprightliness, and certainly
shows a very exact and extensive acquaintance with the journalistic world
of those times. And it is this which gives it its value. The best and most
useful form, perhaps, which our remarks on it can take will be to furnish
it with a running commentary explaining its allusions both to
publications and to persons. It begins with a reference to the unhappy
plight of Dr. King. This was Dr. William King, who is not to be
confounded with his contemporaries and namesakes, the Archbishop of
Dublin or the Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, but who may be best,
perhaps, described as the Dr. William King 'who could write verses in a
tavern three hours after he could not speak.' He had long been a
prominent figure among wits and humorists. His most important recent
performances had been his _Art of Cookery_ and his _Art of Love_,
published respectively in 1708 and in 1709. In the latter year he had,
much to the disgust of Sir John Soames, issued some very amusing parodies
of the _Philosophical Transactions_, which he entitled _Useful
Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts of Learning_, to be continued
as long as it could find buyers. It ceased apparently to find buyers, and
after reaching three numbers had collapsed. When the _Examiner_ was
started in August 1710, King was one of the chief contributors. Latterly,
however, things had been going very badly with this 'poor starving wit,'
as Swift called him. He was either imprisoned or on the point of being
imprisoned in the Fleet, but death freed him from his troubles at the end
of 1712. John Ozell was, perhaps, the most ridiculous of the scribblers
then before the public, maturing steadily for the _Dunciad_, where, many
years afterwards, he found his proper place. He rarely aspired beyond
'translations,' and the _Monthly Amusement_ referred to is not, as might
be supposed, a periodical, but simply his frequent appearances as a
translator. Gay next passes to periodicals and newspapers. De Foe is
treated as he was always treated by the wits. Pope's lines are well
known, and the only reference to him in Swift is: 'The fellow who was
pilloried--I forget his name.' Posterity has done him more justice. The
'poor _Review_' is of course the _Weekly Review_, started by De Foe in
1704, the first number of which appeared on Saturday, February 19th of
that year. It had been continued weekly, and still continued, till 1712,
extending to nine volumes, eight of which are extant.[3] The
_Observator_, which is also described as in its decline, had been set up
by John Tutchin in imitation of the paper issued by Sir Roger L'Estrange
in 1681, its first number appearing April 1st, 1702. Tutchin, dying in
1707, the paper was continued for the benefit of his widow, under the
management of George Ridpath, the editor of the _Flying Post_, and it
continued to linger on till 1712, when it was extinguished by the Stamp
Tax. The first number of the _Examiner_ appeared on the 3rd of August
1710, and it was set up by the Tories to oppose the _Tatler_, the chief
contributors to it being Dr. King, Bolingbroke, then Henry St. John,
Prior, Atterbury, and Dr. Freind. With No. 14 (Thursday, October 26th,
1710), Swift assumed the management, and writing thirty-two papers
successively, made it the most influential political journal in the
kingdom. The 'Letter to Crassus' appeared on February 1st, 1711, and was
written by Swift. To oppose the _Examiner_, the Whigs set up what, after
the second number, they called the _Whig Examiner_, the first number of
which appeared on September 14th, 1710. It was continued weekly till
October 12th, five numbers appearing, all of which were, with one
exception, perhaps, written by Addison, so that Gay's conjecture--if
Bickerstaff may be extended to include Addison--was correct. The
_Medley_, to which Gay next passes, was another Whig organ. The first
number appeared on August 5th, 1710, and it was continued weekly till
August 6th, 1711. It was conducted by Arthur Mainwaring, a man of family
and fortune, and an ardent Whig, with the assistance of Steele, Anthony
Henley, and Oldmixon.

With the reference to the _Tatler_, we pass from obscurity into daylight.
Since April 12th, 1709, that delightful periodical had regularly appeared
three times a week. With the two hundredth and seventy-first number on
January 2nd, 1711, it suddenly ceased. Of the great surprise and
disappointment caused by its cessation, of the causes assigned for it,
and of the high appreciation of all it had effected for moral and
intellectual improvement and pleasure, Gay gives a vivid picture. What he
says conjecturally about the reasons for its discontinuance is so near the
truth that we may suspect he had had some light on the subject from Steele
himself. It was, of course, from the preface to the edition of the first
three volumes of the collected _Tatlers_, published in 1710, that Gay
derived what he says about the contributions of Addison (though Steele
had not mentioned him by name, in accordance, no doubt, with Addison's
request) and about the verses of Swift. In all probability this was the
first public association of Addison's name with the _Tatler_. The Mr.
Henley referred to was Anthony Henley, a man of family and fortune, and
one of the most distinguished of the wits of that age, to whom Garth
dedicated _The Dispensary_. In politics he was a rabid Whig, and it was
he who described Swift as 'a beast for ever after the order of
Melchisedec.' Gay had not been misinformed, for Henley was the author of
the first letter in No. 26 and of the letter in No. 193, under the
character of Downes.

The cessation of the _Tatler_ had been the signal for the appearance of
several spurious papers purporting to be new numbers. One entitling
itself No. 272 was published by one John Baker; another, purporting to be
No. 273, was by 'Isaac Bickerstaff, Junior.' Then, on January 6th,
appeared what purported to be Nos. 272 and 273 of the original issue,
with a letter from Charles Lillie, one of the publishers of the original
_Tatler_. Later in January, William Harrison, a _protégé_ of Swift, a
young man whose name will be familiar to all who are acquainted with
Swift's _Journal to Stella_, was encouraged by Swift to start a new
_Tatler_, Swift liberally assisting him with notes, and not only
contributing himself but inducing Congreve also to contribute a paper.
And this new _Tatler_ actually ran to fifty-two numbers, appearing twice
a week between January 13th and May 19th, 1711, but, feeble from the
first, it then collapsed. Nor had the _Tatler_ been without rivals. In
the two hundred and twenty-ninth number of the _Tatler_, Addison,
enumerating his antagonists, says, 'I was threatened to be answered
weekly _Tit for Tat_, I was undermined by the _Whisperer_, scolded at by
a _Female Tatler_, and slandered by another of the same character under
the title of _Atalantis_.' To confine ourselves, however, to the
publications mentioned by Gay. The _Growler_ appeared on the 27th of
January 1711, on the discontinuance of the _Tatler_. The _Whisperer_ was
first published on October 11th, 1709, under the character of 'Mrs. Jenny
Distaff, half-sister to Isaac Bickerstaff.' The _Tell Tale_ appears to be
a facetious title for the _Female Tatler_, the first number of which
appeared on July 8th, 1709, and was continued for a hundred and eleven
numbers, under the editorship of Thomas Baker, till March 3rd, 1710. The
allusion in the postscript to the _British Apollo_ is to a paper entitled
_The British Apollo: or Curious Amusements for the Ingenious_, the first
number of which appeared on Friday, March 13th, 1708, the paper regularly
continuing on Wednesdays and Fridays till March 16th, 1711. Selections
from this curious miscellany were afterwards printed in three volumes,
and ran into three editions. Gay does not appear to be aware that this
periodical had ceased. The reference in 'the two statesmen of the last
reign whose characters are well expressed in their mottoes' are to Lord
Somers and the Earl of Halifax, as what follows refers respectively to
Addison and Steele. The tract closes with a reference to the _Spectator_,
the first number of which had appeared on the first of the preceding March.

Gay's brochure attracted the attention of Swift, who thus refers to it in
his _Journal to Stella_, May 14th, 1711: 'Dr. Freind was with me and
pulled out a two-penny pamphlet just published called _The State of Wit_.
The author seems to be a Whig, yet he speaks very highly of a paper called
the _Examiner_, and says the supposed author of it is Dr. Swift, but above
all he praises the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_.'

The two tracts which follow consist of the Life of Addison, which forms
the preface to Addison's collected works, published by Tickell in 1721,
and of the Dedicatory Epistle prefixed by Steele to an edition of
Addison's _Drummer_ in 1722. To the student of the literary history of
those times they are of great interest and importance. Of all Addison's
friends, Steele had long been the most intimate of the younger men whom
he had taken under his patronage. Tickell was the most loyal and the most
attached. While still at Oxford he had expressed his admiration of Addison
in extravagant terms: on arriving in London he made his acquaintance.
Tickell was an accomplished poet and man of letters, and though not a
profound a graceful scholar. Addison was pleased with a homage which was
worth accepting. As he rose, his _protégé_ rose with him. On his
appointment as Chief Secretary in Ireland he took Tickell with him. When
he was appointed Secretary of State he chose him as Under Secretary, and
shortly before his death made him his literary executor, instructing him
to collect his writings in a final and authentic edition. This, for
reasons which will be explained directly, was a task of no small
difficulty, but to this task Tickell loyally addressed himself. In the
spring of 1721 appeared, in four sumptuous quartos, the collected edition
of Addison's works. It was prefaced by the biography which is here
reprinted, and to the biography was appended that noble and pathetic
elegy which will make Tickell's name as immortal as Addison's.

There can be very little doubt that Steele had been greatly distressed
and hurt by the rupture of the friendship which had so long existed
between himself and Addison, but that Tickell should have taken his place
in Addison's affections must have been inexpressibly galling to him.
Naturally irritated, his irritation had no doubt been intensified by
Addison appointing Tickell Under Secretary of State, and still more by
his making him his literary executor--offices which Steel might naturally
have expected, had all gone well, to fill himself. It would not have been
in human nature that he could regard Tickell with any other feelings than
hostility and jealousy. Tickell's omission of the _Drummer_ from Addison's
works was, in all probability--such at least is the impression which the
letter makes on me--a mere pretext for the gratification of personal
spite. There is nothing to justify the interpretation which he puts on
Tickell's words. All that Steele here says about Addison he had said
publicly and quite as emphatically before, as Tickell had recorded. As
Steele had, in Tickell's own words, given to Addison 'the honour of the
most applauded pieces,' it is absurd to accuse Tickell of insinuating
that Addison wished his papers to be marked because he was afraid Steele
would assume the credit of these pieces. In one important particular he
flatly contradicts himself. At the beginning he asks 'whether it was a
decent and reasonable thing that works written, as a great part of Mr.
Addison's were, in correspondence with me, ought to have been published
without my review of the catalogue of them.' Three pages afterward, it
appears that, in compliance with the request of Addison delivered to him
by Tickell, he did mark with his own hand those _Tatlers_ which were
inserted in Addison's works--a statement of Tickell's, but a statement to
which Steele takes no exception. So far from attempting to disparage
Steele, Tickell does ample justice to him; and to accuse him of
insensibility to Addison's virtues, and of cold indifference to him
personally, is a charge refuted not only by all we know of Tickell, but
by every page in the tract itself. Many of the objections which he makes
to Tickell's remarks are too absurd to discuss. From nothing indeed which
Tickell says, but from one of Steele's own admissions, it is impossible
not to draw a conclusion very derogatory to Steele's honesty, and to make
us suspect that his sensitiveness was caused by his own uneasy conscience:
'What I never did declare was Mr. Addison's I had his direct injunctions
to hide.' This certainly seems to imply that Steele had allowed himself
to be credited with what really belonged to his friend. A month after
Addison's death he had written in great alarm to Tonson, on hearing that
it had been proposed to separate Addison's papers in the _Tatler_ from
his own. He bases his objection, it is true, on the pecuniary injury
which he and his family would suffer, but this is plainly mere
subterfuge. The truth probably is, that Steele wished to leave as
undefined as possible what belonged to Addison and what belonged to
himself; that he was greatly annoyed when he found that their respective
shares were by Addison's own, or at least his alleged, request to be
defined; that in his assignation of the papers he had not been quite
honest; and that, knowing this, he suspected that Tickell knew it too.
There is nothing to support Steele's assertion that it was at his
instigation that Addison distinguished his contributions to the
_Spectator_ and the _Guardian_. Addison, as his last injunctions showed,
must have contemplated a collective edition of his works, and must have
desired therefore that they should be identified. Steele's ambition, no
doubt, was that he and his friend should go down to posterity together,
but the appointment of Tickell instead of himself as Addison's literary
executor dashed this hope to the ground.

Few things in literary biography are more pathetic than the estrangement
between Addison and Steele. They had played as boys together; they had,
for nearly a quarter of a century, shared each other's burdens, and the
burdens had not been light; in misfortune and in prosperity, in business
and in pleasure, they had never been parted. The wisdom and prudence of
Addison had more than once been the salvation of Steele; what he knew of
books and learning had been almost entirely derived from Addison's
conversation; what moral virtue he had, from Addison's influence. And he
had repaid this with an admiration and affection which bordered on
idolatry. A more generous and genial, a more kindly, a more warm-hearted
man than Steele never lived, and it is easy to conceive what his feelings
must have been when he found his friend estranged from him and a rival in
his place. There is much to excuse what this letter to Congreve plainly
betrays; but excuse is not justification. Tickell had a delicate and
difficult task to perform: a duty to his dead friend, which was
paramount, a duty to Steele, and a duty to himself, and he succeeded in
performing each with admirable tact. Whether Tickell ever made any reply
to Steele's strictures, I have not been able to discover.

We pass now from the literary pamphlets to the extract and excerpts
illustrating the condition of the Church and the clergy at the end of the
seventeenth and about the first half of the eighteenth century. They are
of particular interest, not only in themselves, but in their relation to
Swift and Macaulay--to Swift as a Church reformer, to Macaulay as a
social historian. Few historical questions in our own time provoked more
controversy than the famous pages delineating the clergy who, according
to Macaulay, were typical of their order about the time of the
Restoration. The first excerpt is from Chamberlayne's _Angliae Notitia_.
The author of that work, Edward Chamberlayne, was born on the 13th of
December 1616. He was educated at Oxford, where he graduated as B.A. in
April 1638. For a short time he was Reader in Rhetoric to the University,
but on the breaking out of the Civil War he left for the Continent, where
he visited nearly every country in Europe. At the Restoration he
returned; and about 1675, after having been secretary to the Earl of
Carlisle, he became tutor to the King's natural son, Henry Fitzroy,
afterwards Duke of Grafton, and subsequently instructor in English to
Prince George of Denmark. He was also one of the earliest Fellows of the
Royal Society. He died at Chelsea in May 1703. In 1669 he published
anonymously _Angliae Notitia, or the Present State of England with Divers
Reflection upon the Ancient State therefor_, a work no doubt suggested by
and apparently modelled on the well-known _L'Estat Nouveau de la France_.
The work contains more statistics than reflections, and is exactly what
its title implies--a succinct account of England, beginning with its
name, its climate, its topography, and giving information, now
invaluable, about everything included in its constitution and in its
economy. The extract printed here is, as is indicated, from pp. 383-389
and p. 401. The work passed through two editions in the year of its
appearance, the second bearing the author's name, and at the time of
Chamberlayne's death it had, with successive amplifications, reached its
twentieth edition.

Of a very different order to Chamberlayne's work is the remarkable tract
which follows. The author, John Eachard, was born about 1636, at what
date is doubtful, but he was admitted into Catherine Hall, Cambridge, in
May 1653. Becoming Fellow of the Hall in 1658, he was chosen, on the
death of Dr. Lightfoot, Master. His perfectly uneventful life closed on
the 7th of July 1697. Personally he was a facetious and agreeable man,
and had the reputation of being rather a wit and humorist than a divine
and scholar. Baker complained of his inferiority as a preacher; and
Swift, observing 'that men who are happy enough at ridicule are
sometimes perfectly stupid upon grave subjects,' gives Eachard as an
instance. _The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and
Religion enquired into, In a letter written to R.L._, appeared
anonymously in 1670. This anonymity Eachard carefully preserved during
the controversies which it occasioned. It is difficult to understand how
any one after reading the preface could have misunderstood the purpose of
the book. But Eachard's fate was Swift's fate afterwards, though there was
more excuse for the High Church party missing the point of the _Tale of a
Tub_ than for the clergy generally missing that of Eachard's plea for
them. Ridicule is always a dangerous ally, especially when directed
against an institution or community, for men naturally identify
themselves with the body of which they are members, and resent as
individuals what reflects on them collectively. When one of the opponents
of Barnabus Oley in his preface to Herbert's _Country Parson_ observed:
'The pretence of your book was to _show_ the occasions, your book is
_become_ the occasion of the contempt of God's ministers,' he expressed
what the majority of the clergy felt. The storm burst at once, and the
storm raged for months. 'I have had,' wrote Eachard in one of his many
rejoinders, 'as many several names as the Grand Seignior has titles of
honour; for setting aside the vulgar and familiar ones of Rogue, Rascal,
Dog, and Thief (which may be taken by way of endearment as well as out of
prejudice and offence), as also those of more certain signification, as
Malicious Rogue, Ill-Natured Rascal, Lay Dog, and Spiteful Thief.' He had
also, he said, been called Rebel, Traitor, Scot, Sadducee, and Socinian.
Among the most elaborate replies to his work were: _An Answer to a Letter
of Enquiry into the Ground, _etc.. 1671; _A Vindication of the Clergy from
the Contempt imposed upon them, By the author of the Grounds_ etc., 1672;
_Hieragonisticon, or Corah's Doom, being an Answer to_, etc., 1672; _An
Answer to two Letters of T.B._, etc., 1673. The occasional references to
it in the theological literature of these times are indeed innumerable.
Many affected to treat him as a mere buffoon--the concoctor, as one
bitterly put it, of 'a pretty fardle of tales bundled together, and they
have had the hap to fall into such hands as had rather lose a friend, not
to say their country, than a jest.' Anthony Wood, writing at the time of
its appearance, classes it with 'the fooleries, playes, poems, and
drolling books,' with which, as he bitterly complains, people were 'taken
with' coupling with it Marvell's _Rehearsal Transposed_ and Butler's
_Hudibras_.[4]

To some of his opponents Eachard replied. Of his method of conducting
controversy, in which it is clear that he perfectly revelled, I
give a short specimen. It is from his letter to the author of
_Hieragonisticon_:--

'You may possibly think, sir, that I have read your book, but if you do
you are most mistaken. For as long as I can get Tolambu's _History of
Mustard_, Frederigo _Devastation of Pepper, The Dragon_, with cuts,
Mandringo's _Pismires rebuffeted_ and _retro-confounded, Is qui me
dubitat, or a flap against the Maggot of Heresie, Efflorescentina
Flosculorum_, or a choice collection of F. (_sic_) Withers _Poems_ or the
like, I do not intend to meddle with it. Alas, sir, I am as unlikely to
read your book that I can't get down the title no more than a duck can
swallow a yoked heifer'--and then follows an imitation of gulps straining
at the divided syllables of Hieragonisticon.

There is no reason to suspect the sincerity of Eachard, or to doubt that
he was, in his own words, an honest and hearty wisher that 'the best of
the clergy might for ever continue, as they are, rich and learned, and
that the rest might be very useful and well esteemed in their
profession.' To describe the work as 'a series of jocose caricatures--as
Churchill Babington in his animadversions on Macaulay's _History_
does--is absurd. Eachard was evidently a man of strong common sense, of
much shrewdness, a close observer, and one who had acquainted himself
exactly and extensively with the subject which he treats. But he was a
humorist, and, like Swift, sometimes gave the reins to his humour. It
must be remembered that his remarks apply only to the inferior clergy,
and there can be no doubt that since the Reformation they had, as a body,
sunk very low. Chamberlayne had no motive for exaggeration, but the
language he uses in describing them is stronger even than Eachard's.
Swift had no motive for exaggeration, and yet his pictures of Corusodes
and Eugenio in his _Essay on the Fates of Clergymen_, and what we gather
from his _Project for the Advancement of Religion_, his _Letter to a
Young Clergyman_, and what may be gathered generally from his writings,
very exactly corroborate Eachard's account. The lighter literature of the
later seventeenth and of the first half of the eighteenth century teems
with proofs of the contempt to which their ignorance and poverty exposed
them. To the testimonies of Oldham and Steele, and to the authorities
quoted by Macaulay and Mr. Lecky, may be added innumerable passages from
the _Observator_, from De Foe's _Review_, from Pepys,[5] from Baxter's
_Life_ of himself, from Archbishop Sharp's _Life_, from Burnet, and many
others.

It is remarkable that Eachard says nothing about two causes which
undoubtedly contributed to degrade the Church in the eyes of the laity:
its close association with party politics, and the spread of
latitudinarianism, a conspicuous epoch in which was marked some
twenty-six years later in the Bangorian controversy.

The appearance of the first volume of Macaulay's _History_ in 1848 again
brought Eachard's work into prominence. Macaulay's famous description of
the clergy of the seventeenth century in his third chapter was based
mainly on Eachard's account. The clergy and orthodox laity of our own day
were as angry with Eachard's interpreter as their predecessors, nearly two
centuries before, had been with Eachard himself. The controversy began
seriously, after some preliminary skirmishing in the newspapers and
lighter reviews, with Mr. Churchill Babington's _Mr. Macaulay's
Characters of the Clergy in the Latter Part of the Seventeenth Century
Considered_, published shortly after the appearance of the _History_.
What Mr. Babington and those whom he represented forgot was precisely
what Eachard's opponents had forgotten, that it was not the clergy
universally who had been described, for Macaulay, like Eachard, had
distinguished, but the clergy as represented by its proletariat.

If Eachard had occasionally given the reins to humour, Macaulay had
occasionally perhaps given them to rhetoric. But of the substantial
accuracy of both there can be no doubt at all.

On the intelligent, discriminating friends of the Church, Eachard's work
had something of the same effect, as Jeremy Collier's _Short View of the
Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage_ had in another sphere.
It directed serious attention to what all thoughtful and right-feeling
people must have felt to be a national scandal. It was an appeal to
sentiment and reason on matters with respect to which, in this country at
least, such appeals are seldom made in vain. It did not, indeed, lead
immediately to practical reform, but it advanced the cause of reform by
inspiring and bringing other initiators into the field. And pre-eminent
among these was Swift. Swift was evidently well acquainted with Eachard's
work. In the apology prefixed to the fourth edition of the _Tale of a Tub_
in 1710, he speaks of Eachard with great respect. Contemptuously
explaining that he has no intention of answering the attacks which had
been made on the _Tale_, he observes: 'When Dr. Eachard wrote his book
about the _Contempt of the Clergy_, numbers of these answerers
immediately started up, whose memory, if he had not kept alive by his
replies, it would now be utterly unknown that he were ever answered at
all.' No one who is familiar with Swift's tracts on Church reform can
doubt that he had read Eachard's work with minute attention, and was
greatly influenced by it. In his _Project for the Advancement of
Religion_, he largely attributed the scandalous immorality everywhere
prevalent to the insufficiency of religious instruction, and to the low
character of the clergy, the result mainly of their ignorance and
poverty. His _Letter to a Young Clergyman_ is little more than a didactic
adaptation of that portion of Eachard's work which deals with the
character and education of the clergy. The _Essay on the Fates of
Clergymen_ is another study from the _Contempt_, while the fragment of
the tract which he had begun, _Concerning that Universal Hatred which
prevails against the Clergy_, brings us still more closely to Eachard.
The likeness between them cannot be traced further; they were both, it is
true, humorists, but there is little in common between the austere and
bitter, yet, at the same time, delicious flavour of the one, and the
trenchant and graphic, but coarse and rollicking, humour of the other.

The essays reprinted from the _Tatler_ give humorous expression to a
grievance which not only wounded the pride of the clergy, but touched
them on an equally sensitive part--the stomach. It was not usual for the
chaplain in great houses to remain at table for the second course. When
the sweets were brought in, he was expected to retire. As Macaulay puts
it: 'He might fill himself with the corned beef and carrots; but as soon
as the tarts and cheese-cakes made their appearance, he quitted his seat
and stood aloof till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast,
from a great part of which he had been excluded.' Gay refers to this
churlish custom in the second book of _Trivia_:--

    'Cheese that the table's closing rites denies.
    And bids me with th' unwilling chaplain rise.'

Possibly the custom originally arose, not from any wish to mark the
social inferiority of the chaplain, but because his presence was a check
on conversation. It must be owned, however, that this would have been
more intelligible had he retired, not with the corned beef and carrots,
but with the ladies. The passage quoted by Steele from Oldham is from his
_Satire, addressed to a Friend that is about to Leave the University and
come Abroad in the World_, not the only poem in which Oldham has thrown
light on the degraded profession of the clergy. See the end of his
_Satire, spoken in the person of Spenser_.

The last piece in this Miscellany has no connection with what precedes
it, but it has an interest of its own. Among the many services of one of
the purest and most indefatigable of philanthropists to his
fellow-citizens was the establishment of what is commonly known as _Poor
Richard's Almanack_. Of this periodical, and of the particular number of
it which is here reprinted, Franklin gives the following account in his
autobiography:--

'In 1732 I first published an Almanack, under the name of _Richard
Saunders_; it was continued by me about twenty-five years, and commonly
called _Poor Richard's Almanack_. I endeavoured to make it both
entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand
that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten
thousand. And observing that it was generally read (scarce any
neighbourhood in the province being without it), I considered it as a
proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who
bought scarcely any other books. I therefore filled all the little spaces
that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial
sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means
of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue, it being more difficult
for a man in want to act always honestly, as, to use here one of these
proverbs, "it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright." These
proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, I
assembled and formed into a connected discourse prefixed to the
_Almanack_ of 1757, as the harangue of a wise old man to the people
attending an auction. The bringing all these scattered counsels thus into
a focus enabled them to make a greater impression. The piece being
universally approved, was copied in all the newspapers of the American
Continent, reprinted in Britain on a large sheet of paper to be stuck up
in houses; two translations were made of it in France, and great numbers
bought by the clergy to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners
and tenants. In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless expense in
foreign superfluities, some thought it had its share of influence in
producing that growing plenty of money which was observable for several
years after its publication.'--_Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin_, Part II,
Works Edit. 1833, vol. ii. pp. 146-148.

Reprinted innumerable times while Franklin was alive, this paper has,
since his death, passed through seventy editions in English, fifty-six In
French, eleven in German, and nine in Italian. It has been translated into
nearly every language in Europe: into French, German, and Italian, as we
have seen; into Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Polish, Bohemian, Dutch, Welsh,
and modern Greek; it has also been translated into Chinese.[6] In the
edition of _Franklin's Works_, printed in London in 1806, it appears
under the title of _The Way to Wealth, as clearly shown in the Preface to
an old Pennsylvanian Almanack, entitled Poor Richard Improved_, and under
this title it was usually printed when detached from the Almanack.

As Franklin himself owns, the maxims have little pretension to
originality. It is evident that he had laid under contribution such
collections as Clerk's _Adagio Latino-Anglica_, Herbert's _Jacula
Prudentum_, James Howell's collection of proverbs, David Fergtison's
_Scotch Proverbs_ (with the successively increasing editions between 1641
and 1706), Ray's famous _Collection of English Proverbs_, William Penn's
_Maxims_, and the like. A few are probably original, and many have been
re-minted and owe their form to him.

The first number of the famous _Almanack_ from which they are extracted
was published at the end of 1732, just after Franklin had set up as a
printer and stationer for himself, its publication being announced in the
_Pennsylvania Gazette_ of December 9th, 1732; and for twenty-five years it
continued regularly to appear, the last number being that for the year
1758, and having for preface the discourse which became so
extraordinarily popular. The name assumed by Franklin was no doubt
borrowed from that of Richard Saunders, a well-known astrologer of the
seventeenth century, of whom there is a notice in the _Dictionary of
National Biography_. But Mr. Leicester Ford[7] says that it was the name
of 'a chyrurgeon' of the eighteenth century who for many years issued a
popular almanac entitled _The Apollo Anglicanus__. Of this publication I
know nothing, and can discover nothing. The probability is that its
compiler, whoever he was, anticipated Franklin in assuming the name of
John Saunders. He is most certainly not to be identified with Saunders
the astrologer, who died in, or not much later than, 1687.

It remains to add that no pains have been spared to make the texts of the
excerpts and tracts in this Miscellany as accurate as possible--indeed,
Mr. Arber's name is a sufficient guarantee of the efficiency with which
this important part of the work has been done. For the modernisation of
the spelling, which some readers may perhaps be inclined to regret, and
for the punctuation, as well as for the elucidatory notes within
brackets, Mr. Arber is solely responsible.

J. CHURTON COLLINS.


[1] See his Preface to his version of part of Virgil's second _Aeneid_.

[2] Whateley's _Reminiscences of Bishop Copleston_, p. 6.

[3] See _Late Stuart Tracts_.

[4] Wood's _Life and Times_, Clark's Ed. vol. ii. p. 240.

[5] See, for example, _Diary_, February 16th, 1668: 'Much discourse
    about the bad state of the Church, and how the clergy are come to
    be men of no worth in the world, and, as the world do now generally
    discourse, they must be reformed.'

[6] For this information I am indebted to Mr. Paul Leicester Ford's
    interesting monograph on the sayings of Poor Richard, prefixed to
    his selections from the _Almanack_, privately printed at Brooklyn
    in 1890.

[7] Introduction to his selections from the _Almanack_.




THOMAS WILSON.

    _Eloquence first given by GOD, after lost by man, and last repaired
    by GOD again_.

    [_The Art of Rhetoric_.]


Man in whom is poured the breath of life, was made at his first being an
everlasting creature, unto the likeness of GOD; endued with reason, and
appointed lord over all other things living. But after the fail of our
first father, sin so crept in that our knowledge was much darkened, and
by corruption of this our flesh, man's reason and entendment
[_intellect_] were both overwhelmed. At what time, GOD being sore grieved
with the folly of one man; pitied, of His mere goodness, the whole state
and posterity of mankind. And therefore whereas through the wicked
suggestion of our ghostly enemy, the joyful fruition of GOD's glory was
altogether lost; it pleased our heavenly Father to repair mankind of his
free mercy and to grant an everlasting inheritance unto such as would by
constant faith seek earnestly thereafter.

Long it was, ere that man knew; himself being destitute of GOD's grace,
so that all things waxed savage, the earth untilled, society neglected,
GOD's will not known, man against man, one against another, and all
against order. Some lived by spoil, some like brute beasts grazed upon
the ground, some went naked, some roamed like woodwoses [_mad wild men_],
none did anything by reason, but most did what they could by manhood. None
almost considered the everliving GOD; but all lived most commonly after
their own lust. By death, they thought that all things ended; by life,
they looked for none other living. None remembered the true observation
of wedlock, none tendered the education of their children; laws were note
regarded, true dealing was not once used. For virtue, vice bare place; for
right and equity, might used authority. And therefore whereas man through
reason might have used order, man through folly fell into error. And thus
for lack of skill and want of grace, evil so prevailed that the devil was
most esteemed; and GOD either almost unknown among them all or else
nothing feared among so many. Therefore--even now when man was thus past
all hope of amendment--GOD still tendering his own workmanship; stirred
up his faithful and elect, to persuade with reason all men to society;
and gave his appointed ministers knowledge both to see the natures of
men; and also granted to them the gift of utterance, that they might with
ease win folk at their will, and frame them by reason to all good order.

And therefore whereas men lived brutishly in open fields having neither
house to shroud [_cover_] them in, nor attire to clothe their backs; nor
yet any regard to seek their best avail [_interest_]; these appointed of
GOD, called them together by utterance of speech; and persuaded with them
what was good, what was bad, and what was gainful for mankind. And
although at first the rude could hardly learn, and either for the
strangeness of the thing would not gladly receive the offer or else for
lack of knowledge could not perceive the goodness; yet being somewhat
drawn and delighted with the pleasantness of reason and the sweetness of
utterance, after a certain space, they became through nurture and good
advisement, of wild, sober; of cruel, gentle; of fools, wise; and of
beasts, men. Such force hath the tongue, and such is the power of
Eloquence and Reason that most men are forced, even to yield in that
which most standeth against their will. And therefore the poets do feign
that HERCULES, being a man of great wisdom, had all men linked together
by the ears in a chain, to draw them and lead them even as he listed. For
his wit so great, his tongue so eloquent, and his experience such that no
man was able to withstand his reason; but every one was rather driven to
do that which he would, and to will that which he did; agreeing to his
advice both in word and work, in all that ever they were able.

Neither can I see that men could have been brought by any other means to
live together in fellowship of life, to maintain cities, to deal truly,
and willingly to obey one another; if men, at the first, had not by art
and eloquence persuaded that which they full oft found out by reason. For
what man, I pray you, being better able to maintain himself by valiant
courage than by living in base subjection, would not rather look to rule
like a lord, than to live like an underling; If by reason he were not
persuaded that it behoveth every man to live in his own vocation, and not
to seek any higher room than that whereunto he was at the first,
appointed? Who would dig and delve from morn till evening? Who would
travail and toil with the sweat of his brows? Yea, who would, for his
King's pleasure, adventure and hazard his life, if wit had not so won men
that they thought nothing more needful in this world nor anything
whereunto they were more bounden than here to live in their duty and to
train their whole life, according to their calling. Therefore whereas men
are in many things weakly by nature, and subject to much infirmity; I
think in this one point they pass all other creatures living, that they
have the gift of speech and reason.

And among all other, I think him of most worthy fame, and amongst men to
be taken for half a god that therein doth chiefly and above all other
excel men; wherein men do excel beasts. For he that is among the
reasonable of all the most reasonable; and among the witty, of all the
most witty; and among the eloquent, of all the most eloquent: him, think
I, among all men, not only to be taken for a singular man, but rather to
be counted for half a god. For in seeking the excellency hereof, the
sooner he draweth to perfection the nigher he corneth to GOD, who is the
chief Wisdom: and therefore called GOD because He is the most wise, or
rather wisdom itself.

Now then seeing that GOD giveth heavenly grace unto such as called unto
him with outstretched hands and humble heart; never wanting to those that
want not to themselves; I purpose by His grace and especial assistance, to
set forth such precepts of eloquence, and to show what observation the
wise have used in handling of their matters; that the unlearned by seeing
the practice of others, may have some knowledge themselves; and learn by
their neighbours' device what is necessary for themselves in their own
case.




Sir PHILIP SIDNEY.

_Letter to his brother ROBERT, then in Germany, 18 October_ 1580.

Sir PHILIP SIDNEY to his brother, ROBERT SIDNEY, who was the first Earl
of LEICESTER of that familiar name.


My Dear Brother,

For the money you have received, assure yourself (for it is true) there
is nothing I spend so pleaseth me; as that which is for you. If ever I
have ability, you shall find it so: if not, yet shall not any brother
living be better beloved than you, of me.

I cannot write now to N. WHITE. Do you excuse me! For his nephew, they
are but passions in my father; which we must bear with reverence: but I
am sorry he should return till he had the circuit of his travel; for you
shall never have such a servant, as he would prove. Use your own
discretion!

For your countenance, I would (for no cause) have it diminished in
Germany. In Italy, your greatest expense must be upon worthy men, and not
upon householding. Look to your diet, sweet ROBIN! and hold up your heart
in courage and virtue. Truly, great part of my comfort is in you! I know
not myself what I meant by bravery in you; so greatly you may see I
condemn you. Be careful of yourself, and I shall never have cares.

I have written to Master SAVELL. I wish you kept still together. He is an
excellent man. And there may, if you list, pass good exercises betwixt you
and Master NEVELL. There is great expectation of you both.

For method of writing history, BODEN hath written at large. You may read
him, and gather out of many words, some matter.

This I think, in haste. A Story is either to be considered as a Story; or
as a Treatise, which, besides that, addeth many things for profit and
ornament. As a Story, he is nothing, but a narration of things done, with
the beginnings, causes, and appendices thereof. In that kind, your method
must be to have _seriem temporum_ very exactly, which the chronologies of
MELANCTHON, TARCHAGNORA, LANGUET and such others will help you to.

Then to consider by that... as you note yourself, XENOPHON to follow
THUCYDIDES, so doth THUCYDIDES follow HERODOTUS, and DIODORUS SICULUS
follow XENOPHON. So generally, do the Roman stories follow the Greek; and
the particular stories of the present monarchies follow the Roman.

In that kind, you have principally to note the examples of virtue and
vice, with their good or evil success; the establishment or rains of
great Estates, with the causes, the time, and circumstances of the laws
then written of; the enterings and endings of wars; and therein, the
stratagems against the enemy, and the discipline upon the soldier.

And thus much as a very historiographer.

Besides this, the Historian makes himself a Discourser for profit; and an
Orator, yea, a Poet sometimes, for ornament. An Orator; in making
excellent orations, _è re nata_, which are to be marked, but marked with
the note of rhetorical remembrances: a Poet; in painting for the effects,
the motions, the whisperings of the people, which though in disputation,
one might say were true--yet who will mark them well shall find them
taste of a poetical vein, and in that kind are gallantly to be
marked--for though perchance, they were not so, yet it is enough they
might be so. The last point which tends to teach profit, is of a
Discourser; which name I give to whosoever speaks _non simpliciter de
facto, sed de qualitatibus et circumstantiis facti_: and that is it which
makes me and many others, rather note much with our pen than with our mind.

Because we leave all these discourses to the confused trust of our
memory; because they be not tied to the tenour of a question: as
Philosophers use sometimes, places; the Divine, in telling his opinion
and reasons in religion; sometimes the Lawyer, in showing the causes and
benefits of laws; sometimes a Natural Philosopher, in setting down the
causes of any strange thing which the Story binds him to speak of; but
most commonly a Moral Philosopher, either in the ethic part, where he
sets forth virtues or vices and the natures of passions; or in the
politic, when he doth (as often he doth) meddle sententiously with
matters of Estate. Again, sometimes he gives precept of war, both
offensive and defensive. And so, lastly, not professing any art as his
matter leads him, he deals with all arts; which--because it carrieth the
life of a lively example--it is wonderful what light it gives to the arts
themselves; so as the great Civilians help themselves with the discourses
of the Historians. So do Soldiers; and even Philosophers and Astronomers.

But that I wish herein is this, that when you read any such thing, you
straight bring it to his head, not only of what art; but by your logical
subdivisions to the next member and parcel of the art. And so--as in a
table--be it witty words, of which TACITUS is full; sentences, of which
LIVY; or similitudes, whereof PLUTARCH: straight to lay it up in the
right place of his storehouse--as either military, or more specially
defensive military, or more particularly, defensive by fortification--and
so lay it up. So likewise in politic matters. And such a little table you
may easily make wherewith I would have you ever join the historical part;
which is only the example of some stratagem, or good counsel, or such like.

This write I to you, in great haste, of method, without method: but, with
more leisure and study--if I do not find some book that satisfies--I will
venture to write more largely of it unto you.

Master SAVELL will, with ease, help you to set down such a table of
remembrance to yourself; and for your sake I perceive he will do much;
and if ever I be able, I will deserve it of him. One only thing, as it
comes into my mind, let me remember you of, that you consider wherein the
Historian excelleth, and that to note: as DION NICAEUS in the searching
the secrets of government; TACITUS, in the pithy opening of the venom of
wickedness; and so of the rest.

My time--exceedingly short--will suffer me to write no more leisurely.
STEPHEN can tell you who stands with me, while I am writing.

Now, dear brother! take delight likewise in the mathematicals. Master
SAVELL is excellent in them. I think you understand the sphere. If you
do, I care little for any more astronomy in you. Arithmetic and Geometry,
I would wish you well seen in: so as both in matter of number and measure,
you might have a feeling and active judgment, I would you did bear the
mechanical instruments, wherein the Dutch excel.

I write this to you as one, that for myself have given over the delight
in the world; but wish to you as much, if not more, than to myself.

So you can speak and write Latin, not barbarously; I never require great
study in Ciceronianism, the chief abuse of Oxford, _qui dum verba
sectantur, res ipsas negligunt_.

My toyful books I will send--with GOD's help--by February [1581]; at
which time you shall have your money. And for £200 [_nearly £2,000 at the
present day_] a year, assure yourself! If the estates of England remain,
you shall not fail of it. Use it to your best profit!

My Lord of LEICESTER sends you £40 as I understand, by STEPHEN; and
promiseth he will continue that stipend yearly at the least. Then that is
above commons. In any case, write largely and diligently unto him: for, in
truth, I have good proof that he means to be every way good unto you. The
odd £30 shall come with the £100, or else my father and I will jarle.

Now, sweet Brother, take a delight to keep and increase your music. You
will not believe what a want I find of it, in my melancholy times.

At horsemanship; when you exercise it, read CRISON CLAUDIO, and a book
that is called _La Gloria de l'Cavallo_ withal: that you may join the
thorough contemplation of it with the exercise: and so shall you profit
more in a month, than others in a year. And mark the bitting, saddling,
and cur[ry]ing of horses.

I would, by the way, your Worship would learn a better hand. You write
worse than I: and I write evil enough. Once again, have a care of your
diet; and consequently of your complexion. Remember _gratior est veniens
in pulchro corpore virtus_.

Now, Sir, for news; I refer myself to this bearer. He can tell you how
idly we look on our neighbour's fires: and nothing is happened notable at
home; save only DRAKE's return. Of which yet, I know not the secret
points: but about the world he hath been, and rich he is returned.
Portugal, we say, is lost. And to conclude, my eyes are almost closed up,
overwatched with tedious business.

God bless you, sweet Boy! and accomplish the joyful hope I conceive of
you. Once again commend me to Master NEVELL, Master SAVELL, and honest
HARRY WHITE, and bid him be merry.

When you play at weapons; I would have you get thick caps and bracers
[_gloves_], and play out your play lustily; for indeed, ticks and
dalliances are nothing in earnest: for the time of the one and the other
greatly differs. And use as well the blow as the thrust. It is good in
itself; and besides increaseth your breath and strength, and will make
you a strong man at the tourney and barriers. First, in any case,
practise the single sword; and then, with the dagger. Let no day pass
without an hour or two of such exercise. The rest, study; or confer
diligently: and so shall you come home to my comfort and credit.

Lord! how I have babbled! Once again, farewell, dearest Brother!

Your most loving and careful brother

PHILIP SIDNEY.

At Leicester House
this 18th of October 1580.




Francis Meres, M.A.

_Sketch of English Literature, Painting, and Music, up to September_ 1598.

_A comparative Discourse of our English Poets [Painters and Musicians]
with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets [Painters and Musicians]_.


As Greece had three poets of great antiquity, ORPHEUS, LINUS, and
MUSAEUS; and Italy, other three ancient poets, LIVIUS ANDRONICUS, ENNIUS,
and PLAUTUS: so hath England three ancient poets, CHAUCER, GOWER, and
LYDGATE.

As HOMER is reputed the Prince of Greek poets; and PETRARCH of Italian
poets: so CHAUCER is accounted the god of English poets.

As HOMER was the first that adorned the Greek tongue with true quantity:
so [WILLIAM LANGLAND, the author of] _PIERS PLOWMAN_ was the first that
observed the true quantity of our verse without the curiosity of rhyme.

OVID writ a Chronicle from the beginning of the world to his own time;
that is, to the reign of AUGUSTUS the Emperor: so hath HARDING the
Chronicler (after his manner of old harsh rhyming) from ADAM to his time;
that is, to the reign of King EDWARD IV.

As SOTADES Maronites, the Iambic poet, gave himself wholly to write
impure and lascivious things: so SKELTON (I know not for what great
worthiness, surnamed the Poet Laureate) applied his wit to scurrilities
and ridiculous matters; such [as] among the Greeks were called
_Pantomimi_, with us, buffoons.

As CONSALVO PEREZ, that excellent learned man, and secretary to King
PHILIP [II.] of Spain, in translating the "Ulysses" [_Odyssey_] of HOMER
out of Greek into Spanish, hath, by good judgement, avoided the fault of
rhyming, although [he hath] not fully hit perfect and true versifying: so
hath HENRY HOWARD, that true and noble Earl of SURREY, in translating the
fourth book of VIRGIL's _AEneas_: whom MICHAEL DRAYTON in his _England's
Heroical Epistles_ hath eternized for an _Epistle to his fair GERALDINE_.

As these Neoterics, JOVIANUS PONTANUS, POLITIANUS, MARULLUS TARCHANIOTA,
the two STROZAE the father and the son, PALINGENIUS, MANTUANUS,
PHILELPHUS, QUINTIANUS STOA, and GERMANUS BRIXIUS have obtained renown,
and good place among the ancient Latin poets: so also these Englishmen,
being Latin poets; WALTER HADDON, NICHOLAS CARR, GABRIEL HARVEY,
CHRISTOPHER OCKLAND, THOMAS NEWTON, with his _LELAND_, THOMAS WATSON,
THOMAS CAMPION, [JOHN] BRUNSWERD, and WILLEY have attained [a] good
report and honourable advancement in the Latin empire [of letters].

As the Greek tongue is made famous and eloquent by HOMER, HESIOD,
EURIPIDES, AESCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, PINDARUS, PHOCYLIDES, and ARISTOPHANES;
and the Latin tongue by VIRGIL, OVID, HORACE, SILIUS ITALICUS, LUCANUS,
LUCRETIUS, AUSONIUS, and CLAUDIANUS: so the English tongue is mightily
enriched, and gorgeously invested in rare ornaments and resplendent
habiliments by Sir PHILIP SYDNEY, SPENSER, DANIEL, DRAYTON, WARNER,
SHAKESPEARE, MARLOW, and CHAPMAN.

As XENOPHON, who did imitate so excellently as to give us _effigiem justi
imperii_, "the portraiture of a just empire" under the name of _CYRUS_,
(as CICERO saith of him) made therein an absolute heroical poem; and as
HELIODORUS wrote in prose, his sugared invention of that picture of love
in _THEAGINES and CARICLEA_; and yet both excellent admired poets: so Sir
PHILIP SIDNEY writ his immortal poem, _The Countess of PEMBROKE's
"Arcadia"_ in prose; and yet our rarest poet.

As SEXTOS PROPERTIUS said, _Nescio quid magis nascitur Iliade_: so I say
of SPENSER's _Fairy Queen_; I know not what more excellent or exquisite
poem may be written.

As ACHILLES had the advantage of HECTOR, because it was his fortune to be
extolled and renowned by the heavenly verse of HOMER: so SPENSER's _ELIZA,
the Fairy Queen_, hath the advantage of all the Queens in the world, to be
eternized by so divine a poet.

As THEOCRITUS is famoused for his _Idyllia_ in Greek, and VIRGIL for his
_Eclogues_ in Latin: so SPENSER their imitator in his _Shepherds
Calendar_ is renowned for the like argument; and honoured for fine
poetical invention, and most exquisite wit.

As PARTHENIUS Nicaeus excellently sang the praises of _ARETE_: so DANIEL
hath divinely sonnetted the matchless beauty of _DELIA_.

As every one mourneth, when he heareth of the lamentable plangors
[plaints] of [the] Thracian ORPHEUS for his dearest _EURYDICE_: so every
one passionateth, when he readeth the afflicted death of DANIEL's
distressed _ROSAMOND_.

As LUCAN hath mournfully depainted the Civil Wars of POMPEY and CAESAR:
so hath DANIEL, the Civil Wars of York and Lancaster; and DRAYTON, the
Civil Wars of EDWARD II. and the Barons.

As VIRGIL doth imitate CATULLUS in the like matter of _ARIADNE_, for his
story of Queen _DIDO_: so MICHAEL DRAYTON doth imitate OVID in his
_England's Heroical Epistles_.

As SOPHOCLES was called a Bee for the sweetness of his tongue: so in
CHARLES FITZ-GEFFRY's _DRAKE_, DRAYTON is termed "golden-mouthed," for
the purity and preciousness of his style and phrase.

As ACCIUS, MARCUS ATILIUS, and MILITHUS were called _Tragaediographi_;
because they writ tragedies: so we may truly term MICHAEL DRAYTON,
_Tragaediographus_: for his passionate penning [_the poem of_] the
downfalls of valiant ROBERT of NORMANDY, chaste MATILDA, and great
GAVESTON.

As JOANNES HONTERUS, in Latin verse, wrote three books of Cosmography,
with geographical tables; so MICHAEL DRAYTON is now in penning in English
verse, a poem called _Poly-olbion_ [which is] geographical and
hydrographical of all the forests, woods, mountains, fountains, rivers,
lakes, floods, baths [_spas_], and springs that be in England.

As AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS is reported, among all writers to [have] been of
an honest life and upright conversation: so MICHAEL DRAYTON, _quem toties
honoris et amoris causa nomino_, among scholars, soldiers, poets, and all
sorts of people, is held for a man of virtuous disposition, honest
conversation, and well governed carriage: which is almost miraculous
among good wits in these declining and corrupt times; when there is
nothing but roguery in villainous man, and when cheating and craftiness
are counted the cleanest wit and soundest wisdom.

As DECIUS AUSONIUS Gallus, _in libris Fastorum_, penned the occurrences
of the world from the first creation of it to this time; that is, to the
reign of the Emperor GRATIAN: so WARNER, in his absolute _Albion's
England_, hath most admirably penned the history of his own country from
NOAH to his time, that is, to the reign of Queen ELIZABETH. I have heard
him termed of the best wits of both our Universities, our English HOMER.

As EURIPIDES is the most sententious among the Greek poets: so is WARNER
among our English poets.

As the soul of EUPHORBUS was thought to live in PYTHAGORAS: so the sweet
witty soul of OVID lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued SHAKESPEARE.
Witness his _VENUS and ADONIS_; his _LUCRECE_; his sugared _Sonnets_,
among his private friends; &c.

As PLAUTUS and SENECA are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among
the Latins: so SHAKESPEARE among the English is the most excellent in both
kinds for the stage. For Comedy: witness his _Gentlemen of Verona_; his
[_Comedy of_] _Errors_; his _Love's Labour's Lost_; his _Love's Labour's
Won_ [? _All's Well that Ends Well_] his _Midsummer Night's Dream_; and
his _Merchant of Venice_.

For Tragedy: his _RICHARD II., RICHARD III., HENRY IV., King JOHN, TITUS
ANDRONICUS_, and his _ROMEO and JULIET_.

As EPIUS STOLO said that the Muses would speak with PLAUTUS's tongue, if
they would speak Latin: so I say that the Muses would speak with
SHAKESPEARE's fine filed phrase; if they would speak English.

As MUSAEUS, who wrote the love of HERO and LEANDER, had two excellent
scholars, THAMYRAS and HERCULES; so hath he [MUSAEUS] in England, two
excellent, poets, imitators of him in the same argument and subject,
CHRISTOPHER MARLOW and GEORGE CHAPMAN.

As OVID saith of his work,

    _Famque opus exegi, quod nec FOVIS ira, nec ignis,
    Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas_;

And as HORACE saith of his,

    _Exegi monumentum oere perennius
    Regalique situ pyramidum altius,
    Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens
    Possit disruere, aut innumerabilis
    Annorum series, et fuga temporum_:

So I say, severally, of Sir PHILIP SIDNEY's, SPENSER's, DANIEL's,
DRAYTON's, SHAKESPEARE's, and WARNER's works,

    _Non FOVIS ira: imbres: MARS: ferrum: flamma: senectus:
    Hoc opus unda: lues: turbo: venena ruent.
    Et quanquam ad pulcherrimum hoc opus evertendum, tres illi Dii
        conspirabunt, CHRONUS, VULCANUS, et PATER ipse gentis.
    Non tamen annorum series, non flamma, nec ensis;
    AEternum potuit hoc abolere Decus_.

As Italy had DANTE, BOCCACE [BOCCACIO], PETRARCH, TASSO, CELIANO, and
ARIOSTO: so England had MATTHEW ROYDON, THOMAS ATCHELOW, THOMAS WATSON,
THOMAS KYD, ROBERT GREENE, and GEORGE PEELE.

As there are eight famous and chief languages; Hebrew, Greek, Latin,
Syriac, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, and French; so there are eight notable
several kinds of poets, [1] Heroic, [2] Lyric, [3] Tragic, [4] Comic, [5]
Satiric, [6] Iambic, [7] Elegiac, and [8] Pastoral.

[1] As HOMER and VIRGIL among the Greeks and Latins are the chief Heroic
poets: so SPENSER and WARNER be our chief heroical "makers."

[2] As PINDARUS, ANACREON, and CALLIMACHUS, among the Greeks; and HORACE
and CUTALLUS among the Latins are the best Lyric poets: so in this
faculty, the best among our poets are SPENSER, who excelleth in all
kinds; DANIEL, DRAYTON, SHAKESPEARE, BRETON.

[3] As these Tragic poets flourished in Greece: AESCHYLUS, EURIPIDES,
SOPHOCLES, ALEXANDER AEtolus; ACHAEUS ERITHRIOEUS, ASTYDAMAS Atheniensis,
APOLLODORUS Tarsensis, NICOMACHUS Phrygius, THESPIS Atticus, and TIMON
APOLLONIATES; and these among the Latins, ACCIUS, MARCUS ATILIUS,
POMPONUS SECUNDUS, and SENECA: so these are our best for Tragedy; The
Lord BUCKHURST, Doctor LEG, of Cambridge, Doctor EDES, of Oxford, Master
EDWARD FERRIS, the author[s] of the _Mirror for Magistrates_, MARLOW,
PEELE, WATSON, KYD, SHAKESPEARE, DRAYTON, CHAPMAN, DECKER, and BENJAMIN
JOHNSON.

As MARCUS ANNEUS LUCANUS writ two excellent tragedies; one called
_MEDEA_, the other _De incendio Trojoe cum PRIAMI calamitate_: so Doctor
LEG hath penned two famous tragedies; the one of _RICHARD III._, the
other of _The Destruction of Jerusalem_.

[4] The best poets for Comedy among the Greeks are these: MENANDER,
ARISTOPHANES, EUPOLIS Atheniensis, ALEXIS Terius, NICOSTRATUS, AMIPSIAS
Atheniensis, ANAXANDRIDES Rhodeus, ARISTONYMUS, ARCHIPPUS Atheniensis,
and CALLIAS Atheniensis; and among the Latins, PLAUTUS, TERENCE, NAEVIUS,
SEXTUS TURPILIUS, LICINIUS IMBREX, and VIRGILIUS Romanus: so the best for
Comedy amongst us be EDWARD [VERE], Earl of OXFORD; Doctor GAGER, of
Oxford; Master ROWLEY, once a rare scholar of learned Pembroke Hall in
Cambridge; Master EDWARDES, one of Her Majesty's Chapel; eloquent and
witty JOHN LILLY, LODGE, GASCOIGNE, GREENE, SHAKESPEARE, THOMAS NASH,
THOMAS HEYWOOD, ANTHONY MUNDAY, our best plotter; CHAPMAN, PORTER,
WILSON, HATHWAY, and HENRY CHETTLE.

[5] As HORACE, LUCILIUS, JUVENAL, PERSIUS, and LUCULLUS are the best for
Satire among the Latins: so with us, in the same faculty, these are chief
[WILLIAM LANGLAND, the author of] _PIERS PLOWMAN_, [T.] LODGE, [JOSEPH]
HALL of Emmanuel College in Cambridge [_afterwards Bishop of NORWICH_];
[JOHN MARSTON] the Author of _PYGMALION's Image, and certain Satires_;
the Author of _Skialetheia_.

[6] Among the Greeks, I will name but two for Iambics, ARCHILOCHUS Parius
and HIPPONAX Ephesius: so amongst us, I name but two Iambical poets;
GABRIEL HARVEY and RICHARD STANYHURST, because I have seen no more in
this kind.

[7] As these are famous among the Greeks for Elegies, MELANTHUS, MYMNERUS
Colophonius, OLYMPIUS Mysius, PARTHENIUS Nicoeus, PHILETAS Cous, THEOGENES
Megarensis, and PIGRES Halicarnassoeus; and these among the Latins,
MAECENAS, OVID, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS, C. VALGIUS, CASSIUS SEVERUS, and
CLODIUS Sabinus: so these are the most passionate among us to bewail and
bemoan the perplexities of love, HENRY HOWARD, Earl of SURREY, Sir THOMAS
WYATT the Elder, Sir FRANCIS BRYAN, Sir PHILIP SIDNEY, Sir WALTER RALEIGH,
Sir EDWARD DYER, SPENSER, DANIEL, DRAYTON, SHAKESPEARE, WHETSTONE,
GASCOIGNE, SAMUEL PAGE sometime Fellow of Corpus Christi College in
Oxford, CHURCHYARD, BRETON.

[8] As THEOCRITUS in Greek; VIRGIL and MANTUAN in Latin, SANNAZAR in
Italian, and [THOMAS WATSON] the Author of _AMINTAE Gaudia_ and
_WALSINGHAM's MELIBOEUS_ are the best for Pastoral: so amongst us the
best in this kind are Sir PHILIP SIDNEY, Master CHALLONER, SPENSER,
STEPHEN GOSSON, ABRAHAM FRAUNCE, and BARNFIELD.

These and many other Epigrammatists, the Latin tongue hath; Q. CATULLUS,
PORCIUS LICINIUS, QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS, MARTIAL, CNOEUS GETULICUS, and
witty Sir THOMAS MORE: so in English we have these, HEYWOOD, DRANT,
KENDAL, BASTARD, DAVIES.

As noble MAECENAS, that sprang from the Etruscan Kings, not only graced
poets by his bounty, but also by being a poet himself; and as JAMES VI.,
now King of Scotland, is not only a favourer of poets, but a poet; as my
friend Master RICHARD BARNFELD hath in this distich passing well recorded,

    The King of Scots now living is a poet,
    As his _Lepanto_ and his _Furies_ show it:

so ELIZABETH, our dread Sovereign and gracious Queen, is not only a
liberal Patron unto poets, but an excellent poet herself; whose learned,
delicate and noble Muse surmounteth, be it in Ode, Elegy, Epigram; or in
any other kind of poem, Heroic or Lyric.

OCTAVIA, sister unto AUGUSTUS the Emperor, was exceeding[ly] bountiful
unto VIRGIL, who gave him for making twenty-six verses, £1,137, to wit,
ten _sestertiae_ for every verse (which amounted to above £43 for every
verse): so learned MARY, the honourable Countess of PEMBROKE [and] the
noble sister of the immortal Sir PHILIP SIDNEY, is very liberal unto
poets. Besides, she is a most delicate poet, of whom I may say, as
ANTIPATER Sidonius writeth of SAPPHO:

    _Dulcia Mnemosyne demirans carmina Sapphus,
    Quaesivit decima Pieris unde foret_.

Among others, in times past, poets had these favourers; AUGUSTUS,
MAECENAS, SOPHOCLES, GERMANICUS; an Emperor, a Nobleman, a Senator, and a
Captain: so of later times, poets have [had] these patrons; ROBERT, King
of Sicily, the great King FRANCIS [I.] of France, King JAMES of Scotland,
and Queen ELIZABETH of England.

As in former times, two great Cardinals, BEMBA and BIENA did countenance
poets: so of late years, two great Preachers, have given them their right
hands in fellowship; BEZA and MELANCTHON.

As the learned philosophers FRACASTORIUS and SCALIGER have highly prized
them: so have the eloquent orators, PONTANUS and MURETUS very gloriously
estimated them.

As GEORGIUS BUCHANANUS' _JEPTHAE_, amongst all modern tragedies, is able
to abide the touch of ARISTOTLE's precepts and EURIPIDES's examples: so
is Bishop WATSON's _ABSALOM_.

As TERENCE for his translations out of APOLLODORUS and MENANDER, and
AQUILIUS for his translation out of MENANDER, and C. GERMANICUS AUGUSTUS
for his out of ARATUS, and AUSONIUS for his translated _Epigrams_ out of
[the] Greek, and Doctor JOHNSON for his _Frog-fight_ out of HOMER, and
WATSON for his _ANTIGONE_ out of SOPHOCLES, have got good commendations:
so these versifiers for their learned translations, are of good note
among us; PHAER foi VIRGIL's _AEneid_, GOLDING for OVID's
_Metamorphosis_, HARINGTON for his _ORLANDO Furioso_, the Translators of
SENECA's _Tragedies_, BARNABE GOOGE for PALINGENIUS's [_Zodiac of Life_],
TURBERVILLE for OVID's _Epistles_ and MANTUAN, and CHAPMAN for his
inchoate HOMER.

As the Latins have these Emblematists, ANDREAS ALCIATUS, REUSNERUS, and
SAMBUCUS: so we have these, GEFFREY WHITNEY, ANDREW WILLET, and THOMAS
COMBE.

As NONNUS PANAPOLYTA wrote the _Gospel_ of Saint JOHN in Greek
hexameters: so GERVASE MARKHAM hath written SOLOMON's _Canticles_ in
English verse.

As CORNELIUS PLINIUS writ the life of POMPONUS SECUNDUS; so young CHARLES
FITZ-GEFFERY, that high towering falcon, hath most gloriously penned _The
honourable Life and Death of worthy Sir FRANCIS DRAKE_.

As HESIOD wrote learnedly of husbandry in Greek: so TUSSER [hath] very
wittily and experimentally written of it in English.

As ANTIPATER Sidonius was famous for extemporal verse in Greek, and OVID
for his

    _Quicquid conabar dicere versus erat_:

so was our TARLETON, of whom Doctor CASE, that learned physician, thus
speaketh in the Seventh Book and 17th chapter of his _Politics_.

_ARISTOTLES suum THEODORETUM laudavit quendam peritum Tragaediarum
actorem, CICERO suum ROSCIUM: nos Angli TARLETONUM, in cujus voce et
vultu omnes jocosi affectus, in cujus cerebroso capite lepidae facetiae
habitant_.

And so is now our witty [THOMAS] WILSON, who, for learning and extemporal
wit in this faculty, is without compare or compeer; as to his great and
eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the _Swan_, on
the Bank Side.

As ACHILLES tortured the dead body of HECTOR; and as ANTONIUS and his
wife FULVIA tormented the lifeless corpse of CICERO; so GABRIEL HARVEY
hath showed the same inhumanity to GREENE, that lies full low in his
grave.

As EUPOLIS of Athens used great liberty in taxing the vices of men: so
doth THOMAS NASH. Witness the brood of the HARVEYS!

As ACTAEON was worried of his own hounds: so is TOM NASH of his _Isle of
Dogs_. Dogs were the death of EURIPIDES; but be not disconsolate, gallant
young JUVENAL! LINUS, the son of APOLLO, died the same death. Yet GOD
forbid that so brave a wit should so basely perish! Thine are but paper
dogs, neither is thy banishment like OVID's, eternally to converse with
the barbarous _Getae_. Therefore comfort thyself, sweet TOM! with
CICERO's glorious return to Rome; and with the counsel AENEAS gives to
his seabeaten soldiers, _Lib_ 1, _AEneid_.

    Pluck up thine heart! and drive from thence both fear and care away!
    To think on this, may pleasure be perhaps another day.
    _Durato, et temet rebus servato secundis_.

As ANACREON died by the pot: so GEORGE PEELE, by the pox.

As ARCHESILAUS PRYTANOEUS perished by wine at a drunken feast, as
HERMIPPUS testifieth in DIOGENES: so ROBERT GREENE died by a surfeit
taken of pickled herrings and Rhenish wine; as witnesseth THOMAS NASH,
who was at the fatal banquet.

As JODELLE, a French tragical poet, being an epicure and an atheist, made
a pitiful end: so our tragical poet MARLOW, for his Epicurism and Atheism,
had a tragical death; as you may read of this MARLOW more at large, in the
_Theatre of GOD's judgments_, in the 25th chapter, entreating of _Epicures
and Atheists_.

As the poet LYCOPHRON was shot to death by a certain rival of his: so
CHRISTOPHER MARLOW was stabbed to death by a baudy Servingman, a rival of
his, in his lewd love.

_PAINTERS_.

APELLES painted a mare and a dog so lively [_lifelike_], that horses and
dogs passing by would neigh and bark at them. He grew so famous for his
excellent art, that great ALEXANDER came often to his shop to visit him,
and commanded that none other should paint him. At his death, he left
VENUS unfinished; neither was any [one] ever found, that durst perfect
what he had begun.

ZEUXIS was so excellent in painting, that it was easier for any man to
view his pictures than to imitate them; who, to make an excellent table
[_picture_], had five Agrigentine virgins naked by him. He painted grapes
so lively, that birds did fly to eat them.

PARRHASIUS painted a sheet [_curtain_] so artificially, that ZEUXIS took
it for a sheet indeed; and commanded it to be taken away, to see the
picture that he thought it had veiled.

As learned and skilful Greece had these excellently renowned for their
limning; so England hath these: HILIARD, ISAAC OLIVER, and JOHN DE
CREETES, very famous for their painting.

As Greece moreover had these painters, TIMANTES, PHIDIAS, POLIGNOTUS,
PANEUS, BULARCHUS, EUMARUS, CIMON CLEONCEUS, PYTHIS, APPOLLODORUS
Atheniensis, ARISTIDES Thebanus, NICOPHANES, PERSEUS, ANTIPHILUS, and
NICEARCHUS: so in England, we have also these; WILLIAM and FRANCIS SEGAR,
brethren; THOMAS and JOHN BETTES; LOCKEY, LYNE, PEAKE, PETER COLE,
ARNOLDE, MARCUS, JACQUES DE BRAY, CORNELIUS, PETER GOLCHIS, HIERONIMO and
PETER VAN DE VELDE.

As LYSIPPUS, PRAXITELES, and PYRGOTELES were excellent engravers: so we
have these engravers; ROGERS, CHRISTOPHER SWITSER, and CURE.

_MUSIC_.

The loadstone draweth iron unto it, but the stone of Ethiopia called
_Theamedes_ driveth it away: so there is a kind of music that doth
assuage and appease the affections, and a kind that doth kindle and
provoke the passions.

As there is no law that hath sovereignty over love; so there is no heart
that hath rule over music, but music subdues it.

As one day takes from us the credit of another: so one strain of music
extincts [_extinguishes_] the pleasure of another.

As the heart ruleth over all the members: so music overcometh the heart.

As beauty is not beauty without virtue: so music is not music without art.

As all things love their likes: so the more curious ear, the delicatest
music.

As too much speaking hurts, too much galling smarts; so too much music
gluts and distempereth.

As PLATO and ARISTOTLE are accounted Princes in philosophy and logic;
HIPPOCRATES and GALEN, in physic; PTOLOMY in astromony; EUCLID in
geometry; and CICERO in eloquence: so BOETIUS is esteemed a Prince and
captain in music.

As Priests were famous among the Egyptians; Magi among the Chaldeans, and
Gymnosophists among the Indians; so Musicians flourished among the
Grecians: and therefore EPAMINONDAS was accounted more unlearned than
THEMISTOCLES, because he had no skill in music.

As MERCURY, by his eloquence, reclaimed men from their barbarousness and
cruelty: so ORPHEUS, by his music, subdued fierce beasts and wild birds.

As DEMOSTHENES, ISOCRATES, and CICERO, excelled in oratory: so ORPHEUS,
AMPHION, and LINUS surpassed in music.

As Greece had these excellent musicians, ARION, DORCEUS, TIMOTHEUS
Milesius, CHRYSOGONUS, TERPANDER, LESBIUS, SIMON Magnesius, PHILAMON,
LINUS, STRATONICUS, ARISTONUS, CHIRON, ACHILLES, CLINIAS, EUMONIUS,
DEMODOCHUS, and RUFFINUS: so England hath these, Master COOPER, Master
FAIRFAX, Master TALLIS, Master TAVERNER, Master BLITHMAN, Master BYRD,
Doctor TIE, Doctor DALLIS, Doctor BULL, Master THOMAS MUD, sometime
Fellow of Pembroke Hall in Cambridge, Master EDWARD JOHNSON, Master
BLANKES, Master RANDALL, Master PHILIPS, Master DOWLAND, and Master
MORLEY.

_A Choice is to be had in Reading of Books_.

As the Lord DE LA NOUE in the sixth Discourse of his _Politic and
Military Discourses_, censureth the books of _AMADIS de Gaul_; which, he
saith, are no less hurtful to youth than the works of MACHIAVELLI to age:
so these books are accordingly to be censured of, whose names follow.

_BEVIS of Hampton.
GUY of Warwick.
ARTHUR of the Round Table.
HUON of Bordeaux.
OLIVER of Castile.
The Four Sons of AYMON.
GARGANTUA.
GIRELEON.
The Honour of Chivalry.
PRIMALEON of Greece.
PALERMIN DE OLIVA.
The Seven Champions [of Christendom].
The Mirror of Knighthood.
BLANCHARDINE.
MERVIN.
OWLGLASS.
The Stories of PALLADIN and PALMENDOS.
The Black Knight.
The Maiden Knight.
The History of CAELESTINA.
The Castle of Fame.
GALLIAN of France.
ORNATUS and ARTESIA.
&c_.

_Poets_.

As that ship is endangered where ail lean to one side; but is in safety,
one leaning one way and another another way: so the dissensions of Poets
among themselves, doth make them, that they less infect their readers.
And for this purpose, our Satirists [JOSEPH] HALL [_afterwards Bishop of
NORWICH_], [JOHN MARSTON] the Author of _PYGMALION's Image and Certain
Satires_, [JOHN] RANKINS, and such others, are very profitable.




JOHN DRYDEN.

Dedicatory Epistle to _The Rival Ladies_.

[Printed in 1664.]


To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ROGER, EARL OF ORRERY.

MY LORD,

This worthless present was designed you, long before it was a Play; when
it was only a confused mass of thoughts tumbling over one another in the
dark: when the Fancy was yet in its first work, moving the sleeping
Images of Things towards the light, there to be distinguished; and then,
either chosen or rejected by the Judgement. It was yours, my Lord! before
I could call it mine.

And I confess, in that first tumult of my thoughts, there appeared a
disorderly kind of beauty in some of them; which gave me hope, something
worthy of my Lord of ORRERY might be drawn from them: but I was then, in
that eagerness of Imagination, which, by over pleasing Fanciful Men,
flatters them into the danger of writing; so that, when I had moulded it
to that shape it now bears, I looked with such disgust upon it, that the
censures of our severest critics are charitable to what I thought, and
still think of it myself.

'Tis so far from me, to believe this perfect; that I am apt to conclude
our best plays are scarcely so. For the Stage being the Representation of
the World and the actions in it; how can it be imagined that the Picture
of Human Life can be more exact than Life itself is?

He may be allowed sometimes to err, who undertakes to move so many
Characters and Humours (as are requisite in a Play) in those narrow
channels, which are proper to each of them; to conduct his Imaginary
Persons through so many various intrigues and chances, as the labouring
Audience shall think them lost under every billow: and then, at length,
to work them so naturally out of their distresses, that when the whole
Plot is laid open, the Spectators may rest satisfied that every Cause was
powerful enough to produce the Effect it had; and that the whole Chain of
them was, with such due order, linked together, that the first Accident
[_Incident_], would, naturally, beget the second, till they All rendered
the Conclusion necessary.

These difficulties, my Lord! may reasonably excuse the errors of my
Undertaking: but for this confidence of my Dedication, I have an
argument, which is too advantageous for me not to publish it to the
World. 'Tis the kindness your Lordship has continually shown to all my
writings. You have been pleased, my Lord! they should sometimes cross the
Irish seas, to kiss your hands; which passage, contrary to the experience
of others, I have found the least dangerous in the world. Your favour has
shone upon me, at a remote distance, without the least knowledge of my
person: and, like the influence of the heavenly bodies, you have done
good, without knowing to whom you did it, 'Tis this virtue in your
Lordship, which emboldens me to this attempt. For did I not consider you
as my Patron, I have little reason to desire you for my Judge: and should
appear, with as much awe before you, in the Reading; as I had, when the
full theatre sate upon the Action.

For who so severely judge of faults, as he who has given testimony he
commits none? Your excellent _Poems_ having afforded that knowledge of it
to the World, that your enemies are ready to upbraid you with it as a
crime, for a Man of Business to write so well. Neither durst I have
justified your Lordship in it, if examples of it had not been in the
world before you: If XENOPHON had not written a Romance; and a certain
Roman, called AUGUSTUS CAESAR, a Tragedy and Epigrams. But their writing
was the entertainment of their pleasure; yours is only a diversion of
your pain. The Muses have seldom employed your thoughts, but when some
violent fit of the gout has snatched you from Affairs of State: and, like
the priestess of APOLLO, you never come to deliver his oracles, but
unwillingly, and in torment. So that we are obliged to your Lordship's
misery, for our delight. You treat us with the cruel pleasure of a
Turkish triumph, where those who cut and wound their bodies, sing songs
of victory as they pass; and divert others with their own sufferings.
Other men endure their diseases, your Lordship only can enjoy them!

Plotting and Writing in this kind, are, certainly, more troublesome
employments than many which signify more, and are of greater moment in
the world. The Fancy, Memory, and Judgement are then extended, like so
many limbs, upon the rack; all of them reaching, with their utmost
stress, at Nature: a thing so almost infinite and boundless, as can never
fully be comprehended but where the Images of all things are always
present.

Yet I wonder not your Lordship succeeds so well in this attempt. The
knowledge of men is your daily practice in the world. To work and bend
their stubborn minds; which go not all after the same grain, but, each of
them so particular a way, that the same common humours, in several
persons, must be wrought upon by several means.

Thus, my Lord! your sickness is but the imitation of your health; the
Poet but subordinate to the Statesman in you. You still govern men with
the same address, and manage business with the same prudence: allowing it
here, as in the world, the due increase and growth till it comes to the
just height; and then turning it, when it is fully ripe, and Nature calls
out (as it were) to be delivered. With this only advantage of ease to you,
in your Poetry: that you have Fortune, here, at your command: with which,
Wisdom does often unsuccessfully struggle in the world. Here is no
Chance, which you have not foreseen. All your heroes are more than your
subjects, they are your creatures: and, though they seem to move freely,
in all the sallies of their passions; yet, you make destinies for them,
which they cannot shun. They are moved, if I may dare to say so, like the
rational creatures of the Almighty Poet; who walk at liberty, in their own
opinion, because their fetters are invincible: when, indeed, the Prison of
their Will is the more sure, for being large; and instead of an Absolute
Power over their actions, they have only a Wretched Desire of doing that,
which they cannot choose but do.

I have dwelt, my Lord! thus long, upon your Writing; not because you
deserve not greater and more noble commendations, but because I am not
equally able to express them in other subjects. Like an ill swimmer, I
have willingly stayed long in my own depth; and though I am eager of
performing more, yet I am loath to venture out beyond my knowledge. For
beyond your Poetry, my Lord! all is Ocean to me.

To speak of you as a Soldier, or a Statesman, were only to betray my own
ignorance: and I could hope no better success from it, than that
miserable Rhetorician had, who solemnly declaimed before HANNIBAL "of the
Conduct of Armies, and the Art of War." I can only say, in general, that
the Souls of other men shine out at little cranies; they understand some
one thing, perhaps, to admiration, while they are darkened on all the
other parts: but your Lordship's Soul is an entire Globe of Light,
breaking out on every side; and if I have only discovered one beam of it,
'tis not that the light falls unequally, but because the body which
receives it, is of unequal parts.


The acknowledgement of which, is a fair occasion offered me, to retire
from the consideration of your Lordship to that of myself. I here present
you, my Lord! with that in Print, which you had the goodness not to
dislike upon the Stage; and account it happy to have met you here in
England: it being, at best, like small wines, to be drunk out upon the
place [i.e., _of vintage, where produced_]; and has not body enough to
endure the sea.

I know not, whether I have been so careful of the Plot and Language, as I
ought: but for the latter, I have endeavoured to write English, as near as
I could distinguish it from the tongue of pedants, and that of affected
travellers. Only, I am sorry that, speaking so noble a language as we do,
we have not a more certain Measure of it, as they have in France: where
they have an "Academy" erected for that purpose, and endowed with large
privileges by the present King [_LOUIS XIV._]. I wish, we might, at
length, leave to borrow words from other nations; which is now a
wantonness in us, not a necessity: but so long as some affect to speak
them, there will not want others who will have the boldness to write them.

But I fear, lest defending the received words; I shall be accused for
following the New Way: I mean, of writing Scenes in Verse; though, to
speak properly, 'tis no so much a New Way amongst us, as an Old Way new
revived. For, many years [i.e., 1561] before SHAKESPEARE's Plays, was the
Tragedy of _Queen_ [or rather _King_] _GORBODUC_ [_of which, however, the
authentic title is "FERREX and PORREX"_] in English Verse; written by
that famous Lord BUCKHURST, afterwards Earl of DORSET, and progenitor to
that excellent Person, [_Lord BUCKHURST, see_ p. 503] who, as he inherits
his Soul and Title, I wish may inherit his good fortune!

But supposing our countrymen had not received this Writing, till of late!
Shall we oppose ourselves to the most polished and civilised nations of
Europe? Shall we, with the same singularity, oppose the World in this, as
most of us do in pronouncing Latin? Or do we desire, that the brand which
BARCLAY has, I hope unjustly, laid upon the English, should still
continue? _Angli suos ac sua omnia impense mirantur; coeteras nationes
despectui habent_. All the Spanish and Italian Tragedies I have yet seen,
are writ in Rhyme. For the French, I do not name them: because it is the
fate of our countrymen, to admit little of theirs among us, but the
basest of their men, the extravagancies of their fashions, and the
frippery of their merchandise.

SHAKESPEARE, who (with some errors, not to be avoided in that Age) had,
undoubtedly, a larger Soul of Poesy than ever any of our nation, was the
First, who (to shun the pains of continual rhyming) invented that kind of
writing which we call Blank Verse [_DRYDEN is here wrong as to fact, Lord
SURREY wrote the earliest_ printed _English Blank Verse in his Fourth
Book of the_ AEneid, _printed in_ 1548]; but the French, more properly
_Prose Mesurée_: into which, the English Tongue so naturally slides, that
in writing Prose, 'tis hardly to be avoided. And, therefore, I admire
[_marvel that_] some men should perpetually stumble in a way so easy:
and, inverting the order of their words, constantly close their lines
with verbs. Which, though commended, sometimes, in writing Latin; yet, we
were whipt at Westminster, if we used it twice together.

I know some, who, if they were to write in Blank Verse _Sir, I ask your
pardon!_ would think it sounded more heroically to write

    _Sir, I, your pardon ask!_

I should judge him to have little command of English, whom the necessity
of a _rhyme_ should force upon this rock; though, sometimes, it cannot be
easily avoided.

And, indeed, this is the only inconvenience with which Rhyme can be
charged. This is that, which makes them say, "Rhyme is not natural. It
being only so, when the Poet either makes a vicious choice of words; or
places them, for Rhyme's sake so unnaturally, as no man would, in
ordinary speaking." But when 'tis so judiciously ordered, that the first
word in the verse seems to beget the second; and that, the next; till
that becomes the last word in the line, which, in the negligence of
Prose, would be so: it must, then, be granted, Rhyme has all advantages
of Prose, besides its own.

But the excellence and dignity of it, were never fully known, till Mr.
WALLER taught it. He, first, made writing easily, an Art: first, showed
us to conclude the Sense, most commonly in distiches; which in the Verse
of those before him, runs on for so many lines together, that the reader
is out of breath, to overtake it.

This sweetness of Mr. WALLER's Lyric Poesy was, afterwards, followed in
the Epic, by Sir JOHN DENHAM, in his _Cooper's Hill_; a Poem which, your
Lordship knows! for the majesty of the style, is, and ever will be the
Exact Standard of Good Writing.

But if we owe the invention of it to Mr. WALLER; we are acknowledging for
the noblest use of it, to Sir WILLIAM D'AVENANT; who, at once, brought it
upon the Stage, and made it perfect in _The Siege of Rhodes_.


The advantages which Rhyme has over Blank Verse, are so many that it were
lost time to name them.

Sir PHILIP SIDNEY, in his _Defence of Poesy_, gives us one, which, in my
opinion, is not the least considerable: I mean, _the Help it brings to
Memory_; which Rhyme so knits up by the Affinity of Sounds, that by
remembering the last word in one line, we often call to mind both the
verses.

Then, in the Quickness of Repartees, which in Discoursive Scenes fall
very often: it has so particular a grace, and is so aptly suited to them,
that _the Sudden Smartness of the Answer, and the Sweetness of the Rhyme
set off the beauty of each other_.

But that benefit, which I consider most in it, because I have not seldom
found it, is that _it Bounds and Circumscribes the Fancy_. For
Imagination in a Poet, is a faculty so wild and lawless, that, like a
high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the
Judgement. The great easiness of Blank Verse renders the Poet too
luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things, which might better be
omitted, or, at least, shut up in fewer words.

But when the difficulty of artful Rhyming is interposed, where the Poet
commonly confines his Sense to his Couplet; and must contrive that Sense
into such words that the Rhyme shall naturally follow them, not they the
Rhyme [pp. 571 581]: the Fancy then gives leisure to the Judgement to
come in; which, seeing so heavy a tax imposed, is ready to cut off all
unnecessary expenses.

This last consideration has already answered an objection, which some
have made, that "Rhyme is only an Embroidery of Sense; to make that which
is ordinary in itself, pass for excellent with less examination." But,
certainly, that which most regulates the Fancy, and gives the Judgement
its busiest employment, is like[ly] to bring forth the richest and
clearest thoughts. The Poet examines that most which he produceth with
the greatest leisure, and which, he knows, must pass the severest test of
the audience, because they are aptest to have it ever in their memory: as
the stomach makes the best concoction when it strictly embraces the
nourishment, and takes account of every little particle as it passes
through.


But, as the best medicines may lose their virtue, by being ill applied;
so is it with Verse, if a fit Subject be not chosen for it. Neither must
the Argument alone, but the Characters and Persons be great and noble:
otherwise, as SCALIGER says of CLAUDIAN, the Poet will be _Ignobiliore
materia depressus_. The Scenes which (in my opinion) most commend it, are
those of Argumentation and Discourse, on the result of which, the doing or
not doing [of] some considerable Action should depend.


But, my Lord! though I have more to say upon this subject; yet, I must
remember, 'tis your Lordship, to whom I speak: who have much better
commended this Way by your writing _in_ it; than I can do, by writing
_for_ it. Where my Reasons cannot prevail, I am sure your Lordship's
Example must. Your Rhetoric has gained my cause; as least, the greatest
part of my design has already succeeded to my wish: which was, to
interest so noble a Person in the Quarrel; and withal, to testify to the
World, how happy I esteem myself in the honour of being, My Lord,

Your Lordship's most humble, and most obedient servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.




The Honourable Sir ROBERT HOWARD, Auditor of the Exchequer.

Preface to _Four new Plays_.

[Licensed 7 March 1665, Printed the same year.]


_TO THE READER_.

There is none more sensible than I am, how great a charity the most
Ingenious may need, that expose their private wit to a public judgement;
since the same Phancy from whence the thoughts proceed, must probably be
kind to its own issue. This renders men no perfecter judges of their own
writings, than fathers are of their own children: who find out that wit
in them, which another discerns not; and see not those errors, which are
evident to the unconcerned. Nor is this Self Kindness more fatal to men
in their writings, than in their actions; every man being a greater
flatterer to himself, than he knows how to be to another: otherwise, it
were impossible that things of such distant natures, should find their
own authors so equally kind in their affections to them; and men so
different in parts and virtues, should rest equally contented in their
own opinions.

This apprehension, added to that greater [one] which I have of my own
weakness, may, I hope, incline the Reader to believe me, when I assure
him that these follies were made public, as much against my inclination
as judgement. But, being pursued with so many solicitations of Mr.
HERRINGMAN's [_the Publisher_], and having received civilities from him,
if it were possible, exceeding his importunities: I, at last, yielded to
prefer that which he believed his interest; before that, which I
apprehended my own disadvantage. Considering withal, that he might
pretend, It would be a real loss to him: and could be but an imaginary
prejudice to me: since things of this nature, though never so excellent,
or never so mean, have seldom proved the foundation of men's new built
fortunes, or the ruin of their old. It being the fate of Poetry, though
of no other good parts, to be wholly separated from Interest: and there
are few that know me but will easily believe, I am not much concerned in
an unprofitable Reputation.

This clear account I have given the Reader, of this seeming
contradiction, to offer that to the World which I dislike myself: and, in
all things, I have no greater an ambition than to be believed [to be] a
Person, that would rather be unkind to myself, than ungrateful to others.

I have made this excuse for myself. I offer none for my writings; but
freely leave the Reader to condemn that which has received my sentence
already.


Yet, I shall presume to say something in the justification of our
nation's Plays, though not of my own: since, in my judgement, without
being partial to my country, I do really prefer our Plays as much before
any other nation's; as I do the best of ours before my own.

The manner of the Stage Entertainments has differed in all Ages; and, as
it has increased in use, it has enlarged itself in business. The general
manner of Plays among the Ancients we find in SENECA's Tragedies, for
serious subjects; and in TERENCE and PLAUTUS, for the comical. In which
latter, we see some pretences to Plots; though certainly short of what we
have seen in some of Mr. [BEN.] JOHNSON's Plays. And for their Wit,
especially PLAUTUS, I suppose it suited much better in those days, than
it would do in ours. For were their Plays strictly translated, and
presented on our Stage; they would hardly bring as many audiences as they
have now admirers.

The serious Plays were anciently composed of Speeches and Choruses; where
all things are Related, but no matter of _fact_ Presented on the Stage.
This pattern, the French do, at this time, nearly follow: only leaving
out the Chorus, making up their Plays with almost Entire and Discoursive
Scenes; presenting the business in Relations [p. 535]. This way has very
much affected some of our nation, who possibly believe well of it, more
upon the account that what the French do ought to be a fashion, than upon
the reason of the thing.

It is first necessary to consider, Why, probably, the compositions of the
Ancients, especially in their serious Plays were after this manner? And it
will be found, that the subjects they commonly chose, drave them upon the
necessity; which were usually the most known stories and Fables [p. 522].
Accordingly, SENECA, making choice of MEDEA, HYPPOLITUS, and HERCULES
_OEtaeus_, it was impossible to _show_ MEDEA throwing old mangled AESON
into her age-renewing caldron, or to _present_ the scattered limbs of
HYPPOLITUS upon the Stage, and _show_ HERCULES burning upon his own
funeral pile.

And this, the judicious HORACE clearly speaks of, in his _Arte Poetica_;
where he says

                          _Non tamen intus
    Digna geri, promes in scenam: multaque tolles
    Ex oculis, quae mox narret facundia praesens.
    Nec pueros coram populo MEDEA trucidet[8]
    Aut humana palam coquat extra nefarius ATREUS,
    Aut in avem PROGNE vertatur, CADMUS in anguem.
    Quodcunque ostendit mihi sic, incredulus odi_.

So that it appears a fault to chose such Subjects for the Stage; but much
greater, to affect that Method which those subjects enforce: and therefore
the French seem much mistaken, who, without the necessity, sometimes
commit the error. And this is as plainly decided by the same author, in
his preceding word

    _Aut agitur res in Scenis aut acta refertur:
    Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem;
    Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quae
    Ipse sibi tradit spectator_.

By which, he directly declares his judgement, "That every thing makes
more impression Presented, than Related." Nor, indeed, can any one
rationally assert the contrary. For, if they affirm otherwise, they do,
by consequence, maintain, That a whole Play might as well be Related, as
Acted.

Therefore whoever chooses a subject, that enforces him to RELATIONS, is
to blame; and he that does it without the necessity of the subject, is
much more.

If these premisses be granted, 'tis no partiality to conclude, That our
English Plays justly challenge the pre-eminence.


Yet, I shall as candidly acknowledge, that our best Poets have differed
from other nations, though not so happily [_felicitously_], in usually
mingling and interweaving Mirth and Sadness, through the whole course of
their Plays. BEN. JOHNSON only excepted; who keeps himself entire to one
Argument. And I confess I am now convinced in my own judgement, that it
is most proper to keep the audience in one entire disposition both of
Concern and Attention: for when Scenes of so different natures,
immediately succeed one another; 'tis probable, the audience may not so
suddenly recollect themselves, as to start into an enjoyment of Mirth, or
into the concern for the Sadness. Yet I dispute not but the variety of
this world may afford pursuing accidents of such different natures; but
yet, though possible in themselves to be, they may not be so proper to be
Presented. An Entire Connection being the natural beauty of all Plays: and
Language, the Ornament to dress them in; which, in serious Subjects, ought
to be great and easy, like a high born Person that expresses greatness
without pride or affection.

The easier dictates of Nature ought to flow in Comedy; yet separated from
obsceneness. There being nothing more impudent than the immodesty of
words. Wit should be chaste; and those that have it, can only write well:

        _Si modo
    Scimus in urbanum Lepido se ponere dicto_.

Another way of the Ancients, which the French follow, and our Stage has,
now lately, practised; is to write in Rhyme. And this is the dispute
betwixt many ingenious persons, _Whether Verse in Rhyme; or Verse without
the Sound, which may be called Blank Verse_ (though a hard expression) _is
to be preferred_?

But take the question, largely, and it is never to be decided [p. 512];
but, by right application, I suppose it may. For, in the general, they
are both proper: that is, one for a Play; the other for a Poem or Copy of
Verses: as Blank Verse being as much too low for one [_i.e., a. Poem or
Verses_]; as Rhyme is unnatural for the other [_i.e., a Play_].

A Poem, being a premeditated Form of thoughts, upon designed occasions:
ought not to be unfurnished of any Harmony in Words or Sound. The other
[_a Play_] is presented as the _present effect_ of accidents not thought
of. So that, 'tis impossible, it should be equally proper to both these;
unless it were possible that all persons were born so much more than
Poets, that verses were not to be composed by them, but already made in
them.

Some may object "That this argument is trivial; because, whatever is
showed, 'tis known still to be but a Play." But such may as well excuse
an ill scene, that is not naturally painted; because they know 'tis only
a scene, and not really a city or country.


But there is yet another thing which makes Verse upon the Stage appear
more unnatural, that is, when a piece of a verse is made up by one that
knew not what the other meant to say; and the former verse answered as
perfectly in Sound as the last is supplied in Measure. So that the
smartness of a Reply, which has its beauty by coming from sudden
thoughts, seems lost by that which rather looks like a Design of two,
than the Answer of one.

It may be said, that "Rhyme is such a confinement to a quick and
luxuriant Phancy, that it gives a stop to its speed, till slow Judgement
comes in to assist it [p. 492];" but this is no argument for the question
in hand. For the dispute is not which way a man may write best in; but
which is most proper for the subject he writes upon. And if this were let
pass, the argument is yet unsolved in itself; for he that wants Judgement
in the liberty of his Phancy, may as well shew the defect of it in its
confinement: and, to say truth, he that has judgement will avoid the
errors, and he that wants it, will commit them both.

It may be objected, "'Tis Improbable that any should speak _ex tempore_,
as well as Beaumont and Fletcher makes them; though in Blank Verse." I do
not only acknowledge that, but that 'tis also improbable any will write so
well that way. But if that may be allowed improbable; I believe it may be
concluded impossible that any should speak as good Verses in Rhyme, as
the best Poets have writ: and therefore, that which seems _nearest_ to
what he intends is ever to be preferred.

Nor are great thoughts more adorned by Verse; than Verse unbeautified by
mean ones. So that Verse seems not only unfit in the best use of it, but
much more in the worst, when "a servant is called," or "a door bid to be
shut" in Rhyme [p. 569]. Verses, I mean good ones, do, in their height of
Phancy, declare the labour that brought them forth! like Majesty that
grows with care: and Nature, that made the Poet capable, seems to retire,
and leave its offers to be made perfect by pains and judgement.

Against this, I can raise no argument, but my Lord of Orrery's writings.
In whose Verse, the greatness of the Majesty seems unsullied with the
cares, and his inimitable Phancy descends to us in such easy expressions,
that they seem as if neither had ever been added to the other: but both
together flowing from a height; like birds got so high that use no
labouring wings, but only, with an easy care, preserve a steadiness in
motion. But this particular happiness, among those multitudes which that
excellent Person is owner of, does not convince my reason, but employ my
wonder. Yet, I am glad such Verse has been written for our Stage; since
it has so happily exceeded those whom we seemed to imitate.


But while I give these arguments against Verse, I may seem faulty, that I
have not only writ ill ones, but writ any. But since it was the fashion; I
was resolved, as in all indifferent things, not to appear singular: the
danger of the vanity being greater than the error. And therefore, I
followed it as a fashion; though very far off.

For the Italian plays; I have seen some of them, which have been given me
as the best: but they are so inconsiderable that the particulars of them
are not at all worthy to entertain the Reader. But, as much as they are
short of others, in this; they exceed in their other performances on the
Stage. I mean their Operas: which, consisting of Music and Painting;
there's none but will believe it as much harder to equal them in that
way, than 'tis to excel them in the other.

The Spanish Plays pretend to more; but, indeed, are not much: being
nothing but so many novels put into Acts and scenes, without the least
attempt or design of making the Reader more concerned than a well-told
tale might do. Whereas, a Poet that endeavours not to heighten the
accidents which Fortune seems to scatter in a well-knit Design, had
better have told his tale by a fireside, than presented it on a Stage.


For these times, wherein we write. I admire to hear the Poets so often
cry out upon, and wittily (as they believe) threaten their judges; since
the effects of their mercy has so much exceeded their justice, that
others with me, cannot but remember how many favourable audiences, some
of our ill plays have had: and, when I consider how severe the former Age
has been to some of the best of Mr. Johnson's never to be equalled
Comedies; I cannot but wonder why any Poet should speak of former Times,
but rather acknowledge that the want of abilities in this Age are largely
supplied with the mercies of it.

I deny not, but there are some who resolve to like nothing, and such,
perhaps, are not unwise; since, by that general resolution, they may be
certainly in the right sometimes: which, perhaps, they would seldom be,
if they should venture their understandings in different censures; and,
being forced to a general liking or disliking (lest they should discover
too much their own weakness), 'tis to be expected they would rather
choose to pretend to Judgement than Good Nature, though I wish they could
find better ways to shew either.


But I forget myself; not considering that while I entertain the Reader,
in the entrance, with what a good play should be: when he is come beyond
the entrance, he must be treated with what ill plays are. But in this, I
resemble the greatest part of the World, that better know how to talk of
many things, than to perform them; and live short of their own discourses.

And now, I seem like an eager hunter, that has long pursued a chase after
an inconsiderable quarry; and gives over, weary; as I do.


[8] p. 537




OF DRAMATIC POESY, AN ESSAY.

By JOHN DRYDEN Esq.;

    _Fungar vice cotis, acutum
    Reddere quae ferrum valet, exors ipsa secandi_.
        Horat. De Arte Poet.

1668


To the Right Honourable CHARLES LORD BUCKHURST.

My Lord,

_As I was lately reviewing my loose papers, amongst the rest I found this
Essay, the writing of which, in this rude and indigested manner wherein
your Lordship now sees it, served as an amusement to me in the country
[in 1665], when the violence of the last Plague had driven me from the
town. Seeing, then, our theatres shut up; I was engaged in these kind[s]
of thoughts with the same delight with which men think upon their absent
mistresses.

I confess I find many things in this Discourse, which I do not now
approve; my judgement being a little altered since the writing of it: but
whether for the better or 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 [p.
561]; 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. 'Tis enough for me, to have your
Lordship's example for my excuse in that little which I have done in it:
and I am sure my adversaries can bring no such arguments against Verse,
as the Fourth Act of_ POMPEY _will furnish me with in its defence.

Yet, my Lord! you must suffer me a little to complain of you! that you
too soon withdraw from us a contentment, of which we expected the
continuance, because you gave it us so early. 'Tis a revolt without
occasion from your Party! where your merits had already raised you to the
highest commands: and where you have not the excuse of other men that you
have been ill used and therefore laid down arms. I know no other quarrel
you can have to Verse, than that which_ SPURINA _had to his beauty; when
he tore and mangled the features of his face, only because they pleased
too well the lookers on. It was an honour which seemed to wait for you,
to lead out a New Colony of Writers from the Mother Nation; and, upon the
first spreading of your ensigns, there had been many in a readiness to
have followed so fortunate a Leader; if not all, yet the better part of
writers._

    Pars, indocili melior grege, mollis et expes
      Inominata perprimat cubilia.

_I am almost of opinion that we should force you to accept of the
command; as sometimes the Praetorian Bands have compelled their Captains
to receive the Empire. The Court, which is the best and surest judge of
writing, has generally allowed of Verse; and in the Town, it has found
favourers of Wit and Quality.

As for your own particular, my Lord! you have yet youth and time enough
to give part of it to the Divertisement of the of the Public, before you
enter into the serious and more unpleasant Business of the World.

That which the French Poet said of the Temple of Love, may be as well
applied to the Temple of Muses. The words, as near[ly] as I can remember
them, were these--_

    La jeunesse a mauvaise grace
    N'ayant pas adoré dans le Temple d'Amour;
    Il faut qu'il entre: et pour le sage;
    Si ce n'est son vrai sejour,
    Ce'st un gîte sur son passage.

_I leave the words to work their effect upon your Lordship, in their own
language; because no other can so well express the nobleness of the
thought: and wish you may be soon called to bear a part in the affaires
of the Nation, where I know the World expects you, and wonders why you
have been so long forgotten; there being no person amongst our young
nobility, on whom the eyes of all men are so much bent. But, in the
meantime, your Lordship may imitate the Course of Nature, which gives us
the flower before the fruit; that I may speak to you in the language of
the Muses, which I have taken from an excellent Poem to the King [i.e.,_
CHARLES II.]

    _As Nature, when she fruit designs, thinks fit
    By beauteous blossoms to proceed to it,
    And while she does accomplish all the Spring,
    Birds, to her secret operations sing.

I confess I have no greater reason in addressing this Essay to your
Lordship, than that it might awaken in you the desire of writing
something, in whatever kind it be, which might be an honour to our Age
and country. And, methinks, it might have the same effect upon you,
which, HOMER tells us, the fight of the Greeks and Trojans before the
fleet had on the spirit of ACHILLES; who, though he had resolved not to
engage, yet found a martial warmth to steal upon him at the sight of
blows, the sound of trumpets, and the cries of fighting men.

For my own part, if in treating of this subject, I sometimes dissent from
the opinion of better Wits, I declare it is not so much to combat their
opinions as to defend mine own, which were first made public. Sometimes,
like a scholar in a fencing school, I put forth myself, and show my own
ill play, on purpose to be better taught. Sometimes, I stand desperately
to my arms, like the Foot, when deserted by their Horse; not in hope to
overcome, but only to yield on more honourable terms.

And yet, my Lord! this War of Opinions, you well know, has fallen out
among the Writers of all Ages, and sometimes betwixt friends: only it has
been persecuted by some, like pedants, with violence of words; and
managed, by others, like gentlemen, with candour and civility. Even TULLY
had a controversy with his dear ATTICUS; and in one of his_ Dialogues,
_makes him sustain the part of an enemy in Philosophy, who, in his_
Letters, _is his confident of State, and made privy to the most weighty
affairs of the Roman Senate: and the same respect, which was paid by
TULLY to ATTICUS; we find returned to him, afterwards, by CAESAR, on a
like occasion: who, answering his book in praise of CATO, made it not so
much his business to condemn CATO, as to praise CICERO.

But that I may decline some part of the encounter with my adversaries,
whom I am neither willing to combat, nor well able to resist; I will give
your Lordship the relation of a dispute betwixt some of our wits upon this
subject: in which, they did not only speak of Plays in Verse, but mingled,
in the freedom of discourse, some things of the Ancient, many of the
Modern Ways of Writing; comparing those with these, and the Wits of our
Nation with those of others. 'Tis true, they differed in their opinions,
as 'tis probable they would; neither do I take upon me to reconcile, but
to relate them, and that, as TACITUS professes of himself_, sine studio
partium aut ira_, "without passion or interest": leaving your Lordship to
decide it in favour of which part, you shall judge most reasonable! And
withal, to pardon the many errors of_

Your Lordship's most obedient humble servant,

JOHN DRYDEN.




TO THE READER.

_The drift of the ensuing Discourse was chiefly to vindicate the honour
of our English Writers from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the
French before them. This I intimate, lest any should think me so
exceeding vain, as to teach others an Art which they understand much
better than myself. But if this incorrect Essay, written in the country,
without the help of books or advice of friends, shall find any acceptance
in the World: I promise to myself a better success of the Second Part,
wherein the virtues and faults of the English Poets who have written,
either in this, the Epic, or the Lyric way, will be more fully treated
of; and their several styles impartially imitated._

AN ESSAY OF Dramatic Poesy.

It was that memorable day [_3rd of June_ 1665] in the first summer of the
late war, when our Navy engaged the Dutch; a day, wherein the two most
mighty and best appointed Fleets which any Age had ever seen, disputed
the command of the greater half of the Globe, the commerce of Nations,
and the riches of the Universe. While these vast floating bodies, on
either side, moved against each other in parallel lines; and our
countrymen, under the happy conduct of His Royal Highness [_the Duke of
YORK_], went breaking by little and little, into the line of the enemies:
the noise of the cannon from both navies reached our ears about the City;
so that all men being alarmed with it, and in a dreadful suspense of the
event which we knew was then deciding, every one went following the sound
as his fancy [_imagination_] led him. And leaving the Town almost empty,
some took towards the Park; some cross the river, others down it: all
seeking the noise in the depth of silence.

Among the rest, it was the fortune of EUGENIUS, CRITES, LISIDEIUS and
NEANDER to be in company together: three of them persons whom their Wit
and Quality have made known to all the Town; and whom I have chosen to
hide under these borrowed names, that they may not suffer by so ill a
Relation as I am going to make, of their discourse.

Taking then, a barge, which a servant of LISIDEIUS had provided for them,
they made haste to shoot the Bridge [_i.e., London Bridge_]: and [so] left
behind them that great fall of waters, which hindered them from hearing
what they desired.

After which, having disengaged themselves from many vessels which rode at
anchor in the Thames, and almost blocked up the passage towards Greenwich:
they ordered the watermen to let fall their oars more gently; and then,
every one favouring his own curiosity with a strict silence, it was not
long ere they perceived the air break about them, like the noise of
distant thunder, or of swallows in a chimney. Those little undulations of
sound, though almost vanishing before they reached them; yet still seeming
to retain somewhat of their first horror, which they had betwixt the
fleets.

After they had attentively listened till such time, as the sound, by
little and little, went from them; EUGENIUS [_i.e., Lord BUCKHURST_]
lifting up his head, and taking notice of it, was the first to
congratulate to the rest, that happy Omen of our nation's victory:
adding, "we had but this to desire, in confirmation of it, that we might
hear no more of that noise, which was now leaving the English coast."

When the rest had concurred in the same opinion, CRITES [_i.e., Sir
ROBERT HOWARD_] (a person of a sharp judgment, and somewhat a too
delicate a taste in wit, which the World have mistaken in him for ill
nature) said, smiling, to us, "That if the concernment of this battle had
not been so exceeding[ly] great, he could scarce have wished the victory
at the price, he knew, must pay for it; in being subject to the reading
and hearing of so many ill verses, he was sure would be made upon it."
Adding, "That no argument could 'scape some of those eternal rhymers, who
watch a battle with more diligence than the ravens and birds of prey; and
the worst of them surest to be first in upon the quarry: while the better
able, either, out of modesty, writ not at all; or set that due value upon
their poems, as to let them be often called for, and long expected."

"There are some of those impertinent people you speak of," answered
LISIDEIUS [_i.e., Sir CHARLES SEDLEY_], "who, to my knowledge, are
already so provided, either way, that they can produce not only a
Panegyric upon the Victory: but, if need be, a Funeral Elegy upon the
Duke, and, after they have crowned his valour with many laurels, at last,
deplore the odds under which he fell; concluding that his courage deserved
a better destiny." All the company smiled at the conceit of LISIDEIUS.

But CRITES, more eager than before, began to make particular exceptions
against some writers, and said, "The Public Magistrate ought to send,
betimes, to forbid them: and that it concerned the peace and quiet of all
honest people, that ill poets should be as well silenced as seditious
preachers."

"In my opinion" replied EUGENIUS, "you pursue your point too far! For, as
to my own particular, I am so great a lover of Poesy, that I could wish
them all rewarded, who attempt but to do well. At least, I would not have
them worse used than SYLLA the Dictator did one of their brethren
heretofore. _Quem in concione vidimus_ (says TULLY, speaking of him) _cum
ei libellum malus poeta de populo subjecisset, quod epigramma in eum
fecisset tantummodo alternis versibus longiuculis, statim ex iis rebus
quae tunc vendebat jubere ei praemium tribui, sub ea conditione ne quid
postea scriberet_."

"I could wish, with all my heart," replied CRITES, "that many whom we
know, were as bountifully thanked, upon the same condition, that they
would never trouble us again. For amongst others, I have a mortal
apprehension of two poets, whom this Victory, with the help of both her
wings, will never be able to escape."

"'Tis easy to guess, whom you intend," said LISIDEIUS, "and without
naming them, I ask you if one [_i.e., GEORGE WITHER_] of them does not
perpetually pay us with clenches upon words, and a certain clownish kind
of raillery? If, now and then, he does not offer at a catachresis [_which
COTGRAVE defines as 'the abuse, or necessary use of one word, for lack of
another more proper'_] or Clevelandism, wresting and torturing a word
into another meaning? In fine, if be not one of those whom the French
would call _un mauvais buffon_; one that is so much a well willer to the
Satire, that he spares no man: and though he cannot strike a blow to hurt
any, yet ought to be punished for the malice of the action; as our witches
are justly hanged, because they think themselves so, and suffer deservedly
for believing they did mischief, because they meant it."

"You have described him," said CRITES, "so exactly, that I am afraid to
come after you, with my other Extremity of Poetry. He [_i.e., FRANCIS
QUARLES_] is one of those, who, having had some advantage of education
and converse [_i.e., conversation, in the sense of Culture through
mixture with society_], knows better than the other, what a Poet should
be; but puts it into practice more unluckily than any man. His style and
matter are everywhere alike. He is the most calm, peaceable writer you
ever read. He never disquiets your passions with the least concernment;
but still leaves you in as even a temper as he found you. He is a very
Leveller in poetry; he creeps along, with ten little words in every line,
and helps out his numbers with _For to_, and _Unto_, and all the pretty
expletives he can find, till he drags them to the end of another line:
while the Sense is left, tired, halfway behind it. He doubly starves all
his verses; first, for want of Thought, and then, of Expression, His
poetry neither has wit in it, nor seems to have it; like him, in MARTIAL,

    "_Pauper videri CINNA vult, et est pauper_.

"He affects plainness, to cover his Want of Imagination. When he writes
in the serious way; the highest flight of his Fancy is some miserable
_antithesis_ or seeming contradiction: and in the comic; he is still
reaching at some thin conceit, the ghost of a jest, and that too flies
before him, never to be caught. These swallows, which we see before us on
the Thames, are the just resemblance of his Wit. You may observe how near
the water they stoop! how many proffers they make to dip, and yet how
seldom they touch it! and when they do, 'tis but the surface! they skim
over it, but to catch a gnat, and then mount in the air and leave it!"

"Well, gentlemen!" said EUGENICS, "you may speak your pleasure of these
authors; but though. I and some few more about the Town, may give you a
peaceable hearing: yet, assure yourselves! there are multitudes who would
think you malicious, and them injured; especially him whom you first
described, he is the very _Withers_ of the City. They have bought more
Editions of his works, than would serve to lay under all their pies at
the Lord Mayor's Christmas. When his famous poem [_i.e., Speculum
Speculativium; Or, A Considering Glass, Being an Inspection into the
present and late sad condition of these Nations.... London. Written June
xiii. XDCLX, and there imprinted the same year_] first came out in the
year 1660, I have seen them read it in the midst of Change time. Nay, so
vehement were they at it, that they lost their bargain by the candles'
ends! But what will you say, if he has been received among the Great
Ones? I can assure you, he is, this day, the envy of a Great Person, who
is Lord in the Art of Quibbling; and who does not take it well, than any
man should intrude so far into his province."

"All I would wish," replied CRITES, "is that they who love his writings,
may still admire him and his fellow poet. _Qui Bavium non odit &c._, is
curse sufficient."

"And farther," added LISIDEIUS; "I believe there is no man who writes
well; but would think himself very hardly dealt with, if their admirers
should praise anything of his. _Nam quos contemnimus eorum quoque laudes
contemnimus_."

"There are so few who write well, in this Age," said CRITES, "that
methinks any praises should be welcome. They neither rise to the dignity
of the last Age, nor to any of the Ancients: and we may cry out of the
Writers of this Time, with more reason than PETRONIUS of his, _Pace
vestra liceat dixisse, primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis_! 'You have
debauched the true old Poetry so far, that Nature (which is the Soul of
it) is not in any of your writings!'"

"If your quarrel," said EUGENIUS, "to those who now write, be grounded
only upon your reverence to Antiquity; there is no man more ready to
adore those great Greeks and Romans than I am: but, on the other side, I
cannot think so contemptibly of the Age I live in, or so dishonourably of
my own Country as not to judge [that] we equal the Ancients in most kinds
of Poesy, and in some, surpass them; neither know I any reason why I may
not be as zealous for the reputation of our Age, as we find the Ancients
themselves, in reference to those who lived before them. For you hear
HORACE saying

    "_Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse
    Compositum, ille pide've putetur, sed quia nuper._

"And, after,

    "Si meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit,
    Scire velim pretium chartis quotus arroget annus?_

"But I see I am engaging in a wide dispute, where the arguments are not
like[ly] to reach close, on either side [p. 497]: for Poesy is of so
large extent, and so many (both of the Ancients and Moderns) have done
well in all kinds of it, that, in citing one against the other, we shall
take up more time this evening, than each man's occasions will allow him.
Therefore, I would ask CRITES to what part of Poesy, he would confine his
arguments? and whether he would defend the general cause of the Ancients
against the Moderns; or oppose any Age of the Moderns against this of
ours?"

CRITES, a little while considering upon this demand, told EUGENIUS, he
approved of his propositions; and, if he pleased, he would limit their
dispute to Dramatic Poesy: in which, he thought it not difficult to
prove, either that the Ancients were superior to the Moderns; or the last
Age to this of ours.

EUGENIUS was somewhat surprised, when he heard CRITES make choice of that
subject. "For ought I see," said he, "I have undertaken a harder province
than I imagined. For though I never judged the plays of the Greek and
Roman poets comparable to ours: yet, on the other side, those we now see
acted, come short of many which were written in the last Age. But my
comfort is, if we were o'ercome, it will be only by our own countrymen;
and if we yield to them in this one part of Poesy, we [the] more surpass
them in all the other[s].

"For in the Epic, or Lyric way, it will be hard for them to shew us one
such amongst them, as we have many now living, or who lately were so.
They can produce nothing so Courtly writ, or which expresses so much the
conversation of a gentleman, as Sir JOHN SUCKLING; nothing so even,
sweet, and flowing, as Mr. WALLER; nothing so majestic, so correct, as
Sir JOHN DENHAM; nothing so elevated, so copious, and full of spirit, as
Mr. COWLEY. As for the Italian, French, and Spanish plays, I can make it
evident, that those who now write, surpass them; and that the Drama is
wholly ours."

All of them were thus far of EUGENIUS his opinion, that "the sweetness of
English Verse was never understood or practised by our fathers"; even
CRITES himself did not much oppose it: and every one was willing to
acknowledge how much our Poesy is improved by the happiness of some
writers yet living, who first taught us to mould our thoughts into easy
and significant words; to retrench the superfluities of expression; and
to make our Rhyme so properly a part of the Verse, that it should never
mislead the Sense, but itself be led and governed by it.


EUGENIUS was going to continue this discourse, when LISIDEIUS told him,
that "it was necessary, before they proceeded further, to take a Standing
Measure of their controversy. For how was it possible to be decided who
writ the best plays, before we know what a Play should be? but this once
agreed on by both parties, each might have recourse to it; either to
prove his own advantages, or discover the failings of his adversary."

He had no sooner said this; but all desired the favour of him to give the
definition of a Play: and they were the more importunate, because neither
ARISTOTLE, nor HORACE, nor any other who writ of that subject, had ever
done it.

LISIDEIUS, after some modest denials, at last, confessed he had a rude
notion of it; indeed, rather a Description than a Definition; but which
served to guide him in his private thoughts, when he was to make a
judgment of what others writ. That he conceived a Play ought to be A JUST
AND LIVELY IMAGE OF HUMAN NATURE, REPRESENTING ITS PASSIONS AND HUMOURS;
AND THE CHANGES OF FORTUNE, TO WHICH IT IS SUBJECT: FOR THE DELIGHT AND
INSTRUCTION OF MANKIND.

This Definition, though CRITES raised a logical objection against it
(that "it was only _a genere et fine_," and so not altogether perfect),
was yet well received by the rest.

And, after they had given order to the watermen to turn their barge, and
row softly, that they might take the cool of the evening in their return:
CRITES, being desired by the company to begin, spoke on behalf of the
Ancients, in this manner.


"If confidence presage a victory; EUGENIUS, in his own opinion, has
already triumphed over the Ancients. Nothing seems more easy to him, than
to overcome those whom it is our greatest praise to have imitated well:
for we do not only build upon their foundation, but by their models.

"Dramatic Poesy had time enough, reckoning from THESPIS who first
invented it, to ARISTOPHANES; to be born, to grow up, and to flourish in
maturity.

"_It has been observed of Arts and Sciences, that in one and the same
century, they have arrived to a great perfection_ [p. 520]. And, no
wonder! since every Age has a kind of Universal Genius, which inclines
those that live in it to some particular studies. The work then being
pushed on by many hands, must, of necessity, go forward.

"Is it not evident, in these last hundred years, when the study of
Philosophy has been the business of all the _Virtuosi_ in Christendom,
that almost a new Nature has been revealed to us? that more errors of the
School have been detected, more useful experiments in Philosophy have been
made, more noble secrets in Optics, Medicine, Anatomy, Astronomy,
discovered; than, in all those credulous and doting Ages, from ARISTOTLE
to us [p. 520]? So true it is, that nothing spreads more fast than
Science, when rightly and generally cultivated.

"Add to this, _the more than common Emulation that was, in those times,
of writing well_: which, though it be found in all Ages and all persons
that pretend to the same reputation: yet _Poesy, being then in more
esteem than now it is, had greater honours decreed to the Professors of
it, and consequently the rivalship was more high between them_. They had
Judges ordained to decide their merit, and prizes to reward it: and
historians have been diligent to record of AESCHYLUS, EURIPIDES,
SOPHOCLES, LYCOPHRON, and the rest of them, both who they were that
vanquished in these Wars of the Theatre, and how often they were crowned:
while the Asian Kings and Grecian Commonwealths scarce[ly] afforded them a
nobler subject than the unmanly luxuries of a debauched Court, or giddy
intrigues of a factious city. _Alit oemulatio ingenia_, says PATERCULUS,
_et nunc invidia, nunc admiratio incitationem accendit_: 'Emulation is
the spur of wit; and sometimes envy, sometimes admiration quickens our
endeavours.'

"But now, since the rewards of honour are taken away: that Virtuous
Emulation is turned into direct Malice; yet so slothful, that it contents
itself to condemn and cry down others, without attempting to do better.
'Tis a reputation too unprofitable, to take the necessary pains for it;
yet wishing they had it, is incitement enough to hinder others from it.
And this, in short, EUGENIUS, is the reason why you have now so few good
poets, and so many severe judges. Certainly, to imitate the Ancients
well, much labour and long study is required: which pains, I have already
shown, our poets would want encouragement to take; if yet they had ability
to go through with it.

"Those Ancients have been faithful Imitators and wise Observers of that
Nature, which is so torn and ill-represented in our Plays. They have
handed down to us a perfect Resemblance of Her, which we, like ill
copyers, _neglecting to look on_, have rendered monstrous and disfigured.

"But that you may know, how much you are indebted to your Masters! and be
ashamed to have so ill-requited them! I must remember you, that all the
Rules by which we practise the Drama at this day (either such as relate
to the Justness and Symmetry of the Plot; or the episodical ornaments,
such as Descriptions, Narrations, and other beauties which are not
essential to the play), were delivered to us from the Observations that
ARISTOTLE made of those Poets, which either lived before him, or were his
contemporaries. We have added nothing of our own, except we have the
confidence to say, 'Our wit is better!' which none boast of in our Age,
but such as understand not theirs. Of that book, which ARISTOTLE has left
us, [Greek: peri taes Poietikaes]; HORACE his _Art of Poetry_ is an
excellent _Comment_, and, I believe, restores to us, that Second Book of
his [_i.e., ARISTOTLE_] concerning _Comedy_, which is wanting in him.

"Out of these two [Authors], have been extracted the Famous Rules, which
the French call, _Des trois Unités_, or 'The Three Unities,' which ought
to be observed in every _regular_ Play; namely, of TIME, PLACE, and
ACTION.

"The UNITY OF TIME, they comprehend in Twenty-four hours, _the compass of
a natural Day_; or, as near it, as can be contrived. And the reason of it
is obvious to every one. That _the Time_ of the feigned Action or Fable
of the Play _should be proportioned_, as near as can be, _to the duration
of that Time in which it is REPRESENTED_. Since therefore all plays are
acted on the Theatre in a space of time _much within_ the compass of
Twenty-four hours; that Play is to be thought the _nearest Imitation_ of
Nature, whose Plot or Action is confined within that time.

"And, by the same Rule which concludes this General Proportion of Time,
it follows, _That all the parts of it are to be equally subdivided_. As,
namely, that one Act take not up the supposed time of Half a day, which
is out of proportion to the rest; since the other four are then to be
straitened within the compass of the remaining half: for it is unnatural
that one Act which, being spoken or written, is not longer than the rest;
should be supposed longer by the audience. 'Tis therefore the Poet's duty
to take care _that no Act_ should be imagined to _exceed the Time in
which it is Represented on the Stage_; and that the intervals and
inequalities of time, be supposed to fall out _between_ the Acts.

"This Rule of TIME, how well it has been observed by the Ancients, most
of their plays will witness. You see them, in their Tragedies (wherein to
follow this Rule is certainly most difficult), from the very beginning of
their Plays, falling close into that part of the Story, which they intend
for the Action or principal Object of it: leaving the former part to be
delivered by Narration. So that they set the audience, as it were, at the
post where the race is to be concluded: and, saving them the tedious
expectation of seeing the Poet set out and ride the beginning of the
course; you behold him not, till he is in sight of the goal, and just
upon you.

"For the Second Unity, which is that of PLACE; the Ancients meant by it,
_That the scene_ [locality] _ought to be continued_, through the Play,
_in the same place, where it was laid in the beginning_. For _the Stage_,
on which it is represented, _being but one, and the same place; it
isunnatural to conceive it many, and those far distant from one another_.
I will not deny but by the Variation of Painted scenes [_scenery was
introduced about this time into the English theatres, by Sir WILLIAM
D'AVENANT and BETTERTON the Actor: see Vol. II. p. 278_] the Fancy which,
in these casts, will contribute to its own deceit, may sometimes imagine
it several places, upon some appearance of probability: yet it still
carries _the greater likelihood of truth_, if those places be supposed so
near each other as in the same town or city, which may all be comprehended
under the larger denomination of One Place; for a greater distance will
bear no proportion to the _shortness of time which is allotted in the
acting_, to pass from one of them to another.

"For the observation of this; next to the Ancients, the French are most
to be commended. They tie themselves so strictly to the Unity of Place,
that you never see in any of their plays, a scene [_locality_] changed in
the middle of an Act. If the Act begins in a garden, a street, or [a]
chamber; 'tis ended in the same place. And that you may know it to be the
same, the Stage is so supplied with persons, that it is never empty all
the time. He that enters the second has business with him, who was on
before; and before the second quits the stage, a third appears, who has
business with him. This CORNEILLE calls _La Liaison des Scenes_,'the
Continuity or Joining of the Scenes': and it is a good mark of a well
contrived Play, when all the persons are known to each other, and every
one of them has some affairs with all the rest.

"As for the third Unity, which is that of ACTION, the Ancients meant no
other by it, than what the Logicians do by their _Finis_; the End or
Scope of any Action, that which is the First in intention, and Last in
execution.

"Now the Poet is to aim at _one great and complete Action_; to the
carrying on of which, all things in the Play, even the very obstacles,
are to be subservient. And the reason of this, is as evident as any of
the former. For two Actions, equally laboured and driven on by the
Writer, would destroy the Unity of the Poem. It would be no longer one
Play, but two. Not but that there may be many actions in a Play (as BEN.
JOHNSON has observed in his _Discoveries_), but they must be all
subservient to the great one; which our language happily expresses, in
the name of Under Plots. Such as, in TERENCE's _Eunuch_, is the deference
and reconcilement of _THAIS_ and _PHAEDRIA_; which is not the chief
business of the Play, but promotes the marriage of _CHOEREA_ and
_CHREMES's sister_, principally intended by the Poet.

"'There ought to be but one Action,' says CORNEILLE, 'that is, one
complete Action, which leaves the mind of the audience in a full repose.'
But this cannot be brought to pass, but by many other imperfect ones,
which conduce to it, and hold the audience in a delightful suspense of
what will be.

"If by these Rules (to omit many others drawn from the Precepts and
Practice of the Ancients), we should judge our modern plays, 'tis
probable that few of them would endure the trial. That which should be
the business of a Day, takes up, in some of them, an Age. Instead of One
Action, they are the Epitome of a man's life. And for one spot of ground,
which the Stage should represent; we are sometimes in more countries than
the map can show us.

"But if we will allow the Ancients to have _contrived_ well; we must
acknowledge them to have _writ_ better. Questionless, we are deprived of
a great stock of wit, in the loss of MENANDER among the Greek poets, and
of COECILIUS, AFFRANIUS, and VARIUS among the Romans. We may guess of
MENANDER's excellency by the Plays of TERENCE; who translated some of
his, and yet wanted so much of him, that he was called by C. CAESAR, the
Half-MENANDER: and of VARIUS, by the testimonies of HORACE, MARTIAL, and
VELLEIUS PATERCULUS. 'Tis probable that these, could they be recovered,
would decide the controversy.

"But so long as ARISTOPHANES in the Old Comedy, and PLAUTUS in the New
are extant; while the Tragedies of EURIPIDES, SOPHOCLES, and SENECA are
to be had: I can never see one of those Plays which are now written, but
it increases my admiration of the Ancients. And yet I must acknowledge
further, that to admire them as we ought, we should understand them
better than we do. Doubtless, many things appear flat to us, whose wit
depended upon some custom or story, which never came to our knowledge; or
perhaps upon some criticism in their language, which, being so long dead,
and only remaining in their books, it is not possible they should make us
know it perfectly.

"To read MACROBIUS explaining the propriety and elegancy of many words in
VIRGIL, which I had before passed over without consideration as common
things, is enough to assure me that I ought to think the same of TERENCE;
and that, in the purity of his style, which TULLY so much valued that he
ever carried his _Works_ about him, there is yet left in him great room
for admiration, if I knew but where to place it.

"In the meantime, I must desire you to take notice that the greatest man
of the last Age, BEN. JOHNSON, was willing to give place to them in all
things. He was not only a professed imitator of HORACE, but a learned
plagiary of all the others. You track him everywhere in their snow. If
HORACE, LUCAN, PETRONIUS _Arbiter_, SENECA, and JUVENAL had their own
from him; there are few serious thoughts that are new in him. You will
pardon me, therefore, if I presume, he loved their fashion; when he wore
their clothes.

"But since I have otherwise a great veneration for him, and you,
EUGENIUS! prefer him above all other poets: I will use no farther
argument to you than his example. I will produce Father BEN. to you,
dressed in all the ornaments and colours of the Ancients. You will need
no other guide to our party, if you follow him: and whether you consider
the bad plays of our Age, or regard the good ones of the last: both the
best and worst of the Modern poets will equally instruct you to esteem
the Ancients."


CRITES had no sooner left speaking; but EUGENIUS, who waited with some
impatience for it, thus began:

"I have observed in your speech, that the former part of it is
convincing, as to what the Moderns have profited by the Rules of the
Ancients: but, in the latter, you are careful to conceal, how much they
have excelled them.

"We own all the helps we have from them; and want neither veneration nor
gratitude, while we acknowledge that, to overcome them, we must make use
of all the advantages we have received from them. But to these
assistances, we have joined our own industry: for had we sate down with a
dull imitation of them; we might then have lost somewhat of the old
perfection, but never acquired any that was new. We draw not, therefore,
after their lines; but those of Nature: and having the Life before us,
besides the experience of all they knew, it is no wonder if we hit some
airs and features, which they have missed.

"I deny not what you urge of Arts and Sciences [p. 514]; that they have
flourished in some ages more than others: but your instance in Philosophy
[p. 514] makes for me.

"For if Natural Causes be more known now, than in the time of ARISTOTLE,
because more studied; it follows that Poesy and other Arts may, with the
same pains, arrive still nearer to perfection. And that granted, it will
rest for you to prove, that they wrought more perfect Images of Human
Life than we.

"Which, seeing, in your discourse, you have avoided to make good; it
shall now be my task to show you some of their Defects, and some few
Excellencies of the Moderns. And I think, there is none amongst us can
imagine I do it enviously; or with purpose to detract from them: for what
interest of Fame, or Profit, can the Living lose by the reputation of the
Dead? On the other side, it is a great truth, which VELLEIUS PATERCULUS
affirms, _Audita visis libentius laudamus; et proesentia invidia,
proeterita, admiratione prosequimur, et his nos obrui, illis instrui
credimus_, 'That Praise or Censure is certainly the most sincere, which
unbribed Posterity shall give us.'

"Be pleased, then, in the first place, to take notice that the Greek
Poesy, which CRITES has affirmed to have arrived to perfection in the
reign of the Old Comedy [p. 514], was so far from it, that _the
distinction of it into Acts was not known to them_; or if it were, it is
yet so darkly delivered to us, that we cannot make it out.

"All we know of it is, from the singing of their Chorus: and that too, is
so uncertain, that in some of their Plays, we have reason to conjecture
they sang more than five times.

"ARISTOTLE, indeed, divides the integral parts of a Play into four.

  "Firstly. The _Protasis_ or Entrance, which gives light only to the
  Characters of the persons; and proceeds very little into any part
  of the Action.

  "Secondly. The _Epitasis_ or Working up of the Plot, where the Play
  grows warmer; the Design or Action of it is drawing on, and you see
  something promising, that it will come to pass.

  "Thirdly. The _Catastasis_ or Counter-turn, which destroys that
  expectation, embroils the action in new difficulties, and leaves
  you far distant from that hope in which it found you: as you may
  have observed in a violent stream, resisted by a narrow passage; it
  turns round to an eddy, and carries back the waters with more
  swiftness than it brought them on.

  "Lastly. The _Catastrophe_, which the Grecians call [Greek: desis];
  the French, _Le denoument_; and we, the Discovery or Unravelling of
  the Plot. There, you see all things settling again upon the first
  foundations; and the obstacles, which hindered the Design or Action
  of the Play, once removed, it ends with that Resemblance of Truth
  or Nature, that the audience are satisfied with the conduct of it.

"Thus this great man delivered to us the Image of a Play; and I must
confess it is so lively, that, from thence, much light has been derived
to the forming it more perfectly, into Acts and Scenes. But what Poet
first limited to Five, the number of the Acts, I know not: only we see it
so firmly established in the time of HORACE, that he gives it for a rule
in Comedy.

    "_Neu brevier quinto, neu sit productior actu:_

"So that you see, the Grecians cannot be said to have consumated this
Art: writing rather by Entrances than by Acts; and having rather a
general indigested notion of a Play, than knowing how and where to bestow
the particular graces of it.

"But since the Spaniards, at this day, allow but three Acts, which they
call _Jornadas_, to a Play; and the Italians, in many of theirs, follow
them: when I condemn the Ancients, I declare it _is not altogether
because they have not five Acts to every Play; but because they have not
confined themselves to one certain number_. 'Tis building a house,
without a model: and when they succeeded in such undertakings, they ought
to have sacrificed to Fortune, not to the Muses.

"Next, for the Plot, which ARISTOTLE called [Greek: to muthos], and often
[Greek: ton pragmaton sunthesis]; and from him, the Romans, _Fabula_. It
has already been judiciously observed by a late Writer that 'in their
_TRADGEDIES_, it was only some tale derived from Thebes or Troy; or, at
least, something that happened in those two Ages: which was worn so
threadbare by the pens of all the Epic Poets; and even, by tradition
itself of the _talkative Greeklings_, as BEN. JOHNSON calls them, that
before it came upon the Stage, it was already known to all the audience.
And the people, as soon as ever they heard the name of _OEDIPUS_, knew as
well as the Poet, that he had killed his father by a mistake, and
committed incest with his mother, before the Play; that they were now to
hear of a great plague, an oracle, and the ghost of _LAIUS_: so that they
sate, with a yawning kind of expectation, till he was to come, with his
eyes pulled out, and speak a hundred or two of verses, in a tragic tone,
in complaint of his misfortunes.'

"But one _OEDIPUS_, _HERCULES_, or _MEDEA_ had been tolerable. Poor
people! They scaped not so good cheap. They had still the _chapon
bouillé_ set before them, till their appetites were cloyed with the same
dish; and the Novelty being gone, the Pleasure vanished. So that one main
end of Dramatic Poesy, in its definition [p. 513] (which was, to cause
_Delight_) was, of consequence, destroyed.

"In their _COMEDIES_, the Romans generally borrowed their Plots from the
Greek poets: and theirs were commonly a little girl stolen or wandered
from her parents, brought back unknown to the same city, there got with
child by some lewd young fellow, who (by the help of his servant) cheats
his father. And when her time comes to cry _JUNO Lucina fer opem!_ one or
other sees a little box or cabinet, which was carried away with her, and
so discovers her to her friends: if some god do not prevent
[_anticipate_] it, by coming down in a machine [_i.e., supernaturally_],
and take the thanks of it to himself.

"By the Plot, you may guess much [_many_] of the characters of the
Persons. An old Father that would willingly, before he dies, see his son
well married. His debauched Son, kind in his nature to his wench, but
miserably in want of money. A Servant or Slave, who has so much wit [as]
to strike in with him, and help to dupe his father, A braggadochio
Captain, a Parasite, and a Lady of Pleasure.

"As for the poor honest maid, upon whom all the story is built, and who
ought to be one of the principal Actors in the Play; she is commonly a
Mute in it. She has the breeding of the old ELIZABETH [_Elizabethan_]
way, for 'maids to be seen, and not to be heard': and it is enough, you
know she is willing to be married, when the Fifth Act requires it.

"These are plots built after the Italian mode of houses. You see through
them all at once. The Characters, indeed, are Imitations of Nature: but
so narrow as if they had imitated only an eye or an hand, and did not
dare to venture on the lines of a face, or the proportion of a body.

"But in how strait a compass sorever, they have bounded their Plots and
Characters, we will pass it by, if they have regularly pursued them, and
perfectly observed those three Unities, of TIME, PLACE, and ACTION; the
knowledge of which, you say! is derived to us from them.

"But, in the first place, give me leave to tell you! that the Unity of
PLACE, however it might be practised by them, was never any of their
Rules. We neither find it in ARISTOTLE, HORACE, or any who have written
of it; till, in our Age, the French poets first made it a Precept of the
Stage.

"The Unity of TIME, even TERENCE himself, who was the best and most
regular of them, has neglected. His _Heautontimoroumenos_ or 'Self
Punisher' takes up, visibly, two days. 'Therefore,' says SCALIGER, 'the
two first Acts concluding the first day, were acted overnight; the last
three on the ensuing day.'

"And EURIPIDES, in tying himself to one day, has committed an absurdity
never to be forgiven him. For, in one of his Tragedies, he has made
THESEUS go from Athens to Thebes, which was about forty English miles;
under the walls of it, to give battle; and appear victorious in the next
Act: and yet, from the time of his departure, to the return of the
_Nuntius_, who gives relation of his victory; _AETHRA_ and the _Chorus_
have but thirty-six verses, that is, not for every mile, a verse.

"The like error is evident in TERENCE his _Eunuch_; when _LACHES_ the old
man, enters, in a mistake, the house of _THAIS_; where, between his _Exit_
and the Entrance of _PYTHIAS_ (who comes to give an ample relation of the
garboils he has raised within), _PARMENO_ who was left upon the stage,
has not above five lines to speak. _C'est bien employé, un temps si
court!_ says the French poet, who furnished me with one of the[se]
observations.

"And almost all their Tragedies will afford us examples of the like
nature.

"'Tis true, they have kept the Continuity, or as you called it, _Liaison
des Scenes_, somewhat better. Two do not perpetually come in together,
talk, and go out together; and other two succeeded them, and do the same,
throughout the Act: which the English call by the name of 'Single Scenes.'
But the reason is, because they have seldom above two or three Scenes,
properly so called, in every Act. For it is to be accounted a _new_
Scene, not every time the Stage is empty: but every person _who enters_,
though to others, makes it so; because he introduces a new business.

"Now the Plots of their Plays being narrow, and the persons few: one of
their Acts was written in a less compass than one of our well-wrought
Scenes; and yet they are often deficient even in this.

"To go no further than TERENCE. You find in the _Eunuch_, _ANTIPHO_
entering, single, in the midst of the Third Act, after _CHREMES_ and
_PYTHIAS_ were gone off. In the same play, you have likewise _DORIAS_
beginning the Fourth Act alone; and after she has made a relation of what
was done at the soldier's entertainment (which, by the way, was very
inartificial to do; because she was presumed to speak directly to the
Audience, and to acquaint them with what was necessary to be known: but
yet should have been so contrived by the Poet as to have been told by
persons of the Drama to one another, and so by them, to have come to the
knowledge of the people), she quits the Stage: and _PHAEDRIA_ enters
next, alone likewise. He also gives you an account of himself, and of his
returning from the country, in monologue: to which unnatural way of
Narration, TERENCE is subject in all his Plays.

"In his _Adelphi_ or 'Brothers,' _SYRUS_ and _DEMEA_ enter after the
Scene was broken by the departure of _SOSTRATA_, _GETA_, and _CANTHARA_;
and, indeed, you can scarce look into any of his Comedies, where you will
not presently discover the same interruption.

"And as they have failed both in [the] laying of the Plots, and managing
of them, swerving from the Rules of their own Art, by misrepresenting
Nature to us, in which they have ill satisfied one intention of a Play,
which was Delight: so in the Instructive part [pp. 513, 582-4], they have
erred worse. Instead of punishing vice, and rewarding virtue; they have
often shown a prosperous wickedness, and an unhappy piety. They have set
before us a bloody Image of Revenge, in _MEDEA_; and given her dragons to
convey her safe from punishment. A _PRIAM_ and _ASTYANAX_ murdered, and
_CASSANDRA_ ravished; and Lust and Murder ending in the victory of him
that acted them. In short, there is no indecorum in any of our modern
Plays; which, if I would excuse, I could not shadow with some Authority
from the Ancients.

"And one farther note of them, let me leave you! Tragedies and Comedies
were not writ then, as they are now, promiscuously, by the same person:
but he who found his genius bending to the one, never attempted the other
way. This is so plain, that I need not instance to you, that ARISTOPHANES,
PLAUTUS, TERENCE never, any of them, writ a Tragedy; AESCHYLUS, EURIPIDES,
SOPHOCLES, and SENECA never meddled with Comedy. The Sock and Buskin were
not worn by the same Poet. Having then so much care to excel in one kind;
very little is to

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