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The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) by John Dryden

J >> John Dryden >> The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18)




SIR,

Your royal highness's
Most humble, and
Most obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.


Footnotes:
1. James Duke of York, afterwards James II.

2. Although the valour of the unfortunate James II. seems to have sunk
with his good fortune, there is no reason to question his having
merited the compliment in the text. The Duke of Buckingham, in his
memoirs, has borne witness to the intrepidity with which he
encountered the dangers of his desperate naval actions with the
Dutch. Captain Carlton, who was also an eye-witness of his
deportment on that occasion, says, that while the balls were flying
thickly around, the Duke of York was wont to rub his hands, and
exclaim chearfully to his captain, "Spragge, Spragge, they follow
us fast."

3. When General Lockhart commanded the troops of the Protector in
Flanders, the Duke of York was a volunteer in the Spanish army, and
was present at the defeat, which the latter received before
Dunkirk, 17th of June, 1658.

4. The defeat of the Dutch off Harwich, 3d June, 1665, in which their
Admiral, Obdam, was blown up, eighteen of their ships taken, and
fourteen destroyed.

5. The author seems to refer to the burning of the English ships at
Chatham, by the Dutch Admiral De Ruyter.




OF

HEROIC PLAYS.

AN ESSAY.


Whether heroic verse ought to be admitted into serious plays, is not
now to be disputed: it is already in possession of the stage, and I
dare confidently affirm, that very few tragedies, in this age, shall
be received without it. All the arguments which are formed against it,
can amount to no more than this, that it is not so near conversation
as prose, and therefore not so natural. But it is very clear to all
who understand poetry, that serious plays ought not to imitate
conversation too nearly. If nothing were to be raised above that
level, the foundation of poetry would be destroyed. And if you once
admit of a latitude, that thoughts may be exalted, and that images and
actions may be raised above the life, and described in measure without
rhyme, that leads you insensibly from your own principles to mine: you
are already so far onward of your way, that you have forsaken the
imitation of ordinary converse. You are gone beyond it; and to
continue where you are, is to lodge in the open fields, betwixt two
inns. You have lost that which you call natural, and have not acquired
the last perfection of art. But it was only custom which cozened us so
long; we thought, because Shakespeare and Fletcher went no farther,
that there the pillars of poetry were to be erected; that, because
they excellently described passion without rhime, therefore rhime was
not capable of describing it. But time has now convinced most men of
that error. It is indeed so difficult to write verse, that the
adversaries of it have a good plea against many, who undertook that
task, without being formed by art or nature for it. Yet, even they who
have written worst in it, would have written worse without it: They
have cozened many with their sound, who never took the pains to
examine their sense. In fine, they have succeeded; though, it is true,
they have more dishonoured rhime by their good success, than they have
done by their ill. But I am willing to let fall this argument: It is
free for every man to write, or not to write, in verse, as he judges
it to be, or not to be, his talent; or as he imagines the audience
will receive it.

For heroic plays, in which only I have used it without the mixture of
prose, the first light we had of them, on the English theatre, was
from the late Sir William D'Avenant. It being forbidden him in the
rebellious times to act tragedies and comedies, because they contained
some matter of scandal to those good people, who could more easily
dispossess their lawful sovereign, than endure a wanton jest, he was
forced to turn his thoughts another way, and to introduce the examples
of moral virtue, writ in verse, and performed in recitative music. The
original of this music, and of the scenes which adorned his work, he
had from the Italian operas; but he heightened his characters, as I
may probably imagine, from the example of Corneille and some French
poets. In this condition did this part of poetry remain at his
majesty's return; when, growing bolder, as being now owned by a public
authority, he reviewed his "Siege of Rhodes," and caused it be acted
as a just drama. But as few men have the happiness to begin and finish
any new project, so neither did he live to make his design perfect:
There wanted the fulness of a plot, and the variety of characters to
form it as it ought; and, perhaps, something might have been added to
the beauty of the style. All which he would have performed with more
exactness, had he pleased to have given us another work of the same
nature. For myself and others, who come after him, we are bound, with
all veneration to his memory, to acknowledge what advantage we
received from that excellent groundwork which he laid: And, since it
is an easy thing to add to what already is invented, we ought all of
us, without envy to him, or partiality to ourselves, to yield him the
precedence in it.

Having done him this justice, as my guide, I may do myself so much, as
to give an account of what I have performed after him. I observed
then, as I said, what was wanting to the perfection of his "Siege of
Rhodes;" which was design, and variety of characters. And in the midst
of this consideration by mere accident, I opened the next book that
lay by me, which was "Ariosto," in Italian; and the very first two
lines of that poem gave me light to all I could desire;

_Le donne, i cavalier, l'arme, gli amori,
Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese io canto,_ &c.

For the very next reflection which I made was this, that an heroic
play ought to be an imitation, in little, of an heroic poem; and,
consequently, that love and valour ought to be the subject of it. Both
these Sir William D'Avenant had begun to shadow; but it was so, as
first discoverers draw their maps, with headlands, and promontories,
and some few outlines of somewhat taken at a distance, and which the
designer saw not clearly. The common drama obliged him to a plot well
formed and pleasant, or, as the ancients call it, one entire and great
action. But this he afforded not himself in a story, which he neither
filled with persons, nor beautified with characters, nor varied with
accidents. The laws of an heroic poem did not dispense with those of
the other, but raised them to a greater height, and indulged him a
farther liberty of fancy, and of drawing all things as far above the
ordinary proportion of the stage, as that is beyond the common words
and actions of human life; and, therefore, in the scanting of his
images and design, he complied not enough with the greatness and
majesty of an heroic poem.

I am sorry I cannot discover my opinion of this kind of writing,
without dissenting much from his, whose memory I love and honour. But
I will do it with the same respect to him, as if he were now alive,
and overlooking my paper while I write. His judgment of an heroic poem
was this: "That it ought to be dressed in a more familiar and easy
shape; more fitted to the common actions and passions of human life;
and, in short, more like a glass of nature, shewing us ourselves in
our ordinary habits and figuring a more practicable virtue to us, than
was done by the ancients or moderns." Thus he takes the image of an
heroic poem from the drama, or stage poetry; and accordingly intended
to divide it into five books, representing the same number of acts;
and every book into several cantos, imitating the scenes which compose
our acts.

But this, I think, is rather a play in narration, as I may call it,
than an heroic poem. If at least you will not prefer the opinion of a
single man to the practice of the most excellent authors, both of
ancient and latter ages. I am no admirer of quotations; but you shall
hear, if you please, one of the ancients delivering his judgment on
this question; it is Petronius Arbiter, the most elegant, and one of
the most judicious authors of the Latin tongue; who, after he had
given many admirable rules for the structure and beauties of an epic
poem, concludes all in these following words:--

_"Non enim res gestae versibus comprehendendae sunt, quod longe melius
historici faciunt: sed, per ambages deorumque ministeria,
praecipitanaus est liber spiritus, ut potius furentis animi vaticinatio
appareat, quam religiosae orationis, sub testibus, fides."_

In which sentence, and his own essay of a poem, which immediately he
gives you, it is thought he taxes Lucan, who followed too much the
truth of history, crowded sentences together, was too full of points,
and too often offered at somewhat which had more of the sting of an
epigram, than of the dignity and state of an heroic poem. Lucan used
not much the help of his heathen deities: There was neither the
ministry of the gods, nor the precipitation of the soul, nor the fury
of a prophet (of which my author speaks), in his _Pharsalia_; he
treats you more like a philosopher than a poet, and instructs you in
verse, with what he had been taught by his uncle Seneca in prose. In
one word, he walks soberly afoot, when he might fly. Yet Lucan is not
always this religious historian. The oracle of Appius and the
witchcraft of Erictho, will somewhat atone for him, who was, indeed,
bound up by an ill-chosen and known argument, to follow truth with
great exactness. For my part, I am of opinion, that neither Homer,
Virgil, Statius, Ariosto, Tasso, nor our English Spencer, could have
formed their poems half so beautiful, without those gods and spirits,
and those enthusiastic parts of poetry, which compose the most noble
parts of all their writings. And I will ask any man who loves heroic
poetry (for I will not dispute their tastes who do not), if the ghost
of Polydorus in Virgil, the Enchanted Wood in Tasso, and the Bower of
Bliss in Spencer (which he borrows from that admirable Italian) could
have been omitted, without taking from their works some of the
greatest beauties in them. And if any man object the improbabilities
of a spirit appearing, or of a palace raised by magic; I boldly answer
him, that an heroic poet is not tied to a bare representation of what
is true, or exceeding probable; but that he may let himself loose to
visionary objects and to the representation of such things, as,
depending not on sense, and therefore not to be comprehended by
knowledge, may give him a freer scope for imagination. It is enough
that, in all ages and religions, the greatest part of mankind have
believed the power of magic, and that there are spirits or spectres
which have appeared. This, I say, is foundation enough for poetry; and
I dare farther affirm, that the whole doctrine of separated beings,
whether those spirits are incorporeal substances, (which Mr Hobbes,
with some reason, thinks to imply a contradiction) or that they are a
thinner and more aerial sort of bodies, (as some of the fathers have
conjectured) may better be explicated by poets than by philosophers or
divines. For their speculations on this subject are wholly poetical;
they have only their fancy for their guide; and that, being sharper in
an excellent poet, than it is likely it should in a phlegmatic, heavy
gownman, will see farther in its own empire, and produce more
satisfactory notions on those dark and doubtful problems.

Some men think they have raised a great argument against the use of
spectres and magic in heroic poetry, by saying they are unnatural; but
whether they or I believe there are such things, is not material; it
is enough that, for aught we know, they may be in nature; and whatever
is, or may be, is not properly unnatural. Neither am I much concerned
at Mr Cowley's verses before "Gondibert," though his authority is
almost sacred to me: It is true, he has resembled the old epic poetry
to a fantastic fairy-land; but he has contradicted himself by his own
example: For he has himself made use of angels and visions in his
"Davideis," as well as Tasso in his "Godfrey."

What I have written on this subject will not be thought a digression
by the reader, if he please to remember what I said in the beginning
of this essay, that I have modelled my heroic plays by the rules of an
heroic poem. And if that be the most noble, the most pleasant, and the
most instructive way of writing in verse, and withal the highest
pattern of human life, as all poets have agreed, I shall need no other
argument to justify my choice in this imitation. One advantage the
drama has above the other, namely, that it represents to view what the
poem only does relate; and, _Segnius irritant animum demissa per
aures, quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus_, as Horace tells us.

To those who object my frequent use of drums and trumpets, and my
representations of battles, I answer, I introduced them not on the
English stage: Shakespeare used them frequently; and though Jonson
shews no battle in his "Catiline," yet you hear from behind the scenes
the sounding of trumpets, and the shouts of fighting armies. But, I
add farther, that these warlike instruments, and even their
presentations of fighting on the stage, are no more than necessary to
produce the effects of an heroic play; that is, to raise the
imagination of the audience and to persuade them, for the time, that
what they behold on the theatre is really performed. The poet is then
to endeavour an absolute dominion over the minds of the spectators;
for, though our fancy will contribute to its own deceit, yet a writer
ought to help its operation: And that the Red Bull has formerly done
the same, is no more an argument against our practice, than it would
be for a physician to forbear an approved medicine, because a
mountebank has used it with success.

Thus I have given a short account of heroic plays. I might now, with
the usual eagerness of an author, make a particular defence of this.
But the common opinion (how unjust soever) has been so much to my
advantage, that I have reason to be satisfied, and to suffer with
patience all that can be urged against it.

For, otherwise, what can be more easy for me, than to defend the
character of Almanzor, which is one great exception that is made
against the play? 'Tis said, that Almanzor is no perfect pattern of
heroic virtue, that he is a contemner of kings, and that he is made to
perform impossibilities.

I must therefore avow, in the first place, from whence I took the
character. The first image I had of him, was from the Achilles of
Homer; the next from Tasso's Rinaldo, (who was a copy of the former)
and the third from the Artaban of Monsieur Calpranede, who has
imitated both. The original of these, Achilles, is taken by Homer for
his hero; and is described by him as one, who in strength and courage
surpassed the rest of the Grecian army; but, withal, of so fiery a
temper, so impatient of an injury, even from his king and general,
that when his mistress was to be forced from him by the command of
Agamemnon, he not only disobeyed it, but returned him an answer full
of contumely, and in the most opprobrious terms he could imagine; they
are Homer's words which follow, and I have cited but some few amongst
a multitude.

[Greek: Oinobares, kynos ommat' echon, kradien d' elaphoio.]
--Il. a. v. 225.

[Greek: Demoboros basileus,] &c. --Il. a. v. 231.

Nay, he proceeded so far in his insolence, as to draw out his sword,
with intention to kill him;

[Greek: Elketo d' ek koleoio mega xiphos.]
--Il. a. v. 194.

and, if Minerva had not appeared, and held his hand, he had executed
his design; and it was all she could do to dissuade him from it. The
event was, that he left the army, and would fight no more. Agamemnon
gives his character thus to Nestor;

[Greek: All' hod' aner ethelei peri panton emmenai allon,
Panton men krateein ethelei, pantessi d' anassein.]
--Il. a. v. 287, 288

and Horace gives the same description of him in his Art of Poetry.

_--Honoratum si forte reponis Achillem,
Inpiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,
Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis._

Tasso's chief character, Rinaldo, was a man of the same temper; for,
when he had slain Gernando in his heat of passion, he not only refused
to be judged by Godfrey, his general, but threatened that if he came
to seize him, he would right himself by arms upon him; witness these
following lines of Tasso:

_Venga egli, o mundi, io terro fermo il piede:
Giudici fian tra noi la sorte, e l'arme;
Fera tragedia vuol che s'appresenti,
Per lor diporto, alle nemiche genti._

You see how little these great authors did esteem the point of honour,
so much magnified by the French, and so ridiculously aped by us. They
made their heroes men of honour; but so, as not to divest them quite
of human passions and frailties: they content themselves to shew you,
what men of great spirits would certainly do when they were provoked,
not what they were obliged to do by the strict rules of moral virtue.
For my own part, I declare myself for Homer and Tasso, and am more in
love with Achilles and Rinaldo, than with Cyrus and Oroondates. I
shall never subject my characters to the French standard, where love
and honour are to be weighed by drams and scruples: Yet, where I have
designed the patterns of exact virtues, such as in this play are the
parts of Almahide, of Ozmyn, and Benzayda, I may safely challenge the
best of theirs.

But Almanzor is taxed with changing sides: and what tie has he on him
to the contrary? He is not born their subject whom he serves, and he
is injured by them to a very high degree. He threatens them, and
speaks insolently of sovereign power; but so do Achilles and Rinaldo,
who were subjects and soldiers to Agamemnon and Godfrey of Bulloigne.
He talks extravagantly in his passion; but, if I would take the pains
to quote an hundred passages of Ben Jonson's Cethegus, I could easily
shew you, that the rhodomontades of Almanzor are neither so irrational
as his, nor so impossible to be put in execution; for Cethegus
threatens to destroy nature, and to raise a new one out of it; to kill
all the senate for his part of the action; to look Cato dead; and a
thousand other things as extravagant he says, but performs not one
action in the play.

But none of the former calumnies will stick; and, therefore, it is at
last charged upon me, that Almanzor does all things; or if you will
have an absurd accusation, in their nonsense who make it, that he
performs impossibilities: they say, that being a stranger, he appeases
two fighting factions, when the authority of their lawful sovereign
could not. This is indeed the most improbable of all his actions, but
it is far from being impossible. Their king had made himself
contemptible to his people, as the history of Granada tells us; and
Almanzor, though a stranger, yet was already known to them by his
gallantry in the Juego de torros, his engagement on the weaker side,
and more especially by the character of his person and brave actions,
given by Abdalla just before; and, after all, the greatness of the
enterprise consisted only in the daring, for he had the king's guards
to second him: But we have read both of Caesar, and many other
generals, who have not only calmed a mutiny with a word, but have
presented themselves single before an army of their enemies; which
upon sight of them has revolted from their own leaders, and come over
to their trenches. In the rest of Almanzor's actions you see him for
the most part victorious; but the same fortune has constantly attended
many heroes, who were not imaginary. Yet, you see it no inheritance to
him; for, in the first place, he is made a prisoner; and, in the last,
defeated, and not able to preserve the city from being taken. If the
history of the late Duke of Guise be true, he hazarded more, and
performed not less in Naples, than Almanzor is feigned to have done in
Granada.

I have been too tedious in this apology; but to make some
satisfaction, I will leave the rest of my play exposed to the
criticks, without defence.

The concernment of it is wholly passed from me, and ought to be in
them who have been favourable to it, and are somewhat obliged to
defend their opinions That there are errors in it, I deny not;

_Ast opere in tanto fas est obrepere somnum._

But I have already swept the stakes: and, with the common good fortune
of prosperous gamesters, can be content to sit quietly; to hear my
fortune cursed by some, and my faults arraigned by others; and to
suffer both without reply.




ON

MR DRYDEN'S PLAY,

THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA.


The applause I gave among the foolish crowd
Was not distinguished, though I clapped aloud:
Or, if it had, my judgment had been hid:
I clapped for company, as others did.
Thence may be told the fortune of your play;
Its goodness must be tried another way.
Let's judge it then, and, if we've any skill,
Commend what's good, though we commend it ill.
There will be praise enough; yet not so much,
As if the world had never any such:
Ben Johnson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Shakespeare, are,
As well as you, to have a poet's share.
You, who write after, have, besides, this curse,
You must write better, or you else write worse.
To equal only what was writ before,
Seems stolen, or borrowed from the former store.
Though blind as Homer all the ancients be,
'Tis on their shoulders, like the lame, we see.
Then not to flatter th' age, nor flatter you,
(Praises, though less, are greater when they're true,)
You're equal to the best, out-done by you;
Who had out-done themselves, had they lived now.

VAUGHAN[1].


Footnote:
1. John, Lord Vaughan, eldest surviving son of Richard, Earl of
Carbery.




PROLOGUE

TO THE FIRST PART,

SPOKEN BY

MRS ELLEN GWYN,

IN A BROAD-BRIMMED HAT, AND WAIST-BELT.[1]


This jest was first of the other house's making,
And, five times tried, has never failed of taking;
For 'twere a shame a poet should be killed
Under the shelter of so broad a shield.
This is that hat, whose very sight did win ye
To laugh and clap as though the devil were in ye.
As then, for Nokes, so now I hope you'll be
So dull, to laugh once more for love of me.
I'll write a play, says one, for I have got
A broad-brimmed hat, and waist-belt, towards a plot.
Says the other, I have one more large than that.
Thus they out-write each other--with a hat!
The brims still grew with every play they writ;
And grew so large, they covered all the wit.
Hat was the play; 'twas language, wit, and tale:
Like them that find meat, drink, and cloth in ale.
What dulness do these mongrel wits confess,
When all their hope is acting of a dress!
Thus, two the best comedians of the age
Must be worn out, with being blocks o' the stage;
Like a young girl, who better things has known,
Beneath their poet's impotence they groan.
See now what charity it was to save!
They thought you liked, what only you forgave;
And brought you more dull sense, dull sense much worse
Than brisk gay nonsense, and the heavier curse.
They bring old iron, and glass upon the stage,
To barter with the Indians of our age.
Still they write on, and like great authors show; }
But 'tis as rollers in wet gardens grow }
Heavy with dirt, and gathering as they go. }
May none, who have so little understood,
To like such trash, presume to praise what's good!
And may those drudges of the stage, whose fate
Is damned dull farce more dully to translate,
Fall under that excise the state thinks fit
To set on all French wares, whose worst is wit.
French farce, worn out at home, is sent abroad;
And, patched up here, is made our English mode.
Henceforth, let poets, ere allowed to write,
Be searched, like duelists before they fight,
For wheel-broad hats, dull honour, all that chaff,
Which makes you mourn, and makes the vulgar laugh:
For these, in plays, are as unlawful arms,
As, in a combat, coats of mail, and charms.


Footnote:
1. There is a vague tradition, that, in this grotesque dress, (for the
brims of the hat were as broad as a cart-wheel,) Nell Gwyn had the
good fortune first to attract the attention of her royal lover.
Where the jest lay, is difficult to discover: it seems to have
originated with the duke of York's players.




DRAMATIS PERSONAE


MAHOMET BOABDELIN, _the last king of Granada._
_Prince_ ABDALLA, _his brother._
ABDELMELECH, _chief of the Abencerrages._
ZULEMA, _chief of the Zegrys._
ABENAMAR, _an old Abencerrago._
SELIN, _an old Zegry._
OZMYN, _a brave young Abencerrago, son to Abenamar._
HAMET, _brother to Zulema, a Zegry._
GOMEL, _a Zegry._
ALMANZOR.
FERDINAND, _king of Spain._
_Duke of_ ARCOS, _his General._
_Don_ ALONZO D'AGUILAR, _a Spanish Captain._

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