JOHN DRYDEN.'

1. SHAKSPEARE.2

(FROM THE "ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY," PUBLISHED IN 1667.)

SHAKSPEARE was the man who, of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still (constantly) present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted (of having been without) learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid; his comic wit (vein) degenerating into clenches (puns); his serious [vein] swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit (genius), and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

Quantùm lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.

(As cypresses the pliant shrubs among.)

The consideration of this, made Mr. Hales, of Eton, say, that there was no subject of which any poet ever writ (wrote) but he would produce it much better treated in Shakspeare; and, however others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had [as] contemporaries

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(1) "The prose of Dryden may rank with the best in the English language. It is no less of his own formation than his versification, and equally spirited and equally harmonious. Without the lengthened and pedantic sentences of Clarendon, it is dignified when dignity is becoming, and is lively without the accumulation of strained and absurd allusions and metaphors, which were unfortunately mistaken for wit by many of the author's contemporaries."-Sir W. Scott, Life of Dryden. Fox's admiration of Dryden's prose seems to have been excessive. He was unwilling to use a word not to be found in Dryden.

"There is in Dryden's prose writings an ease and eloquence that have never yet been so well united in writers of taste or criticism."-Goldsmith.

(2) This very discriminative estimate of Shakspere's genius has been much and deservedly admired. "It may stand," says Johnson, " as a perpetual model of encomiastic criticism; exact without minuteness, and lofty without exaggeration." (3) Now, i.e. in Charles the Second's reign,

with him Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled them to him in their esteem (raised them to an equality with him). And in the last king's court, when Ben's reputation was at the highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakspeare far above him.

2. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

(FROM THE SAME WORK.)

BEAUMONT and Fletcher, of whom I am next to speak, had, with the advantage of Shakspeare's wit, which was their precedent (model), great natural gifts, improved by study; Beaumont, especially, being so accurate a judge of plays, that Ben Jonson, while he lived, submitted all his writings to his censure (judgment), and 'tis thought, used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving all his plots. What value he had for him, appears by the verses he writ to him, and therefore I need speak no further of it. The first play which brought Fletcher and him in esteem was their Philaster; for before that, they had written two or three very unsuccessfully: and the like is reported of Ben Jonson, before he writ Every Man in his Humour. Their plots were generally more regular than Shakspeare's, especially those which were made before Beaumont's death; and they understood and imitated the conversation (manners) of gentlemen much better, whose wild debaucheries, add quickness of repartees, no poet can ever paint as they have none. That humour' which Ben Jonson derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe: they represented all the passions very lively (in a very lively manner), but, above all, love. I am apt to believe the English language in them arrived to2 its highest perfection: what words have been taken in since, are rather superfluous than necessary. Their plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage; two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakspeare's or Jonson's: the reason is, because there is a certain gaiety in their comedies, and pathos in their more serious plays, which suits generally with all men's humour. Shakspeare's language is likewise a little obsolete, and Ben Jonson's wit comes short of theirs.

(1) Humour. See note 2, p. 212.

(2) Arrived to. See another example of this now obsolete construction in the next passage. Milton has a still different phraseology," Arrived the happy isle." See note 2, p. 66.

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3. BEN JONSON.1

(FROM THE SAME WORK.)

As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages) (ie. written in his dotage), I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and language, and humour also in some measure, we had before him; but something of art was wanting to the drama till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew (he was conscious that) he came after those who had performed both to such an height. Humour was his proper sphere, and in that he delighted most to represent mechanic people. He was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them: there is not a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times, whom he has not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him. With the spoils of those writers he so represents old Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him.3 If there was any fault in his language, 'twas that he weaved it too closely and laboriously in his serious plays perhaps, too, he did a little too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them; wherein, though he learnedly followed the idiom of their language, he did not enough comply with

(1) Jonson prided himself on his learning-not natural learning, like Shakspere's, but the learning of books-but then, as Dryden acutely remarks, in his own field he was not an ignoble gatherer or receiver of other men's spoils, but a king who gained his wealth by conquest. He was rather pleased than not to have his writings called" works,” as indicating the labour they cost him.

(2) Humour, i.e. the representation of special characters. See note 2, p. 212. (3) Less of it, &c. Because the native writer would have unconsciously assumed much that the learned adapter thought it necessary to exhibit in detail.

ours. If I would compare him with Shakspeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakspeare the greater wit (genius). Shakspeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing: I admire him, but I love Shakspeare.

4. QUALIFICATIONS

OF A GOOD TRANSLATOR.

(FROM THE PREFACE TO "MISCELLANY POEMS," PUBLISHED IN 1684.) THERE are many who understand Greek and Latin, and yet are ignorant of their mother-tongue. The proprieties and delicacies of the English are known to few: it is impossible even for a good wit (a man of intelligence) to understand and practise them without the help of a liberal education,' long reading, and digesting of those few good authors we have amongst us, the knowledge of men and manners, the freedom of habitudes and conversation3 (intercourse) with the best company of both sexes; and, in short, without wearing off the rust which he contracted while he was laying in a stock of learning. Thus difficult it is to understand the purity of English, and critically to discern not only good writers from bad, and a proper style1 from a corrupt, but also to distinguish that which is pure in a good

(1) Liberal education. The precise meaning of this phrase seems to depend on the age in which it is used. In Dryden's time, and in ours also, it is—in Milton's words-"the complete and generous education that fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war." A hundred years hence it may mean a scientific education. In Dryden's time it was a learned one.

(2) Digesting. See Bacon, " Of Studies," p. 127. "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." Such only as are thus digested become assimilated in the mental economy, and form, by entering into its life-blood, an element of power.

(3) Conversation. See note 3, p. 80. Even yet this word had not arrived at its present signification. Above it has the sense of the scriptural word.

(4) Proper style. A proper, i.e. appropriate, style would seem to be the perfection of style-implying a constant harmony between means and ends-between the matter and the form or manner. This subject has been most gracefully handled in the Fortnightly Review (1866), by the Editor, G. H. Lewes. Style, according to his view, is not the "dress," but the living body of thought, "the delicate precision giving form and relief to matter." "The matter," he goes on to say, "is confluent with the manner, and only through the style can the matter reach the reader's mind." The power to estimate purity of style ought, however, to be the ordinary result of a liberal education, and not an extraordinary endowment, as in Dryden's view it was.

author, from that which is vicious and corrupt in him. And for want of all these requisites, or the greatest part of them, most of our ingenious young men take up some cried-up English poet for their model; adore him, and imitate him, as they think, without knowing wherein he is defective, where he is boyish and trifling, wherein either his thoughts are improper to his subject, or his expressions unworthy of his thoughts, or the turn of both is unharmonious.

Thus it appears necessary that a man should be a nice critic in his mother-tongue before he attempts to translate in (from) a foreign language. Neither is it sufficient that he be able to judge of words and style, but he must be a master of them too: he must perfectly understand his author's tongue, and absolutely command his own so that to be a thorough translator [of a poetical author], he must be a thorough poet. Neither is it enough to give his author's sense, in good English, in poetical expressions, and in musical numbers; for though all these are exceeding difficult to perform, yet there remains an harder task; and it is a secret of which few translators have sufficiently thought. I have hinted a word or two concerning it; that is, the maintaining the character of an author, which distinguishes him from all others, and makes him appear that individual poet whom you would interpret. For example, not only the thoughts, but the style and versification of Virgil and Ovid are very different; yet I see, even in our best poets, who have translated some parts of them, that they have confounded their several (different) talents; and by endeavouring (aiming) only at the sweetness and harmony of numbers, have made them both so much alike, that if I did not know the originals, I should never be able to judge by the copies which was Virgil and which was Ovid. It was objected against a late noble painter, that he drew many graceful pictures (portraits), but few of them were like. And this happened to him, because he always studied himself more than those who sat to him. In such translators I can easily distinguish the hand which performed the work,

(1) Model. The use and abuse of models, whether in art or literature, is admirably treated in the Essays just quoted. Great artists or authors should be "illustrations, not authorities; studies, not models." "No study of models, no attention to rules, will give the easy turn, the graceful phrase, the simple word, the fervid movement, or the large clearness: a picturesque talent will express itself in concrete images; a genial nature will smile in pleasant turns and inuendos; a rapid, unhesitating, imperious mind will deliver its quick, incisive phrases; a full, deliberative mind will overflow in ample paragraphs, laden with the weight of parentheses and qualifying suggestions."