The skies are hushed, no grumbling thunders roll.
Now take your swing, ye impious; sin unpunished;
Eternal Providence seems overmatched,

And with a slumbering nod assents to murder.

(iv.) As romance in the English poetic tragedy expired in heroic extravagance, so in comedy it dwindled into prose and the imitation of artificial manners. Of English poetic comedy there are only two kinds that have their roots deep in English character and institutions-the romantic comedy of Shakespeare, and the satiric comedy of Ben Jonson; the one springing out of the ancient fabliaux, the other out of the medieval moralities. In course of time a third species was formed by Beaumont and Fletcher, which combined some of the qualities of Shakespeare's style with others peculiar to Ben Jonson, but which was exotic in character, being in many essential respects an imitation of the practice of the Spanish stage. The contrasted spirit of these different orders of comedy is faithfully reflected in their respective styles. Shakespeare's romantic comedy, moving in a poetic and ideal atmosphere, is mainly written in verse: Jonson's dialogue, as reflecting manners more directly, has about an equal proportion of verse and prose; while, though Fletcher's comedy of intrigue is, more often than not, versified, the language approaches nearer to the level of ordinary conversation, than is the case in Shakespeare's plays.

Dryden reflected critically on the qualities of these opposite styles. He had himself little turn for comedy, and admitted the fact: "That I admire not any comedy equally with tragedy is, perhaps, from the sullenness of my humour; but that I detest those farces, which are now the frequent entertainments of the stage, I am sure I have reason on my side." Whatever, therefore, he provided for the mirth of an audience had the air of being reasoned out on critical principles. For the romantic comedies of Shakespeare, whose tragic genius he so highly revered, he had little feeling; but he admired the structure of his tragi-comedies, and appreciated the "wit"

1 Preface to Mock Astrologer.

of Beaumont and Fletcher, because it had the same aim as he always proposed to himself. "As for repartee in particular," he says, " as it is the very soul of conversation, so it is the greatest grace of comedy, when it is proper to the characters." 1 He considered, however, the style of Beaumont and Fletcher to be incorrect. Ben Jonson was the comic dramatist of the preceding age whom his judgment most approved. He had a real reverence for the solidity with which Jonson laid the foundations of his comedy in the vices and follies of the time, and he sympathised, at least in theory, with the comparatively regular construction of his plays. But he failed to understand, what is so essential a feature in Jonson, the spirit of the old morality, and he took him for his guide only in so far as he was an exact imitator of manners. His own leading principle in comedy was one against which Jonson would certainly have protested: "This being then established, that the first end of comedy is delight, and instruction only the second; it may reasonably be inferred that comedy is not so much obliged to the punishment of the faults it represents, as tragedy."2

Composed in this eclectic spirit, Dryden's comedies, from the first, exhibit in their structure the operation of conflicting principles. The Wild Gallant, produced in 1662, is evidence of the surviving power of the old Spanish influence: one of the speakers in the prologue shows what the audience expected from the poet :

Whence I conclude it is your author's lot
To be endangered with a Spanish plot.

Scott interprets this to mean that the plot of The Wild Gallant was borrowed from the Spanish ; but it is evident that the words really contain a question, which is answered by the next speaker in the dialogue, who

says:

This play is English, and the growth your own;
As such it yields to English plays alone.

1 Preface to Mock Astrologer.

2 Ibid.

3 Edition of Dryden's Works (1821), vol. ii. p. 15.

But though the plot is therefore probably original, though the names of the persons are English, and the scene laid in England, the extravagance of the incidents and the complication of the intrigue in The Wild Gallant reveal a Spanish taste. One or two of the characters, however, are plainly the fruits of the study of Ben JonsonNonsuch, for example, a humorous old lord who imagines himself liable to perform some of the duties which Nature has imposed on the female sex; and Trice, a Justice of the Peace, so devoted to gambling that he plays cards with himself and quarrels with imaginary opponents. The language of the play, on the principle that Dryden always kept steadily in view, is prose, and is closely imitated from the conversational usage of the time.

Sir Martin Mar-All and The Mock Astrologer, the former produced in 1667, the latter in 1668, are little more than adaptations of French originals, L'Étourdi of Molière and Le Feint Astrologue of Thomas Corneille, with the plot of which Dryden has also combined scenes taken from Molière's Dépit Amoureux. Sir Martin Mar - All is, as far as may be, accommodated to the requirements of English manners; but Marriage à la Mode, which appeared in 1673, retains a certain colour of romantic idealism. The scene is laid in Sicily; the names of the actors, like those of the older English stage, are classical; and the main action is serious. All the merit of the play, however, lies in the person of Melantha, in which the language and affectations of the Court are imitated with a vivacity that even to-day causes the character to live and breathe in the imagination. How artificial these characteristics were, and how much the success of the impersonation depended on an actress who understood the genius of the age, may be imagined from the admirable description given by Colley Cibber in his Apology of Mrs. Montford's representation of Melantha :

The first ridiculous airs that break from her are upon a gallant never seen before, who delivers her a letter from his father recommending him to her good graces as an honourable lover. Here one would think she might naturally show a little

of the sex's decent reserve, though never so slightly covered. No, sir, not a tittle of it: Modesty is a poor-souled country gentlewoman she is too much a Court lady to be under so vulgar confusions. She reads the letter through with a careless dropping lip and an erected brow, humming it hastily over as if she were impatient to outgo her father's commands, by making a complete conquest of him at once; and that the letter might not embarrass the attack, crack! she crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours down upon him the whole battery of airs, eyes, and motion; down goes her dainty, diving body to the ground, as if she were sinking under the conscious load of her attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water; and to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit that she will not give her lover leave to praise it. Silent assenting bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which, at last, he is removed from by her engagement to half a score of visits, which she swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling.1

Melantha may be taken as a type of an influential part of the audience in the Caroline theatre: it may therefore be supposed that no dramatist would have felt himself hampered in the free imitation of contemporary manners by considerations of what was due to female modesty. Dryden, who had all the self-esteem of a great genius, loved to revenge himself for the indignities inflicted on him in the practice of his profession, by cynically proclaiming his contempt for the vulgarity of the public taste :

Now our machinery lumber will not sell,

And you no longer care for Heaven or Hell;

What stuff will please you next the Lord can tell.

Of Limberham (produced in 1678), in the prologue to which play these lines occur, I need only say that the "stuff," in respect of action, character, sentiment, and language, was suitable to the taste of the audience.

A higher level is reached in The Spanish Friar. The main plot of this play is tragic, and the happy dénouement is found only in the closing scene; but the

1 Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber (1740), pp. 138-9.

But though the plot is therefore probably original, though the names of the persons are English, and the scene laid in England, the extravagance of the incidents and the complication of the intrigue in The Wild Gallant reveal a Spanish taste. One or two of the characters, however, are plainly the fruits of the study of Ben Jonson— Nonsuch, for example, a humorous old lord who imagines himself liable to perform some of the duties which Nature has imposed on the female sex; and Trice, a Justice of the Peace, so devoted to gambling that he plays cards with himself and quarrels with imaginary opponents. The language of the play, on the principle that Dryden always kept steadily in view, is prose, and is closely imitated from the conversational usage of the time.

Sir Martin Mar-All and The Mock Astrologer, the former produced in 1667, the latter in 1668, are little more than adaptations of French originals, L'Étourdi of Molière and Le Feint Astrologue of Thomas Corneille, with the plot of which Dryden has also combined scenes aken from Molière's Dépit Amoureux. Sir Martin Mar - All is, as far as may be, accommodated to the equirements of English manners; but Marriage à la Mode, which appeared in 1673, retains a certain colour of omantic idealism. The scene is laid in Sicily; the ames of the actors, like those of the older English stage, re classical; and the main action is serious. All the erit of the play, however, lies in the person of Melantha, which the language and affectations of the Court are nitated with a vivacity that even to-day causes the aracter to live and breathe in the imagination. How tificial these characteristics were, and how much the ccess of the impersonation depended on an actress who derstood the genius of the age, may be imagined from e admirable description given by Colley Cibber in his sology of Mrs. Montford's representation of Melantha :

The first ridiculous airs that break from her are upon a lant never seen before, who delivers her a letter from his er recommending him to her good graces as an honourable Here one would think she might naturally show a little.

er.