CLEOMENES.
There has been occasion to remark, that Dryden seldom avails himself of national peculiarities, or national costume, in sketching his dramatic personages; the present tragedy forms, however, a remarkable exception to this general observation. Cleomenes, the last of the Spartans, is designed, not only as a hero, but as a Lacedemonian; and is a just picture of that extraordinary race of men, whose virtues were comprized in patriotism, and whose whole passions centered in a thirst for military glory. This character Dryden has drawn with admirable spirit and precision. It was indeed peculiarly suited to his genius; for, although sometimes deficient in the pathos and natural expression of violent passion, by which Otway, and even Southerne, could affect the passions of an audience, he never fails in expressing, in the most noble language, the sentiments of that stoical philosophy, which considers sufferings rather as subjects of moral reflection, than of natural feeling. Yet, lest a character so invulnerable to the shafts of adversity, so much the totus teres atque rotundus of the poet, should fail to interest the audience, (for we seldom pity those who shew no symptoms of feeling their own sorrows,) Dryden has softened the character of his Spartan hero by the influence of those chaste and tender domestic affections, which thrive best in bosoms rendered by nature or philosophy inaccessible to selfish feeling. The haughty and unbending spirit, the love of war, and thirst of honour proper to the Lacedemonian, and inculcated by the whole train of his education, complete the character of Cleomenes. The same spirit, which animates the father, is finely represented as descending upon the son. Cleonidas is a model of a Spartan youth; and every slight expression which he uses, tends to bring out that celebrated character. The idea of this spirited boy seems to be taken from the excellent character of Hengo, in the "Bonduca" of Beaumont and Fletcher; whom Cleonidas resembles in the manner of his death, and in his previous sufferings by hunger, as well as in his premature courage, and emulation of his father's military glory.[26] The wife and mother of Cleomenes seem to be sketched after those of Coriolanus: the former exhibiting a mild and gentle disposition; the latter, the high-souled magnanimity of a Spartan matron. Of the other characters, little need be said. Ptolemy is a silly tyrant, Sosibius a wily minister, and Cleanthes a friend and confident; such as tyrants, ministers, and confidents in tragedies usually are. Judging from his first appearance, the author seems to have intended Pantheus as a character somewhat in contrast to that of Cleomenes; but he soon tires of the task of discrimination, and Pantheus sinks into a mere assistant. Cassandra is not sketched with any peculiar care; her snares are of a nature not very perilous to Spartan virtue, for her manners are too openly licentious. Such, however, as are fond of tracing the ideas of poets to those who have written before them, may consider Cassandra,—in her pride, her love, and her alternate schemes for saving and destroying Cleomenes,—as furnishing the original hint of the much more highly finished character of Zara in Congreve's "Mourning Bride."
The conduct of the piece, being calculated to evince the Spartan virtue, patience, and courage, contains a long train of hopes disappointed, seducing temptations resisted, sufferings patiently endured, and finally closed by a voluntary death. There is no particular object to which the attention of the audience is fixed, as that upon which the conclusion of the piece necessarily depends. The liberation of Cleomenes from his Egyptian bondage is doubtless the consummation concerning which the poet meant that we should be anxious; but this event might be brought about in so many different ways, and, if accomplished, brings Cleomenes so little nearer to the restoration of Spartan liberty, that it is perhaps insufficient to excite that strong, concentrated, and vivid interest, which the plot of a drama ought properly to inspire. The mind is distracted among the various possibilities by which the desired catastrophe might be accomplished; and feels a consciousness, that even were Cleomenes dismissed with full sails from the port of Alexandria, it would be rather the beginning than the winding up of his history. For these reasons, the plot seems more deficient in interest than might have been expected, from the spirited delineation of the principal character.
It appears that Dryden was unable, from illness, to put the finishing strokes to "Cleomenes." That task he committed to Southerne, now his intimate friend, and who, as may be easily imagined, felt himself much honoured by the task imposed upon him.[27] The half of the fifth act was that upon which Southerne exercised this power of revisal and finishing; for that it amounted to no more, will, I think, be obvious to any who takes the trouble to compare that act with those which precede it. The rabble-scene, introduced, as the poet himself tells us, to gratify the more barbarous part of his audience, is indeed deplorably bad.
The play, when presented to the theatre, met with unexpected opposition from the government, then directed by Queen Mary, in the absence of her husband. This was not very surprising, considering the subject of the play, and Dryden's well-known principles. The history of an exiled monarch, soliciting, in the court of an ally, aid to relieve his country from a foreign yoke, and to restore him to the throne of his fathers, with the account of a popular insurrection undertaken for the same purposes, were delicate themes during the reign of William III.; at least, when the pen of Dryden was to be employed in them, whose well-known skill at adapting an ancient story to a modern moral had so often been exercised in the cause of the house of Stuart. Besides, he had already given offence by his prologue to the "Prophetess," when revived, which contains some familiar metaphorical sneers, as Cibber calls them, at the Irish war, the female regency, and even the Revolution itself. This prologue had been forbidden; and a similar exertion of authority was deemed fit in the case of "Cleomenes." Accordingly, before the inoffensive nature of the piece could be explained, the court took alarm at the subject in the abstract, and the performance of the piece was prohibited by the Chamberlain.[28] It appears, the exertions of Lord Rochester, the maternal uncle of Queen Mary, and of his family, had been sufficiently powerful to guarantee the harmless nature of the play, and to procure a recal of the mandate, by which the acting of the piece, and the consequent profits of the author, had been for some time suspended.
When the play was performed, our author had the satisfaction to see the first character admirably represented by the well-known Mrs Barry, to whom he has paid, in the preface, the splendid compliment of saying, "that she had gained by her performance a reputation beyond any woman he had ever seen on the theatre."[29] If this expression, as Cibber seems to think, be a little over-stretched, it at least serves to prove to us, that the play was well received; for, otherwise, the intercourse of civility between the author and performers is generally very slender.
Cleomenes was acted and published in 1692.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF ROCHESTER,
KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF
THE GARTER, &c;[30].
It is enough for your lordship to be conscious to yourself of having performed a just and honourable action, in redeeming this play from the persecution of my enemies; but it would be ingratitude in me, not to publish it to the world. That it has appeared on the stage, is principally owing to you: that it has succeeded, is the approbation of your judgment by that of the public. It is just the inversion of an act of parliament: Your lordship first signed it, and then it was passed amongst the Lords and Commons. The children of old men are generally observed to be short-lived, and of a weakly constitution. How this may prove, I know not, but hitherto it has promised well; and if it survive to posterity, it will carry the noble fame of its patron along with it; or, rather, it will be carried by yours to after-ages. Ariosto, in his Voyage of Astolpho to the Moon, has given us a fine allegory of two swans; who, when Time had thrown the writings of many poets into the river of oblivion, were ever in a readiness to secure the best, and bear them aloft into the temple of immortality.[31] Whether this poem be of that number, is left to the judgment of the swan who has preserved it; and, though I can claim little from his justice, I may presume to value myself upon his charity. It will be told me, that I have mistaken the Italian poet, who means only, that some excellent writers, almost as few in number as the swans, have rescued the memory of their patrons from forgetfulness and time; when a vast multitude of crows and vultures, that is, bad scribblers, parasites, and flatterers, oppressed by the weight of the names which they endeavoured to redeem, were forced to let them fall into Lethe, where they were lost for ever. If it be thus, my lord, the table would be turned upon me; but I should only fail in my vain attempt; for, either some immortal swan will be more capable of sustaining such a weight, or you, who have so long been conversant in the management of great affairs, are able with your pen to do justice to yourself, and, at the same time, to give the nation a clearer and more faithful insight into those transactions, wherein you have worthily sustained so great a part; for, to your experience in state affairs, you have also joined no vulgar erudition, which all your modesty is not able to conceal: for, to understand critically the delicacies of Horace, is a height to which few of our noblemen have arrived; and that this is your deserved commendation, I am a living evidence, as far, at least, as I can be allowed a competent judge on that subject. Your affection to that admirable Ode, which Horace writes to his Mecænas, and which I had the honour to inscribe to you, is not the only proof of this assertion[32]. You may please to remember that, in the late happy conversation which I had with your lordship at a noble relation's of yours, you took me aside, and pleased yourself with repeating to me one of the most beautiful pieces in that author. It was the Ode to Barine, wherein you were so particularly affected with that elegant expression, Juvenumque prodis publica cura. There is indeed the virtue of a whole poem in those words; that curiosa felicitas, which Petronius so justly ascribes to our author. The barbarity of our language is not able to reach it; yet, when I have leisure, I mean to try how near I can raise my English to his Latin; though, in the mean time, I cannot but imagine to myself, with what scorn his sacred manes would look on so lame a translation as I could make. His recalcitrat undique tutus might more easily be applied to me, than he himself applied it to Augustus Cæsar. I ought to reckon that day as very fortunate to me, and distinguish it, as the ancients did, with a whiter stone; because it furnished me with an occasion of reading my Cleomenes to a beautiful assembly of ladies, where your lordship's three fair daughters were pleased to grace it with their presence[33]; and, if I may have leave to single out any one in particular, there was your admirable daughter-in-law, shining, not like a star, but a constellation of herself, a more true and brighter Berenice. Then it was, that, whether out of your own partiality, and indulgence to my writings, or out of complaisance to the fair company, who gave the first good omen to my success by their approbation, your lordship was pleased to add your own, and afterwards to represent it to the queen, as wholly innocent of those crimes which were laid unjustly to its charge. Neither am I to forget my charming patroness, though she will not allow my public address to her in a dedication, but protects me unseen, like my guardian-angel, and shuns my gratitude, like a fairy, who is bountiful by stealth, and conceals the giver when she bestows the gift; but, my Lady Silvius[34] has been juster to me, and pointed out the goddess at whose altar I was to pay my sacrifice and thanks-offering; and, had she been silent, yet my Lord Chamberlain himself, in restoring my play without any alteration, avowed to me, that I had the most earnest solicitress, as well as the fairest, and that nothing could be refused to my Lady Hyde.
These favours, my lord, received from yourself, and your noble family, have encouraged me to this dedication; wherein I not only give you back a play, which, had you not redeemed it, had not been mine; but also, at the same time, dedicate to you the unworthy author, with my inviolable faith, and (how mean soever) my utmost service; and I shall be proud to hold my dependance on you in chief, as I do part of my small fortune in Wiltshire. Your goodness has not been wanting to me during the reign of my two masters; and, even from a bare treasury, my success has been contrary to that of Mr Cowley; and Gideon's fleece has then been moistened, when all the ground has been dry about it[35]. Such and so many provocations of this nature have concurred to my invading of your modesty with this address. I am sensible that it is in a manner forced upon you; but your lordship has been the aggressor in this quarrel, by so many favours, which you were not weary of conferring on me, though, at the same time, I own the ambition on my side, to be ever esteemed,
Your Lordship's most thankful,
And most obedient Servant,
John Dryden.