LOVE TRIUMPHANT.
This piece, which concluded our author's labours as a dramatic poet, was unsuccessful when represented, and affords very little pleasure when perused. If we except "Amboyna," our author never produced a play, where the tragic part had less interest, or the comic less humour. For the faults of "Amboyna," Dryden pleaded the barren nature of the subject, chosen not with a view to dramatic effect, but to attain a political purpose, and the hurry of writing upon a temporary theme. But that he should have failed, in a play avowedly intended to crown his dramatic labours, where the story was of his own device, and the composition at his own leisure, can only be imputed to that occasional flatness, or cessation of the divine influence, as an ancient would have expressed it, from which men of the highest poetic genius are not exempted. In despite of all cold reasoning upon this subject, the fact is irresistible, that our capacity of exerting mental talents, is not more absolute than that which we possess over our bodily powers. We are in each case limited by a thousand external and internal circumstances, which occasion the greatest and most involuntary inequalities, between our happier and our inferior efforts, of mental abilities or of corporeal strength. It can only be to the temporary failure of the poetic inspiration, which, like the wind of heaven, bloweth where it listeth, and neither to want of labour, nor to impaired talents, that we are to attribute the inferiority of "Love Triumphant," to almost all Dryden's other compositions.
The plot is unhappily chosen. For, as we have had already occasion to notice, stories turning, or appearing to turn, upon incestuous passion, have seldom been successful upon the modern stage[47]. Davies, in his "Dramatic Miscellanies," attributes Garrick's renouncing his intention of reviving the admirable old play of "King and no King," to the ardent passion which Arbaces conceives for his supposed sister; and which that excellent judge suspected would not be tolerated in our age. "Phædra and Hippolitus," though most powerfully supported, both by actors and admirers, failed for the same reason; and, according to Davies, even the various excellencies of "Don Sebastian" were unable to expiate the disgust, excited by the unpleasing discovery of his relation to Almeyda. While "Love Triumphant" labours under this capital and disagreeable defect, little ingenuity can be discovered in the story, abstracted from that consideration. The king of Castile suffers his sole and only offspring to remain in the court of a rival and hostile monarch, and even to head armies against him, supposing himself the son of his enemy. The virtuous Queen of Arragon cultivates and encourages a passion, having all the moral guilt of an incestuous attachment, between her own daughter and her supposed son. The tyrant Veramond is the only person who acts upon rational principles through the piece. He refuses the liberty of a rival king to the petulant demand of Alphonso; and not very unreasonably proposes to separate his son and daughter, before worse consequences arose from their infamous and impudently avowed passion. But by this very natural conduct, he gains the hatred of his wife, his children, and his subjects:
Miranda canit, sed non credenda, poeta.
After so many and such violent stretches of probability, the author does not deign to wind up the plot, otherwise than by a sudden change in the temper and resolutions of Veramond, a conclusion which he himself admits in general to be grossly inartificial, and which in the present case is peculiarly infelicitous. The ruling passion of Veramond seems to be a hatred of his rival Ramirez, and a sort of instinctive antipathy to Alphonso, even when he believes him to be his own son, just arrived from conquest in his behalf. This hatred and aversion was not likely to be abated, by the objects of them turning out to be father and son; nor much soothed, by the circumstance of their making him prisoner in his own metropolis. Yet, in this situation, moved by a few soft speeches from Celidea, who had taken a fancy to the intended husband of her sister, the tyrant of Arragon alters his whole family arrangements, and habits of mind; and takes his hated foes into his family and bosom, merely that the play may be concluded. The author of these inconsistencies can hardly escape the censure of Aristotle, against which he has pleaded in the preface.
With regard to the poetry of "Love Triumphant," it is somewhat remarkable, that, in the most laboured scenes of this last effort of his tragic muse, Dryden has had recourse to his discarded mistress, Rhyme. As this could hardly arise from an alteration of his final opinion, it may have been owing to a consciousness, that there was some deficiency in the piece, which the harmony of numbers might veil, though it could not supply. The turn of the dialogue, also, is quite in our poet's early manner. The lovers, in the first scene of the second act, burning with a horrible passion, which they felt it death to conceal, and infamy and mortal sin to avow, communicate their feelings to each other in alternate couplets, like two contending Arcadians. Their horror evaporates in antithesis, and their passion in quaint prettinesses. Witness the speech of Alphonso:
Alph. Oh raging, impious, and yet hopeless fire!
Not daring to possess what I desire;
Condemn'd to suffer what I cannot bear;
Tortur'd with love, and furious with despair.
Of all the pains which wretched mortals prove,
The fewest remedies belong to love:
But ours has none; for if we should enjoy,
Our fatal cure must both of us destroy.
Oh dear Victoria, cause of all my pain!
Oh dear Victoria, whom I would not gain!
Victoria, for whose sake I would survive:
Victoria, for whose sake I dare not live.
If the tragic part of "Love Triumphant" have little merit, the comic has even less. The absurdity of the two gallants disguising themselves, in hopes to pass for the deceased Conde upon a mistress, who had borne him two children, is too gross for a puppet-show, or pantomime; and there is nothing in the dialogue to attone for the flatness, and extravagance of the plot. It may, however, be remarked, that Sancho, a tawdry and conceited coxcomb, the son of a Jewish usurer, and favoured by the father of his mistress, only for his wealth, has some resemblance in manners and genealogy to a much more pleasant character, that of Isaac in the "Duenna."
It is impossible to dismiss a performance of Dryden, without some tribute of praise. The verse, where it is employed, possesses, as usual, all the dignity which numbers can give to language; and the Song upon Jealousy, as well as that in the character of a Girl, have superior merit.
The play was received as ill as might be; so at least we are informed by a curious letter, preserved by Mr Malone, dated 22d March 1693-4, in which the writer, after chuckling over the failure of the "Double Dealer," and the absolute damnation of "Love Triumphant," concludes, that the success of Southerne's "Fatal Marriage" will encourage the minor poets, "and vex huffing Dryden, and Congreve, to madness[48]." Dryden himself, it may be noticed, says nothing in the preface concerning the reception of the piece: all authorities, however, state it to have been unfavourable; and thus, as Dr Johnson has remarked, this great poet opened and closed his theatrical career with bad success; a fact, which may secure the inexperienced author from despondence, and teach him who has gained reputation, how little he ought to presume on its stability.
"Love Triumphant" was first acted and published in 1693-4.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
JAMES
EARL OF SALISBURY, &c.[49],
MY LORD,
This poem, being the last which I intend for the theatre, ought to have the same provision made for it, which old men make for their youngest child, which is commonly a favourite. They, who were born before it, carry away the patrimony by right of eldership; this is to make its fortune in the world, and since I can do little for it, natural affection calls upon me to put it out, at least, into the best service which I can procure for it; and, as it is the usual practice of our decayed gentry to look about them for some illustrious family, and their endeavour to fix their young darling, where he may be both well educated and supported;[50] I have herein also followed the custom of the world, and am satisfied in my judgment, that I could not have made a more worthy choice. It is true, I am not vain enough to think that anything of mine can in any measure be worthy of your lordship's patronage; and yet I should be ashamed to leave the stage, without some acknowledgment of your former favours, which I have more than once experienced. Besides the honour of my wife's relation to your noble house,[51] to which my sons may plead some title, though I cannot; you have been pleased to take a particular notice of me, even in this lowness of my fortunes, to which I have voluntarily reduced myself; and of which I have no reason to be ashamed. This condescension, my lord, is not only becoming of your antient family, but of your personal character in the world; and, if I value myself the more for your indulgence to me, and your opinion of me, it is because any thing which you like, ought to be considered as something in itself; and therefore I must not undervalue my present labours, because I have presumed to make you my patron. A man may be just to himself, though he ought not to be partial; and I dare affirm, that the several manners which I have given to the persons of this drama, are truly drawn from nature, all perfectly distinguished from each other; that the fable is not injudiciously contrived; that the turns of fortune are not managed unartfully; and that the last revolution is happily enough invented. Aristotle, I acknowledge, has declared, that the catastrophe which is made from the change of will, is not of the first order of beauty; but it may reasonably be alledged, in defence of this play, as well as of the "Cinna," (which I take to be the very best of Corneille's,) that the philosopher, who made the rule, copied all the laws, which he gave for the theatre, from the authorities and examples of the Greek poets, which he had read; and from their poverty of invention, he could get nothing but mean conclusions of wretched tales: where the mind of the chief actor was, for the most part, changed without art or preparation; only because the poet could not otherwise end his play. Had it been possible for Aristotle to have seen the "Cinna," I am confident he would have altered his opinion; and concluded, that a simple change of will might be managed with so much judgment, as to render it the most agreeable, as well as the most surprising part of the whole fable; let Dacier, and all the rest of the modern critics, who are too much bigotted to the ancients, contend ever so much to the contrary. I was afraid that I had been the inventor of a new sort of designing, when, in my third act, I make a discovery of my Alphonso's true parentage. If it were so, what wonder had it been, that dramatic poetry, though a limited art, yet might be capable of receiving some innovations for the better? But afterwards I casually found, that Menander and Terence, in the "Heautontimoroumenos," had been before me; and made the same kind of discovery in the same act. As for the mechanic unities;—that of time is much within the compass of an astrological day, which begins at twelve, and ends at the same hour the day following: that of place is not observed so justly by me, as by the ancients; for their scene was always one, and almost constantly in some public place. Some of the late French poets, and, amongst the English, my most ingenious friend, Mr Congreve, have observed this rule strictly; though the place was not altogether so public as a street. I have followed the example of Corneille, and stretched the latitude to a street and palace, not far distant from each other in the same city. They, who will not allow this liberty to a poet, make it a very ridiculous thing for an audience to suppose themselves, sometimes to be in a field, sometimes in a garden, and at other times in a chamber. There are not, indeed, so many absurdities in their supposition, as in ours; but it is an original absurdity for the audience to suppose themselves to be in any other place, than in the very theatre in which they sit; which is neither chamber, nor garden, nor yet a public place of any business, but that of the representation. For my action it is evidently double; and in that I have the most of the ancients for my examples. Yet I dare not defend this way by reason, much less by their authority; for their actions, though double, were of the same species; that is to say, in their comedies, two amours; and their persons were better linked in interests than mine. Yet even this is a fault which I should often practise, if I were to write again, because it is agreeable to the English genius. We love variety more than any other nation; and so long as the audience will not be pleased without it, the poet is obliged to humour them. On condition they were cured of this public vice, I could be content to change my method, and gladly give them a more reasonable pleasure. This digression, my lord, is not altogether the purpose of an epistle dedicatory; yet it is expected, that somewhat should be said, even here, in relation to criticism; at least in vindication of my address, that you may not be desired to patronize a poem, which is wholly unworthy of your protection. Though, after all, I doubt not but some will liken me to the lover in a modern comedy, who was combing his peruke,[52] and setting his cravat before his mistress; and being asked by her, when he intended to begin his court, replied, "He had been doing it all this while." Yet thus it happens, my lord, that self will come into all addresses of this nature, though it is the most unmannerly word of the world in civil conversation, and the most ungrateful to all hearers. For which reason, I, who have nothing to boast of, but my misfortunes, ought to be the first to banish it; especially since I have so large a field before me, as your inborn goodness, your evenness of temper, your humility in so ample a share of fortune as you possess, your humanity to all men, and your kindness to your friends; besides your natural and acquired endowments, and your brotherly love to your relations. Notus in fratres animo paterno, was the great commendation which Horace gave to one of his patrons; and it is that praise which particularly crowns your other virtues. But here, my lord, I am obliged, in common prudence to stop short, and to cast under a veil some other of your praises, as the chemists use to shadow the secret of their great elixir, lest, if it were made public, the world should make a bad use of it.[53] To enjoy our own quiet, without disturbing that of others, is the practice of every moral man; and, for the rest, to live chearfully and splendidly, as it is becoming your illustrious birth, so it is likewise to thank God for his benefits in the best manner. It is unnecessary to wish you more worldly happiness or content of mind, than you enjoy; but the continuance of both to yourself, and your posterity, is earnestly desired by all who have the honour to be known to you, and more particularly by,
My Lord,
Your lordship's
most obedient and
most humbly devoted servant,
John Dryden.