The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 05

by John Dryden

FALL OF MAN.

AN
OPERA.

—Utinam modò dicere possem Carmina digna deâ: Certe est dea carmine digna. Ovid. Met.

THE STATE OF INNOCENCE, &c.

The "Paradise Lost" of Milton is a work so extraordinary in conception and execution, that it required a lapse of many years to reconcile the herd of readers, and of critics, to what was almost too sublime for ordinary understandings. The poets, in particular, seemed to have gazed on its excellencies, like the inferior animals on Dryden's immortal Hind; and, incapable of fully estimating a merit, which, in some degree, they could not help feeling, many were their absurd experiments to lower it to the standard of their own comprehension. One author, deeming the "Paradise Lost" deficient in harmony, was pleased painfully to turn it into rhyme; and more than one, conceiving the subject too serious to be treated in verse of any kind, employed their leisure in humbling it into prose. The names of these well-judging and considerate persons are preserved by Mr Todd in his edition of Milton's Poetical Works.

But we must not confound with these effusions of gratuitous folly an alteration, or imitation, planned and executed by John Dryden; although we may be at a loss to guess the motives by which he was guided in hazarding such an attempt. His reverence for Milton and his high estimation of his poetry, had already called forth the well-known verses, in which he attributes to him the joint excellencies of the two most celebrated poets of antiquity; and if other proofs of his veneration were wanting, they may be found in the preface to this very production. Had the subject been of a nature which admitted its being actually represented, we might conceive, that Dryden, who was under engagements to the theatre, with which it was not always easy to comply, might have been desirous to shorten his own labour, by adopting the story sentiments, and language of a poem, which he so highly esteemed and which might probably have been new to the generality of his audience. But the costume of our first parents, had there been no other objection, must have excluded the "State of Innocence" from the stage, and accordingly it was certainly never intended for representation. The probable motive, therefore, of this alteration, was the wish, so common to genius, to exert itself upon a subject in which another had already attained brilliant success, or, as Dryden has termed a similar attempt, the desire to shoot in the bow of Ulysses. Some circumstances in the history of Milton's immortal poem may have suggested to Dryden the precise form of the present attempt. It is reported by Voltaire, and seems at length to be admitted, that the original idea of the "Paradise Lost" was supplied by an Italian Mystery, or religious play, which Milton witnessed when abroad[1]; and it is certain, that he intended at first to mould his poem into a dramatic form[2]. It seems, therefore, likely, that Dryden, conscious of his own powers, and enthusiastically admiring those of Milton, was induced to make an experiment upon the forsaken plan of the blind bard, which, with his usual rapidity of conception and execution, he completed in the short space of one month. The spurious copies which got abroad, and perhaps the desire of testifying his respect for his beautiful patroness, the Duchess of York, form his own apology for the publication. It is reported by Mr Aubrey that the step was not taken without Dryden's reverence to Milton being testified by a personal application for his permission. The aged poet, conscious that the might of his versification could receive no addition even from the flowing numbers of Dryden, is stated to have answered with indifference—"Ay, you may tag my verses, if you will."

The structure and diction of this opera, as it is somewhat improperly termed, being rather a dramatic poem, strongly indicate the taste of Charles the Second's reign, for what was ingenious, acute, and polished, in preference to the simplicity of the true sublime. The judgment of that age, as has been already noticed, is always to be referred rather to the head than to the heart; and a poem, written to please mere critics, requires an introduction and display of art, to the exclusion of natural beauty.—This explains the extravagant panegyric of Lee on Dryden's play:

—Milton did the wealthy mine disclose,

And rudely cast what you could well dispose;

He roughly drew, on an old-fashioned ground,

A chaos; for no perfect world was found,

Till through the heap your mighty genius shined:

He was the golden ore, which you refined.

He first beheld the beauteous rustic maid,

And to a place of strength the prize conveyed:

You took her thence; to Court this virgin brought,

Dressed her with gems, new-weaved her hard-spun thought,

And softest language sweetest manners taught;

Till from a comet she a star did rise,

Not to affright, but please, our wondering eyes.

Doubtless there were several critics of that period, who held the heretical opinion above expressed by Lee. And the imitation was such as to warrant that conclusion, considering the school in which it was formed. The scene of the consultation in Pandemonium, and of the soliloquy of Satan on his arrival in the newly-created universe, would possess great merit, did they not unfortunately remind us of the majestic simplicity of Milton. But there is often a sort of Ovidian point in the diction which seems misplaced. Thus, Asmodeus tells us, that the devils, ascending from the lake of fire,

Shake off their slumber first, and next their fear.

And, with Dryden's usual hate to the poor Dutchmen, the council of Pandemonium are termed,

Most High and Mighty Lords, who better fell

From heaven, to rise States General of hell.

There is one inconvenience, which, as this poem was intended for perusal only, the author, one would have thought, might have easily avoided. This arises from the stage directions, which supply the place of the terrific and beautiful descriptions of Milton. What idea, except burlesque, can we form of the expulsion of the fallen angels from heaven, literally represented by their tumbling down upon the stage? or what feelings of terror can be excited by the idea of an opera hell, composed of pasteboard and flaming rosin? If these follies were not actually to be produced before our eyes, it could serve no good purpose to excite the image of them in our imaginations. They are circumstances by which we feel, that scenic deception must be rendered ridiculous; and ought to be avoided, even in a drama intended for perusal only, since they cannot be mentioned without exciting ludicrous combinations.—Even in describing the primitive state of our first parents, Dryden has displayed some of the false and corrupted taste of the court of Charles. Eve does not consent to her union with Adam without coquettish apprehensions of his infidelity, which circumstances rendered rather improbable; and even in the state of innocence, she avows the love of sway and of self, which, in a loose age, is thought the principal attribute of her daughters. It may be remembered that the Adam of Milton, when first experiencing the powers of slumber, thought,

I then was passing to my former state

Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve.

The Eve of Dryden expresses the same apprehensions of annihilation upon a very different occasion. These passages form a contrast highly favourable to the simplicity and chastity of Milton's taste. The school logic, employed by Adam and the angels in the first scene of the fourth act, however misplaced, may be paralleled if not justified, by similar instances in the "Paradise Lost."

On the other hand, the "State of Innocence" contains many passages of varied and happy expression peculiar to our great poet; and the speech of Lucfier in Paradise (Act third, scene first), approaches in sublimity to his prototype in Milton, Indeed, altered as this poem was from the original, in order to accommodate it to the taste of a frivolous age, it still retained too much fancy to escape the raillery of the men of wit and fashion, more disposed to "laugh at extravagance, than to sympathise with feelings of grandeur." The "Companion to the Theatre" mentions an objection started by the more nice and delicate critics, against the anachronism and absurdity of Lucifer conversing about the world, its form and vicissitudes, at a time previous to its creation, or, at least, to the possibility of his knowing any thing of it. But to this objection, which applies to the "Paradise Lost" also, it is sufficient to reply, that the measure of intelligence, competent to supernatural beings, being altogether unknown to us, leaves the poet at liberty to accommodate its extent to the purposes in which he employs them, without which poetic license, it would be in vain to introduce them. Dryden, moved by this, and similar objections, has prefixed to the drama, "An Apology for Heroic Poetry," and the use of what is technically called "the machinery" employed in it.

Upon the whole, it may be justly questioned, whether Dryden shewed his judgment in the choice of a subject which compelled an immediate parallel betwixt Milton and himself, upon a subject so exclusively favourable to the powers of the former. Indeed, according to Dennis, notwithstanding Dryden's admiration of Milton, he evinced sufficiently by this undertaking, what he himself confessed twenty years afterwards, that he was not sensible of half the extent of his excellence. In the "Town and Country Mouse," Mr Bayes is made to term Milton "a rough unhewen fellow;" and Dryden himself, even in the dedication to the Translation from Juvenal, a work of his advanced life, alleges, that, though he found in that poet a true sublimity, and lofty thoughts, clothed with admirable Grecisms, he did not find the elegant turn of words and expression proper to the Italian poets and to Spenser. In the same treatise, he undertakes to excuse, but not to justify Milton, for his choice of blank verse, affirming that he possessed neither grace nor facility in rhyming. A consciousness of the harmony of his own numbers, and a predilection for that kind of verse, in which he excelled, seemed to have encouraged him to think he could improve the "Paradise Lost." Baker observes but too truly, that the "State of Innocence" recals the idea reprobated by Marvell in his address to Milton:

Or if a work so infinite be spanned,

Jealous I was, lest some less skilful hand,

Such as disquiet always what is well,

And by ill-imitating would excel,

Might hence presume the whole creation's day

To change in scenes, and shew it in a play.

The "State of Innocence" seems to have been undertaken by Dryden during a cessation of his theatrical labours, and was first published in 1674, shortly after the death of Milton, which took place on the 8th of November in the same year.

Footnotes:

1. The Adamo of Andreini; for an account of which, see Todd's Milton, Vol. I. the elegant Hayley's Conjectures on the Origin of Paradise Lost, and Walker's Memoir on Italian Tragedy. The Drama of Andreini opens with a grand chorus of angels, who sing to this purpose:
   
2. Let the rainbow be the fiddle-stick to the fiddle of heaven,
3. Let the spheres be the strings, and the stars the musical notes;
4. Let the new-born breezes make the pauses and sharps,
5. And let time be careful to beat the measure.
6. See a sketch of his plan in Johnson's Life of Milton, and in the authorities above quoted.

TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS, THE DUCHESS[1].

Madam,

Ambition is so far from being a vice in poets, that it is almost impossible for them to succeed without it. Imagination must be raised, by a desire of fame, to a desire of pleasing; and they whom, in all ages, poets have endeavoured most to please, have been the beautiful and the great. Beauty is their deity, to which they sacrifice, and greatness is their guardian angel, which protects them. Both these, are so eminently joined in the person of your royal highness, that it were not easy for any but a poet to determine which of them outshines the other. But I confess, madam, I am already biassed in my choice. I can easily resign to others the praise of your illustrious family, and that glory which you derive from a long-continued race of princes, famous for their actions both in peace and war: I can give up, to the historians of your country, the names of so many generals and heroes which crowd their annals, and to our own the hopes of those which you are to produce for the British chronicle. I can yield, without envy, to the nation of poets, the family of Este, to which Ariosto and Tasso have owed their patronage, and to which the world has owed their poems. But I could not, without extreme reluctance, resign the theme of your beauty to another hand. Give me leave, madam, to acquaint the world, that I am jealous of this subject; and let it be no dishonour to you, that, after having raised the admiration of mankind, you have inspired one man to give it voice. But, with whatsoever vanity this new honour of being your poet has filled my mind, I confess myself too weak for the inspiration: the priest was always unequal to the oracle: the god within him was too mighty for his breast: he laboured with the sacred revelation, and there was more of the mystery left behind, than the divinity itself could enable him to express. I can but discover a part of your excellencies to the world; and that, too, according to the measure of my own weakness. Like those who have surveyed the moon by glasses, I can only tell of a new and shining world above us, but not relate the riches and glories of the place. 'Tis therefore that I have already waved the subject of your greatness, to resign myself to the contemplation of what is more peculiarly yours. Greatness is indeed communicated to some few of both sexes; but beauty is confined to a more narrow compass: 'tis only in your sex, 'tis not shared by many, and its supreme perfection is in you alone. And here, madam, I am proud that I cannot flatter; you have reconciled the differing judgments of mankind; for all men are equal in their judgment of what is eminently best. The prize of beauty was disputed only till you were seen; but now all pretenders have withdrawn their claims: there is no competition but for the second place; even the fairest of our island, which is famed for beauties, not daring to commit their cause against you to the suffrage of those, who most partially adore them. Fortune has, indeed, but rendered justice to so much excellence, in setting it so high to public view; or, rather, Providence has done justice to itself, in placing the most perfect workmanship of heaven, where it may be admired by all beholders. Had the sun and stars been seated lower, their glory had not been communicated to all at once, and the Creator had wanted so much of his praise, as he had made your condition more obscure: but he has placed you so near a crown, that you add a lustre to it by your beauty. You are joined to a prince, who only could deserve you; whose conduct, courage, and success in war; whose fidelity to his royal brother, whose love for his country, whose constancy to his friends, whose bounty to his servants, whose justice to merit, whose inviolable truth, and whose magnanimity in all his actions, seem to have been rewarded by heaven by the gift of you. You are never seen but you are blest; and I am sure you bless all those who see you. We think not the day is long enough when we behold you; and you are so much the business of our souls, that while you are in sight, we can neither look nor think on any else. There are no eyes for other beauties; you only are present, and the rest of your sex are but the unregarded parts that fill your triumph. Our sight is so intent on the object of its admiration, that our tongues have not leisure even to praise you: for language seems too low a thing to express your excellence; and our souls are speaking so much within, that they despise all foreign conversation. Every man, even the dullest, is thinking more than the most eloquent can teach him how to utter. Thus, madam, in the midst of crowds, you reign in solitude; and are adored with the deepest veneration, that of silence. 'Tis true, you are above all mortal wishes; no man desires impossibilities, because they are beyond the reach of nature. To hope to be a god, is folly exalted into madness; but, by the laws of our creation, we are obliged to adore him, and are permitted to love him too at human distance. 'Tis the nature of perfection to be attractive, but the excellency of the object refines the nature of the love. It strikes an impression of awful reverence; 'tis indeed that love which is more properly a zeal than passion. 'Tis the rapture which anchorites find in prayer, when a beam of the divinity shines upon them; that which makes them despise all worldly objects; and yet 'tis all but contemplation. They are seldom visited from above, but a single vision so transports them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives. Mortality cannot bear it often: it finds them in the eagerness and height of their devotion; they are speechless for the time that it continues, and prostrate and dead when it departs. That ecstacy had need be strong, which, without any end, but that of admiration has power enough to destroy all other passions. You render mankind insensible to other beauties, and have destroyed the empire of love in a court which was the seat of his dominion. You have subverted (may I dare to accuse you of it?) even our fundamental laws; and reign absolute over the hearts of a stubborn and free-born people, tenacious almost to madness of their liberty. The brightest and most victorious of our ladies make daily complaints of revolted subjects, if they may be said to be revolted, whose servitude is not accepted; for your royal highness is too great, and too just a monarch, either to want or to receive the homage of rebellious fugitives. Yet, if some few among the multitude continue stedfast to their first pretensions, 'tis an obedience so lukewarm and languishing, that it merits not the name of passion; their addresses are so faint, and their vows so hollow to their sovereigns, that they seem only to maintain their faith out of a sense of honour: they are ashamed to desist, and yet grow careless to obtain. Like despairing combatants, they strive against you as if they had beheld unveiled the magical shield of your Ariosto, which dazzled the beholders with too much brightness. They can no longer hold up their arms; they have read their destiny in your eyes:

Splende lo scudo, a guisa di piropo;

E luce altra non é tanto lucente:

Cader in terra a lo splendor fu d'vopo,

Con gli occhi abbacinati, e senza mente.

And yet, madam, if I could find in myself the power to leave this argument of your incomparable beauty, I might turn to one which would equally oppress me with its greatness; for your conjugal virtues have deserved to be set as an example, to a less degenerate, less tainted age. They approach so near to singularity in ours, that I can scarcely make a panegyric to your royal highness, without a satire on many others. But your person is a paradise, and your soul a cherubim within, to guard it. If the excellence of the outside invite the beholders, the majesty of your mind deters them from too bold approaches, and turns their admiration into religion. Moral perfections are raised higher by you in the softer sex; as if men were of too coarse a mould for heaven to work on, and that the image of divinity could not be cast to likeness in so harsh a metal. Your person is so admirable, that it can scarce receive addition, when it shall be glorified: and your soul, which shines through it, finds it of a substance so near her own, that she will be pleased to pass an age within it, and to be confined to such a palace.

I know not how I am hurried back to my former theme; I ought and purposed to have celebrated those endowments and qualities of your mind, which were sufficient, even without the graces of your person, to render you, as you are, the ornament of the court, and the object of wonder to three kingdoms. But all my praises are but as a bull-rush cast upon a stream; if they sink not, 'tis because they are borne up by the strength of the current, which supports their lightness; but they are carried round again, and return on the eddy where they first began. I can proceed no farther than your beauty; and even on that too I have said so little, considering the greatness of the subject, that, like him who would lodge a bowl upon a precipice, either my praise falls back, by the weakness of the delivery, or stays not on the top, but rolls over, and is lost on the other side. I intended this a dedication; but how can I consider what belongs to myself, when I have been so long contemplating on you! Be pleased then, madam, to receive this poem, without entitling so much excellency as yours, to the faults and imperfections of so mean a writer; and instead of being favourable to the piece, which merits nothing, forgive the presumption of the author; who is, with all possible veneration,

Your Royal Highness's

Most obedient, most humble,

Most devoted servant,

John Dryden.

Footnote:

1. Mary of Este, daughter of the Duke of Modena, and second wife to James Duke of York, afterwards James II. She was married to him by proxy in 1673, and came over in the year following. Notwithstanding her husband's unpopularity, and her own attachment to the Roman Catholic religion, her youth, beauty, and innocence secured her from insult and slander during all the stormy period which preceded her accession to the crown. Even Burnet, reluctantly, admits the force of her charms, and the inoffensiveness of her conduct. But her beauty produced a more lasting effect on the young and gallant, than on that austere and stubborn partizan; and its force must be allowed, since it was extolled even when Mary was dethroned and exiled. Granville, Lord Lansdowne, has praised her in "The Progress of Beauty;" and I cannot forbear transcribing some of the verses, on account of the gallant spirit of the author, who scorned to change with fortune, and continued to admire and celebrate, in adversity, the charms which he had worshipped in the meridian of prosperity.
   
   1. He had written verses to the Earl of Peterborough, on the Duke of York's marriage with the Princess of Modena, before he was twelve years old.
2. And now, my muse, a nobler flight prepare,
3. And sing so loud, that heaven and earth may hear.
4. Behold from Italy an awful ray
5. Of heavenly light illuminates the day;
6. Northward she bends, majestically bright,
7. And here she fixes her imperial light.
8. Be bold, be bold, my muse, nor fear to raise
9. Thy voice to her who was thy earliest praise[a].
10. What though the sullen fates refuse to shine,
11. Or frown severe on thy audacious line;
12. Keep thy bright theme within thy steady sight,
13. The clouds shall fly before thy dazzling light,
14. And everlasting day direct thy lofty flight.
15. Thou, who hast never yet put on disguise,
16. To flatter faction, or descend to vice,
17. Let no vain fear thy generous ardour tame,
18. But stand erect, and sound as loud as fame.
19. As when our eye some prospect would pursue,
20. Descending from a hill looks round to view,
21. Passes o'er lawns and meadows, till it gains
22. Some favourite spot, and fixing there remains;
23. With equal ardour my transported muse
24. Flies other objects, this bright theme to chuse.
25. Queen of our hearts, and charmer of our sight!
26. A monarch's pride, his glory and delight!
27. Princess adored and loved! if verse can give
28. A deathless name, thine shall for ever live;
29. Invoked where'er the British lion roars,
30. Extended as the seas that guard the British shores.
31. The wise immortals, in their seats above,
32. To crown their labours still appointed love;
33. Phœbus enjoyed the goddess of the sea,
34. Alcides had Omphale, James has thee.
35. O happy James! content thy mighty mind,
36. Grudge not the world, for still thy queen is kind;
37. To be but at whose feet more glory brings,
38. Than 'tis to tread on sceptres and on kings.
39. Secure of empire in that beauteous breast,
40. Who would not give their crowns to be so blest?
41. Was Helen half so fair, so formed for joy,
42. Well chose the Trojan, and well burned was Troy.
43. But ah! what strange vicissitudes of fate,
44. What chance attends on every worldly state!
45. As when the skies were sacked, the conquered gods,
46. Compelled from heaven, forsook their blessed abodes;
47. Wandering in woods, they hid from den to den,
48. And sought their safety in the shapes of men;
49. As when the winds with kindling flames conspire,
50. The blaze increases as they fan the fire;
51. From roof to roof the burning torrent pours,
52. Nor spares the palace nor the loftiest towers;
53. Or as the stately pine, erecting high
54. Her lofty branches shooting to the sky,
55. If riven by the thunderbolt of Jove,
56. Down falls at once the pride of all the grove;
57. Level with lowest shrubs lies the tall head,
58. That, reared aloft, as to the clouds was spread,
59. So—
60. But cease, my muse, thy colours are too faint;
61. Shade with a veil those griefs thou can'st not paint.
62. That sun is set!—
63. Progress of Beauty.
64. The beauty, which inspired the romantic and unchanging admiration of Granville, may be allowed to justify some of the flights of Dryden's panegyric. I fear enough will still remain to justify the stricture of Johnson, who observes, that Dryden's dedication is an "attempt to mingle earth and heaven, by praising human excellence in the language of religion."
65. At the date of this address, the Duchess of York was only in her sixteenth year.
66. Footnote: