DON SEBASTIAN.
The following tragedy is founded upon the adventures supposed to have befallen Sebastian, king of Portugal, after the fatal battle of Alcazar. The reader may be briefly reminded of the memorable expedition of that gallant monarch to Africa, to signalize, against the Moors, his chivalry as a warrior, and his faith as a Christian. The ostensible pretext of invasion was the cause of Muly Mahomet, son of Abdalla, emperor of Morocco; upon whose death, his brother, Muly Moluch, had seized the crown, and driven his nephew into exile. The armies joined battle near Alcazar. The Portuguese, far inferior in number to the Moors, displayed the most desperate valour, and had nearly won the day, when Muly Moluch, who, though almost dying, was present on the field in a litter, fired with shame and indignation, threw himself on horseback, rallied his troops, renewed the combat, and, being carried back to his litter, immediately expired, with his finger placed on his lips, to impress on the chiefs, who surrounded him, the necessity of concealing his death. The Moors, rallied by their sovereign's dying exertion, surrounded, and totally routed, the army of Sebastian. Mahomet, the competitor for the throne of Morocco, was drowned in passing a river in his flight, and Sebastian, as his body was never found, probably perished in the same manner. But where the region of historical certainty ends, that of romantic tradition commences. The Portuguese, to whom the memory of their warlike sovereign was deservedly dear, grasped at the feeble hope which the uncertainty of his fate afforded, and long, with vain fondness, expected the return of Sebastian, to free them from the yoke of Spain. This mysterious termination of a hero's career, as it gave rise to various political intrigues, (for several persons assumed the name and character of Sebastian,) early afforded a subject for exercising the fancy of the dramatist and romance writer. "The Battle of Alcazar[1]" is known to the collectors of old plays; a ballad on the 274 same subject is reprinted in Evans's collection; and our author mentions a French novel on the adventures of Don Sebastian, to which Langbaine also refers.
The situation of Dryden, after the Revolution, was so delicate as to require great caution and attention, both in his choice of a subject, and his mode of treating it. His distressed circumstances and lessened income compelled him to come before the public as an author; while the odium attached to the proselyte of a hated religion, and the partizan of a depressed faction, was likely, upon the slightest pretext, to transfer itself from the person of the poet to the labours on which his support depended. He was, therefore, not only obliged to chuse a theme, which had no offence in it, and to treat it in a manner which could not admit of misconstruction, but also so to exert the full force of his talents, as, by the conspicuous pre-eminence of his genius, to bribe prejudice and silence calumny. An observing reader will accordingly discover, throughout the following tragedy, symptoms of minute finishing, and marks of accurate attention, which, in our author's better days, he deigned not to bestow upon productions, to which his name alone was then sufficient to give weight and privilege. His choice of a subject was singularly happy: the name of Sebastian awaked historical recollections and associations, favourable to the character of his hero; while the dark uncertainty of his fate removed all possibility of shocking the audience by glaring offence against the majesty of historical truth. The subject has, therefore, all the advantages of a historical play, without the detects, which either a rigid coincidence with history, or a violent contradiction of known truth, seldom fail to bring along with them. Dryden appears from his preface to have been fully sensible of this; and he has not lost the advantage of a happy subject by treating it with the carelessness he sometimes allowed himself to indulge.
The characters in "Don Sebastian" are contrasted with singular ability and judgment. Sebastian, high-spirited and fiery; the soul of royal and military honour; the soldier and the king; almost embodies the idea which the reader forms at the first mention of his name. Dorax, to whom he is so admirable a contrast, is one of those characters whom the strong hand of adversity has wrested from their natural bias; and perhaps no equally vivid picture can be found, of a subject so awfully interesting. Born with a strong tendency to all that was honourable and virtuous, the very excess of his virtues became vice, when his own ill fate, and Sebastian's injustice, had driven him into exile. By comparing, as Dryden has requested, the character of Dorax, in the fifth act, with that he maintains in the former part of the play, the difference may be traced betwixt his natural virtues, and the vices engrafted on them by headlong passion and embittering calamity. There is no inconsistence 275 in the change which takes place after his scene with Sebastian; as was objected by those, whom the poet justly terms, "the more ignorant sort of creatures." It is the same picture in a new light; the same ocean in tempest and in calm; the same traveller, whom sunshine has induced to abandon his cloak, which the storm only forced him to wrap more closely around him. The principal failing of Dorax is the excess of pride, which renders each supposed wound to his honour more venomously acute; yet he is not devoid of gentler affections, though even in indulging these the hardness of his character is conspicuous. He loves Violante, but that is a far subordinate feeling to his affection for Sebastian. Indeed, his love appears so inferior to his loyal devotion to his king, that, unless to gratify the taste of the age, I see little reason for its being introduced at all. It is obvious he was much more jealous of the regard of his sovereign, than of his mistress; he never mentions Violante till the scene of explanation with Sebastian; and he appears hardly to have retained a more painful recollection of his disappointment in that particular, than of the general neglect and disgrace he had sustained at the court of Lisbon. The last stage of a virtuous heart, corroded into evil by wounded pride, has been never more forcibly displayed than in the character of Dorax. When once induced to take the fatal step which degraded him in his own eyes, all his good affections seem to be converted into poison. The religion, which displays itself in the fifth act in his arguments against suicide, had, in his efforts to justify his apostacy, or at least to render it a matter of no moment, been exchanged for sentiments approaching, perhaps to atheism, certainly to total scepticism. His passion for Violante is changed into contempt and hatred for her sex, which he expresses in the coarsest terms. His feelings of generosity, and even of humanity, are drowned in the gloomy and stern misanthropy, which has its source in the self-discontent that endeavours to wreak itself upon others. This may be illustrated by his unfeeling behaviour, while Alvarez and Antonio, well known to him in former days, approach, and draw the deadly lot, which ratifies their fate. No yielding of compassion, no recollection of former friendship, has power to alter the cold and sardonic sarcasm with which he sketches their characters, and marks their deportment in that awful moment. Finally, the zealous attachment of Alonzo for his king, which, in its original expression, partakes of absolute devotion, is changed, by the circumstances of Dorax, into an irritated and frantic jealousy, which he mistakes for hatred; and which, in pursuing the destruction of its object, is almost more inveterate than hatred itself. Nothing has survived of the original Alonzo at the opening of the piece, except the gigantic passion which has caused his ruin. This character 276 is drawn on a large scale, and in a heroic proportion; but it is so true to nature, that many readers must have lamented, even within the circle of domestic acquaintance, instances of feelings hardened, and virtues perverted, where a high spirit has sustained severe and unjust neglect and disgrace. The whole demeanour of this exquisite character suits the original sketch. From "the long stride and sullen port," by which Benducar distinguishes him at a distance, to the sullen stubbornness with which he obeys, or the haughty contempt with which he resists, the commands of the peremptory tyrant under whom he had taken service, all announce the untamed pride which had robbed Dorax of virtue, and which yet, when Benducar would seduce him into a conspiracy, and in his conduct towards Sebastian, assumes the port and dignity of virtue herself. In all his conduct and bearing, there is that mixed feeling and impulse, which constitutes the real spring of human action. The true motive of Alonzo in saving Sebastian, is not purely that of honourable hatred, which he proposes to himself; for to himself every man endeavours to appear consistent, and readily find arguments to prove to himself that he is so. Neither is his conduct to be ascribed altogether to the gentler feelings of loyal and friendly affection, relenting at the sight of his sovereign's ruin, and impending death. It is the result of a mixture of these opposite sensations, clashing against each other like two rivers at their conflux, yet urging their united course down the same channel. Actuated by a mixture of these feelings, Dorax meets Sebastian; and the art of the poet is displayed in that admirable scene, by suggesting a natural motive to justify to the injured subject himself the change of the course of his feelings. As his jealousy of Sebastian's favour, and resentment of his unjust neglect, was chiefly founded on the avowed preference which the king had given to Henriquez, the opportune mention of his rival's death, by removing the cause of that jealousy, gives the renegade an apology to his own pride, for throwing himself at the feet of that very sovereign, whom a moment before he was determined to force to combat. They are little acquainted with human passions, at least have only witnessed their operations among men of common minds, who doubt, that at the height of their very spring-tide, they are often most susceptible of sudden changes; revolutions, which seem to those who have not remarked how nearly the most opposite feelings are allied and united, the most extravagant and unaccountable. Muly Moluch is an admirable specimen of that very frequent theatrical character,—a stage tyrant. He is fierce and boisterous enough to be sufficiently terrible and odious, and that without much rant, considering he is an infidel Soldan, who, from the ancient deportment 277 of Mahomed and Termagaunt, as they appeared in the old Mysteries, might claim a prescriptive right to tear a passion to tatters. Besides, the Moorish emperor has fine glances of savage generosity, and that free, unconstrained, and almost noble openness, the only good quality, perhaps, which a consciousness of unbounded power may encourage in a mind so firm as not to be totally depraved by it. The character of Muly Moluch, like that of Morat, in "Aureng-Zebe," to which it bears a strong resemblance, was admirably represented by Kynaston; who had, says Cibber, "a fierce lion-like majesty in his port and utterance, that gave the spectator a kind of trembling admiration." It is enough to say of Benducar, that the cool, fawning, intriguing, and unprincipled statesman, is fully developed in his whole conduct; and of Alvarez, that the little he has to say and do, is so said and done, as not to disgrace his common-place character of the possessor of the secret on which the plot depends; for it may be casually observed, that the depositary of such a clew to the catastrophe, though of the last importance to the plot, is seldom himself of any interest whatever. The haughty and high-spirited Almeyda is designed by the author as the counterpart of Sebastian. She breaks out with the same violence, I had almost said fury, and frequently discovers a sort of kindred sentiment, intended to prepare the reader for the unfortunate discovery, that she is the sister of the Portuguese monarch.
Of the diction, Dr Johnson has said, with meagre commendation, that it has "some sentiments which leave a strong impression," and "others of excellence, universally acknowledged." This, even when the admiration of the scene betwixt Dorax and Sebastian has been sanctioned by that great critic, seems scanty applause for the chef d'œuvre of Dryden's dramatic works. The reader will be disposed to look for more unqualified praise, when such a poet was induced, by every pressing consideration, to combine, in one effort, the powers of his mighty genius, and the fruits of his long theatrical experience: Accordingly, Shakespeare laid aside, it will be perhaps difficult to point out a play containing more animatory incident, impassioned language, and beautiful description, than "Don Sebastian." Of the former, the scene betwixt Dorax and the king, had it been the only one ever Dryden wrote, would have been sufficient to insure his immortality. There is not,—no, perhaps, not even in Shakespeare,—an instance where the chord, which the poet designed should vibrate, is more happily struck; strains there are of a higher mood, but not more correctly true; in evidence of which, we have known those, whom distresses of a gentler nature were unable to move, feel their stubborn feelings roused and melted by the injured pride and deep repentance of Dorax. The burst of anguish with which he answers 278 the stern taunt of Sebastian, is one of those rare, but natural instances, in which high-toned passion assumes a figurative language, because all that is familiar seems inadequate to express its feelings:
Dor. Thou hast dared
To tell me, what I durst not tell myself:
I durst not think that I was spurned, and live;
And live to hear it boasted to my face.
All my long avarice of honour lost,
Heaped up in youth, and hoarded up for age!
Has honour's fountain then sucked back the stream?
He has; and hooting boys may dry-shod pass,
And gather pebbles from the naked ford.
Give me my love, my honour; give them back—
Give me revenge, while I have breath to ask it!
But I will not dwell on the beauties of this scene. If any one is incapable of relishing it, he may safely conclude, that nature has not merely denied him that rare gift, poetical taste, but common powers of comprehending the ordinary feelings of humanity. The love scene, betwixt Sebastian and Almeyda, is more purely conceived, and expressed with more reference to sentiment, than is common with our author. The description which Dorax gives of Sebastian, before his appearance, coming from a mortal enemy, at least from one whose altered love was as envenomed as hatred, is a grand preparation for the appearance of the hero. In many of the slighter descriptive passages, we recognize the poet by those minute touches, which a mind susceptible of poetic feeling is alone capable of bringing out. The approach of the emperor, while the conspirators are caballing, is announced by Orchan, with these picturesque circumstances:
I see the blaze of torches from afar,
And hear the trampling of thick-beating feet—
This way they move.—
The following account, given by the slave sent to observe what passed in the castle of Dorax, believed to be dead, or dying, is equally striking:
Haly. Two hours I warily have watched his palace:
All doors are shut, no servant peeps abroad;
Some officers, with striding haste, past in;
While others outward went on quick dispatch.
Sometimes hushed silence seemed to reign within;
Then cries confused, and a joint clamour followed;
Then lights went gliding by, from room to room,
And shot like thwarting meteors cross the house.
Not daring further to inquire, I came
With speed to bring you this imperfect news.
279 The description of the midnight insurrection of the rabble is not less impressive:
Ham. What you wish:
The streets are thicker in this noon of night,
Than at the mid-day sun: A drouzy horror
Sits on their eyes, like fear, not well awake:
All crowd in heaps, as, at a night alarm,
The bees drive out upon each others backs,
T'imboss their hives in clusters; all ask news:
Their busy captain runs the weary round
To whisper orders; and, commanding silence,
Makes not noise cease, but deafens it to murmurs.
These illustrations are designedly selected from the parts of the lower characters, because they at once evince the diligence and success with which Dryden has laboured even the subordinate points of this tragedy.
"Don Sebastian" has been weighed, with reference to its tragic merits, against "Love for Love;" and one or other is universally allowed to be the first of Dryden's dramatic performances. To the youth of both sexes the latter presents the most pleasing subject of emotion; but to those whom age has rendered incredulous upon the romantic effects of love, and who do not fear to look into the recesses of the human heart, when agitated by darker and more stubborn passions, "Don Sebastian" offers a far superior source of gratification.
To point out the blemishes of so beautiful a tragedy, is a painful, though a necessary, task. The style, here and there, exhibits marks of a reviving taste for those frantic bursts of passion, which our author has himself termed the "Dalilahs of the theatre." The first speech of Sebastian has been often noticed as an extravagant rant, more worthy of Maximin, or Almanzor, than of a character drawn by our author in his advanced years, and chastened taste:
I beg no pity for this mouldering clay;
For if you give it burial, there it takes
Possession of your earth:
If burnt and scatter'd in the air, the winds,
That strew my dust, diffuse my royalty,
And spread me o'er your clime; for where one atom
Of mine shall light, know, there Sebastian reigns.
The reader's discernment will discover some similar extravagancies in the language of Almeyda and the Emperor.
It is a separate objection, that the manners of the age and country are not adhered to. Sebastian, by disposition a crusading knight-errant, devoted to religion and chivalry, becomes, in the hands of Dryden, merely a gallant soldier and high-spirited prince, such as existed in the poet's own days. But, what is worse, the 280 manners of Mahometans are shockingly violated. Who ever heard of human sacrifices, or of any sacrifices, being offered up to Mahomet[2]; and when were his followers able to use the classical and learned allusions which occur throughout the dialogue! On this last topic Addison makes the following observations, in the "Guardian," No. 110.
"I have now Mr Dryden's "Don Sebastian" before me, in which I find frequent allusions to ancient poetry, and the old mythology of the heathens. It is not very natural to suppose a king of Portugal would be borrowing thoughts out of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," when he talked even to those of his own court; but to allude to these Roman fables, when he talks to an emperor of Barbary, seems very extraordinary. But observe how he defies him out of the classics in the following lines:
Why didst not thou engage me man to man,
And try the virtue of that Gorgon face,
To stare me into statue?
"Almeyda, at the same time, is more book-learned than Don Sebastian. She plays an Hydra upon the Emperor, that is full as good as the Gorgon:
O that I had the fruitful heads of Hydra,
That one might bourgeon where another fell!
Still would I give thee work, still, still, thou tyrant,
And hiss thee with the last.
"She afterwards, in allusion to Hercules, bids him 'lay down the lion's skin, and take the distaff;' and, in the following speech, utters her passion still more learnedly:
No; were we joined, even though it were in death,
Our bodies burning in one funeral pile,
The prodigy of Thebes would be renewed,
And my divided flame should break from thine.
"The emperor of Barbary shews himself acquainted with the Roman poets as well as either of his prisoners, and answers the foregoing speech in the same classic strain:
Serpent, I will engender poison with thee:
Our offspring, like the seed of dragon's teeth,
Shall issue armed, and fight themselves to death.
281 "Ovid seems to have been Muley-Moloch's favourite author; witness the lines that follow:
She, still inexorable, still imperious,
And loud, as if, like Bacchus, born in thunder.
"I shall conclude my remarks on his part with that poetical complaint of his being in love; and leave my reader to consider, how prettily it would sound in the mouth of an emperor of Morocco:
The god of love once more has shot his fires
Into my soul, and my whole heart receives him.
"Muley Zeydan is as ingenious a man as his brother Muley Moloch; as where he hints at the story of Castor and Pollux:
May we ne'er meet;
For, like the twins of Leda, when I mount,
He gallops down the skies.
"As for the Mufti, we will suppose that he was bred up a scholar, and not only versed in the law of Mahomet, but acquainted with all kinds of polite learning. For this reason he is not at all surprised when Dorax calls him a Phæton in one place, and in another tells him he is like Archimedes.
"The Mufti afterwards mentions Ximenes, Albornoz, and cardinal Wolsey, by name. The poet seems to think, he may make every person, in his play, know as much as himself, and talk as well as he could have done on the same occasion. At least, I believe, every reader will agree with me, that the above-mentioned sentiments, to which I might have added several others, would have been better suited to the court of Augustus than that of Muley Moloch. I grant they are beautiful in themselves, and much more so in that noble language, which was peculiar to this great poet. I only observe, that they are improper for the persons who make use of them."
The catastrophe of the tragedy may be also censured, not only on the grounds objected to that of "Œdipus," but because it does not naturally flow from the preceding events, and opens, in the fifth act, a new set of persons, and a train of circumstances, unconnected with the preceding action. In the concluding scene, it was remarked, by the critics, that there is a want of pure taste in the lovers dwelling more upon the pleasures than the horrors of their incestuous connection.
Of the lighter scenes, which were intended for comic, Dr Johnson has said, "they are such as that age did not probably commend, and as the present would not endure." Dryden has remarked, with self-complacency, the art with which they are made to 282 depend upon the serious business. This has not, however, the merit of novelty; being not unlike the connection between the tragic and comic scenes of the "Spanish Friar." The persons introduced have also some resemblance; though the gaiety of Antonio is far more gross than that of Lorenzo, and Morayma is a very poor copy of Elvira. It is rather surprising, that when a gay libertine was to be introduced, Dryden did not avail himself of a real character, the English Stukely; a wild gallant, who, after spending a noble fortune, became the leader of a band of Italian Condottieri, engaged in the service of Sebastian, and actually fell in the battle of Alcazar. Collier complains, and with very good reason, that, in the character of the Mufti, Dryden has seized an opportunity to deride and calumniate the priesthood of every religion; an opportunity which, I am sorry to say, he seldom fails to use with unjustifiable inveteracy. The rabble scenes were probably given, as our author himself says of that in Cleomenes, "to gratify the more barbarous part of the audience." Indeed, to judge from the practice of the drama at this time, the representation of a riot upon the stage seems to have had the same charms for the popular part of the English audience, which its reality always possesses in the streets.
Notwithstanding the excellence of this tragedy, it appears to have been endured, rather than applauded, at its first representation; although, being judiciously curtailed, it soon became a great favourite with the public[3]; and, omitting the comic scenes, may be again brought forward with advantage, when the public shall be tired of children and of show. The tragedy of "Don Sebastian" was acted and printed in 1690.
Footnotes:
- "The Battle of Alcazar, with Captain Stukely's death, acted by the Lord High Admiral's servants, 1594," 4to. Baker thinks Dryden might have taken the hint of "Don Sebastian" from this old play. Shakespeare drew from it some of the bouncing rants of Pistol, as, "Feed, and be fat; my fair Callipolis," &c.
- In a Zambra dance, introduced in the "Conquest of Granada," our author had previously introduced the Moors bowing to the image of Jupiter; a gross solecism, hardly more pardonable, as Langbaine remarks, than the introduction of a pistol in the hand of Demetrius, a successor of Alexander the Great, which Dryden has justly censured.
- Langbaine says, it was acted "with great applause;" but this must refer to its reception after the first night; for the author's own expressions, that "the audience endured it with much patience, and were weary with much good nature and silence," exclude the idea of a brilliant reception on the first representation. See the beginning of the Preface.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE PHILIP,
EARL OF LEICESTER, &c.[1]
Far be it from me, my most noble lord, to think, that any thing which my meanness can produce, should be worthy to be offered to your patronage; or that aught which I can say of you should recommend you farther to the esteem of good men in this present age, or to the veneration which will 284 certainly be paid you by posterity. On the other side, I must acknowledge it a great presumption in me, to make you this address; and so much the greater, because by the common suffrage even of contrary parties, you have been always regarded as one of the first persons of the age, and yet not one writer has dared to tell you so; whether we have been all conscious to ourselves that it was a needless labour to give this notice to mankind, as all men are ashamed to tell stale news; or that we were justly diffident of our own performances, as even Cicero is observed to be in awe when he writes to Atticus; where, knowing himself over-matched in good sense, and truth of knowledge, he drops the gaudy train of words, and is no longer the vain-glorious orator. From whatever reason it may be, I am the first bold offender of this kind: I have broken down the fence, and ventured into the holy grove. How I may be punished for my profane attempt, I know not; but I wish it may not be of ill omen to your lordship: and that a crowd of bad writers do not rush into the quiet of your recesses after me. Every man in all changes of government, which have been, or may possibly arrive, will agree, that I could not have offered my incense, where it could be so well deserved. For you, my lord, are secure in your own merit; and all parties, as they rise uppermost, are sure to court you in 285 their turns; it is a tribute which has ever been paid your virtue. The leading men still bring their bullion to your mint, to receive the stamp of their intrinsic value, that they may afterwards hope to pass with human kind. They rise and fall in the variety of revolutions, and are sometimes great, and therefore wise in men's opinions, who must court them for their interest. But the reputation of their parts most commonly follows their success; few of them are wise, but as they are in power; because indeed, they have no sphere of their own, but, like the moon in the Copernican system of the world, are whirled about by the motion of a greater planet. This it is to be ever busy; neither to give rest to their fellow-creatures, nor, which is more wretchedly ridiculous, to themselves; though, truly, the latter is a kind of justice, and giving mankind a due revenge, that they will not permit their own hearts to be at quiet, who disturb the repose of all beside them. Ambitious meteors! how willing they are to set themselves upon the wing, and taking every occasion of drawing upward to the sun, not considering that they have no more time allowed them for their mounting, than the short revolution of a day; and that when the light goes from them, they are of necessity to fall. How much happier is he, (and who he is I need not say, for there is but one phœnix in an age) who, centering on himself, remains immoveable, and smiles at the madness of the dance about him? he possesses the midst, which is the portion of safety and content. He will not be higher, because he needs it not; but by the prudence of that choice, he puts it out of fortune's power to throw him down. It is confest, that if he had not so been born, he might have been too high for happiness; but not endeavouring to ascend, he secures the native height of his station 286 from envy, and cannot descend from what he is, because he depends not on another. What a glorious character was this once in Rome! I should say, in Athens; when, in the disturbances of a state as mad as ours, the wise Pomponius transported all the remaining wisdom and virtue of his country into the sanctuary of peace and learning. But I would ask the world, (for you, my lord, are too nearly concerned to judge this cause) whether there may not yet be found a character of a noble Englishman, equally shining with that illustrious Roman? Whether I need to name a second Atticus? or whether the world has not already prevented me, and fixed it there, without my naming? Not a second, with a longo sed proximus intervallo; not a young Marcellus, flattered by a poet into the resemblance of the first, with a frons læta parum, et dejecto lumina vultu, and the rest that follows, si qua fata aspera rumpas, tu Marcellus eris; but a person of the same stamp and magnitude, who owes nothing to the former, besides the word Roman, and the superstition of reverence, devolving on him by the precedency of eighteen hundred years; one who walks by him with equal paces, and shares the eyes of beholders with him; one who had been first, had he first lived; and, in spite of doating veneration, is still his equal: both of them born of noble families, in unhappy ages of change and tumult; both of them retiring from affairs of state; yet not leaving the commonwealth, till it had left itself; but never returning to public business, when they had once quitted it, though courted by the heads of either party. But who would trust the quiet of their lives with the extravagancies of their countrymen, when they are just in the giddiness of their turning; when the ground was tottering under them at every moment; and none could guess 287 whether the next heave of the earthquake would settle them on the first foundation, or swallow it? Both of them knew mankind exactly well, for both of them began that study in themselves, and there they found the best part of human composition; the worst they learned by long experience of the folly, ignorance, and immorality of most beside them. Their philosophy, on both sides, was not wholly speculative, for that is barren, and produces nothing but vain ideas of things which cannot possibly be known, or, if they could, yet would only terminate in the understanding; but it was a noble, vigorous and practical philosophy, which exerted itself in all the offices of pity, to those who were unfortunate, and deserved not so to be. The friend was always more considered by them than the cause; and an Octavius, or an Antony in distress, were relieved by them, as well as a Brutus or a Cassius; for the lowermost party, to a noble mind, is ever the fittest object of good-will. The eldest of them, I will suppose, for his honour, to have been of the academic sect, neither dogmatist nor stoick; if he were not, I am sure he ought, in common justice, to yield the precedency to his younger brother. For stiffness of opinion is the effect of pride, and not of philosophy; it is a miserable presumption of that knowledge which human nature is too narrow to contain; and the ruggedness of a stoick is only a silly affectation of being a god,—to wind himself up by pullies to an insensibility of suffering, and, at the same time, to give the lie to his own experience, by saying he suffers not, what he knows he feels. True philosophy is certainly of a more pliant nature, and more accommodated to human use; Homo sum, humani à me nihil alienum puto. A wise man will never attempt an impossibility; and such it is to strain himself beyond the nature of his being, 288 either to become a deity, by being above suffering, or to debase himself into a stock or stone, by pretending not to feel it. To find in ourselves the weaknesses and imperfections of our wretched kind, is surely the most reasonable step we can make towards the compassion of our fellow-creatures. I could give examples of this kind in the second Atticus. In every turn of state, without meddling on either side, he has always been favourable and assisting to opprest merit. The praises which were given by a great poet to the late queen-mother, on her rebuilding Somerset Palace, one part of which was fronting to the mean houses on the other side of the water, are as justly his:
For the distrest and the afflicted lie
Most in his thoughts, and always in his eye[2].
Neither has he so far forgotten a poor inhabitant of his suburbs, whose best prospect is on the garden of Leicester House, but that more than once he has been offering him his patronage, to reconcile him to 289 a world, of which his misfortunes have made him weary[3]. There is another Sidney still remaining, though there can never be another Spenser to deserve the favour. But one Sidney gave his patronage to the applications of a poet; the other offered it unasked. Thus, whether as a second Atticus, or a second Sir Philip Sidney, the latter in all respects will not have the worse of the comparison; and if he will take up with the second place, the world will not so far flatter his modesty, as to seat him there, unless it be out of a deference of manners, that he may place himself where he pleases at his own table.
I may therefore safely conclude, that he, who, by the consent of all men, bears so eminent a character, will out of his inborn nobleness forgive the presumption of this address. It is an unfinished picture, I confess, but the lines and features are so like, that it cannot be mistaken for any other; and without writing any name under it, every beholder must cry out, at first sight,—this was designed for Atticus; but the bad artist has cast too much of him into shades. But I have this excuse, that even the greatest masters commonly fall short of the best faces. They may flatter an indifferent beauty; but the excellencies of nature can have no right done to them; for there both the pencil and pen are overcome by the dignity of the subject; as our admirable Waller has expressed it,
The heroe's race transcends the poet's thought.
There are few in any age who can bear the load 290 of a dedication; for where praise is undeserved, it is satire; though satire on folly is now no longer a scandal to any one person, where a whole age is dipt together. Yet I had rather undertake a multitude one way, than a single Atticus the other; for it is easier to descend than it is to climb. I should have gone ashamed out of the world, if I had not at least attempted this address, which I have long thought owing: and if I had never attempted, I might have been vain enough to think I might have succeeded in it. Now I have made the experiment, and have failed through my unworthiness, I may rest satisfied, that either the adventure is not to be atchieved, or that it is reserved for some other hand.
Be pleased, therefore, since the family of the Attici is and ought to be above the common forms of concluding letters, that I may take my leave in the words of Cicero to the first of them: Me, O Pomponi, valdè pænitet vivere: tantùm te oro, ut quoniam me ipse semper amàsti, ut eodem amore sis; ego nimirum idem sum. Inimici mei mea mihi non meipsum ademerunt. Cura, Attice, ut valeas.
Dabam. Cal.
Jan. 1690.
Footnotes:
- In order to escape as far as possible the odium, which after the Revolution was attached to Dryden's politics and religion, he seems occasionally to have sought for patrons amongst those Nobles of opposite principles, whom moderation, or love of literature, rendered superior to the suggestions of party rancour; or, as he himself has expressed it in the Dedication of "Amphitryon," who, though of a contrary opinion themselves, blamed him not for adhering to a lost cause, and judging for himself what he could not chuse but judge. Philip Sidney, the third earl of Leicester, had taken an active part against the king in the civil wars, had been named one of his judges, though he never look his seat among the regicides, and had been one of Cromwell's Council of State. He was brother of the famous Algernon Sidney, and although retired from party strife, during the violent contests betwixt the Whigs and Tories in 1682-3, there can be no doubt which way his inclinations leaned. He died 6th March, 1696-7, aged more than eighty years. Mr Malone has strongly censured the strain of this Dedication, because it represents Leicester as abstracted from parties and public affairs, notwithstanding his active share in the civil wars. Yet Dryden was not obliged to draw the portrait of his patron from his conduct thirty years before; and if Leicester's character was to be taken from the latter part of his life, surely the praise of moderation is due to him, who, during the factious contests of Charles II's. reign, in which his own brother made so conspicuous a figure, maintained the neutrality of Pomponius Atticus.
- When Henrietta Maria, widow of Charles I. and queen-dowager of England, visited her son after the Restoration, she chose Somerset-House for her residence, and added all the buildings fronting the river. Cowley, whom she had long patronised, composed a poem on the "Queen's repairing Somerset-House," to which our author refers. Mr Malone's accuracy has detected a slight alteration in the verses, as quoted by Dryden, and as written by Cowley:
- If any prouder virtuoso's sense
- At that part of my prospect take offence,
- By which the meaner cabanes are descried
- Of my imperial river's humbler side;
- If they call that a blemish, let them know,
- God and my godlike mistress think not so;
- For the distressed and the afflicted lie
- Most in their care, and always in their eye.
- Our poet's house was in Gerard-Street, looking upon the gardens of Leicester-House.