One of the most remarkable circumstances in Cowley's character, considering how he distinguished himself at college, is, that he never thoroughly understood the rules of grammar! and that in seriously setting up for a dramatic author, he took, like Dryden, the course in which he acquired the least honour. When Charles II., on hearing of Cowley's death, declared that he had not left a better man behind him in England, the King was, assuredly, not thinking of the poet as a dramatist.
Several of Cowley's contemporaries who were considered better men by some judges, were guilty of offence from which he was entirely free. That offence consisted in their various attempts to improve Shakspeare, by lowering him to what they conceived to be the taste of the times. Davenant took "Measure for Measure," and "Much Ado about Nothing," and manipulated them into one absurd comedy, the "Law against Lovers." He subsequently improved "Macbeth" and "Julius Cæsar;"[63] and Dryden, who with at least some show of reason, re-arranged "Troilus and Cressida," united with Davenant in a sacrilegious destruction of all that was beautiful in the "Tempest." Nat Lee, who was accounted mad, had at least sense enough to refrain from marring Shakspeare. Shadwell corrected the great poet's view of "Timon of Athens," which, as he not too modestly observed, he "made into a play;" but, with more modesty in the epilogue, he asked for forgiveness for his own part, for the sake of the portion that was Shakspeare's. Crowne, more impudently, remodelled two parts of "Henry VI.," with some affectation of reverence for the original author, and a bold assertion of his own original merits with regard to some portions of the play. Crowne's originality is shown, in making Clifford swear like a drunken tapster, and in affirming that a king is a king—sacred, and not to be even thought ill of, let him be never so hateful a miscreant. Ravenscroft, in his "Titus Andronicus," only piled the agony a little more solidly and comically, and can be hardly said to have thereby molested Shakspeare. There was less excuse for Otway, who, not caring to do as he pleased with a doubtful play, ruthlessly seized "Romeo and Juliet," stripped the lovers of their romance, clapped them into a classical costume, and converted the noble but obstinate houses of Capulet and Montagu into riotous followers of Marius and Sylla—Caius Marius the younger wishing he were a glove upon the hand of Lavinia Metella, and a sententious Sulpitius striving in vain to be as light and sparkling as Mercutio. Tate's double rebuke to Shakspeare, in altering his "King Lear" and "Coriolanus," was a small offence compared with Otway's assault. He undertook, as he says, to "rectify what was wanting;" and accordingly, he abolishes the faithful fool, makes a pair of silly lovers of Edgar and Cordelia, and converts the solemn climax into comedy, by presenting the old king and his matchless daughter, hand in hand, alive and merry, as the curtain descends. Tate smirkingly maintained, that he wrought into perfection the rough and costly material left by Shakspeare. "In my humble opinion," said Addison, "it has lost half its beauty;" and yet Tate's version kept its place for many years!—though not so long as Cibber's version of "Richard III.," which was constructed out of Shakspeare, with more regard for the actor than respect for the author.
In the last year of the century, the last attempt to improve that inefficient poet was made by Gildon, who produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields his idea of what "Measure for Measure" should be, by omitting all the comic characters, introducing music and dancing, transposing incidents, adding much nonsense of his own to that of Davenant, and sprinkling all with an assortment of blunders, amusing enough to make some compensation for the absence of the comic characters in the original play.
It seemed to be the idea of these men, that it were wise to reduce Shakspeare to the capacities of those who could appreciate him. There were unhappy persons thus afflicted. Even Mr. Pepys speaks of "Henry VIII." as "a simple thing, made up of a great many patches." The "Tempest," he thinks, "has no great wit—but yet good, above ordinary plays." "Othello" was to him "a mean thing," compared with the last new comedy by another author. "Twelfth Night," "one of the weakest plays I ever saw on the stage." "Macbeth," he liked or disliked, according to the humour of the hour; but there was a "divertissement" in it, which struck him as being a droll thing in tragedy, but in this case proper and natural! Finally, he records, in 1662, of the "Midsummer's Night's Dream," which he "had never seen before, nor ever shall again," that "it is the most insipid, ridiculous play, that ever I saw in my life."
Of the characteristics of the chief of these dramatists, it may be said, first of Davenant, that, if he was quick of fancy and careful in composition, the result is not answerable to the labour expended on it. One of the pleasantest features about Dryden was, that as he grew old he increased in power; but his heart was untouched by his own magic, and he was but a cold reader of the best of his own works. Lee, as tender and impassioned as he is often absurd and bombastic, was an exquisite reader of what he wrote, his heart acknowledging the charm. Shadwell's characters have the merit of being well conceived, and strongly marked; and Shirley (a poet belonging to an earlier period), has only a little above the measure of honour due to him, when he is placed on a level with Fletcher. Crowne is more justly placed in the third rank of dramatists; but he had originality, lacking the power to give it effect. Ravenscroft had neither invention nor expression; yet he was a most prolific writer, a caricaturist, but without truth or refinement; altogether unclean. Wycherley, on the other hand, was admirable for the epigrammatic turn of his stage conversations, the aptness of his illustrations, the acuteness of his observation, the richness of his character-painting, and the smartness of his satire; in the indulgence or practice of all which, however, the action of the drama is often impeded, that the audience may enjoy a shower of sky rockets.
Pope said that Wycherley was inspired by the Muses, with the wit of Plautus. He had, indeed, "Plautus' wit," and an obscenity rivalling that of the "Curculio;" but he had none of the pathos which is to be found in the "Rudens." But Wycherley was also described as having the "art of Terence and Menander's fire." If by the first, Pope meant skill in invention of plot, Wycherley surpassed the Carthaginian; and as to "Menander's fire," in Wycherley it was no purifying fire; and Wesley was not likely to illustrate a sermon by a quotation from Wycherley, as St. Paul did by citing a line from Menander.
We are charmed by the humour of Wycherley; but after that, posterity disagrees with Pope's verdict. We are not instructed by the sense of Wycherley, nor swayed by his judgment, nor warmed honestly by his spirit; his unblushing profligacy ruins all. But if his men and women are as coarse as Etherege's or Sedley's, they are infinitely more clever people; so clever, indeed, that Sheridan has not been too proud to borrow "good things" from some of them. Wycherley is perhaps more natural and consistent than Congreve, whose Jeremy speaks like an oracle, and is as learned, though not so nasty as his master. It may be, that for a man to enjoy Congreve's wit, he should be as witty as Congreve. To me, it seems to shine at best but as a brilliant on a dirty finger. As for his boasted originality, Valentine and Trapbois are Don Juan and M. Dimanche; and as for Valentine, as the type of a gentleman, his similes smack more of the stable-yard than the drawing-room; and there is more of impertinent prattle generally among his characters than among those of Wycherley. His ladies are a shade more elegant than those of the latter poet; but they are mere courtezans, brilliant, through being decked with diamonds; but not a jot the more virtuous or attractive on that account. Among the comedy-writers of this half century, however, Congreve and Wycherley stand supreme; they were artists; too many of their rivals or successors were but coarse daubers.
In coarseness of sentiment the latter could not go beyond their prototypes; and in the expression of it, they had neither the wit of their greatest, nor the smartness of their less famous masters. This coarseness dates, however, from earlier days than those of the Restoration; and Dryden, who remembered the immorality of Webster's comedies, seems to have thought that the Restoration was to give the old grossness to the stage, as well as a new king to the country. It is, nevertheless, certain, that a large portion of the public protested against this return to an evil practice, and hissed his first piece, "The Wild Gallant," played in the little theatre in Vere Street, Drury Lane, in 1662. "It was not indecent enough for them," said the poet, who promised "not to offend in the way of modesty again." His "Kind Keeper, or Mr. Limberham," under which name the Duke of Lauderdale is said to have been satirised, and which Dryden held to be his best comedy, was utterly condemned. "Ah!" said he, "it was damned by a cabal of keepers!" It never occurred to him that the public might prefer wit to immorality. Long before, he had written an unseemly piece, called "The Rival Ladies;" he seasoned it in what he maintained was the taste of the town, and in a prologue—prologues then were often savagely defiant of the opinions of the audience, asserted his own judgment by saying:—
"He's bound to please, not to write well, and knows
There is a mode in plays as well as clothes."