Quod fremit in terris violentius[8].

Yet Lucretius laughs at a foolish lover, even for excusing the imperfections of his mistress:

Nigra μελιχροος est, immunda et fœtida ακοσμος .

Balba loqui non quit, τραυλιζει ; muta pudens est, &c.

But to drive it ad Æthiopem cygnum is not to be endured. I leave him to interpret this by the benefit of his French version on the other side, and without farther considering him, than I have the rest of my illiterate censors, whom I have disdained to answer, because they are not qualified for judges. It remains that I acquaint the reader, that I have endeavoured in this play to follow the practice of the ancients, who, as Mr Rymer has judiciously observed, are and ought to be our masters[9]. Horace likewise gives it for a rule in his art of poetry.

—Vos exemplaria Græca

Nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurnâ.

Yet, though their models are regular, they are too little for English tragedy; which requires to be built in a larger compass. I could give an instance in the "Oedipus Tyrannus," which was the master piece of Sophocles; but I reserve it for a more fit occasion, which I hope to have hereafter. In my style, I have professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare; which that I might perform more freely, I have disincumbered myself from rhyme. Not that I condemn my former way, but that this is more proper to my present purpose. I hope I need not to explain myself, that I have not copied my author servilely: Words and phrases must of necessity receive a change in succeeding ages; but it is almost a miracle that much of his language remains so pure; and that he who began dramatic poetry amongst us, untaught by any, and, as Ben Jonson tells us, without learning, should by the force of his own genius perform so much, that in a manner he has left no praise for any who come after him. The occasion is fair, and the subject would be pleasant to handle the difference of styles betwixt him and Fletcher, and wherein, and how far they are both to be imitated. But since I must not be over-confident of my own performance after him, it will be prudence in me to be silent. Yet, I hope, I may affirm, and without vanity, that, by imitating him, I have excelled myself throughout the play; and particularly, that I prefer the scene betwixt Antony and Ventidius in the first act, to any thing which I have written in this kind.

Footnotes:

  1. That the reader may himself judge of the justice of Dryden's censure, I subjoin the argument on this knotty point, as it is stated by Hippolytus and his mistress in the 5th act of the "Phedre" of Racine.
  2. Aricie.
  3. Quoi vous pouvés vous taire en ce peril extreme?
  4. Vous laissés dans l'erreur un pere qui vous uime?
  5. Cruel, si de mes pleurs meprisant le pouvoir,
  6. Vous consentéz sans peine a ne me plus revoir,
  7. Partes, separés vous de la triste Aricie,
  8. Mais du moins en partaut assurés votre vie.
  9. Defendés votre honneur d' un reproche honteux,
  10. Et forcés votre pere a revoquer ses væux;
  11. Il en est tems encore. Pourguoi, par quel caprice,
  12. Laissés vous le champ libre a votre accusatrice?
  13. Ecclaircissés Thesée.
  14. Hippolyte.
  15. Hé que nai-je point dit?
  16. Ai-je du mettre au jour l'opprobre de son lit?
  17. Devois-je en lui faisant un recit trop sincere,
  18. D'un indigne rougeur couvrir le front d'un pere?
  19. Vous seul avés percé ce mystere odieux,
  20. Mon cœur pour s'epancher, n'a que vous et les dieux:
  21. Je n'ai pu vous cacher, jugés si je vous aime,
  22. Tout ce que je voulois me cacher a moi-meme.
  23. Mais songés sous quel sceau je vous l'ai révélé;
  24. Oubliés, si se peut, que je vous ai parlé,
  25. Madame; et que jamais une bouche si pure
  26. Ne s'ouvre pour conter cette horrible avanture.
  27. Sur l'equité des dieux osons nous confier,
  28. Ils ont trop d'interet a me justifier,
  29. Et Phédre tot ou tard de son crime punie,
  30. N'en saúroit eviter la juste ignominié.
  31. Chedreux was the name of the fashionable periwigs of the day, and appears to have been derived from their maker. A French peruqirier, in one of Shadwell's comedies, says, "You talke of de Chedreux; he is no bodie to me. Dere is no man can travaille vis mee. Monsieur Wildish has got my peruke on his head. Let me see, here is de haire, de curie, de brucle, ver good, ver good. If dat foole Chedreux make de peruke like me, I vil be hanga." Bury Fair, Act I. Scene II. It appears from the letter of the literary veteran in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1745, that our author, as he advanced in reputation, assumed the fashionable Chedreux periwig.
  32. This passage though, doubtless applicable to many of the men of rank at the court of Charles II., was particularly levelled at Lord Rochester with whom our author was now on bad terms. It is hardly fair to enquire how far this description of the discourse and talents of a person of wit and honour agrees with that given in the dedication to Marriage a-la-Mode, when, in compliment to the same nobleman, we are told, that, "Wit seems to have lodged itself more nobly in this age, than in any of the former; and that his lordship had but another step to make, from the patron of wit, to become its tyrant." This last observation seems to have been made in the spirit of prophecy.
  33. Such is said to have been the answer of a philosopher to a friend, who upbraided him with giving up a dispute to the Emperor Adrian.
  34. This passage alludes to an imitation of Horace, quaintly entitled an "Allusion to the Tenth Satire of his First Book" which was the production of Rochester. As however it appeared without a name, it may have been for a time imputed to some of the inferior wits, whom his Lordship patronized. It contains a warm attack on Dryden, part of which has been already quoted. Dryden probably knew the real author of this satire, although he chose to impute it to one of the "Zanies" of the great. At least it seems unlikely that he should take Crown for the author, as has been supposed by Mr Malone; for in the imitation we have these lines:
  35. For by that rule I might as well admit
  36. Crown's heavy scenes for poetry and wit.
  37. Crown could hardly be charged as author of a poem, in which this sarcasm occurred.
  38. Alluding probably to the concluding lines of the Satire.
  39. I loath the rabble; 'tis enough for me
  40. If Sedley, Shadwell, Shepherd, Wycherley,
  41. Godolphin, Butler, Buckhurst, Buckingham,
  42. And some few more whom I omit to name,
  43. Approve my sense; I count their censure fame.
  44. Dryden alludes to the censure past on himself, where it is said,
  45. Five hundred verses in a morning writ.
  46. Prove him no more a poet than a wit.
  47. This refers to the characters of Shadwell and Wycherley, which according to Dryden, the satirist seems to have misunderstood.
  48. Of all our modern wits, none seems to me
  49. Once to have touched upon true comedy,
  50. But hasty Shadwell and slow Wycherley;
  51. Shadwell's unfinished works do yet impart
  52. Great proofs of force of nature, none of art.
  53. With just bold strokes he dashes here and there,
  54. Shewing great mastery with little care;
  55. But Wycherley earns hard whate'er he gains,
  56. He wants no judgment, and he spares no pains;
  57. He frequently excels, and, at the least,
  58. Makes fewer faults than any of the rest.
  59. "I have chiefly considered the fable, or plot, which all conclude to be the soul of a tragedy, which, with the ancients, is all ways to be found a reasonable soul, but with us, for the most part, a brutish, and often worse than brutish.
  60. "And certainly there is not required much learning, or that a man must be some Aristotle and doctor of subtilties, to form a right judgement in this particular; common sense suffices; and rarely have I known women-judges mistaken in these points, where they have patience to think; and left to their own heads, they decide with their own sense. But if people are prepossessed, if they will judge of Rollo by Othello, and one crooked line by another, we can never have a certainty."
  61. The tragedies of the last age considered, in a letter to Fleetwood Shepherd, by Thomas Rymer, Edit. 1678, p. 4.