18 I will quote here a paragraph upon the "effect (of the restoration) on national literature and national feeling." "The restoration of Charles the second was fatal to poetry. That prince brought with him a long train of wits; and large bands of exiled courtiers flocked round him, who knew the points of a ruff, and were connoisseurs in silk stockings and Flanders lace; but of English literature they were utterly ignorant. Adversity had taught them nothing, except hatred for their countrymen at home, and contempt for their taste in all things. French fashions, French literature, French morals, prevailed; and the wholesome examples of conjugal love and social integrity, were fast melting away and disappearing before the dazzling influence of a vicious court. The time of the English exiles had been employed in patching their broken fortunes and rendering themselves agreeable to their French patrons. Had they been reduced simply to banishment, and left to ponder on the past, it is possible that they might have taken a lesson from misfortune, which would have strengthened the relaxed state of their moral constitution, and awakened them to the high gratification derivable from the works of intellect alone. But they had no example, and little motive. Their King was utterly without any character, and the French did not require any sterling accomplishments to admit them to the full benefits of their society. They were, however, compelled to turn their wit to present account, and so they contented themselves with paying court to their hosts, with emulating their gallantry, with play, and other such ordinary palliatives, as offer themselves most readily to the unhappy. If our exiles ever thought seriously, it was how they might circumvent old Noll and his Roundheads, not how they might endure philosophically, or qualify themselves for prosperity again. Under all circumstances, it was scarcely possible to avoid adopting the tone and manners of the people with whom they lived. They did adopt them, and the literature of the age of Charles the second, may be considered as one consequence of the exile of the Stuarts."
Hudibras is well known as a rough satire, but few, even of those familiar with that poem, I presume, ever thought of giving Butler credit for the refinement of thought and style so frequently entwined about masses of obscurity and ridiculous vulgarity. These silver threads are often visible to the searching eye, and lead the student to believe, that had the satirist not fallen into the vein, since his day called Hudibrastic, he would have taken fair place among the followers of Wyat.
Butler was, in his intercourse with the world, dull and unmoved, wholly wanting in the rich humor for which his writings are so famous. King Charles could scarcely be persuaded, that a man, to all appearances, so stupid, could be the author of so much written wit.
XI. Waller is the next of those who produced any, the least improvement in English literature; and he, indeed, rather should be called a versifier than a poet; for there is assuredly none of the divine afflatus about him. He wrote prose in metre, and metre too of great polish. He has been celebrated for the music of his numbers, and, as usual, accused of borrowing from the well-head of all melodious versification—the Italian schools. Tasso, translated by old Fairfax, was his model.
XII. And now John Dryden starts up in my path, at first a Polyphemus blinded by ill taste, and although a giant, never aiming his blows aright—afterward a clear sighted and skilful Longinus. His taste became pure with age, and before his death, he had become an admirable critic.19 In translation, satire and lyric poetry, he was unrivalled until the coming of Pope. Indeed in the last, he has never been rivalled. Satire is, perhaps, the only species of poetry into which logic may be happily introduced. In every other, it straightens and curbs the genius. If this be true, the Anglo-latins before the time of Surrey, made a great mistake in their choice of subjects. The heavy and operose reasoning with which their metrical folios on the trinity &c. abound, would have been of assistance in satire. Dryden's logical talent rendered his great political satire "Absolom and Achitophel," the best perhaps of his works. His McFlecnoe was thought inimitable, until Pope made it the model of his Dunciad, and drew a picture better than the original.
19 Of twenty-seven plays written by Dryden, nineteen were in rhyme. These nineteen were his earliest works—and the very fact that they are in rhyme, proves a want of taste. The remaining eight were written later when his taste had ripened.
In one night, Dryden began and completed the greatest ode in the English language. The ode to St. Cecilia stands an unrivalled example of lyric excellence. The ode by Pope with the same title, that by Addison sung on the same day, fall far short of it, as do Cowley's famous paraphrases from Pindar. Indeed, Campbell's Last Man is the only lyric poem in the language at all akin in merit to that of Dryden.
Pindar full of the spirit of his age, committed no extravagance in the opinion of those who heard him at the Olympic games. But being regarded as the father of lyric poetry, his wildness was imitated in after ages, when that spirit was departed. This led to a great many extravagant absurdities in Italy and in England. Poets made Pindar their master and forgot Horace. The odes of the fifteenth century are scarcely intelligible; and how those who preach simplicity, and complain that Shelly's obscurity renders his poetry a sealed book, can, as I have sometimes heard them do—applaud Cowley for the beauty of his Pindarics is rather wonderful. In this unnatural state the ode fell into Dryden's hands, and he new-modelled it with strange felicity.
As a translator, Dryden shunned the latitude of those who, like Cowley, paraphrased instead of translating, and at the same time avoided the opposite evil. His translations are sufficiently accurate to convey the original author's meaning, and sufficiently polished to please an ear not too fastidious. He has fallen into error by carrying out what he calls his principle of adaptation too far. It was his opinion that "translation should be adapted to the present." For example, that the sailors of Virgil should speak the sea phrases of modern times, in order to make the description seem natural to the modern reader. This principle he carried on shore too, and many laughable instances of its application are to be found in his version of the Æneid. He translates—
| "Læva tibi tellus, et longo læva petantur Æquora circuitu: dextrum fuge et littas"— "Tack to the larboard and stand off to sea Veer starboard sea and land." |