History of English literature, tr. by H. van Laun

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Chap. II.— Dbtden, .... PAOB 1

IIL^The RKvoumoN,

IV.— Addison, ....

VI.— The NovELigpB, . . . .

VIL— The PoEW, . . . . .

BOOK IV.— MODERN LIFE.

Chap. I.— Ideas and Pboductions, II. — LOED Btson, .

III.— The Past AND th^ Present, .

228 271 818

BOOK v.— MODERN AUTHORS.

Intboductobt Note, ....

Chap. I. — ^The Novel.- Dickens,

II.— The Notel contintjed.— Thaokebat, III. — Caiticism and History.— Macaxtlat, IV,— Philosophy and History.— Carlylb, v.— Philosophy.— Stuart Mill, .

VI.— Poetry.— Tennyson, .

Index,

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

CHAPTER II. Dryden

L Dryden's begmnings—Gloae of the poetic age— Cause of literary decline

and regeneration, II. Family — ^Education — Studies — Beading — Habits — Position — Character —

Audience — Friendships — Quarrels — Harmony of his life and talent.

III. The theatres re-opened and transformed — ^The new public and the new / taste — ^Dramatic theories of Dryden — His judgment of the old English

theatre — His judgment of the new French theatre — Composite works — Incongruities of his drama — Tyrannic Love — Crossness of his characters — T%« Indian Emperor, Atareng-zebe, Almanzor.

IV. Style of his drama — Rhymed verse — Flowery diction — Pedantic tirades — Want of agreement between the classical style and romantic eyents — How Dryden borrows and mars the inyentions of Shakspeare and Milton — Whj this drama fell to the ground.

y. Merits of this drama — Characters of Antony and Don Sebastian — Otway —

life— Works.

YI. Dryden as a writer — Kind, scope, and limits of his mind — Clumsiness in flattery and obscenity — Heaviness in dissertation and discussion — Vigour and fundamental uprightness.

Til. How literature in England is occupied with politics and religion — Political poems of Dryden, Absalom and Achitophd^ Hie Medal — Religious poems, Beligio Laid, The Hmd and the Panther — Bitterness and virulence of these poems — Mae Fkcknoe.

YIII. Rise of the art of writing — Difference between the stamp of mind of the artistic and classic ages — Dryden's manner of writing — Sustained and oratorical diction.

IX. Lack of general ideas in this age and this stamp of mind— Dryden's translations — Adaptations — Imitations — Tales and letters — Faults — Merits — VOL. n, A

U

Gra^ty of his character, brilliancy of his inspiration, fits and starts of poetic eloquence — Alexander's Feati, a song in honour of S. Cecilia's Day.

X. Diyden's latter days— Wretchedness — Poverty — ^Wherein his work is incomplete— ^Death.

COMEDY has led us a long way; we must return and consider other kind of writings. A higher spirit moves amidst the great current In the history of this talent we shall find the history of the English classical spirit, its structure, its gaps and its powers, its formation and its development.

I

The subject is a young man. Lord Hastings, who died of smallpox at the age of nineteen :

' His body was an orb, his sublime sonl Did move on virtue's and on learning's pole ; . . . Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make If thou this hero's altitude canst take.

. . . Blisters with pride swell'd, which through 's flesh did sprout

Like rose-buds, stuck i' the lily skin about.

Each little pimple had a tear in it.

To wail the fault its rising did commit . . .

Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, The cabinet of a richer soul within f No comet need foretel his change drew on YHiose corpse might seem a constellation.' ^

With such a fine specimen, f>ryden, the greatest poet of the classical age, made his appearance.

Such enormities indicate the close of a literary age. Excess of folly in poetry, like excess of injustice in political matters, lead up to and foretell revolutions. The Renaissance, unchecked and original, abandoned the minds of men to the fire and caprices of imagination, the oddities, curiosities, outbreaks of an inspiration which cares only to content itself, breaks out into singularities, has n^ed of novelties, and lores audacity and extravagance, as reason loves justice and truth. After the extinction of genius folly remained; after the removal of inspiration nothing was left but absurdity. Formerly the internal disorder and dash produced and excused concetti and wild flights; thenceforth men threw them out in cold blood, by calculation and without excuse. Formerly they expressed the state of the mind, now they belie it So are literary revolutions accomplished. The form, no longer original or spontaneous, but imitated and passed from hand to hand, outlives the old spirit which bad created it,

1 Diyden's Worki, ed. Sir Walter 8oott» Sd ed., 18 vols., 1821, zL 84.

CHAP. H] DEYDBN. 3

and is in opposition to the new spirit which destroys it. This preliminarj strife and progressiye transformation make up the life of Dryden, and account for his impotence and his falls, his talent and his success.

II

Dryden's beginnings are in striking contrast with those of the poets of the Benaissanoe, actors, yagabonds, soldiers, who were tossed about from the first in all the contrasts and miseries of active life. He was bom in 1631, of a good family; his grandfather and uncle were baronets ; Sir Gilbert Pickering, his relative, was a knight, member of Parliament, one of Cromwell's council of twenty-one, one of the great officeholders of the new court Dryden was brought up in an excellent school, under Dr. Busby, then in high repute ; after which he passed four years at Cambridge. Having inherited by his father's death a small estate, he tised his liberty and fortune only to maintain him in his studious life, and continued in seclusion at the University for three years more. Here you see the regular habits of an honourable and well-to-do family, the discipline of a connected and solid education, the taste for classical and exact studies. Such circumstances announce and prepare, not an artist, but a man of letters.

I find the same inclination and the same signs in the remainder of his life, private or public. He regularly spends his mornings in writing or reading, then dines with his family. His reading was that of a man of culture and a critical mind, who does not think of amusing or exciting himself, but who learns and judges. Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Juvenal, and Persius were his favourite authors ; he translated several ; their names were always on his pen ; he discusses their opinions and their merits, feeding himself on this reasoning which oratorical customs had imprinted on all the works of the Roman mind. He is familiar with the new French literature, the heir of the Latin, with Comeille and Racine, Boileau, Rapin and Bossu;^ he reasons with them, often in their spirit, writes reflectively, seldom fails to arrange some good theory to justify each of his new works. He knew very well the literature of his own country, though sometimes not very accurately, gave to authors their due rank, classified the different kinds of writing, went back as far as old Chaucer, whom he transcribed and put into a modem dress. His mind thus filled, he would go in the afternoon to Will's coffeehouse, the great literary rendezvous: young poets, students fresh from the University, literary dilettante crowded round his chair, carefully placed in summer near the balcony,

^ Bapin (1621-1687), a French Jesuit, a modem Latin poet and literary critic BoMO, or properly Lebossa (1681-1680), wrote a TrcM du Poime ipique, which had a great success in its day. Both critics are now completely fovgotten. — Ta.

in winter by the fireside, thinking themselyes fortunate to get in a word, or a pinch of snuff respectfully extracted from his learned snuff-box. For indeed be was the monarch of taste and the umpire of letters ; he ci:iticised novelties — ^Racine*s last tragedy, Blackmore's heavy epic, Swift*s first poems; slightly vain, praising his own writings, to the extent of saying that ' no one had ever composed or will ever compose a finer ode ' than his on Alexander's Feast ; but gossipy, fond of that interchange of ideas which discussion never fails to produce, capable of enduring contradiction, and admitting his adversary to be in the right. These manners show that literature had become a matter of study rather than of inspiration, an employment for the taste rather than for the enthusiasm, a source of distraction rather than of emotion. His audience, his friendships, his actions, his strifes, had the same tendency. He lived amongst great men and courtiers, in a society of artificial manners and measured language. He had married the daughter of Thomas Earl of Berkshire ; he was historiographer, then poet-laureate. He often saw the king and the princes. He dedicated each of his works to some lord, in a laudatory, flunkeyish preface, bearing witness to his intimate acquaintance with the great He received a purse of gold for each dedication, went to return thanks ; introduces some of these lords under pseudonyms in his Essay on the Dramatic Art; wrote introductions for the works of others, called them Mascenas, TibuUus, or PoUio ; discussed with them Uterary works and opinions. The re-establishment of the court had brought back the art of conversation, vanity, the necessity for appearing to be a man of letters and of possessing good taste, all the company-manners which are the source of classical literature, and which teach men the art of speaking well.^ On the other hand, literature, brought under the influence of society, entered into society's interests, and first of all in petty private quarrels. Whilst men of letters learned etiquette, courtiers learned how to write. They soon became jumbled together, and naturally fell to blows. The Duke of Buckingham wrote a parody on Dryden, The Rehearsal^ and took infinite pains to teach the chief actor Dryden's tone and gestures. Later, Rochester took up the cudgels against the poet, supported Settle against him, and hired a band of rufiians to beat him. Besides this, Dryden had quarrels with Shadwell and a crowd of others, and finally with Blackmore and Jeremy Collier. To crown all, he entered into the strife of political parties and religious sects, fought for the Tories and Anglicans, then for the Roman Catholics ; wrote The Medal^ Absalom and Achitophel, against the Whigs ; Edigio Laid against Dissenters and Papists; then The Hind and Panther for James il, with the logic of controversy and the bitterness of party. It is a long way from this

1 In hiB Defence qf the Epilogue of the Second Part qfihe Conqueet qf Cfranada, iv. 226, Dryden says : ' Now, if they ask m^ whence it ia that our conversation is so much refined f I moat freely, and without flattery, ascribe it to the coort.'

€HAP. n.] DRYDEK. 5

combatiye and argumentative existence to the reveries and seclusion ot the true poet. Such circumstances teach the art of writing clearly and soundlj, methodical and connected discussion, strong and exact style, banter and refutation, eloquence and satire : these gifts are necessary to make a man of letters heard or believed, and the mind enters compulsorily upon a track when it is the only one that can conduct it to its goal. Dry den entered upon it spontaneously. In his second production,^ the abundance of well-ordered ideas, the oratorical energy and harmony, the simplicity, the gravity, the heroic and Roman spirit, announce a classic genius, the relative not of Shakspeare, but of Corneille, capable not of dramas, but of discussions.

III

And yet, at first, he devoted himself to the drama : he wrote twenty-seven pieces, and signed an agreement with the actors of the King's Theatre to supply them with three every year. The theatre, forbidden under the Commonwealth, had just re-opened with extraordinary magnificence and success. The rich scenes made moveable, the women's parts no longer played by boys, but by women, the novel and splendid waxlights, the machinery, the recent popularity of actors who had become heroes of fashion, the scandalous importance of the actresses, who were mistresses of the aristocracy and of the king, the example of the court and the imitation of France, drew spectators in crowds. The thirst for pleasure, long repressed, knew no bounds. Men indemnified themselves for the long abstinence imposed by fanatical Puritans ; eyes and ear, disgusted with gloomy faces, nasal pronunciation, ofiicial ejaculations on sin and damnation, satiated themselves with sweet singing, sparkling dress, the seduction of voluptuous dances. They wished to enjoy life, and that in a new fashion ; for a new world, that of the courtiers and the idle, had been formed. The abolition of feudal tenures, the vast increase of commerce and wealth, the concourse of landed proprietors, who let their lands and came to London to enjoy the pleasures of the town and to court the favours of the king, had installed on the summit of society, in England as in France, rank, authority, the manners and tastes of the world of fashion, of the idle, the drawing-room frequenters, lovers of pleasure, conversation, wit, and breeding, occupied with the piece in vogue, less to amuse themselves than to criticise it. Thus was Dryden's drama built up ; the poet, greedy of glory and pressed for money, found here both money and glory, and was half an innovator, with a large reinforcement of theories and prefaces, diverging from the old English drama, approaching the new French tragedy, attempting a compromise between classical eloquence and romantic truth, accommodating himself as well as he could to the new public, which paid and

applauded him.

^ Heroie 8tama§ to the memory qf Oliver Cromtoell,

6 THE CIA8SIC AGE. [BOOK IlL

* The langoage, wit, and conyersation of otit age, are improyed and refined above the last . • • Let ns conaider in what the refinement of a language principally consists ; that is, " either in rejecting sach old words, or phrases, which are illsounding or improper; or in admitting new, which are more proper, more sonnding, and more significant." . . . Let any man, who understands English, read diligently the works of Shakespeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake, that he will find in every page either some solecism of speech, or some notorious flaw in sense. . . . Many of (their plots) were made up of some ridiculous incoherent stoiy, which in one play many times took up the business of an age. I suppose I newl not name Pericles Prince of Tyre^ nor the historical plays of Shakespeare ; besides many of the rest, as the W%rUer*s Taie^ Love's Labour Los^ Measure for Mtature^ which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written, that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your concernment. ... I could easily demonstrate, that our admired Fletcher neither understood correct plotting, nor that which they call the decorum of the stage. • . . The reader will see Philaster wounding his mistress, and afterwards his boy, to save himself. . . . His shepherd falls twice into the former indecency of wounding women.* ^

Fletcher nowhere permits kings to retain the royal dignity. Moreover, the action of these authors' plays is always barbarous. They introduce battles on the stage ; they transport the scene in a moment to a distance of twenty years or five hundred leagues, and a score of times consecutively in one act ; they jumble together three or four different actions, especially in the historical dramas. But they sin most in style. Dryden says of Shakspeare :

' Many of his words, and more of his phrases, are scarce intelligible. And of those which we understand, some are ungrammatical, others coarse ; and his whole style is so pestered with figurative expressions, that it is as affected as it is obscure. ' '

Ben Jonson himself often has bad plots, redundancies, barbarisms :

* Well-placing of words, for the sweetness of pronunciation, was not known till Mr. Waller introduced it ' *

All, in short, descend to quibbles, low and common expressions :

' In the age wherein those poets lived, there was less of gallantry than in ours. . . . Besides the want of education and learning, they wanted the benefit of converse. Gentlemen will now be entertained with the follies of each other ; and, though they allow Gob and Tibb to speak properly, yet they are not much pleased with their tankard, or with their rags. '*

For these gentlemen we must now write, and especially for ' reasonable men ;* for it is not enough to have wit or to love tragedy, in order to be a good critic : we must possess a solid knowledge and a lofty reason, know Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, and pronounce judgment according to their rules.' These rules, based upon observation and logic, prescribe unity of action ; that this action should have a beginning, middle, and end ;

' Defence of the Epilogue of the Second Part qfthe Conquest qfOranada^ iv. 218.

' Preface to TroUus and Cressida, vL 289.

' Defence qf the Epilogue of the Conquest qf Oranada, iv. 219.

« Ibid. 225. * Prefacs to All for Love, v. 806.

CHAP, n.] DBYDEN. 7

that its parts should proceed naturally one from the other; that it should excite terror and pity, so as to infoim and improve ns ; that the characters should be distinct, harmonious, conformable with tradition or the design of the poet Such, says Dryden, wiU be the new tragedy, closely allied, it seems, to the French, especially as 'he quotes Bossu and Rapin, as if he took them for instructors.

Yet it differs from it, and Dryden enumerates all that an English pit can blame in the French stage. He says :

' The beauties of the French poesy are the beauties of a statae, but not of a man, because not animated with the aool of poesy, which is imitation of humour and passions^ . . . He who will look upon their plays which hare been written till these last ten years, or thereabouts, will find it an hard matter to pick out two or three passable humours amongst them. Comeille himself their arch-poet, what has he produced except the lAat ? and you know how it was cried up in France ; but when it came upon the English stage, though well translated, . . . the most fayourable to it would not put it in competition with many of Fletcher's or Ben Jonson's. . . . Their verses sre to me the coldest I have ever read, . . . their speeches being so many declamations. When the French stage came to be reformed by Cardinal Bidielieu, those long harangues were introduced, to comply with the gravity of a churchman. Look upon the Cwma and the Pompe^; they are not so properly to be called pU^ as long discourses of reasons of state ; and PcUeude, in matters of religion is as solemn as the long stops upon our organs. Since that time it is grown into a custom, and their actors speek by the hour-glass, like our parsons. ... I deny not but this may suit well enough with the French ; for as we, who are a more sullen people, come to be diverted at our plays, so they, who are of an airy and gay temper, come thither to make themselves more serious.' '

As for the tumults and combats which they relegate behind the scenes, * nature has so formed our countrymen to fierceness, . • • they will scarcely suffer combats and other objects of horror to be taken from them." Thus the French, by fettering themselves with these scruples,'

^ An Euay of DranuUk Poesy, xv. 337. ' Ibid. 348.

' In the preface of AU for Love, v. 308, Dryden says : 'In this nicety of manners does tbe excellency of French poetry consist. Their heroes are the most crril people breathing, but their good breeding seldom extends to a word of sense ; sH their wit is in their ceremony ; they want the genius which animates our stage. . . . Thus, their Hippolytns is so scrupulous in point of decency, that he will nthor expose himself to death than accuse his step-mother to his father ; and my critics, I am sure, will commend him for it : But we of grosser apprehensions are apt to think, that this excess of generosity is not practicable, but with fools and madmen. . . . But take Hippolytus out of his poetic fit, and I suppose he would think it a wiser part, to set the saddle on the right horse, and chuse rather to live with the reputation of a plain-spoken honest man, than to die with the in- Umj of an incestuous villain. . . . (The poet) has chosen to give him the turn of gallantry, sent him to travel from Athens to Paris, taught him to make love, and transformed the Hippolytus of Eiffipides into Monsieur Hippolite.' This eriiicism shows in a small compass all the common sense and freedom of thought of Dryden ; but, at the same time, all the eoarMness of his education and of his and confining themselyes in their unities and their roles, have removed action from their stage, and brought themselves down to unbearable monotony and dryness. They lack originality, naturalness, variety, fulness.

' . . . Contented to be thinly regaUr. . . .

Their tongae enfeebled is refined too mnch,

And, like pure gold, it bends at every toach.

Onr sturdy Teuton yet will art obey.

More fit for manly tiiought, and strengthened with allay.' ^

Let them laugh as much as they like at Fletcher and Shakspeare; there is in them * a more masculine fancy and greater spirit in the writing than there is in any of the French.'

Though exaggerated, this criticism is good; and because it is good, I mistrust the works which the writer is to produce. It is dangerous for an artist to be excellent in theory; the creative spirit is hardly consonant with the criticising spirit : he who, quietly seated on the shore, discusses and compares, is hardly capable of plunging straight and boldly into the stormy sea of invention. Moreover, Dryden holds himself too evenly poised betwixt the moods; original artists love solely and without justice a certain idea and a certain world ; the rest disappears from their eyes ; confined in one region of art, they deny or scorn the other ; it is because they are limited that they are strong. We see beforehand that Dryden, pushed one way by his English mind, will be drawn another way by his French rules; that he will alternately venture and restrain himself; that he will attain mediocrity, that is, platitude ; that by reason of his faults he will fall into incongruities, that is, into absurdities. All original art is self-regulated, and no original art can be regulated from without : it carries its own counterpoise, and does not receive it from elsewhere ; it constitutes an inviolable whole ; it is an animated existence, which lives on its own blood, and which languishes or dies if deprived of some of its blood and supplied from the veins of another. Shakspeare*s imagination cannot be guided by £acine*s reason, nor Racine's reason be exidted by Shakspeare's imagination ; each is good in itself, and excludes its rival ; to unite them would be to produce a bastard, a sick child and a monster. Disorder, violent and sudden action, harsh words, horror, depth, truth, exact imitation of reality, and the lawless outbursts of mad passions, — these features of Shakspeare become each other. Order, measure, eloquence, aristocratic refinement, worldly urbanity, exquisite painting of delicacy and virtue, aU Bacine's features suit each other. It would destroy the one to attenuate, the other to inflame him. Their whole being and beauty consist in the agreement of their parts : to mar this agreement would be to abolish their being and their beauty. In order to produce, we must invent a personal and harmonious conception; we must not

> Epistle ziv., to Mr. Motteuz, xi. 70.

CHAP, n.] i)EYDEN. 9

mingle two strange and opposite ones. Bryden has left undone what he should have done, and has done what he should not have done.

He had, moreover, the worst of audiences, debauched and frivolous, void of individual taste, floundering amid confused recollections of the national literature and deformed imitations of foreign literature, expecting nothing from the stage but the pleasure of the senses or the gratification of their curiosity. In reality, the drama, like every work of art, only makes sensible a profound idea of man and of existence ; there is a hidden philosophy undet* its circumvolutions and violences^ and the audience ought to be capable of comprehending it, as the poet is of conceiving it The hearer must have reflected or felt with energy or refinement, in order to take in energetic or refined thoughts; Hamlet and Iphig^nie will never move a vidgar roisterer or a lover of money. The character who weeps on the stage only rehearses our own tears ; our interest is but that of sympathy ; and the drama is like an external conscience, which shows us what we are, what we love, what we have felt. What could the drama teach to gamesters like Saint Albans, drunkards like Kochester, prostitutes like Gastlemaine, old children Hke Charles il ? What spectators were those coarse epicureans, incapable even of an assumed decency, lovers of brutal pleasures, barbarians in their sports, obscene ia words, void of honour, humanity, politeness, who made the court a house of ill fame ! The splendid decorations, change of scenes, the patter of long verse and forced sentiments, the observance of a few rules imported from Paris, — such was the natural food of their vanity and folly, and such the theatre of the English Restoration.

I take one of these tragedies, very celebrated in time past. Tyrannic Love^ or the Royal Martyr^ — a fine title, and fit to make a stir. The royal martyr is Saint Catharine, a princess of royal blood as it appears, who is brought before the tyrant Maximin. She confesses her faith, and a pagan philosopher Apollonius is set loose against her, to refute her. Maximin says :

• War is my province ! — Priest, why stand you mute ? You gain by heaven, and, therefore, should dispute.'

Thus encouraged, the priest argues ; but St. Catharine replies in the following words :

' . . . Reason with your fond religion fights, For many gods are many infinites ; This to tiie first philosophers was known.

Who, under various names, ador'd hut one.' ^

Apollonius scratches his ear a Httle, and then answers lihat there are great truths and good moral rules in paganism. The pious logician immediately replies :

' Tyrannic Love, iiL 2. 1.

10 THE CLA88IG AGE. [BOOK lU.

* Then let the whole dispute concluded be Betwixt these rules, and Christianity.''

Being iKmplassed, ApoUcmiiiB is oonverted on the spot, insults the prince, "who, finding 8t Gatfaarine yerj beautiful, becomes suddenlj enamoured, and makes jokes :

' Absent, I may her martyrdom decree, But one look more will make that martyr me."

In tfaiB dilemma he sends Pladdios, ' a great officer,' to St Catharine ; the great officer quotes and praises the gods of £picurus ; forthwith the saint propounds the doctrine of final causes, which upsets that of atoms. Maxiaiin comes himself, and says :

' Since you neglect to answer my desires.

Know, princess, you shall bum in other fires.' *

Thereupon she beards and defies him, calls him a slave, and walks off. Touched by these delicate manners, he wishes to marry her lawfully, and to repudiate his wife. SttU, to omit no expedient, he employs a magician, who utters inrocations (on the stage), summons the infernal spirits, and brings up a troop of Spirits : these dance and sing voluptuous songs about the bed of St. Catharine. Her guardian-angel comes and drives them away. As a last resource, Maximin has a wheel brought on the stage, on which to expose St Catharine and her mother. Whilst the executioners are going to strip the saint, a modest angel descends in the nick of time, and breaks the wheel ; afler which they are carried off, and their throats are cut behind the wings. Add to these pretty inventions a twofold intrigue, the love of Maximin's daughter Valeria for Porphyrins, captain of the Prstorian bands, and that of Porphyrins for Berenice, Maximin^s vrife ; then a sudden catastrophe, three deaths, and the triumph of the good people, who get married and interchange polite phrases. Such is this tragedy, which is called French-like ; and most of the others are like it In Secret Lave, in Marriage a la Jdade^ in Aureng^Zebe^ in the Indian Emperor^ and especially in the Conquest ofGhranada^ everything is extravagant People cut one another to pieces, take towns, stab each other, shout lustily. These dramas have just the truth and naturalness of the libretto of an opera. Incantations abound ; a spirit appears in the Indian Emperor^ and declares that the Indian gods * are driven to exile from their native lands.' Ballets are also there ; Vasquez and Pizarro, seated in 'a pleasant grotto,' watch like conquerors the dances of the Indian girls, who gambol voluptuously about them.