defence of an essay of dramatic poesy

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Literary Criticism of John Dryden

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on November 17, 2017 • ( 4 )

John Dryden (1631–1700) occupies a seminal place in English critical history. Samuel Johnson called him “the father of English criticism,” and affirmed of his Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) that “modern English prose begins here.” Dryden’s critical work was extensive, treating of various genres such as epic, tragedy, comedy and dramatic theory, satire, the relative virtues of ancient and modern writers, as well as the nature of poetry and translation. In addition to the Essay , he wrote numerous prefaces, reviews, and prologues, which together set the stage for later poetic and critical developments embodied in writers such as Pope , Johnson, Matthew Arnold , and T. S. Eliot .

Dryden was also a consummate poet, dramatist, and translator. His poetic output reflects his shifting religious and political allegiances. Born into a middle-class family just prior to the outbreak of the English Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament, he initially supported the latter, whose leaders, headed by Oliver Cromwell, were Puritans. Indeed, his poem Heroic Stanzas (1659) celebrated the achievements of Cromwell who, after the execution of Charles I by the victorious parliamentarians, ruled England as Lord Protector (1653–1658). However, with the restoration of the dead king’s son, Charles II , to the throne in 1660, Dryden switched sides, celebrating the new monarchy in his poem Astrea Redux ( Justice Restored ). Dryden was appointed poet-laureate in 1668 and thereafter produced several major poems, including the mock-heroic  Mac Flecknoe   (1682), and a political satire Absalom and Achitophel (1681). In addition, he produced two poems that mirror his move from Anglicanism to Catholicism: Religio Laici (1682) defends the Anglican Church while The Hind and the Panther , just five years later, opposes Anglicanism. Dryden’s renowned dramas include the comedy Marriage a la Mode (1671) and the tragedies Aureng-Zebe (1675) and All for Love, or the World Well Lost (1677). His translations include Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), which includes renderings of Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer.

Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy is written as a debate on drama conducted by four speakers, Eugenius , Crites , Lisideius , and Neander. These personae have conventionally been identified with four of Dryden’s contemporaries. Eugenius (meaning “well-born”) may be Charles Sackville , who was Lord Buckhurst, a patron of Dryden and a poet himself. Crites (Greek for “judge” or “critic”) perhaps represents Sir Robert Howard, Dryden’s brother-in-law. Lisideius refers to Sir Charles Sedley , and Neander (“new man”) is Dryden himself. The Essay , as Dryden himself was to point out in a later defense of it, was occasioned by a public dispute with Sir Robert Howard (Crites) over the use of rhyme in drama. In a note to the reader prefacing the Essay , he suggests that the chief purpose of his text is “to vindicate the honour of our English writers, from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French” (27). Yet the scope of the  Essay extends far beyond these two topics, effectively ranging over a number of crucial debates concerning the nature and composition of drama.

The first of these debates is that between ancients and moderns, a debate that had intermittently surfaced for centuries in literature and criticism, and which acquired a new and topical intensity in European letters after the Renaissance, in the late seventeenth century. Traditionalists such as Jonathan Swift , in his controversial Battle of the Books (1704), bemoaned the modern “corruption” of religion and learning, and saw in the ancients the archetypal standards of literature. The moderns, inspired by various forms of progress through the Renaissance, sought to adapt or even abandon classical ideals in favor of the requirements of a changed world and a modern audience. Dryden’s Essay is an important intervention in this debate, perhaps marking a distinction between Renaissance and neoclassical values. Like Torquato Tasso and Pierre Corneille , he attempted to strike a compromise between the claims of ancient authority and the exigencies of the modern writer.

In Dryden’s text, this compromise subsumes a number of debates: one of these concerns the classical “unities” of time, place, and action; another focuses on the rigid classical distinction between various genres, such as tragedy and comedy; there was also the issue of classical decorum and propriety, as well as the use of rhyme in drama. All of these elements underlie the nature of drama. In addition, Dryden undertakes an influential assessment of the English dramatic tradition, comparing writers within this tradition itself as well as with their counterparts in French drama.

Dryden’s Essay is skillfully wrought in terms of its own dramatic structure, its setting up of certain expectations (the authority of classical precepts), its climaxing in the reversal of these, and its denouement in the comparative assessment of French and English drama. What starts out, through the voice of Crites, as promising to lull the reader into complacent subordination to classical values ends up by deploying those very values against the ancients themselves and by undermining or redefining those values.

Lisideius offers the following definition of a play: “ A just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind ” (36). Even a casual glance at the definition shows it to be very different from Aristotle’s: the latter had defined tragedy not as the representation of “human nature” but as the imitation of a serious and complete action; moreover, while Aristotle had indeed cited a reversal in fortune as a component of tragedy, he had said nothing about “passions and humours”; and, while he accorded to literature in general a moral and intellectual function, he had said nothing about “delighting” the audience. The definition of drama used in Dryden’s Essay embodies a history of progressive divergence from classical models; indeed, it is a definition already weighted in favor of modern drama, and it is a little surprising that Crites agrees to abide by it at all. Crites, described in Dryden’s text as “a person of sharp judgment, and somewhat too delicate a taste in wit” (29), is, after all, the voice of classical conservatism.

Crites notes that poetry is now held in lower esteem, in an atmosphere of “few good poets, and so many severe judges” (37–38). His essential argument is that the ancients were “faithful imitators and wise observers of that Nature which is so torn and ill represented in our plays; they have handed down to us a perfect resemblance of her; which we, like ill copiers, neglecting to look on, have rendered monstrous, and disfigured.” He reminds his companions that all the rules for drama – concerning the plot, the ornaments, descriptions, and narrations – were formulated by Aristotle, Horace, or their predecessors. As for us modern writers, he remarks, “we have added nothing of our own, except we have the confidence to say our wit is better” (38).

The most fundamental of these classical rules are the three unities, of time, place, and action. Crites claims that the ancients observed these rules in most of their plays (38–39). The unity of action, Crites urges, stipulates that the “poet is to aim at one great and complete action,” to which all other things in the play “are to be subservient.” The reason behind this, he explains, is that if there were two major actions, this would destroy the unity of the play (41). Crites cites a further reason from Corneille: the unity of action “leaves the mind of the audience in a full repose”; but such a unity must be engineered by the subordinate actions which will “hold the audience in a delightful suspense of what will be” (41). Most modern plays, says Crites, fail to endure the test imposed by these unities, and we must therefore acknowledge the superiority of the ancient authors (43).

This, then, is the presentation of classical authority in Dryden’s text. It is Eugenius who first defends the moderns, saying that they have not restricted themselves to “dull imitation” of the ancients; they did not “draw after their lines, but those of Nature; and having the life before us, besides the experience of all they knew, it is no wonder if we hit some airs and features which they have missed” (44). This is an interesting and important argument which seems to have been subsequently overlooked by Alexander Pope , who in other respects followed Dryden’s prescriptions for following the rules of “nature.” In his Essay on Criticism , Pope had urged that to copy nature is to copy the ancient writers. Dryden, through the mouth of his persona Eugenius, completely topples this complacent equation: Eugenius effectively turns against Crites the latter’s own observation that the arts and sciences have made huge advances since the time of Aristotle. Not only do we have the collective experience and wisdom of the ancients to draw upon, but also we have our own experience of the world, a world understood far better in scientific terms than in ages past: “if natural causes be more known now than in the time of Aristotle . . . it follows that poesy and other arts may, with the same pains, arrive still nearer to perfection” (44).

Turning to the unities, Eugenius points out (after Corneille) that by the time of Horace, the division of a play into five acts was firmly established, but this distinction was unknown to the Greeks. Indeed, the Greeks did not even confine themselves to a regular number of acts (44–46). Again, their plots were usually based on “some tale derived from Thebes or Troy,” a plot “worn so threadbare . . . that before it came upon the stage, it was already known to all the audience.” Since the pleasure in novelty was thereby dissolved, asserts Eugenius, “one main end of Dramatic Poesy in its definition, which was to cause delight, was of consequence destroyed” (47). These are strong words, threatening to undermine a long tradition of reverence for the classics. But Eugenius has hardly finished: not only do the ancients fail to fulfill one of the essential obligations of drama, that of delighting; they also fall short in the other requirement, that of instructing. Eugenius berates the narrow characterization by Greek and Roman dramatists, as well as their imperfect linking of scenes. He cites instances of their own violation of the unities. Even more acerbic is his observation, following Corneille, that when the classical authors such as Euripides and Terence do observe the unities, they are forced into absurdities (48–49). As for the unity of place, he points out, this is nowhere to be found in Aristotle or Horace; it was made a precept of the stage in our own age by the French dramatists (48). Moreover, instead of “punishing vice and rewarding virtue,” the ancients “have often shown a prosperous wickedness, and an unhappy piety” (50).

Eugenius also berates the ancients for not dealing sufficiently with love, but rather with “lust, cruelty, revenge, ambition . . . which were more capable of raising horror than compassion in an audience” (54). Hence, in Dryden’s text, not only is Aristotle’s definition of tragedy violently displaced by a formulation that will accommodate modern poets, but also the ancient philosopher’s definition itself is made to appear starkly unrealistic and problematic for ancient dramatists, who persistently violated its essential features.

The next point of debate is the relative quality of French and English writers; it is Lisideius who extols the virtues of the French while Neander (Dryden himself) undertakes to defend his compatriots. Lisideius argues that the current French theatre surpasses all Europe, observing the unities of time, place, and action, and is not strewn with the cumbrous underplots that litter the English stage. Moreover, the French provide variety of emotion without sinking to the absurd genre of tragicomedy, which is a uniquely English invention (56–57). Lisideius also points out that the French are proficient at proportioning the time devoted to dialogue and action on the one hand, and narration on the other. There are certain actions, such as duels, battles, and deathscenes, that “can never be imitated to a just height”; they cannot be represented with decorum or with credibility and thus must be narrated rather than acted out on stage (62–63).

Neander’s response takes us by surprise. He does not at all refute the claims made by Lisideius. He concedes that “the French contrive their plots more regularly, and observe the laws of comedy, and decorum of the stage . . . with more exactness than the English” (67). Neander effectively argues that the very “faults” of the English are actually virtues, virtues that take English drama far beyond the pale of its classical heritage. What Neander or Dryden takes as a valid presupposition is that a play should present a “lively imitation of Nature” (68). The beauties of French drama, he points out, are “the beauties of a statue, but not of a man, because not animated with the soul of Poesy, which is imitation of humour and passions” (68).

Indeed, in justifying the genre of tragicomedy, Neander states that the contrast between mirth and compassion will throw the important scenes into sharper relief (69). He urges that it is “to the honour of our nation, that we have invented, increased, and perfected a more pleasant way of writing for the stage, than was ever known to the ancients or moderns of any nation, which is tragi-comedy” (70). This exaltation of tragicomedy effectively overturns nearly all of the ancient prescriptions concerning purity of genre, decorum, and unity of plot. Neander poignantly repeats Corneille’s observation that anyone with actual experience of the stage will see how constraining the classical rules are (76).

Neander now undertakes a brief assessment of the recent English dramatic tradition. Of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, he says, Shakespeare “had the largest and most comprehensive soul.” He was “naturally learn’d,” not through books but by the reading of nature and all her images: “he looked inwards, and found her there” (79–80). Again, the implication is that, in order to express nature, Shakespeare did not need to look outwards, toward the classics, but rather into his own humanity. Beaumont and Fletcher had both the precedent of Shakespeare’s wit and natural gifts which they improved by study; what they excelled at was expressing “the conversation of gentlemen,” and the representation of the passions, especially of love (80–81). Ben Jonson he regards as the “most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had,” and his peculiar gift was the representation of humors (81–82). Neander defines “humour” as “some extravagant habit, passion, or affection” which defines the individuality of a person (84–85). In an important statement he affirms that “Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Johnson was the Vergil, the pattern of elaborate writing” (82). What Neander – or Dryden – effectively does here is to stake out an independent tradition for English drama, with new archetypes displacing those of the classical tradition.

The final debate concerns the use of rhyme in drama. Crites argues that “rhyme is unnatural in a play” (91). Following Aristotle, Crites insists that the most natural verse form for the stage is blank verse, since ordinary speech follows an iambic pattern (91). Neander’s reply is ambivalent (Dryden himself was later to change his mind on this issue): he does not deny that blank verse may be used; but he asserts that “in serious plays, where the subject and characters are great . . . rhyme is there as natural and more effectual than blank verse” (94). Moreover, in everyday life, people do not speak in blank verse, any more than they do in rhyme. He also observes that rhyme and accent are a modern substitute for the use of quantity as syllabic measure in classical verse (96–97).

Underlying Neander’s argument in favor of rhyme is an observation fundamental to the very nature of drama. He insists that, while all drama represents nature, a distinction should be made between comedy, “which is the imitation of common persons and ordinary speaking,” and tragedy, which “is indeed the representation of Nature, but ’tis Nature wrought up to an higher pitch. The plot, the characters, the wit, the passions, the descriptions, are all exalted above the level of common converse, as high as the imagination of the poet can carry them, with proportion to verisimility” (100–101). And while the use of verse and rhyme helps the poet control an otherwise “lawless imagination,” it is nonetheless a great help to his “luxuriant fancy” (107). This concluding argument, which suggests that the poet use “imagination” to transcend nature, underlines Neander’s (and Dryden’s) departure from classical convention. If Dryden is neoclassical, it is in the sense that he acknowledges the classics as having furnished archetypes for drama; but modern writers are at liberty to create their own archetypes and their own literary traditions. Again, he might be called classical in view of the unquestioned persistence of certain presuppositions that are shared by all four speakers in this text: that the unity of a play, however conceived, is a paramount requirement; that a play present, through its use of plot and characterization, events and actions which are probable and express truth or at least a resemblance to truth; that the laws of “nature” be followed, if not through imitation of the ancients, then through looking inward at our own profoundest constitution; and finally, that every aspect of a play be contrived with the projected response of the audience in mind. But given Dryden’s equal emphasis on the poet’s wit, invention, and imagination, his text might be viewed as expressing a status of transition between neoclassicism and Romanticism.

Dryden’s other essays and prefaces would seem to confirm the foregoing comments, and reveal important insights into his vision of the poet’s craft. In his 1666 preface to Annus Mirabilis , he states that the “composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit . . . is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer” (14). He subsequently offers a more comprehensive definition: “the first happiness of the poet’s imagination is properly invention, or finding of the thought; the second is fancy, or the variation, deriving, or moulding, of that thought, as the judgment represents it proper to the subject; the third is elocution, or the art of clothing or adorning that thought, so found and varied, in apt, significant, and sounding words: the quickness of the imagination is seen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expression” (15). Again, the emphasis here is on wit, imagination, and invention rather than exclusively on the classical precept of imitation.

In fact, Dryden was later to write “Defence of An Essay on Dramatic Poesy ,” defending his earlier text against Sir Robert Howard ’s attack on Dryden’s advocacy of rhyme in drama. Here, Dryden’s defense of rhyme undergoes a shift of emphasis, revealing further his modification of classical prescriptions. He now argues that what most commends rhyme is the delight it produces: “for delight is the chief, if not the only, end of poesy: instruction can be admitted but in the second place, for poesy only instructs as it delights” (113). And Dryden states: “I confess my chief endeavours are to delight the age in which I live” (116). We have come a long way from Aristotle, and even from Sidney, who both regarded poetry as having primarily a moral or ethical purpose. To suggest that poetry’s chief or only aim is to delight is to take a large step toward the later modern notion of literary autonomy. Dryden goes on to suggest that while a poet’s task is to “imitate well,” he must also “affect the soul, and excite the passions” as well as cause “admiration” or wonder. To this end, “bare imitation will not serve.” Imitation must be “heightened with all the arts and ornaments of poesy” (113).

If, in such statements, Dryden appears to anticipate certain Romantic predispositions, these comments are counterbalanced by other positions which are deeply entrenched in a classical heritage. Later in the “Defence” he insists that “they cannot be good poets, who are not accustomed to argue well . . . for moral truth is the mistress of the poet as much as of the philosopher; Poesy must resemble natural truth, but it must be ethical. Indeed, the poet dresses truth, and adorns nature, but does not alter them” (121). Hence, notwithstanding the importance that he attaches to wit and imagination, Dryden still regards poetry as essentially a rational activity, with an ethical and epistemological responsibility. If the poet rises above nature and truth, this is merely by way of ornamentation; it does not displace or remold the truths of nature, but merely heightens them. Dryden states that imagination “is supposed to participate of Reason,” and that when imagination creates fictions, reason allows itself to be temporarily deceived but will never be persuaded “of those things which are most remote from probability . . . Fancy and Reason go hand in hand; the first cannot leave the last behind” (127–128). These formulations differ from subsequent Romantic views of the primacy of imagination over reason. Imagination can indeed outrun reason, but only within the limits of classical probability. Dryden’s entire poetic and critical enterprise might be summed up in his own words: he views all poetry, both ancient and modern, as based on “the imitation of Nature.” Where he differs from the classics is the means with which he undertakes this poetic project (123). Following intimations in Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s Poetics , he suggests in his Parallel of Poetry and Painting  (1695) that what the poet (and painter) should imitate are not individual instances of nature but the archetypal ideas behind natural forms. While adhering to this classical position, he also suggests that, in imitating nature, modern writers should “vary the customs, according to the time and the country where the scene of the action lies; for this is still to imitate Nature, which is always the same, though in a different dress” ( Essays , II, 139). This stance effectively embodies both Dryden’s classicism and the nature of his departure from its strict boundaries.

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An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

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The Theater of War

The setting for Dryden’s dialogue concerning the state of English theater is a telling one, and it functions as an extended metaphor: The conversation—a metaphorical war of wits—takes place amidst a literal battleground as the Dutch take on English naval forces. War was omnipresent in Dryden’s life and work: The long and tragic English Civil War, the artistically stifling Puritan Interregnum, the contentious Restoration of Charles II, and the many disputes over what it means to be an author during such an age reverberate throughout his poetry, plays, and prose . “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy” is no exception, and the companions commence their conversation on the subject because they are certain that the current battle will occasion much mediocre poetry. The actual naval skirmish triggers a discussion that pits the ancients against the moderns, the French against the English, and the role of rhyme against plainer speech.

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Princeton University Library Catalog

An essay of dramatic poesy. a defence of an essay of dramatic poesy. preface to the fables. edited, with an introd. and notes, by john l. mahoney..

• Drama — History and criticism — Theory, etc [Browse]
• Mahoney, John L. [Browse]
• Defence of an essay of dramatic poesy.
• Preface to the fables.

Supplementary Information

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy/Notes

Page 1 . Charles Sackville , Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, author of the well-known song ' To all you ladies now on land ,' and Lord Chamberlain to William III after the Revolution, was always a kind friend and patron to Dryden, and liberally assisted him when the loss of his office as poet-laureat, through his refusal to take the oaths to William, brought the poet to great distress. See the long dedication to Dryden's Essay on Satire (Yonge's edition).

2 . 1. 17. The Tragedy of Pompey the Great , 'translated out of French by certain persons of honour': 4to. 1664. From Dryden's eulogium it appears that the fourth act was translated by Lord Buckhurst; the first was done by Waller . ( Malone .) Sir Charles Sedley , Malone says in another place, had also a hand in this translation, which was from the Pompée of Corneille . The act translated by Waller is published among his works.

3 . 6. See Valerius Maximus , 1. iv. c. 5. ( Malone .)

8. Hor . Epod. xvi. 37.

13. To allow , in the last age, signified to approve. ( Malone .)

3 . 27. I have not, any more than former editors, succeeded in discovering from what French poet these lines are taken.

4 . 13. These lines are found in a poem by Sir William Davenant , printed in 4to. in 1663, and republished in his works, fol. 1673, p. 268. ( Malone .)

28. In the Dedication to The Rival Ladies [1664] ( Malone .); where Dryden argues very ably for the superiority of rhyme over blank verse.

5 . 18. See Cicero's Letters to Atticus , xii. 40, and Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar , chap. 54.

7 . 5. Dryden often uses adjectives as adverbs. In this ​ particular instance he had Shakspere's example before him. See Henry VIII , iv. 2. 52:—

'Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading.'

8 . 15. The engagement between the English and Dutch fleets took place [off Southwold] in Suffolk. In this memorable battle 18 large Dutch ships were taken, and 14 others were destroyed; Opdam, the Dutch admiral, who engaged the Duke of York, was blown up beside him, and he and all his crew perished. ( Malone .)

11 . 5. This is probably a reference to the Act of 1664, commonly called the Conventicle Act , 'to prevent and suppress seditious and unlawful conventicles.'

16. Cic . pro Archia , c. 10.

21. Perhaps the writer first alluded to was Dr. Robert Wild , author of Iter Boreale , a panegyric on General Monk, published in April 1660, and often reprinted; which may be the 'famous poem' alluded to in p.13. His works were collected and published in a small volume in 1668. The other poet may have been Richard Flecknoe . Both these poets celebrated the Dutch defeat. ( Malone .)

13 . 2. Martial . Epigr. viii. 19.

13 . 23. George Wither, probably because he was a Puritan and one of Cromwell's major-generals, was the mark for much malicious satire on the part of Tory and Royalist poets. They give him no credit for the lovely lyrical pieces which are for ever associated with his name. Butler ( Hudibras, Part I, canto 1 ), addressing the Puritanic muse, says:—

  ' Thou that with ale, or viler liquors, Didst inspire Withers, Prynne, and Vickars.'

Dryden speaks contemptuously of him in the passage before us, and Pope in the Dunciad (i. 296) numbers 'wretched Withers' among 'the dull of ancient days.'

30. 'Auction by inch of Candle, is when, a piece of candle being lighted, people are allowed to bid while it burns, but as soon as extinct, the commodity is adjudged to the last bidder.' (Chambers' Dictionary.) At land sales in France this practice is still in force.

​ 14 . 17. T. Petronius , Satyricon , cap. ii.

15. 6. Hor. Epist. ii. I. 76.

9. Ib . 34.

16. 21. Malone rejects 'Eugenius his opinion' as 'ungrammatical phraseology,' but says, supporting himself on the authority of Bishop Lloyd , that Dryden ought to have written 'Eugeniusis opinion'!

17. 26. It is not perfect, because it does not include a differentia , and is therefore too wide; it is applicable to epic and heroic poems, and to romances, equally with plays.

18. 11. See Veil. Paterc. i. 16. 17. v ( Malone .)

19. 14. Historia Romana , i. 17.

20. 22. Aristotle's treatise on Poetry 'is a fragment, and while promising to treat of tragedy, comedy, and epic poetry, it treats only of tragedy, adding a few brief remarks on epic poetry, and omitting comedy altogether.' (Encyc. Brit. 9th ed., art. ' Aristotle .')

23 . 18. Ben Jonson's Discoveries , p. 765 of Routledge's edition of his Works.

27. 9. Historia Romana , ii. 92.

28. 23. Horace's line is: —

'Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior actu.'

( Malone .) Ars Poet. 189. Horace lays it down as a rule applicable to all plays, not comedies only.

29. The term 'Jornada' was introduced into Spain by the dramatist Naharro early in the sixteenth century. It is equivalent to day's work, or day's journey. 'The old French mysteries were divided into journées or portions, each of which could conveniently be represented in the time given by the Church to such entertainments on a single day. One of the mysteries in this way required forty days for its exhibition.' ( Ticknor , Spanish Literature , i. 270 note.)

29. 7. τὁ μῡθος. This is a singular slip; it should of course be ὁ μῡθος.

28. 'Good cheap' is a literal translation of bon marché .

31. 24. The Supplices .

34. 14. The satyric drama of the Cyclops , by Euripides , a ​ kind of farce, is the only specimen remaining to us of a form of theatrical entertainment which all the Greek tragedians had recourse to, in order to relieve the mental tension consequent on witnessing the performance of a long tragedy. It must be remembered, however, that with them a tragedy was merely a drama written in an intense and serious style; it was not necessary that it should have a disastrous ending. Thus the Alcestis , the Ion , and the two Iphigenias of Euripides , and the Electra and Œdipus Coloneus of Sophocles , since none of these plays end unhappily, do not fall under the definition of a tragedy as now understood.

35 . 6. Ter. Eunuchus , Act. ii. Sc. I. 17, 18.

16. Our author has quoted from memory. The lines are, At nostri proavi , etc., and afterwards, Ne dicam stulte mirati . ( Malone. ) Hor. A. P. 270.

23. Hor. A. P. 70.

28. Catachresis is the improper or abusive employment of a word.

29. Virg. Ecl . iv. 20.

36 . 4. Virg. Æn . viii. 91.

31. From The Rebel Scot , by Cleveland .

37 . 1. Juv. Sat. x. 123.

22. Many Medeas were produced by the ancients; Delrio tells us that it was treated as a subject for comedy by the Greek authors, Eubuius , Stratis, and Cantharus, and for tragedy by (besides Euripides ) Herillus , Diogenes , Philiscus , and Demologus; it was also dramatized by the Latin writers Ennius , Attius , Pacuvius , Varro , and Ovid . (See Schroder's Seneca ; Delft, 1728.)

25. Ovid , Tristia ii. 381.

30. Our author (as Dr. Johnson has observed) might have determined this question upon surer evidence, for it ​ [ Medea ] is quoted by Quintilian as Seneca's , and the only line which remains of Ovid's play, for one line is left us, is not found there. ( Malone .) Ovid's line, cited by Quintilian in his eighth book, as stronger and more impressive than the adage Nocere facile est, prodesse difficile ; is— Servare potui. Perdere an possim rogas?

38. 20. Juv . Sat. vi. 195.

39. 17. Virg. Æn. i. 378; parts of two lines.

28. Hor. Sat. x. 68.

41. 10. Pierre Corneille was born at Rouen in 1606, and produced his first play, Mélite , a comedy, in 1625.

42. 28. The Red Bull, in St. John's Street, was one of the meanest of our ancient theatres, and was famous for entertainments adapted to the taste of the lower orders of the people. ( Malone .) In Strype's edition of Stow's London there is a plan of the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, on which is marked 'Red Bull Yard,' between St. John's Street and Clerkenwell Green. This must have been the site of the theatre. The ground formerly belonged to the priory of St. John at Jerusalem; and it is not unlikely that, as Shakspeare and his company turned the ruinous buildings of the Blackfriars, near St. Paul's, to account for a theatre, the patrons of the Red Bull made a similar use of the monastic ruins at Clerkenwell. In his Annals of the Stage (iii. 324) Mr. Collier collects a number of notices, more or less interesting, of the Red Bull Theatre. Wither , in his satires, Randolph in his Muses' Looking Glass , and Prynne in the Histriomastix , all make mention of it. It was pulled down not long after the Restoration, and Drury Lane was regarded as having taken its place.

29. Hor. Epist. ii. 1. 185. Horace wrote:—

'Si discordet eques, media inter carmina poscunt Aut ursum aut pugiles.'

43 . 13. Ars Poet. 240.

22. Ib . 151.

28. Dryden here used 'success' in the sense of the Spanish suceso , which means 'event,' or 'issue.'

44 . 3. The writers from whom we learn the story of Cyrus ​ are Herodotus , Ctesias , and Xenophon . Of these Herodotus, as living nearest to the time, is the most trustworthy. The Cyropaedia of Xenophon is a historical romance, nor does the writer himself pretend that it is anything more. Herodotus makes Cyrus , when advanced in years, invade the country of the Massagetae, whose queen was Tomyris, and lose his life in battle. ( Smith's Class. Biogr. Dictionary. )

21. Hor. de Arte Poet. 188.

25. Hesiod , Theog. 27.

45. 15. The Bloody Brother , also called The Tragedy of Rollo Duke of Normandy , by John Fletcher , was first printed in 1639. The plot is taken from the fourth book of Herodian ; it is Roman imperial history transferred to new times, places, and persons; Caracalla and Geta become Rollo and Otto. Whatever merit the piece may have in respect of uniformity, the versification and style are both of a low and rude type.

26. Oleo , or oglio , is a corruption of olla in olla podrida , a Spanish dish consisting of a stew of several kinds of meat and vegetables. Oleo , therefore, means a mess or mixture.

50. 13. Hor. A. P. 180-187. Horace writes ' Ne pueros': a line is omitted after 'trucidet.'

25. The reference is to Act iii, Sc. i. 2, of Jonson's comedy of The Magnetic Lady .

51. 9. The title of this play, the joint work of Beaumont and Fletcher , and first acted in 1611, was A King and no King . In the last act Gobryas, a noble, reveals to Arbaces, king of Illyria, that he is really his son, and not the son of Arane, the queen mother; Arbaces, thus become a subject and 'no King,' marries Panthea, the true heir to the throne, and all ends happily.

52. 2. The Scornful Lady , a joint play, was produced some time between 1609 and 1615. 'The sudden conversion of the usurer Morecraft is imitated from the Adelphi of ​ Terence , where the same change takes place in the character of Demea.' ( Dyce .)

53. 19. Velleius Paterculus , i. 17. ( Malone .)

54. 17. The Menteur of Corneille (see Geruzez , Lit. Française , ii. 90) was founded on one of the chefs d'œuvre of the Spanish stage, the Truth itself Suspected of Ruiz de Alarcon . It appeared in 1642.

23. It seems impossible to compare such plays as the Menteur and the Fox of Jonson . The latter is real life, though in a coarse form; the other, with its polished rhymes and regular movement, is a fine work of art, but has little to do with life. Each has its merits, but they are referable to no common standard.

55. 5. Cardinal Richelieu died in 1642. ( Malone .)

9. The Cornelia and Double Marriage of Beaumont and Fletcher , which are founded on two of Cervantes ' novels, are cases in point.

11. The Adventures of Five Hours , written by Sir Samuel Tuke , and printed in 1663. Diego is a character in it. ( Malone .)

56. 1. 6. 'Contraries are the two most opposite qualities of the same class of subjects, e.g. black and white, as colours of bodies; virtue and vice, as habits of the soul.' ( Mansel's Artis Logicae Rudimenta , 19.)

57. 4. The doctrine of the primum mobile belongs to the Ptolemaic astronomy, which made the sun and stars revolve round the earth.

58. 12. Cinna, or the Clemency of Augustus , produced in 1639, is generally allowed to be Corneille's finest tragedy. On the Pompey , see the note on p. 129. The Polyeuctus , a story of Christian martyrdom referring to the persecution of the Emperor Decius, appeared in 1640. The author's 'Examen' on this play is of great interest.

60. 10. The Maid's Tragedy is by Beaumont and Fletcher ; the other plays here mentioned, by Ben Jonson .

61. 16. The Andromède , from the gorgeousness of its mythological mise-en-scène , bore some resemblance to the masque, while from the use of recitative and the introduction of many ​ songs it approached the modern opera. Among the 'dramatis personae' there were only ten human beings against twelve gods and goddesses. The opening scene showed a huge mountain, pierced by a grotto, through which appeared the sea; Melpomene entered on one side, and the Sun on the other, in a 'char tout lumineux,' drawn by four horses.

62. 9. There is no passage in Ben Jonson's works in which he directly censures Shakspere for the non-observance of the unities of Time and Place. Dryden can only refer to the Prologue to Every Man in his Humour . This prologue first appeared in 1616, and its intended application to Shakspere may well have been traditionally known in the theatrical world fifty years later. In it Jonson, among the 'ill customs of the age ' which he will not imitate, enumerates—

' To make a child now swaddled to proceed Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed, Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords, And help of some few foot and half-foot words, Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars, And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars. He rather prays you will be pleased to see One such to-day, as other plays should be; Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas, Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please,' etc.

Other dramatists may have been included in the censure; but it seems clear that Shakspere was principally intended, the three parts of whose Henry VI extend over the events of nearly fifty years, including the whole of 'York and Lancaster's long jars,' whose Perdita is born and grows up to be a woman between the first and fifth acts, and who makes the Chorus in Winter's Tale say—the play having begun in Sicily —

'imagine me, Gentle spectators, that I now may be In fair Bohemia.'

64. 19. A servant in Sir Samuel Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours , who is described by the author as 'a great coward, and a pleasant droll.' Philipin is, I suppose, a character in the French play alluded to. ( Malone .)

​ 65. 23. This subject had been imperfectly examined at the time when Dryden wrote, and his statement is not quite accurate. It is true that most of the old comedies before Shakspere , such as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle , were written in rude twelve-syllable lines, to class which with the elegant French Alexandrines of the period is to pay them much too high a compliment. But there were exceptions; the Misogonus of Richards (about 1560) is in fourteen-syllable alternate rhymes; the Supposes of Gascoigne (1566) is in prose; the Promos and Cassandra of Whetstone (1578) is in the heroic couplet; and the Taming of a Shrew (1594) is in blank verse. See Collier , Annals of the Stage , vol. iii.

30. The unfinished pastoral drama of The Sad Shepherd , or A Tale of Robin Hood , must have been written not long before Jonson's death in 1637; the prologue opens with the line—

'He that hath feasted you these forty years .'

66. 3. The pastoral drama of The Faithful Shepherdess , by Fletcher , was brought out about 1610.

18. Dryden truly says that The Merry Wives of Windsor is 'almost exactly formed'; that is, that the unities of time and place are nearly observed. The time of the action is comprised within two days; the place is, either some house in Windsor, or a street in Windsor, or a field near the town, or Windsor Park.

67. 11. It is curious to observe with what caution our author speaks, when he ventures to place Shakspere above Jonson ; a caution which proves decisively the wretched taste of the period when he wrote. ( Malone .)

31. Virg. Ecl. i. 26.

68. 23. Chiefly on account of the woman-page Bellario, in whose mouth are put a profusion of pretty and graceful things which might often deserve to have been said by Shakspere's Viola. Lamb says ( Eng. Dramatic Poets, p. 308), 'For many years after the date of Philasler's first exhibition on the stage [1608], scarce a play can be found without one of ​ these women pages in it, following in the train of some pre-engaged lover.'

69. 10. Mr. Dyce , in his excellent edition of Beaumont and Fletcher (1844), enumerates the following plays as certainly, or almost certainly, the joint work of the two: —

Philaster . The Maid's Tragedy . The Knight of the Burning Pestle . King and no King . Cupid's Revenge . The Coxcomb . Four Plays in One . The Scornful Lady . The Honest Man's Fortune . The Little French Lawyer . Wit at several Weapons . The Laws of Candy .

Three others— Wit without Money , The Custom of the Country , and Bonduca —he is disposed to add to the above list, but with less confidence. The other plays, in number about thirty-nine, published under their joint names, he would assign either to Fletcher alone, or to Fletcher assisted by some other dramatist, not Beaumont.

71. 9. The Discoveries , not published till after Jonson's death, are like the contents of a commonplace book, and of very unequal merit; here occurs the well-known criticism on Shakspere as having 'never blotted out a line.' The praise which Dryden gives to the book is excessive. To go no further, the 'Examens' annexed by Corneille to his dramas are incomparably more valuable than anything in the Discoveries

13. Epicæne, or the Silent Woman , appeared in 1609.

73. 14. τὁ γελοῑν (to geloion), the laughable or ridiculous element.

26. ἧθος , disposition; πάθος , passion (ethos, pathos).

75. 25. Hor. Epist. ii. 1. 168.

76. 19. The prose comedy of Bartholomew Fair was produced in 1614.

77. 17. Of the piece on which our author has given so high ​ an encomium, Drummond of Hawthornden , Jonson's contemporary and friend, has left the following anecdote: 'When his play of The Silent Woman was first acted, there were found verses after on the stage against him, concluding that the play was well named The Silent Woman, because there was never one man to say plaudite to it.' ( Malone .)

78. 18. Hor. de Arte Poet. 90.

25. Vell. Paterc. ii. 36.

80. 13. Macrob. Saturnalia , ii. 13. The 'other poet' was Publius Syrus .

81. 1. Aristotle's Poetics , iv. 18.

24. Virg . Ecl. vii. 4.

83. 9. M. Seneca , Controv. ix.,5, quoting from Ovid , Met. xiii. 503-5.

11. Ovid , Met. i. 292. This line is quoted by Lucius , not by Marcus Seneca .

29. The Indian Queen and The Indian Emperor were the only plays, altogether in rhyme, which Dryden had produced before this was written. The Rival Ladies is partly prose, partly rhyme.

84. 3. Sir Robert Howard ( Malone .); in the preface to his plays, published in 1665.

85. 29. 'prevail himself,' se prévaloir , a Gallicism.

87. 10. 'Vide Daniel, his Defence of Rhyme.' (Dryden's note.) This short tract was written by Daniel in 1603, in reply to Campion's Observations in the Art of English Poesie .

88. 4. The Siege of Rhodes (1656) was one of the plays produced by Sir William Davenant under the Protectorate; 'a kind of nondescript entertainments , as they were called, which were dramatic in everything but the names and form; and some of them were called operas.' ( Hazlitt .)

90. 3. Virg. Georg. iii. 9; for possum should be read possim .

19. Geo. Sandys , son of an archbishop of York, published a metrical version of the Psalms in 1636.

90. 24. Our author here again has quoted from memory. Horace's line is [Epist. ii. 1. 63]:—

'Interdum vulgus rectum videt; est ubi peccat.'

( Malone .)

​ 30. Mustapha was a popular tragedy of the day, by Roger Boyle , Earl of Orrery. There was an earlier play of the same name by Fulke Greville , afterwards Lord Brooke.

91. 27. Hor. A. P. 90; and below, ib . 231.

95. 11. This simple avowal of the true poetic workman, that his work does not appear to him perfect till he has clothed it in rhyme, is highly instructive; it is a chapter in the ' Natural History of Poetry.'

96. 2. The Water-poet, John Taylor , was so called from his having been long a waterman on the Thames. He seems to have been a rhymester of the same order as 'Poet Close,' a character well known to all who visit Windermere. Wood gives an account of him in the Athenae , and Hazlitt devotes rather a lengthy article to him in his edition of Johnson's Lives. Taylor enjoyed a great popularity. 'If it were put to the question,' says Ben Jonson ( Discoveries , Routledge, p. 746), 'of the water-rhymer's works against Spenser's, I doubt not but they would find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out of a prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments, and like that which is naught.'

7. Cicero in his Brutus (cap. 73) quotes this as a maxim laid down by Caesar in his work 'on the method of speaking in Latin,' to which the name 'De Analogia' was given.

13. Seneca's tragedy of Hippolytus , 1. 863.

97. 28. Sir Robert Howard , in the Preface to his Plays, before referred to.

99. 22. 'Somerset House,' says Stow in his History of London (ed. Strype, 1720), 'hath been used as the Palace or Court of the Queen Dowagers; it belong'd of late to Katharine Queen Dowager, the wife of King Charles the Second. At the entrance into this Court out of the Strand is a spacious square court garnished on all sides with rows of freestone buildings, and at the Front is a Piazza , with stone Pillars which support the buildings, and a pavement of freestone.' He goes on to say that there were steps down to the river, and a 'most pleasant garden which runs to the water side.' This way from the river bank up into Somerset House has long been closed.

​ 105 . 28. Hor . A. P . 362.

30. Ib . 50.

106 . 10. 'lazar' sometimes = 'lazar-house'; and the reference seems to be to Bartholomew's Hospital, which is the scene of the play of Bartholomew Fair .

111 . 9. Lucan , Phars . i. 12.

114 . 3. Hor . de Art. Poet . 338.

115 . 5. Il . viii. 267.

118 . 4. See above, pp. 6 and 8.

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