T PREFACE TO FABLES, BY JOHN DRYDEN. (1700) IS with a poet, as with a man who designs to build, and is very exact, as he supposes, in casting up the cost beforehand; but, generally speaking, he is mistaken in his account, and reckons short of the expense he first intended. He alters his mind as the work proceeds, and will have this or that convenience more, of which he had not thought when he began. So has it happen'd to me; I have built a house, where I intended but a lodge; yet with better success than a certain nobleman,' who, beginning with a dog kennel, never liv'd to finish the palace he had contriv'd. From translating the first of Homer's Iliads (which I intended as an essay to the whole work) I proceeded to the translation of the twelfth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, because it contains, among other things, the causes, the beginning, and ending, of the Trojan war. Here I ought in reason to have stopp'd; but the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses lying next in my way, I could not balk 'em. When I had compass'd them, I was so taken with the former part of the fifteenth book, (which is the masterpiece of the whole Metamorphoses,) that I enjoin'd myself the pleasing task of rend'ring it into English. And now I found, by the number of my verses, that they began to swell into a little volume; which gave me an occasion of looking backward on some beauties of my author, in his former books. There occurr'd to me the Hunting of the Boar, Cinyras and John Dryden (1631-1700), the great dramatic and satirical poet of the later seventeenth century, whose translation of Virgil's "Eneid" appears in another volume of the Harvard Classics, deserves hardly less distinction as a prose writer than as a poet. The present essay, prefixed to a volume of narrative poems, is largely concerned with Chaucer; and in its genial and penetrating criticism, expressed with characteristic clearness and vigor, can be seen the ground for naming Dryden the first of English literary critics, and the founder of modern prose style. 1 Scott suggests that the allusion is to the Duke of Buckingham, who was often satirized for the slow progress of his great mansion at Cliefden. Myrrha, the good-natur'd story of Baucis and Philemon, with the rest, which I hope I have translated closely enough, and given them the same turn of verse which they had in the original; and this, I may say without vanity, is not the talent of every poet. He who has arriv'd the nearest to it, is the ingenious and learned Sandys, the best versifier of the former age; if I may properly call it by that name, which was the former part of this concluding century. For Spenser and Fairfax both flourish'd in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; great masters in our language, and who saw much farther into the beauties of our numbers than those who immediately follow'd them. Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, and Mr. Waller of Fairfax, for we have our lineal descents and clans as well as other families. Spenser more than once insinuates that the soul of Chaucer was transfus'd into his body, and that he was begotten by him two hundred years after his decease. Milton has acknowledg'd to me that Spenser was his original, and many besides myself have heard our famous Waller own that he deriv'd the harmony of his numbers from the Godfrey of Bulloign, which was turn'd into English by Mr. Fairfax. But to return. Having done with Ovid for this time, it came into my mind that our old English poet, Chaucer, in many things resembled him, and that with no disadvantage on the side of the modern author, as I shall endeavor to prove when I compare them; and as I am, and always have been, studious to promote the honor of my native country, so I soon resolv'd to put their merits to the trial, by turning some of the Canterbury Tales into our language, as it is now refin'd; for by this means, both the poets being set in the same light, and dress'd in the same English habit, story to be compar'd with story, a certain judgment may be made betwixt them by the reader, without obtruding my opinion on him. Or, if I seem partial to my countryman and predecessor in the laurel, the friends of antiquity are not few; and besides many of the learn'd, Ovid has almost all the beaux, and the whole fair sex, his declar'd patrons. Perhaps I have assum'd somewhat more to myself than they allow me, because I have adventur'd to sum up the evidence; but the readers are the jury, and their privilege remains entire, to decide, according to the merits of the cause, or if they please, to bring it to another hearing before some other court. In the mean time, to follow the thrid of my discourse, (as thoughts, according to Mr. Hobbes, have always some connection,) so from Chaucer I was led to think on Boccace, who was not only his contemporary, but also pursued the same studies; wrote novels in prose, and many works in verse; particularly is said to have invented the octave rhyme, or stanza of eight lines, which ever since has been maintain'd by the practice of all Italian writers, who are, or at least assume the title of, heroic poets. He and Chaucer, among other things, had this in common, that they refin'd their mother tongues; but with this difference, that Dante had begun to file their language, at least in verse, before the time of Boccace, who likewise receiv'd no little help from his master Petrarch. But the reformation of their prose was wholly owing to Boccace himself, who is yet the standard of purity in the Italian tongue; tho' many of his phrases are become obsolete, as in process of time it must needs happen. Chaucer (as you have formerly been told by our learn'd Mr. Rymer) first adorn'd and amplified our barren tongue from the Provençal, which was then the most polish'd of all the modern languages; but this subject has been copiously treated by that great critic, who deserves no little commendation from us his countrymen. For these reasons of time, and resemblance of genius in Chaucer and Boccace, I resolv'd to join them in my present work; to which I have added some original papers of my own; which, whether they are equal or inferior to my other poems, an author is the most improper judge, and therefore I leave them wholly to the mercy of the reader. I will hope the best, that they will not be condemn'd; but if they should, I have the excuse of an old gentleman, who mounting on horseback before some ladies, when I was present, got up somewhat heavily, but desir'd of the fair spectators that they would count fourscore and eight before they judg'd him. By the mercy of God, I am already come within twenty years of his number, a cripple in my limbs; but what decays are in my mind, the reader must determine. I think myself as vigorous as ever in the faculties of my soul, excepting only my memory, which is not impair'd to any great degree; and if I lose not more of it, I have no great reason to complain. What judgment I had, increases 2 Boccaccio did not invent this stanza, which had been used in both French and Italian before his day, but he did constitute it the Italian form for heroic verse. 3 Rymer misled Dryden. There is no trace of Provençal influence on Chaucer. rather than diminishes; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to choose or to reject; to run them into verse, or to give them the other harmony of prose. I have so long studied and practic'd both, that they are grown into a habit, and become familiar to me. In short, tho' I may lawfully plead some part of the old gentleman's excuse, yet I will reserve it till I think I have greater need, and ask no grains of allowance for the faults of this my present work, but those which are given of course to human frailty. I will not trouble my reader with the shortness of time in which I writ it, or the several intervals of sickness. They who think too well of their own performances are apt to boast in their prefaces how little time their works have cost them, and what other business of more importance interfer'd; but the reader will be as apt to ask the question, why they allow'd not a longer time to make their works more perfect, and why they had so despicable an opinion of their judges as to thrust their indigested stuff upon them, as if they deserv'd no better. With this account of my present undertaking, I conclude the first part of this discourse; in the second part, as at a second sitting, tho' I alter not the draught, I must touch the same features over again, and change the dead coloring of the whole. In general, I will only say that I have written nothing which savors of immorality or profaneness; at least, I am not conscious to myself of any such intention. If there happen to be found an irreverent expression, or a thought too wanton, they are crept into my verses thro' my inadvertency; if the searchers find any in the cargo, let them be stav'd or forfeited, like counterbanded goods; at least, let their authors be answerable for them, as being but imported merchandise, and not of my own manufacture. On the other side, I have endeavor'd to choose such fables, both ancient and modern, as contain in each of them some instructive moral; which I could prove by induction, but the way is tedious, and they leap foremost into sight, without the reader's trouble of looking after them. I wish I could affirm, with a safe conscience, that I had taken the same care in all my former writings; for it must be own'd, that supposing verses are never so beautiful or pleasing, yet if they contain anything which shocks religion, or The foundation layer of color in a painting. good manners, they are at best what Horace says of good numbers without good sense, Versus inopes rerum, nugæque canora. Thus far, I hope, I am right in court, without renouncing to my other right of self-defense, where I have been wrongfully accus'd, and my sense wiredrawn into blasphemy or bawdry, as it has often been by a religious lawyer, in a late pleading against the stage; in which he mixes truth with falsehood, and has not forgotten the old rule of calumniating strongly, that something may remain. I resume the thrid of my discourse with the first of my translations, which was the First Iliad of Homer. If it shall please God to give me longer life, and moderate health, my intentions are to translate the whole Ilias; provided still that I meet with those encouragements from the public which may enable me to proceed in my undertaking with some cheerfulness. And this I dare assure the world beforehand, that I have found by trial Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil, (tho' I say not the translation will be less laborious). For the Grecian is more according to my genius than the Latin poet. In the works of the two authors we may read their manners and natural inclinations, which are wholly different. Virgil was of a quiet, sedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words; Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties, both of numbers and of expressions, which his language, and the age in which he liv'd, allow'd him. Homer's invention was more copious, Virgil's more confin'd; so that if Homer had not led the way, it was not in Virgil to have begun heroic poetry; for nothing can be more evident than that the Roman poem is but the second part of the Ilias; a continuation of the same story, and the persons already form'd; the manners of Æneas are those of Hector superadded to those which Homer gave him. The adventures of Ulysses in the Odysseis are imitated in the first six books of Virgil's Æneis; and tho' the accidents are not the same, (which would have argued him of a servile, copying, and total barrenness of invention,) yet the seas were the same, in which both the heroes wander'd; and Dido cannot be denied to be the poetical daughter of Calypso. The six latter books of Vir5 "Verses without content, melodious trifles."-Ars Poet. 322. 6 Jeremy Collier, in his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the Stage, 1698. |