our knowledge or inventions, would deserve it, yet our languages would not there is no hope of their lasting long, nor of anything in them; they change every hundred years so as to be hardly known for the same, or anything of the former styles to be endured by the latter; so as they can no more last like the ancients, than excellent carvings in wood like those in marble or brass. The three modern tongues most esteemed are Italian, Spanish, and French, all imperfect dialects of the noble Roman; first mingled and corrupted with the harsh words and terminations of those many different and barbarous nations, by whose invasions and excursions the Roman empire was long infested: they were afterwards made up into these several languages, by long and popular use, out of those ruins and corruptions of Latin, and the prevailing languages of those nations to which these several provinces came in time to be most and longest subjected (as the Goths and Moors in Spain, the Goths and Lombards in Italy, the Franks in Gaul), besides a mingle of those tongues which were original to Gaul and to Spain before the Roman conquests and establishments there. Of these, there may be some remainders in Biscay or the Asturias: but I doubt whether there be any of the old Gallic in France, the subjection there having been more universal, both to the Romans and Franks. But I do not find the mountainous parts on the North of Spain were ever wholly subdued, or formerly governed, either by the Romans, Goths, or Saracens, no more than Wales by Romans, Saxons, or Normans, after their conquests in our island, which has preserved the ancient Biscayan and British more entire than any native tongue of other provinces, where the Roman and Gothic or Northern conquests reached, and were for any time established. It is easy to imagine how imperfect copies these modern languages, thus composed, must needs be of so excellent an original, being patched up out of the conceptions, as well as sounds, of such barbarous or enslaved people; whereas the Latin was framed or cultivated by the thoughts and uses of the noblest nation that appears upon any record of story, and enriched only by the spoils of Greece, which alone could pretend to contest it with them. It is obvious enough what rapport there is, and must ever be, between the thoughts and words, the conceptions and languages of every country, and how great a difference this must make in the comparison and excellence of books; and how easy and just a preference it must decree to those of the Greek and Latin before any of the modern languages. It may perhaps be further affirmed, in favour of the ancients, that the oldest books we have are still in their kind the best. The two most ancient that I know of in prose, among those we call profane authors, are Æsop's Fables and Phalaris's Epistles, both living near the same time, which was that of Cyrus and Pythagoras. As the first has been agreed by all ages since for the greatest master in his kind, and all others of that sort have been but imitations of his original; so I think the Epistles of Phalaris to have more grace, more spirit, more force of wit and genius, than any others I have ever seen, either ancient or modern. I know several learned men (or that usually pass for such under the name of critics) have not esteemed them genuine; and Politian, with some others, have attributed them to Lucian: but I think he must have little skill in painting, that cannot find out this to be an original; such diversity of passions, upon such variety of actions and passages of life and government, such freedom of thought, such boldness of expression, such bounty to his friends, such scorn of his enemies, such honour of learned men, such esteem of good, such knowledge of life, such contempt of death, with such fierceness of nature and cruelty of revenge, could never be represented but by him that possessed them; and I esteem Lucian to have been no more capable of writing, than of acting what Phalaris did. In all one writ, you find the scholar or the sophist; and in all the other, the tyrant and the commander." 6 This paragraph is all that Temple says about the "Epistles of Phalaris," as to the genuineness of which the celebrated Bentley and Boyle controversy arose soon afterwards. XIII. JOHN DRYDEN. (1631-1700.) 1. AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY. 1 [Written about 1665, revised 1684.] LISIDEIUS concluded in this manner; and Neander,2 after a little pause, thus answered him : I shall grant Lisideius, without much dispute, a great part of what he has urged against us; for I acknowledge that the French contrive their plots more regularly, and observe the laws of comedy, and decorum of the stage (to speak generally), with more exactness than the English. Farther, I deny not but he has taxed us justly in some irregularities of ours which he has mentioned; yet, after all, I am of opinion, that neither our faults, nor their virtues, are considerable enough to place them above us. For the lively imitation of nature being in the definition of a play, those which best fulfil that law ought to be esteemed superior to the others. 'Tis true, those beauties of the French poesy are such as will raise perfection higher where it is, but are not sufficient to give it where it is not; they are indeed 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: and this Lisideius himself, or any other, however biassed to their party, cannot but acknowledge, if he will either compare the humour of our comedies, or the characters of our serious plays, with theirs. He 1 Sir Charles Sedley, who had exalted the French drama above the English. 2 Dryden. own reason is the certain measure of truth, his own knowledge, of what is possible in nature; though his mind and his thoughts change every seven years, as well as his strength and his features; nay, though his opinions change every week or every day, yet he is sure, or at least confident, that his present thoughts and conclusions are just and true, and cannot be deceived; and, among all the miseries to which mankind is born and subjected in the whole course of his life, he has this one felicity to comfort and support him, that, in all ages, in all things, every man is always in the right. A boy at fifteen is wiser than his father at forty, the meanest subject than his Prince or Governors; and the modern scholars, because they have, for a hundred years past, learned their lesson pretty well, are much more knowing than the ancients their masters. But let it be so, and proved by good reasons, is it so by experience too? Have the studies, the writings, the productions of Gresham college, or the late academies of Paris, outshined or eclipsed the Lyceum of Plato, the academy of Aristotle, the Stoa of Zeno, the garden of Epicurus? Has Harvey outdone Hippocrates; or Wilkins, Archimedes? Are D'Avila's and Strada's histories beyond those of Herodotus and Livy? Are Sleyden's commentaries beyond those of Cæsar? the flights of Boileau above those of Virgil? If all this must be allowed, I will then yield Gondibert to have excelled Homer, as is pretended; and the modern French poetry, all that of the ancients. And yet, I think it may be as reasonably said that the plays in Moorfields are beyond the Olympic games; a Welsh or Irish harp excels those of Orpheus and Arion; the pryamid in London, those of Memphis ; and the French conquests in Flanders are greater than those of Alexander and Cæsar, as their operas and panegyrics would make us believe. But the consideration of poetry ought to be a subject by itself. For the books we have in prose, do any of the modern we converse with appear of such a spirit and force, as if they would live longer than the ancient have done? If our wit and eloquence, our knowledge or inventions, would deserve it, yet our languages would not there is no hope of their lasting long, nor of anything in them; they change every hundred years so as to be hardly known for the same, or anything of the former styles to be endured by the latter; so as they can no more last like the ancients, than excellent carvings in wood like those in marble or brass. The three modern tongues most esteemed are Italian, Spanish, and French, all imperfect dialects of the noble Roman; first mingled and corrupted with the harsh words and terminations of those many different and barbarous nations, by whose invasions and excursions the Roman empire was long infested: they were afterwards made up into these several languages, by long and popular use, out of those ruins and corruptions of Latin, and the prevailing languages of those nations to which these several provinces came in time to be most and longest subjected (as the Goths and Moors in Spain, the Goths and Lombards in Italy, the Franks in Gaul), besides a mingle of those tongues which were original to Gaul and to Spain before the Roman conquests and establishments there. Of these, there may be some remainders in Biscay or the Asturias: but I doubt whether there be any of the old Gallic in France, the subjection there having been more universal, both to the Romans and Franks. But I do not find the mountainous parts on the North of Spain were ever wholly subdued, or formerly governed, either by the Romans, Goths, or Saracens, no more than Wales by Romans, Saxons, or Normans, after their conquests in our island, which has preserved the ancient Biscayan and British more entire than any native tongue of other provinces, where the Roman and Gothic or Northern conquests reached, and were for any time established. It is easy to imagine how imperfect copies these modern languages, thus composed, must needs be of so excellent an original, being patched up out of the conceptions, as well as sounds, of such barbarous or enslaved people; whereas the Latin was framed or cultivated by the thoughts and uses of the noblest nation that appears upon any record of story, and enriched only by the spoils |