Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.13 The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eton say, that there was no subject of which any poet ever writ, but he would produce it much better done in Shakespeare; and however others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled them to him in their esteem: and in the last king's court, when Ben's reputation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakespeare far above him. Beaumont and Fletcher, of whom I am next to speak, had, with the advantage of Shakespeare's wit, which was their precedent, great natural gifts improved by study; Beaumont especially being so accurate a judge of plays that Ben Jonson, while he lived, submitted all his writings to his censure, and 'tis thought, used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving, all his plots. What value he had for him, appears by the verses he writ to him; and therefore I need speak no farther of it. The first play that brought Fletcher and him in esteem, was their "Philaster"; for before that, they had written two or three very unsuccessfully: as the like is reported of Ben Jonson before he writ "Every Man in his Humour." Their plots were generally more regular than Shakespeare's, especially those which were made before Beaumont's death; and they understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better; whose wild debaucheries, and quickness of wit in repartees, no poet before them could paint as they have done. Humour, which Ben Jonson derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe: they represented all the passions very lively, but above all, love. I am apt to believe the English language in them arrived to its highest perfection; what words have since been taken in, are rather superfluous than ornamental. Their plays are now the most 14 18 As the cypresses are among the pliant shrubs. - VIRGIL, Eclogues, I. 26. 14 66 Humour, in the ancient dramatic language, signified some peculiar or fantastic bias, or habit of mind, in an individual." - SCOTT. pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage; two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's or Jonson's: the reason is, because there is a certain gaiety in their comedies, and pathos in their more serious plays, which suits generally with all men's humours. Shakespeare's language is likewise a little obsolete, and Ben Jonson's wit comes short of theirs. As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages), I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and language, and humour also in some measure, we had before him; but something of art was wanting to the drama till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such an height. Humour was his proper sphere; and in that he delighted most to represent mechanic people. He was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times, whom he has not translated in "Sejanus " and "Catiline." But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represents old Rome to us, in its rights, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language, it was that he weaved it too closely and laboriously, in his comedies especially: perhaps too, he did a little too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them: wherein, though he : learnedly followed their language, he did not enough comply with the idiom of ours. If I would compare him with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit.15 Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing I admire him, but I love Shakespeare. To conclude of him; as he has given us the most correct plays, so in the precepts which he has laid down in his " Discoveries," we have as many and profitable rules for perfecting the stage, as any wherewith the French can furnish us. : " 16 Having thus spoken of the author, I proceed to the examination of his comedy, "The Silent Woman." 15" Dryden here understands wit in the enlarged sense of invention or genius."― SCOTT. 16 Mr. Thomas Arnold, who has just published in the Clarendon Press Series a useful edition of this Essay of Dryden's, says, in a note on the "Discoveries ": "The praise which Dryden gives to the book is excessive." I cannot think so, and in confirmation of this view, I would refer to an excellent article on the "Discoveries," by the poet Swinburne, in the Fortnightly Review for July, 1888, and to his "Study of Ben Jonson." Mr. Saintsbury also shows a high appreciation of Jonson's prose style, in his "History of Elizabethan Literature" (pp. 218-220). XIII. 2. DEFENCE OF THE EPILOGUE, OR AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMATIC POETRY OF THE LAST AGE. [Written about 1670.] THE promises of authors, that they will write again, are, in effect, a threatening of their readers with some new impertinence; and they, who perform not what they promise, will have their pardon on easy terms. It is from this consideration, that I could be glad to spare you the trouble, which I am now giving you, of a postscript, if I were not obliged, by many reasons, to write somewhat concerning our present plays, and those of our predecessors on the English stage. The truth is, I have so far engaged myself in a bold epilogue to this play, wherein I have somewhat taxed the former writing, that it was necessary for me either not to print it, or to shew that I could defend it. Yet I would so maintain my opinion of the present age, as not to be wanting in my veneration for the past: I would ascribe to dead authors their just praises in those things wherein they have excelled us; and in those wherein we contend with them for the pre-eminence, I would acknowledge our advantages to the age, and claim no victory from our wit. This being what I have proposed to myself, I hope I shall not be thought arrogant when I inquire into their errors; for we live in an age so sceptical that, as it determines little, so it takes nothing from antiquity on trust; and I profess to have no other ambition in this essay than that poetry may not go backward, when all other arts and sciences are advancing. Whoever censures me for this inquiry, let him hear his character from Horace : Ingeniis non ille favet, plauditque sepultis, He favours not dead wits but hates the living. It was upbraided to that excellent poet, that he was an enemy to the writings of his predecessor Lucilius, because he said, Lucilium lutulentum fluere,18 that he ran muddy; and that he ought to have retrenched from his satires many unnecessary verses. But Horace makes Lucilius himself to justify him from the imputation of envy, by telling you that he would have done the same, had he lived in an age which was more refined: Si foret hoc nostrum fato delapsus [dilatus] in ævum, Perfectum traheretur,19 &c. And, both in the whole course of that satire, and in his most admirable Epistle to Augustus, he makes it his business to prove that antiquity alone is no plea for the excellency of a poem; but that, one age learning from another, the last (if we can suppose an equality of wit in the writers), has the advantage of knowing more and better than the former. And this, I think, is the state of the question in dispute. It is therefore my part to make it clear that the language, wit, and conversation of our age, are improved and refined above the last; and then it will not be difficult to infer that our plays have received some part of those advantages. In the first place, therefore, it will be necessary to state in general, what this refinement is, of which we treat; and that, I think, will not be defined amiss, "An improvement of our Wit, Language, and Conversation: or, an alteration in them for the better." To begin with Language. That an alteration is lately made in 17 He does not favor and applaud buried wits, but attacks our own; envious, he hates us and our wits. — HORACE, Epistles, II. 1. 88–89. 18 HORACE, Satires, I. 4. 11, and I. 10. 58. 19 If he had been brought down by fate to this age of ours, he would erase much from his works, he would cut out everything that was carried beyond completion. HORACE, Satires, I. 10. 76–78. |