'Tis hard to write on such a subject more,
Without repeating things oft said before.
Some vulgar errors only we'll remove,
That stain a beauty which we so much love.
Of chosen words some take not care enough,
And think they should be, as the subject, rough;
This poem must be more exactly made,
And sharpest thoughts in smoothest words convey'd.
Some think, if sharp enough, they cannot fail,
As if their only business was to rail;
But human frailty, nicely to unfold,
Distinguishes a satire from a scold.

Rage you must hide, and prejudice lay down;
A Satyr's smile is sharper than his frown;
So, while you seem to slight some rival youth,
Malice itself may pass sometimes for truth.

By painful steps at last we labour up
Parnassus' hill, on whose bright airy top
The epic poets so divinely show,

And with just pride behold the rest below.
Heroic poems have just a pretence

To be the utmost stretch of human sense;
A work of such inestimable worth,

There are but two the world has yet brought forth-
Homer and Virgil; with what sacred awe

Do those mere sounds the world's attention draw!
Just as a changeling seems below the rest
Of men, or rather as a two-legg'd beast,
So these gigantic souls, amaz'd we find
As much above the rest of human kind!
Nature's whole strength united! endless fame,
And universal shouts attend their name!
Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, so poor,
Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
Had Bossu never writ, the world had still,
Like Indians, view'd this wondrous piece of skill;
As something of divine the work admir'd,
Not hope to be instructed, but inspir'd;
But he, disclosing sacred mysteries,
Has shown where all their mighty magic lies;
Describ'd the seeds, and in what order sown,
That have to such a vast proportion grown.
Sure from some angel he the secret knew,
Who through this labyrinth has lent the clue.
But what, alas! avails it, poor mankind,
To see this promis'd land, yet stay behind?
The way is shown, but who has strength to go?
Who can all sciences profoundly know?
Whose fancy flies beyond weak reason's sight,
And yet has judgment to direct it right?
Whose just discernment, Virgil-like, is such,
Never to say too little or too much?
Let such a man begin without delay;
But he must do beyond what I can say;
Must above Tasso's lofty heights prevail;
Succeed when Spenser, and ev'n Milton fail.

DRAMATISTS.

JOHN DRYDEN.

At the restoration of the monarchy the drama was also restored, and with new lustre, though less decency. Two theatres were licensed in the metropolis, one under the direction of Sir William Davenant, who, as already mentioned, had been permitted to act plays even during the general proscription of the drama, and whose performers were now (in compliment to the Duke of York) named the Duke's Company. The other establishment was managed by Thomas Killigrew, a well-known wit and courtier, whose company took the name of the King's Servants. Davenant effected two great improvements in thea

trical representation-the regular introduction of actresses, or female players, and the use of moveable scenery and appropriate decorations. Females had performed on the stage previous to the Restoration, and considerable splendour and variety of scenery had been exhibited in the Court Masques and Revels. Neither, however, had been familiar to the public, and they now formed a great attraction to the two patent theatres. Unfortunately, these powerful auxiliaries were not brought in aid of the good old dramas of the age of Elizabeth and James. Instead of adding grace and splendour to the creations of Shakspeare and Jonson, they were lavished to support a new and degenerate dramatic taste, which Charles II. had brought with him from the continent. Rhyming or heroic plays had long been fashionable in France, and were dignified by the genius of Corneille and Racine. They had little truth of colouring or natural passion, but dealt exclusively with personages in high life and of transcendent virtue or ambition; with fierce combats and splendid processions; with superhuman love and beauty; and with long dialogues alternately formed of metaphysical subtlety and the most extravagant and bombastic expression. 'Blank verse,' says Dryden, is acknowledged to be too low for a poem, nay more, for a paper of verses; but if too low for an ordinary sonnet, how much more for tragedy!' Accordingly, the heroic plays were all in rhyme, set off not only with superb dresses and decorations, but with the richest and most ornate kind of verse, and the farthest removed from ordinary colloquial diction.' The comedies were degenerate in a different way. They were framed after the model of the Spanish stage, an 1 adapted to the taste of the king, as exhibiting a variety of complicated intrigues, successful disguises, and constantly-shifting scenes and adventures. The old native English virtues of sincerity, conjugal fidelity, and prudence, were held up to constant ridicule, as if amusement could only be obtained by obliterating the moral feelings. Dryden ascribes the licentiousness of the stage to the example of the king. Part, however, must be assigned to the earlier comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, and part to the ascetic puritanism and denial of all public amusements during the time of the commonwealth. If the Puritans had contented themselves with regulating and purifying the theatres, they would have conferred a benefit on the nation; but, by shutting them up entirely, and denouncing all public recreations, they provoked a counteraction in the taste and manners of the people. The over-austerity of one period led naturally to the shameless degeneracy of the succeeding period; and deeply is it to be deplored, that the great talents of Dryden were the most instrumental in extending and prolonging this depravation of the national taste.

The operas and comedies of Sir William Davenant were the first pieces brought out on the stage after the Restoration. He wrote twenty-five in all; but, notwithstanding the partial revival of the old dramatists, none of Davenant's productions have been reprinted. 'His last work,' says Southey, was his worst; it was an alteration of the Tempest, executed in conjunction with Dryden; and marvelous indeed it is, that two men of such great and indubitable genius should have combined to debase, and vulgarise, and pollute such a poem as the Tempest.' The marvel is enhanced when we consider that Dryden writes of their joint labour with evident complacency, at the same time that his prologue to the adapted play contains the following just and beautiful character of his great predecessor :As when a tree's cut down, the secret root Lives under ground, and thence new branches shoot;

So, from old Shakspeare's honour'd dust, this day
Springs up and buds a new reviving play.
Shakspeare, who (taught by none) did first impart
To Fletcher wit; to labouring Jonson art;
He, monarch-like, gave these his subjects law,
And is that nature which they paint and draw.
Fletcher reach'd that which on his heights did grow,
Whilst Jonson crept and gather'd all below.
This did his love and this his mirth digest;
One imitates him most; the other best.
If they have since outwrit all other men,
"Tis with the drops which fell from Shakspeare's pen.
The storm which vanish'd on the neighbouring shore,
Was taught by Shakspeare's Tempest first to roar.
That innocence and beauty which did smile
In Fletcher, grew on this Enchanted Isle.
But Shakspeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.

Dryden was in the full tide of his theatrical popularity when Davenant died, in 1688. The great poet commenced writing for the stage in 1662, when he produced his Wild Gallant, which was followed next year by the Rival Ladies, the serious parts of which are in rhyme. He then joined Sir Robert Howard in composing the Indian Queen, a rhyming heroic play, brought out in 1664, with a splendour never before seen in England upon a public stage. A continuation of this piece was shortly afterwards written by Dryden, entitled the Indian Emperor, and both were received with great applause. All the defects of his style, and many of the choicest specimens of his smooth and easy versification, are to be found in these inflated tragedies. In 1667 was represented his Maiden Queen, a tragi-comedy; and shortly afterwards the Tempest. These were followed by two comedies copied from the French of Moliere and Corneille; by the Royal Martyr. another furious tragedy, and by his Conquest of Granada, in two parts, in which he concentrated the wild magnificence, incongruous splendour, and absurd fable that run through all his heroic plays, mixed up with occasional gleams of true genius. The extravagance and unbounded popularity of the heroic drama, now at its height, prompted the Duke of Buckingham to compose a lively and amusing farce, in ridicule of Dryden and the prevailing taste of the public, which was produced in 1671, under the title of the Rehearsal. The success of the 'Rehearsal' was unbounded; the very popularity of the plays ridiculed aiding,' as Sir Walter Scott has remarked, the effect of the satire, since everybody had in their recollection the originals of the passages parodied.' There is little genuine witor dramatic art in the 'Rehearsal,' but it is a clever travesty, and it was well-timed. A fatal blow was struck at the rhyming plays, and at the rant and fustian to which they gave birth. Dryden now resorted to comedy, and produced Marriage a-laMode, and the Assignation. In 1673 he constructed a dramatic poem, the State of Innocence, or the Fall of Man, out of the great epic of Milton, destroying, of course, nearly all that is sublime, simple, and pure, in the original. His next play, Aureng-Zebe (1675), was also 'heroic,' stilted, and unnatural; but this was the last great literary sin of Dryden. He was now engaged in his immortal satires and fables, and he abandoned henceforward the false and glittering taste which had so long deluded him. His All for Love, and Troilus and Cressida, are able adaptations from Shakspeare in blank verse. The Spanish Friar is a good comedy, remarkable for its happy union of two plots, and its delineation of comic character. His principal remaining plays are Don Sebastian (1690), Amphitryon (1690), Cleomenes (1692), and Love Triumphant (1694). Don Sebastian' is his highest effort in dramatic composition, and though de

formed, like all his other plays, by scenes of spurious and licentious comedy, it contains passages that approach closely to Shakspeare. The quarrel and reconciliation of Sebastian and Dorax is a masterly copy from the similar scene between Brutus and Cassius. In the altercation between Ventidius and Antony in All for Love,' he has also challenged comparison with the great poet, and seems to have been inspired to new vigour by the competition. This latter triumph in the genius of Dryden was completed by his Ode to St Cecilia' and the 'Fables,' published together in the spring of 1700, a few weeks before his death-thus realising a saying of his own Sebastian

A setting sun

Should leave a track of glory in the skies. Dryden's plays have fallen completely into oblivion. command of rich stores of language, information, He could reason powerfully in verse, and had the and imagery. Strong energetic characters and passions he could portray with considerable success, but he had not art or judgment to construct an interesting or consistent drama, or to preserve himself from extravagance and absurdity. The female character and softer passions seem to have been entirely beyond his reach. His love is always licentiousness his tenderness a mere trick of the stage. Like Voltaire, he probably never drew a tear from reader or spectator. His merit consists in a sort of Eastern magnificence of style, and in the richness of his versification. The bowl and dagger-glory, ambition, lust, and crime-are the staple materials of his and brilliancy of fancy. His comedy is, with scarce tragedy, and lead occasionally to poetical grandeur an exception, false to nature, improbable and illarranged, and subversive equally of taste and morality.

string together a few of those similes or detached Before presenting a scene from Dryden, we shall sentiments which relieve the great mass of his turgid dramatic verse:

Love is that madness which all lovers have;
But yet 'tis sweet and pleasing so to rave.
'Tis an enchantment, where the reason's bound;
But Paradise is in th' enchanted ground.
A palace void of envy, cares, and strife;
Where gentle hours delude so much of life.
To take those charms away, and set me free,
Is but to send me into misery.
And prudence, of whose cure so much you boast,
Restores those pains which that sweet folly lost.
Conquest of Granada, Part II.

As some fair tulip, by a storm oppress'd,
Shrinks up, and folds its silken arms to rest;
And bending to the blast, all pale and dead,
Hears from within the wind sing round its head:
So, shrouded up, your beauty disappears;
Unveil, my love, and lay aside your fears.
The storm that caus'd your fright is past and done.

Ibid. Part I.

No man has more contempt than I of breath;
But whence hast thou the right to give me death?
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

Conquest of Granada, Part I. [Love and Beauty.]

A change so swift what heart did ever feel!
It rush'd upon me like a mighty stream,
And bore me in a moment far from shore.
I've loved away myself; in one short hour
Already am I gone an age of passion.
Was it his youth, his valour, or success?
These might, perhaps, be found in other men.
"Twas that respect, that awful homage paid me;
That fearful love which trembled in his eyes,
And with a silent earthquake shook his soul.
But when he spoke, what tender words he said!
So softly, that, like flakes of feather'd snow,
They melted as they fell.

[Midnight Repose.]

Spanish Friar.

What precious drops are those

Which silently each others track pursue,
Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?
Conquest of Granada, Part II.
[Mankind.]

Men are but children of a larger growth;
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving too, and full as vain;
And yet the soul shut up in her dark room,
Viewing so clear abroad, at home sees nothing;
But, like a mole in earth, busy and blind,
Works all her folly up, and casts it outward
To the world's open view.

All for Love.

Man is but man; unconstant still, and various;
There's no to-morrow in him like to-day.
Perhaps the atoms rolling in his brain
Make him think honestly this present hour;

The next a swarm of base ungrateful thoughts
May mount aloft; and where's our Egypt then?
Who would trust chance? since all men have the seeds
Of good and ill, which should work upward first.
Cleomenes.

[Fear of Death.]

BERENICE. SAINT CATHERINE.

Ber. Now death draws near, a strange perplexity Creeps coldly on me, like a fear to die:

Courage uncertain dangers may abate,

But who can bear th' approach of certain fate?

St. Cath. The wisest and the best some fear may show, And wish to stay, though they resolve to go.

Ber. As some faint pilgrim, standing on the shore,
First views the torrent he would venture o'er,
And then his inn upon the farther ground,
Loath to wade through, and loather to go round:
Then dipping in his staff, does trial make
How deep it is, and, sighing, pulls it back:
Sometimes resolved to fetch his leap; and then
Runs to the bank, but there stops short again :
So I at once

Both heavenly faith and human fear obey;
And feel before me in an unknown way.
For this blest voyage I with joy prepare,
Yet am asham'd to be a stranger there.

Tyrannic Love.

[Love Anticipated after Death.]

PORPHYRIUS. BERENICE.

Por. You either this divorce must seek, or die.
Ber. Then death from all my griefs shall set me free.
Por. And would you rather choose your death than
me?

Ber. My earthy part,

Which is my tyrant's right, death will remove.
I'll come all soul and spirit to your love.
With silent steps I'll follow you all day,
Or else before you in the sunbeams play;
I'll lead you thence to melancholy groves,
And there repeat the scenes of our past loves.
At night, I will within your curtains peep;
With empty arms embrace you while you sleep.
In gentle dreams I often will be by,
And sweep along before your closing eye.
All dangers from your bed I will remove,
But guard it most from any future love.
And when, at last, in pity, you will die,
I'll watch your birth of immortality;
Then, turtle-like, I'll to my mate repair,
And teach you your first flight in open air.

[Adam after the Fall.]

ADAM. RAPHAEL. EVE.

Adam. Heaven is all mercy; labour I would choose; And could sustain this Paradise to lose: The bliss; but not the place. Here,' could I say, 'Heaven's winged messenger did pass the day; Under this pine the glorious angel stay'd:' Then show my wondering progeny the shade. In woods and lawns, where'er thou didst appear, Each place some monument of thee should bear. I, with green turfs, would grateful altars raise, And heaven, with gums and offer'd incense, praise. Raph. Where'er thou art, He is; th' eternal mina Acts through all places; is to none confined: Fills ocean, earth, and air, and all above. And through the universal mass does move. Thou canst be no where distant: yet this place Had been thy kingly seat, and here thy race, From all the ends of peopled earth, had come To reverence thee, and see their native home.

Immortal then ; now sickness, care, and age,
And war, and luxury's more direful rage,
Thy crimes have brought, to shorten mortal breath,
With all the numerous family of death.

Adam. The deaths thou show'st are forced and full of strife,

Cast headlong from the precipice of life.

Is there no smooth descent-no painless way
Of kindly mixing with our native clay?

Raph. There is-but rarely shall that path be trod,
Which, without horror, leads to death's abode.
Some few, by temperance taught, approaching slow,
To distant fate by easy journeys go;
Gently they lay them down, as evening sheep
On their own woolly fleeces softly sleep.

Adam. So noiseless would I live, such death to find, Like timely fruit, not shaken by the wind, But ripely dropping from the sapless bough, And, dying, nothing to myself would owe.

Eve. Thus daily changing, with a duller taste Of lessening joys, I, by degrees, would waste: Still quitting ground, by unperceived decay, And steal myself from life, and melt away.

State of Innocence.

[Scene between Mark Antony and Ventidius, his general.] [Dryden says he preferred this scene to anything which he had written of that kind. It occurs in the first act of All for Love,' a tragedy founded on the story of Antony and Cleopatra, and avowedly written in imitation of Shakspeare. All for Love' was the only play Dryden ever wrote for himself; the rest, he says, were given to the people. It will be observed that this scene, as also that between Dorax and Sebastian, is copied from the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius in Julius Cæsar.']

Ant. They tell me 'tis my birth-day, and I'll keep it With double pomp of sadness.

Tis what the day deserves, which gave me breath.
Why was I rais'd the meteor of the world,
Hung in the skies, and blazing as I travell'd,

Till all my fires were spent, and then cast downward
To be trod out by Cæsar?

Vent. [Aside] On my soul

'Tis mournful, wondrous mournful!

Ant. Count thy gains,

The place thou pressest on thy mother earth
Is all thy empire now: now it contains thee;
Some few days hence, and then 'twill be too large,
When thou'rt contracted in thy narrow urn,
Shrunk to a few cold ashes; then Octavia
(For Cleopatra will not live to see it),
Octavia then will have thee all her own,
And bear thee in her widow'd hand to Cæsar.

Cæsar will weep, the crocodile will weep,

To see his rival of the universe

Ant. I'm angry.
Vent. So am I.

Ant. I would be private.
Vent. Sir, I love you,

Leave me.

And therefore will not leave you.
Ant. Will not leave me !

Where have you learn'd that answer? Who am I?
Vent. My emperor; the man I love next heav'n.
If I said more, I think 'twere scarce a sin:
You're all that's good and godlike.

Ant. All that's wretched.
You will not leave me, then?

Vent. "Twas too presuming

To say I would not: but I dare not leave you;
And 'tis unkind in you to chide me hence
So soon, when I so far have come to see you.
Ant. Now thou hast seen me, art thou satisfied!
For, if a friend, thou hast beheld enough,
And, if a foe, too much.

I have not wept this forty years; but now
Vent. Look, emperor, this is no common dew;
My mother comes afresh unto my eyes;
I cannot help her softness.

Ant. By heav'n, he weeps! poor good old man, he weeps!

The big round drops course one another down
The furrows of his cheeks. Stop 'em, Ventidius,
Or I shall blush to death; they set my shame,
That caus'd 'em, full before me.

Vent. I'll do my best.

Ant. Sure there's contagion in the tears of friends; See, I have caught it too. Believe me, 'tis not For my own griefs, but thine-Nay, fatherVent. Emperor !

Ant. Emperor! Why that's the style of victory. The conqu'ring soldier, and with unfelt wounds, Salutes his general so: but never more Shall that sound reach my ears.

Vent. I warrant you.

Ant. Actium, Actium! Oh

Vent. It sits too near you.

Ant. Here, here it lies; a lump of lead by day; And in my short, distracted, nightly slumbers, The hag that rides my dreams

Vent. Out with it; give it vent.
Ant. Urge not my shame-

I lost a battle.

Vent. So has Julius done.

Give me some music; look that it be sad;
I'll sooth my melancholy, till I swell,
And burst myself with sighing.

"Tis somewhat to my humour. Stay, I fancy

I'm now turn'd wild, a commoner of nature;

Of all forsaken, and forsaking all;

Live in a shady forest's sylvan scene;

Stretch'd at my length beneath some blasted oak, I lean my head upon the mossy bark,

And look just of a piece, as I grew from it:

But Antony

Vent. Nay, stop not.

Ant. Antony

(Well, thou wilt have it), like a coward, fled,

Fled while his soldiers fought! fled first, Ventidius. Thou long'st to curse me, and I give thee leave.

I know thou cam'st prepared to rail.

Vent. I did.

Ant. I'll help thee-I have been a man, Ventidius. Vent. Yes, and a brave one; but