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 DRYDEN 
 AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 
 
 ARNOLD 
 
HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 
 Publisher to the University of Oxford 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH. GLASGOW 
 AND NEW YORK 
 
tfarenfcon Cpreee Levitts 
 
 DRYDEN 
 
 AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY 
 
 EDITED WITH NOTES 
 
 THOMAS ARNOLD, MA. 
 
 OF UNIV. COLL., OXFORD 
 FELLOW OF THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 MDCCCXCVI 
 
 | D 
 
 [All rights reserved '] 
 

 Oyforfc 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the same cause — the 
 great plague of 1665— which drove Milton from London 
 to the Buckinghamshire village of Chalfont St. Giles, 
 and there gave him leisure to complete the Paradise 
 Lost, obliged Dryden also — the theatres being closed — 
 to pass eighteen months in the country, — 'probably at 
 Charlton in Wiltshire,' says Malone, — where he turned 
 his leisure to so good an account as, besides writing 
 the 'Annus Mirabilis/ to compose in the following Essay 
 the first piece of good modern English prose on which 
 our literature can pride itself. 
 
 Charles II, having been much in Paris during his exile, 
 had been captivated by the French drama, then in the 
 powerful hands of Corneille and Moliere. In that drama, 
 when prose was not employed, the use of rhyme was an 
 essential feature. 
 
 Dryden and others were not slow to consult the taste 
 prevailing at Court. His first play, The Wild Gallant, 
 was in prose ; it is coarse and not much enlivened by 
 wit, and it was not well received. In his next efforts 
 Dryden took greater pains. He seems to have convinced 
 himself that the attraction of rhyme was necessary to 
 please the fastidious audiences for which he had to write; 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 and after The Rival Ladies, which is partly in rhyme 
 partly in blank verse, — and The Indian Queen (1664), a 
 play entirely rhymed, in which he assisted his brother-in- 
 law Sir Robert Howard, — he brought out, early in 1665, 
 his tragedy of The Indian Emperor, which, like The 
 Indian Quee?i, is carefully rhymed throughout. In the 
 enforced leisure which his residence at Charlton during 
 the plague brought him, he thought over the whole sub- 
 ject, and this Essay of Dramatic Poesy was the result. 
 
 In the course of time Dryden modified more or less 
 the judgment in favour of rhyme which he had given in 
 the Essay. In the prologue to the tragedy of Aurung- 
 zebe, or the Great Mogul (167 5), he says that he finds it 
 more difficult to please himself than his audience, and is 
 inclined to damn his own play : — ■ 
 
 Not that it's worse than what before he writ, 
 But he has now another taste of wit ; 
 And, to confess a truth, though out of time. 
 Grows weary of his long-loved mistress. Rhyme. 
 
 Passion, he proceeds, is too fierce to be bound in fetters; 
 and the sense of Shakspere's unapproachable superiority, 
 — Shakspere, whose masterpieces dispense with rhyme, — 
 inclines him to quit the stage altogether. Nevertheless 
 his original contention, — however under the pressure of 
 dejection, and the sense perhaps of flagging powers, he 
 may afterwards have been willing to abandon it, — cannot 
 be lightly set aside as either weak or unimportant ; a 
 point on which I shall have something to say presently. 
 Five critical questions are handled in the Essay, viz. — 
 1. The relative merits of ancient and modern poets. 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 2. Whether the existing French school of drama is 
 superior or inferior to the English. 
 
 3. Whether the Elizabethan dramatists were in all 
 points superior to those of Dryden's own time. 
 
 4. Whether plays are more perfect in proportion as 
 they conform to the dramatic rules laid down by the 
 ancients. 
 
 5. Whether the substitution of rhyme for blank verse 
 in serious plays is an improvement. 
 
 The first point is considered in the remarks of Crites 
 (Sir Robert Howard), with which the discussion opens. In 
 connexion with it the speaker deals with the fourth point, 
 assuming without proof that regard to the unities of Time 
 and Place, inasmuch as it tends to heighten the illusion 
 of reality, must place the authors who pay it above those 
 who neglect it. Eugenius (Lord Buckhurst) answers 
 him, pointing out the narrow range of the Greek drama, 
 and several defects which its greatest admirers cannot 
 deny. Crites makes a brief reply, and then Lisideius 
 (Sir Charles Sedley) plunges into the second question, 
 and ardently maintains that the French theatre, which 
 was formerly inferior to ours, now, — since it had been 
 ennobled by the rise of Corneille and his fellow-workers, 
 — surpasses it and the rest of Europe. This commenda- 
 tion he grounds partly on their exact observance of the 
 dramatic rules, partly on their exclusion of undue com- 
 plication from their plots and general regard to the 
 ' decorum of the stage,' partly also on the beauty of their 
 rhyme. Neander (Dry den) takes up the defence of the 
 English stage, and tries to show that it is superior to the 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 French at every point. f For the verse itself,' he says, 
 ' we have English precedents of older date than any of 
 Comeille's plays.' By * verse ' he means rhyme. He 
 is not rash enough to quote Gammer Gurton's Needle 
 and similar plays, with their hobbling twelve-syllable 
 couplets, as ' precedents ' earlier than the graceful French 
 Alexandrines, but he urges that Shakspere in his early 
 plays has long rhyming passages, and that Jonson is not 
 without them. At this point Eugenius breaks in with 
 the question, Whether Ben Jonson ought not to rank 
 before all other writers, both French and English. Before 
 undertaking to decide this point, Neander says that he 
 will attempt to estimate the dramatic genius of Shakspere, 
 and of Beaumont and Fletcher. This he does, in an 
 interesting and well-known passage (p. 67). He then 
 examines the genius of Jonson with reference to many 
 special points, and gives an analysis of the plot of his 
 comedy, Epicene^ or the Silent Woman ; but he gives no 
 direct answer to the question put by Eugenius. To the 
 English stage as a whole he will not allow a position of 
 inferiority ; for ' our nation can never want in any age 
 such who are able to dispute the empire of wit with any 
 people in the universe.' 
 
 Crites now introduces the subject of rhyme, which he 
 maintains to be unsuitable for serious plays. His argu- 
 ment, and Neander's answer, take up the rest of the 
 Essay. 
 
 The personages who conduct the discussion are all of 
 a social rank higher than that to which Dryden belonged. 
 Sir Robert Howard, the son of the Earl of Berkshire, 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 assumed the poet's lyre or the critic's stylus with an air of 
 superiority which showed that he thought it a real con- 
 descension in himself, a man of fashion, to herd with the 
 poverty-stricken tribe of authors. This tone is very 
 noticeable in the Preface to The Duke of Lerma, which 
 Dryden answered in his Defence of the Essay. Sir 
 Charles Sedley was a well-known Kentish baronet, and 
 Lord Buckhurst, soon to be the Earl of Dorset, was heir 
 to the illustrious house of Sackville. It is perhaps in 
 contrast to the social distinction of his friends that 
 Dryden modestly calls himself ' Neander,' which may be 
 taken to represent ' novus homo,' a man of the people, 
 desiring to rise above his station. 
 
 This question as to the value of rhyme in dramatic 
 poetry is by no means an obsolete or unprofitable 
 inquiry ; it still exercises our minds in the nineteenth 
 century ; it has received no permanent, no authoritative 
 solution. It is usually assumed that Dryden was alto- 
 gether wrong in preferring the heroic couplet to blank 
 verse as the metre of serious dramas ; and his own sub- 
 sequent abandonment of rhyme — foreshadowed, as we 
 have seen, in the prologue to Aurung-zebe — is regarded 
 as an admission that his argument in favour of it was un- 
 sound. And yet much of what he says in defence of 
 rhyme appears to be plain common sense and incontro- 
 vertible, and to deserve, whatever his later practice may 
 have been, a careful consideration. After all, if the 
 heroic rhyming plays of Dryden, Lee, and Etherege have 
 found no successors, has not blank verse also notoriously 
 failed, however able the hands which wielded it, to be- 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 come the vehicle and instrument of an English dramatic 
 school, worthy to be ranked alongside of the great 
 Elizabethans ? Since Dryden's, the only supremely ex- 
 cellent plays which English literature has produced are 
 Sheridan's ; and these are comedies, and in prose. 
 Coleridge, Young, Addison, Byron, Shelley, Lytton- 
 Bulwer, — all attempted tragedy in blank verse; and none 
 of their tragedies can be said to live. The fact is, that 
 the amazing superiority of Shakspere, lying much more 
 in the matter than in the form of his tragedies, makes us 
 ready to admit at once that blank verse is the proper 
 metre for an English tragedy because he used it. We do 
 not see that the ensemble of the facts of the case, — viz. 
 that no Elizabethan blank verse tragedy, besides those of 
 Shakspere, can be endured on the stage now, and that 
 those of later dramatists have not been successful, — might 
 lead us to the conclusion that Shakspere triumphed rather 
 in spite of blank verse than because of it. 
 
 Rhyme is merely one of the devices to which the 
 poetic artist has recourse, for the purpose of making his 
 work attractive and successful. Whether we take style, 
 or metre, or quantity, or rhyme, the source of the pleasure 
 seems to be always the same, — it lies in the victory of 
 that which is formed over the formless, of the orderly 
 over the anarchic, — in the substitution of Cosmos for 
 Chaos, — in the felt contrast between the flat and bald 
 converse of common life, and the measured and coloured 
 speech of the orator or poet. Style belongs to prose : 
 metre, quantity, and rhyme to poetry. Metre is the 
 arrangement of the words and syllables of a composi- 
 
PREFACE, xi 
 
 tion into equal or equivalent lengths, the regular and 
 expected recurrence of which is the source of a peculiar 
 pleasure. Quantity is an improvement which can only- 
 have sprung up among those whose ears had long been 
 trained in the strict observance of metre. By Quantity 
 is meant the volume, or time, or weight of a syllable. 
 A 'false quantity' consists in giving to a syllable a 
 sound larger, longer, and heavier, — or on the other hand 
 smaller, shorter, and lighter, — than that which the ear 
 expects. It is obvious that constant study and observa- 
 tion would tend to determine the quantity of all syllables 
 which it was possible to use in poetry; and not their 
 natural quantity only, i. e. the weight which they had 
 when standing alone, but also the quantity given them 
 by their position before other syllables. This work of 
 quantifying — as it may be called — after being carried to 
 great perfection among the Greeks, was by them imparted 
 to the Romans. Then it was that, ' horridus ille Defluxit 
 numerus Saturnius,' the rough stumbling measure of 
 Naevius and earlier poets went into disuse, and metre 
 perfected by quantity, in the various moulds, — hexameter, 
 elegiac, alcaic, &c, — which Greek invention had created, 
 took its place. 
 
 Crites rightly extols the metre and quantity of the 
 ancients; his mistake is in inferring, because the 
 ancients did not use rhyme, that therefore it should 
 be eschewed by the moderns. Neander, or Dryden, 
 states correctly enough that when Roman society was 
 broken up, and the Latin tongue, upon the invasions 
 of the Barbarians, had become corrupted into several 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 vernacular dialects, whence gradually emerged the new 
 languages of southern Europe, the niceties of quantity 
 were obscured or forgotten, and some new attraction was 
 felt to be necessary by the poetic artist in order to supply 
 its place. This attraction was found in rhyme. 
 
 Attraction may however be studied too exclusively: 
 there may be too much ornament as well as too little. 
 Poetry, by presenting ideas in a beautiful dress, aims at 
 making them loved. But the ideas themselves are the 
 main consideration, and if the dress is too much ob- 
 truded, — if it attract attention for its own sake and not 
 for the sake of what it clothes, a fault is committed, and 
 a failure incurred. As Aristotle considered {Poet. IV) 
 that the elaborate Greek metres were unsuited for tra- 
 gedy, and that the iambic trimeter, as 'nearer to com- 
 mon discourse,' was its proper instrument, so it is quite 
 possible that in modern dramatic verse rhyme may fix 
 the attention too much upon the manner of saying a 
 thing, when the thing itself ought to concentrate upon it 
 the thoughts and feelings of the spectators. But this 
 extreme, owing to the difficulty and toil which finding 
 rhymes imposes on the author, is less often met than its 
 opposite. For one rhyming play which errs by excess 
 of ornament, there are ten plays in blank verse which 
 err by being flat and dull. Shakspere in his best plays 
 observes the true mean, making his blank verse so 
 rhythmic and beautiful that the hearer requires no 
 other ornament; while by rejecting rhyme he avoids 
 the danger of weakening that interest which should be 
 excited by the plot and the characters. When such 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 blank verse as the following can be had, no one will 
 
 ever ask for rhyme : — 
 
 Forbear to sleep the night, and fast the day, 
 Compare dead happiness with living woe ; 
 Think that thy babes were fairer than they were, 
 And him that slew them fouler than he is ; 
 Bettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse; 
 Revolving this will teach thee how to curse. 
 
 But when long passages are given us such as — 
 
 There is no vice so simple but assumes 
 Some mark of virtue on his outward parts : 
 How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false 
 As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their ehins 
 The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, 
 "Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk ; 
 And these assume but valour's excrement 
 To render them redoubted, &c, &c. — 
 
 then, since the thoughts are neither supremely interesting 
 in themselves, nor presented with supreme force or skill, 
 the hearer is apt to grow weary, and to ask from the 
 form of the verse that entertainment which he does not 
 derive from the substance. In other words, he would, con- 
 sciously or not, be glad of rhyme if he could get it. 
 
 There seems good reason to think that the French 
 masterpieces of the seventeenth century would not, if 
 they were not rhymed, hold their ground on the modern 
 stage. With us, Shakspere's amazing genius enables us, 
 even without the aid of rhyme, still to enjoy his plays ; 
 but this is true of no other dramatist of that age \ In 
 his work on the Elizabethan dramatists, Charles Lamb 
 produced passages from some of the best plays of all the 
 
 1 Massinger's New Way to pay Old Debts is perhaps the only 
 exception to the statement in the text. 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 principal authors ; but it must be owned that they make 
 no great impression. For this there are indeed other 
 causes ; — the wit is not such as amuses at the present 
 day; the passion is rather Italian or Spanish than 
 English ; — but it is also true that the story is seldom 
 sufficiently interesting, or the thoughts sufficiently strik- 
 ing, to enchain our attention for their own sakes, apart 
 from the pleasure given by rhyme. On the other hand, 
 in reading such a collection as Mr. Palgrave's Golde?i 
 Treasury, all of us are conscious of the continued 
 presence of pleasurable feeling. What reason can be 
 found for this difference of impression, except that 
 rhyme, — and often exquisitely managed rhyme, — is 
 present throughout Mr. Palgrave's collection, and absent 
 throughout Lamb's collection ? If the English serious 
 drama, expressed in blank verse, had continued to make 
 progress from the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 and were in a flourishing condition at the present time, 
 Dry den's plea for rhyme, since it might seem to have 
 been disproved by the event, might well be rejected. 
 But the English serious drama 1 at this moment is in 
 such a low condition as to be almost non-existent. It 
 seems therefore to be a question open to argument 
 whether, in spite of the success, — due to exceptional 
 power, — of Hamlet or King Lear, Dryden was not right 
 in holding that the average dramatist could not safely 
 dispense, if he wished permanently to please English 
 audiences, with the music and the charm of rhyme. 
 
 1 Of course I am not speaking of chamber pieces, but of plays 
 intended for the stage. 
 
PREFACE. xv 
 
 The Defence of the Essay of Dra?natic Poesy appeared 
 later in the same year, 1668. After the publication of 
 the Essay, Sir Robert Howard printed his tragedy of 
 The Duke of Lerma, in the preface to which (printed by 
 Malone in his collected edition of Dryden's prose works) 
 he attacked with blundering vehemence the poet's argu- 
 ment on behalf of rhyme. Dryden seems to have been 
 much nettled, and in this sharp and masterly reply he 
 exposes the blunders, and makes short work of the argu- 
 ments, of his brother-in-law. This Defe?ice was prefixed 
 to the second edition, just at that time called for, of The 
 Indian Emperor. But Dryden must have been unwilling 
 for many reasons to let this passage of arms ripen into 
 a formal quarrel. From later editions of The Indian 
 Emperor he suppressed the preface, and forbore ever to 
 publish it in a separate form. It was not again printed 
 till after his death. 
 
 Three editions of the Essay of Dramatic Poesy were 
 published in the author's lifetime ; see page 8. Since 
 1700 it has been three times reprinted; first by Robert 
 Urie in his Select Essays on the Belles lettres, Glasgow, 
 1750; secondly, by Malone in his edition of Dryden's 
 prose works (1800); and lastly, by Sir Walter Scott in 
 his general edition of all Dryden's works, published in 
 1808 \ 
 
 1 And now in course of republication under the superintendence 
 of Mr. Saints bury. 
 
EPISTLE DEDICATORY 
 
 TO THE ESSAY OF 
 
 DRAMATIC POESY 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 CHARLES, LORD BUCKHURSTK 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 As I was lately reviewing my loose papers, 
 amongst the rest I found this Essay, the writing of 
 which, in this rude and indigested manner wherein 
 your lordship now sees it, served as an amusement 5 
 to me in the country, when the violence of the last 
 plague 3 had driven me from the town. Seeing then 
 our theatres shut up, I was engaged in these kind 
 of thoughts with the same delight with which men 
 think upon their absent mistresses. I confess I find 10 
 many things in this Discourse which I do not now 
 approve; my judgment being not a little altered 4 
 
 1 A = edition of 1668. B = edition of 1684 (here, in the main, 
 reprinted). C = edition of 1693. 
 
 2 C has, 'Charles Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, Lord Chamberlain 
 of their Majesties Houshold, Knight of the Most Noble Order of 
 the Garter, &c.' Lord Buckhurst had become Earl of Dorset in 1677. 
 It is hard to say why Dryden did not give him his proper title in the 
 edition of 1684. 
 
 3 The great plague of 1665 (Malone). * a little altered, A. 
 
 B 
 
% OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 since the writing of it ; but whether 1 for the better 
 or the worse, I know not : neither indeed is it much 
 material, in an essay, where all I have said is pro- 
 blematical. For the way of writing plays in verse, 
 5 which I have seemed to favour, I have, since that time, 
 laid the practice of it aside, till I have more leisure, 
 because I find it troublesome and slow. But I am 
 no way altered from my opinion of it, at least with 
 any reasons which have opposed it. For your lord- 
 
 10 ship may easily observe, that none are very violent 
 against it, but those who either have not attempted 
 it, or who have succeeded ill in their attempt. It 
 is enough for me to have your lordship's example 
 for my excuse in that little which I have done in it ; 
 
 15 and I am sure my adversaries can bring no such 
 arguments against verse, as those with which the 
 fourth act of Pompey will furnish me 2 in its defence. 
 Yet, my lord, you must suffer me a little to complain 
 of you, that you too soon withdraw from us a con- 
 
 20 tentment, of which we expected the continuance, 
 because you gave it us so early. It is a revolt, 
 without occasion, from your party, where your merits 
 had already raised you to the highest commands, and 
 where you have not the excuse of other men, that 
 
 25 you have been ill used, and therefore laid down 
 arms 3 . I know no other quarrel you can have to 
 verse, than that 4 which Spurina n had to his beauty, 
 when he tore and mangled the features of his face, 
 only 5 because they pleased too well the sight 6 . It 
 
 1 whither, A. 
 
 8 as the fourth Act of Pompey will furnish me with, A. 
 
 8 Armes, A. 4 then that, A, 5 onely, A. 6 the lookers on, A. 
 
DEDICATION TO THE ESSAY. 3 
 
 was an honour which seemed to wait for you, to lead 
 out a new colony of writers from the mother nation : 
 and upon the first spreading of your ensigns, there 
 had been many in a readiness to have followed so 
 fortunate a leader; if not all, yet the better part of 5 
 poets 1 : 
 
 pars, indocili melior grege; mollis et exspes 2 
 
 Inominata perprimat cubilia. n 
 
 I am almost of opinion, that we should force you to 
 accept of the command, as sometimes the Praetorian ro 
 bands have compelled their captains to receive the 
 empire. The court, which is the best and surest 
 judge of writing, has generally allowed n of verse ; 
 and in the town it has found favourers of wit and 
 quality. As for your own particular, my lord, you *5 
 have yet youth and time enough to give part of 
 them 3 to the divertisement of the public, before you 
 enter into the serious and more unpleasant business 
 of the world. That which the French poet said of 
 the temple of Love, may be as well applied to the 20 
 temple of the Muses. The words, as near as I can 
 remember them, were these : 
 
 Le jeune homme a mauvaise grace, 
 
 JVayant pas adore dans le Temple d' 'Amour ; 
 
 II faut quil entre ; et pour le sage, 25 
 
 Si ce ri est pas son vrai i sejour, 
 
 Cest un gite 5 sur son passage. n 
 
 I leave the words to work their effect upon your 
 lordship in their own language, because no other can 
 so well express the nobleness of the thought ; and 30 
 wish you may be soon called to bear a part in the 
 
 1 Writers, A. 2 expes, A. » 3 of it, A. 
 
 4 Si ce nest son vray, A. 5 Ce'st un giste, A. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 affairs of the nation, where I know the world expects 
 you, and wonders why you have been so long for- 
 gotten ; there being no person amongst our young 
 nobility, on whom the e} r es of all men are so much 
 5 bent. But in the mean time, your lordship may 
 imitate the course of Nature, who gives us the flower 
 before the fruit : that I may speak to you in the 
 language of the muses, which I have taken from an 
 excellent poem to the king : 
 
 IO As Nature, when she fruit designs 1 , thinks fit 
 
 By beauteous blossoms to proceed to it ; 
 And while she does accomplish all the spring, 
 Birds to her secret operations sing. n 
 
 I confess I have no greater reason, in addressing 
 
 15 this Essay to your lordship, than that it might 
 awaken in 3^ou the desire of writing something, in 
 whatever kind it be, which might be an honour to 
 our age and country. And methinks it might have 
 the same effect on you, which Homer tells us the 
 
 20 fight of the Greeks and Trojans before the fleet, had 
 on the spirit of Achilles ; who, though he had re- 
 solved not to engage 2 , yet found a martial warmth 
 to steal upon him at the sight of blows, the sound of 
 trumpets, and the cries of fighting men. 
 
 25 For my own part, if, in treating of this subject, 
 I sometimes dissent from the opinion of better wits, I 
 declare it is not so much to combat their opinions, as 
 to defend my own, which were first made publick. n 
 Sometimes, like a scholar in a fencing-school, I put 
 
 30 forth myself, and shew my own ill pla}', on purpose to 
 be better taught. Sometimes I stand desperately to 
 1 designes, A. 2 ingage, A. 
 
DEDICATION TO THE ESSAY. 5 
 
 my arms, like the foot when deserted by their horse ; 
 not in hope to overcome, but only to yield on more 
 honourable terms. And yet, my lord, this war of 
 opinions, you well know, has fallen out among the 
 writers of all ages, and sometimes betwixt friends. 5 
 Only it has been prosecuted by some, like pedants, 
 with violence of words, and managed by others like 
 gentlemen, with candour and civility. Even Tuliy 
 had a controversy with his dear Atticus ; and in one 
 of his Dialogues, makes him sustain the part of an 10 
 enemy in philosophy, who, in his letters, is his con- 
 fident of state, and made privy to the most weighty 
 affairs of the Roman senate. And the same respect 
 which was paid by Tully to Atticus, we find returned 
 to him afterwards by Caesar on a like occasion, who * 5 
 answering his book in praise of Cato, made it not so 
 much his business to condemn Cato, as to praise 
 Cicero. n 
 
 But that I may decline some part of the encounter 
 with my adversaries, whom I am neither willing to 20 
 combat, nor well able to resist; I will give your 
 lordship the relation of a dispute betwixt some of our 
 wits on the same subject 1 , in which they did not only 
 speak of plays in verse, but mingled, in the freedom 
 of discourse, some things of the ancient, many of the 25 
 modern, ways of writing ; comparing those with these, 
 and the wits of our nation with those of others : it is 
 true 2 , they differed in their opinions, as it is probable 3 
 they would : neither do I take upon me to reconcile, 
 but to relate them ; and that as Tacitus professes of 30 
 
 1 upon this subject, A. 3 'tis true, A. 
 
 3 'tis probable, A. 
 
6 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 himself, sine studio partium, ant ird 1 , without passion 
 or interest ; leaving your lordship to decide it in 
 favour of which part you shall judge most reasonable, 
 and withal, to pardon the many errors of 
 
 Your Lordship's 
 
 Most obedient humble servant, 
 
 JOHN DRYDEN. 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. I. i ; sine ira aut studio, quorum causas procul habeo 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 The drift of the ensuing discourse was chiefly to 
 vindicate the honour of our English writers, from the 
 censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before 
 them. This I intimate, lest any should think me so 
 exceeding vain, n as to teach others an art which they 
 understand much better than myself. But if this incor- 
 rect Essay, written in the country without the help of 
 books or advice of friends, shall find any acceptance 
 in the world, I promise to myself a better success of 
 the Second Part, wherein I shall more fully treat of * 
 the virtues and faults of the English poets, who have 
 written either in this, the epick 2 , or the lyrick 3 way 4 . 
 
 1 A om. I shall more fully treat of. 2 Epique, A. 
 
 3 Lyrique, A. 
 
 4 A has, ' will be more fully treated of, and their several styles 
 impartially imitated.' 
 
AN ESSAY 
 
 OF 
 
 DRAMATIC POESY 1 . 
 
 It was that memorable day 2 , in the first summer of 
 5 the late war, when our navy engaged 3 the Dutch ; a 
 day wherein the two most mighty and best appointed 
 fleets which any age had ever seen, disputed the com- 
 mand of the greater half of the globe, the commerce 
 of nations, and the riches of the universe : while 4 
 10 these vast floating bodies, on either side, moved 
 against each other in parallel lines, and our country- 
 men, under the happy conduct of his royal high- 
 ness 5 , went breaking, by little and little, into the 
 line of the enemies ; the noise of the cannon 
 15 from both navies reached our ears about the city, n 
 so that all men being alarmed with it, and in a dread- 
 ful suspense of the event, which they knew 6 was then 
 deciding, every one went following the sound as his 
 fancy led him ; and leaving the -town almost empty, 
 
 1 Dramatick Poesie, A* 2 June 3, 1665 (Malone). 
 
 8 ingag'd, A. * Universe. While, A. 
 
 8 James, duke of York, afterwards James II (Malone). 
 • we knew, A. 
 
THE OPENING. 9 
 
 some took towards the park, some cross the river, 
 others down it ; all seeking the noise in the depth of 
 silence. 
 
 Among the rest, it was the fortune of Eugenius, 
 Crites, Lisideius, and Neander, to be in company 5 
 together ; three of them persons whom their wit and 
 quality have made known to all the town ; and whom 
 I have chose to hide under these borrowed names, 
 that they may not suffer by so ill a relation as I am 
 going to make of their discourse. ;o 
 
 2. Taking then a barge, which a servant of Lisideius 
 had provided for them, they made haste to shoot the 
 bridge, and left behind them that great fall of waters 
 which hindered them from hearing what they desired : 
 after which, having disengaged 1 themselves from many 15 
 vessels which rode at anchor in the Thames, and al- 
 most blocked 2 up the passage towards Greenwich, they 
 ordered the watermen to let fall their oars more gently; 
 and then, every one favouring his own curiosity with a 
 strict silence, it was not long ere they perceived the air 20 
 to break 3 about them like the noise of distant thunder, 
 or of swallows in a chimney : those little undulations 
 of sound, though almost vanishing before they reached 
 them, yet still seeming to retain somewhat of their 
 first horrour, which they had betwixt the fleets. 25 
 After 4 they had attentively listened till such time as 
 the sound by little and little went from them, Eugenius, 
 lifting up his head, and taking notice of it, was the 
 first who congratulated to the rest that happy omen 
 of our nation's victory : adding, that 5 we had but 3° 
 
 1 disingag'd, A. a blockt, A. 3 The Air to break, A. 
 
 * Fleets : after. 5 A om. 
 
io OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 this to desire in confirmation of it, that we might 
 hear no more of that noise, which was now leaving 
 the English coast. When the rest had concurred in 
 the same opinion, Crites, a person of a sharp judg- 
 5 ment, and somewhat too delicate a taste in wit, which 
 the world have mistaken in him for ill-nature, said, 
 smiling to us, that if the concernment of this battle * 
 had not been so exceeding great, he could scarce 
 have wished the victory at the price he knew he 
 
 10 must pay for it, in being subject to the reading and 
 hearing of so many ill verses as he was sure would 
 be made on that subject. Adding 2 , that no argument 
 could scape some of those eternal rhymers, who 
 watch a battle with more diligence than the ravens 
 
 15 and birds of prey ; and the worst of them surest to 
 be first in upon the quarry: while the better able, 
 either out of modesty writ not at all, or set that due 
 value upon their poems, as to let them be often 
 desired 3 and long expected. ' There 4 are some of 
 
 20 those impertinent people of whom you speak V an " 
 swered Lisideius, 'who to my knowledge are already 
 so provided, either way, that they can produce not 
 only a panegyrick upon the victory, but, if need be, a 
 funeral elegy on the duke ; wherein, after 6 they have 
 
 25 crowned his valour with many laurels, they will 7 at 
 last deplore the odds under which he fell, concluding 
 that his courage deserved a better destiny.' All the 
 company smiled at the conceipt of Lisideius ; but 
 Crites, more eager than before, began to make par- 
 
 1 battel, A. 2 upon it ; adding, A. s call'd for. 
 
 * expected ! there, A. 5 people you speak of, A. 
 
 c and after, A. * A om. they will. 
 
THE OPENING. II 
 
 ticular exceptions against some writers, and said, the 
 publick magistrate ought to send betimes to forbid 
 them ; and that it concerned the peace and quiet of 
 all honest people, that ill poets should be as well 
 silenced as seditious preachers. 11 'In my opinion/ 5 
 replied Eugenius, 'you pursue your point too far; 
 for as to my own particular, I am so great a lover 
 of poesy, that I could wish them all rewarded, 
 who attempt but to do well; at least, I would not 
 have them worse used than one of their brethren 10 
 was by Sylla the Dictator 1 : — Quern in condone vidi- 
 mus (says Tully,) cum ei libellum mains poeta depopulo 
 subjecisset, quod epigramma in eum fecisset tantum- 
 modo altemis versibus longiusculis, statim ex iis rebus 
 quas tunc* vendebat jubere ei praemium tribui, sub 15 
 ea conditione ne quid postea scriberet.' n ' I could wish 
 with all my heart/ replied Crites, 'that many whom 
 we know were as bountifully thanked upon the same 
 condition, — that they would never trouble us again. 
 For amongst others, I have a mortal apprehension 20 
 of two poets n , whom this victory, with the help 
 of both her wings, will never be able to escape.' 
 1 'Tis easy 3 to guess whom you intend/ said Lisi- 
 deius ; 'and without naming them, I ask you, if 
 one of them does not perpetually pay us with 25 
 clenches upon words, and a certain clownish kind 
 of raillery ? if now and then he does not offer at a 
 catachresis 4 or Clevelandism 5 # wresting and tor- 
 
 1 then [than] Sylla the Dictator did one of their brethren here- 
 tofore, A. 
 
 2 quae tunc, A. 3 escape ; 'tis easie, A. 
 
 4 Catecresis, A. s so A ; Cleivelandisrn B, and edd. 
 
1 % OF DRAMA TIC POES Y. 
 
 hiring a word into another meaning : in fine, if he 
 be not one of those whom the French would call 
 un mauvais buffon ; one who is so much a well-wilier 
 to the satire, that he intends at least to spare 1 no 
 5 man ; and though he cannot strike a blow to hurt 
 any, yet he ought 2 to be punished for the malice 
 of the action, as our witches are justly hanged, 
 because they think themselves to be such 3 ; and 
 suffer deservedly for believing they did mischief, 
 
 10 because they meant it.' 'You have described him/ 
 said Crites, 'so exactly, that I am afraid to come 
 after you with my other extremity of poetry. He is 
 one of those who, having had some advantage of 
 education and converse, knows better than the other 
 
 15 what a poet should be, but puts it into practice more 
 unluckily than any man; his style and matter are 
 every where alike : he is the most calm, peaceable 
 writer you ever read : he never disquiets your pas- 
 sions with the least concernment, but still leaves you 
 
 20 in as even a temper as he found you ; he is a very 
 leveller in poetry: he creeps along with ten little 
 words in every line 4 , and helps out his numbers with 
 For to, and Unto, and all the pretty expletives he can 
 find, till he drags them to the end of another line ; 
 
 25 while the sense is left tired half way behind it : he 
 doubly starves all his verses, first for want of thought, 
 
 1 he spares, A. 2 yet ought, A. 
 
 8 think themselves so, A. 
 
 4 This passage evidently furnished Pope with his well-known 
 couplet in the Essay on Criticism ; 
 
 1 While expletives their feeble aid do join, 
 And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.' 
 
 (Malone.) 
 
THE OPENING. 13 
 
 and then of expression ; his poetry neither has wit in 
 it, nor seems to have it ; like him in Martial : n 
 
 Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper. 
 
 'He affects plainness, to cover his want of imagina- 
 tion : when he writes the serious way, the highest 5 
 flight of his fancy is some miserable antithesis, or 
 seeming contradiction; and in the comic he is still 
 reaching at some thin conceit, the ghost of a jest, and 
 that too flies before him, never to be caught ; these 
 swallows which we see before us on the Thames are 10 
 the just resemblance of his wit : you may observe 
 how near the water they stoop, how many proffers 
 they make to dip, and yet how seldom they touch it ; 
 and when they do, it is but the surface : they skim 
 over it but to catch a gnat, and then mount into the 15 
 air and leave it.' 
 
 3. 'Well, gentlemen,' said Eugenius, 'you may 
 speak your pleasure of these authors ; but though I 
 and some few more about the town may give you a 
 peaceable hearing, yet assure yourselves, there are 20 
 multitudes who would think you malicious and them 
 injured : especially him whom you first described ; 
 he is the very Withers 11 of the city: they have 
 bought more editions of his works than would serve 
 to lay under all their pies at the lord mayor's 2 5 
 Christmas. When his famous poem first came out 
 in the year 1660, I have seen them reading it in 
 the midst of 'Change time ; nay so vehement they 
 were at it, that they lost their bargain by the candles' 
 ends 11 ; but what will you say, if he has been re- 3° 
 ceived amongst great persons 1 ? I can assure you 
 1 the great Ones, A. 
 
14 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 he is, this day, the envy of one l who is lord in the 
 art of quibbling ; and who does not take it well, that 
 any man should intrude so far into his province/ 
 'All I would wish,' replied Crites, 'is, that they who 
 5 love his writings, may still admire him, and his 
 fellow poet : Qui Bavium non odit, $c, is curse suffi- 
 cient/ 'And farther,' added Lisideius, 'I believe 
 there is no man who writes well, but would think he 
 had hard measure 2 , if their admirers should praise 
 
 10 an}'thing of his : Nam quos contemnimus, eorum quo- 
 que laudes contemnimus.* 'There are so few who 
 write well in this age,' says Crites, 'that methinks any 
 praises should be welcome ; they neither rise to the 
 dignity of the last age, nor to any of the ancients : 
 
 15 and we may cry out of the writers of this time, with 
 more reason than Petronius of his, Pace vestrd liceat 
 dixisse, primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis: 11 you 
 have debauched the true old poetry so far, that 
 Nature, which is the soul of it, is not in any of \ T our 
 
 20 writings/ 
 
 4. 'If your quarrel,' said Eugenius, 'to those who 
 now write, be grounded only on your reverence to 
 antiquity, there is no man more ready to adore those 
 great Greeks and Romans than I am : but on the 
 
 25 other side, I cannot think so contemptibly of the age 
 in which I live 3 , or so dishonourably of my own 
 country, as not to judge we equal the ancients in 
 most kinds of poesy, and in some surpass them ; 
 neither know I any reason why I may not be as 
 
 1 of a great person, A. 
 
 2 think himself very hardly dealt with, A, 
 8 the Age I live in, A. 
 
THE OPENING. l$ 
 
 zealous for the reputation of our age, as we find the 
 ancients themselves were in reference to those who 
 lived before them. For you hear your Horace 
 saying, 
 
 Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crassi 5 
 
 Co?nposittim, illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper. n 
 
 And after : 
 
 Si meliora dies, ut vina, pot mat a reddit, 
 
 Scire velim, prethcm chartis qtiotus arroget annus?* 
 
 * But I see I am engaging in a wide dispute, where 10 
 the arguments are not like to reach close on either 
 side ; for poesy is of so large an extent, and so many 
 both of the ancients and moderns have done well in 
 all kinds of it, that in citing one against the other, 
 we shall take up more time this evening than each 15 
 man's occasions * will allow him : therefore I would 
 ask Crites to what part of poesy he would confine 
 his arguments, and whether he would defend the 
 general cause of the ancients against the moderns, 
 or oppose any age of the moderns against this of 20 
 ours ? ' 
 
 5. Crites, a little while considering upon this de- 
 mand, told Eugenius, that if 2 he pleased, he would 
 limit their dispute to Dramatique Poesie 3 ; in which 
 he thought it not difficult to prove, either that the 25 
 ancients were superior to the moderns, or the last 
 age to this of ours. 
 
 Eugenius was somewhat surprised, when he heard 
 Crites make choice of that subject. ' For ought I 
 
 1 so C ; mans occasions, A, B. 
 
 2 that he approv'd his Proposals, and if, A. 
 
 3 so A and B ; Dramatick Poesie, C. 
 
1 6 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 see/ said he, ' I have undertaken a harder province 
 than I imagined ; for though I never judged the 
 plays of the Greek or Roman poets comparable to 
 ours, yet, on the other side, those we now see acted 
 5 come short of many which were written in the last 
 age : but my comfort is, if we are overcome, it will 
 be only by our own countrymen : and if we yield to 
 them in this one part of poes}', we more surpass 
 them in all the other : for in the epic or lyric way, it 
 
 10 will be hard for them to shew us one such amongst 
 them, as we have many now living, or who lately 
 were * : they can produce nothing so courtly writ, or 
 which expresses so much the conversation of a 
 gentleman, as Sir John Suckling ; nothing so even, 
 
 15 sweet, and flowing, as Mr. Waller; nothing so majestic, 
 so correct, as Sir John Denham ; nothing so elevated, 
 so copious, and full of spirit, as Mr. Cowley; as 
 for the Italian, French, and Spanish plays, I can 
 make it evident, that those who now write surpass 
 
 20 them ; and that the drama is wholly ours/ 
 
 All of them were thus far of Eugenius his n opinion, 
 that the sweetness of English verse was never under- 
 stood or practised by our fathers ; even Crites him- 
 self did not much oppose it : and every one was 
 
 25 willing to acknowledge how much our poesy is im- 
 proved by the happiness of some writers yet living ; 
 who first taught us to mould our thoughts into easy 
 and significant words, — to retrench the superfluities 
 of expression, — and to make our rime 2 so properly a 
 
 30 part of the verse, that it should never mislead the 
 sense, but itself be led and governed by it. 
 
 1 were so, A. 3 so A and B ; rhyme, C. 
 
DEFINITION OF A PLA Y. 1 7 
 
 6. Eugenius was going to continue this discourse, 
 when Lisideius told him that 1 it was necessary, be- 
 fore they proceeded further, to take a standing mea- 
 sure of their controversy ; for how was it possible to 
 be decided who writ the best plays, before we know 5 
 what a play should be ? But, this once agreed on 
 by both parties, each might have recourse to it, either 
 to prove his own advantages, or to discover the 
 failings of his adversary. 
 
 He had no sooner said this, but all desired the 10 
 favour of him to give the definition of a play ; and 
 they were the more importunate, because neither 
 Aristotle, nor Horace, nor any other, who had writ 2 
 of that subject, had ever done it. 
 
 Lisideius, after some modest denials, at last con- 15 
 fessed he had a rude notion of it ; indeed, rather a 
 description than a definition; but which served to 
 guide him in his private thoughts, when he was to 
 make a judgment of what others writ : that he con- 
 ceived a play ought to be, A just and lively image of 20 
 human nature, representing its passions and humours, 
 and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the 
 delight and instruction of mankind. 
 
 This definition, though Crites raised a logical ob- 
 jection against it — that it was only a genere et fine, 25 
 and so not altogether perfect n , was yet well received 
 by the rest : and after they had given order to the 
 watermen to turn their barge, and row softly, that 
 they might take the cool of the evening in their re- 
 turn, Crites, being desired by the company to begin, 10 
 spoke on behalf of the ancients, in this manner :— 
 
 1 A om. a who writ, A. 
 
 C 
 
J 8 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 4 If confidence presage a victory, Eugenius, in his 
 own opinion, has already triumphed over the an- 
 cients : nothing seems more easy to him, than to 
 overcome those whom it is our greatest praise, to 
 5 have imitated well ; for we do not only build upon 
 their foundations *, but by their models. Dramatic 
 Poesy had time enough, reckoning from Thespis 
 (who first invented it) to Aristophanes, to be born, 
 to grow up, and to flourish in maturity. It has been 
 
 io observed of arts and sciences, that in one and the 
 same century they have arrived to great 2 perfection ; n 
 and no wonder, since every age has a kind of uni- 
 versal genius, which inclines those that live in it 
 to some particular studies : the work then, being 
 
 15 pushed on by many hands, must of necessity go 
 forward. 
 
 ' Is it not evident, in these last hundred years, 
 when the study of philosophy has been the business 
 of all the Virtuosi in Christendom, that almost a 
 
 20 new nature has been revealed to us ? That more 
 errors of the school have been detected, more useful 
 experiments in philosophy have been made, more 
 noble secrets in optics, medicine, anatomy, astro- 
 nomy, discovered, than in all those credulous and 
 
 25 doting ages from Aristotle to us ? — so true it is, that 
 nothing spreads more fast than science, when rightly 
 and generally cultivated. 
 
 ' Add to this, the more than common emulation 
 that was in those times of writing well ; which 
 
 30 though it be found in all ages and all persons that 
 pretend to the same reputation, yet poesy, being 
 
 1 foundation, A. 2 a great, A. 
 
C RITES PRAISES THE ANCIENTS. 19 
 
 then in more esteem than now it is, had greater 
 honours decreed to the professors of it, and conse- 
 quently the rivalship was more high between them ; 
 they had judges ordained to decide their merit, and 
 prizes to reward it ; and historians have been dili- 5, 
 gent to record of Eschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, 
 Lycophron, and the rest of them, both who they 
 were that vanquished in these wars of the theatre,, 
 and how often they were crowned : while the Asian 
 kings and Grecian commonwealths scarce afforded iq 
 them a nobler subject than the unmanly luxuries of 
 a debauched court, or giddy intrigues of a factious 
 city: — Alit cemulatio ingenia, (says Paterculus,) et 
 nunc invidia, nunc admiratio incitationem accendit: n 
 Emulation is the spur of wit; and sometimes envy, 15 
 sometimes admiration, quickens our endeavours, 
 
 ' But now, since the rewards of honour are taken 
 away, that virtuous emulation is turned into direct 
 malice ; yet so slothful, that it contents itself to con- 
 demn and cry down others, without attempting to do 20 
 better : it is 1 a reputation too unprofitable, to take 
 the necessary pains for it ; yet, wishing they had it, 
 that desire 2 is incitement enough to hinder others 
 from it. And this, in short, Eugenius, is the reason 
 why you have now so few good poets, and so many 25 
 severe judges. Certainly, to imitate the ancients 
 well, much labour and long study is required ; which 
 pains, I have already shewn, our poets would want 
 encouragement to take, if yet they had ability to go 
 through the work 3 . Those ancients have been faithful 3° 
 imitators and wise observers of that nature which is, 
 
 1 'tis, A. 2 A om. that desire. 3 through with it, A. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 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. But, that you 
 5 may know how much you are indebted to those your 
 masters, and be ashamed to have so ill requited 
 them, I must remember you, that all the rules by 
 which we practise the drama at this day, (either such 
 as relate to the justness and symmetry of the plot, or 
 
 jo the episodical ornaments, such as descriptions, nar- 
 rations, and other beauties, which are not essential 
 to the play 1 ,) were delivered to us from the observa- 
 tions which Aristotle made, of those poets, who 
 either lived before him, or were his contemporaries : 
 
 1-5 we have added nothing of our own, except we have 
 the confidence to say our wit is better ; of which, 
 none boast in this our age, but such as understand 
 not theirs. Of that book which Aristotle has left us, 
 irep\ ttjs UoirjTiKrjs, Horace his Art of Poetry is an ex- 
 
 20 cellent comment, and, I believe, restores to us that 
 Second Book of his concerning Comedy, which is 
 wanting in him. n 
 
 1 Out of these two have 2 been extracted the famous 
 Rules, which the French call Des Trots Unites, or, 
 
 25 The Three Unities, which ought to be observed in 
 every regular play; namely, of Time, Place, and 
 Action. 
 
 ' The unity of time they comprehend in twenty- four 
 hours, the compass of a natural day, or as near as it 
 
 30 can be contrived ; and the reason of it is obvious to 
 every one, — that the time of the feigned action, or 
 
 1 no brackets in A. 2 has, A. 
 
CR1TES PRAISES THE ANCIENTS. 21 
 
 fable of the play, should be proportioned as near as 
 can be to the duration of that time in which it is 
 represented : since therefore, all plays are acted on the 
 theatre in the space of time much within the compass 
 of twenty-four hours, that play is to be thought the 5 
 nearest imitation of nature, whose plot or action is 
 confined within that time ; and, by the same rule 
 which concludes this general proportion of time, it 
 follows, that all the parts of it are (as near as may 
 be 1 ) to be equally subdivided; namely 2 , that one act 10 
 take not up the supposed time of half a day, which is 
 out of proportion to the rest ; since the other four are 
 then to be straitened within the compass of the re- 
 maining half: for it is unnatural that one act, which 
 being spoke or written is not longer than the rest, 15 
 should be supposed longer by the audience ; it is 
 therefore the poet's duty, to take care that no act 
 should be imagined to exceed the time in which it is 
 represented on the stage ; and that the intervals and 
 inequalities of time be supposed to fall out between 20 
 the acts. 
 
 i This rule of time, how well it has been observed 
 by the ancients, most of their plays will witness ; you 
 see them in their tragedies, (wherein to follow this 
 rule, is certainly most difficult,) from the very be- 25 
 ginning of their plays, falling close into that part of 
 the story which they intend for the action or principal 
 object of it, leaving the former part to be delivered by 
 narration : so that they set the audience, as it were, at 
 the post where the race is to be concluded; and, saving 30 
 them the tedious expectation of seeing the poet set out 
 
 1 A om. as near as may be. 2 as namely, A. 
 
22 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 and ride the beginning of the course, they suffer you 
 not to behold him 1 , till he is in sight of the goal, and 
 just upon you. 
 
 ' For the second unity, which is that of Place, the 
 5 ancients meant by it, that the scene ought to be con- 
 tinued through the play, in the same place where it 
 was laid in the beginning : for, the stage on which it 
 is represented being but one and the same place, it is 
 unnatural to conceive it many, — and those far distant 
 
 10 from one another. I will not deny but, by the vari- 
 ation of painted scenes, the fancy, which in these 
 cases will contribute to its own deceit, may sometimes 
 imagine it several places, with some appearance of 
 probability; yet it still carries the greater likelihood 
 
 15 of truth, if those places be supposed so near each 
 other, as in the same town or city; which may all be 
 comprehended under the larger denomination of one 
 place ; for a greater distance will bear no proportion 
 to the shortness of time which is allotted, in the 
 
 20 acting, to' pass from one of them to another ; for the 
 observation of this, next to the ancients, the French 
 are to be most commended. They tie themselves so 
 strictly to the unity of place, that you never see in 
 any of their plays, a scene changed in the middle of 
 
 25 an act : if the act begins in a garden, a street, or 
 chamber, 'tis ended in the same place ; and that you 
 may know it to be the same, the stage is so supplied 
 with persons, that it is never empty all the time : he 
 who enters second 2 , has business with him who was 
 
 30 on before ; and before the second quits the stage, 
 a third appears who has business with him. This 
 
 1 you behold him not, A. 2 that enters the second, A. 
 
CRITES PRAISES THE ANCIENTS. 23 
 
 Corneille 1 calls la liaison des scenes, the continuity or 
 joining of the scenes ; and 'tis a good mark of a well- 
 contrived play, when all the persons are known to 
 each other, and every one of them has some affairs 
 with all the rest. 5 
 
 ■ As for the third unity, which is that of Action, the 
 ancients meant no other by it than what the logicians 
 do by their finis, the end or scope of any action ; that 
 which is the first in intention, and last in execution : 
 now the poet is to aim at one great and complete 10 
 action, to the carrying on of which all things in his 
 play, even the very obstacles, are to be subservient ; 
 and the reason of this is as evident as any of the 
 former. For two actions, equally laboured and driven 
 on by the writer, would destroy the unity of the poem; 15 
 it would be no longer one play, but two : not but that 
 there may be many actions in a play, as Ben Johnson 
 has observed in his Discoveries^) but they must be 
 all subservient to the great one, which our language 
 happily expresses in the name of under-plots : such as 20 
 in Terence's Eunuch is the difference and reconcile- 
 ment of Thais and Phaedria, which is not the chief 
 business of the play, but promotes the marriage of 
 Chaerea and Chremes's sister, principally intended 
 by the poet. There ought to be but one action, says 25 
 Corneille, that is, one complete action, which leaves 
 the mind of the audience in a full repose ; but this 
 cannot be brought to pass but by many other im- 
 perfect actions, which conduce to it, and hold the 
 audience in a delightful suspence of what will be. 30 
 
 ' If by these rules (to omit many other drawn from 
 1 Cornell, A. 
 
24 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 the precepts and practice of the ancients) we should 
 judge our modern plays, 'tis probable that few of them 
 would endure the trial : that which should be the 
 business of a day, takes up in some of them an age ; 
 
 5 instead of one action, they are the epitomes of a man's 
 life; and for one spot of ground, which the stage 
 should represent, we are sometimes in more countries 
 than the map can shew us. 
 
 ' But if we allow the Ancients to have contrived 
 
 io well, we must acknowledge them to have written 1 
 better. Questionless we are deprived of a great stock 
 of wit in the loss of Menander among the Greek 
 poets, and of Caecilius, Afranius, and Varius, among 
 the Romans ; we may guess at Menander' s excellency 
 
 15 by the plays of Terence, who translated some of his 2 ; 
 and yet wanted so much of him, that he was called by 
 C. Caesar the half- Menander; and may judge 3 of 
 Varius, by the testimonies of Horace, Martial, and 
 Velleius Paterculus. 'Tis probable that these, could 
 
 20 they be recovered, would decide the controversy ; but 
 so long as Aristophanes and Plautus 4 are extant, 
 while the tragedies of Euripides, Sophocles, and 
 Seneca, are in our hands 5 , I can never see one of 
 those plays which are now written, but it increases 
 
 25 my admiration of the ancients. And yet I must 
 acknowledge further, that to admire them as we ought, 
 we should understand them better than we do. Doubt- 
 less many things appear flat to us, the wit of which 6 
 depended on some custom or story, which never came 
 
 1 writ, A. 2 so A ; B has 'them.' s A om. may judge. 
 
 * Aristophanes in the old Comedy and Plautus in the new, A. 
 5 are to be had, A. 6 whose wit, A. 
 
CRITES PRAISES THE ANCIENTS. 25 
 
 to our knowledge; or perhaps on some criticism in 
 their language, which being so long dead, and only 
 remaining in their books, 'tis not possible they should 
 make us understand l perfectly. To read Macrobius, 
 explaining the propriety and elegancy of many words 5 
 in Virgil, which I had before passed over without 
 consideration as common things, is enough to assure 
 me that I ought to think the same of Terence ; and 
 that in the purity of his style (which Tully so much 
 valued that he ever carried his works about him) there 10 
 is yet left in him great room for admiration, if I knew 
 but where to place it. In the mean time I must desire 
 you to take notice, that the greatest man of the last 
 age, Ben Johnson, was willing to give place to them in 
 all things : he was not only a professed imitator of 15 
 Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others ; you 
 track him every where in their snow : if H orace, Lucan, 
 Petronius Arbiter, Seneca, and Juvenal, had their 
 own from him, there are few serious thoughts which 
 are new in him : you will pardon me, therefore, if I 20 
 presume he loved their fashion, when he wore their 
 cloaths. But since I have otherwise a great venera- 
 tion for him, and you, Eugenius, prefer him above all 
 other poets,* I will use no farther argument to you 
 than his example : I will produce before you Father 25 
 Ben 2 , dressed in all the ornaments and colours of the 
 ancients ; you will need no other guide to our party, 
 if you follow him ; and whether you consider the bad 
 
 1 know it, A. 2 Father Ben to you, A. 
 
 * See a high eulogy on Ben Jonson, by Lord Buckhurst (the 
 Eugenius of thi? piece), written about the year 1668. Dryden's 
 Miscel. v. 123, edit. 1716 (Malone). 
 
%6 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 plays of our age, or regard the good plays T of the 
 last, both the best and worst of the modern poets will 
 equally instruct you to admire 2 the ancients/ 
 
 Crites had no sooner left speaking, but Eugenius, 
 5 who had 3 waited with some impatience for it, thus 
 began : 
 
 ' I have observed in your speech, that the former 
 part of it is convincing as to what the moderns have 
 profited by the rules of the ancients ; but in the latter 
 
 io you are careful to conceal how much they have ex- 
 celled them ; we own all the helps we have from them, 
 and want neither veneration nor gratitude, while we 
 acknowledge that, to overcome them, we must make 
 use of the advantages we have received from them : 
 
 15 but to these assistances we have joined our own in- 
 dustry ; for, had we sat down with a dull imitation of 
 them, we might then have lost somewhat of the old 
 perfection, but never acquired any that was new. We 
 draw not therefore after their lines, but those of nature ; 
 
 20 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. I deny not 
 what you urge of arts and sciences, that they have 
 flourished in some ages more than others ; but your 
 
 25 instance in philosophy makes for me : for if natural 
 causes be more known now than in the time of 
 Aristotle, because more studied, it follows that poesy 
 and other arts may, with the same pains, arrive still 
 nearer to perfection ; and, that granted, it will rest 
 
 30 for you to prove that they wrought more perfect 
 images of human life than we ; which seeing in 
 
 1 good ones, A. 2 esteem, A. 3 A om. had. 
 
EUGENIUS VINDICATES THE MODERNS. 2, J 
 
 your discourse you have avoided to make good ; it 
 shall now be my task to show you some part of their 
 defects, and some few excellencies of the moderns. 
 And I think there is none among us can imagine 
 I do it enviously, or with purpose to detract from 5 
 them ; for what interest of fame or profit can the 
 living lose by the reputation of the dead ? On the 
 other side, it is a great truth which Velleius Pater- 
 culus affirms 11 : Audita visis libentius laudamus ; et 
 prcesentia invidia, prceterita admiratione prosequimur ; 10 
 et his nos obrui, illis instrui credimus : that praise or 
 censure is certainly the most sincere, which unbribed 
 posterity shall give us. 
 
 ' Be pleased then in the first place to take notice, 
 that the Greek poesy, which Crites has affirmed to 15 
 have arrived to perfection in the reign of the old 
 comedy, was so far from it, that the distinction of 
 it into acts was not known to them ; or if it were, 
 it is yet so darkly delivered to us that we cannot 
 make it out. 20 
 
 ■' All we know of it is, from the singing of their 
 Chorus ; and that too is so uncertain, that in some 
 of their plays we have reason to conjecture they sung 
 more than five times. Aristotle indeed divides the 
 integral parts of a play into four. First, the Protasis, 25 
 or entrance, which gives light only to the characters 
 of the persons, and proceeds very little into any part 
 of the action. Secondly, the Epitasis, or working up 
 of the plot ; where the play grows warmer, the design 
 or action of it is drawing on, and you see something 3° 
 promising that it will come to pass. Thirdly, the 
 Catastasis, called by the Romans, Status, the height 
 
28 OF DRAMATIC POESY, 
 
 and full growth of the play : we may call it properly 
 the counter-turn 1 , which destroys that expectation, 
 imbroils the action in new difficulties, and leaves you 
 far distant from that hope in which it found you ; as 
 
 5 you may have observed in a violent stream resisted 
 by a narrow passage, — it runs round to an eddy, and 
 carries back the waters with more swiftness than it 
 brought them on. Lastly, the Catastrophe, which the 
 Grecians called XiW/the French le denouement, and 
 
 io we the discovery, or unravelling of the plot : there 
 you see all things settling again upon their first foun- 
 dations ; and, the obstacles which hindered the design 
 or action of the play once removed, it ends with that 
 resemblance of truth and nature, that the audience 
 
 15 are satisfied with the conduct of it. Thus this great 
 man delivered to us the image of a play ; and I must 
 confess it is so lively, that from thence much light has 
 been derived to the forming it more perfectly into acts 
 and scenes : but what poet first limited to five the 
 
 20 number of the acts, I know not ; only we see it so 
 firmly established in the time of Horace, that he gives 
 it for a rule in comedy, — Neu brevior quinto, neu sit 
 prodnctior actu. n So that you see the Grecians cannot 
 be said to have consummated this art ; writing rather 
 
 25 by entrances, than by acts, and having rather a general 
 indigested notion of a play, than knowing how and 
 where to bestow the particular graces of it. 
 
 1 But since the Spaniards at this day allow but three 
 acts, which they call Jornadas^, to a play, and the 
 
 3° Italians in many of theirs follow them, when I con- 
 demn the ancients, I declare it is not altogether 
 
 1 A has, ' Thirdly the Catastasis or Counterturn': the rest om % 
 
EUGENIUS VINDICATES THE MODERNS. 29 
 
 because they have not five acts to every play, but 
 because they have not confined themselves to one 
 certain number : it is building an house without a 
 model ; and when they succeeded in such undertakings, 
 they ought to have sacrificed to Fortune, not to 5 
 the Muses. 
 
 i Next, for the plot, which Aristotle called to fxv66s n , 
 and often t&v TrpayiuWodv (jvvOeo-is, and from him the 
 Romans Fabula ; it has already been judiciously ob- 
 served by a late writer, that in their tragedies it was 10 
 only some tale derived from Thebes or Troy, or at 
 least something that happened in those two ages ; 
 which was worn so threadbare by the pens of all the 
 epic poets, and even by tradition itself of the talka- 
 tive Greeklings, (as Ben Johnson calls them,) that 15 
 before it came upon the stage, it was already known 
 to all the audience : and the people, so soon as ever 
 they heard the name of Oedipus, knew as well as the 
 poet, that he had killed his father by a mistake, and 
 committed incest with his mother, before the play ; 20 
 that they were now to hear of a great plague, an 
 oracle, and the ghost of Laius : so that they sat with 
 a yawning kind of expectation, till he was to come 
 with his eyes pulled out, and speak a hundred or 
 more * verses in a tragic tone, in complaint of his 25 
 misfortunes. But one Oedipus, Hercules, or Medea, 
 had been tolerable : poor people, they escaped not so 
 good <:heap n ; they had still the chapon bouille set 
 before them, till their appetites were cloyed with the 
 same dish, and, the novelty being gone, the pleasure 30 
 vanished ; so that one main end of Dramatic Poesy 
 1 hundred or two of, A. 
 
30 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 in its definition, which was to cause delight, was of 
 consequence destroyed. 
 
 ' In their comedies, the Romans generally borrowed 
 their plots from the Greek poets; and theirs was 
 5 commonly a little girl stolen or wandered from her 
 parents, brought back unknown to the city 1 , there 
 [falling into the hands of] some young fellow, who, 
 by the help of his servant, cheats his father ; and 
 when her time comes, to cry, — Juno Lucina, fer 
 
 10 opem, — one or other sees a little box or cabinet which 
 was carried away with her, and so discovers her to 
 her friends, if some god do not prevent it, by coming 
 down in a machine, and taking 2 the thanks of it to 
 himself. 
 
 15 ' By the plot you may guess much of the characters 
 of the persons. An old father, who would willingly, 
 before he dies, see his son well married ; his de- 
 bauched son, kind in his nature to his mistress 3 , but 
 miserably in want of money ; a servant or slave, who 
 
 20 has so much wit to strike in with him, and help to 
 dupe his father ; a braggadocio captain, a parasite, 
 and a lady of pleasure. 
 
 ' As for the poor honest maid, on whom the story 
 is built, and who ought to be one of the principal 
 
 25 actors in the play, she is commonly a mute in it : she 
 has the breeding of the old Elizabeth way, which 
 was 4 for maids to be seen and not to be heard ; and 
 it is enough you know she is willing to be married, 
 when the fifth act requires it. 
 
 30 'These are plots built after the Italian mode of 
 
 1 the same city, A. 2 take, A. 
 
 3 so C ; Mistres, B ; Wench, A. 4 A om. which was. 
 
EUGENIUS VINDICATES THE MODERNS. 31 
 
 houses,— you see through them all at once.: the 
 characters are indeed the imitation of nature, but 
 so narrow, as if they had imitated only an eye or an 
 hand, and did not dare to venture on the lines of 
 a face, or the proportion of a body. 5 
 
 ' But in how strait a compass soever they have 
 bounded their plots and characters, we will pass 
 it by, if they have regularly pursued them, and per- 
 fectly observed those three unities of time, place, and 
 action ; the knowledge of which you say is derived 10 
 to us from them. But in the first place give me leave 
 to tell you, that the unity of place, however it might 
 be practised by them, was never any of their rules : 
 we neither find it in Aristotle, Horace, or any who 
 have written of it, till in our age the French poets 15 
 first made it a precept of the stage. The unity of 
 time, even Terence himself, who was the best and 
 most regular of them, has neglected : his Heauton- 
 timorumenos, or Self-Punisher, takes up visibly two 
 days, says Scaliger ; the two first acts concluding 20 
 the first day, the three last the day ensuing 1 ; and 
 Euripides, in tying himself to one day, has committed 
 an absurdity never to be forgiven him; for in one 
 of his tragedies 11 he has made Theseus go from 
 Athens to Thebes, which was about forty English 25 
 miles, under the walls of it to give battle, and appear 
 victorious in the next act ; and yet, from the time 
 of his departure to the return of the Nuntius, who 
 gives the relation of his victory, ^Ethra and the 
 
 1 A has, ' therefore, sayes Scaliger, the two first acts concluding 
 the first day were acted overnight ; the three last on the ensuing 
 day.' 
 
$Z OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 Chorus have but thirty-six verses ; which ■ is not 
 for every mile a verse. 
 
 1 The like error is as evident in Terence his Eunuch, 
 when Laches, the old man, enters by mistake into 
 
 5 the house 2 of Thais ; where, betwixt his exit and 
 the entrance of Pythias, who comes to give ample 
 relation of the disorders 3 he has raised within, Par- 
 meno, who was left upon the stage, has not above 
 five lines to speak. C'est bien employer^ un temps si 
 
 io court, says the French poet, who furnished me with 
 one of the observations : and almost all their tragedies 
 will afford us examples of the like nature. 
 
 'It is true 5 , they have kept the continuity, or, as 
 you called it, liaison des scenes, somewhat better : 
 
 J 5 two do not perpetually come in together, talk, and 
 go out together; and other two succeed them, and 
 do the same throughout the act, which the English 
 call by the name of single scenes ; but the reason 
 is, because they have seldom above two or three 
 
 20 scenes, properly so called, in every act ; for it is to 
 be accounted a new scene, not only every time 6 the 
 stage is empty ; but every person who enters, though 
 to others, makes it so ; because he introduces a new 
 business. Now the plots of their plays being narrow, 
 
 25 and the persons few, one of their acts was written 
 in a less compass than one of our well-wrought 
 scenes; and yet they are often deficient even in 
 this. To go no further than Terence; you find in 
 the Eunuch, Antipho entering single in the midst 
 
 1 that, A. 2 in a mistake the house, A. 
 
 3 Garboyles, A. 4 employe, A. 
 
 5 'Tis true, A. 6 not every time, A. 
 
EUGENIUS VINDICATES THE MODERNS. 33 
 
 of the third act, after Chremes and Pythias were 
 gone off; in the same play you have likewise Dorias 
 beginning the fourth act alone; and after she had 
 made a relation of what was done at the Soldier's x 
 entertainment, (which by the way was very inarti- 5 
 ficial, because she was presumed to speak directly 
 to the audience, and to acquaint them with what was 
 necessary to be known, but yet should have been so 
 contrived by the poet as to have been told by persons 
 of the drama to one another, and so by them to have 10 
 come to the knowledge of the people,) she quits the 
 stage, and Phaedria enters next, alone likewise : he 
 also gives you an account of himself, and of his 
 returning from the country, in monologue ; to which 
 unnatural way of narration Terence is subject in 15 
 all his plays. In his Adelphi, or Brothers, Syrus 
 and Demea enter after the scene was broken by 
 the departure of Sostrata, Geta, and Canthara ; and 
 indeed you can scarce look into any of his comedies, 
 where you will not presently discover the same in- 20 
 terruption. 
 
 'But as they have failed both in laying of their 
 plots, and in the management 2 , swerving from the 
 rules of their own art by misrepresenting nature to 
 us, in which they have ill satisfied one intention of 25 
 a play, which was delight ; so in the instructive part 
 they have erred worse : instead of punishing vice 
 and rewarding virtue, they have often shewn a pros- 
 perous wickedness, and an unhappy piety : they have 
 set before us a bloody image of revenge in Medea, 3° 
 and given her dragons to convey her safe from punish- 
 
 1 Souldiers, A. 2 managing of 'em, A. 
 
 D 
 
34 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 ment; a Priam and Astyanax murdered, and Cas- 
 sandra ravished, and the lust and murder ending 
 in the victory of him who acted them : in short, 
 there is no indecorum in any of our modern plays, 
 
 5 which if I would excuse, I could not shadow with 
 some authority from the ancients. 
 
 1 And one farther note of them let'me leave you : 
 tragedies and comedies were not writ then as they 
 are now, promiscuously, by the same person; but 
 
 io he who found his genius bending to the one, never 
 attempted the other way. This is so plain, that I 
 need not instance to you, that Aristophanes, Plautus, 
 Terence, never any of them writ a tragedy; ^Eschylus, 
 Euripides 11 , Sophocles, and Seneca, never meddled 
 
 15 with comedy: the sock and buskin were not worn 
 by the same poet. Having then so much care to 
 excel in one kind, very little is to be pardoned them, 
 if they miscarried in it ; and this would lead me to 
 the consideration of their wit, had not Crites given 
 
 20 me sufficient warning not to be too bold in my judg- 
 ment of it ; because, the languages being dead, and 
 many of the customs and little accidents on which 
 it depended lost to us, we are not competent judges 
 of it. But though I grant that here and there we 
 
 25 may miss the application of a proverb or a custom, 
 yet a thing well said will be wit in all languages; 
 and though it may lose something in the translation, 
 yet to him who reads it in the original, 'tis still the 
 same : he has an idea of its excellency, though it 
 
 30 cannot pass from his mind into any other expression 
 or words than those in which he finds it. When 
 Phaedria, in the Eunuch, had a command from his 
 
EUGENIUS VINDICATES THE MODERNS. 35 
 
 mistress to be absent two days, and, encouraging 
 himself to go through with it, said, Tandem ego non 
 ilia caream, si sit opus 1 , vel totum triduum? — Par- 
 meno, to mock the softness of his master, lifting up 
 his hands and eyes, cries out, as it were in admira- 5 
 tion, Hui! universum triduum ! n the elegancy of 
 which universum, though it cannot be rendered in 
 our language, yet leaves an impression on our souls : 
 but this happens seldom in him ; in Plautus oftener, 
 who is infinitely too bold in his metaphors and coin- 10 
 ing words, out of which many times his wit is . no- 
 thing ; which questionless was one reason why Horace 
 falls upon him so severely in those verses : 
 
 Sed proavi nostri Plautinos et numeros et 
 
 Laudavere sales, nimium patienter utrumque, 15 
 
 Ne dicam stolide n . 
 
 For Horace himself was cautious to obtrude a new 
 word on his readers, and makes custom and com- 
 mon use the best measure of receiving it into our 
 writings : 20 
 
 Multa renascentur quce nunc [jam] cecidere, cadentque 
 Qua nunc stint in honore vocabula, si volet usus, 
 Quern penes arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi n . 
 
 The not observing this rule is that which the 
 world has blamed in our satyrist, Cleveland 2 : to 25 
 express a thing hard and unnaturally, is his new 
 way of elocution. J Tis true, no poet but may some- 
 times use a catachresis 11 : Virgil does it — 
 
 Mistaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho — n 
 
 1 si opus sit, A. 2 so A ; Cleiveland, B. 
 
 D 2 
 
$6 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 in his eclogue of Pollio ; and in his seventh iEneid, 
 
 mirantur et undce, 
 Miratur nemus insuetum ftdgentia longe 
 Scuta virum fluvio pictasque innare carinas. 
 
 5 And Ovid once so modestly, that he asks leave to 
 do it: 
 
 quern, si verbo attdacia detur, 
 
 Haud metuam summi dixisse Palatia cceli*. 
 
 calling the court of Jupiter by the name of Augustus 
 
 io his palace ; though in another place he is more bold, 
 where he says, — et longas visent Capitolia pompas. 
 But to do this always, and never be able to write 
 a line without it, though it may be admired by some 
 few pedants, will not pass upon those who know that 
 
 15 wit is best combed to us in the most easy language ; 
 and is most to be admired when a great thought 
 comes dressed in words so commonly received, that 
 it is understood by the meanest apprehensions, as 
 the best meat is the most easily digested : but we 
 
 20 cannot read a verse of Cleveland's without making 
 a face at it, as if every word were a pill to 
 swallow : he gives us many times a hard nut to 
 break our teeth, without a kernel for our pains. So 
 that there is this difference betwixt his Satires and 
 
 25 doctor Donne's ; that the one gives us deep thoughts 
 in common language, though rough cadence; the 
 other gives us common thoughts in abstruse words : 
 'tis true, in some places his wit is independent of his 
 words, as in that of the rebel Scot : 
 
 30 Had Cain been Scot, God would have chang'd his doom ; 
 
 Not forc'd him wander, but confin'd him home n . 
 
EUGENIUS VINDICATES THE MODERNS. 37 
 
 Si sic omnia dixisset! n This is wit in all languages : 
 it is like Mercury, never to be lost or killed : — and 
 so that other — 
 
 For beauty, like white powder, makes no noise, 
 
 And yet the silent hypocrite destroys. 5 
 
 You see, the last line is highly metaphorical, but 
 it is so soft and gentle, that it does not shock us as 
 we read it. 
 
 'But, to return from whence I have digressed, to 
 the consideration of the ancients' writing, and their 10 
 wit; (of which by this time you will grant us in 
 some measure to be fit judges.) Though I *see many 
 excellent thoughts in Seneca, yet he of them who 
 had a genius most proper for the stage, was Ovid ; 
 he had a way of writing so fit to stir up a pleasing 15 
 admiration and concernment, which are the objects 
 of a tragedy, and to shew the various movements of 
 a soul combating betwixt two different passions, that, 
 had he lived in our age, or in his own could have 
 writ with our advantages, no man but must have 20 
 yielded to him ; and therefore I am confident the 
 Medea n is none of his : for, though I esteem it for 
 the gravity and sententiousness of it, which he him- 
 self concludes to be suitable to a tragedy, — Omne 
 genus scripti gravitate tragcedia vincit n , — yet it moves 25 
 not my soul enough to judge that he, who in the 
 epick way wrote things so near the drama as the 
 story of Myrrha, of Caunus and Biblis, and the rest, 
 should stir up no more concernment where he most 
 endeavoured it n . The master-piece of Seneca I hold 3° 
 to be that scene in the Troades, where Ulysses is 
 seeking for Astyanax to kill him: there you seethe 
 
38 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 tenderness of a mother so represented in Andromache, 
 that it raises compassion to a high degree in the 
 reader, and bears the nearest resemblance of any 
 thing in the tragedies of the ancients l to the excellent 
 5 scenes of passion in Shakspeare, or in Fletcher : for 
 love-scenes, you will find few among them; their 
 tragick poets dealt not with that soft passion, but 
 with lust, cruelty, revenge, ambition, and those bloody 
 actions they produced ; which were more capable 
 
 10 of raising horrour than compassion in an audience : 
 leaving love untouched, whose gentleness would have 
 tempered them ; which is the most frequent of all the 
 passions, and which, being the private concernment 
 of every person, is soothed by viewing its own image 
 
 15 in a publick entertainment. 
 
 ' Among their comedies, we find a scene or two of 
 tenderness, and that where you would least expect it, 
 in Plautus ; but to speak general ly, their lovers say 
 little, when they see each other, but anima mea, vita 
 
 20 mea ; Zco^ <a\ -v/™^ n, as the women in Juvenal's time 
 used to cry out in the fury of their kindness 2 . Any 
 sudden gust of passion (as an extasy of love in an 
 unexpected meeting) cannot better be expressed than 
 in a word and a sigh, breaking one another. Nature 
 
 25 is dumb on such occasions ; and to make her speak, 
 would be to represent her unlike herself. But there 
 are a thousand other concernments of lovers, as 
 jealousies, complaints, contrivances, and the like, 
 where not to open their minds at large to each other, 
 
 3° were to be wanting to their own love, and to the ex- 
 
 1 their tragedies, A. 
 
 2 kindness : then indeed to speak sense were an offence, A. 
 
REPLY OF CRITES. 39 
 
 pectation of the audience ; who watch the movements 
 of their minds, as much as the changes of their for- 
 tunes. For the imaging of the first is properly the work 
 of a poet; the latter he borrows from 1 the historian/ 
 
 Eugenius was proceeding in that part of his dis- 5 
 course, when Crites interrupted him. ' I see/ said 
 he, ' Eugenius and I are never like to have this 
 question decided betwixt us; for he maintains, the 
 moderns have acquired a new perfection in writing ; 
 I can only grant they have altered the mode of it. 10 
 Homer described his heroes men of great appetites, 
 lovers of beef broiled upon the coals, and good 
 fellows; contrary to the practice of the French 
 Romances, whose heroes neither eat, nor drink, nor 
 sleep, for love. Virgil makes iEneas a bold avower 15 
 of his own virtues : 
 
 Sum pius sEneas, fama super czthera notus* ; 
 which, in the civility of our poets is the character of 
 a fanfaron or Hector: for with us the knight takes 
 occasion to walk out, or sleep, to avoid the vanity of t/q 
 telling his own story, which the trusty 'squire is ever' 
 to perform for him. So in their love-scenes, of 
 which Eugenius spoke last, the ancients were more 
 hearty, we more talkative : they writ love as it was 
 then the mode to make it; and I will grant thus much 25 
 to Eugenius, that perhaps one of their poets, had he 
 lived in our age, si foret hoc nostrum fato delapsus in 
 cevum n , (as Horace says of Lucilius,) he had altered 
 many things ; not that they were not natural 2 before, 
 but that he might accommodate himself to the age in 3° 
 which he lived 3 . Yet in the mean time, we are not to 
 
 1 of, A. a as natural, A. 3 age he liv'd in, A. 
 
40 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 conclude any thing rashly against those great men, 
 but preserve to them the dignity of masters, and give 
 that honour to their memories, quos Libitina sacravit 
 part of which we expect may be paid to us in future 
 5 times/ 
 
 This moderation of Crites, as it was pleasing to all 
 the company, so it put an end to that dispute ; which 
 Eugenius, who seemed to have the better of the argu- 
 ment, would urge no farther : but Lisideius, after he 
 
 io had acknowledged himself of Eugenius his opinion 
 concerning the ancients, yet told him, he had for- 
 borne, till his discourse were ended, to ask him why 
 he preferred the English plays above those of other 
 nations ? and whether we ought not to submit our 
 
 T5 stage to the exactness of our next neighbours ? 
 
 ' Though/ said Eugenius, ' I am at all times ready 
 to defend the honour of my country against the 
 French, and to maintain, we are as well able to van- 
 quish them with our pens, as our ancestors have been 
 
 20 with their swords ; yet, if you please/ added he, 
 looking upon Neander, ' I will commit this cause to 
 my friend's management ; his opinion of our plays is 
 the same with mine : and besides, there is no reason, 
 that Crites and I, who have now left the stage, should 
 
 25 re-enter so suddenly upon it ; which is against the 
 laws of comedy.' 
 
 'If the question had been stated/ replied Lisideius, 
 'who had writ best, the French or English, forty 
 years ago, I should have been of your opinion, and 
 
 30 adjudged the honour to our own nation ; but since 
 that time/ (said he, turning towards Neander,) ' we 
 have been so long together bad Englishmen, that we 
 
LISIDEIUS PRAISES THE FRENCH STAGE. 41 
 
 had not leisure to be good poets. Beaumont, Fletcher, 
 and Johnson, (who were only capable of bringing us 
 to that degree of perfection which we have,) were just 
 then leaving the world ; as if in an age of so much 
 horrour, wit, and those milder studies of humanity, 5 
 had no farther business among us. But the Muses, 
 who ever follow peace, went to plant in another 
 country : it was then, that the great Cardinal of 
 Richelieu began to take them into his protection ; 
 and that, by his encouragement, Corneille n , and some 10 
 other Frenchmen, reformed their theatre, (which 
 before was as much below ours, as it now surpasses 
 it and the rest of Europe). But because Crites in his 
 discourse for the ancients has prevented me, by ob- 
 serving 1 many rules of the stage which the moderns 15 
 have borrowed from them, I shall only, in short, 
 demand of you, whether you are not convinced that 
 of all nations the French have best observed them ? 
 In the unity of time you find them so scrupulous, 
 that it yet remains a dispute among their poets, 20 
 whether the artificial day of twelve hours, more or 
 less, be not meant by Aristotle, rather than the natural 
 one of twenty-four ; and consequently, whether all 
 plays ought not to be reduced into that compass. 
 This I can testify, that in all their dramas writ within 25 
 these last twenty years and upwards, I have not ob- 
 served any that have extended the time to thirty 
 hours : in the unity of place they are full as scrupul- 
 ous ; for many of their criticks limit it to that very 
 spot of ground where the play is supposed to begin ; 3° 
 none of them exceed the compass of the same town 
 
 1 touching upon, A. 
 
42 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 or city. The unity of action in all plays is yet more 
 conspicuous ; for they do not burden them with under- 
 plots, as the English do : which is the reason why 
 many scenes of our tragi-comedies carry on a design 
 5 that is nothing of kin to the main plot ; and that we 
 see two distinct webs in a play, like those in ill- 
 wrought stuffs ; and two actions, that is, two plays, 
 carried on together, to the confounding of the 
 audience ; who, before they are warm in their con- 
 
 io cernments for one part, are diverted to another ; and 
 by that means espouse the interest of neither. From 
 hence likewise it arises, that the one half of our actors 
 are not known to the other. They keep their dis- 
 tances, as if they were Mountagues and Capulets, and 
 
 15 seldom begin an acquaintance till the last scene of the 
 fifth act, when they are all to meet upon the stage. 
 There is no theatre in the world has any thing so 
 absurd as the English tragi-comedy ; 'tis a drama of 
 our own invention, and the fashion of it is enough to 
 
 20 proclaim it so ; here a course of mirth, there another 
 of sadness and passion, and a third of honour and a 
 duel 1 : thus, in two hours and a half, we run through 
 all the fits of Bedlam. The French affords you as 
 much variety on the same day, but they do it not so 
 
 25 unseasonably, or mal a propos, as we : our poets pre- 
 sent you the play and the farce together ; and our 
 stages still retain somewhat of the original civility of 
 the Red Bull n : 
 
 Atque ursum et pugiles media inter carmina posc-iint*. 
 
 30 The end of tragedies or serious plays, says Aristotle, 
 is to beget admiration, compassion, or concernment ; 
 
 1 a third of Honour, and fourth a Duel, A. 
 
LISIDEIUS PRAISES THE FRENCH STAGE. 43 
 
 but are not mirth and compassion things incompatible? 
 and is it not evident that the poet must of necessity 
 destroy the former by intermingling of the latter? 
 that is, he must ruin the sole end and object of his 
 tragedy, to introduce somewhat that is forced into it 1 , 5 
 and is not of the body of it. Would you not think 
 that physician mad, who, having prescribed a purge, 
 should immediately order you to take restringents 2 ? 
 ' But to leave our plays, and return to theirs. I 
 have noted one great advantage they have had in the 10 
 plotting of their tragedies ; that is, they are always 
 grounded upon some known history: according to 
 that of Horace, Ex noto fictum carmen sequar™ ; and 
 in that they have so imitated the ancients, that they 
 have surpassed them. For the ancients, as was ob- 15 
 served before, took for the foundation of their plays 
 some poetical fiction, such as under that consideration 
 could move but little concernment in the audience, 
 because they already knew the event of it. But the. 
 French goes farther : 20 
 
 At que it a mentittir, sic veris falsa remiscet, 
 Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet i?7ium n . 
 
 He so interweaves truth with probable fiction, that 
 he puts a pleasing fallacy upon us ; mends the in- 
 trigues of fate, and dispenses with the severity of 25 
 history, to reward that virtue which has been ren- 
 dered to us there unfortunate. Sometimes the story 
 has left the success n so doubtful, that the writer is 
 free, by the privilege of a poet, to take that which of 
 two or more relations will best suit with his design : 3° 
 as for example, in 3 the death of Cyrus, whom Justin 
 1 forced in, A. a restringents upon it, A. 8 A om. 
 
44 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 and some others report to have perished in the Scy- 
 thian war, but Xenophon affirms to have died in his 
 bed of extreme old age n . Nay more, when the event 
 is past dispute, even then we are willing to be de- 
 5 ceived, and the poet, if he contrives it with appear- 
 ance of truth, has all the audience of his party ; at 
 least during the time his play is acting : so naturally we 
 are kind to virtue, when our own interest is not in ques- 
 tion, that we take it up as the general concernment 
 
 10 of mankind. On the other side, if you consider the 
 historical plays of Shakspeare, they are rather so 
 many chronicles of kings, or the business many times 
 of thirty or forty years, cramped into a representation 
 of two hours and an half; which is not to imitate or 
 
 15 paint nature, but rather to draw her in miniature, to 
 take her in little ; to look upon her through the wrong 
 end of a perspective, and receive her images not only 
 much less, but infinitely more imperfect than the life : 
 this, instead of making a play delightful, renders it 
 
 20 ridiculous : — 
 
 Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi u . 
 
 For the spirit of man cannot be satisfied but with 
 truth, or at least verisimility ; and a poem is to con- 
 tain, if not ra €TVfxa f yet irv^oLa-tv 6fj.ola f as one of the 
 
 25 Greek poets has expressed it n . 
 
 ' Another thing in which the French differ from us 
 and from the Spaniards, is, that they do not embarrass, 
 or cumber themselves with too much plot ; they only 
 represent so much of a story as will constitute one 
 
 30 whole and great action sufficient for a play ; we, who 
 undertake more, do but multiply adventures ; which, 
 
LIS I DEWS PRAISES THE FRENCH STAGE. 45 
 
 not being produced from one another, as effects from 
 causes, but barely following, constitute many actions 
 in the drama, and consequently make it many plays. 
 
 'But by pursuing closely 1 one argument, which is 
 not cloyed with many turns, the French have gained 5 
 more liberty for verse, in which they write ; they have 
 leisure to dwell on a subject which deserves it ; and 
 to represent the passions, (which we have acknow- 
 ledged to be the poet's work,) without being hurried 
 from one thing to another, as we are in the plays 10 
 of Calderon, which we have seen lately upon our 
 theatres, under the name of Spanish plots. I have 
 taken notice but of one tragedy of ours, whose plot 
 has that uniformity and unity of design in it, which 
 I have commended in the French ; and that is Rollo n , 15 
 or rather, under the name of Rollo, the Story of 
 Bassianus and Geta in Herodian : there indeed the 
 plot is neither large nor intricate, but just enough 
 to fill the minds of the audience, not to cloy them. 
 Besides, you see it founded upon the truth of history, 20 
 — only the time of the action is not reduceable to the 
 strictness of the rules ; and you see in some places a 
 little farce mingled, which is below the dignity of the 
 other parts ; and in this all our poets are extremely 
 peccant : even Ben Johnson himself, in Sejanns and 25 
 Catiline, has given us this oleo n of a play, this un- 
 natural mixture of comedy and tragedy ; which to me 
 sounds just as ridiculously as the history of David 
 with the merry humours of Golia's 2 . In Sejanus you 
 may take notice of the scene betwixt Livia and the 3° 
 physician, which is a pleasant satire upon the artificial 
 1 close, A. 2 Goliah's, C. 
 
46 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 helps of beauty : in Catiline you may see the parlia- 
 ment of women ; the little envies of them to one 
 another; and all that passes betwixt Curio and Fulvia: 
 scenes admirable in their kind, but of an ill mingle 
 5 with the rest. 
 
 ' But I return again to the French writers, who, as 
 I have said, do not burden themselves too much with 
 plot, which has been reproached to them by an in- 
 genious person of our nation as a fault ; for, he says, 
 
 io they commonly make but one person considerable in 
 a play; they dwell on him, and his concernments, 
 while the rest of the persons are only subservient to 
 set him off. If he intends this by it, — that there is 
 one person in the play who is of greater dignity than 
 
 15 the rest, he must tax, not only theirs, but those of the 
 ancients, and which he would be loth to do, the best 
 of ours ; for it is impossible but that one person must 
 be more conspicuous in it than any other, and conse- 
 quently the greatest share in the action must devolve 
 
 20 on him. We see it so in the management of all 
 affairs; even in the most equal aristocracy, the balance 
 cannot be so justly poised, but some one will be 
 superiour to the rest, either in parts, fortune, interest, 
 or the consideration of some glorious exploit ; which 
 
 25 will reduce the greatest part of business into his 
 hands. 
 
 'But, if he would have us to imagine, that in 
 exalting one character the rest of them are neglected, 
 and that all of them have not some share or other in 
 
 30 the action of the play, I desire him to produce any of 
 Corneille's tragedies, wherein every person, like so 
 many servants in a well-governed family, has not some 
 
LISIDEIUS PRAISES THE FRENCH STAGE. 47 
 
 employment, and who is not necessary to the carrying 
 on of the plot, or at least to your understanding it. 
 
 1 There are indeed some protatick n persons in the 
 ancients, whom they make use of in their plays, either 
 to hear or give the relation : but the French avoid 5 
 this with great address, making their narrations only 
 to, or by such, who are some way interessed in the 
 main design. And now I am speaking of relations, I 
 cannot take a fitter opportunity to add this in favour 
 of the French, that they often use them with better 10 
 judgment and more a propos than the English do. 
 Not that I commend narrations in general, — but there 
 are two sorts of them. One, of those things which 
 are antecedent to the play, and are related to make 
 the conduct of it more clear to us. But 'tis a fault to 15 
 choose such subjects for the stage as will force us on 
 that rock, because we see they are seldom listened to 
 by the audience, and that is many times the ruin of 
 the play; for, being once let pass without attention, 
 the audience can never recover themselves to under- 20 
 stand the plot : and indeed it is somewhat unreasonable 
 that they should be put to so much trouble, as that, to 
 comprehend what passes in their sight, they must 
 have recourse to what was done, perhaps, ten or 
 twenty years ago. 25 
 
 ' But there is another sort of relations, that is, of 
 things happening in the action of the play, and sup- 
 posed to be done behind the scenes ; and this is many 
 times both convenient and beautiful ; for by it the 
 French avoid the tumult to which we are subject 1 30 
 in England, by representing duels, battles, and the 
 1 which we are subject to, A. 
 
48 OF DRAMATIC POESY, 
 
 like; which renders our stage too like the theatres 
 where they fight prizes. For what is more ridiculous 
 than to represent an army with a drum and five men 
 behind it; all which the hero of the other side is 
 
 5 to drive in before him ; or to see a duel fought, and 
 one slain with two or three thrusts of the foils, which 
 we know are so blunted, that we might give a man an 
 hour to kill another in good earnest with them. 
 
 'I have observed that in all our tragedies, the 
 
 io audience cannot forbear laughing when the actors are 
 to die ; it is the most comick part of the whole play. 
 All passions may be lively represented on the stage, 
 if to the well-writing of them the actor supplies a good 
 commanded voice, and limbs that move easily, and 
 
 15 without stiffness ; but there are many actions which 
 can never be imitated to a just height : dying espe- 
 cially is a thing which none but a Roman gladiator 
 could naturally perform on the stage, when he did not 
 imitate or represent, but do it 1 ; and therefore it is 
 
 20 better to omhrthe representation of it. 
 
 'The words of a good writer, which describe it 
 lively, will make a deeper impression of belief in us 
 than all the actor can insinuate into us 2 , when he 
 seems to fall dead before us ; as a poet in the descrip- 
 
 25 tion of a beautiful garden, or a meadow, will please our 
 imagination more than the place itself can please our 
 sight. When we see death represented, we are con- 
 vinced it is but fiction ; but when we hear it related, 
 our eyes, the strongest witnesses, are wanting, which 
 
 30 might have undeceived us ; and we are all willing to 
 favour the sleight, when the poet does not too grossly 
 1 naturally do it, A. 2 perswade us to, A. 
 
LISIDEIUS PRAISES THE FRENCH STAGE. 49 
 
 impose on us. They therefore who imagine these 
 relations would make no concernment in the audience, 
 are deceived, by confounding them with the other, 
 which are of things antecedent to the play : those are 
 made often in cold blood, as I may say, to the audience ; 5 
 but these are warmed with our concernments, which 
 were before awakened in the play. What the philo- 
 sophers say of motion, that, when it is once begun, it 
 continues of itself, and will do so to eternity, without 
 some stop put to it, is clearly true on this occasion : 10 
 the soul, being already moved with the characters and 
 fortunes of those imaginary persons, continues going 
 of its own accord ; and we are no more weary to hear 
 what becomes of them when they are not on the stage, 
 than we are to listen to the news of an absent mistress. 15 
 But it is objected, that if one part of the play may be 
 related, then why not all? I answer, some parts of 
 the action are more fit to be represented, some to be 
 related. Corneille says judiciously, that the poet is 
 not obliged to expose to view all particular actions 20 
 which conduce to the principal : he ought to select 
 such of them to be seen, which will appear with the 
 greatest beauty, either by the magnificence of the 
 show, or the vehemence of passions which they pro- 
 duce, or some other charm which they have in them ; 25 
 and let the rest arrive to the audience by narration. 
 'Tis a great mistake in us to believe the French 
 present no part of the action on the stage; every 
 alteration or crossing of a design, every new-sprung 
 passion, and turn of it, is a part of the action, and 30 
 much the noblest, except we conceive nothing to be 
 action till the players come 1 to blows ; as if the painting 
 
 1 they come, A 
 E 
 
50 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 of the hero's mind were not more properly the poet's 
 work than the strength of his body. Nor does this 
 anything contradict the opinion of Horace, where he 
 tells us, 
 
 Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem y 
 Quam qua sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus. 
 
 For he says immediately after, 
 
 ■ Non tamen intus 
 
 Digtia geri promes in scenam ; multaq ; tolles 
 j Ex oculis, qua mox narret facundia prasens. 
 
 Among which many he recounts some : 
 
 Nee pueros coram populo Medea trucidet, 
 
 Aut in avem Progne mutetur, Cadmus in anguem™ ; Zfc. 
 
 That is, those actions which by reason of their cruelty 
 15 will cause aversion in us, or by reason of their im- 
 possibility, unbelief, ought either wholly to be avoided 
 by a poet, or only delivered by narration. To which 
 we may have leave to add, such as, to avoid tumult, 
 (as was before hinted,) or to reduce the plot into 
 20 a more reasonable compass of time, or for defect of 
 beauty in them, are rather to be related than presented 
 to the eye. Examples of all these kinds are frequent, 
 not only among all the ancients, but in the best re- 
 ceived of our English poets. We find Ben Johnson 
 25 using them in his Magnetick Lady n , where one comes 
 out from dinner, and relates the quarrels and dis- 
 orders of it, to save the undecent appearance of them 
 on the stage, and to abbreviate the story; and this 
 in express imitation of Terence, who had done the 
 
LIS WEI US PRAISES THE FRENCH STAGE. 51 
 
 same before him in his Eunuch, where Pythias makes 
 the like relation of what had happened within at the 
 Soldiers 1 entertainment. The relations likewise of 
 Sejanus's death, and the prodigies before it, are 
 remarkable ; the one of which was hid from sight, 5 
 to avoid the horrour and tumult of the representa- 
 tion; the other, to shun the introducing of things 
 impossible to be believed. In that excellent play, 
 The King and no King n , Fletcher goes yet farther; 
 for the whole unravelling of the plot is done by 10 
 narration in the fifth act, after the manner of the 
 ancients ; and it moves great concernment in the 
 audience, though it be only a relation of what was 
 done many years before the play. I could multiply 
 other instances, but these are sufficient to prove that 15 
 there is no errour in choosing a subject which re- 
 quires this sort of narrations ; in the ill management 2 
 of them, there may. 
 
 ' But I find I have been too long in this discourse, 
 since the French have many other excellencies not 20 
 common to us ; as that you never see any of their 
 plays end with a conversion, or simple change of 
 will, which is the ordinary way which our poets 
 use to end theirs. It shews little art in the con- 
 clusion of a dramatick poem, when they who have 25 
 hindered the felicity during the four acts, desist from 
 it in the fifth, without some powerful cause to take 
 them off their design 3 ; and though I deny not but 
 such reasons may be found, yet it is a path that is 
 cautiously to be trod, and the poet is to be sure he 3° 
 convinces the audience that the motive is strong 
 1 Souldiers, A. 2 managing, A 3 A om. their design. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 enough. As for example, the conversion of the 
 Usurer in The Scornful Lady n , seems to me a little 
 forced ; for, being an Usurer, which implies a lover 
 of money to the highest degree of covetousness, — 
 5 and such the poet has represented him, — the account 
 he gives for the sudden change is, that he has been 
 duped by the wild young fellow; which in reason 
 might render him more wary another time, and make 
 him punish himself with harder fare and coarser 
 
 10 clothes, to get up again what he had lost 1 : but that 
 he should look on it as a judgment, and so repent, we 
 may expect to hear 2 in a sermon, but I should never 
 endure it in a play. 
 
 4 I pass by this ; neither will 1 insist on the care 
 
 15 they take, that no person after his first entrance shall 
 ever appear, but the business which brings him upon 
 the stage shall be evident; which rule 3 , if observed, 
 must needs render all the events in the play more 
 natural:; for there you see the probability of every 
 
 20 accident, in the cause that produced it.; and that 
 which appears chance in the play, will seem so 
 reasonable to you, that you will there find it almost 
 necessary : so that in the exit of the actor * you have 
 a clear account of his 5 purpose and design in the next 
 
 25 entrance ; (though, if the scene be well wrought, the 
 event will commonly deceive you;) for there is no- 
 thing so absurd, says Corneille, as for an actor to 
 leave the stage, only because he has no more to say. 
 ' I should now speak of the beauty of their rhyme, 
 
 30 and the just reason I have to prefer that way of 
 
 1 to get it up again, A. 2 hear of, A. 3 A om. rule. 
 
 1 exits of the Actors, A. 5 their, A. 
 
REPLY OF NEANDER. $$ 
 
 writing in tragedies before ours in blank verse ; but 
 because it is partly received by us, and therefore not 
 altogether peculiar to them, I will say no more of it 
 in relation to their plays. For our own, I doubt not 
 but it will exceedingly beautify them ; and I can see 5 
 but one reason why it should not generally obtain, 
 that is, because our poets write so ill in it. This 
 indeed may prove a more prevailing argument than 
 all others which are used to destroy it, and therefore 
 I am only troubled when great and judicious poets, 10 
 and those who are acknowledged such, have writ 
 or spoke against it : as for others, they are to be an- 
 swered by that one sentence of an ancient author : — 
 Sed ut primo ad consequendos eos quos priores ducimus, 
 accendimur, ita ubi aut prceteriri, aut cequari eos posse *5 
 desperavimus, studium cum spe senescit : quod, scilicet, 
 assequi non potest, sequi desinit ; . . . prceteritoque eo in 
 quo eminere non possumus, aliquid in quo nitamur, 
 conquirimus n .' 
 
 Lisideius concluded in this manner ; and Neander, 20 
 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 25 
 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 3° 
 are considerable enough to place them above us. 
 
 ' For the lively imitation of nature being in the 
 
54 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 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 
 5 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 Lisi- 
 deius himself, or any other, however biassed to their 
 
 10 party, cannot but acknowledge, if he will either com- 
 pare the humours of our comedies, or the characters 
 of our serious plays, with theirs. He who * will look 
 upon theirs which have been written till these last 
 ten years, or thereabouts, will find it an hard matter 
 
 15 to pick out two or three passable humours amongst 
 them. Corneille himself, their arch-poet, what has 
 he produced except The Liar 11 , and you know how 
 it was cried up in France ; but when it came upon 
 the English stage, though well translated, and that 
 
 20 part of Dorant acted to so much advantage 2 as I am 
 confident it never received in its own country, the 
 most favourable to it would not put it 3 in competition 
 with many of Fletcher's or Ben Johnson's 11 . In the 
 rest of Corneille's comedies you have little humour ; 
 
 25 he tells you himself, his way is, first to shew two 
 lovers in good intelligence with each other; in the 
 working up of the play to embroil them by some 
 mistake, and in the latter end to clear it, and reconcile 
 them 4 . 
 
 30 'But of late years Moliere 5 , the younger Corneille, 
 
 1 He that, A. z A adds ' by Mr. Hart.' 3 A om. it. 
 
 4 to clear it up, A. 5 de Moliere, A. 
 
REPLY OF NEANDER. 55 
 
 Quinault, and some others, have been imitating afar 
 off 1 the quick turns and graces of the English stage. 
 They have mixed their serious plays with mirth, 
 like our tragi-comedies, since the death of Cardinal 
 Richelieu n ; which Lisideius and many others not 5 
 observing, have commended that in them for a virtue 
 which they themselves no longer practise. Most of 
 their new plays are, like some of ours, derived from 
 the Spanish novels n . There is scarce one of them 
 without a veil, and a trusty Diego, who drolls much 10 
 after the rate of The Adventures^. But their humours, 
 if I may grace them with that name, are so thin-sown, 
 that never above one of them comes up in any play. 
 I dare take upon me to find more variety of them 
 in some one play of Ben Johnson's, than in all theirs 15 
 together; as he who has seen The Alchemist, The 
 Silent Woman, or Bartholomew -Fair, cannot but ac- 
 knowledge with me. 
 
 ■ I grant the French have performed what was 
 possible on the ground-work of the Spanish plays ; 20 
 what was pleasant before, they have made regular : 
 but there is not above one good play to be writ on • 
 all those plots ; they are too much alike to please 
 often ; which we need not the experience of our own 
 stage to justify. As for their new way of mingling 25 
 mirth with serious plot, I do not, with Lisideius, con- 
 demn the thing, though I cannot approve their manner ' 
 of doing it. He tells us, we cannot so speedily re- 
 collect ourselves after a scene of great passion and 
 concernment, as to pass to another of mirth and 3° 
 humour, and to enjoy it with any relish : but why 
 
 1 of afar off, A. 
 
56 OF DRAMATIC POFSY. 
 
 should he imagine the soul of man more heavy than 
 his senses ? Does not the eye pass from an unplea- 
 sant object to a pleasant in a much shorter time than 
 is required to this ? and does not the unpleasantness 
 5 of the first commend the beauty of the latter ? The 
 old rule of logick n might have convinced him, that 
 contraries, when placed near, set off each other. A 
 continued gravity keeps the spirit too much bent ; we 
 must refresh it sometimes, as we bait in a journey 
 
 10 that we may go on with greater ease. A scene of 
 mirth, mixed with tragedy, has the same effect upon 
 us which our musick has betwixt the acts ; which we 
 find 1 a relief to us from the best plots and language 
 of the stage, if the discourses have been long. I 
 
 15 must therefore have stronger arguments, ere I am 
 convinced that compassion and mirth in the same 
 subject destroy each other; and in the mean time 
 cannot but conclude, to the honour of our nation, that 
 we have invented, increased, and perfected a more 
 
 20 pleasant way of writing for the stage, than was ever 
 known to the ancients or moderns of any nation, 
 which is tragi-comedy. 
 
 ' And this leads me to wonder why Lisideius and 
 many others should cry up the barrenness of the 
 
 25 French plots, above the variety and copiousness of 
 the English. Their plots are single ; they carry on 
 one design, which is pushed forward by all the actors, 
 every scene in the play contributing and moving to- 
 wards it. Our plays 2 , besides the main design, have 
 
 30 under-plots or by-concernments, of less considerable 
 persons and intrigues, which are carried on with the 
 1 and that we find. A. 3 Ours, A. 
 
REPLY OF NEANDER. 57 
 
 motion of the main plot : as 1 they say the orb of the 
 fixed stars, and those of the planets, though they have 
 motions of their own, are whirled about by the motion 
 of the primum mobile, in which they are contained n . 
 That similitude expresses much of the English stage; 5 
 for if contrary motions may be found in nature to 
 agree ; if a planet can go east and west at the same 
 time ;— one way by virtue of his own motion, the 
 other by the force of the first mover ; — it will not be 
 difficult to imagine how the under-plot, which is only 10 
 different, not contrary to the great design, may natur- 
 ally be conducted along with it. 
 
 ' Eugenius has already shewn us, from the confes- 
 sion of the French poets, that the unity of action is 
 sufficiently preserved, if all the imperfect actions of 15 
 the play are conducing to the main design ; but when 
 those petty intrigues of a play are so ill ordered, 
 that they have no coherence with the other, I must 
 grant that Lisideius has reason to tax that want of 
 due connexion ; for co-ordination in a play is as dan- 20 
 gerous and unnatural as in a state. In the mean time 
 he must acknowledge, our variety, if well ordered, 
 will afford a greater pleasure to the audience. 
 
 1 As for his other argument, that by pursuing one 
 single theme they gain an advantage to express and 25 
 work up the passions, I wish any example he could 
 bring from them would make it good ; for I confess 
 their verses are to me the coldest I have ever read. 
 Neither, indeed, is it possible for them, in the way 
 they take, so to express passion, as that the effects 3° 
 of it should appear in the concernment of an audience, 
 
 1 just as, A. 
 
58 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 their speeches being so many declamations, which 
 tire us with the length ; so that instead of persuading 
 us to grieve for their imaginary heroes, we are con- 
 cerned for our own trouble, as we are in tedious 1 
 5 visits of bad company ; we are in pain till they are 
 gone. When the French stage came to be reformed 
 by Cardinal Richelieu, those long harangues were 
 introduced to comply with the gravity of a churchman. 
 Look upon the Cinna and the Pompey; they are not 
 
 10 so properly to be called plays, as long discourses of 
 reason of state ; and Polieucte in matters of religion 
 is as solemn as the long stops upon our organs 11 . 
 Since that time it is grown into a custom, and their 
 actors speak by the hour-glass, like our parsons 2 ;* 
 
 15 nay, they account it the grace of their parts, and 
 think themselves disparaged by the poet, if they may 
 not twice or thrice in a play entertain the audience 
 with a speech of an hundred lines 3 . I deny not but 
 this may suit well enough with the French ; for as 
 
 20 we, who are a more sullen people, come to be 
 diverted at our plays, so they, who are of an airy 
 and gay temper, come thither to make themselves 
 more serious : and this I conceive to be one reason 
 why comedies are 4 more pleasing to us, and tragedies 
 
 25 to them. But to speak generally : it cannot be denied 
 that short speeches and replies are more apt to move 
 the passions and beget concernment in us, than the 
 
 * Formerly an hour-glass was fixed oil the pulpit in all our 
 churches. (Malone.) 
 
 1 the tedious, A. 2 as our Parsons do, A. 
 
 3 an hundred or two hundred lines, A. 
 
 * so C ; Comedy's are, B ; Comedy is, A. 
 
REPLY OF NEANDER. 59 
 
 other; for it is unnatural for any one in a gust of 
 passion to speak long together, or for another in the 
 same condition to suffer him, without interruption. 
 Grief and passion are like floods raised in little 
 brooks by a sudden rain ; they are quickly up ; and 5 
 if the concernment be poured unexpectedly in upon 
 us, it overflows us: but a long sober shower gives 
 them ieisure to run out as they came in, without 
 troubling the ordinary current. As for comedy, re- 
 partee is one of its chiefest graces ; the greatest 1 o 
 pleasure of the audience is a chace of wit, kept up 
 on both sides, and swiftly managed. And this our 
 forefathers, if not we, have had in Fletcher's plays, 
 to a much higher degree of perfection than the 
 French poets can reasonably hope to reach \ 15 
 
 ' There is another part of Lisideius his discourse, 
 in which he has rather excused our neighbours, than 
 commended them ; that is, for aiming only to make 
 one person considerable in their plays. 'Tis very 
 true what he has urged, that one character in all 20 
 plays, even without the poet's care, will have ad- 
 vantage of all the others ; and that the design of the 
 whole drama will chiefly depend on it. But this 
 hinders not that there may be more shining characters 
 in the play : many persons of a second magnitude, 25 
 nay, some so very near, so almost equal to the first, 
 that greatness may be opposed to greatness, and all 
 the persons be made considerable, not only by their 
 quality, but their action. 'Tis evident that the more 
 the persons are, the greater will be the variety of the 30 
 plot. If then the parts are managed so regularly, 
 
 1 can arrive at, A. 
 
6c OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 that the beauty of the whole be kept entire, and that 
 the variety become not a perplexed and confused 
 mass of accidents, you will find it infinitely pleasing 
 to be led in a labyrinth of design, where you see 
 5 some of your way before you, yet discern not the 
 end till you arrive at it. And that all this is prac- 
 ticable, I can produce for examples many of our 
 English plays : as The Maid's Tragedy, The Alchemist, 
 The Silent Woman : I was going to have named The 
 
 10 Fox n , but that the unity of design seems not exactly 
 observed in it ; for there appear l two actions in the 
 play; the first naturally ending with the fourth act ; 
 the second forced from it in the fifth : which yet is 
 the less to be condemned in him, because the dis- 
 
 15 guise of Volpone, though it suited not with his 
 character as a crafty or covetous person, agreed well 
 enough with that of a voluptuary ; and by it the poet 
 gained the end at which he aym'd 2 , the punishment 
 of vice, and the reward of virtue, both 3 which that 
 
 20 disguise produced. So that to judge equally of it, 
 it was an excellent fifth act, but not so naturally 
 proceeding from the former. 
 
 But to leave this, and pass to the latter part of 
 Lisideius his discourse, which concerns relations : 
 
 25 I must acknowledge with him, that the French have 
 reason to hide 4 that part of the action which would 
 occasion too much tumult on the stage, and to choose 5 
 rather to have it made known by narration to the 
 audience. Farther, I think it very convenient, for 
 
 30 the reasons he has given, that all incredible actions 
 
 1 appears, A. 2 the end he aym'd at, A. s A om. both. 
 
 * when they hide, A. 5 and choose, A. 
 
REPLY OF NEANDER. 6l 
 
 were removed; but, whether custom has so insinu- 
 ated itself into our countrymen, or nature has so 
 formed them to fierceness, I know not ; but they will 
 scarcely suffer combats and other objects of horrour 
 to be taken from them. And indeed, the indecency 5 
 of tumults is all which can be objected against 
 fighting : for why may not our imagination as well 
 suffer itself to be deluded with the probability of it, 
 as with any other thing in the play ? For my part, 
 I can with as great ease persuade myself that the 10 
 blows * are given in good earnest, as I can, that they 
 who strike them are kings or princes, or those persons 
 which they represent. For objects of incredibility, — 
 I would be satisfied from Lisideius, whether we have 
 any so removed from all appearance of truth, as are 15 
 those of Corneille's Andromede n ; a play which has 
 been frequented the most of any he has writ. If 
 the Perseus, or the son of an heathen god, the 
 Pegasus, and the Monster, were not capable to choke 
 a strong belief, let him blame any representation of 20 
 ours hereafter. Those indeed were objects of de- 
 light ; yet the reason is the same as to the probability: 
 for he makes it not a Ballette 2 or masque, but a play, 
 which is to resemble truth. But for death, that it 
 ought not to be represented, I have, besides the 25 
 arguments alledged by Lisideius, the authority of 
 Ben Johnson, who has forborn it in his tragedies; 
 for both the death of Sejanus and Catiline are re- 
 lated : though in the latter I cannot but observe one 
 irregularity of that great poet ; he has removed the 3° 
 scene in the same act from Rome to Catiline's army, 
 1 the blowes which are struck, A. 2 Balette, C 
 
62 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 and from thence again to Rome; and besides, has 
 allowed a very inconsiderable time, after Catiline's 
 speech, for the striking of the battle, and the return 
 of Petreius, who is to relate the event of it to the 
 5 senate : which I should not animadvert on him, who 
 was otherwise a painful observer of to itpknov, or the 
 decorum of the stage, if he had not used extreme 
 severity in his judgment on the incomparable 
 Shakspeare for the same fault 11 . — To conclude on 
 
 10 this subject of relations ; if we are to be blamed for 
 shewing too much of the action, the French are as 
 faulty for discovering too little of it : a mean betwixt 
 both should be observed by every judicious writer, 
 so as the audience may neither be left unsatisfied by 
 
 j 5 not seeing what is beautiful, or shocked by beholding 
 what is either incredible or undecent. 
 
 'I hope I have already proved in this discourse, 
 that though we are not altogether so punctual as the 
 French, in observing the laws of comedy, yet our 
 
 20 errours are so few, and little, and those things 
 wherein we excel them so considerable, that we 
 ought of right to be preferred before them. But 
 what will Lisideius say, if they themselves acknow- 
 ledge they are too strictly bounded 1 by those laws, 
 
 25 for breaking which he has blamed the English ? 
 I will alledge Corneille's words, as I find them in 
 the end of his Discourse of the three Unities : — // 
 est facile aux speculatifs d'estre severes &>c. "'Tis 
 easy for speculative persons to judge severely ; but 
 
 30 if they would produce to publick view ten or twelve 
 pieces of this nature, they would perhaps give more 
 
 1 ti'd up, A. 
 
REPLY OF A BANDER 63 
 
 latitude to the rules than I have done, when, by ex- 
 perience, they had known how much we are limited l 
 and constrained by them, and how many beauties 
 of the stage they banished from it." To illustrate a 
 little what he has said : — By their servile observations 5 
 of the unities of time and place, and integrity of 
 scenes, they have brought on themselves that dearth 
 of plot, and narrowness of imagination, which may 
 be observed in all their plays. How many beautiful 
 accidents might naturally happen in two or three 10 
 days, which cannot arrive with any probability in 
 the compass of twenty- four hours? There is time 
 to be allowed also for maturity of design, which, 
 amongst great and prudent persons, such as are 
 often represented in tragedy, cannot, with any likeli- 15 
 hood of truth, be brought to pass at so short a warn- 
 ing. Farther; by tying themselves strictly to the 
 unity of place, and unbroken scenes, they are forced 
 many times to omit some beauties which cannot be 
 shewn where the act began ; but might, if the scene 20 
 were interrupted, and the stage cleared for the persons 
 to enter in another place ; and therefore the French 
 poets are often forced upon absurdities ; for if the 
 act begins in a chamber, all the persons in the play 
 must have some business or other to come thither, 25 
 or else they are not to be shewn that act ; and some- 
 times their characters are very unfitting to appear 
 there : as, suppose it were the king's bed-chamber ; 
 yet the meanest man in the tragedy must come and 
 dispatch his business there, rather than in the lobby 30 
 or courtyard, (which is fitter for him,) for fear the 
 
 1 bound up, A. 
 
6\ OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 stage should be cleared, and the scenes broken. 
 Many times they fall by it in a greater inconvenience ; 
 for they keep their scenes unbroken, and yet change 
 the place ; as in one of their newest plays, where the 
 5 act begins in the street. There a gentleman is to 
 meet his friend ; he sees him with his man, coming 
 out from his father's house ; they talk together, and 
 the first goes out : the second, who is a lover, has 
 made an appointment with his mistress ; she appears 
 
 10 at the window, and then we are to imagine the scene 
 lies under it. This gentleman is called away, and 
 leaves his servant with his mistress ; presently her 
 father is heard from within ; the young lady is afraid 
 the servingman should be discovered, and thrusts him 
 
 15 into a place of safety 1 , which is supposed to be her 
 closet. After this, the father enters to the daughter, 
 and now the scene is in a house ; for he is seeking 
 from one room to another for this poor Philipin, or 
 French Diego n , who is heard from within, drolling 
 
 20 and breaking many a miserable conceit on the subject 
 of his sad 2 condition. In this ridiculous manner the 
 play goes forward 3 , the stage being never empty all 
 the while : so that the street, the window, the houses, 
 and the closet, are made to walk about, and the per- 
 
 25 sons to stand still. Now what, I beseech you, is more 
 easy than to write a regular French play, or more 
 difficult than to write an irregular English one, like 
 those of Fletcher, or of Shakspeare ? 
 
 ' If they content themselves, as Corneille did, with 
 
 30 some flat design, which, like an ill riddle, is found 
 
 1 for ' into a place of safety,' A has ' in through a door.' 
 
 2 upon his sad, A. 3 goes on, A. 
 

 REPLY OF NEANDER. 6$ 
 
 out ere it be half proposed, such plots we can make 
 every way regular, as easily as they ; but whenever 
 they endeavour to rise to any quick turns and coun- 
 terturns of plot, as some of them have attempted, 
 since Corneille's plays have been less in vogue, you 5 
 see they write as irregularly as we, though they cover 
 it more speciously. Hence the reason is perspicuous, 
 why no French plays, when translated, have, or ever 
 can succeed on the English stage. For, if you con- 
 sider the plots, our own are fuller of variety; if the 10 
 writing, ours are more quick and fuller of spirit ; and 
 therefore 'tis a strange mistake in those who decry 
 the way of writing plays in verse, as if the English 
 therein imitated the French. We have borrowed 
 nothing from them; our plots are weaved in English 15 
 looms : we endeavour therein to follow the variety 
 and greatness of characters which are derived to us 
 from Shakspeare and Fletcher ; the copiousness and 
 well-knitting of the intrigues we have from Johnson ; 
 and for the verse itself we have English precedents 20 
 of elder date than any of Corneille's plays. Not to 
 name our old comedies before Shakspeare, which 
 were all writ in verse of six feet, or Alexandrines n , 
 such as the French now use, — I can shew in Shak- 
 speare, many scenes of rhyme together, and the like 25 
 in Ben Johnson's tragedies : in Catiline and Sejanus 
 sometimes thirty or forty lines, — I mean besides the 
 Chorus, or the monologues ; which, by the way, 
 shewed Ben no enemy to this way of writing, espe- 
 cially if you read 1 his Sad Shepherd , which goes 30 
 sometimes on rhyme, sometimes on blank verse, like 
 1 look upon, A. 
 F 
 
66 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 an horse who eases himself on trot and amble. You 
 find him likewise commending Fletcher's pastoral of 
 The Faithful Shepherdess n , which is for the most part 
 rhyme, though not refined to that purity to which it hath 
 5 since been brought. And these examples are enough 
 to clear us from a servile imitation of the French. 
 
 'But to return whence 1 I have digressed: I dare 
 boldly affirm these two things of the English drama ; 
 — First, that we have many plays of ours as regular 
 
 10 as any of theirs, and which, besides, have more 
 variety of plot and characters ; and secondly, that in 
 most of the irregular plays of Shakspeare or Fletcher, 
 (for Ben Johnson's are for the most part regular,) 
 there is a more masculine fancy and greater spirit in 
 
 15 the writing, than there is in any of the French. I 
 could produce, even in Shakspeare's and Fletcher's 
 works, some plays which are almost exactly formed ; 
 as The Merry Wives of Windsor ™, and The Scornful 
 Lady : but because (generally speaking) Shakspeare, 
 
 20 who writ first, did not perfectly observe the laws of 
 comedy, and Fletcher, who came nearer to perfection, 
 yet through carelessness made many faults ; I will 
 take the pattern of a perfect play from Ben Johnson, 
 who was a careful and learned observer of the dra- 
 
 25 matick laws, and from all his comedies I shall select 
 The Silent Woman ; of which I will make a short 
 examen, according to those rules which the French 
 observe.' 
 
 As Neander was beginning to examine The Silent 
 
 30 Woman, Eugenius, earnestly regarding him 2 ; 'I 
 beseech you, Neander/ said he, 'gratify the company, 
 
 1 from whence, A. j. .... * looking earnestly upon him, A. 
 
SHAKSPERE. 6j 
 
 and me in particular, so far, as before you speak of 
 the play, to give us a character of the author ; and 
 tell us frankly your opinion, whether you do not 
 think all writers, both French and English, ought to 
 give place to him.* 5 
 
 'I fear,' replied Neander, 'that in obeying your 
 commands I shall draw some envy 1 on myself. 
 Besides, in performing them, it will be first necessary 
 to speak somewhat of Shakspeare and Fletcher, his 
 rivals in poesy; and one of them, in my opinion, 10 
 at least his equal, perhaps 11 his superior. 
 
 'To begin, then, with Shakspeare. He was the 
 man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, 
 had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All 
 the v images of nature were still present to him, and *5 
 he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily; when 
 he describes any thing, you more than see it, you 
 feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted 
 learning, give him the greater commendation : he 
 was naturally learned ; he needed not the spectacles 20 
 of books to read nature ; he looked inwards, and 
 found her there. I cannot say he is every where 
 alike ; were he so, I should do him injury to compare 
 him with the greatest of mankind. He is many 
 times flat, insipid ; his comick wit degenerating into 25 
 clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But 
 he is always great, when some great occasion is 
 presented to him ; no man can say he ever had a fit 
 subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself 
 as high above the rest of poets, 3° 
 
 Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi. n 
 1 a little envy, A. 
 F 2 
 
68 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eaton 
 say, that there was no subject of which any poet ever 
 writ, but he would produce it much better done 1 in 
 Shakspeare; and however others are now generally 
 
 5 preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, 
 which had contemporaries with him Fletcher and 
 Johnson, 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 
 
 10 greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakspeare far 
 above him. 
 
 f Beaumont and Fletcher, of whom I am next to 
 speak, had, with the advantage of Shakspeare's wit, 
 which was their precedent, great natural gifts, im- 
 
 15 proved by study : Beaumont especially being so accu- 
 rate a judge of plays, that Ben Johnson, 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, 
 
 20 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 Phi- 
 laster u : for before that, they had written two or three 
 very unsuccessfully, as the like is reported of Ben 
 
 25 Johnson, before he writ Every Man in his Humour. 
 Their plots -were generally more regular than Shak- 
 speare's, especially those which were made before 
 Beaumont's death* ; and they understood and imitated 
 
 1 treated of, A. 
 
 * Sir Aston Cokain long since complained, that the booksellers 
 who, in 1647, published thirty- four plays under the names of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, had not ascertained how many of them 
 were written solely by Fletcher : 
 
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 69 
 
 the conversation of gentlemen much better; whose 
 wild debaucheries, and quickness of wit in reparties, 
 no poet before them could paint x as they have done. 
 Humour, which 2 Ben Johnson derived from particular 
 persons, they made it not their business to describe : 5 
 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 3 . Their plays n are now the most pleasant 10 
 and frequent entertainments of the stage; two of 
 theirs being acted through the year for one of Shak- 
 speare's or Johnson'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 15 
 men's humours. Shakspeare's language is likewise 
 a little obsolete, and Ben Johnson's wit comes short 
 of theirs. 
 
 As for Johnson, to whose character I am now 
 arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself, 20 
 (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 25 
 
 'In the large book of plays you late did print, 
 In Beaumont's and in Fletcher's name, why in't 
 Did you not justice ? give to each his due ? 
 For Beaumont of those many writ in few ; 
 And Massinger in other few : the main 
 Being sole issues of sweet Fletcher's brain.' (Malone.) 
 
 1 for ' before them could paint ' A has ' can ever paint.' 
 
 2 This Humour of which, A. s necessary, A. 
 
70 * OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 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 
 
 5 advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom 
 find him making love in any of his scenes, or en- 
 deavouring 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 per- 
 
 10 formed both to such an height. Humour was his 
 proper sphere; and in that he delighted most to 
 represent mechanick people. He was deeply con- 
 versant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and 
 he borrowed boldly from them : there is scarce a poet 
 
 15 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 
 
 20 theft in other poets, is only victory in him. With the 
 spoils of these writers he so represents old Rome to 
 us, in its rites, 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 
 
 25 his language, 'twas that he weaved it too closely and 
 laboriously, in his comedies especially 1 : 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 learnedky fol- 
 
 30 lowed their- language, he did not enough comply with 
 
 1 for ' comedies especially ' A has ' serious Playes.' 
 
 2 the idiom of their, A. 
 
BEN JONS ON. 71 
 
 the idiom of ours. If I would compare him with 
 Shakspeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct 
 poet, but Shakspeare the greater wit. Shakspeare 
 was the Homer, or father of our dramatick poets ; 
 Johnson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate 5 
 writing; I admire him, but I love Shakspeare. 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 10 
 can furnish us. 
 
 1 Having thus spoken of the author, I proceed to 
 the examination of his comedy, The Silent Woman™. 
 
 EXAMEN OF THE SILENT WOMAN. 
 
 'To begin first with the length of the action; it 15 
 is so far from exceeding the compass of a natural 
 day, that it takes not up an artificial one. 'Tis all 
 included in the limits of three hours and an half, 
 which is no more than is required for the presentment 
 on the stage : a beauty perhaps not much observed ; 20 
 if it had, we should not have looked on the Spanish 
 translation of Five Hours* with so much wonder. 
 The scene of it is laid in London ; the latitude of 
 place is almost as little as you can imagine; for it 
 lies all within the compass of two houses, and after 25 
 the first act, in one. The continuity of scenes is 
 observed more than in any of our plays, except his 
 own Fox and Alchemist. They are not broken above 
 twice or thrice at most in the whole comedy ; and in 
 the two best of Corneille's plays, the Cid and Cinna, 3° 
 * See p. 55. 
 
72 OF DRA MA TIC POES Y. 
 
 they are interrupted once 1 . The action of the play- 
 is entirely one ; the end or aim of which is the settling 
 Morose's estate on Dauphine. The intrigue of it is 
 the greatest and most noble of any pure unmixed 
 5 comedy in any language ; you see in it many persons 
 of various characters and humours, and all delightful. 
 As first, Morose, or an old man, to whom all noise 
 but his own talking is offensive. Some who would 
 be thought criticks, say this humour of his is forced : 
 
 10 but to remove that objection, we may consider him 
 first to be naturally of a delicate hearing, as many 
 are, to whom all sharp sounds are unpleasant; and 
 secondly, we may attribute much of it to the peevish- 
 ness of his age, or the wayward authority of an old 
 
 15 man in his own house, where he may make himself 
 obeyed; and to this the poet seems to allude 2 in his 
 name Morose. Besides this, I am assured from divers 
 persons, that Ben Johnson was actually acquainted 
 with such a man, one altogether as ridiculous as he is 
 
 20 here represented. Others say, it is not enough to 
 find one man of such an humour; it must be common 
 to more, and the more common the more natural. 
 To prove this, they instance in the best of comical 
 characters, Falstaff. There are many men resembling 
 
 25 him; old, fat, merry, cowardly, drunken, amorous, 
 vain, and lying. But to convince these people, I 
 need but tell them, that humour is the ridiculous 
 extravagance of conversation, wherein one man differs 
 from all others. If then it be common, or communi- 
 
 30 cated to many, how differs it from other men's ? or 
 what indeed causes it to be ridiculous so much as the 
 1 once apiece, A. 3 this . . . seems to allude to, A. 
 
BEN JONSON. 73 
 
 singularity of it? As for Falstaff, he is not properly 
 one humour, but a miscellany of humours or images, 
 drawn from so many several men : that wherein he is 
 singular is his wit', or those things he says prceter 
 expectation, unexpected by the audience ; his quick 5 
 evasions, when you imagine him surprised, which, 
 as they are extremely diverting of themselves, so 
 receive a great addition from his person ; for the 
 very sight of such an unwieldy old debauched fellow 
 is a comedy alone. And here, having a place so 10 
 proper for it, I cannot but enlarge somewhat upon this 
 subject of humour into which I am fallen. The 
 ancients had little of it in their comedies ; for the 
 to yeXolov 11 of the old comedy, of which Aristophanes 
 was chief, was not so much to imitate a man, as to 15 
 make the people laugh at some odd conceit, which 
 had commonly somewhat of unnatural or obscene in 
 it. Thus, when you see Socrates brought upon the 
 stage, you are not to imagine him made ridiculous 
 by the imitation of his actions, but rather by making 20 
 him perform something very unlike himself; some- 
 thing so childish and absurd, as by comparing it with 
 the gravity of the true Socrates, makes a ridiculous 
 object for the spectators. In their new comedy which 
 succeeded, the poets sought indeed to express the 25 
 rj6os, as in their tragedies the nddos of mankind n . But 
 this rjdos contained only the general characters of men 
 and manners ; as old men, lovers, serving-men, cour- 
 tezans, parasites, and such other persons as we see 
 in their comedies ; all which they made alike : that is, 30 
 one old man or father, one lover, one courtezan, so 
 
 1 in his wit, A. 
 
74 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 like another, as if the first of them had begot the rest 
 of every sort : Ex homine hunc natum dicas. The 
 same custom they observed likewise in their tragedies. 
 As for the French, though they have the word humeur 
 5 among them, yet they have small use of it in their 
 comedies or farces ; they being but ill imitations of 
 the ridiculum, or that which stirred up laughter in the 
 old comedy. But among the English 'tis otherwise : 
 where by humour is meant some extravagant habit, 
 
 io passion, or affection, particular (as I said before) to 
 some one person, by the oddness of which, he is 
 immediately distinguished from the rest of men ; 
 which being lively and naturally represented, most 
 frequently begets that malicious pleasure in the 
 
 15 audience which is testified by laughter; as all things 
 which are deviations from customs 1 are ever the aptest 
 'to produce it: though b}?- the way this laughter is only 
 accidental, as the person represented is fantastick or 
 bizarre ; but pleasure is essential to it, as the imitation 
 
 20 of what is natural. The description of these humours, 
 drawn from the knowledge and observation of par- 
 ticular persons, was the peculiar genius and talent of 
 Ben Johnson; to whose play I now return. 
 
 ' Besides Morose, there are at least nine or ten dif- 
 
 25 ferent characters and humours in The Silent Woman ; 
 all which persons have several concernments of their 
 own, yet are all used by the poet, to the conducting 
 of the main design to perfection. I shall not waste 
 time in commending the writing of this play ; but I 
 
 30 will give you my opinion, that there is more wit and 
 acuteness of fancy in it than in any of Ben Johnson's. 
 
 1 common customes, A.. 
 
BEN JONSON. J$ 
 
 Besides that he has here described the conversation 
 of gentlemen in the persons of True- Wit, and his 
 friends, with more gaiety, air, and freedom, than in 
 the rest of his comedies. For the contrivance of the 
 plot, 'tis extreme 1 elaborate, and yet withal easy ; for 5 
 the Awo-i? 2 , or untying of it, 'tis so admirable, that when 
 it is done, no one of the audience would think the 
 poet could have missed it ; and yet it was concealed 
 so much before . the last scene, that any other way 
 would sooner have entered into your thoughts. But 10 
 I dare not take upon me to commend the fabrick of it, 
 because it is altogether so full of art, that I must un- 
 ravel every scene in it to commend it as I ought. 
 And this excellent contrivance is still the more to be 
 admired, because 'tis comedy, where the persons are rs 
 only of common rank, and their business private, not 
 elevated by passions or high concernments, as in 
 serious plays. Here every one is a proper judge of 
 all he sees, nothing is represented but that with which 
 he daily converses : so that by consequence all faults 20 
 lie open to discovery, and few are pardonable. 'Tis 
 this which Horace has judiciously observed : 
 
 Creditur, ex medio quia res arcessit, habere 
 Sudoris minimum; sed habet Comedia tanto 
 Plus oneris, quanto Venice minus. n 25 
 
 But our poet who was not ignorant of these difficulties, 
 has made use 3 of all advantages ; as he who designs 
 a large leap takes his rise from the highest ground. 
 One of these advantages is that which Corneille has 
 laid down as the greatest which can arrive to any 30 
 
 1 so C ; extream, A and B. 2 dicns, A. 
 
 3 had prevailed himself, A. 
 
j 6 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 poem, and which he himself could never compass 
 above thrice in all his plays ; viz. the making choice 
 of some signal and long-expected day, whereon the 
 action of the play is to depend. This day was that 
 5 designed by Dauphine for the settling of his uncle's 
 estate upon him ; which to compass, he contrives to 
 marry him. That the marriage had been plotted by 
 him long beforehand, is made evident by what he 
 tells True-wit in the second act, that in one moment 
 
 10 he had destroyed what he had been raising many 
 months. 
 
 ' There is another artifice of the poet, which I 
 cannot here omit, because by the frequent practice 
 of it in his comedies he has left it to us almost as a 
 
 15 rule ; that is, when he has any character or humour 
 wherein he would shew a coup de Maistre, or his 
 highest skill, he recommends it to your observation 
 by a pleasant description of it before the person first 
 appears. Thus, in Bartholomew- Fair n he gives you 
 
 20 the pictures of Numps and Cokes, and in this those 
 of Daw, Lafoole, Morose, and the Collegiate Ladies ; 
 all which you hear described before you see them. 
 So that before they come upon the stage, you have 
 a longing expectation of them, which prepares you 
 
 25 to receive them favourably; and when they are there, 
 even from their first appearance you are so far ac- 
 quainted with them, that nothing of their humour is 
 lost to you. 
 
 1 1 will observe yet one thing further of this admir- 
 
 30 able plot ; the business of it rises in every act. The 
 second is greater than the first ; the third than the 
 second ; and so forward to the fifth. There too you 
 
ENGLISH STAGE EQUAL TO ANY OTHER. 77 
 
 see, till the very last scene, new difficulties arising to 
 obstruct the action of the play; and when the audience 
 is brought into despair that the business can naturally 
 be effected, then, and not before, the discovery is 
 made. But that the poet might entertain you with 5 
 more variety all this while, he reserves some new 
 characters to shew you, which he opens not till the 
 second and third act ; in the second Morose, Daw, 
 the Barber, and Otter; in the third the Collegiate 
 Ladies : all which he moves afterwards in by- walks, 10 
 or under-plots, as diversions to the main design, lest 
 it should grow tedious, though they are still naturally 
 joined with it, and somewhere or other subservient to 
 it. Thus, like" a skilful chess-player 1 , by little and 
 little he draws out his men, and makes his pawns 15 
 of use to his greater persons. 
 
 ' If this comedy 11 and some others of his, were 
 translated into French prose, (which would now be 
 no wonder to them, since Moliere has lately given 
 them plays out of verse, which have not displeased 20 
 them,) I believe the controversy would soon be de- 
 cided betwixt the two nations, even making them 
 the judges. But we need not call our heroes 2 to 
 our aid. Be it spoken to the honour of the English, 
 our nation can never want in any age such who are 2 5 
 able to dispute the empire of wit with any people 
 in the universe. And though the fury of a civil 
 war, and power for twenty years together aban- 
 doned to a barbarous race of men, enemies of all 
 good learning, had buried the muses under the 3° 
 
 1 so C ; Chest-player, A and B. 
 8 so C ; Hero's, A and B. 
 
78 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 ruins of monarchy; yet, with the restoration of 
 our happiness, we see revived poesy lifting up its 
 head, and already shaking off the rubbish which 
 lay so heavy on it. We have seen since his majesty's 
 5 return, many dramatick poems which yield not to 
 those of any foreign nation, and which deserve all 
 laurels but the English. I will set aside flattery and 
 envy: it cannot be denied but we have had some 
 little blemish either in the plot or writing of all those 
 
 io plays which have been made within these seven years; 
 (and perhaps there is no nation in the world so quick 
 to discern them, or so difficult to pardon them, as 
 ours :) yet if we can persuade ourselves to use the 
 candour of that poet, who, though the most severe 
 
 15 of criticks, has left us this caution by which to 
 moderate our censures — 
 
 ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego pancis 
 
 Offendar maculis ; — n 
 
 if, in consideration of their many and great beauties, 
 20 we can wink at some slight and little imperfections, 
 if we, I say, can be thus equal to ourselves, I ask no 
 favour from the French. And if I do not venture 
 upon any particular judgment of our late plays, 'tis 
 out of the consideration which an ancient writer gives 
 25 me: vivorum, ut magna admiratio, ita censura difficilis x \ 
 betwixt the extremes of admiration and malice, 'tis 
 hard to judge uprightly of the living. Only I think 
 it may be permitted me to say, that as it is no lessen- 
 ing to us to yield to some plays, and those not many, 
 30 of our own nation in the last age, so can it be no ad- 
 dition to pronounce of our present poets, that they 
 
CRITES ATTACKS RHYME. 79 
 
 have far surpassed all the ancients, and the modern 
 writers of other countries 1 / 
 
 This was 2 the substance of what was then spoke 
 on that occasion ; and Lisideius, I think, was going 
 to reply, when he was prevented thus by Crites : ' I 5 
 am confident/ said he, 'that the most material things 
 that can be said have been already urged on either 
 side ; if they have not, I must beg of Lisideius that 
 he w T ill defer his answer till another time : for I con- 
 fess I have a joint quarrel to you both, because you 10 
 have concluded, without any reason given for it, that 
 rhyme is proper for the stage. I will not dispute how 
 ancient it hath been among us to write this way ; per- 
 haps our ancestors knew no better till Shakspeare's 
 time. I will grant it was not altogether left by him, 15 
 and that Fletcher and Ben Johnson used it frequently 
 in their Pastorals, and sometimes in other plays. 
 Farther, — I will not argue whether we received it 
 originally from our own countrymen, or from the 
 French ; for that is an inquiry of as little benefit, 20 
 as theirs who, in the midst of the late plague 3 , were 
 not so solicitous to provide against it, as to know 
 whether we had it from the malignity of our own 
 air, or by transportation from Holland. I have 
 therefore only to affirm, that it is not allowable in 25 
 serious plays ; for comedies, I find you already con- 
 cluding with me. To prove this, I might satisfy my- 
 self to tell you, how much in vain it is for you to 
 strive against the stream of the people's inclination ; 
 the greatest part of which are prepossessed so much 30 
 
 1 so C ; Countreys, A and B. 2 This, my Lord, was, A. 
 
 3 the great plague, A. 
 
80 OF DRAMATIC POESY, 
 
 with those excellent plays of Shakspeare, Fletcher, 
 and Ben Johnson, which have been written out of 
 rhyme, that except you could bring them such as 
 were written better in it, and those too by persons 
 5 of equal reputation with them, it will be impossible 
 for you to gain your cause with them, who will still 
 be judges. This it is to which, in fine, all your 
 reasons must submit. The unanimous consent of an 
 audience is so powerful, that even Julius Caesar, (as 
 
 10 Macrobius reports of him,) when he was perpetual 
 dictator, was not able to balance it on the other side ; 
 but when Laberius, a Roman Knight, at his request 
 contended in the Mime with another poet n , he was 
 forced to cry out, Etiam favente me victus es, Laberi 1 . 
 
 15 But I will not on this occasion take the advantage of 
 
 the greater number, but only urge such reasons against 
 
 rhyme, as I find in the writings of those who have ar- 
 
 Qy gued for the other way. First then, I am of opinion, 
 
 that rhyme is unnatural in a play, because dialogue 
 
 20 there is presented as the effect of sudden thought : 
 for a play is the imitation of nature ; and since no 
 man, without premeditation speaks in rhyme, neither 
 ought he to do it on the stage. This hinders not but 
 the fancy may be there elevated to an higher pitch of 
 
 25 thought than it is in ordinary discourse ; for there is 
 a probability that men of excellent and quick parts 
 may speak noble things extempore : but those thoughts 
 are never fettered with the numbers or sound of verse 
 without study, and therefore it cannot be but unnatural 
 
 30 to present the most free way of speaking in that which 
 is the most constrained. For this reason, says Aris- 
 
 1 Liberi, A. 
 
C RITES ATTACKS RHYME. 8 1 
 
 totle n , 'tis best to write tragedy in that kind of verse 
 which is the least such, or which is nearest prose : 
 and this amongst the ancients was the Iambick ; and 
 with us is blank verse, or the measure of verse kept 
 exactly without rhyme. These numbers therefore are 5 
 fittest for a play ; the others for a paper of verses, or 
 a poem ; blank verse being as much below them, as 
 rhyme is improper for the drama. And if it be ob- 
 jected that neither are blank verses made extempore, 
 yet, as nearest nature, they are still to be preferred. 10 
 — But there are two particul ar exceptions, which many £ tW'^-' 
 besides myself have hacT to verse ; by which it will 
 appear yet more plainly how improper it is in plays. 
 And the first of them is grounded on that very reason 
 for which some have commended rhyme ; they say, 15 
 the quickness jpf jrepartees^ in argumentative scenes Y'^Z^f" 
 receives an ornament from verse. Now what is more 
 unreasonable than to imagine that a man should not 
 only light upon the wit 1 , but the rhyme too, upon the 
 sudden ? This nicking of him who spoke before both 20 
 in sound and measure, is so great an happiness, that 
 you must at least suppose the persons of your play to 
 be born poets : Arcades omnes, et cantare pares, et re- 
 spondereparatt n : they must have arrived to the degree 
 of quicquid conabar dicere; — to make verses almost 25 
 whether they will or no. If they are any thing below 
 this, it will look rather like the design of two, than 
 the answer of one : it will appear that your actors 
 hold intelligence together; that they perform their 
 tricks like fortune-tellers, by confederacy. The hand 30 
 of art will be too visible in it, against that maxim 
 
 1 so A ; not only imagine the Wit, B. 
 G 
 
82 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 of all professions— A rs est celare artem ; that it is the 
 greatest perfection of art to keep itself undiscovered. 
 Nor will it serve you to object, that however you 
 manage it, 'tis still known to be a play ; and, conse- 
 5 quently, the dialogue of two persons understood to 
 be the labour of one poet. For a play is still an 
 imitation of nature ; we know we are to be deceived, 
 and we desire to be so ; but no man ever was deceived 
 but with a probability of truth ; for who will suffer a 
 
 io gross lie to be fastened on him ? Thus we sufficiently 
 understand, that the scenes which represent cities and 
 countries to us are not really such, but only painted 
 on boards and canvas ; but shall that excuse the ill 
 painture. or designment of them ? Nay, rather ought 
 
 15 they not to be laboured with so much the more dili- 
 gence and exactness, to help the imagination ? since 
 the mind of man does naturally tend to 1 truth ; and 
 therefore the nearer any thing comes to the imitation 
 of it, the more it pleases. 
 
 20 'Thus, you see, your rhyme is uncapable of ex- 
 pressing the greatest thoughts naturally, and the 
 lowest it cannot with any grace : for what is more 
 unbefitting the majesty of verse, than to call a 
 u„ 'servant, or bid a door be shut in rhyme? and yet 
 <k 25 you are often forced on this miserable necessity 2 . But 
 Qjt^tf J verse, you say, circumscribes a quick and luxuriant 
 
 ^«^ ^r ' I fancy, which would extend itself too far on every 
 l^vM. subject, did not the labour which is required to well- 
 
 turned and polished rhyme, set bounds to it. Yet 
 
 30 this argument, if granted, would only prove that we 
 
 3 tend to and seek after, A. 
 
 2 this mis. nee. you are fore'd upon, A. 
 
CRJTES ATTACKS RHYME. 83 
 
 may write better in verse, but not more naturally. 
 Neither is it able to evince that; for he who wants 
 judgment to confine his fancy in blank verse, may 
 want it as much in rhyme : and he who has it will 
 avoid errors in both kinds. Latin verse was as great 5 
 a confinement to the imagination of those poets, as 
 rhyme to ours; and yet you find Ovid saying too 
 much on every subject. Nescivit (says Seneca) quod 
 bene cesstt relinquere n : of which he gives you one 
 famous instance in his description of the deluge : 10 
 
 Omnia poiitus era£, deerant qiwque litora ponto D . 
 Now all was sea, 'nor had that sea a shore. 
 
 Thus Ovid's fancy was not limited by verse, and 
 Virgil needed not verse to have bounded his. 
 
 ' In our own language we see Ben Johnson con- 15 
 fining himself to what ought to be said, even in the 
 liberty of blank verse ; and yet Corneille, the most 
 judicious of the French poets, is still varying the 
 same sense an hundred ways, and dwelling eternally 
 on the same subject, though confined by rhyme. 20 
 Some other exceptions I have to verse ; but since 
 these 1 I have named are for the most part already 
 publick, I conceive it reasonable they should first be 
 answered/ 
 
 ' It concerns me less than any/ said Neander, 25 
 (seeing he had ended,) 'to reply to this discourse; 
 because when I should have proved that verse may 
 be natural in plays, yet I should always be ready to 
 confess, that those which I have written in this kind n 
 come short of that perfection which is required. Yet 30 
 
 1 but being these, A. 
 G 2 
 
If- i) 
 
 84 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 since you are pleased I should undertake this pro- 
 vince, I will do it, though with all imaginable respect 
 and deference, both to that perso n n from whom you 
 have borrowed your strongest arguments, and to 
 5 whose judgment, when I have said all, I finally 
 submit. But before I proceed to answer your ob- 
 jections, I must first remember you, that I exclude 
 all comedy from my defence ; and next that I deny 
 not but blank verse may be also used ; and content 
 
 10 myself only to assert, that in serious plays where the 
 subject and characters are great, and the plot un- 
 mixed with mirth, which might allay or divert these 
 concernments which are produced, rhyme is there as 
 natural and more effectual than blank verse. 
 
 15 ' And now having laid down this as a foundation, 
 — to begin with Crites, — I must crave leave to tell 
 him, that some of his arguments against rhyme reach 
 no farther than, from the faults or defects of ill rhyme, 
 to conclude against the use of it in general. May not 
 
 20 I conclude against blank verse by the same reason ? 
 If the words of some poets who write in it, are either 
 ill chosen, or ill placed, which makes not only rhyme, 
 but all kind of verse in an} 7 language unnatural, shall 
 I, for their vicious affectation, condemn those excellent 
 
 25 lines of Fletcher, which are written in that kind? Is 
 there any thing in rhyme more constrained than this 
 line in blank verse? — / heaven invoke, and strong 
 resistance make ; where }^ou see both the clauses are 
 placed unnaturally, that is, contrary to the common 
 
 30 way of speaking, and that without the excuse of a 
 rhyme to cause it : yet you would think me very 
 ridiculous, if I should accuse the stubbornness of 
 
NEANDER DEFENDS RHYME. 85 
 
 blank verse for this, and not rather the stiffness of 
 the poet. Therefore, Crites, you must either prove 
 that words, though well chosen, and duly placed, yet 
 render not rhyme natural in itself; or that, however 
 natural and easy the rhyme may be, yet it is not 5 
 proper for a play. If you insist on the former part, I 
 would ask you, what other conditions are required to 
 make rhyme natural in itself, besides an election of 
 apt words, and a right disposition 1 of them ? For 
 the due choice of your words expresses your sense 10 
 naturally, and the due placing them adapts the rhyme 
 to it. If you object tliat one verse may be made for 
 the sake of another, though both the words and rhyme 
 be apt, I answer, it cannot possibly so fall out ; for 
 either there is a dependance of sense betwixt the first 15 
 line and the second, or there is none : if there be 
 that connection, then in the natural position of the 
 words the latter line must of necessity flow from the 
 former ; if there be no dependance, yet still the due 
 ordering of words makes the last line as natural in 20 
 itself as the other : so that the necessity of a rhyme 
 never forces any but bad or lazy writers to say what 
 they would not otherwise. 'Tis true, there is both 
 care and art required to write in verse. A good poet 
 never establishes 2 the first line, till he has sought out 25 
 such a rhyme as may fit the sense, already prepared 
 to heighten the second : many times the close of the 
 sense falls into the middle of the next verse, or farther 
 off, and he may often prevail himself 11 of the same 
 advantages in English which Virgil had in Latin, — he 30 
 may break off in the hemystich, and begin another 
 
 1 disposing, A. 2 concludes upon, A. 
 
86 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 line. Indeed, the not observing these two last things, 
 makes plays which are writ in verse, so tedious : for 
 though, most commonly, the sense is to be confined 
 to the couplet, yet nothing that does perpetuo tenore 
 5 fitter % run in the same channel, can please always. 
 'Tis like the murmuring of a stream, which not 
 varying m the fall, causes at first attention, at last 
 drowsiness. Variety of cadences is the best rule ; 
 the greatest help to the actors, and refreshment to 
 
 10 the audience. 
 
 ' If then verse may be made natural in itself, how 
 becomes it unnatural in 1 a play? You say the stage 
 is the representation of nature, and no man in ordi- 
 nary conversation speaks in rhyme. But you foresaw 
 
 15 when you said this, that it might be answered— neither 
 does any man speak in blank verse, or in measure 
 without rhyme. Therefore you concluded, that which 
 is nearest nature is still to be preferred. But you 
 took no notice that rhyme might be made as natural 
 
 20 as blank verse, by the well placing of the words, &c. 
 All the difference between them, when they are both 
 correct, is, the sound in one, which the other wants ; 
 and if so, the sweetness of it, and all the advantage 
 resulting from it, which are handled in the Preface to 
 
 2 5 The Rival Ladies, will yet stand good. As for that 
 place of Aristotle, where he says, plays should be 
 writ in that kind of verse which is nearest prose, it 
 makes little for you ; blank verse being properly but 
 measured prose. Now measure alone, in any modern 
 
 3° language, does not constitute verse ; those of the 
 ancients in Greek and Latin consisted in quantity of 
 
 1 improper to, A. 
 
NEANDER DEEENDS RHYME. 87 
 
 words, and a determinate number of feet. But when, 
 by the inundation of the Goths and Vandals into 
 Italy, new languages were introduced 1 , and barba- 
 rously mingled with the Latin, of which the Italian, 
 Spanish, French, and ours, (made out of them and 5 
 the Teutonick,) are dialects, a new way of poesy was 
 practised ; new, I say, in those countries, for in all 
 probability it was that of the conquerors in their own 
 nations : at least we are able to prove, that the eastern 
 people have used it from all antiquity 2 ". This new 10 
 way consisted in measure or number of feet, and 
 rhyme ; the sweetness of rhyme, and observation of 
 accent, supplying the place of quantity in words, 
 which could neither exactly be observed by those 
 barbarians, who knew not the rules of it, neither was 1 5 
 it suitable to their tongues, as it had been to the 
 Greek and Latin. No man is tied in modern poesy 
 to observe any farther rule in the feet of his verse, 
 but that they be dissyllables ; whether Spondee, 
 Trochee, or Iambick, it matters not ; only he is 20 
 obliged to rhyme : neither do the Spanish, French, 
 Italian, or Germans, acknowledge at all, or very rarely, 
 any such kind of poesy as blank verse amongst them. 
 Therefore, at most 'tis but a poetick prose, a sermo 
 pedestris; and as such, most fit for comedies, where 25 
 I acknowledge rhyme to be improper. — Farther; as 
 to that quotation of Aristotle, our couplet verses may 
 be rendered as near prose as blank verse itself, by 
 using those advantages I lately named, —as breaks in 
 an hemistich, or running the sense into another line, — 30 
 
 1 brought in, A. 
 
 2 A om. at least . . . antiquity, and the note. 
 
88 OF DRAMATIC POESY, 
 
 thereby making art and order appear as loose and free 
 as nature : or not tying ourselves to couplets strictly, 
 we may use the benefit of the Pindarick way practised 
 in The Siege of Rhodes^; where the numbers vary, and 
 5 the rhyme is disposed carelessly, and far from often 
 chyming. Neither is that other advantage of the 
 ancients to be despised, of changing the kind of verse 
 when they please, with the change of the scene, or 
 some new entrance ; for they confine not themselves 
 
 io always to iambicks, but extend their liberty to all 
 lyrick numbers, and sometimes even to hexameter. 
 But I need not go so far to prove that rhyme, as it 
 succeeds to all other offices of Greek and Latin verse, 
 so especially to this of plays, since the custom of 
 
 15 nations 1 at this day confirms it; the French 2 , Italian, 
 and Spanish tragedies are generally writ in it ; and 
 sure the universal consent of the most civilized parts 
 of the world, ought in this, as it doth in other customs, 
 to 3 include the rest. 
 
 20 ' But perhaps you may tell me, I have proposed 
 such a way to make rhyme natural, and consequently 
 proper to plays, as is unpracticable ; and that I shall 
 scarce find six or eight lines together in any play, 
 where the words are so placed and chosen as is re- 
 
 25 quired to make it natural. I answer, no poet need 
 constrain himself at all times to it. It is enough he 
 makes it his general rule ; for I deny not but some- 
 times there may be a greatness in placing the words 
 otherwise; and sometimes they may sound better; 
 
 30 sometimes also the variety itself is excuse enough. 
 But if, for the most part, the words be placed as they 
 1 all Nations, A. 2 all the French, &c, A. 3 A om. to. 
 
NEANDER DEFENDS RHYME. 89 
 
 are in the negligence of prose, it is sufficient to de- 
 nominate the way practicable ; for we esteem that to 
 be such, which in the trial oftner succeeds than misses. 
 And thus far you may find the practice made good 
 in many plays : where you do not, remember still, that 5 
 if you cannot find six natural rhymes together, it 
 will be as hard for you to produce as many lines in 
 blank verse, even among the greatest of our poets, 
 against which I cannot make some reasonable ex- 
 ception. 10 
 
 'And this, Sir, calls to^my remembrance the be- 
 ginning of your discourse, where you told us we 
 should never find the audience favourable to this 
 kind of writing, till we could produce as good plays 
 in rhyme, as Ben Johnson, Fletcher, and Shakspeare, 15 
 had writ out of it. But it is to raise envy to the 
 living, to compare them with the dead. They are 
 honoured, and almost adored by us, as they deserve ; 
 neither do I know any so presumptuous of themselves 
 as to contend with them. Yet give me leave to say 20 
 thus much, without injury to their ashes ; that not 
 only we shall never equal them, but they could never 
 equal themselves, were they to rise and write again. 
 We acknowledge them our fathers in wit; but they 
 have ruined their estates themselves, before they came 25 
 to their children's hands. There is scarce an humour, 
 a character, or any kind of plot, which they have not 
 used V All comes sullied or wasted to us : and were 
 they to entertain this age, they could not now 2 make 
 so plenteous treatments out of such decayed fortunes. 30 
 This therefore will be a good argument to us, either 
 
 1 blown upon, A. 2 A om. 
 
90 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 not to write at all, or to attempt some other way. 
 There is no bays to be expected in their walks : ten- 
 tanda via est, qua me quoque possum tollere humo n . 
 This way of writing in verse they have only left 
 
 5 free to us ; our age is arrived to a perfection in it, 
 which they never knew; and which (if we may guess 
 by what of theirs we have seen in verse, as The Faith- 
 ful Shepherdess, and Sad Shepherd) 'tis probable they 
 never could have reached. For the genius of every 
 
 10 age is different ; and though ours excel in this, I deny 
 not but to imitate nature in that perfection which they 
 did in prose, is a greater commendation than to write 
 in verse exactly. As for what you have added — that 
 the people are not generally inclined to like this way, 
 
 15 — if it were true, it would be no wonder, that betwixt 
 the shaking off an old habit, and the introducing of a 
 new, there should be difficulty. Do we not see them 
 stick to Hopkins' and Sternhold's psalms, and forsake 
 those of David, I mean Sandys his translation 11 of 
 
 20 them ? If by the people you understand the multi- 
 tude, the ol 7roXXo/, 'tis no matter what they think ; they 
 are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong : 
 their judgment is a mere lottery. Est ubi plebs recti 
 putat, est ubi peccat™. Horace says it of the vulgar, 
 
 25 judging poesy. But if you mean the mixed audience 
 of the populace and the noblesse, I dare confidently 
 affirm that a great part of the latter sort are already 
 favourable to verse ; and that no serious plays written 
 since the king's return have been more kindly received 
 
 30 by them, than The Siege of Rhodes, the Mustapha 1; , 
 The Indian Queen, and Indian Emperor. 
 
 ' But I come now to the inference of your first 
 
NEANDER DEFENDS RHYME, 91 
 
 argument. You said that 1 the dialogue of plays is 
 presented as the effect of sudden thought, but no man 
 speaks suddenly, or extempore, in rhyme ; and you in- 
 ferred from thence, that rhyme, which you acknowledge 
 to be proper to epick poesy, cannot equally be proper 5 
 to dramatick, unless we could suppose all men born 
 so much more than poets, that verses should be made 
 in them, not by them. 
 
 ' It has been formerly urged by you, and confessed 
 by me, that since no man spoke any kind of verse 10 
 extempore, that which was^ nearest nature was to be 
 preferred. I answer you, therefore, by distinguishing 
 betwixt what is nearest to the nature of comedy, which 
 is the imitation of common persons and ordinary 
 speaking, and what is nearest the nature of a serious » 5 
 play : this last is indeed the representation of nature, 
 but 'tis nature wrought up to an higher pitch. The 
 plot, the characters, the wit, the passions, the de- 
 scriptions, are all exalted above the level of common 
 converse, as high as the imagination of the poet can 20 
 carry them, with proportion to verisimility. Tragedy, 
 we know, is wont to image to us the minds and for- 
 tunes of noble persons, and to portray these exactly ; 
 heroick rhyme is nearest nature, as being the noblest 
 kind of modern verse. 2 5 
 
 Indignatur enim privatis et prope socco 
 Dignis ca?-minibus narrari ccena Thyesta™ — 
 
 says Horace : and in another place, 
 
 Effutire I eves indigna tragcedia versus™—. 
 
 Blank verse is acknowledged to be too low for a 3° 
 1 A om. 
 
92 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 poem, nay more, for a paper of verses ; but if too low 
 for an ordinary sonnet, how much more for tragedy, 
 which is by Aristotle, in the dispute betwixt the epick 
 poesy and the dramatick, for many reasons he there 
 5 alledges, ranked above it ? 
 
 ' But setting this defence aside, your argument is 
 almost as strong against the use of rhyme in poems 
 as in plays ; for the epick way is every where inter- 
 laced with dialogue, or discoursive scenes; and 
 
 10 therefore you must either grant rhyme to be im- 
 proper there, which is contrary to your assertion, or 
 admit it into plays by the same title which you have 
 given it to poems. For though tragedy be justly 
 preferred above the other, yet there is a great affinity 
 
 15 between them, as may easily be discovered in that 
 definition of a play which Lisideius gave us. The 
 genus of them is the same, — a just and lively image 
 of human nature, in its actions, passions, and tra- 
 verses of fortune : so is the end, — namely, for the 
 
 20 delight and benefit of mankind. The characters and 
 persons are still the same, viz. the greatest of both 
 sorts ; only the manner of acquainting us with those 
 actions, passions, and fortunes, is different. Tragedy 
 performs it viva voce, or by action, in dialogue ; 
 
 25 wherein it excels the epick poem, which does it 
 chiefly by narration, and therefore is not so lively 
 an image of human nature. However, the agree- 
 ment betwixt them is such, that if rhyme be proper 
 for one, it must be for the other. Verse, 'tis true, 
 
 30 is not the effect of sudden thought ; but this hinders 
 not that sudden thought may be represented in verse, 
 since those thoughts are such as must be higher 
 
NEANDER DEFENDS RHYME. 93 
 
 than nature can raise them without premeditation, 
 especially to a continuance of them, even out of verse ; 
 and consequently you cannot imagine them to have 
 been sudden either in the poet or in the actors. A 
 play, as I have said, to be like nature, is to be set 5 
 above it; as statues which are placed on high are 
 made greater than the life, that they may descend to 
 the sight in their just proportion. 
 
 ' Perhaps I have insisted too long on this objection; 
 but the clearing of it will make my stay shorter on to 
 the rest You tell us, Crites, that rhyme appears 
 most unnatural in repartees, or short replies : when 
 he who answers, (it being presumed he knew not 
 what the other would say, yet) makes up that part 
 of the verse which was left incomplete, and supplies 15 
 both the sound and measure of it. This, you say, 
 looks rather like the confederacy of two, than the 
 answer of one. 
 
 ' This, I confess, is an objection which is in every 
 man's * mouth, who loves not rhyme : but suppose, 20 
 I beseech you, the repartee were made only in blank 
 verse, might not part of the same argument be turned 
 against you ? for the measure is as often supplied 
 there, as it is in rhyme ; the latter half of the hemi- 
 stich as commonly made up, or a second line sub- 25 
 joined as a reply to the former; which any one leaf 
 in Johnson's plays will sufficiently clear to you. You 
 will often find in the Greek tragedians, and in 
 Seneca, that when a scene grows up into the warmth 
 of repartees, which is the close fighting of it, the 30 
 latter part of the trimeter is supplied by him who 
 1 ones, A. 
 
94 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 answers ; and yet it was never observed as a fault 
 in them by any of the ancient or modern criticks. 
 The case is the same in our verse, as it was in 
 theirs ; rhyme to us being in lieu of quantity to 
 
 5 them. But if no latitude is to be allowed a poet, 
 you take from him not only his licence of quidlibet 
 audendi, but you tie him up in a straiter compass 
 than you would a philosopher. This is indeed 
 Musas colere severiores. You would have him follow 
 
 io nature, but he must follow her on foot : you have dis- 
 mounted him from his Pegasus. But you tell us, this 
 supplying the last half of a verse, or adjoining a whole 
 second to the former, looks more like the design of 
 two, than the answer of one. Suppose we acknow- 
 
 15 ledge it : how comes this confederacy to be more 
 displeasing to you, than in a dance which is well 
 contrived ? You see there the united design of 
 many persons to make up one figure : after they 
 have separated themselves in many petty divisions, 
 
 20 the}'' rejoin one by one into a gross : the confederacy 
 is plain amongst them, for chance could never pro- 
 duce any thing so beautiful ; and yet there is nothing 
 in it, that shocks your sight. I acknowledge the hand 
 of art appears in repartee, as of necessity it must in 
 
 25 all kind of verse. But there is also the quick and 
 poynant brevity of it (which is an high imitation of 
 nature in those sudden gusts of passion) to mingle 
 with it ; and this, joined with the cadency and sweet- 
 ness of the rhyme, leaves nothing in the soul of the 
 
 30 hearer to desire. 'Tis an art which appears ; but it 
 appears only like the shadowings of painture, which 
 being to cause the rounding of it, cannot be absent ; 
 
NEANDER DEFENDS RHYME. 95 
 
 but while that is considered, they are lost : so while 
 we attend to the other beauties of the matter, the care 
 and labour of the rhyme is carried from us, or at least 
 drowned in its own sweetness, as bees are sometimes 
 buried in their honey. When a poet has found the 5 
 repartee, the last perfection he can add to it, is to put 
 it into verse. However good the thought may be, 
 however apt the words in which 'tis couched, yet he 
 finds himself at a little unrest, while rhyme is want- 
 ing : he cannot leave it till that comes naturally, and 10 
 then is at ease, and sits do\fcn contented 11 . 
 
 ' From replies, which are the most elevated thoughts 
 of verse, you pass to those which are most mean, and 
 which * are common with the lowest of houshold con- 
 versation. In these, you say, the majesty of verse 15 
 suffers. You instance in the calling of a servant, or 
 commanding a door to be shut, in rhyme. This, 
 Crites, is a good observation of your's, but no argu- 
 ment : for it proves no more but that such thoughts 
 should be waved, as often as may be, by the address 20 
 of the poet. But suppose they are necessary in the 
 places where he uses them, yet there is no need to 
 put them into rhyme. He may place them in the 
 beginning of a verse, and break it off, as unfit, when 
 so debased, for any other use ; or granting the worst, 25 
 — that they require more room than the hemistich 
 will allow, yet still there is a choice to be made of 
 the best words, and least vulgar, (provided they be 
 apt,) to express such thoughts. Many have blamed 
 rhyme in general, for this fault, when the poet with 30 
 a little care might have redressed it. But they do it 
 1 to the most mean ones, those which, A. 
 
g6 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 with no more justice, than if English poesy should 
 be made ridiculous for the sake of the Water-poet's n 
 rhymes. Our language is noble, full, and significant ; 
 and I know not why he who is master of it may not 
 5 clothe ordinary things in it as decently as the Latin, 
 if he use the same diligence in his choice of words : 
 delectus verborum origo est eloquentice^. It was the 
 saying of Julius Caesar, one so curious in his, that 
 none of them can be changed but for a worse. One 
 io would think, unlock the door, was a thing as vulgar as 
 could be spoken; and yet Seneca could make it sound 
 high and lofty in his Latin : 
 
 Reserate chisos regii fiostes laris™. 
 Set wide the palace gates. 
 
 15 'But I turn from this exception, both because it 
 happens not above twice or thrice in any play that 
 those vulgar thoughts are used ; and then too, (were 
 there no other apology to be made, yet,) the necessity 
 of them, which is alike in all kind of writing, may 
 
 20 excuse them. For if they are little and mean in 
 rhyme, they are of consequence such in blank verse \ 
 Besides that the great eagerness and precipitation 
 with which they are spoken, makes us rather mind 
 the substance than the dress ; that for which they are 
 
 2f spoken, rather than what is spoke. For they are 
 always the effect of some hasty concernment, and 
 something of consequence depends on them. 
 
 ' Thus, Crites, I have endeavoured to answer your 
 objections; it remains only that I should vindicate 
 
 30 an argument for verse, which you have gone about to 
 
 1 A om. For if they . . . blank verse. 
 
NEANDER DEFENDS RHYME, 97 
 
 overthrow. It had formerly been said, that the easi- 
 ness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant, 
 but that the labour of rhyme bounds and circumscribes 
 an over-fruitful fancy; the sense 1 there being com- 
 monly confined to the couplet, and the words so 5 
 ordered that the rhyme naturally follows them, not 
 they the rhyme. To this you answered, that it was 
 no argument to the question in hand ; for the dispute 
 was not which way a man may write best, but which 
 is most proper for the subject on which he writes. 10 
 
 ■ First, give me leave, Sir, to remember you, that 
 the argument against which you raised this objection, 
 was only secondary : it was built on this hypothesis, 
 — that to write in verse was proper for serious plays. 
 Which supposition being granted, (as it was briefly 15 
 made out in that discourse, by shewing how verse 
 might be made natural,) it asserted, that this way of 
 writing was an help to the poet's judgment, by put- 
 ting bounds to a wild overflowing fancy. I think, 
 therefore, it will not be hard for me to make good 20 
 what it was to prove on that supposition 2 . But you 
 add, that were this let pass, yet he who wants judg- 
 ment in the liberty of his fancy, may as well shew 
 the defect of it when he is confined to verse ; for he 
 who has judgment will avoid errors, and he who has 25 
 it not, will commit them in all kinds of writing. 
 
 This argument, as you have taken it from a most 
 acute person, so I confess it carries much weight in 
 it : but by using the word judgment here indefinitely, 
 you seem to have put a fallacy upon us. I grant, he 30 
 who has judgment, that is, so profound, so strong, 
 
 1 so A ; scene, B and C. 2 A om... on that supposition. 
 
 H 
 
98 OF DRAMATIC POESY. 
 
 or rather 1 so infallible a judgment, that he needs no 
 helps to keep it always poised and upright, will com- 
 mit no faults either in rhyme or out of it. And on 
 the other extreme, he who has a judgment so weak 
 5 and crazed that no helps can correct or amend it, 
 shall write scurvily out of rhyme, and worse in it. 
 But the first of these judgments is no where to be 
 found, and the latter is not fit to write at all. To 
 speak therefore of judgment as it is in the best poets; 
 
 10 they who have the greatest proportion of it, want 
 other helps than from it, within. As for example, 
 you would be loth to say, that he who is 2 endued 
 with a sound judgment has 3 no need of history, 
 geography, .or moral philosophy, to write correctly. 
 
 15 Judgment is indeed the master-workman in a play; 
 but he requires many subordinate hands, many tools 
 to his assistance. And verse I affirm to be one of 
 these; 'tis a rule and line by which he keeps his 
 building compact and even, which otherwise lawless 
 
 20 imagination would raise either irregularly or loosely; 
 at least, if the poet commits errors with this help, he 
 would make greater and more without it : — 'tis, in 
 short, a slow and painful, but the surest kind of 
 working. Ovid, whom you accuse for luxuriancy 
 
 25 in verse, had perhaps been farther guilty of it, had 
 he writ in prose. And for your instance of Ben 
 Johnson, who, you say, w T rit exactly without the 
 help of rhyme ; you are to remember, 'tis only an 
 aid to a luxuriant fancy, which his was not : as he 
 
 30 did not want imagination, so none ever said he 
 had much to spare. Neither was verse then re- 
 1 A om. or rather. 2 was, A. 3 had, A. 
 
END OF THE DISCUSSION. 99 
 
 fined so much, to be an help to that age, as it is to 
 ours. Thus then the second thoughts being usually 
 the best, as receiving the maturest digestion from 
 judgment, and the last and most mature product of 
 those thoughts being artful and laboured verse, it 5 
 may well be inferred, that verse is a great help to 
 a luxuriant fancy; and this is what that argument 
 which you opposed was to evince/ 
 
 Neander was pursuing this discourse so eagerly, 
 that Eugenius had called to him twice or thrice, ere 10 
 he took notice that the barge stood still, and that they 
 were at the foot of Somerset-stairs, where they had 
 appointed it to land. The company were all sorry to 
 separate so soon, though a great part of the evening 
 was already spent ; and stood a- while looking back on 15 
 the water, upon which the moon-beams played 1 , and 
 made it appear like floating quicksilver : at last they 
 went up through a crowd of French people, who were 
 merrily dancing in the open air, and nothing con- 
 cerned for the noise of guns which had alarmed the 20 
 town that afternoon. Walking thence together to the 
 Piazze n , they parted there ; Eugenius and Lisideius 
 to some pleasant appointment they had made, and 
 Crites and Neander to their several lodgings. 
 
 1 which the moon beams played upon, A. 
 
 H 2 
 
A DEFENCE 1 
 
 OF AN ESSAY 
 
 OF DRAMATIC POESY*. 
 
 The former edition of The Indian Emperor being 
 full of faults, which had escaped the printer, I have 
 been willing to overlook this second with more care ; 
 and though I could not allow myself so much time as 
 was necessary, yet, by that little I have done, the press 
 is freed from some gross errors which it had to answer 
 
 &' 
 
 1 The text of the 'Defence' is reprinted from the original edition 
 of 1668 (the only one published in Dryden's life-time ), a copy of 
 which is in the British Museum ; it-is prefixed as a sort of Introduc- 
 tion to the second edition of Dryden's Indian Emperor. 
 
 *Our author married, probably about the year 1664, Lady 
 Elizabeth Howard, sister of Sir Robert Howard lent., and daughter 
 of Thomas, the first Earl of Berkshire [ancestor of the present Earl 
 of Suffolk]. In 1660 he had addressed some complimentary verses 
 to Sir Robert, which were prefixed to his poems, published in 8vo. 
 in that year. In 1666 they appear to have been on good terms ; 
 Dryden having then addressed to him an encomiastick Epistle in 
 prose, which is dated from Charleton, in Wiltshire (the seat of the 
 Earl of Berkshire), and was prefixed to his Annus Mirabilis, pub- 
 lished in 8vo. in 1667, by Sir Robert Howard, who revised the 
 sheets at the press for the author, who was then in the country ; and 
 in the Epistle he describes him as one whom he knew not to be of 
 the number of those, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant. In 
 the Essay on Dramatick Poesy, as we have already seen, he speaks 
 of Sir Robert Howard with great respect. That gentleman, how- 
 
DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY. ioi 
 
 for before. As for the more material faults of writing, 
 which are properly mine, though I see many of them, 
 I want leisure to amend them. 'Tis enough for those 
 who make one poem the business of their lives, to 
 leave that correct : yet, excepting Virgil, I never met 5 
 with any which was so in any language. 
 
 But while I was thus employed about this impres- 
 sion, there came to my hands a new printed play, 
 called, The Great Favourite, or The Duke of Lerma) 
 the author of which, a noble and most ingenious 10 
 person, has done me the javour to make some ob- 
 servations and animadversions upon my Dramaiique 
 Essay. I must confess he might have better consulted 
 his reputation, than by matching himself with so weak 
 an adversary. But if his honour be diminished in the 15 
 choice of his antagonist, it is sufficiently recompensed 
 in the election of his cause : which being the weaker, 
 in all appearance, as combating the received opinions 
 of the best ancient and modern authors, will add to 
 his glory, if he overcome, and to the opinion of his 20 
 
 ever, having in 1668 published [in the preface to his tragedy, The 
 Duke of Lerma] reflections on the Essay, our author retorted in the 
 following observations, which are found prefixed to the second 
 edition of The Indian Emperor, published in the same year. In 
 many copies, however, of that edition, they are wanting ; nor were 
 they reprinted in any other edition of that play which appeared in 
 the life-time of the author : so that it should seem he was induced 
 by good nature, or the interposition of friends, to suppress this witty 
 and severe replication. One of the lampoons of the time gives a 
 more invidious turn to this suppression, and insinuates that he was 
 compelled to retract. They lived afterwards probably in good 
 correspondence together ; at least, it appears from an original 
 letter of our author now before me, that towards the close of his 
 life they were on friendly terms. (Malone.) 
 
103 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 generosity, if he be vanquished : since he ingages at 
 so great odds, and, so like a cavalier, undertakes the 
 protection of the weaker party. I have only to fear 
 on my own behalf, that so good a cause as mine may 
 5 not suffer by my ill management, or weak defence ; 
 yet I cannot in honour but take the glove, when 'tis 
 offered me : though I am only a champion by suc- 
 cession ; and no more able to defend the right of 
 Aristotle and Horace, than an infant Dimock to main- 
 
 10 tain the title of a King. 
 
 For my own concernment in the controversie, it is 
 so small, that I can easily be contented to be driven 
 from a few notions of Dramatique Poesie ; especially 
 by one, who has the reputation of understanding all 
 
 15 things: and I might justly make that excuse for my 
 yielding to him, which the Philosopher made to the 
 Emperor, — why should I offer to contend with him, who 
 is master of more than twenty legions of arts and 
 sciences ? But I am forced to fight, and therefore it 
 
 20 will be no shame to be overcome. 
 
 Yet I am so much his servant, as not to meddle 
 with any thing which does not concern me in his 
 Preface ; therefore, I leave the good sense and other 
 excellencies of the first twenty lines to be considered 
 
 2 5 by the critiques. As for the play of The Duke of 
 Lerma, having so much altered and beautified it, as 
 he has done, it can justly belong to none but him. 
 Indeed, they must be extream ignorant as well as 
 envious, who would rob him of that honour; for you see 
 
 30 him putting in his claim to it, even in the first two lines : 
 
 Repulse upon repulse, like waves thrown back, 
 That slide to hang upon obdurate rocks. 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY. 103 
 
 After this, let detraction do its worst ; for if this be 
 not his, it deserves to be. For my part, I declare for 
 distributive justice ; and from this and what follows, 
 he certainly deserves those advantages which he ac- 
 knowledges to have received from the opinion of sober 5 
 men. 
 
 In the next place, I must beg leave to observe his 
 great address in courting the reader to his party. 
 For intending to assault all poets, both ancient and 
 modern, he discovers not hi& whole design at once, 10 
 but seems only to aim at me, and attacques me on my 
 weakest side, my defence of verse. 
 
 To begin with me, — he gives me the compellation 
 of The Author of a Dramatique Essay, which is a little 
 discourse in dialogue, for the most part borrowed 15 
 from the observations of others : therefore, that I 
 may not be wanting to him in civility, I return his 
 compliment by calling him The Author of The Duke 
 of Lerma. 
 
 But (that I may pass over his salute) he takes 20 
 notice of my great pains to prove rhyme as natural 
 in a serious play, and more effectual than blanck 
 verse. Thus, indeed, I did state the question ; but 
 he tells me, / pursue that which I call natural in a 
 wrong application : for s tis not the question whether 25 
 rhyme or not rhyme be best or most natural for a 
 serious subject, but what is nearest the nature of that 
 it represents. 
 
 If I have formerly mistaken the question, I must 
 confess my ignorance so far, as to say I continue still 30 
 in my mistake : but he ought to have proved that I 
 mistook it ; for it is yet but gratis dictum : I still shall 
 
104 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 think I have gained my point, if I can prove that 
 rhyme is best or most natural for a serious subject. 
 As for the question as he states it, whether rhyme be 
 nearest the nature of what it represents, I wonder he 
 
 5 should think me so ridiculous as to dispute whether 
 prose or verse be nearest to ordinary conversation. 
 
 It still remains for him to prove his inference, — 
 that, since verse is granted to be more remote than 
 prose from ordinary conversation, therefore no serious 
 
 10 plays ought to be writ in verse : and when he clearly 
 makes that good, I will acknowledge his victory as 
 absolute as he can desire it. 
 
 The question now is, which of us two has mistaken 
 it ; and if it appear I have not, the world will suspect 
 
 15 what gentleman that was, who was allowed to speak 
 twice in parliament, because he had not yet spoken to 
 the question ; and perhaps conclude it to be the same, 
 who, 'tis reported, maintained a contradiction in ter- 
 minis, in the face of three hundred persons. 
 
 20 But to return to verse ; whether it be natural or not 
 in plays, is a problem which is not demonstrable of 
 either side : 'tis enough for me that he acknowledges 
 he had rather read good verse than prose : for if all 
 the enemies of verse will confess as much, I shall not 
 
 25 need to prove that it is natural, I am satisfied, if it 
 cause delight : for delight is the chief, if not the only, 
 end of poesie : instruction can be admitted but in the 
 second place ; for poesie only instructs as it delights. 
 'Tis true, that to imitate well is a poet's work ; but to 
 
 30 affect the soul, and excite the passions, and above all 
 to move admiration, which is the delight of serious 
 plays, a bare imitation will not serve. The converse, 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY, 105 
 
 therefore, which a poet is to imitate, must be heightened 
 with all the arts and ornaments of poesie ; and must 
 be such, as, strictly considered, could never be sup- 
 posed spoken by any without premeditation. 
 
 As for what he urges, that a play will still be sup- 5 
 posed to be a composition of several persons speaking ex 
 tempore ; and that good verses are the hardest things 
 which can be imagined to be so spoken ; I must crave 
 leave to dissent from his opinion, as to the former 
 part of it : for, if I am not deceived, a play is supposed 1 o 
 to be the work of the poet r imitating or representing 
 the conversation of several persons ; and this I think 
 to be as clear, as he thinks the contrary. 
 
 But I will be bolder, and do not doubt to make it 
 good, though a paradox, that one great reason why 15 
 prose is not to be used in serious plays, is, because it 
 is too near the nature of converse : there may be too 
 great a likeness ; as the most skilful painters affirm, 
 that there may be too near a resemblance in a picture: 
 to take every lineament and feature, is not to make an 20 
 excellent piece; but to take so much only as will 
 make a beautiful resemblance of the whole; and, with 
 an ingenious flattery of nature, to heighten the beauties 
 of some parts, and hide the deformities of the rest. 
 For so says Horace: 25 
 
 Ut pictura poesis erit 
 
 Hcbc amat obscurum, vult h<zc sub luce videri 3 
 Judicis argutum qua non formiclat acumen n . 
 
 — — et qua 
 
 Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit Q . 3 
 
 In Bartholomew Fair, or the lowest kind of comedy, 
 that degree of heightning is used, which is proper to 
 
106 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 set off that subject. 'Tis true the author was not 
 there to go out of prose, as he does in his higher 
 arguments of comedy, The Fox, and Alchymist; yet 
 he does so raise his matter in that prose, as to render 
 5 it delightful ; which he could never have performed, 
 had he only said or done those very things that are 
 daily spoken or practised in the Fair; for then the 
 Fair itself would be as full of pleasure to an ingenious 
 person as the play; which we manifestly see it is not. 
 
 io But he hath made an excellent lazar n of it : the copy 
 is of price, though the original be vile. You see in 
 Catiline and Sejanus, where the argument is great, he 
 sometimes ascends to verse, which shews he thought 
 it not unnatural in serious plays : and had his genius 
 
 15 been as proper for rhyme, as it was for humour, 
 or had the age in which he lived attained to as much 
 knowledge in verse as ours, it is probable he would 
 have adorned those subjects with that kind of 
 writing. 
 
 20 Thus prose, though the rightful prince, yet is by 
 common consent deposed, as too weak for the govern- 
 ment of serious plays ; and he failing, there now start 
 up two competitors ; one the nearer in blood, which 
 is blanck verse; the other more fit for the ends 
 
 25 of government, which is rhyme. Blanck verse is, 
 indeed, the nearer prose, but he is blemished with 
 the weakness of his predecessor. Rhyme (for I will 
 deal clearly) has somewhat of the usurper in him ; 
 but he is brave and generous, and his dominion 
 
 30 pleasing. For this reason of delight, the Ancients 
 (whom I will still believe as wise as those who so 
 confidently correct them) wrote all their tragedies in 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY. 107 
 
 verse, though they knew it most remote from con- 
 versation. 
 
 But I perceive I am falling into the danger of 
 another rebuke from my opponent ; for when I plead 
 that the Ancients used verse, I prove not that they 5 
 would have admitted rhyme, had it then been written : 
 all I can say is only this ; that it seems to have suc- 
 ceeded verse by the general consent of poets in all 
 modern languages : for almost all their serious plays 
 are written in it : which, though it be no demonstra- ro 
 tion that therefore they ought to be so, yet at least 
 the practice first, and then the continuation of it, 
 shews that it attained the end, — which was to please; 
 and if that cannot be compassed here, I will be the 
 first who shall lay it down. For I confess my chief 15 
 endeavours are to delight the age in which I live. If 
 the humour of this be for low comedy, small acci- 
 dents, and raillery, I will force my genius to obey it, 
 though with more reputation I could write in verse. 
 I know I am not so fitted by nature to write comedy: 20 
 I want that gayety of humour which is required to it. 
 My conversation is slow and dull, my humour satur- 
 nine and reserved : in short, I am none of those who 
 endeavour to break jests in company, or make repar- 
 ties. So that those who decry my comedies do me no 25 
 injury, except it be in point of profit : reputation in 
 them is the last thing to which I shall pretend. I 
 beg pardon for entertaining the reader with so ill 
 a subject ; but before I quit that argument, which was 
 the cause of this digression, I cannot but take notice 30 
 how I am corrected for my quotation of Seneca, in my 
 defence of plays in verse. My words are these : ' Our 
 
lo8 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 language is noble, full, and significant ; and I know 
 not why he who is master of it, may not cloath ordi- 
 nary things in it as decently as the Latine, if he use 
 the same diligence in his choice of words. One would 
 5 think, unlock a door, was a thing as vulgar as could be 
 spoken ; - yet Seneca could make it sound high and 
 lofty in his Latin : 
 
 Reseratc clusos regii postes laris? 
 
 But he says of me, That being filled with the prece- 
 10 dents of the Ancients, who writ their plays in verse, 
 I commend the thing ; declaring our language to be full, 
 noble, and significant, and charging all defects upon the 
 ill placing of words, which I prove by quoting Seneca 
 loftily expressing such an ordinary thing as shutting a 
 15 door. 
 
 Here he manifestly mistakes ; for I spoke not 
 of the placing, but of the choice of words ; for 
 which I quoted that aphorism of Julius Caesar: 
 
 Delectus verborum est origo eloquenticz: 
 
 20 but delectus verborum is no more Latin for the placing 
 of words, than reserate is Latin for shut the door, 
 as he interprets it, which I ignorantly construed 
 unlock or open it. 
 
 He supposes I was highly affected with the sound 
 
 25 of those words ; and I suppose I may more justly 
 imagine it of him ; for if he had not been extreamly 
 satisfied with the sound, he would have minded the 
 sense a little better. 
 
 But these are now to be no faults ; for ten days 
 
 30 after his book is published, and that his mistakes are 
 grown so famous that they are come back to him, he 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY, 109 
 
 sends his Errata* to be printed, and annexed to his 
 play; and desires, that instead of shutting you would 
 read opening ; which, it seems, was the printer s fault. 
 I wonder at his modesty, that he did not rather say it 
 was Seneca's, or mine ; and that in some authors, 5 
 reserare was to shut as well as to open, as the word 
 barach, say the learned, is both to bless and curse. 
 
 Well, since it was the printer, he was a naughty 
 man to commit the same mistake twice in six lines : I 
 warrant you delectus verboruPh for placing of words 10 
 was his mistake too, though the author forgot to tell 
 him of it : if it were my book, I assure you I should. 
 For those rascals ought to be the proxies of every 
 gentleman author, and to be chastised for him, when 
 he is not pleased to own an errour. Yet since he 15 
 has given the Errata, I wish he would have inlarged 
 them only a few sheets more, and then he would have 
 spared me the labour of an answer : for this cursed 
 printer is so given to mistakes, that there is scarce 
 a sentence in the Preface without some false grammar 20 
 or hard sense in it ; which will all be charged upon 
 the poet, because he is so good-natured as to lay but 
 three errours to the printer's account, and to take the 
 rest upon himself, who is better able to support them. 
 But he needs not apprehend that I should strictly 25 
 examine those little faults, except I am called upon to 
 do it : I shall return therefore to that quotation of 
 Seneca, and answer, not to what he writes, but to 
 what he means. I never intended it as an argument, 
 but only as an illustration of what I had said before 3° 
 
 * This erratum has been suffered to remain in the edition of the 
 knight's plays now before us, published in 1692. (Scott.) 
 
I[0 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 concerning the election of words : and all he can 
 charge me with is only this, — that if Seneca could 
 make an ordinary thing sound well in Latin by the 
 choice of words, the same, with the like care, might 
 5 be performed in English : if it cannot, I have com- 
 mitted an errour on the right hand, by commending 
 too much the copiousness and well-sounding of our 
 language ; which I hope my countrymen will pardon 
 me. At least the words which follow in my Dramatique 
 
 10 Essay will plead somewhat in my behalf; for I say 
 there, that this objection happens but seldom in a 
 play; and then too either the meanness of the expres- 
 sion may be avoided, or shut out from the verse by 
 breaking it in the midst. 
 
 15 But I have said too much in the defence of verse ; 
 for after all, it is a very indifferent thing to me, 
 whether it obtain or not. I am content hereafter to 
 be ordered by his rule, that is, to write it sometimes, 
 because it pleases me ; and so much the rather, 
 
 20 because he has declared that it pleases him. But 
 he has taken his last farewell of the Muses, and he 
 has done it civilly, by honouring them with the name 
 of his long acquaintances) which is a complement 1 
 they have scarce deserved from him. For my own 
 
 25 part, I bear a share in the publick loss ; and how 
 emulous soever I may be of his fame and reputation, 
 I cannot but give this testimony of his style, — that it 
 is extream poetical, even in oratory ; his thoughts 
 elevated sometimes above common apprehension ; his 
 
 30 notions politick and grave, and tending to the in- 
 struction of princes, and reformation of states ; that 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY. Ill 
 
 they are abundantly interlaced with variety of fancies, 
 tropes, and figures, which the criticks have enviously 
 branded with the name of obscurity and false grammar. 
 
 Well, he is now fettered in business of more un- 
 pleasant nature : the Muses have lost him, but the 5 
 commonwealth gains by it ; the corruption of a poet 
 is the generation of a statesman. 
 
 He will not venture again into the civil wars of 
 censure ; ubi . . . radios habitura triumphos n : if he 
 had not told us he had leftHhe Muses, we might J o 
 have half suspected it by that word, ubi, which does 
 not any way belong to them in that place ; the rest 
 of the verse is indeed Lucan's ; but that ubi, I will 
 answer for it, is his own. Yet he has another 
 reason for this disgust of Poesie; for he says imme- *5 
 diately after, that the manner of plays which are now 
 in most esteem, is beyond his power to perform : to 
 perform the manner of a thing, I confess is new 
 English to me. However, he condemns not the satis- 
 faction of others ; but rather their unnecessary under- 20 
 standing, who, like Sancho Panca's doctor, prescribe loo 
 strictly to our appetites ; for, says he, in the difference 
 of Tragedy and Comedy, and of Farce itself, there 
 can be no determination but by the taste, nor in the 
 manner of their composure. 25 
 
 We shall see him now as great a critick as he 
 was a poet; and the reason why he excelled so 
 much in poetry will be evident, for it will appear 
 to have proceeded from the exactness of his judg- 
 ment. In the difference of Tragedy, Comedy, and 30 
 Farce itself, there can be no determination but by the 
 taste. I will not quarrel with the obscurity of his 
 
112 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 phrase, though I justly might ; but beg his pardon 
 if I do not rightly understand him : if he means, that 
 there is no essential difference betwixt comedy, 
 tragedy, and farce, but what is only made by the 
 5 people's taste, which distinguishes one of them from 
 the other, that is so manifest an errour, that I need 
 not lose time to contradict it. Were there neither 
 judge, taste, nor opinion in the world, yet they would 
 differ in their natures; for the action, character, 
 
 10 and language of tragedy, would still be great and 
 high ; that of comedy lower and more familiar ; 
 admiration would be the delight of one, and satyr 
 of the other. 
 
 I have but briefly touched upon these things, 
 
 15 because, whatever his words are, I can scarce imagine, 
 that he who is always concerned for the true honour 
 of reason, and would have no spurious issue fathered 
 upon her, should mean any thing so absurd as to 
 affirm, that there is no difference betwixt comedy and 
 
 20 tragedy, but what is made by the taste only : unless 
 he would have us understand the comedies of my 
 Lord L*, where the first act should be pottages, 
 the second Fricassees, &c. and the fifth a chere 
 entiere of women. 
 
 25 I rather guess he means, that betwixt one comedy 
 or tragedy and another, there is no other difference 
 but what is made by the liking or disliking of the 
 audience. This is indeed a less errour than the 
 former, but yet it is a great one. The liking or 
 
 30 disliking of the people gives the play the denomina- 
 
 * I suppose lord Lauderdale. He was not created a duke till 
 1672. (M alone.) 
 
OF DRAMA TIC POES V. 113 
 
 tion of good or bad ; but does not really make or 
 constitute it such. To please the people ought to 
 be the poet's aim, because plays are made for their 
 delight ; but it does not follow that they are always 
 pleased with good plays, or that the plays which 5 
 please them are always good. The humour of the 
 people is now for comedy ; therefore, in hope to 
 please them, I write comedies rather than serious 
 plays ; and so far their taste prescribes to me : but 
 it does not follow from that reason, that comedy is 10 
 to be preferred before tragedy in its own nature ; for 
 that which is so in its own nature cannot be other- 
 wise ; as a man cannot but be a rational creature : 
 but the opinion of the people may alter, and in 
 another age, or perhaps in this, serious plays may 15 
 be set up above comedies. 
 
 This I think a sufficient answer: if it be not, he 
 has provided me of an excuse; it seems, in his 
 wisdom, he foresaw my weakness, and has found 
 out this expedient for me, That it is not necessary for 20 
 poets to study strict reason ; since they are so used to 
 a greater latitude than is allowed by that severe in- 
 quisition, that they must infringe their own jurisdiction, 
 to profess themselves obliged to argue well. 
 
 I am obliged to him for discovering to me this 25 
 back-door ; but I am not yet resolved on my retreat : 
 for I am of opinion that they cannot be good poets, 
 who are not accustomed to argue well. False 
 reasonings and colours of speech are the certain 
 marks of one who does not understand the stage ; 3° 
 for moral truth is the mistress of the poet, as much 
 as of the philosopher. Poesie must resemble natural 
 
114 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 truth, but it must be ethical. Indeed the poet dresses 
 truth, and adorns nature, but does not alter them : 
 
 Ficta vohiptatis causa- sint proximo. veris n . 
 
 Therefore, that is not the best poesy, which re- 
 5 sembles notions of things that are not to things that 
 are : though the fancy may be great, and the words 
 flowing, yet the soul is but half satisfied when there 
 is not truth in the foundation. This is that which 
 makes Virgil be preferred before the rest of Poets : 
 
 io in variety of fancy and sweetness of expression, 
 you see Ovid far above him; for Virgil rejected 
 many of those things which Ovid wrote. A great 
 wifs great work is to refuse, as my worthy friend, 
 Sir John Berkenhead, has ingeniously expressed it : 
 
 15 you rarely meet with any thing in Virgil but truth, 
 which therefore leaves the strongest impression of 
 pleasure in the soul. This I thought myself obliged 
 to say in behalf of Poesie ; and to declare, though it 
 be against myself, that when poets do not argue well, 
 
 20 the defect is in the workman, not in the art. 
 
 And now I come to the boldest part of his dis- 
 course, wherein he attacques not me, but all the 
 ancients and moderns ; and undermines, as he thinks, 
 the very foundations on which Dramatique Poesie is 
 
 25 built. I could wish he would have declined that envy 
 which must of necessity follow such an undertaking, 
 and contented himself with triumphing over me in my 
 opinions of verse, which I will never hereafter dispute 
 with him; but he must pardon me, if I have that 
 
 30 veneration for Aristotle, Horace, Ben Johnson, and 
 Corneille, that I dare not serve him in such a cause, 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY. . ]I5 
 
 and against such heroes, but rather fight under their 
 protection, as Homer reports of little Teucer, who 
 shot the Trojans from under the large buckler of 
 Ajax Telamon : 
 
 5tt} 8' dp' vn Aiavros craKU TeKafxcvviadao*. 5 
 
 He stood beneath his brother's ample shield, 
 
 And cover'd there, shot death through all the field, 
 
 The words of my noble adversary are these : 
 
 But if we examine the general rules laid down for 
 plays by strict reason, we shall find the err ours equally 10 
 gross ; for the great foundation which is laid to build 
 upon, is nothing, as it is generally slated, as will appear 
 upon the examination of the particulars. 
 
 These particulars, in due time, shall be examined : 
 in the mean while, let us consider what this great 15 
 foundation is, which he says is nothing, as it is 
 generally stated. I never heard of any other foun- 
 dation of Dramatique Poesie than the imitation of 
 nature ; neither was there ever pretended any other 
 by the ancients, or moderns, or me, who endeavour 20 
 to follow them in that rule. This I have plainly 
 said in my definition of a play; that it is a just and 
 lively image of human nature, &c. Thus the foun- 
 dation, as it is generally stated, will stand sure, if 
 this definition of a play be true ; if it be not, he 25 
 ought to have made his exception against it, by 
 proving that a play is not an imitation of nature, 
 but somewhat else which he is pleased to think it. 
 
 But it is very plain, that he has mistaken the 
 foundation for that which is built upon it, though 30 
 1 2 
 
ll6 . DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 not immediately : for the direct and immediate con- 
 sequence is this ; if nature be to be imitated, then 
 there is a rule for imitating nature rightly ; otherwise 
 there may be an end, and no means conducing to it. 
 5 Hitherto I have proceeded by demonstration ; but 
 as our divines, when they have proved a Deity, 
 because there is order, and have inferred that this 
 Deity ought to be worshipped, differ afterwards 
 in the manner of the worship ; so, having laid 
 10 down that nature is to be imitated, and that propo- 
 sition proving the next, that then there are means 
 which conduce to the imitating of nature, I dare 
 proceed no farther positively ; but have only laid 
 down some opinions of the ancients and moderns, 
 15 and of my own, as means which they used, and 
 which I thought probable for the attaining of that 
 end. Those means are the same which my antagon- 
 ist calls the foundations, — how properly, the world 
 may judge ; and to prove that this is his meaning, 
 20 he clears it immediately to you, by enumerating those 
 rules or propositions against which he makes his 
 particular exceptions, — as namely, those of time, and 
 place, — in these words : First, we are told the plot 
 should not be so ridiculously contrived, as to crowd two 
 25 several countries into one stage ; secondly, to cramp the 
 accidents of many years or days into the representation 
 of two hours and an half ; and lastly, a conclusion 
 drawn, that the only remaining dispute is, concerning 
 time, whether it should be contained in twelve or twenty- 
 mo four hours ; and the place to be limited to that spot 
 of ground where the play is supposed to begin : and 
 this is called nearest nature ; for that is concluded most 
 
OF DRA MA TIC FOES Y. 117 
 
 natural, which is most probable, and nearest to that 
 which it presents. 
 
 Thus he has only made a small mistake of the 
 means conducing to the end, for the end itself; and 
 of the superstructure for the foundation : but he pro- 5 
 ceeds : To shew, therefore, upon what ill grounds they 
 dictate laws for Dramatique Poesie, &c. He is here 
 pleased to charge me with being magisterial, as he 
 has done in many other places of his Preface. There- 
 fore in vindication of myself^ I must crave leave to 10 
 say, that my whole discourse was sceptical, according 
 to that way of reasoning which was used by Socrates, 
 Plato, and all the Academicques of old, which Tully 
 and the best of the ancients followed, and which is 
 imitated by the modest inquisitions of the Royal 15 
 Society. That it is so, not only the name will shew, 
 which is, An Essay, but the frame and composition 
 of the work. You see, it is a dialogue sustained by 
 persons of several opinions, all of them left doubtful, 
 to be determined by the readers in general ; and 20 
 more particularly defer'd to the accurate judgment of 
 my lord Buckhurst, to whom I made a dedication 
 of my book. These are my words in my Epistle, 
 speaking of the persons whom I introduced in my 
 dialogue : It is true, they differed in their opinions, 25 
 as it is probable they would ; neither do I take upon 
 me to reconcile, but to relate them, leaving your 
 lordship to decide it in favour of that part which you 
 shall judge most reasonable. And after that, in my 
 Advertisement to the Reader, I said this : The drift 30 
 of the ensuing discourse is chiefly to vindicate the 
 honour of our English writers from the censure of 
 
Ii8 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 those who unjustly prefer the French before them. 
 This I intimate, lest any should think me so exceeding 
 vain, as to teach others an art which they understand 
 much better than myself". But this is more than 
 5 necessary to clear my modesty in that point ; and I 
 am very confident that there is scarce any man who 
 has lost so much time as to read that trifle, but will 
 be my compurgator as to that arrogance whereof 
 I am accused. The truth is, if I had been naturally 
 
 10 guilty of so much vanity as to dictate my opinions, 
 yet I do not find that the character of a positive or 
 self-conceited person* is of such advantage to any in 
 this age, that I should labour to be publickly admitted 
 of that order. 
 
 15 But I am not now to defend my own cause, when 
 that of all the ancients and moderns is in question : 
 for this gentleman, who accuses me of arrogance, has 
 taken a course not to be taxed with the other extream 
 of modesty. Those propositions which are laid down 
 
 20 in my discourse, as helps to the better imitation of 
 nature, are not mine, (as I have said,) nor were ever 
 pretended so to be, but derived from the authority 
 of Aristotle and Horace, and from the rules and 
 examples of Ben Johnson and Corneille. These are 
 
 25 the men with whom properly he contends, and against 
 
 *Sir Robert Howard's own character. He is supposed to have 
 been ridiculed under the character of Sir Positive Atall, in Shad- 
 well's Sullen Lovers, represented and published in the same year in 
 which this piece was written. (Malone.) Sir Positive is, adds 
 Scott, ' a foolish knight that pretends to understand everything in 
 the world, and will suffer no man to understand anything in his 
 company ; so foolishly positive that he will never be convinced of 
 an error, though ever so gross.' 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY. 1 19 
 
 whom he will endeavour to make it evident, that there is 
 no such thing as what they all pretend. 
 
 His argument against the unities of place and time, 
 is this : That it is as impossible for one stage to present 
 two rooms or houses truly, as two countries or king- 5 
 doms ; and as impossible that five hours or twenty-four 
 hours should be two hours, as that a thousand hours or 
 years should be less than what they are, or the greatest 
 part of time to be comprehended in the less : for all of 
 them being impossible, they are^none of them nearest the 10 
 truth or nature of what they present ; for impossibilities 
 are all equal, and admit of no degree. 
 
 This argument is so scattered into parts, that it can 
 scarce be united into a syllogism ; yet, in obedience 
 to him, / will abbreviate and comprehend as much of 15 
 it as I can in few words, that my answer to it may be 
 more perspicuous. I conceive his meaning to be what 
 follows, as to the unity of place : (if I mistake, I beg 
 his pardon, professing it is not out of any design 
 to play the Argumentative Poet) If one stage cannot 20 
 properly present two rooms or houses, much less two 
 countries or kingdoms, then there can be no unity 
 of place ; but one stage cannot properly perform this : 
 therefore there can be no unity of place. 
 
 I plainly deny his minor proposition ; the force of 25 
 which, if I mistake not, depends on this; that the 
 stage being one place cannot be two. This, indeed, 
 is as great a secret, as that we are all mortal*; but 
 
 * There is here, I believe, a covert allusion to the character in 
 Shadwell's play already mentioned, who in the first scene, addressing 
 Sandford, says, ' — betwixt you and I, let me tell you, we are all 
 mortal ; ' in which wise remark the author probably had in view 
 Sir Robert Howard's poem 'Against the Fear of Death.' (Malone.) 
 
j 20 DEFENCE OF THE ESS A Y 
 
 to requite it with another, I must crave leave to tell 
 him, that though the stage cannot be two places, yet 
 it may properly represent them, successively, or at 
 several times. His argument is indeed no more than 
 5 a mere fallacy, which will evidently appear, when we 
 distinguish place, as it relates to plays, into real and 
 imaginary. The real place is that theatre, or piece 
 of ground, on which the play is acted. The imaginary, 
 that house, town, or country, where the action of the 
 
 10 Drama is supposed to be ; or more plainly, where 
 the scene of the play is laid. Let us now apply this 
 to that Herculean argument, which, if strictly and duly 
 weighed, is to make it evident, that there is no such 
 thing as what they all pretend. It is impossible, he 
 
 15 says, for one stage to present two rooms or houses : 
 I answer, it is neither impossible, nor improper, for 
 one real place to represent two or more imaginary 
 places, so it be done successively; which in other 
 words is no more than this ; That the imagination of 
 
 20 the audience, aided by the words of the poet, and 
 painted scenes, may suppose the stage to be some- 
 times one place, sometimes another ; now a garden, 
 or wood, and immediately a camp : which, I appeal 
 to every man's imagination, if it be not true. Neither 
 
 25 the ancients nor moderns, as much fools as he is 
 pleased to think them, ever asserted that they could 
 make one place two ; but they might hope, by the 
 good leave of this author, that the change of a scene 
 might lead the imagination to suppose the place 
 
 30 altered : So that he cannot fasten those absurdities 
 upon this scene of a play, or imaginary place of 
 action, that it is one place, and yet two. And this 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY. 1 21 
 
 being so clearly proved, that it is past any shew of 
 a reasonable denial, it will not be hard to destroy 
 that other part of his argument which depends upon 
 it ; namely, that it is as impossible for a stage to 
 represent two rooms or houses, as two countries or 5 
 kingdoms ; for his reason is already overthrown, 
 which was, because both were alike impossible. This 
 is manifestly otherwise ; for it is proved that a stage 
 may properly represent two rooms or houses ; for 
 the imagination being judge df what is represented, 10 
 will in reason be less chocqu'd * with the appearance 
 of two rooms in the same house, or two houses in 
 the same city, than with two distant cities in the 
 same country, or two remote countries in the same 
 universe. Imagination in a man or reasonable 15 
 creature is supposed to participate of reason ; and 
 when that governs, as it does in the belief of fiction, 
 reason is not destroyed, but misled, or blinded : that 
 can prescribe to the reason, during the time of the 
 representation, somewhat like a weak belief of what 20 
 it sees and hears ; and reason suffers itself to be so 
 hood- winked, that it may better enjoy the pleasures 
 of the fiction : but it is never so wholly made a cap- 
 tive, as to be drawn headlong into a perswasion of 
 those things which are most remote from probability: 25 
 'tis in that case a free-born subject, not a slave ; it 
 will contribute willingly its assent, as far as it sees 
 convenient, but will not be forced. Now there is 
 a greater vicinity in nature betwixt two rooms than 
 betwixt two houses, betwixt two houses than betwixt 30 
 
 1 Malone and Scott read ' choked.' 
 
122 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 two cities, and so of the rest ; Reason therefore can 
 sooner be led by Imagination to step from one room 
 into another, than to walk to two distant houses, and 
 yet rather to go thither, than to flye like a witch 
 5 through the air, and be hurried from one region to 
 another. Fancy and Reason go hand in hand ; the 
 first cannot leave the last behind ; and though Fancy, 
 when it sees the wide gulph, would venture over as 
 the nimbler, yet it is withheld by Reason, which will 
 
 10 refuse to take the leap, when the distance over it 
 appears too large. If Ben Johnson himself will re- 
 move the scene from Rome into Tuscany in the same 
 act, and from thence return to Rome, in the scene 
 which immediately follows, Reason will consider 
 
 15 there is no proportionable allowance of time to per- 
 form the journey, and therefore will chuse to stay at 
 home. So then, the less change of place there is, 
 the less time is taken up in transporting the persons 
 of the drama, with analogy to reason ; and in that 
 
 20 analogy, or resemblance of fiction to truth, consists 
 the excellency of the play. 
 
 For what else concerns the unity of place, I have 
 already given my opinion of it in my Essay; — that 
 there is a latitude to be allowed to it, — as several 
 
 25 places in the same town or city, or places adjacent 
 to each other in the same country, which may all be 
 comprehended under the larger denomination of one 
 place ; yet with this restriction, that the nearer and 
 fewer those imaginary places are, the greater re- 
 
 30 semblance they will have to truth ; and reason, which 
 cannot make them one, will be more easily led to 
 suppose them so. 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY. 123 
 
 What has been said of the unity of place, may 
 easily be applied to that of time : I grant it to be im- 
 possible, that the greater part of time should be 
 comprehended in the less, that twenty-four hours 
 should be crowded into three : but there is no neces- 5 
 sity of that supposition. For as Place, so Time 
 relating to a play, is either imaginary or real : the 
 real is comprehended in those three hours, more or 
 less, in the space of which the play is represented ; 
 the imaginary is that which is Supposed to be taken 10 
 up in the representation, as twenty-four hours more 
 or less. Now no man ever could suppose that 
 twenty-four real hours could be included in the 
 space of three : but where is the absurdity of 
 affirming that the feigned business of twenty- four 15 
 imagined hours may not more naturally be repre- 
 sented in the compass of three real hours, than 
 the like feigned business of twenty-four years in 
 the same proportion of real time ? For the pro- 
 portions are always real, and much nearer, by his 20 
 permission, of twenty-four to three, than of four 
 thousand to it. 
 
 I am almost fearful of illustrating any thing by 
 similitude, lest he should confute it for an argu- 
 ment; yet I think the comparison of a glass will 25 
 discover very aptly the fallacy of his argument, both 
 concerning time and place. The strength of his 
 reason depends on this, That the less cannot com- 
 prehend the greater. I have already answered, 
 that we need not suppose it does : I say not that 30 
 the less can comprehend the greater, but only that 
 it may represent it : as in a glass or Mirrour of half 
 
124 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 a yard diameter, a whole room and many persons in 
 it may be seen at once ; not that it can comprehend 
 that room or those persons, but that it represents 
 them to the sight. 
 
 5 But the author of The Duke of Lerma is to be ex- 
 cused for his declaring against the unity of time ; for, 
 if I be not much mistaken, he is an interested person ; 
 the time of that play taking up so many years as the 
 favour of the Duke of Lerma continued ; nay, the 
 
 to second and third act including all the time of his 
 prosperity, which was a great part of the reign of 
 Philip the Third : for in the beginning of the second 
 act he was not yet a favourite, and before the end of 
 the third was in disgrace. I say not this with the 
 
 15 least design of limiting the stage too servilely to 
 twenty-four hours, however he be pleased to tax me 
 with dogmatizing in that point. In my dialogue, as 
 I before hinted, several persons maintained their 
 several opinions : one of them, indeed, who sup- 
 
 20 ported the cause of the French poesie, said, how 
 strict they were in that particular ; but he who an- 
 swered in behalf of our nation, was willing to give 
 more latitude to the rule ; and cites the words of 
 Corneille himself, complaining against the severity 
 
 25 of it, and observing what beauties it banished from 
 the Stage *. In few words, my own opinion is this, 
 (and I willingly submit it to my adversary, when he 
 will please impartially to consider it,) that the ima- 
 ginary time of every play ought to be contrived into 
 
 30 as narrow a compass as the nature of the plot, the 
 quality of the persons, and variety of accidents will 
 *See p. 52. 
 
OF DRAMA TIC FOES Y. 125 
 
 allow. In comedy I would not exceed twenty-four 
 or thirty hours : for the plot, accidents, and persons 
 of comedy are small, and may be naturally turned in 
 a little compass: But in tragedy the design is weighty, 
 and the persons great ; therefore there will naturally 5 
 be required a greater space of time in which to move 
 them. And this though Ben Johnson has not told 
 us, yet it is manifestly his opinion : for you see that 
 to his comedies he allows generally but twenty-four 
 hours ; to his two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, a 10 
 much larger time : though he-draws both of them into 
 as narrow a compass as he can : For he shews you 
 only the latter end of Sejanus his favour, and the 
 conspiracy of Catiline already ripe, and just breaking 
 out into action. 15 
 
 But as it is an errour on the one side, to make too 
 great a disproportion betwixt the imaginary time of 
 the play, and the real time of its representation ; so 
 on the other side, it is an over-sight to compress the 
 accidents of a play into a narrower compass than that 20 
 in which they could naturally be produced. Of this 
 last errour the French are seldom guilty, because 
 the thinness of their plots prevents them from it ; 
 but few Englishmen, except Ben Johnson, have ever 
 made a plot with variety of design in it, included in 2.1 
 twenty- four hours, which was altogether natural. For 
 this reason, I prefer The Silent Woman before all 
 other plays, I think justly; as I do its author, in judg- 
 ment, above all other poets. Yet of the two, I think 
 that errour the most pardonable, which in too straight 30 
 a compass crowds together many accidents ; since 
 it produces more variety, and consequently more 
 
126 DEFENCE OF THE ESSAY 
 
 pleasure to the audience ; and because the nearness of 
 proportion betwixt the imaginary and real time, does 
 speciously cover the compression of the accidents. 
 Thus I have endeavoured to answer the meaning 
 5 of his argument ; for as he drew it, I humbly conceive 
 that it was none ; as will appear by his proposition, 
 and the proof of it. His proposition was this. 
 
 If strictly and duly .weighed, it is as impossible for 
 one stage to present two rooms or houses, as two coun- 
 
 10 tries or kingdoms, &c. And his proof this : For all 
 being impossible, they are none of them nearest the 
 truth or nature of what they present. 
 
 Here you see, instead of proof or reason, there is 
 only petitio principii : for in plain words, his sense is 
 
 15 this; Two things are as impossible as one another, 
 because they are both equally impossible : but he 
 takes those two things to be granted as impossible 
 which he ought to have proved such, before he had 
 proceeded to prove them equally impossible: he should 
 
 20 have made out first, that it was impossible for one 
 
 stage to represent two houses, and then have gone 
 
 forward to prove that it was as equally impossible 
 
 for a stage to present two houses, as two countries. 
 
 After all this, the very absurdity to which he would 
 
 25 reduce me is none at all : for he only drives at this, 
 That if his argument be true, I must then acknow- 
 ledge that there are degrees in impossibilities, which 
 I easily grant him without dispute : and if I mistake 
 not, Aristotle and the School are of my opinion. For 
 
 30 there are some things which are absolutely impossible, 
 and others which are only so ex parte ; as it is ab- 
 solutely impossible for a thing to be, and not be, at 
 
OF DRAMATIC POESY. 127 
 
 the same time ; but for a stone to move naturally up- 
 ward, is only impossible ex parte materice ; but it is not 
 impossible for the first mover to alter the nature of it. 
 His last assault, like that of a Frenchman, is most 
 feeble : for whereas I have observed, that none have 5 
 been violent against verse, but such only as have not 
 attempted it, or have succeeded ill in their attempt, 
 he will needs, according to his usual custom, improve 
 my observation to an argument, that he might have 
 the glory to confute it. But I lay my observation at 10 
 his feet, as I do my pen, which I have often employed 
 willingly in his deserved commendations, and now 
 most unwillingly against his judgment. For his 
 person and parts, I honour them as much as any 
 man living, and have had so many particular obliga- 15 
 tions to him, that I should be very ungrateful, if I did 
 not acknowledge them to the world. But I gave not 
 the first occasion of this difference in opinions. In 
 my Epistle Dedicatory before my Rival Ladies, I had 
 said somewhat in behalf of verse, which he was pleased 20 
 to answer in his Preface to his plays : that occasioned 
 my reply in my Essay ; and that reply begot this re- 
 joynder of his in his Preface to The Duke of Lerma. 
 But as I was the last who took up arms, I will be the 
 first to lay them down. For what I have here written, 25 
 I submit it wholly to him ; and if I do not hereafter 
 answer what may be objected against this paper, I 
 hope the world will not impute it to any other reason, 
 than only the due respect which I have for so noble 
 an opponent. " 30 
 
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 Pomftey the Great, ' translated out 
 of French by certain persons of honour 5 : 4to. 1664. From 
 Dryden's eulogium it appears that the fourth act was trans- 
 lated 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 
 Pompee 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. 2,7- 
 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 
 K 
 
130 NOTES. 
 
 particular instance he had Shakspere's example before him. 
 See Henry VIII, iv. 2. 52 : — 
 
 1 Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading.' 
 
 8. 15. The engagement between the English and Dutch 
 fleets took place [off Southwold] in Suffolk. In this memor- 
 able 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. (M alone.) 
 
 11. 5. This is probably a reference to the Act of 1664, 
 commonly called the Conventicle Act, ' to prevent and sup- 
 press 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 col- 
 lected 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 (Httdibras, 
 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. 
 
NOTES. 131 
 
 14. 17. T. Petronius, Satyricon, cap. ii. 
 
 15. 6. Hor. Epist. ii. I. 76. 
 9. lb. 34. 
 
 16. 21. Malone rejects 'Eugenius his opinion' as 'un- 
 grammatical 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 Roma?ia, 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 journees 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. to fii/dos. This is a singular slip ; it should of 
 course be 6 ixvdos. 
 
 28. ' Good cheap ' is a literal translation of bon marchi. 
 31. 24. The Supplices. 
 
 34. 14. The satyric drama of the Cyclops, by Euripides, a 
 K % 
 
J 32 NOTES. 
 
 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 con- 
 sequent 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 CEdiftus 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. 
 
 J28. Catachresis is the improper or abusive employment 
 of a word. 
 
 29. Virg. Eel. iv. 20. 
 
 36. 4. Virg. JEn. viii. 91. 
 
 8. Ovid, Met. i. 175 ; and (below) ib. 561. Malone says 
 that the true reading is pompae, and this is certainly adopted 
 in Burmann's edition ; but longas . . . fiompas occurs in some 
 MSS. Malone also points out that in the preceding quota- 
 tion, for verbo we should read verbis, and for metuam sununi, 
 timea?n magni. 
 
 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 
 
JVOTES. 133 
 
 [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. j<En. 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, Melite, 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 enter- 
 tainments adapted to the taste of the lower orders of the 
 people. (Malone.) In Strype's edition of Stow's Londo?i 
 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 Black- 
 friars, 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' 1 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. lb. 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 
 
134 NOTES. 
 
 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. 
 
 47. 3. Dryden appears to have borrowed this word from 
 Corneille, who speaks (Rodog. Exam.) of a 'personage pro- 
 tatique,' i.e. an introductory character; it is from the Greek 
 
 7TpOTaTlKOS. 
 
 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 161 1, 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 
 
NOTES. 135 
 
 Terence, where the same change takes place in the character 
 of Demea.' (Dyce.) 
 
 53. 19. Velleius Paterculus, i. 17. (Malone.) 
 
 54. 17. The Menteicr of Corneille (see Geruzez, Lit. 
 Fraucaise, ii. 90) was founded on one of the chefs cfceuvre 
 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 oi^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 ftrimum 7nobile 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 Andromede, horn, the gorgeousness of its mytho- 
 logical mise-e7i-scene, bore some resemblance to the masque, 
 while from the use of recitative and the introduction of many 
 
136 NOTES. 
 
 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 161 6, 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 Lan- 
 caster'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 inSicLy — 
 
 4 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.J 
 
NOTES. 137 
 
 65. 23. This subject had been imperfectly examined at the 
 time when Dry den wrote, and his staterrient is not quite 
 accurate. It is true that most of the old comedies before 
 Shakspere, such as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer 
 Gurto?is 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 
 1 560) 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 Ta7ning 
 of a Shrew (1594) is in blank verse. See Collier, Annals 
 of the Stage, vol. iii. 
 
 30. The unfinished pastoral drama of The Sad Shep- 
 herd, 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. 1 
 
 66. 3. The pastoral drama of The Faithful Shepherdess, 
 by Fletcher, was brought out about 16 10. 
 
 18. Dry den 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. Ed. 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 
 
138 NOTES. 
 
 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 fur- 
 ther, the ' Examens ' annexed by Corneille to his dramas are 
 incomparably more valuable than anything in the Discoveries. 
 
 13. Epiccene, or the Silent Woman, appeared in 1609. 
 73. 14. to yeXolov (to geloion), the laughable or ridiculous 
 element. 
 
 26. rjdos, disposition ; ira&os, passion (ethos, pathos). 
 
 75. 25. Hor. Epist. ii. 1. 168. 
 
 76. 19. The prose comedy of Bartholomew Fair was pro- 
 duced in 1614. 
 
 77. 17. Of the piece on which our author has given so high 
 
NOTES. 139 
 
 an encomium, Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson's con- 
 temporary 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. Veil. Paterc. ii. 36. 
 
 80. 13. Macrob. Saturnalia, ii. 13. The ' other poet ' was 
 Publius Syrus. 
 
 81. I. Aristotle's Poetics, iv. 18. v 
 24. Virg. Ed. 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 Quee?i and The Indian Emperor were 
 the only playSj altogether in rhyme, which Dryden had pro- 
 duced 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 prevaloir, 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 Camp-on'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 ftossimi 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.' 
 CM alone.) 
 
140 NOTES. 
 
 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. 
 
NOTES. 141 
 
 105. 28. Hor. A. P. 362. 
 30. lb. 50. 
 
 106. 10. * lazar ' 5011161111165 = ' lazar-house ' ; and the re- 
 ference 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. 77. viii. 267. 
 
 118. 4. See above, pp. 6 and 8. 
 
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