difficult then to write an irregular English one like those of Fletcher or of Shakespeare If they content themselves as Cornâ—â—ille did with some flat design which like an ill Riddle is found out e're it be half propos'd such Plots we can make every way regular as easily as they but when e're they endeavour ro rise up to any quick turns and counterturns of Plot as some of them have attempted since Corneilles Playes have been less in vogue you see they write as irregularly as we though they cover it more speciously Hence the reason is perspicuous why no French Playes when translated have or ever can succeed upon the English Stage For if you consider the Plots our own are fuller of variety if the writing ours are more quick and fuller of spirit and therefore 't is a strange mistake in those who decry the way of writing Playes in Verse as if the English therein imitated the French We have borrow'd nothing from them our Plots are weav'd in English Loomes we endeavour therein to follow the variety and greatness of characters which are deriv'd to us from Shakespeare and Fletcher the copiousness and well-knitting of the intrigues we have from Iohnson and for the Verse it self we have English Presidents of elder date then any of Corneilles's Playes not to name our old Comedies before Shakespeare which were all writ in verse of six feet or Alexandrin's such as the French now use I can show in Shakespeare many Scenes of rhyme together and the like in Ben. Iohnsons Tragediâ—â—s In Catiline and Sejanus sometimes thirty or forty lines I mean besides the Chorus or the Monologues which by the way show'd Ben. no enemy to this way of writing especially if you look upon his sad Shepherd which goes sometimes upon rhyme sometimes upon blanck Verse like an Horse who eases himself upon Trot and Amble You find him likewise commending Fletcher's Pastoral of the Faithful Shepherdess which is for the most part Rhyme though not refin'd to that purity to which it hath since been brought And these examples are enough to clear us from a servile imitation of the French But to return from whence I have digress'd I dare boldly affirm these two things of the English Drama First That we have many Playes of ours as regular as any of theirs and which besides have more variety of Plot and Characters And secondly that in most of the irregular Playes of Shakespeare or Fletcher for Ben. Iohnson's are for the most part regular there is a more masculine fancy and greâ—â—ter spirit in all the writing then there is in any of the French I could produce even in Shakespeare's and Fletcher's Works some Playes which are almost exactly form'd as the Merry Wives of Windsor aud the Scornful Lady but because generally speaking Shakespeare who writ first did not perfectly observe the Laws of Comedy and Fletcher who came nearer to perfection yet through carelesness made many faults I will take the pattern of a perfect Play from Ben. Iohnson who was a careful and learned observer of the Dramatique Lawes 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 Woman Eugenius looking earnestly upon him I beseech you Neander said he gratifie the company and me in particular so far as before you speak of the Play to give us a Character of the Authour and tell us franckly your opinion whether you do not think all Writers both French and English ought to give place to him I fear replied Neander That in obeying your commands I shall draw a little envy upon my self Besides in performing them it will be first necessary to speak somewhat of Shakespeare and Fletcher his Rivalls in Poesie and one of them in my opinion at least his equal perhaps his superiour To begin then with Shakespeare he was the man who of all Moderâ—â— and perhaps Ancient Poets had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him and 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 learn'd he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature he look'd 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 timesâ—â— flat insipid his Comick wit degenerating into clenches his serious swelling into Bombast But he is alwayes 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 Quantum lent a solent inter viberna cupressi 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 treated of in Shakespeare and however others are now generally prefer'd before him yet the Age wherein he liv'd which had contemporaries with him Fletcher and Iohnson never equall'd them to him in their esteem And in the last Kings Court when Ben's reputation was at highest Sir Iohn Suckling and with him the greater part of the Courtiers set our Shakespeare far above him Beaumont and Fletcher of whom I am next to speak had with the advantage of Shakespeare's wit which was their precedent great natural gifts improv'd by study Beaumont especially being so accurate a judge of Playes that Ben. Iohnson while he liv'd submitted all his Writings to his Censure and 't is thought us'd his judgement in correcting if not contriving all his Plots What value he had for him appears by the Verses he writ to him and therefore I need speak no farther of it The first Play which brought Fletcher and him in esteem was their Philaster for before that they had written two or three very unsuccessfully as the like is reported of Ben. Iohnson before he writ Every Man in his Humour Their Plots were generally more regular then Shakespeare's especially those which were made before Beaumont's death and they understood and imitated the conversation of Gentlemen much better whose wilde debaucheries and quickness of wit in reparties no Poet can ever paint as they have done This Humour of which Ben. Iohnson deriv'd from particular persons they made it not their business to describe they represented all the passions very lively but above all Love I am apt to believe the English Language in them arriv'd to its highest perfection what words have since been taken in are rather superfluous then necessary Their Playes are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the Stage two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakespheare's or Iohnsons the reason is because there is a certain
OF Dramatick Poesie AN ESSAY By IOHN DRYDEN Esq Fungar vice cotis acutum Reddere quae ferrum valet exors ipsa secandi Horat. De Arte Poet. LONDON Printed for Henry Herringman at the Sign of the Anchor on the Lower-walk of the New Exchange 1668. To the Right Honourable CHARLES LORD BUCKHURST 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 serv'd as an amusement to me in the Country when the violence of the last Plague had driven me from the Town Seeing then our Theaters shut up I was engag'd in these kind of thoughts with the same delight with which men think upon their absent Mistresses I confess I find many things in this discourse which I do not now approve my judgment being a little alter'd since the writing of it but whither for the better or the worse I know not Neither indeed is it much material in an Essay where all I have said is problematical For the way of writing Playes in verse which I have seem'd 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 alter'd from my opinion of it at least with any reasons which have oppos'd it For your Lordship 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 'T is enough for me to have your Lordships example for my excuse in that little which I have done in it and I am sure my Adversaries can bring no such Arguments against Verse as the fourth Act of Pompey will furnish me with in its defence Yet my Lord you must suffer me a little to complain of you that you too soon withdraw from us a contentment of which we expected the continuance because you gave it us so early 'T is a revolt without occasion from your Party where your merits had already rais'd you to the highest commands and where you have not the excuse of other men that you have been ill us'd and therefore laid down Armes I know no other quarrel you can have to Verse then that which Spurina had to his beauty when he tore and mangled the features of his Face onely because they pleas'd too well the lookers on It was an honour which seem'd to wait for you to lead out a new Colony of Writers from the Mother Nation and upon the first spreading of your Ensignes there had been many in a readiness to have follow'd so fortunate a Leader if not all yet the better part of Writers Pars indocili melior grege mollis expes Inominata perprimat cubilia I am almost of opinion that we should force you to accept of the command as sometimes the Praetorian Bands have compell'd their Captains to receive the Empire The Court which is the best and surest judge of writing has generally allow'd of Verse and in the Town it has found favourers of Wit and Quality As for your own particular My Lord you have yet youth and â—â—ime enough to give part of it to the divertisement of the Publick 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 apply'd to the Temple of the Muses The words as near as I can remember them were these La jeunesse a mauvaise grace N' ayant pas adorè dans le temple d' Amour Il faut qu'il entre pour le sage Si ce nest son vray sejour Ce'st un giste sur son passage 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 wish you may be soon call'd to bear a part in the affairs of the Nation where I know the world expects you and wonders why you have been so long forgotten there being no person amongst our young Nobility on whom the eyes of all men are so much 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 As Nature when she fruit designes thinks â—â—it By beauteous blossoms to proceed to it And while she does accomplish all the Spring Birds to her secret operations sing I confess I have no greater reason in addressing this Essay to your Lordship then that it might awaken in you the desire of writing something in whatever kind it be which might be an honour to our Age and Country And me thinks it might have the same effect upon you which Homer tells us the fight of the Greeks and Trojans before the Fleet had on the spirit of Achilles who though he had resolved not to ingage yet found a martial warmth to steal upon him at the sight of Blows the sound of Trumpets and the cries of fighting Men 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 Sometimes like a Schollar in a Fencing-School I put forth my self and show my own ill play on purpose to be better taught Sometimes I stand desperately to my Armes like the Foot when deserted by their Horse not in hope to overcome but onely to yield on more honourable termes And yet my Lord this war of opinions you well know has fallen out among the Writers of all Ages and sometimâ—â—s betwixt Friends Onely it has been prosecuted by some lâ—â—ke Pedants with violence of words and manag'd by others like Gentlemen with â—â—andour and ciuility Even Tully had a Controversie with his dear Atticus and in one of his Dialogues makes him sustain the part of an Enemy in Philosophy who in his Letters is his confident 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 return'd to him afterwards by Caesar on a like occasion who answering his Book in praise of Cato made it not so much his business to condemn Cato as to praise Cicero But that I may decline some part of the encounter with my Adversaries whom I am neither willing to combate nor well able to resist I will give your Lordship the Relation of a Dispute betwixt some of our Wits upon this subject in which they did not onely speak of Playes in Verse but mingled in the freedom of Discourse some things of the Ancient many of the Modern wayes of writing comparing those with these and the Wits of our Nation with those of others 't
that one Act which being spoke or written is not longer than the rest should be suppos'd longer by the Audience 't is therefore the Poets duty to take care that no Act should be imagin'd to exceed the time in which it is represented on the Stage and that the intervalls and inequalities of time be suppos'd to fall out between the Acts. This Rule of Time how well it has been observ'd by the Antients most of their Playes will witness you see them in their Tragedies wherein to follow this Rule is certainly most difficult from the very beginning of their Playes 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 them the tedious expectation of seeing the Poet set out and ride the beginning of the Course you behold him not till he is in sight of the Goal and just upon you For the Second Unity which is that of place the Antients meant by it That the Scene ought to be continu'd 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 from one another I will not deny but by the variation 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 of truth if those places be suppos'd 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 acting to pass from one of them to another for the Observation of this next to the Antients 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 chang'd in the middle of an Act if the Act begins in a Garden a Street or Chamber 't is 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 that enters the second has business with him who was on before and before the second quits the Stage a third appears who has business with him This Corneil calâ—â— La Liaison des Scenes the continuity or joyning of the Scenes and 't is a good mark of a well contriv'd Play when all the Persons are known to each other and every one of them has some affairs with all the rest As for the third Unity which is that of Action the Ancients meant no other by it then 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 compleat 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 labour'd and driven on by the Writer would destroy the unity of the Poem it would be no longer one Play but two not but that there may be many actions in a Play as Ben. Iohnson has observ'd 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 in Terences Eunuch is the difference and reconcilement of Thais and Phaedria which is not the chief business of the Play but promote the marriage of Chaerea and Chremes's Sister principally intended by the Poet. There ought to be but one action sayes Corneile that is one compleat action which leaves the mind of the Audience in a full repose But this cannot be brought to pass but by many other imperfect ones which conduce to it and hold the Audience in a delightful suspence of what will be If by these Rules to omit many other drawn from the Precepts and Practice of the Ancients we should judge our modern Playes 't is probable that few of them would endure the tryal that which should be the business of a day takes up in some of them an age instead of one action they are the Epitomes of a mans life and for one spot of ground which the Stage should represent we are sometimes in more Countries then the Map can show us But if we will allow the Ancients to have contriv'd well we must acknowledge them to have writ better questionless we are depriv'd of a great stock of wit in the loss of Menander among the Greek Poets and of Caâ—â—cilius Affranius and Varius among the Romans we may guess of Menanders Excellency by the Plays of Terence who translated some of his and yet wanted so much of him that he was callâ—â—d by C. Câ—â—sar the Half Menander and of Varius by the Testimonies of Horace Martial and Velleius Paterculus 'T is probable that these could they be recover'd would decide the controversie but so long as Aristophanes in the old Comedy and Plautus in the new are extant while the Tragedies of Eurypidâ—â—s Sophocles and Seneca are to be had I can never see one of those Plays which are now written but it encreases my admiration of the Ancients and yet I must acknowledge further that to admire them as we ought we should understand them better then we do Doubtless many things appear flat to us whose wit depended upon some custome or story which never came to our knowledge or perhaps upon some Criticism in their language which being so long dead and onely remaining in their Books 't is not possible they should make us know it perfectly To read Macrobius explaining the propriety and elegancy of many words in Virgil which I had before pass'd 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 valâ—â—ed that he ever carried his works about him there 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. Iohnson was willing to give place to them in all things He was not onely a professed Imitator of Horace but a learned Plagâ—â—ary of all the others you â—â—rack him every where in their Snow If Horace Lucan Petronius Arbiter Seneca and Iuvenal had their own from him there are few serious thoughts which are new in him you will pardon me therefore if I presume he lov'd their fashion when he wore their cloaths But