Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A47633
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The censure of the Rota on Mr. Driden's Conquest of Granada.
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Leigh, Richard, 1649 or 50-1728.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing L1018; ESTC R21215
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9,477
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24
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Prose with the Rabble Without the sweetnesse and cadency of Rhyme our quick Repartees in discourse lose much of their Beauty when as if he that spoke last be nick'd by another both in wit and sound nothing is left desireable Nay M r Dryden that writ ill in Rhyme would have writ worse without it for such Redundancy's as this in Granada First Part This is my will and this I will have done which is a handsome way of saying this is my will twice such mean Couplets as this in Maximin O my dear Brother whom Heav'n let us see And would not longer suffer him to be and such precipitations from such heights as Say but he 's dead that God shall mortall be See nothing Eyes henceforth but Death and wo You 've have done me the worst Office you can do would never have been passable were not many cozn'd with their sound in a word many things were charg'd upon the Poet of which the Rhymer was no ways guilty but there needed no greater Argument for the efficacy of Rhime above Blank Verse then that of blowing a Candle out and blowing in again in two Verses Granada Like Tapers new blown out the fumes remain To catch the light and bring it back again where the snuff expires so sweetly it cannot be offensive to the most critical Nose To this a Favourer of Blank verse with some heat reply'd that these verses in Granada Second Part You see Sir with what hardship I have kept This precious gage which in my hands you left These in the Indian Emperour But I me so far from meriting esteem That if I judge I must my self condemn And these in Maximin Porphyrius Too long as if Eternity were so Berenice Rise good Porphyrius since it must be so proclaim'd the Rhymer no less faulty then the Poet and evidently prov'd that M r Dryden enslav'd his sense as little to Rhyme as elsewhere to Syllables and both to sense Who after this will deny that the way of writing in verse is the most free and unconstrain'd in which the Poet is not ty'd up to Language sense Syllables or Rhyme but even sweet and flowing numbers and smart Repartees in plain English playing with words attone for the want of all With what impudence can the Adversaries of Rhyme object its difficultie when those that are formed neither by Art nor Nature may write whole plays such as Mr Dryden's in it without easing themselves on pace and â—rot It is but framing the character of a Huff of the Town one that from breaking Glass-windows and combating the watch starts up an Heroe him you must make very saucy to his superiours to shew he is of the same stamp with Achilles and Rinaldo then tame the savage with the charming sight of the Kings Daughter or wife whom this St George is to deliver from the Dragon or greater dangers to heighten his character the more bring in a sheepish King with a Guard of poultrons to be kick't by him as often as he thinks fit his Miss should be a witnesse of his Gallantry if this be not enough let him play prizes with Armies still Tumults with one look and raise Rebellions with another The Language is no lesse easie then the characters 't is but stuffing five Acts with Fate Destiny Charms Charming fair Killing fair heavenly fair the Fair and Brave the Lover and the Brave c. an allusion to two kind Turtles foisted in an impertinent Simile from a Storm or a Shipwrack and a senslesse Song of Phillis and the businesse is done the descriptions may be borrewed from Statius and Montaigns Essays the Reason and Politicall Ornaments from Mr Hobs and the Astrologicall and if need be the Language too from Ibrahim or the Illustrious Bassa To conclude all he said a barren Invention must ever be provided with such necessary helps as the following Forms to which he might have recourse on all occusions Some Forms and Figurative Expressions of solarge an extent that they are adjusted to all Characters in all Plays Tragedys Comedys and Tragi-Comedys whether written in Rhyme Blank Verse or Prose suitable to all Prologues Epilogues and Dramatique Essays that are or shall be written For magnifique Sound As when some dreadfull Thunderclap is nigh The winged Fire shoots swiftly through the Sky Strikes and consumes e're scarce it does appear Or varied thus As when Winds and Rain together crowd They swell till they have burst the bladder'd cloud And first the Lightning flashing deadly clear Flyes Falls Consumes e're scarce it does appear For gentle verses that do not shake us in the reading Heav'n which moulding Beauty takes such care Makes gentle fates on purpose for the fair And Destiny that sees them so divine Spins all their fortunes in a silken twine Translate the Fair to the Brave it may be thus If fate weaves common Thrid he 'le change the doom And with new Purple spread a nobler loom for a Rant I le grasp my Scepter with my dying hand Or thus higher I 'le grasp it Even after death Higher yet I 'le hold it fast As Life and when life 's gone I 'le hold it last For generous Love Though to my former vowes I must be true I 'le ever keep one love entire for you That love which Brothers with chast Sisters make Or with a more poynant brevity Take friedship or if that too small appear Take Love which Sisters may to Brothers bear For sharpnesse of conceit He es'd his half-tir'd Muse on pace and trot That is Sometimes upon Rhyme sometimes upon Blank Verse Like an Horse who eases himself upon Trot and Amble For pleasant folly in the prime Of Easter Term in Tart and Chees-cake time Easily resolved thus into prose In Easter Term when the Country Gentlewomen come up to the destruction of Tarts and Chees-cakes Indian Emperor Granada 2. part Maiden Queen Granada 1. part Indian Emperour Rivall Ladys Granada 2. part Maximin Granada 1. part Epilogue to Mock Astrologer Essay of Dramatique Poetry Epilogue to Maximin Sr Martin Mariall
THE CENSVRE OF THE ROTA On M r DRIDEN 'S Conquest of GRANADA OXFORD Printed by H. H. for Fran. Oxlad junior An. Dom. 1673. THE CENSURE OF THE ROTA VPON Mr DRYDEN'S CONQVEST of GRANADA AMonst severall other late Exercises of the Athenian Vertuosi in the Coffe-Academy instituted by Apollo for the advancement of Gazeti Philosophy Mercury's Diurnalls c this day was wholly taken up in the Examination of the Conquest of Granada a Gentleman on the reading of the First Part therein the Discription of the Bull-baiting said that Almanzor's playing at the Bull was according to the Standard of the Greek Heroes who as M r. Dryden had learnedly observ'd Essay of Dramatique poetry p. 25. were great Beef-Eaters And why might not Almanzor as well as Ajax or Don Quixot worry Mutton or take a Bull by the Throat since the Author had elsewhere explain'd himselfe by telling us the Heroes were more noble Beasts of Prey in his Epistle to his Conquest of Granada distinguishing them into wild and tame and in his Play we have Almanzor shaking his Chaine and frighting his Keeper p. 28. broke loose p. 64. and tearing those that would reclaim his rage p. 135. To this he added that his Bulls excell'd others Heroes as far as his own Heroes surpass'd his Gods That the Champion Bull was divested of flesh and blood and made immortall by the poet bellow'd after death that the fantastique Bull seem'd fiercer then the true and the dead bellowings in Verse were louder then the living concluding with a wish that M r. Dryden had the good luck to have vary'd that old Verse quoted in his Dramatique Essay Atque Vrsum Pugiles media inter Carmina posâ—unt Tauros Pugiles prima inter Carmina posco and praefixt it to the front of his Play instead of Maior rerum mihinascitur Ordo Majus opus moveo Another Virtuoso said he could not but take notice how ignorantly some charg'd Almanzor with transgressing the Rules of the Drama vainly supposing that Heroes might be confin'd to the narrow walks of other common Mortals not considering that those Dramatick Planets were Images of Excentrio Vertue which was most beautifull when least regular that Almanzor was no lesse maliciously tax'd with changing sides then which charge what could be more unjust if they look't on him as Achilles and Rinaldos's countryman and born with them in that Poeticall Free-State for Poets of late have form'd Vtopia's where all were Monarchs without Subjects and all swore Alleagiance to themselves and therefore could be Traytors to none else where every man might invade anothers Right without trespassing on his owne and make and execute what Lawes himself would consent to each man having the power of Life and Death so absolutely that if he kill'd himself he was accountable to no body for the murder that Almanzor was neither Mr Drydens Subject nor Boabdelins but equally exempt from the Poets Rules and the Princes Laws and in short if his revolting from the Abencerrages to the Zegrys and from the Zegrys to the Abencerrages again had not equally satisfi'd both parties it might admit of the same defence Mr Drydens Out-cries and his Tumults did that the Poet represented Men in a Hobbian State of War A third went on and told them that Fighting Scenes and Representations of Battells were as necessary to a Tragedy as Cudgells and broken Pates to a Country Wake that an Heroick Poem never sounded so nobly as when it was heightned with Shouts and Clashing of Swords and that Drums and Trumpets gain'd an absolute Dominion over the minds of the Audience the Ladies and Female Spirits Here an Aquaintance of the Authors interpos'd and assur'd the Company he was very confident that M r Dryden would never have had the Courage to have ventur'd on a Conquest had he not writ with the sound of Drum and Trumpet and that if there was any thing unintelligible in his rants t' was the effect of that horrour those Instruments of War with their astonishing noise had precipitated him into which had so transported him that he writ beyond himselfe But he was interrupted by a grave Gentleman that us'd to sup in Apollo and could tell many Story of Ben. Iohnson who told them that in his opinion M r Dryden had given little proof of his Courage since he for the most part combated the dead and the dead send no Challenges nor indeed need they since through their sides he had wounded himselfe for he ever play'd the Critick so unluckely as to discover only his own faults in other men with the advantage of this aggravation that the Grammaticall Errors or older Poets were but the Errors of their Age but being made his were not the Errors of this Age since he granted this Age was refin'd above those Solecismes of the last thus the Synchoesis or ill placing of Words a fault of B. Iohnsons time was an usuall Elegancy in Mr. Drydens writings as in the Prologue to his Indian Emperour Such easie Iudges that our Poet may Himself admire the fortune of his Play Himself in the second verse which should have been plac'd before may in the first In the Indian Emperour Guyomar say's I for my Country fought and would again Had I yet left a Country to maintain left should not have preceded Country but follow'd it In Granada second part I 'le sooner trust th'Hyaena then your smile Or then your Tears the weeping Crocodile And again Yet then to change ' t is nobler to despair Thus the using be for are the vice of those dull times when Conversation was so low that our Fathers were not taught to write and read good English was frequent with M r Dryden in this politer Age In Granada second part Allmanzor Madam your new commands I come to know If yet you can have any where I goe If to the Regions of the dead they be In the Indian Emperour Things good or ill by circumstances be In Maximin The Empress knows your worth but Sir there be Those who can value it as high as she And again And so obscene their Ceremonies be As good men loath and Cato blusht to see In all these places he observ'd the Rhyme hid the false English The placing of the Preposition at the end of a Verse or Sentence M r Dryden had confest was common to him with Iohnson but not discovering where the Gentleman oblig'd the Company by pointing at that in Maximin your Brother made it to secure his Throne Which this man made a step to mount it on and more conspicuously in his Elegy on Oliver one who was as great a contemner of Kings as Almanzor and as great a defyer of the Gods as Maximin Fortune that easy Mistresse of the young But to her ancient Servants coy and hard Him at that Age her Favourites rank't among When she her best lov'd Pompey did discard To all which he added that ire an obsolete word of B. Iohnson was antiquated