and prescriptive place by the fire, was in the fummer placed in the balcony, and that he called the two places his winter and his fummer feat. This is all the intelligence which his two furvivors afforded me. One of his opinions will do him no honour in the prefent age, though in his own time, at least in the beginning of it, he was far from having it confined to himself. He put great confidence in the prognoftications of judicial aftrology. In the Appendix to the Life of Congreve is a narrative of fome of his predictions wonderfully fulfilled; but I know not the writer's means of information, or character of veracity. That he had the configurations of the horofcope in his mind, and confidered them as influencing the affairs of men, he does not forbear to hint. The utmost malice of the ftars is past.→ He has effewhere fhewn his attention to the planetary powers; and in the preface to his Fables has endeavoured obliquely to juftify his fuperftition by attributing the fame to fome of the Ancients. The latter, added to this narrative, leaves no doubt of his notions or practice. So flight and fo fcanty is the knowledge which I have been able to collect concerning the private life and domeftick manners of a man whom every English generation muft mention with reverence as a critick and a poet. VOL. IX. Cc DRY DRYDEN may be properly confidered as the father of English criticism, as the writer who firft taught us to determine upon principles the merit of compofition. Of our former poets, the greatest dramatift wrote without rules, conducted through life and nature by a genius that rarely misled, and rarely deferted him. Of the reft, thofe who knew the laws of propriety had neglected to teach them. Two Arts of English Poetry were written in the days of Elizabeth by Webb and Puttenham, from which fomething might be learned, and a few hints had been given by Jonfon and Cowley; but Dryden's Effay on Dramatick Poetry was the first regular and valuable treatise on the art of writing. He who, having formed his opinions in the prefent age of English literature, turns back to peruse this dialogue, will not perhaps find much increase of knowledge, or much novelty of inftruction; but he is to remember that critical principles were then in the hands of a few, who had gathered them partly from the Ancients, and partly from the Italians and French. The ftructure of dramatick poems was then not generally underftood. Audiences applauded by inftinct; and poets perhaps often pleased by chance. A writer who obtains his full purpose lofes himself in his own luftre. Of an opinion which is no longer doubted, the evidence ceafes to be examined. Of an art univerfally practifed, the firft teacher is forgotten. Learning once made popular is no longer learning; it has the appearance of fomething which we have bestowed upon ourfelves, as the dew appears to rise from the field which it refreshes. To judge rightly of an author, we must transport ourfelves to his time, and examine what were the wants of his contemporaries, and what were his means of fupplying them. That which is eafy at one time was difficult at another. Dryden at leaft imported his fcience, and gave his country what it wanted before; or rather, he imported only the materials, and manufactured them by his own fkill: The Dialogue on the Drama was one of his firft effays of criticifm, written when he was yet a timorous candidate for reputation, and therefore laboured with that diligence which he might allow himself fomewhat to remit, when his name gave fanction to his pofitions, and his awe of the publick was abated, partly by cuftom, and partly by fuccefs. It will not be eafy to find, in all the opulence of our language, a treatise fo artfully variegated with fucceffive reprefentations of oppofite probabilities, fo enlivened with imagery, fo brightened with illuftrations. His portraits of the English dramatifts are wrought with great fpirit and diligence. The account of Shak1peare may ftand as a perpetual model of encomiaftick criticifm; exact without minutenefs, and lofty without exaggeration. The praife lavished by Longinus, on the atteftation of the heroes of Marathon, by Demofthenes, fades away before it. In a few lines is exhibited a character, fo extenfive in its comprehenfion, and fo curious in its limitations, that nothing can be added, diminished, or reformed; nor can the editors and admirers of Shakspeare, in all their emulation of reverence, boaft of much more than of having diffused and paraphrafed this epitome of excellence, of having changed Dryden's gold for bafer metal, of lower value, though of greater bulk. In this, and in all his other effays on the fame fubject, the criticism of Dryden is the criticism of a poet; not a dull collection of theorems, nor a rude detection of faults, which perhaps the cenfor was not able to have committed; but a gay and vigorous differtation, where delight is mingled with inftruction, and where the author proves his right of judgement by his power of performance. The different manner and effect with which critical knowledge may be conveyed, was perhaps never more clearly exemplified than in the performances of Rymer and Dryden. It was faid of a difpute between two mathematicians, "malim cum Scali gero errare, quam cum Clavio rectè fapere;" that it was more eligible to go wrong with one, "than 'right with the other." A tendency of the fame kind every mind muft feel at the perufal of Dryden's prefaces and Rymer's difcourfes. With Dryden we are wandering in queft of Truth; whom we find, if we find her at all, dreft in the graces of elegance; and, if we miss her, the labour of the purfuit rewards itfelf; we are led only through fragrance and flowers. Rymer, without taking a nearer, takes a rougher way; every ftep is to be made through thorns and brambles; and Truth, if we meet her, appears repulfive by her mien, and ungraceful by her habit. Dryden's criticism has the majefty of a queen; Rymer's has the ferocity of a tyrant. As As he had ftudied with great diligence the art of Poetry, and enlarged or rectified his notions, by experience perpetually increafing, he had his mind stored with principles and obfervations; he poured out his knowledge with little labour; for of labour, notwithftanding the multiplicity of his productions, there is fufficient reason to fufpect that he was not a lover. To write con amore, with fondnefs for the employment, with perpetual touches and retouches, with unwillingness to take leave of his own idea, and an unwearied pursuit of unattainable perfection, was, I think, no part of his character. His criticism may be confidered as general or occafional. In his general precepts, which depend upon the nature of things, and the ftructure of the human mind, he may doubtlefs be fafely recommended to the confidence of the reader; but his occafional and particular pofitions were fometimes interested, fometimes negligent, and fometimes capricious. It is not without reafon that Trapp, fpeaking of the praises which he beftows on Palamon and Arcite, fays, "Novimus judicium Drydeni de poe"mate quodam Chauceri, pulchro fane illo, & ad" modum laudando, nimirum quod non modo vere "epicum fit, fed Iliada etiam atque Æneada æquet, "imo fuperet. Sed novimus eodem tempore viri "illius maximi non femper accuratiffimas effe cen furas, nec ad feveriffimam critices normam ex"actas: illo judice id plerumque optimum eft, "quod nunc præ manibus habet, & in quo nunc 66 occupatur." He is therefore by no means conftant to himself. His defence and defertion of dramatick rhyme is generally cc 3 |
