1

had somewhat more of good manners than his successors, as he had much more knowledge.

We have two sorts of those gentlemen in our nation; some of them proceeding with a seeming moderation and pretence of respect to the dramatick writers of the last age, only scorn and vilify the present poets, to set up their predecessors. But this is only in appearance; for their real design is nothing less than to do honour to any man besides themselves. Horace took notice of such men in his age:

Ingeniis non ille favet plaud.tque sepuliis,

Nostra sed impugnat; nos nostraque lividus odit.

It is not with an ultimate intention to pay reverence to the manes of Shakspeare, Fletcher, and Ben Jonson, that they commend their writings, but to throw dirt on the writers of this age; their declaration is one thing, and their practice is another. By a seeming veneration to our fathers, they would thrust out us their lawful issue, and govern us themselves, under a specious pretence of reformation. If they could compass their intent, what would wit and learning get by such a change? If we are bad poets, they are worse; and when any of their woeful pieces come abroad, the difference is so great betwixt them and good writers, that there need no criticisms on our part to decide it. When they describe the writers of this age, they draw such monstrous figures of them as resemble none of us; our pretended pictures are so unlike, that it is evident we never sat to them they are all grotesque; the products of

their wild imaginations, things out of nature; so far from being copied from us, that they resemble nothing that ever was, or ever can be. But there is another sort of insects, more venomous than the former; those who manifestly aim at the destruction of our poetical church and state; who allow nothing to their countrymen, either of this or of the former age. These attack the living, by raking up the ashes of the dead; well knowing that if they can subvert. their original title to the stage, we, who claim under them, must fall of course.'

In this passage, and afterwards, where it is said, that the Greek writers gave us only the rudiments of a stage, our author appears to have had in contemplation Rymer's SHORT VIEW OF TRAGEDY, which was published in December 1692, as I learn from the GENTLEMAN'S JOURNAL for that year. Rymer, whom our author here opposes, was a professed advocate for the ancient, in preference to the modern, dramatists; and had in 1678 issued out one of the woeful pieces alluded to in p. 284, under the title of EDGAR, an heroick tragedy.

In one of Dryden's letters to Jacob Tonson, (see vol. i.) without date, but apparently written in 1693, he says, "About a fortnight ago I had an intimation from a friend by letter, that one of the Secretaryes, I suppose Trenchard, had informed the Queen that I had abused her government, (these were his words) in my Epistle to my Lord Radclyffe; & that thereupon she had commanded her Historiographer to fall upon my playes, which he assures me is now doeing. I doubt not his malice, from a former hint you gave me : & if he be employed, I am confident 'tis of his own seeking; who, you know, has spoken slightly of me in his last critique, & that gave me occasion to snarl againe."

part ji.

Shadwell

Peace be to the venerable shades of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson! none of the living will presume to have any competition with them; as they were our predecessors, so they were our masters. We trail our plays under them; but as at the funerals of a Turkish emperor, our ensigns are furled or dragged upon the ground, in honour to the dead, so we may lawfully advance our own afterwards, to shew that we succeed; if less in dignity, yet on the same foot and title, which we think too we can maintain against the insolence of our janizaries. If I am the man, as I have reason to believe, who am seemingly courted and secretly undermined, I think I shall be able to defend myself, when I am openly attacked; and to shew besides, that the Greek writers only gave us the rudiments of a stage, which they never finished; that many of the tragedies in the former age amongst us were without comparison beyond those of Sophocles and Euripides. But at present, I have neither the leisure nor the means for such an undertaking. It is ill going to law for an estate with him who is in possession of it, and enjoys the present profits, to feed his cause; but the quantum mutatus may be remembered in due time. In the mean while, I leave the world to judge -who gave the provocation.

2

This, my Lord, is I confess, a long digression, from miscellany poems to modern tragedies; but

Rymer had been appointed Historiographer in the room of our author, soon after the Revolution.

I have the ordinary excuse of an injured man,
who will be telling his tale unseasonably to his
betters though at the same time I am certain
you are so good a friend, as to take a concern in
all things which belong to one who so truly ho-
nours you. And besides, being yourself a critick
of the genuine sort, who have read the best au-
thors in their own languages, who perfectly dis-
tinguish of their several merits, and in general
prefer them to the moderns, yet I know you judge
for the English tragedies, against the Greek and
Latin, as well as against the French, Italian, and

Spanish, of these latter ages. Indeed there is a maker the vast difference betwixt arguing like Perault,' in

behalf of the French poets, against Homer and offerte

Virgil, and betwixt giving the English poets their
undoubted due, of excelling Eschylus, Euri-

pides, and Sophocles. For if we or our greater Calls
fathers have not yet brought the drama to an mtcntre.
absolute perfection, yet at least we have carried ordinary one

it much farther than those ancient Greeks; who
beginning from a chorus, could never totally ex-
clude it, as we have done, who find it an unpro-
fitable incumbrance, without any necessity of en-
tertaining it amongst us; and without the possi-

3 At this time the controversy concerning the supe-
rior excellency of the ancients or moderns was at its
height. Parault, in his PARALLELE, had maintained
the cause of the moderns; Sir William Temple, in his
ESSAY ON ANCIENT AND MODERN LEARNING, espoused
that of the ancients. These works gave rise to Wotton's
REFLECTIONS, which appeared in 1694.

& Je p. 88, then he makes the
I know not why,
game
apertion, Thick & Vartin, calls a ther

koen Helden after & realous partisan
son
forthe genets olles as excell them

mon

my

bility of establishing it here, unless it were sup-
ported by a publick charge. Neither can we accept
of those lay-bishops, as some call them, who under
pretence of reforming the stage, would intrude
themselves upon us, as our superiors; being indeed
incompetent judges of what is manners, what
religion, and least of all, what is poetry and good
sense. I can tell them in behalf of all my fellows,
that when they come to exercise a jurisdiction
over us, they shall have the stage to themselves, as
they have the laurel.

As little can I grant that the French dramatick
writers excel the English. Our authors as far
surpass them in genius, as our soldiers excel theirs
in courage. It is true, in conduct, they surpass
us either way; yet that proceeds not so much
from their greater knowledge, as from the diffe-
rence of tastes in the two nations. They content
themselves with a thin design, without episodes,
and managed by few persons; our audience will
not be pleased but with variety of accidents, an
underplot, and many actors. They follow the

4 The clamour against the entertainments of the stage was begun in France about this time; and in 1695 Blackseverely censured the dramatick poets of England in the Preface to PRINCE ARTHUR; as Collier did a few years afterwards, with more vigour. But I do not recollect any work published recently before the appearance of this Epistle, the object of which was the reformation of the stage, except Rymer's book, already mentioned; which probably is here also alluded to.

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