has devoured some part of his good manners and civility. It might also be doubted whether it were altogether zeal which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding; perhaps it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays: a divine might have employed his pains to better purpose than in the nastiness of Plautus and Aristophanes, whose examples, as they excuse not me, so it might be possibly supposed that he read them not without some pleasure. They who have written commentaries on those poets, or on Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have explained some vices, which, without their interpretation, had been unknown to modern times. Neither has he judged impartially betwixt the former age and us. There is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher's, called The Custom of the Country, than in all ours together. Yet this has been often acted on the stage, in my remembrance. Are the times so much more reformed now than they were five-and-twenty years ago? If they are, I congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow poets, though I abandon my own defence: they have some of them answered for themselves; and neither they nor I can think Mr. Collier so formidable an enemy, that we should shun him. He has lost ground, at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too far, liked the Prince of Condé, at the battle of Senneph: from immoral plays to no plays, ab abusu ad usum, non valet consequentia. But, being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge. As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels that they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them. B- and M- are only distinguished from the crowd by being remembered to their infamy: Demetri, teque, Tigelli Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras. NOTES ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY Page 1. The way of writing plays in verse. Verse here means rhyme. Pompey. A translation of Corneille's Mort de Pompée "by certain persons of honour." It is evident from the reference that Buckhurst was one of these. P. 2. the French poet. This poet has never been identified. "As Nature, when she first designs,” etc. From an address to the king by Sir William Davenant. P. 3. to defend my own. In his dedication to the Rival Ladies Dryden had maintained the superiority of rhyme to blank verse. In an edition of his plays the following year Sir Robert Howard defended blank verse. This essay contains Dryden's rejoinder. P. 5. that memorable day. The 3rd June 1665; the day of the great naval battle (see Annus Mirabilis) between the English and the Dutch off the Suffolk coast. P. 7. two poets. One of these was probably Robert Wild, author of Iter Boreale, in eulogy of General Monk; the other possibly Richard Flecknoe, the writer of much bad verse and a favourite target for Dryden's wit (see the opening lines of MacFlecknoe). Clevelandism. John Cleveland, a cavalier poet, whose writings are full of "clenches" (puns, quibbles), and catachresis" (the straining of words out of their proper meanings). Two examples of his style are given later in the essay. P. 15. Father Ben. Ben Jonson. P. 16. Aristotle indeed divides the integral parts of a play into four. The division here erroneously ascribed to Aristotle was really made by J. C. Scaliger (1484-1558). P. 17. a late writer. Uncertain; perhaps Howard; perhaps Ménage. P. 18. Euripides in one of his tragedies. The Suppliants. P. 19. says the French poet. Corneille. P. 21. It "Had Cain been Scot," etc. From Cleveland's Rebel Scot. "For beauty, like white powder," etc. From Cleveland's Rupertismus. P. 25. the Red Bull. One of the early London theatres which survived the Commonwealth, only to be demolished soon after the Restoration. was situated in St. John's Street, Clerkenwell, and, according to Malone, was famous "for entertainments adapted to the taste of the lower orders of the people." P. 26. plays of Calderon. There were several adaptations of plays by the famous Spanish dramatist, Calderon de la Barca, on the Restoration stage; the most noteworthy being Sir Samuel Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours, referred to farther on in the essay. P. 27. Rollo. The Bloody Brother, or Rollo, Duke of Normandy, by Fletcher. P. 28. protatic persons. Characters appearing in the introductory part of a play, or employed simply to explain the action without being themselves directly connected with it. P. 31. The Scornful Lady. By Beaumont and Fletcher. P. 33. The Adventures. Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours. Diego is a comic character in this play. P. 34. Cinna, Pompey, Polieucte. Tragedies by Corneille. P. 37. extreme severity in his judgment on Shakspeare. No passage in Jonson bears out this statement. The criticism of Shakspeare's overfacility and occasional carelessness in the Discoveries-Jonson's only direct censure of Shakspeare-is certainly not marked by extreme severity." P. 38. Philipin. The common name for the comic servant, a stock character in French imitations of Spanish comedy. P. 49. that person from whom you have borrowed your strongest arguments. Howard. P. 52. Pindaric way. Irregularly, as regards both the length of the lines and the disposition of the rhymes; as in the so-called Pindaric " odes of Cowley, and in Dryden's Alexander's Feast. The Siege of Rhodes. A play by Davenant, interesting as the first performed on the reopening of the theatres in London after the Commonwealth. P. 54. Mustapha. By Sir Roger Boyle. Blank verse is acknowledged to be too low for a poem. At this same time Milton was completing his Paradise Lost. That he was conscious of making an innovation in using blank verse for it, is shown in his prefatory note. P. 57. the Water-poet. John Taylor, an industrious writer of poor verse, who owed his nickname to the fact that he had been a Thames waterman. A DEFENCE OF AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY P. 60. The Great Favourite, or The Duke of Lerma. By Howard. The supercilious tone of Howard's criticisms of Dryden accounts for the pungency of the present rejoinder. an infant Dimock. The Dimocks (or Dymokes) were hereditary champions of England. P. 63. Catiline, Sejanus. By Jonson. P. 67. My Lord L. According to Malone, John Maitland, then Earl, afterwards Duke, of Lauderdale. P. 68. as Homer reports of little Teucer. Iliad, viii. 267 the liar. Dorante in Corneille's Le Menteur. The Chances, Wit without Money. Comedies by Fletcher. P. 85. Most of Shakspeare's plays Cinthio. Dryden is writing carelessly. Shakspeare's indebtedness to Cinthio is limited to Othello and Measure for Measure. The Italian tale of "Romeo and Juliet" to which Dryden refers was the work not of Cinthio but of Bandello. OF HEROIC PLAYS P. 90. The oracle of Appius. Pharsalia, v. 86 ff. Erictho. Pharsalia, vi. 420 f. Polydorus. Eneid, iii. 22 f. Enchanted Wood. Gerusalemme Liberata, books xiii. and xvi. the Bower of Bliss. Faery Queene, book ii. canto xii. Gods, devils, nymphs, witches, and giants' race, Godfrey. That is, Gerusalemme Liberata. P. 92. Almanzor. The hero of The Conquest of Granada. Artaban. In Cléopatre, an heroic romance by La Calprenède. P. 93. Cyrus. In Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus, an heroic romance by Mlle. de Scudéry. Oroondates. In Cassandre, another heroic romance by La Calprenède. Cethegus. In Catiline. To look Cato dead," however, is spoken by Catiline, not by Cethegus. P. 94. the late Duke of Guise. Henri de Lorraine, fifth Duc de Guise (1614-64), who on the overthrow of Masaniello in 1647, marched into Naples with a handful of followers, and was for a short time master of the city. THE DRAMATIC POETRY OF THE LAST AGE P. 100. The preposition at the end. . in my own writings. 'His Essay on Dramatic Poesy, published in 1668, was reprinted sixteen years afterwards, and it is curious to observe the changes which Dryden made in the expression. Malone has carefully noted all these: they show both the care the author took with his own style, and the change which was gradually working in the English language. The Anglicism of terminating a sentence with a preposition is rejected. Thus I cannot think so contemptibly of the age I live in,' is exchanged for the age in which I live.' A deeper expression of belief than the actor can persuade me_to' is altered to can insinuate into me.' " (Hallam, Literature of Europe, part iv. chap. vii.) P. 104. a famous Italian. The reference is uncertain. P. 105. Fletcher's Don John. In The Chances. Dryden refers to the revision of the play by the Duke of Buckingham. the Black Friars. One of the most famous of the early London playhouses. It was built by James Burbage in 1596. the Apollo. The meeting-room of Ben Jonson's club in the Old Devil Tavern, Temple Bar. His Leges Conviviales, or Rules for a Tavern Academy, were engraved in marble over the chimney-piece in this room. HEROIC POETRY AND HEROIC LEGEND P. 108. a Princess. Mary of Este, second wife of the Duke of York, afterwards James II. my friend. Nat Lee, the dramatist. P. III. the author of the Plain Dealer. Wycherley. P. 112. Cleopatra. Carminum, i. 37 P. 113. Polyphemus. Eneid, iii. 664 the swiftness of Camilla. In the seventh, not the eighth, Æneid. P. 114. Lucretius. De Rerum Natura, iv. 737 f. Æneid, ii. 265. P. 116. the translator of Du Bartas. Joshua Sylvester. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA AND THE ART OF TRAGEDY P. 119. Montaigne. Essais, ii. 17. P. 120. their Hippolytus. In Racine's Phèdre, act v. Chedreux. Scott explains that " Chedreux was the name of the fashion |