Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III), Samuel Johnson [good summer reads .TXT] 📗
- Author: Samuel Johnson
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Vindicate The Criticks.
I Wish That There Were No Necessity Of Following the Progress Of His
Theatrical Fame, Or Tracing the Meanders Of His Mind Through The Whole
Series Of His Dramatick Performances; It Will Be Fit, However,
To Enumerate Them, And To Take Especial Notice Of Those That Are
Distinguished by Any Peculiarity, Intrinsick Or Concomitant; For The
Composition And Fate Of Eight-And-Twenty Dramas, Include Too Much Of A
Poetical Life To Be Omitted.
In 1664, He Published the Rival Ladies, Which He Dedicated to The Earl Of
Orrery, A Man Of High Reputation Both As A Writer, And A Statesman. In
This Play He Made His Essay Of Dramatick Rhyme, Which He Defends In his
Dedication, With Sufficient Certainty Of A Favourable Hearing; For Orrery
Was Himself A Writer Of Rhyming tragedies.
He Then Joined with Sir Robert Howard In the Indian Queen, A Tragedy In
Rhyme. The Parts Which Either Of Them Wrote Are Not Distinguished.
The Indian Emperor Was Published in 1667. It Is A Tragedy In rhyme,
Intended for A Sequel To Howard'S Indian Queen. Of This Connexion Notice
Was Given To The Audience By Printed bills, Distributed at The Door; An
Expedient Supposed to Be Ridiculed in the Rehearsal, Where Bayes
Tells How Many Reams He Has Printed, To Instil Into The Audience Some
Conception Of His Plot.
In This Play Is The Description Of Night, Which Rymer Has Made Famous By
Preferring it To Those Of All Other Poets.
The Practice Of Making tragedies In rhyme Was Introduced soon After The
Restoration, As It Seems, By The Earl Of Orrery, In compliance With The
Opinion Of Charles The Second, Who Had Formed his Taste By The French
Theatre; And Dryden, Who Wrote, And Made No Difficulty Of Declaring that
He Wrote, Only To Please, And Who, Perhaps, Knew That By His Dexterity Of
Versification He Was More Likely To Excel Others In rhyme Than Without
It, Very Readily Adopted his Master'S Preference. He, Therefore, Made
Rhyming tragedies, Till, By The Prevalence Of Manifest Propriety, He
Seems To Have Grown Ashamed of Making them Any Longer.
To This Play Is Prefixed a Very Vehement Defence Of Dramatick Rhyme, In
Confutation Of The Preface To The Duke Of Lerma, In which Sir Robert
Howard Had Censured it.
In 1667, He Published annus Mirabilis, The Year Of Wonders, Which May Be
Esteemed one Of His Most Elaborate Works.
It Is Addressed to Sir Robert Howard By A Letter, Which Is Not Properly
A Dedication; And, Writing to A Poet, He Has Interspersed many Critical
Observations, Of Which Some Are Common, And Some, Perhaps, Ventured
Without Much Consideration. He Began, Even Now, To Exercise The
Domination Of Conscious Genius, By Recommending his Own Performance:
"I Am Satisfied that As The Prince And General [Rupert And Monk] Are
Incomparably The Best Subjects I Ever Had, So What I Have Written On
Them Is Much Better Than What I Have Performed on Any Other. As I Have
Endeavoured to Adorn My Poem With Noble Thoughts, So Much More To Express
Those Thoughts With Elocution."
It Is Written In quatrains, Or Heroick Stanzas Of Four Lines; A Measure
Which He Had Learned from The Gondibert Of Davenant, And Which He Then
Thought The Most Majestick That The English Language Affords. Of This
Stanza He Mentions The Incumbrances, Increased as They Were By The
Exactness Which The Age Required. It Was, Throughout His Life, Very Much
His Custom To Recommend His Works, By Representation Of The Difficulties
That He Had Encountered, Without Appearing to Have Sufficiently
Considered, That Where There Is No Difficulty There Is No Praise.
There Seems To Be, In the Conduct Of Sir Robert Howard And Dryden Towards
Each Other, Something that Is Not Now Easily To Be Explained[101].
Dryden, In his Dedication To The Earl Of Orrery, Had Defended dramatick
Rhyme; And Howard, In the Preface To A Collection Of Plays, Had Censured
His Opinion. Dryden Vindicated himself In his Dialogue On Dramatick
Poetry: Howard, In his Preface To The Duke Of Lerma, Animadverted on The
Vindication; And Dryden, In a Preface To The Indian Emperor, Replied to
The Animadversions With Great Asperity, And Almost With Contumely. The
Dedication To This Play Is Dated the Year In which The Annus Mirabilis
Was Published. Here Appears A Strange Inconsistency; But Langbaine
Affords Some Help, By Relating that The Answer To Howard Was Not
Published in the First Edition Of The Play, But Was Added when It Was
Afterwards Reprinted; And, As The Duke Of Lerma Did Not Appear Till 1668,
The Same Year In which The Dialogue Was Published, There Was Time Enough
For Enmity To Grow Up Between Authors, Who, Writing both For The Theatre,
Were Naturally Rivals.
He Was Now So Much Distinguished, That, In 1668[102], He Succeeded sir
William Davenant As Poet Laureate. The Salary Of The Laureate Had Been
Raised in favour Of Jonson, By Charles The First, From A Hundred marks
To One Hundred pounds A Year, And A Tierce Of Wine; A Revenue, In those
Days, Not Inadequate To The Conveniencies Of Life.
The Same Year He Published his Essay On Dramatick Poetry, An Elegant And
Instructive Dialogue; In which We Are Told, By Prior, That The Principal
Character Is Meant To Represent The Duke Of Dorset. This Work Seems To
Have Given Addison A Model For His Dialogues Upon Medals.
Secret Love, Or The Maiden Queen, 1668, Is A Tragicomedy. In the Preface
He Discusses A Curious Question, Whether A Poet Can Judge Well Of His
Own Productions? And Determines Very Justly, That, Of The Plan And
Disposition, And All That Can Be Reduced to Principles Of Science, The
Author May Depend Upon His Own Opinion; But That, In those Parts Where
Fancy Predominates, Self-Love May Easily Deceive. He Might Have Observed,
That What Is Good Only Because It Pleases, Cannot Be Pronounced good Till
It Has Been Found To Please.
Sir Martin Mar-All, 1668, Is A Comedy Published without Preface Or
Dedication, And At First Without The Name Of The Author. Langbaine
Charges It, Like Most Of The Rest, With Plagiarism; And Observes, That
The Song Is Translated from Voiture, Allowing, However, That Both The
Sense And Measure Are Exactly Observed.
The Tempest, 1670, Is An Alteration Of Shakespeare'S Play, Made By Dryden
In Conjunction With Davenant; "Whom," Says He, "I Found Of So Quick A
Fancy, That Nothing was Proposed to Him In which He Could Not Suddenly
Produce A Thought Extremely Pleasant And Surprising; And Those First
Thoughts Of His, Contrary To The Latin Proverb, Were Not Always The Least
Happy; And As His Fancy Was Quick, So, Likewise, Were The Products Of It
Remote And New. He Borrowed not Of Any Other; And His Imaginations Were
Such As Could Not Easily Enter Into Any Other Man."
The Effect Produced by The Conjunction Of These Two Powerful Minds Was,
That To Shakespeare'S Monster, Caliban, Is Added a Sister Monster,
Sycorax; And A Woman, Who, In the Original Play, Had Never Seen A Man,
Is, In this, Brought Acquainted with A Man That Had Never Seen A Woman.
About This Time, In 1673, Dryden Seems To Have Had His Quiet Much
Disturbed by The Success Of The Emperess Of Morocco, A Tragedy Written
In Rhyme, By Elkanah Settle; Which Was So Much Applauded, As To Make Him
Think His Supremacy Of Reputation In some Danger. Settle Had Not Only
Been Prosperous On The Stage, But, In the Confidence Of Success, Had
Published his Play, With Sculptures And A Preface Of Defiance. Here Was
One Offence Added to Another; And, For The Last Blast Of Inflammation, It
Was Acted at Whitehall By The Court Ladies.
Dryden Could Not Now Repress Those Emotions, Which He Called indignation,
And Others Jealousy; But Wrote Upon The Play And The Dedication Such
Criticism As Malignant Impatience Could Pour Out In haste.
Of Settle He Gives This Character: "He'S An Animal Of A Most Deplored
Understanding, Without Reading and Conversation. His Being is In a
Twilight Of Sense, And Some Glimmering of Thought, Which He Can Never
Fashion Into Wit Or English. His Style Is Boisterous And Rough-Hewn,
His Rhyme Incorrigibly Lewd, And His Numbers Perpetually Harsh And
Ill-Sounding. The Little Talent Which He Has, Is Fancy. He Sometimes
Labours With A Thought; But, With The Pudder He Makes To Bring it Into
The World, 'Tis Commonly Stillborn; So That, For Want Of Learning and
Elocution, He Will Never Be Able To Express Any Thing either Naturally Or
Justly."
This Is Not Very Decent; Yet This Is One Of The Pages In which Criticism
Prevails Most Over Brutal Fury.
He Proceeds: "He Has A Heavy Hand At Fools, And A Great Felicity In
Writing nonsense For Them. Fools They Will Be, In spite Of Him. His King,
His Two Emperesses, His Villain, And His Sub-Villain, Nay, His Hero, Have
All A Certain Natural Cast Of The Father--Their Folly Was Born And Bred
In Them, And Something of The Elkanah Will Be Visible."
This Is Dryden'S General Declamation; I Will Not Withhold From The Reader
A Particular Remark. Having gone Through The First Act, He Says: "To
Conclude This Act With The Most Rumbling piece Of Nonsense Spoken Yet:
"To Flatt'Ring lightning our Feign'D Smiles Conform,
Which, Back'D With Thunder, Do But Gild A Storm.
"_Conform A Smile To Lightning_, Make A _Smile_ Imitate _Lightning_, And
_Flattering lightning_: Lightning, Sure, Is A Threatening thing. And
This Lightning must _Gild A Storm_. Now, If I Must Conform My Smiles To
Lightning, Then My Smiles Must Gild A Storm Too: To _Gild_ With _Smiles_,
Is A New Invention Of Gilding. And Gild A Storm By Being _Backed with
Thunder_. Thunder Is Part Of The Storm; So One Part Of The Storm Must
Help To _Gild_ Another Part, And Help By _Backing_; As If A Man Would
Gild A Thing the Better For Being backed, Or Having a Load Upon His Back.
So That Here Is _Gilding_ By _Conforming, Smiling, Lightning, Backing_,
And _Thundering_. The Whole Is As If I Should Say Thus: I Will Make My
Counterfeit Smiles Look Like A Flattering stonehorse, Which, Being backed
With A Trooper, Does But Gild The Battle. I Am Mistaken, If Nonsense Is
Not Here Pretty Thick Sown. Sure The Poet Writ These Two Lines Aboard
Some Smack In a Storm, And, Being sea-Sick, Spewed up A Good Lump Of
Clotted nonsense At Once."
Here Is, Perhaps, A Sufficient Specimen; But As The Pamphlet, Though
Dryden'S, Has Never Been Thought Worthy Of Republication, And Is Not
Easily To Be Found, It May Gratify Curiosity To Quote It More Largely:
"Whene'Er She Bleeds,
He No Severer A Damnation Needs,
That Dares Pronounce The Sentence Of Her Death,
Than The Infection That Attends That Breath.
"_That Attends That Breath_. The Poet Is At _Breath_ Again; _Breath_
Can Never Scape Him; And Here He Brings In a _Breath_ That Must Be
_Infectious_ With _Pronouncing_ A Sentence; And This Sentence Is Not To
Be Pronounced till The Condemned party _Bleeds_; That Is, She Must Be
Executed first, And Sentenced after; And The _Pronouncing_ Of This
_Sentence_ Will Be Infectious; That Is, Others Will Catch The Disease Of
That Sentence, And This Infecting of Others Will Torment A Man'S Self.
The Whole Is Thus: When She Bleeds, Thou Needest No Greater Hell Or
Torment To Thyself, Than Infecting of Others By Pronouncing a Sentence
Upon Her. What Hodge-Podge Does He Make Here! Never Was Dutch Grout Such
Clogging, Thick, Indigestible Stuff. But This Is But A Taste To Stay The
Stomach; We Shall Have A More Plentiful Mess Presently.
"Now To Dish Up The Poet'S Broth, That I Promised:
"For When We'Re Dead, And Our Freed souls Enlarg'D,
Of Nature'S Grosser Burden We'Re Discharg'D,
Then Gently, As A Happy Lover'S Sigh,
Like Wand'Ring meteors Through The Air We'Ll Fly,
And In our Airy Walk, As Subtle Guests,
We'Ll Steal Into Our Cruel Fathers' Breasts,
There Read Their Souls, And Track Each Passion'S Sphere:
See How Revenge Moves There, Ambition Here!
And In their Orbs View The Dark Characters
Of Sieges, Ruins, Murders, Blood, And Wars.
We'Ll Blot Out All Those Hideous Draughts, And Write
Pure And White Forms; Then With A Radiant Light
Their Breasts Encircle, Till Their Passions Be
Gentle As Nature In its Infancy;
Till, Soften'D By Our Charms, Their Furies Cease,
And Their Revenge Resolves Into A Peace.
Thus By Our Death Their Quarrel Ends,
Whom Living we Made Foes, Dead We'Ll Make Friends.
"If This Be Not A Very Liberal Mess, I Will Refer Myself To The Stomach
Of Any Moderate Guest. And A Rare Mess It Is, Far Excelling any
Westminster White-Broth. It Is A Kind Of Giblet Porridge, Made Of The
Giblets Of A Couple Of Young Geese, Stodged full Of Meteors, Orbs,
Spheres, Track, Hideous Draughts, Dark Characters, White Forms, And
Radiant Lights; Designed not Only To Please Appetite, And Indulge Luxury,
But
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