story is more pleasing than either of them, the manners as perfect, the diction as poetical, the learning as deep and various, and the disposition full as artful: only it concludes a greater length of time, as taking up seven years at least; but Aristotle has left undecided the duration of the action; which yet is easily reduced into the compass of a year, by a narration of what preceded the return of Palamon to Athens. I had thought, for the honour of our narration, and more particularly for his, whose laurel, though unworthy, I have worn after him, that this story was of English growth, and Chaucer's own: but I was undeceived by Boccace; for, casually looking on the end of his seventh Giornata, I found Dioneo (under which name he shadows himself), and Fiametta (who represents his mistress, the natural daughter of Robert, King of Naples), of whom these words are spoken: Dioneo e Fiametta gran pezza cantarono insieme d'Arcita, e di Palemone; by which it appears that this story was written before the time of Boccace; but the name of its author being wholly lost, Chaucer is now become an original; and I question not but the poem has received many beauties, by passing through his noble hands. Besides this tale, there is another of his own invention, after the manner of the Provençals, called The Flower and the Leaf, with which I was so particularly pleased, both for the invention and the moral, that I cannot hinder myself from recommending it to the reader.

As a corollary to this preface, in which I have done justice to others, I owe somewhat to myself; not that I think it worth my time to enter the lists with one M- and one B- but barely to take notice that such men there are, who have written scurrilously against me, without any provocation. Mwho is in orders, pretends, amongst the rest, this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on priesthood: if I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him be satisfied that he shall not be able to force himself upon me for an adversary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own translations of Virgil have answered his criticisms on mine. If (as they say, he has declared in print) he prefers the version of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment; for 'tis agreed, on all hands, that he writes even below Ogilby. That, you will say, is not easily to be done; but what cannot M- bring about? I am satisfied, however, that, while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desired him underhand to write so ill

against me; but upon my honest word I have not bribed him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. 'Tis true, I should be glad if I could persuade him to continue his good offices, and write such another critique on anything of mine; for I find, by experience, he has a great stroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a better opinion of them. He has taken some pains with my poetry; but nobody will be persuaded to take the same with his. If I had taken to the Church, as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts, I should have had more sense, if not more grace, than to have turned myself out of my benefice, by writing libels on my parishioners. But his account of my manners and my principles are of a piece with his cavils and his poetry; and so I have done with him for ever.

As for the City Bard, or Knight Physician, I hear his quarrel to me is, that I was the author of Absalom and Achitophel, which, he thinks, is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.

But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing ill is to be spoken of the dead; and therefore peace be to the Manes of his Arthurs. I will only say, that it was not for this noble Knight that I drew the plan of an epic poem on King Arthur, in my preface to the translation of Juvenal. The Guardian Angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected them, as Dares did the whirl-bats of Eryx when they were thrown before him by Entellus: yet from that preface, he plainly took his hint; for he began immediately upon the story, though he had the baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor, but instead of it, to traduce me in a libel.

I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove that in many places he has perverted my meaning by his glosses, and interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were not guilty. Besides that, he is too much given to horse-play in his raillery, and comes to battle like a dictator from the plough. I will not say, the zeal of God's house has eaten him up; but I am sure it

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

66

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. essay contains Dryden's rejoinder.

This

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. "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. It 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.