merits the depreciatory criticism of Pepys, who tells us
that it was ill acted, and " so poor a thing as I never saw
in my life, and so little answering the name that I could
not, nor fcan tell at this time which was the Wild Gallant."
It was patronised by Lady Casilemaine, to whom Dryden
in consequence wrote some grateful verses, for which
he has been ridiculed. It has the faults visible in many
first attempts at humorous dramatic writing ; and it has
faults peculiar to the particular circumstances under which
it was produced. Dryden had but little dramatic power,
an assertion which can be proved by instances fi-om almost
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JOHN DRYDEN. 147
all his numerous plays, with scarcely an exception, and
which is at once discoverable in this. The plot is weak,
meagre, and ludicrously improbable. There are many
smart things and broad and obvious jokes; but the
dramatis persona carry on contests of wit with each
other, in which the action does not proceed. Its gross
obscenity was doubtless owing much to the manners
of the times ; and how great the licence which prevailed
is so well known to all acquainted with the history of
those times, we need not enter upon the question. It is
full, as most of the comedies of the next twenty years
were, of constant allusions to the lowest vices, and the
In the words of Sir Walter Scott, " the licence of a
rude age was then revived by a corrupted one." Dryden
was much influenced by his own times, and had not the
courage or independence to write what was moral, when it
was not likely to satisfy the morbid craving of the pubUc.
The comedies now attempted by him and others were
'quite unlike those of the Elizabethan era. Though Jonson
was much admired and occasionally played, yet the comedy
of character was not the model of any of these dramatic
writers, except Shadwell. They borrowed from the Spanish
theatre, and aimed at intricacy of plot, sudden surprises,
mistakes, disguises, and escapes.
" The Wild Gallant " was considered by Dryden himself
as a failure ; in the epilogue, he confesses that comedy is
the most difficult kind of dramatic writing, though in his
defence of his ^^ Essay on Dramatic Poetry," written some
years after, he makes some remarks which prove how low
a view he took of his mission as a poet, and also the esti-
mation in which he held his comic powers. " I confess,"
he writes, " my chief endeavours are to delight the age in
which I live. If the humour of this be in low comedy,
small accidents, and raillery, I will force my genius to obey
L 2
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148 JOHN DRYDEN.
it, though with more reputation I could write in verse. I
know I am not so fitted by nature to write comedy ; I
want that gaiety of humoiu* which is required to it ; my
conversation is slow, dull, my humour satmnine and
reserved. In short, I am none of those who endeavour
to break jests in company or make repartees; so that
those who decry my comedies do me no injury, except it
be in point of profit ; reputation in them is the last thing
to which I shall pretend."
That he had changed his mind, and adopted a higher
view of the poet's duties a few years before his death, we
see in his preface to the comedy written by his son John,
from which we qijote an extract, for the sake of its con-
trast to the last. Speaking of his son, he says :
" If it shall please God to restore him to me, I may
perhaps inform him better of the rules of writing ; and if
I am not partial, he has already shown that a genius is
not wanting to him. All that I can reasonably fear is
that the perpetual good success of ill plays may make him
endeavour to please by writing worse, and by accommo-
dating himself to the wretched capacity and liking of the
present audience, from which Heaven defend any of my
progeny. A poet indeed must live by the many ; hut a
good poet will mnke it his business to please only the few"
In the year in which his first comedy was exhibited
he wrote his verses to Lord Chanceflor Hyde on " New
Year's Day," and his satire on the Dutch. The versification
of both poems, though it is vastly below the perfection
which afterwards he arrived at, shows a wonderful mastery
of the heroic metre, which had hitherto, however beautiful
the image or profound the thought it conveyed, for the
most part been rough and halting. His next production
for the stage was " The Rival Ladies," a tragi-comedy,
which is superior to " The Wild Gallant," and which was
tolerably successful.
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JOHN DRYDEN. 149
He appears, about this period, to have made the
acquaintance of Sir Robert Howard through Herringman,
with whom Dryden lodged, and who was Sir Robert's
publisher; and he and the aristocratic author joined in
one of those literary partnerships which, especially in
dramatic composition, have been so common. King
Charles had, during his exile, contracted French tastes in.
poetry and music, as well as in other matters, and he
possessed an especial regard for the use of rhyme on the
stage. Dryden, anxious to merit the royal favour, joined
Sir Robert in the production of " The Indian Queen,"
which was acted before his M^esty with great applause.
Pepys, though he censures the rhyme as breaking the
sense, admits that it was well acted, and that he and Mrs.
P. came home from the theatre " mightily contented."
Evelyn has spoken eulogistically of the grandeur of the
scenic decoration.
Dryden soon followed it up by " The Indian Emperor,"
which is a continuation of the story, and forms a part of
the plot of the former play. It would be superfluous
here to pronounce any grave censure on what all critics
have agreed to condemn. To us, accustomed to hear
rhyming heroics made the vehicle of parody, burlesque,
and bombast, in extravaganzas and travesties, it is difficult
to imagine an audience either terror-stricken or melted
into pity by sentiments conveyed in stilted heroics, tagged
with rhymes. Where long descriptive passages occur,
such a poet as Dryden could not but write poetry ; but
when the dialogue is short and broken, the eflfect of rhyme
is peculiarly absurd.
In 1665, he wrote his lines " On the Victory over the
Dutch." In this year the plague broke out, and was suc-
ceeded by the fire. The theatres were closed from May,
1665, to Christmas, 1666. Dryden's intimacy with Sir
Robert Howard had increased, and he spent the greater
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150 JOHN DRYDEN.
portion of this interval at Charlton, the seat of the Earl of
Berkshire, Sir Robert's fether. Here Drydai met, wooed,
and married Lady Elizabeth, his friend's sister. Th^re is
no evidence to show in what light the family viewed the
match. Lampoons written long after, dictated by the
virulence of political hatred, asserted that the alliance took
•place under circumstances not very creditable to either
party. As no proof whatever was adduced in support of
these ill-natured statements, all his biographos have con-
sented to discredit or overlook them. The slander may
have been suggested by the seeming inequality in the cir-
cumstances of the two. But a moment's reflection will
show that there was no vast disproportion between them.
Dryden was of good and old, though not noble family.
He had been educated at Westminster and Cambridge ;
his prospects had been excellent before the Restoration ;
and he had proved himself, by the verses he had pub-
lished, and his successes on the stage, a man of genius
and promise. As regards his personal qualifications, we
need not wonder at Lady Elizabeth's choice, for if his
portrait can be trusted, he must as a young man have
possessed much manly beauty.
It was not his first passion. While at Cambridge, he
had paid his addresses to his cousin, Honor Dryden, who
was an heiress as well as a beauty. There is still
remaining one love letter, of his written to her from Cam-
bridge. It is replete with figure and conceits, and with .
quite as much affectation, and not a tithe of the elegance
of the early letters of Pope. She rejected him at the
time ; but lived to regret her obduracy, for she died
single, and was very proud, when Dryden had become
famous, to show the love letter he ]bad written her from
the University.
Previous to his marriage, he had also an amour with a
pretty actress, Mrs. Reeves, who was for some time under
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JOHN DRYDEN. 151
his protection. His marriage, in the words of Scott,
"interrupted, if it did not terminate his gallantries/'
His domestic life does not appear to have been very
happy ; but no open fracas, as is the case of so many
others of his brethren of the lyr^, took place. A good
supplement to the quarrels of authors would be the
quarrels of authors with their wives.
At Charlton, Dryden, in addition to the love and
matrimony, employed himself on the "Essay on Dra-
matic Poesy.*' This composition has justly acquired great
fame. It forms an epoch in our literature, and is perhaps
the first attempt at regular criticism. Ben Jonson's " Dis-
coveries" had contained many observations on books, as
well as men, displaying a critical power profound and
philosophical, but this Essay is unique. In certain artistic
effects, it is meant to imitate, and it strongly reminds us
of "The Platonic Dialogue." The conunencement, in
which the speakers are represented as floating on the
Thames together in their barge, and being drawn into the
discussion by one accidental remark ; the dramatic nature
of the discussion ; the manner in which, when it is
concluded, they quit the barge at the foot of Somerset
Stairs, and look back on the water upon which the
moonbeams are playing; how they walked together to
the Piazza, and then parted Eugenius and Lisideius to
some pleasant appointment they had made, and Crites
.and Neander to their several lodgings; all impart to it
something of the reality of the recorded conversations of
Socrates with his disciples ; but the nature of dialogue is
not well preserved, for each of the disputants delivers his
opinions at such length, that it reads more like a series
of orations than a colloquy.
Though, from its beautiful style, its learning and
grace, it is a charming production ; it would be tedious to
attempt, by an analysis, to follow all the intricacies of
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152 JOHN DRYDEN.
argument which turn on the superiority of the ancients to
the modems, the question of the unities, and the propriety
of rhyme in dramatic composition. Such topics criticism
has long exhausted. The speakers represented under
the classical names are Lord Dorset, Sir Charles Sedley,
Sir Robert Howard, and Dryden himself. Sir Robert is
represented under the name of Crites, and described as
"a person of a sharp judgment, and somewhat too
delicate in his taste, which the world hath mistaken in
him for ill nature." He is put up in the dialogue to be
knocked down. He first debates with Eugenius and
Lisideius, and afterwards with Neander. The latter part
of the dialogue turns on the propriety of rhyme in
tragedy. Neander defends it, and Crites states certain
objections which rnany years after Dryden would have
approved. Indeed, on this point he is said to have so
changed his opinion, that he stated that were he to
begin his Virgil again he would write it in blank
verse.
In his dedication of " The Rival Ladies" to the Earl of
Orrery, Dryden enters into an elaborate defence of rhyme
in tragedy. Either this Essay, or as it is by some asserted,
Dryden's connection with him by a marriage which he had
been the means of bringing about, gave Sir Robert offence ;
and in his preface to the Duke of Lerma, while bidding
farewell to the stage, he makes an opportunity for assail-
ing Dryden's sentiments on the question of rhyme. Dryden
replied rather angrily in a defence of the Essay on Dramatic
Poetry, and assailed his brother-in-law with great irony.
In speaking of Sir Robert's writings, he says : " I cannot
but give this testimony of his style, that it is extremely
poetical, even in oratory, his thoughts elevated sometimes
above common apprehension." Alluding to Sir Robert's
abandoning dramatic poetry for state craft, he remarks :
" The Muses have lost him, but the Commonwealth gains
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JOHN DRYDEN. 153
by it ; the corruption of a poet is the generation of a
statesman."
Before, however, these literary hostilities took place,
Dryden had concluded the poem of " Annus Mirabilis," on
which he had been employed at Charlton, and published
it with an almost blasphemous dedication to the City of
London, and a critical letter to Sir R. Howard. This is
certainly the best of his earliest poems, and produced for
him far more fame as a poet than any which had pre-
ceded it. He thought highly of the subject, and ex-
pressed himself with some confidence on the manner in
which he had treated it. He writes to Sir Robert : " I
have chosen the most heroic subject which any poet could
desire ; I have taken upon me to describe the motives, the
beginning, progress and successes of a most just and
necessary war ; in it the care, management and presence
of a King ; the conduct and valour of a royal admiral,
and of two incomparable generals ; the invincible courage
of our captains and seamen, and their glorious victories,
the result of all. After this," he adds, " I have in the
fire the most deplorable but withal the greatest argument
that can be imagined, the destruction being so swift, so
sudden, so vast and miserable as nothing can parallel in
story." He next boasts, though with some slight mis-
givings, of his accuracy in the use he had made of
naval terms. It is difBcult to see what can have induced
.him against all rules of criticism, to have introduced tech-
nicalities into poetry; Johnson has censured them; and
Scott has agreed with him in condemning " the dialect of
the dockyard." In speaking of his execution of the work,
Dryden says : " And I am well satisfied, as they are
incomparably the best subject I ever had, so also, that
this I have written of them is much better than what I
have performed on any other." Towards the conclusion,
he defends himself against an accusation which had been
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154 JOHN DRYDEN.
brought against the lines he had written to the Duchess of
York in the previous year. " I know," he writes, " I
addressed them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the
softness of expression, and the smoothness of measure
rather than the height of thought, and in what I did
endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. / detest
arrogance ; hut there is some difference betwixt that and
a just difence" The fault of the measure in which
" The Annus Mirabilis" is written, is that it breaks the
sense. Though well tuned to Elegy in the hands of
Gray, it is ill suited for a continuous narrative poem.
Dr. Johnson has made one or two quotations to praise.
Mr. Macaulay has done so to criticise and condemn.
There are only two stanzas to which we would invite
attention. The first has a pathos and simplicity not
to be found elsewhere in the poem, which is rather to
be admired for its strength and fire, than its sweetness.
" The careful husband had befen long away,
Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn.
Who on their fingers learn to tell the day
On which their father promised to return."
The other is in a higher strain.
" Till now, alone the mighty nations strove,
^e rest at gaze, without the lists did stand.
Ana thundering France, placed Hke a painted Jove,
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand."
In 1667, "The Maiden Queen," a tragi-comedy, was,
given by Dryden to the stage, and was a favourite with
Charles II.
He next revived, with alterations, " The Wild Gallant,"
which was now more successful than at its first repre-
sentation.
It was after this that he and his predecessor in the
laurel. Sir W. Davenant, set about the iteration of " The
Tempest." The addition which they made to the plot of
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JOHN DRYDEN. 155
Shakespeare is too well known to require any comment on
it here* It appears that it was to Sir William's fertile
fancy that we owe the counterpart of Shakespeare's
Miranda in Antonio. Dryden teUs us ^* that as he was
a man of quick and piecing imagination, he soon found
that somewhat might be added to the design of Shake-
speare, of which neither Fletcher nor Suckling had ever
thought. And, therefore, to put the last hand to it, he
designed the counterpart of Shakespeare's plot, namely,
that of a man who had never seen a woman ; that by this
means those two characters of Innocence and Love might
the more illustrate and commend each other. This excel-
lent contrivance he was pleased to communicate to me,
and to desire my assistance in it. I confess that from the
very first moment it so pleased me, that I never writ
anything with more delight." He then proceeds to pay a
tribute to the abilities of his coadjutor, which we have
quoted in the life of that Poet.
The remarks of Dryden which we have given above,
speak plainly enough the taste of the age. It may be
added, that at the end of the Preface, Dryden couples the
name of Shakespeare and Sir W. Davenant almost as if
equals. That with such an opinion of Shakespeare they
were not likely to improve on him is probably enough,
and Sir W. Scott has remarked with true severity, that
" Miranda's simplicity is converted into indelicacy, and
Dorinda talks the language of prostitution before she
had even seen a man." It was brought out at the Duke's
Theatre, and as the scenery was under the management of
Sir W. Davenant, with a grandeur which we should now
deem very simple, but which had at that time never before
been witnessed on the stage. It was crowned with com-
plete success.
His next dramatic composition was "Sir Martin
Mar-all," an imitation of " L'Etourdi" of Moli^re. It
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156 JOHN DRYDEN.
was highly successful, owing much to the comic talents
of Nokes the actor, of whose playing in this piece Gibber
has left us some account.
Next followed " Evening Love, or the Mock Astrologer."
It was to see this play that Pepys tells us, " my wife and
Deb went, thinking to spy me there, but did not." Pepys
himself went on the afternoons of the 20th and 22nd,
and pronounces it *^ very smutty, and nothing so good
as * The Maiden Queen' and * The Indian Emperor.' "
Evelyn condemns it more strongly, "as a foolish plot
and very profane." " It aflfected me," he says, " to see
how much the stage was degenerated and polluted by
the licentious times." Herringman, the printer and pub-
lisher with whom we have before said Dryden once
lodged, informed Pepys that Dryden himself admitted
that this was but a fifth-rate play. Poor as it is, it
has not even the praise of originality, for it is chiefly
borrowed from a play of Comeille, who borrowed his
from Calderon.
He next wrote "The Royal Martyr," which he dedi-
cates to the Duke of Monmouth, in a preface in which
he lauds the Duke's personal charms. " Youth, beauty,
and courage (aU which you possess in the height of
their perfection), are the desirable gifts of Heaven ; and
Heaven is never prodigal of such treasures but to some
uncommon purpose. So goodly a fabrick was never
framed by an Almighty Architect for a vulgar guest. He
shewed the value which he set upon your mind when he
took care to have it so nobly and so beautifVdly lodged.
To a graceful fashion and deportment of body you have
joined a winning conversation, and an easy greatness
derived to you from the best and best beloved of Princes.
And with a great power of obliging, the world has ob-
served in you a desire to oblige, even beyond your power.
This, and all that I can say on so excellent and large a
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JOHN DRYDEN. 157
subject, is only History ; in which Fiction has no part ;
I can employ nothing of poetry in it, any more than I do
in that humble protestation which I make to continue
ever your Grace's most obedient and most devoted
servant."
Dryden having now by his plays, poems, and prose
writings acquired much popularity, produced those two very
remarkable dramas, the first and second parts of '^The
Conquest of Granada." He prefaced them by an essay
on heroic plays, in which he defends the stilted and bom-
bastic style of these dramas, and endeavours to support
his view by parallels from Homer, and criticisms from
Horace. He concludes with a confident allusion to his
success. "But I have already swept the stakes; and
with the common good-fortune of prosperous gamesters,
can be content to sit quietly ; to hear my fortune cursed by
some, and my faults arraigned by others ; and to suffer
both without reply." When he wrote this, he did not
know that " The Rehearsal" was in preparation.
He was now in the zenith of his fame. Among noble
fiiends and patrons, he numbered the Duke of Ormond,
Lord Rochester, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Clifford, the
Earl of Dorset and Sir Charles Sedley. It was at this
time that he spent in noble society those convivial nights
which he alludes to in the dedication of " The 9Usigna-
tion," when writing to Sir C. Sedley, and speaking of the
Roman poets of the Augustine age, he says: "They
imitated the best way of living, which was to pursue an
innocent and inoffensive pleasure; that which one of
the ancients called Eruditam Voluptatem. We have?
like them, our genial nights; where our discourse
is neither too serious nor too light; but always
pleasant, and for the most part instructive : the raillery
neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious
on the absent ; and the cups only such as will raise the
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158 JOHN DRYDEN.
conversation of the night, without disturbing the business
of the morrow." But his companions were not only among
the great. He enjoyed the friendship of Cowley, Walla-,
Denham and Davenant. To Milton he was known but
little, and Butler was the only wit of the day who was his
enemy.
Fortune rains down all her favours on us at once, and
so his income as well as his £sime was at this time
increased. When James Howell died, the office of royal
historiographer became vacant, and it had not been filled
up. It was now conferred on Dryden, together with
the laureateship, which had not been bestowed since
the death of Davenant. Dryden was appointed on the
18th of August, .1670. The salary of the two offices
amounted to £200, with the annual butt of canary, and
the grant bore a retrospect to the death of Davenant.
The letters patent are to be seen in Scott's Life of the
Poet. The office is said to be given " to John Dryden,
Master of Arts, in consideration of his many acceptable
services theretofore done to his present Majesty, and
from an observation of his learning and eminent abilities,
and his great skill and elegant style both in verse and
prose." Scott computes that in this time Dryden's in-
come derived from these appointments, as well as theatrical
and literary sources, must have averaged between £600
and £700 per annum, equal in those days to an income
of three times that amount now.
Dryden was not long destined to enjoy his wealth or fame
uninterruptedly. His income was very soon somewhat cur-
tailed by the burning down of the theatre, and enemies
were rising up stimulated to hatred by envy and jealousy.
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, had long strenu-
ously opposed the rhyming tragedies, and had, in fact,
risked his personal safety by attempting to interrupt one
of the dramas of the Hon, Edward Howard, a brother
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JOHN DRYDEN. i59
of Sir Robert. This gay and profligate nobleman gained
the assistance of Butl^, the author of " Hudibras/' who,
in Scott's words, ''while himself starving, amused his
misery by ridiculing his contemporaries,"— of Spratt, after-
wards Bishop of Rochester, and of Martin Clifford, after-
wards Master of the Charter-House, Their facetiae were
not meant at first to be levelled at Dryden personally ;
for Bilboa, the chief personage in this amusing farce, was
first intended to represent Davenant and Sir Robert Howard.
It was written in 1664, but not played till 1671 ; for the
fire and plague for some time closed all the theatres, and
Davenant's death obliged its author to remodel it, and put
Dryden in his place.
The first night it was played, and a vehement opposition
was attempted, Dryden and his friends, the Earl of Orrery,
Sir Robert Howard, and others who had written in that
style, were present, and clamorous enough against it. It
was, however, in spite of all attempts to interrupt, tri-