an essay of dramatic poesy by dryden

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Literary Criticism of John Dryden

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on November 17, 2017 • ( 4 )

John Dryden (1631–1700) occupies a seminal place in English critical history. Samuel Johnson called him “the father of English criticism,” and affirmed of his Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) that “modern English prose begins here.” Dryden’s critical work was extensive, treating of various genres such as epic, tragedy, comedy and dramatic theory, satire, the relative virtues of ancient and modern writers, as well as the nature of poetry and translation. In addition to the Essay , he wrote numerous prefaces, reviews, and prologues, which together set the stage for later poetic and critical developments embodied in writers such as Pope , Johnson, Matthew Arnold , and T. S. Eliot .

Dryden was also a consummate poet, dramatist, and translator. His poetic output reflects his shifting religious and political allegiances. Born into a middle-class family just prior to the outbreak of the English Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament, he initially supported the latter, whose leaders, headed by Oliver Cromwell, were Puritans. Indeed, his poem Heroic Stanzas (1659) celebrated the achievements of Cromwell who, after the execution of Charles I by the victorious parliamentarians, ruled England as Lord Protector (1653–1658). However, with the restoration of the dead king’s son, Charles II , to the throne in 1660, Dryden switched sides, celebrating the new monarchy in his poem Astrea Redux ( Justice Restored ). Dryden was appointed poet-laureate in 1668 and thereafter produced several major poems, including the mock-heroic  Mac Flecknoe   (1682), and a political satire Absalom and Achitophel (1681). In addition, he produced two poems that mirror his move from Anglicanism to Catholicism: Religio Laici (1682) defends the Anglican Church while The Hind and the Panther , just five years later, opposes Anglicanism. Dryden’s renowned dramas include the comedy Marriage a la Mode (1671) and the tragedies Aureng-Zebe (1675) and All for Love, or the World Well Lost (1677). His translations include Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), which includes renderings of Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer.

Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy is written as a debate on drama conducted by four speakers, Eugenius , Crites , Lisideius , and Neander. These personae have conventionally been identified with four of Dryden’s contemporaries. Eugenius (meaning “well-born”) may be Charles Sackville , who was Lord Buckhurst, a patron of Dryden and a poet himself. Crites (Greek for “judge” or “critic”) perhaps represents Sir Robert Howard, Dryden’s brother-in-law. Lisideius refers to Sir Charles Sedley , and Neander (“new man”) is Dryden himself. The Essay , as Dryden himself was to point out in a later defense of it, was occasioned by a public dispute with Sir Robert Howard (Crites) over the use of rhyme in drama. In a note to the reader prefacing the Essay , he suggests that the chief purpose of his text is “to vindicate the honour of our English writers, from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French” (27). Yet the scope of the  Essay extends far beyond these two topics, effectively ranging over a number of crucial debates concerning the nature and composition of drama.

The first of these debates is that between ancients and moderns, a debate that had intermittently surfaced for centuries in literature and criticism, and which acquired a new and topical intensity in European letters after the Renaissance, in the late seventeenth century. Traditionalists such as Jonathan Swift , in his controversial Battle of the Books (1704), bemoaned the modern “corruption” of religion and learning, and saw in the ancients the archetypal standards of literature. The moderns, inspired by various forms of progress through the Renaissance, sought to adapt or even abandon classical ideals in favor of the requirements of a changed world and a modern audience. Dryden’s Essay is an important intervention in this debate, perhaps marking a distinction between Renaissance and neoclassical values. Like Torquato Tasso and Pierre Corneille , he attempted to strike a compromise between the claims of ancient authority and the exigencies of the modern writer.

In Dryden’s text, this compromise subsumes a number of debates: one of these concerns the classical “unities” of time, place, and action; another focuses on the rigid classical distinction between various genres, such as tragedy and comedy; there was also the issue of classical decorum and propriety, as well as the use of rhyme in drama. All of these elements underlie the nature of drama. In addition, Dryden undertakes an influential assessment of the English dramatic tradition, comparing writers within this tradition itself as well as with their counterparts in French drama.

Dryden’s Essay is skillfully wrought in terms of its own dramatic structure, its setting up of certain expectations (the authority of classical precepts), its climaxing in the reversal of these, and its denouement in the comparative assessment of French and English drama. What starts out, through the voice of Crites, as promising to lull the reader into complacent subordination to classical values ends up by deploying those very values against the ancients themselves and by undermining or redefining those values.

Lisideius offers the following definition of a play: “ A just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind ” (36). Even a casual glance at the definition shows it to be very different from Aristotle’s: the latter had defined tragedy not as the representation of “human nature” but as the imitation of a serious and complete action; moreover, while Aristotle had indeed cited a reversal in fortune as a component of tragedy, he had said nothing about “passions and humours”; and, while he accorded to literature in general a moral and intellectual function, he had said nothing about “delighting” the audience. The definition of drama used in Dryden’s Essay embodies a history of progressive divergence from classical models; indeed, it is a definition already weighted in favor of modern drama, and it is a little surprising that Crites agrees to abide by it at all. Crites, described in Dryden’s text as “a person of sharp judgment, and somewhat too delicate a taste in wit” (29), is, after all, the voice of classical conservatism.

Crites notes that poetry is now held in lower esteem, in an atmosphere of “few good poets, and so many severe judges” (37–38). His essential argument is that the ancients were “faithful imitators and wise observers of that Nature which is so torn and ill represented in our plays; they have handed down to us a perfect resemblance of her; which we, like ill copiers, neglecting to look on, have rendered monstrous, and disfigured.” He reminds his companions that all the rules for drama – concerning the plot, the ornaments, descriptions, and narrations – were formulated by Aristotle, Horace, or their predecessors. As for us modern writers, he remarks, “we have added nothing of our own, except we have the confidence to say our wit is better” (38).

The most fundamental of these classical rules are the three unities, of time, place, and action. Crites claims that the ancients observed these rules in most of their plays (38–39). The unity of action, Crites urges, stipulates that the “poet is to aim at one great and complete action,” to which all other things in the play “are to be subservient.” The reason behind this, he explains, is that if there were two major actions, this would destroy the unity of the play (41). Crites cites a further reason from Corneille: the unity of action “leaves the mind of the audience in a full repose”; but such a unity must be engineered by the subordinate actions which will “hold the audience in a delightful suspense of what will be” (41). Most modern plays, says Crites, fail to endure the test imposed by these unities, and we must therefore acknowledge the superiority of the ancient authors (43).

This, then, is the presentation of classical authority in Dryden’s text. It is Eugenius who first defends the moderns, saying that they have not restricted themselves to “dull imitation” of the ancients; they did not “draw after their lines, but those of Nature; and having the life before us, besides the experience of all they knew, it is no wonder if we hit some airs and features which they have missed” (44). This is an interesting and important argument which seems to have been subsequently overlooked by Alexander Pope , who in other respects followed Dryden’s prescriptions for following the rules of “nature.” In his Essay on Criticism , Pope had urged that to copy nature is to copy the ancient writers. Dryden, through the mouth of his persona Eugenius, completely topples this complacent equation: Eugenius effectively turns against Crites the latter’s own observation that the arts and sciences have made huge advances since the time of Aristotle. Not only do we have the collective experience and wisdom of the ancients to draw upon, but also we have our own experience of the world, a world understood far better in scientific terms than in ages past: “if natural causes be more known now than in the time of Aristotle . . . it follows that poesy and other arts may, with the same pains, arrive still nearer to perfection” (44).

Turning to the unities, Eugenius points out (after Corneille) that by the time of Horace, the division of a play into five acts was firmly established, but this distinction was unknown to the Greeks. Indeed, the Greeks did not even confine themselves to a regular number of acts (44–46). Again, their plots were usually based on “some tale derived from Thebes or Troy,” a plot “worn so threadbare . . . that before it came upon the stage, it was already known to all the audience.” Since the pleasure in novelty was thereby dissolved, asserts Eugenius, “one main end of Dramatic Poesy in its definition, which was to cause delight, was of consequence destroyed” (47). These are strong words, threatening to undermine a long tradition of reverence for the classics. But Eugenius has hardly finished: not only do the ancients fail to fulfill one of the essential obligations of drama, that of delighting; they also fall short in the other requirement, that of instructing. Eugenius berates the narrow characterization by Greek and Roman dramatists, as well as their imperfect linking of scenes. He cites instances of their own violation of the unities. Even more acerbic is his observation, following Corneille, that when the classical authors such as Euripides and Terence do observe the unities, they are forced into absurdities (48–49). As for the unity of place, he points out, this is nowhere to be found in Aristotle or Horace; it was made a precept of the stage in our own age by the French dramatists (48). Moreover, instead of “punishing vice and rewarding virtue,” the ancients “have often shown a prosperous wickedness, and an unhappy piety” (50).

Eugenius also berates the ancients for not dealing sufficiently with love, but rather with “lust, cruelty, revenge, ambition . . . which were more capable of raising horror than compassion in an audience” (54). Hence, in Dryden’s text, not only is Aristotle’s definition of tragedy violently displaced by a formulation that will accommodate modern poets, but also the ancient philosopher’s definition itself is made to appear starkly unrealistic and problematic for ancient dramatists, who persistently violated its essential features.

The next point of debate is the relative quality of French and English writers; it is Lisideius who extols the virtues of the French while Neander (Dryden himself) undertakes to defend his compatriots. Lisideius argues that the current French theatre surpasses all Europe, observing the unities of time, place, and action, and is not strewn with the cumbrous underplots that litter the English stage. Moreover, the French provide variety of emotion without sinking to the absurd genre of tragicomedy, which is a uniquely English invention (56–57). Lisideius also points out that the French are proficient at proportioning the time devoted to dialogue and action on the one hand, and narration on the other. There are certain actions, such as duels, battles, and deathscenes, that “can never be imitated to a just height”; they cannot be represented with decorum or with credibility and thus must be narrated rather than acted out on stage (62–63).

Neander’s response takes us by surprise. He does not at all refute the claims made by Lisideius. He concedes that “the French contrive their plots more regularly, and observe the laws of comedy, and decorum of the stage . . . with more exactness than the English” (67). Neander effectively argues that the very “faults” of the English are actually virtues, virtues that take English drama far beyond the pale of its classical heritage. What Neander or Dryden takes as a valid presupposition is that a play should present a “lively imitation of Nature” (68). The beauties of French drama, he points out, are “the beauties of a statue, but not of a man, because not animated with the soul of Poesy, which is imitation of humour and passions” (68).

Indeed, in justifying the genre of tragicomedy, Neander states that the contrast between mirth and compassion will throw the important scenes into sharper relief (69). He urges that it is “to the honour of our nation, that we have invented, increased, and perfected a more pleasant way of writing for the stage, than was ever known to the ancients or moderns of any nation, which is tragi-comedy” (70). This exaltation of tragicomedy effectively overturns nearly all of the ancient prescriptions concerning purity of genre, decorum, and unity of plot. Neander poignantly repeats Corneille’s observation that anyone with actual experience of the stage will see how constraining the classical rules are (76).

Neander now undertakes a brief assessment of the recent English dramatic tradition. Of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, he says, Shakespeare “had the largest and most comprehensive soul.” He was “naturally learn’d,” not through books but by the reading of nature and all her images: “he looked inwards, and found her there” (79–80). Again, the implication is that, in order to express nature, Shakespeare did not need to look outwards, toward the classics, but rather into his own humanity. Beaumont and Fletcher had both the precedent of Shakespeare’s wit and natural gifts which they improved by study; what they excelled at was expressing “the conversation of gentlemen,” and the representation of the passions, especially of love (80–81). Ben Jonson he regards as the “most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had,” and his peculiar gift was the representation of humors (81–82). Neander defines “humour” as “some extravagant habit, passion, or affection” which defines the individuality of a person (84–85). In an important statement he affirms that “Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Johnson was the Vergil, the pattern of elaborate writing” (82). What Neander – or Dryden – effectively does here is to stake out an independent tradition for English drama, with new archetypes displacing those of the classical tradition.

The final debate concerns the use of rhyme in drama. Crites argues that “rhyme is unnatural in a play” (91). Following Aristotle, Crites insists that the most natural verse form for the stage is blank verse, since ordinary speech follows an iambic pattern (91). Neander’s reply is ambivalent (Dryden himself was later to change his mind on this issue): he does not deny that blank verse may be used; but he asserts that “in serious plays, where the subject and characters are great . . . rhyme is there as natural and more effectual than blank verse” (94). Moreover, in everyday life, people do not speak in blank verse, any more than they do in rhyme. He also observes that rhyme and accent are a modern substitute for the use of quantity as syllabic measure in classical verse (96–97).

Underlying Neander’s argument in favor of rhyme is an observation fundamental to the very nature of drama. He insists that, while all drama represents nature, a distinction should be made between comedy, “which is the imitation of common persons and ordinary speaking,” and tragedy, which “is indeed the representation of Nature, but ’tis Nature wrought up to an higher pitch. The plot, the characters, the wit, the passions, the descriptions, are all exalted above the level of common converse, as high as the imagination of the poet can carry them, with proportion to verisimility” (100–101). And while the use of verse and rhyme helps the poet control an otherwise “lawless imagination,” it is nonetheless a great help to his “luxuriant fancy” (107). This concluding argument, which suggests that the poet use “imagination” to transcend nature, underlines Neander’s (and Dryden’s) departure from classical convention. If Dryden is neoclassical, it is in the sense that he acknowledges the classics as having furnished archetypes for drama; but modern writers are at liberty to create their own archetypes and their own literary traditions. Again, he might be called classical in view of the unquestioned persistence of certain presuppositions that are shared by all four speakers in this text: that the unity of a play, however conceived, is a paramount requirement; that a play present, through its use of plot and characterization, events and actions which are probable and express truth or at least a resemblance to truth; that the laws of “nature” be followed, if not through imitation of the ancients, then through looking inward at our own profoundest constitution; and finally, that every aspect of a play be contrived with the projected response of the audience in mind. But given Dryden’s equal emphasis on the poet’s wit, invention, and imagination, his text might be viewed as expressing a status of transition between neoclassicism and Romanticism.

Dryden’s other essays and prefaces would seem to confirm the foregoing comments, and reveal important insights into his vision of the poet’s craft. In his 1666 preface to Annus Mirabilis , he states that the “composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit . . . is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer” (14). He subsequently offers a more comprehensive definition: “the first happiness of the poet’s imagination is properly invention, or finding of the thought; the second is fancy, or the variation, deriving, or moulding, of that thought, as the judgment represents it proper to the subject; the third is elocution, or the art of clothing or adorning that thought, so found and varied, in apt, significant, and sounding words: the quickness of the imagination is seen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expression” (15). Again, the emphasis here is on wit, imagination, and invention rather than exclusively on the classical precept of imitation.

In fact, Dryden was later to write “Defence of An Essay on Dramatic Poesy ,” defending his earlier text against Sir Robert Howard ’s attack on Dryden’s advocacy of rhyme in drama. Here, Dryden’s defense of rhyme undergoes a shift of emphasis, revealing further his modification of classical prescriptions. He now argues that what most commends rhyme is the delight it produces: “for delight is the chief, if not the only, end of poesy: instruction can be admitted but in the second place, for poesy only instructs as it delights” (113). And Dryden states: “I confess my chief endeavours are to delight the age in which I live” (116). We have come a long way from Aristotle, and even from Sidney, who both regarded poetry as having primarily a moral or ethical purpose. To suggest that poetry’s chief or only aim is to delight is to take a large step toward the later modern notion of literary autonomy. Dryden goes on to suggest that while a poet’s task is to “imitate well,” he must also “affect the soul, and excite the passions” as well as cause “admiration” or wonder. To this end, “bare imitation will not serve.” Imitation must be “heightened with all the arts and ornaments of poesy” (113).

If, in such statements, Dryden appears to anticipate certain Romantic predispositions, these comments are counterbalanced by other positions which are deeply entrenched in a classical heritage. Later in the “Defence” he insists that “they cannot be good poets, who are not accustomed to argue well . . . for moral truth is the mistress of the poet as much as of the philosopher; Poesy must resemble natural truth, but it must be ethical. Indeed, the poet dresses truth, and adorns nature, but does not alter them” (121). Hence, notwithstanding the importance that he attaches to wit and imagination, Dryden still regards poetry as essentially a rational activity, with an ethical and epistemological responsibility. If the poet rises above nature and truth, this is merely by way of ornamentation; it does not displace or remold the truths of nature, but merely heightens them. Dryden states that imagination “is supposed to participate of Reason,” and that when imagination creates fictions, reason allows itself to be temporarily deceived but will never be persuaded “of those things which are most remote from probability . . . Fancy and Reason go hand in hand; the first cannot leave the last behind” (127–128). These formulations differ from subsequent Romantic views of the primacy of imagination over reason. Imagination can indeed outrun reason, but only within the limits of classical probability. Dryden’s entire poetic and critical enterprise might be summed up in his own words: he views all poetry, both ancient and modern, as based on “the imitation of Nature.” Where he differs from the classics is the means with which he undertakes this poetic project (123). Following intimations in Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s Poetics , he suggests in his Parallel of Poetry and Painting  (1695) that what the poet (and painter) should imitate are not individual instances of nature but the archetypal ideas behind natural forms. While adhering to this classical position, he also suggests that, in imitating nature, modern writers should “vary the customs, according to the time and the country where the scene of the action lies; for this is still to imitate Nature, which is always the same, though in a different dress” ( Essays , II, 139). This stance effectively embodies both Dryden’s classicism and the nature of his departure from its strict boundaries.

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An Essay of Dramatic Poesy by John Dryden: An Overview

Dryden wrote this essay as a dramatic dialogue with four characters Eugenius , Crites , Lisideius and Neander representing four critical positions. These four critical positions deal with five issues. Eugenius (whose name may mean "well born") favors the moderns over the ancients, arguing that the moderns exceed the ancients because of having learned and profited from their example. Crites argues in favor of the ancients: they established the unities; dramatic rules were spelled out by Aristotle which the current-and esteemed-French playwrights follow; and Ben Jonson-the greatest English playwright, according to Crites-followed the ancients' example by adhering to the unities. Lisideius argues that French drama is superior to English drama , basing this opinion of the French writer's close adherence to the classical separation of comedy and tragedy. For Lisideius "no theater in the world has anything so absurd as the English tragicomedy; in two hours and a half, we run through all the fits of Bedlam." Neander favors the moderns, but does not disparage the ancients. He also favors English drama-and has some critical -things to say of French drama: "those beauties of the French poesy are such as will raise perfection higher where it is, but are not sufficient to give it where it is not: they are indeed the beauties of a statue, but not of a man." Neander goes on to defend tragicomedy: "contraries, when placed near, set off each other. A continued gravity keeps the spirit too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes." Tragicomedy increases the effectiveness of both tragic and comic elements by 'way of contrast. Neander asserts that "we have invented, increased, -and perfected a more pleasant way of writing for the stage . . . tragicomedy."

Neander criticizes French drama essentially for its smallness: its pursuit of only one plot without subplots; its tendency to show too little action; its "servile observations of the unities…dearth of plot, and narrowness of imagination" are all qualities which render it inferior to English drama. Neander extends his criticism of French drama - into his reasoning for his preference for Shakespeare over Ben Jonson. Shakespeare "had the largest and most comprehensive soul," while Jonson was "the most learned and judicious writer which any theater ever had." Ultimately, Neander prefers Shakespeare for his greater scope, his greater faithfulness to life, as compared to Jonson's relatively small scope and Freneh/Classical tendency to deal in "the beauties of a statue, but not of a Man."

Crites objects to rhyme in plays: "since no man without premeditation speaks in rhyme, neither ought he to do it on the stage." He cites Aristotle as saying that it is, "best to write tragedy in that kind of verse . . . which is nearest prose" as a justification for banishing rhyme, from drama in favor of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). Even though blank verse lines are no more spontaneous than are rhymed lines, they are still to be preferred because they are "nearest nature": "Rhyme is incapable of expressing the greatest thought naturally, and the lowest it cannot with any grace: for what is more unbefitting the majesty of verse, than to call a servant, or bid a door be shut in rhyme?"

Neander respond to the objections against rhyme by admitting that "verse so tedious" is inappropriate to drama (and to anything else). "Natural" rhymed verse is, however, just as appropriate to dramatic as to non-dramatic poetry: the test of the "naturalness" of rhyme is how well-chosen the rhymes are. Is the sense of the verses tied down to, and limited by, the rhymes, or are the rhymes in service to, and an enhancement of, the sense of the verses?

The main point of Dryden's essay seems to be a valuation of becoming (the striving, nature-imitating, large scope of tragicomedy and Shakespeare) over being (the static perfection of the ideal-imitating Classical/French/Jonsonian drama).

Dryden prescriptive in nature, defines dramatic art as an imitation with the aim to delight and to teach, and is considered a just and lively image of human nature representing its passions and humors for the delight and instruction of mankind. Dryden emphasizes the idea of decorum in the work of art.

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Sharma, K.N. "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy by John Dryden: An Overview." BachelorandMaster, 25 Jan. 2014, bachelorandmaster.com/criticaltheories/essay-on-dramatic-poesy.html.

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An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

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Analysis: “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy”

Written during an outbreak of plague that occasioned the shuttering of theaters in 1665-1666, the essay functions almost like a play itself. There are five acts—as Horace sanctioned “correct” (164)—and a central plot (to determine the highest and best form of theater, with the action of the literal battle in the background juxtaposed against the rhetorical battle on the barge floating down the Thames). There is also a cast of characters: Dryden’s friends rechristened with Latinate names. These faux-Roman names lend credence and authority to their arguments, in keeping with the era’s admiration for Greco-Roman culture. The setting gives this cast an occasion to debate the competence of contemporary English writers and the state of the English theater in comparison to the revered ancients and modern European rivals.

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An Essay of Dramatic Poesy/Defence

A DEFENCE [1]

OF AN ESSAY

OF DRAMATIC POESY [2]

The former edition of The Indian Emperor being full of faults, which had escaped the printer, I have been willing to overlook this second with more care; and though I could not allow myself so much time as was necessary, yet, by that little I have done, the press is freed from some gross errors which it had to answer ​ for before. As for the more material faults of writing, which are properly mine, though I see many of them, I want leisure to amend them. 'Tis enough for those who make one poem the business of their lives, to leave that correct: yet, excepting Virgil , I never met with any which was so in any language.

But while I was thus employed about this impression, there came to my hands a new printed play, called, The Great Favourite , or The Duke of Lerma ) the author of which, a noble and most ingenious person , has done me the favour to make some observations and animadversions upon my Dramatique Essay . I must confess he might have better consulted his reputation, than by matching himself with so weak an adversary. But if his honour be diminished in the choice of his antagonist, it is sufficiently recompensed in the election of his cause: which being the weaker, in all appearance, as combating the received opinions of the best ancient and modern authors, will add to his glory, if he overcome, and to the opinion of his ​ generosity, if he be vanquished: since he ingages at so great odds, and, so like a cavalier, undertakes the protection of the weaker party. I have only to fear on my own behalf, that so good a cause as mine may not suffer by my ill management, or weak defence; yet I cannot in honour but take the glove, when 'tis offered me: though I am only a champion by succession; and no more able to defend the right of Aristotle and Horace , than an infant Dimock to maintain the title of a King.

For my own concernment in the controversie, it is so small, that I can easily be contented to be driven from a few notions of Dramatique Poesie; especially by one, who has the reputation of understanding all things: and I might justly make that excuse for my yielding to him, which the Philosopher made to the Emperor,— why should I offer to contend with him, who is master of more than twenty legions of arts and sciences? But I am forced to fight, and therefore it will be no shame to be overcome.

Yet I am so much his servant, as not to meddle with any thing which does not concern me in his Preface; therefore, I leave the good sense and other excellencies of the first twenty lines to be considered by the critiques. As for the play of The Duke of Lerma , having so much altered and beautified it, as he has done, it can justly belong to none but him. Indeed, they must be extream ignorant as well as envious, who would rob him of that honour; for you see him putting in his claim to it, even in the first two lines:

Repulse upon repulse, like waves thrown back, That slide to hang upon obdurate rocks.

In the next place, I must beg leave to observe his great address in courting the reader to his party. For intending to assault all poets, both ancient and modern, he discovers not his whole design at once, but seems only to aim at me, and attacques me on my weakest side, my defence of verse.

To begin with me,—he gives me the compellation of The Author of a Dramatique Essay , which is a little discourse in dialogue, for the most part borrowed from the observations of others: therefore, that I may not be wanting to him in civility, I return his compliment by calling him The Author of The Duke of Lerma .

But (that I may pass over his salute) he takes notice of my great pains to prove rhyme as natural in a serious play, and more effectual than blanck verse. Thus, indeed, I did state the question; but he tells me, I pursue that which I call natural in a wrong application: for 'tis not the question whether rhyme or not rhyme be best or most natural for a serious subject, but what is nearest the nature of that it represents .

If I have formerly mistaken the question, I must confess my ignorance so far, as to say I continue still in my mistake: but he ought to have proved that I mistook it; for it is yet but gratis dictum : I still shall ​ think I have gained my point, if I can prove that rhyme is best or most natural for a serious subject. As for the question as he states it, whether rhyme be nearest the nature of what it represents, I wonder he should think me so ridiculous as to dispute whether prose or verse be nearest to ordinary conversation.

It still remains for him to prove his inference,—that, since verse is granted to be more remote than prose from ordinary conversation, therefore no serious plays ought to be writ in verse: and when he clearly makes that good, I will acknowledge his victory as absolute as he can desire it.

The question now is, which of us two has mistaken it; and if it appear I have not, the world will suspect what gentleman that was, who was allowed to speak twice in parliament, because he had not yet spoken to the question ; and perhaps conclude it to be the same, who, 'tis reported, maintained a contradiction in terminis , in the face of three hundred persons.

But to return to verse; whether it be natural or not in plays, is a problem which is not demonstrable of either side: 'tis enough for me that he acknowledges he had rather read good verse than prose: for if all the enemies of verse will confess as much, I shall not need to prove that it is natural, I am satisfied, if it cause delight: for delight is the chief, if not the only, end of poesie: instruction can be admitted but in the second place; for poesie only instructs as it delights. 'Tis true, that to imitate well is a poet's work; but to affect the soul, and excite the passions, and above all to move admiration, which is the delight of serious plays, a bare imitation will not serve. The converse, ​ therefore, which a poet is to imitate, must be heightened with all the arts and ornaments of poesie; and must be such, as, strictly considered, could never be supposed spoken by any without premeditation.

As for what he urges, that a play will still be supposed to be a composition of several persons speaking ex tempore; and that good verses are the hardest things which can be imagined to be so spoken ; I must crave leave to dissent from his opinion, as to the former part of it: for, if I am not deceived, a play is supposed to be the work of the poet, imitating or representing the conversation of several persons; and this I think to be as clear, as he thinks the contrary.

But I will be bolder, and do not doubt to make it good, though a paradox, that one great reason why prose is not to be used in serious plays, is, because it is too near the nature of converse: there may be too great a likeness; as the most skilful painters affirm, that there may be too near a resemblance in a picture: to take every lineament and feature, is not to make an excellent piece; but to take so much only as will make a beautiful resemblance of the whole; and, with an ingenious flattery of nature, to heighten the beauties of some parts, and hide the deformities of the rest. For so says Horace :

In Bartholomew Fair , or the lowest kind of comedy, that degree of heightning is used, which is proper to ​ set off that subject. 'Tis true the author was not there to go out of prose, as he does in his higher arguments of comedy, The Fox , and Alchymist ; yet he does so raise his matter in that prose, as to render it delightful; which he could never have performed, had he only said or done those very things that are daily spoken or practised in the Fair; for then the Fair itself would be as full of pleasure to an ingenious person as the play; which we manifestly see it is not. But he hath made an excellent lazar  n of it: the copy is of price, though the original be vile. You see in Catiline and Sejanus , where the argument is great, he sometimes ascends to verse, which shews he thought it not unnatural in serious plays: and had his genius been as proper for rhyme, as it was for humour, or had the age in which he lived attained to as much knowledge in verse as ours, it is probable he would have adorned those subjects with that kind of writing.

Thus prose, though the rightful prince, yet is by common consent deposed, as too weak for the government of serious plays; and he failing, there now start up two competitors; one the nearer in blood, which is blanck verse; the other more fit for the ends of government, which is rhyme. Blanck verse is, indeed, the nearer prose, but he is blemished with the weakness of his predecessor. Rhyme (for I will deal clearly) has somewhat of the usurper in him; but he is brave and generous, and his dominion pleasing. For this reason of delight, the Ancients (whom I will still believe as wise as those who so confidently correct them) wrote all their tragedies in ​ verse, though they knew it most remote from conversation.

But I perceive I am falling into the danger of another rebuke from my opponent; for when I plead that the Ancients used verse, I prove not that they would have admitted rhyme, had it then been written: all I can say is only this; that it seems to have succeeded verse by the general consent of poets in all modern languages: for almost all their serious plays are written in it: which, though it be no demonstration that therefore they ought to be so, yet at least the practice first, and then the continuation of it, shews that it attained the end,—which was to please; and if that cannot be compassed here, I will be the first who shall lay it down. For I confess my chief endeavours are to delight the age in which I live. If the humour of this be for low comedy, small accidents, and raillery, I will force my genius to obey 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 gayety of humour which is required to it. My conversation is slow and dull, my humour saturnine and reserved: in short, I am none of those who endeavour to break jests in company, or make reparties. 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. I beg pardon for entertaining the reader with so ill a subject; but before I quit that argument, which was the cause of this digression, I cannot but take notice how I am corrected for my quotation of Seneca , in my defence of plays in verse. My words are these: 'Our ​ language is noble, full, and significant; and I know not why he who is master of it, may not cloath ordinary things in it as decently as the Latine, if he use the same diligence in his choice of words . One would think, unlock a door , was a thing as vulgar as could be spoken; yet Seneca could make it sound high and lofty in his Latin:

Reserate clusos regii postes laris .'

But he says of me, That being filled with the precedents of the Ancients, who writ their plays in verse, I commend the thing; declaring our language to be full, noble, and significant, and charging all defects upon the ill placing of words, which I prove by quoting Seneca loftily expressing such an ordinary thing as shutting a door.

Here he manifestly mistakes; for I spoke not of the placing, but of the choice of words; for which I quoted that aphorism of Julius Cæsar:

Delectus verborum est origo eloquentiæ:

but delectus verborum is no more Latin for the placing of words, than reserate is Latin for shut the door , as he interprets it, which I ignorantly construed unlock or open it.

He supposes I was highly affected with the sound of those words; and I suppose I may more justly imagine it of him; for if he had not been extreamly satisfied with the sound, he would have minded the sense a little better.

But these are now to be no faults; for ten days after his book is published, and that his mistakes are grown so famous that they are come back to him, he ​ sends his Errata [3] to be printed, and annexed to his play; and desires, that instead of shutting you would read opening ; which, it seems, was the printer's fault. I wonder at his modesty, that he did not rather say it was Seneca's , or mine; and that in some authors, reserare was to shut as well as to open , as the word barach , say the learned, is both to bless and curse .

Well, since it was the printer, he was a naughty man to commit the same mistake twice in six lines: I warrant you delectus verborum for placing of words was his mistake too, though the author forgot to tell him of it: if it were my book, I assure you I should. For those rascals ought to be the proxies of every gentleman author, and to be chastised for him, when he is not pleased to own an errour. Yet since he has given the Errata , I wish he would have inlarged them only a few sheets more, and then he would have spared me the labour of an answer: for this cursed printer is so given to mistakes, that there is scarce a sentence in the Preface without some false grammar or hard sense in it; which will all be charged upon the poet, because he is so good-natured as to lay but three errours to the printer's account, and to take the rest upon himself, who is better able to support them. But he needs not apprehend that I should strictly examine those little faults, except I am called upon to do it: I shall return therefore to that quotation of Seneca, and answer, not to what he writes, but to what he means. I never intended it as an argument, but only as an illustration of what I had said before ​ concerning the election of words: and all he can charge me with is only this,—that if Seneca could make an ordinary thing sound well in Latin by the choice of words, the same, with the like care, might be performed in English: if it cannot, I have committed an errour on the right hand, by commending too much the copiousness and well-sounding of our language; which I hope my countrymen will pardon me. At least the words which follow in my Dramatique Essay will plead somewhat in my behalf; for I say there, that this objection happens but seldom in a play; and then too either the meanness of the expression may be avoided, or shut out from the verse by breaking it in the midst.

But I have said too much in the defence of verse; for after all, it is a very indifferent thing to me, whether it obtain or not. I am content hereafter to be ordered by his rule, that is, to write it sometimes, because it pleases me; and so much the rather, because he has declared that it pleases him. But he has taken his last farewell of the Muses, and he has done it civilly, by honouring them with the name of his long acquaintances ; which is a complement [4] they have scarce deserved from him. For my own part, I bear a share in the publick loss; and how emulous soever I may be of his fame and reputation, I cannot but give this testimony of his style,—that it is extream poetical, even in oratory; his thoughts elevated sometimes above common apprehension; his notions politick and grave, and tending to the instruction of princes, and reformation of states; that ​ they are abundantly interlaced with variety of fancies, tropes, and figures, which the criticks have enviously branded with the name of obscurity and false grammar.

Well, he is now fettered in business of more unpleasant nature : the Muses have lost him, but the commonwealth gains by it; the corruption of a poet is the generation of a statesman. He will not venture again into the civil wars of censure; ubi . . . radios habitura triumphos  n : if he had not told us he had left the Muses, we might have half suspected it by that word, ubi , which does not any way belong to them in that place; the rest of the verse is indeed Lucan's ; but that ubi , I will answer for it, is his own. Yet he has another reason for this disgust of Poesie; for he says immediately after, that the manner of plays which are now in most esteem, is beyond his power to perform : to perform the manner of a thing, I confess is new English to me. However, he condemns not the satisfaction of others; but rather their unnecessary understanding, who, like Sancho Pança's doctor, prescribe too strictly to our appetites; for , says he, in the difference of Tragedy and Comedy, and of Farce itself, there can be no determination but by the taste, nor in the manner of their composure .

We shall see him now as great a critick as he was a poet; and the reason why he excelled so much in poetry will be evident, for it will appear to have proceeded from the exactness of his judgment. In the difference of Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce itself, there can be no determination but by the taste . I will not quarrel with the obscurity of his ​ phrase, though I justly might; but beg his pardon if I do not rightly understand him: if he means, that there is no essential difference betwixt comedy, tragedy, and farce, but what is only made by the people's taste, which distinguishes one of them from the other, that is so manifest an errour, that I need not lose time to contradict it. Were there neither judge, taste, nor opinion in the world, yet they would differ in their natures; for the action, character, and language of tragedy, would still be great and high; that of comedy lower and more familiar; admiration would be the delight of one, and satyr of the other.

I have but briefly touched upon these things, because, whatever his words are, I can scarce imagine, that he who is always concerned for the true honour of reason, and would have no spurious issue fathered upon her , should mean any thing so absurd as to affirm, that there is no difference betwixt comedy and tragedy, but what is made by the taste only : unless he would have us understand the comedies of my Lord L [5] where the first act should be pottages, the second Fricassees, &c. and the fifth a chere entiere of women.

I rather guess he means, that betwixt one comedy or tragedy and another, there is no other difference but what is made by the liking or disliking of the audience. This is indeed a less errour than the former, but yet it is a great one. The liking or disliking of the people gives the play the ​ {h{{we|tion|determination} of good or bad; but does not really make or constitute it such. To please the people ought to be the poet's aim, because plays are made for their delight; but it does not follow that they are always pleased with good plays, or that the plays which please them are always good. The humour of the people is now for comedy; therefore, in hope to please them, I write comedies rather than serious plays; and so far their taste prescribes to me: but it does not follow from that reason, that comedy is to be preferred before tragedy in its own nature; for that which is so in its own nature cannot be otherwise; as a man cannot but be a rational creature: but the opinion of the people may alter, and in another age, or perhaps in this, serious plays may be set up above comedies.

This I think a sufficient answer: if it be not, he has provided me of an excuse; it seems, in his wisdom, he foresaw my weakness, and has found out this expedient for me, That it is not necessary for poets to study strict reason; since they are so used to a greater latitude than is allowed by that severe inquisition, that they must infringe their own jurisdiction, to profess themselves obliged to argue well .

I am obliged to him for discovering to me this back-door; but I am not yet resolved on my retreat: for I am of opinion that they cannot be good poets, who are not accustomed to argue well. False reasonings and colours of speech are the certain marks of one who does not understand the stage; for moral truth is the mistress of the poet, as much as of the philosopher. Poesie must resemble natural ​ truth, but it must be ethical. Indeed the poet dresses truth, and adorns nature, but does not alter them:

Ficta voluptatis causa sint proximo veris  n .

Therefore, that is not the best poesy, which resembles notions of things that are not to things that are: though the fancy may be great, and the words flowing, yet the soul is but half satisfied when there is not truth in the foundation. This is that which makes Virgil be preferred before the rest of Poets: in variety of fancy and sweetness of expression, you see Ovid far above him; for Virgil rejected many of those things which Ovid wrote. A great wit's great work is to refuse , as my worthy friend, Sir John Berkenhead , has ingeniously expressed it: you rarely meet with any thing in Virgil but truth, which therefore leaves the strongest impression of pleasure in the soul. This I thought myself obliged to say in behalf of Poesie; and to declare, though it be against myself, that when poets do not argue well, the defect is in the workman, not in the art.

And now I come to the boldest part of his discourse, wherein he attacques not me, but all the ancients and moderns; and undermines, as he thinks, the very foundations on which Dramatique Poesie is built. I could wish he would have declined that envy which must of necessity follow such an undertaking, and contented himself with triumphing over me in my opinions of verse, which I will never hereafter dispute with him; but he must pardon me, if I have that veneration for Aristotle , Horace , Ben Johnson , and Corneille , that I dare not serve him in such a cause, ​ and against such heroes, but rather fight under their protection, as Homer reports of little Teucer, who shot the Trojans from under the large buckler of Ajax Telamon:

He stood beneath his brother's ample shield, And cover'd there, shot death through all the field,

The words of my noble adversary are these:

But if we examine the general rules laid down for plays by strict reason, we shall find the err ours equally gross; for the great foundation which is laid to build upon, is nothing, as it is generally slated, as will appear upon the examination of the particulars.

These particulars, in due time, shall be examined: in the mean while, let us consider what this great foundation is, which he says is nothing, as it is generally stated. I never heard of any other foundation of Dramatique Poesie than the imitation of nature; neither was there ever pretended any other by the ancients, or moderns, or me, who endeavour to follow them in that rule. This I have plainly said in my definition of a play; that it is a just and lively image of human nature, &c. Thus the foundation, as it is generally stated, will stand sure, if this definition of a play be true; if it be not, he ought to have made his exception against it, by proving that a play is not an imitation of nature, but somewhat else which he is pleased to think it.

But it is very plain, that he has mistaken the foundation for that which is built upon it, though ​ not immediately: for the direct and immediate consequence is this; if nature be to be imitated, then there is a rule for imitating nature rightly; otherwise there may be an end, and no means conducing to it. Hitherto I have proceeded by demonstration; but as our divines, when they have proved a Deity, because there is order, and have inferred that this Deity ought to be worshipped, differ afterwards in the manner of the worship; so, having laid down that nature is to be imitated, and that proposition proving the next, that then there are means which conduce to the imitating of nature, I dare proceed no farther positively; but have only laid down some opinions of the ancients and moderns, and of my own, as means which they used, and which I thought probable for the attaining of that end. Those means are the same which my antagonist calls the foundations,—how properly, the world may judge; and to prove that this is his meaning, he clears it immediately to you, by enumerating those rules or propositions against which he makes his particular exceptions,—as namely, those of time, and place,—in these words: First, we are told the plot should not be so ridiculously contrived, as to crowd two several countries into one stage; secondly, to cramp the accidents of many years or days into the representation of two hours and an half; and lastly, a conclusion drawn, that the only remaining dispute is, concerning time, whether it should be contained in twelve or twenty-four hours; and the place to be limited to that spot of ground where the play is supposed to begin: and this is called nearest nature; for that is concluded most ​ natural, which is most probable, and nearest to that which it presents .

Thus he has only made a small mistake of the means conducing to the end, for the end itself; and of the superstructure for the foundation: but he proceeds: To shew, therefore, upon what ill grounds they dictate laws for Dramatique Poesie , &c. He is here pleased to charge me with being magisterial, as he has done in many other places of his Preface. Therefore in vindication of myself, I must crave leave to say, that my whole discourse was sceptical, according to that way of reasoning which was used by Socrates , Plato , and all the Academicques of old, which Tully and the best of the ancients followed, and which is imitated by the modest inquisitions of the Royal Society. That it is so, not only the name will shew, which is, An Essay , but the frame and composition of the work. You see, it is a dialogue sustained by persons of several opinions, all of them left doubtful, to be determined by the readers in general; and more particularly defer'd to the accurate judgment of my lord Buckhurst , to whom I made a dedication of my book. These are my words in my Epistle, speaking of the persons whom I introduced in my dialogue: It is true, they differed in their opinions, as it is probable they would; neither do I take upon me to reconcile, but to relate them, leaving your lordship to decide it in favour of that part which you shall judge most reasonable. And after that, in my Advertisement to the Reader, I said this: The drift of the ensuing discourse is chiefly to vindicate the honour of our English writers from the censure of ​ those who unjustly prefer the French before them. This I intimate, lest any should think me so exceeding vain, as to teach others an art which they understand much better than myself  n . But this is more than necessary to clear my modesty in that point; and I am very confident that there is scarce any man who has lost so much time as to read that trifle, but will be my compurgator as to that arrogance whereof I am accused. The truth is, if I had been naturally guilty of so much vanity as to dictate my opinions, yet I do not find that the character of a positive or self-conceited person [6] is of such advantage to any in this age, that I should labour to be publickly admitted of that order.

But I am not now to defend my own cause, when that of all the ancients and moderns is in question: for this gentleman, who accuses me of arrogance, has taken a course not to be taxed with the other extream of modesty. Those propositions which are laid down in my discourse, as helps to the better imitation of nature, are not mine, (as I have said,) nor were ever pretended so to be, but derived from the authority of Aristotle and Horace , and from the rules and examples of Ben Johnson and Corneille . These are the men with whom properly he contends, and against ​ whom he will endeavour to make it evident, that there is no such thing as what they all pretend .

His argument against the unities of place and time, is this: That it is as impossible for one stage to present two rooms or houses truly, as two countries or kingdoms; and as impossible that five hours or twenty-four hours should be two hours, as that a thousand hours or years should be less than what they are, or the greatest part of time to be comprehended in the less: for all of them being impossible, they are none of them nearest the truth or nature of what they present; for impossibilities are all equal, and admit of no degree .

This argument is so scattered into parts, that it can scarce be united into a syllogism; yet, in obedience to him, I will abbreviate and comprehend as much of it as I can in few words, that my answer to it may be more perspicuous. I conceive his meaning to be what follows, as to the unity of place: (if I mistake, I beg his pardon, professing it is not out of any design to play the Argumentative Poet ) If one stage cannot properly present two rooms or houses, much less two countries or kingdoms, then there can be no unity of place; but one stage cannot properly perform this: therefore there can be no unity of place.

I plainly deny his minor proposition; the force of which, if I mistake not, depends on this; that the stage being one place cannot be two. This, indeed, is as great a secret, as that we are all mortal [7] ; but ​ to requite it with another, I must crave leave to tell him, that though the stage cannot be two places, yet it may properly represent them, successively, or at several times. His argument is indeed no more than a mere fallacy, which will evidently appear, when we distinguish place, as it relates to plays, into real and imaginary. The real place is that theatre, or piece of ground, on which the play is acted. The imaginary, that house, town, or country, where the action of the Drama is supposed to be; or more plainly, where the scene of the play is laid. Let us now apply this to that Herculean argument, which, if strictly and duly weighed, is to make it evident, that there is no such thing as what they all pretend . It is impossible, he says, for one stage to present two rooms or houses: I answer, it is neither impossible, nor improper, for one real place to represent two or more imaginary places, so it be done successively; which in other words is no more than this; That the imagination of the audience, aided by the words of the poet, and painted scenes, may suppose the stage to be sometimes one place, sometimes another; now a garden, or wood, and immediately a camp: which, I appeal to every man's imagination, if it be not true. Neither the ancients nor moderns, as much fools as he is pleased to think them, ever asserted that they could make one place two; but they might hope, by the good leave of this author, that the change of a scene might lead the imagination to suppose the place altered: So that he cannot fasten those absurdities upon this scene of a play, or imaginary place of action, that it is one place, and yet two. And this ​ being so clearly proved, that it is past any shew of a reasonable denial, it will not be hard to destroy that other part of his argument which depends upon it; namely, that it is as impossible for a stage to represent two rooms or houses, as two countries or kingdoms; for his reason is already overthrown, which was, because both were alike impossible. This is manifestly otherwise; for it is proved that a stage may properly represent two rooms or houses; for the imagination being judge df what is represented, will in reason be less chocqu'd [8] with the appearance of two rooms in the same house, or two houses in the same city, than with two distant cities in the same country, or two remote countries in the same universe. Imagination in a man or reasonable creature is supposed to participate of reason; and when that governs, as it does in the belief of fiction, reason is not destroyed, but misled, or blinded: that can prescribe to the reason, during the time of the representation, somewhat like a weak belief of what it sees and hears; and reason suffers itself to be so hood-winked, that it may better enjoy the pleasures of the fiction: but it is never so wholly made a captive, as to be drawn headlong into a perswasion of those things which are most remote from probability: 'tis in that case a free-born subject, not a slave; it will contribute willingly its assent, as far as it sees convenient, but will not be forced. Now there is a greater vicinity in nature betwixt two rooms than betwixt two houses, betwixt two houses than betwixt ​ two cities, and so of the rest; Reason therefore can sooner be led by Imagination to step from one room into another, than to walk to two distant houses, and yet rather to go thither, than to flye like a witch through the air, and be hurried from one region to another. Fancy and Reason go hand in hand; the first cannot leave the last behind; and though Fancy, when it sees the wide gulph, would venture over as the nimbler, yet it is withheld by Reason, which will refuse to take the leap, when the distance over it appears too large. If Ben Johnson himself will remove the scene from Rome into Tuscany in the same act, and from thence return to Rome, in the scene which immediately follows, Reason will consider there is no proportionable allowance of time to perform the journey, and therefore will chuse to stay at home. So then, the less change of place there is, the less time is taken up in transporting the persons of the drama, with analogy to reason; and in that analogy, or resemblance of fiction to truth, consists the excellency of the play.

For what else concerns the unity of place, I have already given my opinion of it in my Essay ;—that there is a latitude to be allowed to it,—as several places in the same town or city, or places adjacent to each other in the same country, which may all be comprehended under the larger denomination of one place; yet with this restriction, that the nearer and fewer those imaginary places are, the greater resemblance they will have to truth; and reason, which cannot make them one, will be more easily led to suppose them so.

​ What has been said of the unity of place, may easily be applied to that of time: I grant it to be impossible, that the greater part of time should be comprehended in the less, that twenty-four hours should be crowded into three: but there is no necessity of that supposition. For as Place , so Time relating to a play, is either imaginary or real: the real is comprehended in those three hours, more or less, in the space of which the play is represented; the imaginary is that which is Supposed to be taken up in the representation, as twenty-four hours more or less. Now no man ever could suppose that twenty-four real hours could be included in the space of three: but where is the absurdity of affirming that the feigned business of twenty- four imagined hours may not more naturally be represented in the compass of three real hours, than the like feigned business of twenty-four years in the same proportion of real time? For the proportions are always real, and much nearer, by his permission, of twenty-four to three, than of four thousand to it.

I am almost fearful of illustrating any thing by similitude, lest he should confute it for an argument; yet I think the comparison of a glass will discover very aptly the fallacy of his argument, both concerning time and place. The strength of his reason depends on this, That the less cannot comprehend the greater. I have already answered, that we need not suppose it does: I say not that the less can comprehend the greater, but only that it may represent it: as in a glass or Mirrour of half ​ a yard diameter, a whole room and many persons in it may be seen at once; not that it can comprehend that room or those persons, but that it represents them to the sight.

But the author of The Duke of Lerma is to be excused for his declaring against the unity of time; for, if I be not much mistaken, he is an interested person; the time of that play taking up so many years as the favour of the Duke of Lerma continued; nay, the second and third act including all the time of his prosperity, which was a great part of the reign of Philip the Third: for in the beginning of the second act he was not yet a favourite, and before the end of the third was in disgrace. I say not this with the least design of limiting the stage too servilely to twenty-four hours, however he be pleased to tax me with dogmatizing in that point. In my dialogue, as I before hinted, several persons maintained their several opinions: one of them, indeed, who supported the cause of the French poesie, said, how strict they were in that particular; but he who answered in behalf of our nation, was willing to give more latitude to the rule; and cites the words of Corneille himself, complaining against the severity of it, and observing what beauties it banished from the Stage [9] . In few words, my own opinion is this, (and I willingly submit it to my adversary, when he will please impartially to consider it,) that the imaginary time of every play ought to be contrived into as narrow a compass as the nature of the plot, the quality of the persons, and variety of accidents will ​ allow. In comedy I would not exceed twenty-four or thirty hours: for the plot, accidents, and persons of comedy are small, and may be naturally turned in a little compass: But in tragedy the design is weighty, and the persons great; therefore there will naturally be required a greater space of time in which to move them. And this though Ben Johnson has not told us, yet it is manifestly his opinion: for you see that to his comedies he allows generally but twenty-four hours; to his two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline , a much larger time: though he-draws both of them into as narrow a compass as he can: For he shews you only the latter end of Sejanus his favour, and the conspiracy of Catiline already ripe, and just breaking out into action.

But as it is an errour on the one side, to make too great a disproportion betwixt the imaginary time of the play, and the real time of its representation; so on the other side, it is an over-sight to compress the accidents of a play into a narrower compass than that in which they could naturally be produced. Of this last errour the French are seldom guilty, because the thinness of their plots prevents them from it; but few Englishmen, except Ben Johnson, have ever made a plot with variety of design in it, included in twenty- four hours, which was altogether natural. For this reason, I prefer The Silent Woman before all other plays, I think justly; as I do its author, in judgment, above all other poets. Yet of the two, I think that errour the most pardonable, which in too straight a compass crowds together many accidents; since it produces more variety, and consequently more ​ pleasure to the audience; and because the nearness of proportion betwixt the imaginary and real time, does speciously cover the compression of the accidents.

Thus I have endeavoured to answer the meaning of his argument; for as he drew it, I humbly conceive that it was none; as will appear by his proposition, and the proof of it. His proposition was this.

If strictly and duly weighed, it is as impossible for one stage to present two rooms or houses, as two countries or kingdoms , &c. And his proof this: For all being impossible, they are none of them nearest the truth or nature of what they present .

Here you see, instead of proof or reason, there is only petitio principii : for in plain words, his sense is this; Two things are as impossible as one another, because they are both equally impossible: but he takes those two things to be granted as impossible which he ought to have proved such, before he had proceeded to prove them equally impossible: he should have made out first, that it was impossible for one stage to represent two houses, and then have gone forward to prove that it was as equally impossible for a stage to present two houses, as two countries.

After all this, the very absurdity to which he would reduce me is none at all: for he only drives at this, That if his argument be true, I must then acknowledge that there are degrees in impossibilities, which I easily grant him without dispute: and if I mistake not, Aristotle and the School are of my opinion. For there are some things which are absolutely impossible, and others which are only so ex parte ; as it is absolutely impossible for a thing to be , and not be , at ​ the same time; but for a stone to move naturally upward, is only impossible ex parte materiæ ; but it is not impossible for the first mover to alter the nature of it.

His last assault, like that of a Frenchman, is most feeble: for whereas I have observed, that none have been violent against verse, but such only as have not attempted it, or have succeeded ill in their attempt, he will needs, according to his usual custom, improve my observation to an argument, that he might have the glory to confute it. But I lay my observation at his feet, as I do my pen, which I have often employed willingly in his deserved commendations, and now most unwillingly against his judgment. For his person and parts, I honour them as much as any man living, and have had so many particular obligations to him, that I should be very ungrateful, if I did not acknowledge them to the world. But I gave not the first occasion of this difference in opinions. In my Epistle Dedicatory before my Rival Ladies , I had said somewhat in behalf of verse, which he was pleased to answer in his Preface to his plays: that occasioned my reply in my Essay; and that reply begot this rejoynder of his in his Preface to The Duke of Lerma . But as I was the last who took up arms, I will be the first to lay them down. For what I have here written, I submit it wholly to him; and if I do not hereafter answer what may be objected against this paper, I hope the world will not impute it to any other reason, than only the due respect which I have for so noble an opponent.

• ↑ The text of the 'Defence' is reprinted from the original edition of 1668 (the only one published in Dryden's life-time), a copy of which is in the British Museum; it is prefixed as a sort of Introduction to the second edition of Dryden's Indian Emperor .
• ↑ Our author married, probably about the year 1664, Lady Elizabeth Howard, sister of Sir Robert Howard knt., and daughter of Thomas, the first Earl of Berkshire [ancestor of the present Earl of Suffolk]. In 1660 he had addressed some complimentary verses to Sir Robert, which were prefixed to his poems, published in 8vo. in that year. In 1666 they appear to have been on good terms; Dryden having then addressed to him an encomiastick Epistle in prose, which is dated from Charleton, in Wiltshire (the seat of the Earl of Berkshire), and was prefixed to his Annus Mirabilis , published in 8vo. in 1667, by Sir Robert Howard, who revised the sheets at the press for the author, who was then in the country; and in the Epistle he describes him as one whom he knew not to be of the number of those, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant . In the Essay on Dramatick Poesy , as we have already seen, he speaks of Sir Robert Howard with great respect. That gentleman, ever, having in 1668 published [in the preface to his tragedy, The Duke of Lerma ] reflections on the Essay, our author retorted in the following observations, which are found prefixed to the second edition of The Indian Emperor , published in the same year. In many copies, however, of that edition, they are wanting; nor were they reprinted in any other edition of that play which appeared in the life-time of the author: so that it should seem he was induced by good nature, or the interposition of friends, to suppress this witty and severe replication. One of the lampoons of the time gives a more invidious turn to this suppression, and insinuates that he was compelled to retract. They lived afterwards probably in good correspondence together; at least, it appears from an original letter of our author now before me, that towards the close of his life they were on friendly terms. ( Malone .)
• ↑ This erratum has been suffered to remain in the edition of the knight's plays now before us, published in 1692. (Scott.)
• ↑ I suppose lord Lauderdale. He was not created a duke till 1672. ( Malone .)
• ↑ Sir Robert Howard's own character. He is supposed to have been ridiculed under the character of Sir Positive Atall , in Shadwell's Sullen Lovers , represented and published in the same year in which this piece was written. ( Malone .) Sir Positive is, adds Scott, 'a foolish knight that pretends to understand everything in the world, and will suffer no man to understand anything in his company; so foolishly positive that he will never be convinced of an error, though ever so gross.'
• ↑ There is here, I believe, a covert allusion to the character in Shadwell's play already mentioned, who in the first scene, addressing Sandford, says, '— betwixt you and I, let me tell you, we are all mortal ;' in which wise remark the author probably had in view Sir Robert Howard's poem ' Against the Fear of Death .' ( Malone .)
• ↑ Malone and Scott read 'choked.'
• ↑ See p. 52.

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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Dryden: An Essay of Dramatic Poesy Hardcover – January 1, 2006

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• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8171563236
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8171563234
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces

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An essay of dramatic poesy. Edited with notes by Thomas Arnold

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