An English Garner | Page 6

the extent of the assistance which Dryden had given,
which accounts for what follows. In any case Howard published in
1665, professedly under pressure from Herringman, four plays, two
comedies, The Surprisal and The Committee, and two tragedies, the
Vestal Virgin and _Indian Queen_; and to the volume he prefixed the
preface, which is here reprinted. It will be seen that though he makes no
reference to Dryden, he combats all the doctrines laid down in the
preface to the Rival Ladies. He exalts the English drama above the
French, the Italian, and the Spanish; and vindicates blank verse against
rhymed, making, however, a flattering exception of Orrery's dramas. If
Dryden was not pleased, he appears to have had the grace to conceal
his displeasure. For he passed the greater part of 1666 at his
father-in-law's house, and dedicated to Howard his Annus Mirabilis.
But Howard was to have his answer. In the Essay of Dramatic Poesy he
is introduced in the person of Crites, and in his mouth are placed all the
arguments advanced in the Preface that they may be duly refuted and
demolished by Dryden in the person of Neander. At this mode of
retorting Howard became really angry; and in the Preface to the Duke
of Lerma, published in the middle of 1668, he replied in a tone so
contemptuous and insolent that Dryden, in turn, completely lost his
temper. The sting of Howard's Preface lies, it will be seen, in his
affecting the air of a person to whom as a statesman and public man the

points in dispute are mere trifles, hardly worth consideration, and in the
patronising condescension with which he descends to a discussion with
one to whom as a mere litterateur such trifles are of importance. The
Defence of the Essay of Dramatic Poesy Dryden prefixed to the second
edition of the Indian Emperor, one of the best of his heroic plays. The
seriously critical portion of this admirable little treatise deals with
Howard's attacks on the employment of rhyme in tragedy, on the
observance of strict rules in dramatic composition, and on the
observance of the unities. But irritated by the tone of Howard's tract,
Dryden does not confine himself to answering his friend's arguments.
He ridicules, what Shadwell had ridiculed before, Howard's
coxcombical affectation of universal knowledge, makes sarcastic
reference to an absurdity of which his opponent had been guilty in the
House of Commons, mercilessly exposes his ignorance of Latin, and
the uncouthness and obscurity of his English. The brothers-in-law
afterwards became reconciled, and in token of that reconciliation
Dryden cancelled this tract.
The Essay of Dramatic Poesy was written at Charleton Park in the
latter part of 1665, and published by Herringman in 1668. It was
afterwards carefully revised, and republished with a dedication to Lord
Buckhurst in 1684. Dryden spent more pains than was usual with him
on the composition of this essay, though he speaks modestly of it as
'rude and indigested,' and it is indeed the most elaborate of his critical
disquisitions. It was, he said, written 'chiefly to vindicate the honour of
our English writers from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the
French before them.' Its more immediate and particular object was to
regulate dramatic composition by reducing it to critical principles, and
these principles he discerned in a judicious compromise between the
licence of romantic drama as represented by Shakespeare and his
School, and the austere restraints imposed by the canons of the classical
drama. Assuming that a drama should be '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,' it is shown that this end can only be attained in a drama
founded on such a compromise; that the ancient and modern classical
drama fails in nature; that the Shakespearian drama fails in art. At the
conclusion of the essay he vindicates the employment of rhyme, a

contention which he afterwards abandoned. The dramatic setting of the
essay was no doubt suggested by the Platonic Dialogues, or by Cicero,
and the essay itself may have been suggested by Flecknoe's short
Discourse of the English Stage, published in 1664.
The Essay of Dramatic Poesy may be said to make an era in the history
of English criticism, and to mark an era in the history of English prose
composition. It was incomparably the best purely critical treatise which
had hitherto appeared in our language, both synthetically in its
definition and application of principles, and particularly in its lucid,
exact, and purely discriminating analysis. It was also the most striking
and successful illustration of what may be called the new prose style, or
that style which, initiated by Hobbes and developed by