Discourses on Satire Epic Poetry | Page 4

for discussion of first principles,
whether in disagreement or agreement with the text. Dryden was on his
own ground as a critic of satire; and the ideal of an epic that the times,
and perhaps also the different bent of his own genius, would not allow
him to work out, at least finds such expression as might be expected
from a man who had high aspirations, and whose place, in times
unfavourable to his highest aims, was still among the master-poets of
the world.
The Discourse on Satire was prefixed to a translation of the satires of
Juvenal and Persius, and is dated the 18th of August, 1692, when the
poet's age was sixty-one. In translating Juvenal, Dryden was helped by
his sons Charles and John. William Congreve translated one satire;
other translations were by Nahum Tate and George Stepney. Time
modern reader of the introductory discourse has first to pass through
the unmeasured compliments to the Earl of Dorset, which represent a
real esteem and gratitude in the extravagant terms then proper to the art
of dedication. We get to the free sea over a slimy shore. We must
remember that Charles the Second upon his death was praised by
Charles Montague, who knew his faults, as "the best good man that
ever filled a throne," and compared to God Himself at the end of the
first paragraph of Montague's poem. But when we are clear of the
conventional unmeasured flatteries, and Dryden lingers among epic

poets on his way to the satirists, there is equal interest in the mistaken
criticisms, in the aspirations that are blended with them, and in the
occasional touches of the poet's personality in quiet references to his
critics. The comparisons between Horace and Juvenal in this discourse,
and much of the criticism on Virgil in the discourse on epic poetry, are
the utterances of a poet upon poets, and full of right suggestions from
an artist's mind. The second discourse was prefixed in 1697--three
years before Dryden's death--to his translation of the AEneid.
H. M.
A DISCOURSE ON THE ORIGINAL AND PROGRESS OF
SATIRE:
ADDRESSED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

CHARLES, EARL OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX,
LORD
CHAMBERLAIN OF HIS MAJESTY'S HOUSEHOLD, KNIGHT
OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, ETC.
My Lord,
The wishes and desires of all good men, which have attended your
lordship from your first appearance in the world, are at length
accomplished, from your obtaining those honours and dignities which
you have so long deserved. There are no factions, though

irreconcilable to one another, that are not united in their affection to
you, and the respect they pay you. They are equally pleased in your
prosperity, and would be equally concerned in your afflictions. Titus
Vespasian was not more the delight of human kind. The universal
empire made him only more known and more powerful, but could not
make him more beloved. He had greater ability of doing good, but your
inclination to it is not less: and though you could not extend your
beneficence to so many persons, yet you have lost as few days as that
excellent emperor; and never had his complaint to make when you went
to bed, that the sun had shone upon you in vain, when you had the
opportunity of relieving some unhappy man. This, my lord, has justly
acquired you as many friends as there are persons who have the honour
to be known to you. Mere acquaintance you have none; you have drawn
them all into a nearer line; and they who have conversed with you are

for ever after inviolably yours. This is a truth so generally
acknowledged that it needs no proof: it is of the nature of a first
principle, which is received as soon as it is proposed; and needs not the
reformation which Descartes used to his; for we doubt not, neither can
we properly say, we think we admire and love you above all other men:
there is a certainty in the proposition, and we know it. With the same
assurance I can say, you neither have enemies, nor can scarce have any;
for they who have never heard of you can neither love or hate you; and
they who have, can have no other notion of you than that which they
receive from the public, that you are the best of men. After this, my
testimony can be of no farther use, than to declare it to be daylight at
high noon: and all who have the benefit of sight can look up as well
and see the sun.
It is true, I have one privilege which is almost particular to myself, that
I saw you in the east at your first arising above the hemisphere: I was as
soon sensible as any man of that light when