The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author | Page 6

idea, for real humour, and even for the
effusions of the stronger passions It seems likely that this fashion arose
at court, a sphere in which its denizens never think they move with due
lustre, until they have adopted a form of expression, as well as a system
of manners, different from that which is proper to mankind at large. In
Elizabeth's reign, the court language was formed on the plan of one

Lillie, a pedantic courtier, who wrote a book, entitled "Euphues and his
England, or the Anatomy of Wit;"[3] which quality he makes to consist
in the indulgence of every monstrous and overstrained conceit, that can
be engendered by a strong memory and a heated brain, applied to the
absurd purpose of hatching unnatural conceits.[4] It appears, that this
fantastical person had a considerable share in determining the false
taste of his age, which soon became so general, that the tares which
sprung from it are to be found even among the choicest of the wheat.
Shakespeare himself affords us too many instances of this fashionable
heresy in wit; and he, who could create new worlds out of his own
imagination descended to low, and often ill-timed puns and quibbles.
This was not an evil to be cured by the accession of our Scottish James,
whose qualifications as a punster were at least equal to his boasted
king-craft.[5] The false taste, which had been gaining ground even in
the reign of Elizabeth, now overflowed the whole kingdom with the
impetuosity of a land-flood. These outrages upon language were
committed without regard to time and place. They were held good
arguments at the bar, though Bacon sat on the woolsack; and eloquence
irresistible by the most hardened sinner, when King or Corbet were in
the pulpit.[6] Where grave and learned professions set the example, the
poets, it will readily be believed, ran headlong into an error, for which
they could plead such respectable example. The affectation "of the
word" and "of the letter," for alliteration was almost as fashionable as
punning, seemed, in some degree, to bring back English composition to
the barbarous rules of the ancient Anglo-Saxons, the merit of whose
poems consisted, not in the ideas, but in the quaint arrangement of the
words, and the regular recurrence of some favourite sound or letter.
This peculiar taste for twisting and playing upon words, instead of
applying them to their natural and proper use, was combined with the
similar extravagance of those whom Dr. Johnson has entitled
Metaphysical Poets. This class of authors used the same violence
towards images and ideas which had formerly been applied to words; in
truth, the two styles were often combined and, even when separate, had
a kindred alliance with each other. It is the business of the punster to
discover and yoke together two words, which, while they have some
resemblance in sound, the more exact the better, convey a totally

different signification. The metaphysical poet, on the other hand,
piqued himself in discovering hidden resemblances between ideas
apparently the most dissimilar, and in combining by some violent and
compelled association, illustrations and allusions utterly foreign from
each other. Thus did the metaphysical poet resemble the quibbler
exercising precisely the same tyranny over ideas, which the latter
practised upon sounds only.
Jonson gave an early example of metaphysical poetry; indeed, it was
the natural resource of a mind amply stored with learning, gifted with a
tenacious memory and the power of constant labour, but to which was
denied that vivid perception of what is naturally beautiful, and that
happiness of expression, which at once conveys to the reader the idea
of the poet These latter qualities unite in many passages of Shakespeare,
of which the reader at once acknowledges the beauty, the justice, and
the simplicity. But such Jonson was unequal to produce; and he
substituted the strange, forced, and most unnatural though ingenious
analogies, which were afterwards copied by Donne and Cowley.[7] In
reading Shakespeare, we often meet passages so congenial to our nature
and feelings, that, beautiful as they are, we can hardly help wondering
they did not occur to ourselves; in studying Jonson, we have often to
marvel how his conceptions could have occurred to any human being.
The one is like an ancient statue, the beauty of which, springing from
the exactness of proportion does not always strike at first sight, but
rises upon us as we bestow time in considering it; the other is the
representation of a monster, which is at first only surprising, and
ludicrous or disgusting ever after. When the taste for simplicity
however, is once destroyed, it is long ere a nation recovers it; and the
metaphysical poets seem to have retained possession of the public
favour from the reign of James I. till the