The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author | Page 8

a
tomb-stone. In a word, not only harmony of numbers, but numbers
themselves, were altogether neglected; or if an author so far respected

ancient practice as to make lines which could be scanned like verse, he
had done his part, and was perfectly indifferent, although they sounded
like prose.[12] But as melody will be always acceptable to the ear,
some poets chose this neglected road to fame, and gained a portion of
public favour, by attending to the laws of harmony, which their rivals
had discarded. Waller and Denham were the first who thus
distinguished themselves; but, as Johnson happily remarks, what was
acquired by Denham, was inherited by Waller. Something there was in
the situation of both these authors, which led them to depart from what
was then the beaten path of composition. They were men of rank,
wealth, and fashion, and had experienced all the interruptions to deep
study, with which such elevated station is naturally attended. It was in
vain for Waller, a wit, a courtier, and a politician; or for Denham, who
was only distinguished at the university as a dreaming, dissipated
gambler, to attempt to rival the metaphysical subtleties of Donne and
Cowley, who had spent serious and sequestered lives in acquiring the
knowledge and learning which they squandered in their poetry.
Necessity, therefore and perhaps a dawning of more simple taste,
impelled these courtly poets to seek another and more natural mode of
pleasing. The melody of verse was a province unoccupied, and Waller,
forming his rhythm upon the modulation of Fairfax, and other poets of
the maiden reign, exhibited in his very first poem[13] striking marks of
attention to the suavity of numbers. Denham, in his dedication to
Charles II., informs us, that the indulgence of his poetical vein had
drawn the notice, although accompanied with the gentle censure, of
Charles I., when, in 1647, he obtained access to his person by the
intercession of Hugh Peters. Suckling, whom Dryden has termed "a
sprightly wit, and a courtly writer," may be added to the list of smooth
and easy poets of the period, and had the same motives as Denham and
Waller for attaching himself to that style of composition. He was
allowed to have the peculiar art of making whatever he did become him;
and it cannot be doubted, that his light and airy style of ballads and
sonnets had many admirers. Upon the whole, this class of poets,
although they hardly divided the popular favour with the others, were
also noticed and applauded. Thus the poets of the earlier part of the
seventeenth century may be divided into one class, who sacrificed both
sense and sound to the exercise of extravagant, though ingenious,

associations of imagery; and a second, who, aiming to distinguish
themselves by melody of versification, were satisfied with light and
trivial subjects, and too often contented with attaining smoothness of
measure, neglected the more essential qualities of poetry. The
intervention of the civil wars greatly interrupted the study of poetry.
The national attention was called to other objects, and those who, in the
former peaceful reigns, would have perhaps distinguished themselves
as poets and dramatists, were now struggling for fame in the field, or
declaiming for power in the senate. The manners of the prevailing party,
their fanatical detestation of everything like elegant or literary
amusement, their affected horror at stage representations, which at once
silenced the theatres, and their contempt for profane learning, which
degraded the universities, all operated, during the civil wars and
succeeding usurpation, to check the pursuits of the poet, by
withdrawing that public approbation, which is the best, and often the
sole, reward of his labour. There was, at this time, a sort of interregnum
in the public taste, as well as in its government. The same poets were
no doubt alive who had distinguished themselves at the court of
Charles: but Cowley and Denham were exiled with their sovereign;
Waller was awed into silence, by the rigour of the puritanic spirit; and
even the muse of Milton was scared from him by the clamour of
religious and political controversy, and only returned, like a sincere
friend, to cheer the adversity of one who had neglected her during his
career of worldly importance.[14]
During this period, the most unfavourable to literature which had
occurred for at least two centuries, Dryden, the subject of this memoir,
was gradually and silently imbibing those stores of learning, and
cultivating that fancy which was to do so much to further the
reformation of taste and poetry. It is now time to state his descent and
parentage.
The name of Dryden is local, and probably originated in the north of
England, where, as well as in the neighbouring counties of Scotland, it
frequently occurs, though it is not now borne