The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I | Page 4

dress up a ragout of that putrid perfection which his king relished. And he set himself with his whole might so to do, and for thirty years and more continued his degradation of genius--a degradation unexampled, whether we consider the powers of the writer, the coarseness, quantity, and elaboration of the pollutions he perpetrated, or the length of time in which he was employed, in thus "profaning the God-given strength and marring the lofty line."
His other biographers--Dr Johnson, alone, with brevity and seeming reluctance--have enumerated and characterised all Dryden's plays. We have decided only to speak of them very generally, and that for the following reasons:--1st, We are reprinting none of them; 2dly, From what we have read of them, we are certain that, even as works of art, they are utterly unworthy of their author, and that in morals they are, as a whole, a disgrace to human nature. We are not the least lenient or indulgent of critics. We have every wish to pity the errors, and to bear with the frequent escapades and aberrations of genius. But when we see, as in Dryden's case, what we are forced to consider either a deliberate and systematic attempt to poison the sources of virtue, or, at least, an elaborate and incessant habit of conformity to the bad tastes of a bad age, we can think of no plea fully available for his defence. Vain to say, "he wrote for bread." He did not--he wrote only for the luxuries, not the staff of life. Vain to say, "he consulted the taste of his audience, and suited their atmosphere." But why did he select that atmosphere as his? And why so much gratuitous and superfluous iniquity in his works? "But he wrote to gratify his monarch." This would form a good enough excuse for a Sporus, "a white curd of ass' milk," but not for a strong man like Dryden. But he was "no worse than others of his age." Pitiful apology! since, being the ablest man of his day, and therefore bound to be before it, he was in reality behind it, his plays excelling all contemporary productions in wickedness as well as in wit. But his own "conduct was latterly irreproachable." This we doubt, and Scott doubts so too. But even though it were true, it were damaging, because it would deprive him of the plea of passion, and reduce him from the warm human painter to the cold demon-like sculptor of unclean and abominable ideas. It never can be forgotten, that whenever Dryden translated a filthy play, he made it filthier than in the original, and that he has once and again scattered his satyr-like fancies in spots such as the Paradise of Milton, and the Enchanted Isle of Shakspeare, which every imagination and every heart previously had regarded as holy ground. The only extenuating circumstance we can mention is, that his pruriency was latterly in part relinquished and much deplored by himself, and that his poetry is, on the whole, free from it. In our critical paper, prefixed to the Second Volume, we intend to examine the question, how far an author's faults are, or are not, to be charged upon his age.
His next poem was "Annus Mirabilis," published in 1667, and counted justly one of his most vigorous, though also one of the faultiest of his poems. It includes glowing, although somewhat quaint and fantastic, descriptions of the Dutch War and the Great Fire in London. In 1668, by the death of Sir William Davenant, the post of Poet-Laureate became vacant, and Dryden was appointed to it. He was also appointed historiographer-royal. The salary of these two offices amounted to ￡200 a year, besides the famous annual butt of canary, while his profits from the theatre were equivalent to ￡300. His whole income was thus, at the very least, equal to a thousand pounds of our money--a great sum for a poet in that or in any age. He published, the same year, an Essay on "Dramatic Poetry," vindicating his own practice of rhymed heroic verse in plays;--a stupid French innovation, which all the ingenuity of a Dryden defended in vain. It was cast into the shape of a dialogue,--the Duke of Dorset being one of the respondents,--and formed the first specimen of Dryden's easy, rambling, but most vivid, vigorous, and entertaining prose. No one was ever more ready than he to render reasons for his writings,--for their faults as well as merits,--and to show by more ingenious arguments, that, if they failed, they ought to have succeeded.
At this time we may consider Dryden's prosperity, although not his powers, to have culminated. He had a handsome income, a run of unparalleled popularity as a playwright; he was Poet-Laureate, a favourite at court, and on terms of