The Works of John Dryden, Volume 4 | Page 7

that images and actions may be raised above the
life, and described in measure without rhyme, that leads you insensibly
from your own principles to mine: you are already so far onward of
your way, that you have forsaken the imitation of ordinary converse.
You are gone beyond it; and to continue where you are, is to lodge in
the open fields, betwixt two inns. You have lost that which you call
natural, and have not acquired the last perfection of art. But it was only
custom which cozened us so long; we thought, because Shakespeare
and Fletcher went no farther, that there the pillars of poetry were to be
erected; that, because they excellently described passion without rhime,
therefore rhime was not capable of describing it. But time has now
convinced most men of that error. It is indeed so difficult to write verse,
that the adversaries of it have a good plea against many, who undertook
that task, without being formed by art or nature for it. Yet, even they
who have written worst in it, would have written worse without it:
They have cozened many with their sound, who never took the pains to
examine their sense. In fine, they have succeeded; though, it is true,
they have more dishonoured rhime by their good success, than they
have done by their ill. But I am willing to let fall this argument: It is
free for every man to write, or not to write, in verse, as he judges it to
be, or not to be, his talent; or as he imagines the audience will receive
it.
For heroic plays, in which only I have used it without the mixture of
prose, the first light we had of them, on the English theatre, was from
the late Sir William D'Avenant. It being forbidden him in the rebellious
times to act tragedies and comedies, because they contained some
matter of scandal to those good people, who could more easily
dispossess their lawful sovereign, than endure a wanton jest, he was
forced to turn his thoughts another way, and to introduce the examples
of moral virtue, writ in verse, and performed in recitative music. The
original of this music, and of the scenes which adorned his work, he
had from the Italian operas; but he heightened his characters, as I may
probably imagine, from the example of Corneille and some French
poets. In this condition did this part of poetry remain at his majesty's
return; when, growing bolder, as being now owned by a public
authority, he reviewed his "Siege of Rhodes," and caused it be acted as

a just drama. But as few men have the happiness to begin and finish
any new project, so neither did he live to make his design perfect:
There wanted the fulness of a plot, and the variety of characters to form
it as it ought; and, perhaps, something might have been added to the
beauty of the style. All which he would have performed with more
exactness, had he pleased to have given us another work of the same
nature. For myself and others, who come after him, we are bound, with
all veneration to his memory, to acknowledge what advantage we
received from that excellent groundwork which he laid: And, since it is
an easy thing to add to what already is invented, we ought all of us,
without envy to him, or partiality to ourselves, to yield him the
precedence in it.
Having done him this justice, as my guide, I may do myself so much,
as to give an account of what I have performed after him. I observed
then, as I said, what was wanting to the perfection of his "Siege of
Rhodes;" which was design, and variety of characters. And in the midst
of this consideration by mere accident, I opened the next book that lay
by me, which was "Ariosto," in Italian; and the very first two lines of
that poem gave me light to all I could desire;
_Le donne, i cavalier, l'arme, gli amori, Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese io
canto,_ &c.
For the very next reflection which I made was this, that an heroic play
ought to be an imitation, in little, of an heroic poem; and, consequently,
that love and valour ought to be the subject of it. Both these Sir
William D'Avenant had begun to shadow; but it was so, as first
discoverers draw their maps, with headlands, and promontories, and
some few outlines of somewhat taken at a distance, and which the
designer saw not clearly. The common drama obliged him to a plot
well formed and pleasant, or, as the ancients call it, one entire and great
action. But this he afforded not himself in a story, which he neither
filled