The Age of Dryden. Richard Garnett

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СКАЧАТЬ with the splendour of this northern star,

      Shall here unlade him, and depart no more.’

      For several years after Annus Mirabilis, Dryden produced but little poetry apart from his dramas. Fashion, Court encouragement, and the necessity of providing for his family, had bound him to what was then the most conspicuous and lucrative form of authorship. In one point of view he committed a great error in addicting himself to the drama. He was not naturally qualified to excel in it, and could only obtain even a temporary success by condescending to the prevalent faults of the contemporary stage, its bombast and its indecency. The latter transgression was eventually so handsomely confessed by himself that but little need be said of it. Bombast is natural to two classes of writers, the ardent and the phlegmatic, and those whose emotions require the most working up are frequently the worst offenders. Such was Dryden’s case, and his natural proclivity was much enhanced by his adoption of the new fashion of writing in rhyme, beloved at Court, but affording every temptation and every facility for straining after effect in the place of Nature. Mr. Saintsbury justly reminds us that Dryden was not forsaking the blank verse of Shakespeare and Fletcher, the secret of which had long been lost; nevertheless, although, as we shall see when we come to his critical writings, he pleaded very ingeniously for rhyme in 1665, his adoption of it was condemned by his maturer judgment and practice. It was, however, fortunate in the long run; his rhyming plays, of which we shall speak in another place, would not have been great successes in any metre, while practice in their composition, and the necessity of expressing the multitude of diverse sentiments required by bustling scenes and crowds of characters, gradually gave him that command of the heroic couplet which bestows such strength and brilliancy on his later writings. His ‘fourteen years of dramatic practice,’ as Mr. Saintsbury justly says, ‘acted as a filtering reservoir for his poetical powers, so that the stream, which, when it ran into them, was the turbid and rubbish-laden current of Annus Mirabilis, flowed out as impetuous, as strong, but clear and without base admixture, in the splendid verse of Absalom and Achitophel.’3

      This great poem, published in November, 1681, at the height of the contest over the Exclusion Bill and its consequences, remains to this day the finest example of political satire in English literature. The theme was skilfully selected. James II. had not yet convinced the most sceptical of the justice and wisdom of the Exclusion Bill, and its advocates laboured under the serious disadvantage of having no strong claimant for the succession if they prevailed in setting the Duke of York aside. James’s son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, would not, it is safe to say, ever have been accepted by the nation as king if James’s folly and tyranny had not, years afterwards, given him the opportunity of presenting himself in the character of Deliverer; and, failing him, there was no one but the popular but unfortunately illegitimate Monmouth. The character of Absalom seemed exactly made for this handsome and foolish prince. The resemblance of his royal father to David, except in matters akin to the affair of Bathsheba, was not quite so obvious. Dryden might almost have been suspected of satirizing his master when he wrote:

      ‘When nature prompted, and no law denied

      Promiscuous use of concubine and bride;

      Then Israel’s monarch after heaven’s own heart

      His vigorous warmth did variously impart

      To wives and slaves; and, wide as his command,

      Scattered his Maker’s image through the land.

      Of all the numerous progeny was none

      So beautiful, so brave as Absolon.’

      The management of Absalom was a difficult matter. With all his transgressions, the rebel Monmouth was still beloved by his father, and Dryden could not have ventured to treat him as his prototype is treated by Scripture. He has extricated himself from the dilemma with abundant dexterity, but at some expense to his poem. The catastrophe required by poetical justice does not come to pass, and the conclusion is tame. All such defects, however, are forgotten in the splendour of the execution. The versification is the finest in its style that English literature had yet seen, the perfection of heroic verse. The sense is weighty and massive, as befits such an organ of expression, and, whatever may be thought of Dryden’s flatteries of individuals, there is no reason to doubt the sincerity with which he here expresses his political convictions. He unquestionably belonged to that class of mankind who cannot discern principles apart from persons, and his contempt for abstractions is pointedly expressed in one of his ringing couplets:

      ‘Thought they might ruin him they could create,

      Or melt him to that golden calf – a state.’

      This is not a very high manifestation of the intellect in its application to political questions, but it bespeaks the class of persons who provide ballast for the vessel of the state in tempestuous times; and, on the whole, Absalom and Achitophel is a poem which the patriot as well as the admirer of genius may read with complacency. The royal side of the question could not be better put than in these lines placed in the mouth of David:

      ‘Thus long have I, by native mercy sway’d,

      My wrongs dissembled, my revenge delay’d;

      So willing to forgive the offending age,

      So much the father did the king assuage.

      But now so far my clemency they slight,

      The offenders question my forgiving right.

      That one was made for many, they contend;

      But ’tis to rule; for that’s a monarch’s end.

      They call my tenderness of blood, my fear;

      Though manly tempers can the longest bear.

      Yet since they will divert my native course,

      ’Tis time to shew I am not good by force.

      Those heap’d affronts, that haughty subjects bring,

      Are burdens for a camel, not a king.

      Kings are the public pillars of the state,

      Born to sustain and prop the nation’s weight:

      If my young Sampson will pretend a call

      To shake the column, let him share the fall.

      But oh, that he yet would repent and live!

      How easy ’tis for parents to forgive!

      With how few tears a pardon might be won

      From nature pleading for a darling son!

      Poor, pitied youth, by my paternal care

      Raised up to all the height his frame could bear!

      Had God ordain’d his fate for empire born,

      He would have given his soul another turn:

      Gull’d with a patriot’s name, whose modern sense

      Is one that would by law supplant his prince;

      The people’s brave, the politician’s tool;

      Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

      Whence comes it, that religion and the laws

      Should more be Absolom’s than David’s cause?

      His old instructor, ere he lost his place,

      Was never thought endued with so much grace.

      Good heavens, how faction can a patriot paint!

      My rebel ever proves my people’s saint.

      Would they impose an heir upon the throne?

      Let Sanhedrims be taught to give their own.

      A king’s at least a part of government;

      And mine as requisite as their consent.

      Without my leave a future king to choose,

      Infers a right the present to depose.

      True, СКАЧАТЬ