taining the reader from the promised siege. On these terms, this Capaneus of a poet engaged his two immortal predecessors; and his success was answerable to his enterprise.* If this economy must be observed in the minutest parts of an epic poem, which, to a common reader, seem to be detached from the body, and almost independent of it; what soul, though sent into the world with great advantages of nature, cultivated with the liberal arts and sciences, conversant with histories of the dead, and enriched with observations on the living, can be sufficient to inform the whole body of so great a work? I touch here but transiently, without any strict method, on some few of those many rules of imitating nature, which Aristotle drew from Homer's Iliads and Odysseys, and which he fitted to the drama; furnishing himself also with observations from the practice of the theatre,when it flourished under Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles: for the original of the stage was from the epic poem. Narration, doubtless, preceded acting, and gave laws to it: what at first was told artfully, was, in process of time, represented gracefully to the sight and hearing. These episodes of Homer, which were proper for the stage, the poets amplified each into an action; out of his limbs they formed their bodies; what he had contracted, they enlarged; out of one Hercules, were made infinity of pigmies, yet all indued with human souls; for from him, their great creator, they have each of them the divinæ particulum auræ. They flowed from him at first, and are at last resolved into him. Nor were they only animated by him, but their measure and symmetry was owing to him. His one, entire, and great action was copied by them according to the proportions of the drama. If he finished his orb within the year, it sufficed to ⚫ I quote, from Mr. Malone, Mr. Harte's vindica. tion of Statius; premising, however, that it is far from amounting to an exculpacion of that boisterous author, whose works have fallen into oblivion even among scholars, in due proportion to the ripening of poetical taste. "Mr. Dryden, in his 'excellent Preface to the Eneid, takes occasion to quarrel with Statius, and calls the present book (the Sixth) an ill-timed and injudicious episode.' I wonder so severe a remark could pass from that gentleman, who was an admirer of our author, even to superstition. I own I can scarce forgive myself to contradict so great a poet, and so good a critic: Palium enim virorum ut admiratio maxima, ita censura dificilis. However, the present case may admit of very alleviating circumstances. It may be replied, in general, that the design of this book was to give a respite to the main action, introducing a mournful, but pleasing variation, from terror to pity. It is also highly probable, that Statius had an eye to the funeral obsequies of Polydore and Anchises, mentioned in the third and afth books of Virgil. We may also look upon them is a prelude, opening the mind by degrees to receive teach them, that their action being less, and being also less diversified with incidents, their orb, of consequence, must be circumscribed in a less compass, which they reduced within the limits either of a natural or an artificial day; so that, as he taught them to amplify what he had shortened, by the same rule, applied the contrary way, he taught them to shorten what he had amplified. Tragedy is the miniature of human life; an epic poem is the draught at length. Here, my lord, I must contract also; for before I was aware, 1 was almost running into a long digression, to prove, that there is no such absolute necessity that the time of a stage action should so strictly be confined to twenty-four hours, as never to exceed them, for which Aristotle contends, and the Grecian stage has practised. Some longer space on some occasions, I think, may be allowed, especially for the English theatre, which requires more variety of incidents than the French. Corneille himself, after long practice, was inclined to think, that the time allotted by the ancients was too short to raise and finish a great action: and better a mechanic rule were stretched or broken, than a great beauty were omitted. To raise, and afterwards to calm the passions-to purge the soul from pride, by the examples of human miseries, which befall the greatest-in few words, to expel arrogance, and introduce compassion, are the great effects of tragedy; great, I must confess, if they were altogether as true as they are pompous. But are habits to be introduced at three hours' warning? are radical diseases so suddenly removed? A mountebank may promise such a cure, but a skilful physician will not undertake it. An epic poem is not in so much haste it works leisurely; the changes which it makes are slow; but the cure is likely to be more perfect. The effects of tragedy, as the horrors of a future war. This is intimated in some measure by the derivation of the word Archemorus."-Note on Mr. Walter Harte's Translation of the Sirth Book of the Thebaid. Notwithstanding what Mr. Harte has stated, our author seldom mentions Statius, without reproba ting his turgid and bombast style. Dryden, as was excellently observed by Sir Samuel Garth, in his "Funeral Eulogy," always thought that species of composition most excellent upon which his labour had been more immediately employed, In the "Essay upon Dramatic Poesy," he had preferred the tragedy to the epic poem, and here he has reversed their station, and rank. I think the principal distinction is noticed below. Tragedy is addressed, as it were, to the eye; and, the whole scene, to be enjoyed, even in perusal, must be supposed present to the observation. But epic poetry is, by its nature, narrative; and, therefore, while it is capable of the beauties of more extended description, and more copious morality, it is exclu ded from that immediate and energetic appeal to the senses manifested in the drama. the I said, are too violent to be lasting. If it be answered, that, for this reason, tragedies are often to be seen, and the dose to be repeated, this is tacitly to confess, that there is more virtue in one heroic poem than in many tragedies. A man is humbled one day, and his pride returns the next. Chymical medicines are observed to relieve oftener than to cure: for it is the nature of spirits to make swift impressions, Dut not deep. Galenical decoctions, to which I may properly compare an epic poem, have more of body in them; they work by their substance and their weight. It is one reason of Aristotle's to prove, that tragedy is the more noble, because it turns in a shorter compass: he whole action being circumscribed within space of four-an l-twenty hours. He might prove as well, that a mushroom is to be preferred before a peach, because it shoots up in the compass of a night. A chariot may be driven round a pillar in less space than a large machine, because the bulk is not so great. Is the Moon a more noble planet than Saturn, because she makes her revolution in less than thirty days, and he in little less than thirty years? Both their orbs are in proportion to their several magnitudes; and, consequently, the quickness or slowness of their motion, and the time of their circumvolutions, is no argument of the greater or less perfection. And, besides, what virtue is there in a tragedy, which is not contained in an epic poem, where pride is humbled, virtue rewarded, and vice punished; and those more amply treated, than the narrowness of the drama can admit? The shining quality of an epic hero, his magnanimity, his constancy, his patience, his piety, or whatever characteristical virtue his poet gives him, raises first our admiration. We are naturally prone to imitate what we admire; and frequent acts produce a habit. If the hero's chief quality be vicious, as, for example, the choler and obstinate desire of vengeance in Achilles, yet the moral is instructive: and, besides, we are informed in the very proposition of the Iliads, that this anger was pernicious; that it brought a thousand ills on the Grecian camp. The courage of Achilles is proposed to imitation, not his pride and disobedience to his general, nor his brutal cruelty to his dead enemy, nor the selling his body to his father. We abhor these actions while we read The cant of supposing, that the Iliad contained an obvious and intentional moral, was at this time 50 established among the critics, that even Dryden durst not shake himself free of it. In all probability, the ancient blind bard only thought of so arranging his splendid tale of Troy divine, that it should arrest the attention of his hearers. Doubtless, an admirable moral may be often extracted from his poem;" them; and what we abhor we never imitate. The poet only shows them, like rocks or quicksands, to be shunned. By this example, the critics have concluded, that it is not necessary the manners of the hero should be virtuous. They are poetically good, if they are of a piece; though, where a character of perfect virtue is set before us, it is more lovely; for there the whole hero is to be imitated. This is the Eneas of our author; this is that idea of perfection in an epic poem, which painters and statuaries have only in their minds, and which no hands are able to express. These are the beauties of a god in a human body. When. the picture of Achilles is drawn in tragedy, he is taken with those warts, and moles, and hard features, by those who represent him on the stage, or he is no more Achilles; for his creas tor, Homer, has so described him. Yet even thus he appears a perfect hero, though an imperfect character of virtue. Horace paints him after Homer, and delivers him to be copied on the stage with all those imperfections. Therefore they are either not faults in a heroic poem, or faults common to the drama. After all, on the whole merits of the cause, it must be acknowledged, that the epic poem is more for the manners, and tragedy for the passions. The passions, as I have said, are violent; and acute distempers require medicines of a strong and speedy operation. Ill habits of the mind are like chronical diseases, to be corrected by degrees, and cured by alteratives; wherein, though purges are sometimes necessary, yet diet, good air, and moderate exercise, have the greatest part. The matter being thus stated, it will appear, that both sorts of poetry are of use for their proper ends. The stage is more active; the epic poem works at greater leisure, yet is active because it contains an accurate picture of human nature, which can never be truly presented, without conveying a lesson of instruction. But it may shrewdly be suspected, that the moral was as little intended by the author, as it would have been the nant with morality, though a detail of facts be only object of a historian, whose work is equally preg intended. We may be pretty sure, that Homer meant his Achilles, the favourite of the gods, as a character approaching perfection; and if he is cruel, proud, disobedient, and vengeful, I am afraid it was only because these attributes, in a savage state, are deemed as little derogatory from the character of a hero, as dissipation and gallantry are blemishes in that of a modern fine gentleman. The opinion of Horace is a confirmation of what is stated above. None of the ancients ventured to impute the rudeness of Homer's characters to the barbarity of the poet's age. The faults which they could not shut their eyes against, must, they thought, have been equally apparent to the bard himself; although, in all probability, he meant, that these very attributes in his heroes should be considered as virtues. too, when noed requires; for dialogue is imitated by the drama, from the more active parts of it. Ore puts off a fit, like the quinquia, and relieves us only for a time; the other roots out the distemper, and gives a healthful habit. The sun enlightens and cheers us, dispels fogs, and warms the ground with his daily beams; but the corn is sowed, increases, is ripened, and is reaped for use in process of time, and in its proper season. I proceed, from the greatness of the action, to the dignity of the actors; I mean to the persons employed in both poems. There likewise tragedy will be seen to borrow from the epopee; and that which borrows is always of less dignity, because it has not of its own. A subject, it is true, may lend to his sovereign; but the act of borrowing makes the king inferior, because he wants, and the subject supplies. And suppose the persons of the drama wholly fabulous, or of the poet's invention, yet heroic poetry gave him the examples of that invention, because it was first, and Homer the common father of the stage. I know not of any one advantage which tragedy can boast above heroic poetry, but that it is represented to the view, as well as read, and instructs in the closet, as well as on the theatre. This is an uncontended excellence, and a chief branch of its prerogative; yet I may be allowed to say, without partiality, that herein the actors share the poet's praise. Your lordship knows some modern tragedies which are beautiful on the stage, and yet I am confident you would not read them. "Tryphon the stationer" complains, they are seldom asked for in his shop. The poet who flourished in the scene, is damned in the ruelle; nay more, he is not esteemed a good poet by those, who see and hear his extravagancies with delight. They are a sort of stately fustian, and lofty childishness. Nothing but nature can give a sincere pleasure; where that is not imitated, it is grotesque painting; "the fine woman ends in a fish's tail." I might also add, that many things, which not only please, but are real beauties in the reading, would appear absurd upon the stage; and those not only the speciosa miracula, as Horace calls them, of transformations, of Scylla, Antiphates, and the Læstrygons, which cannot be represented even in operas; but the prowess of Achilles or Eneas would appear ridiculous in our dwarfheroes of the theatre. We can believe they • "Bibliopola Tryphon," a character twice mentioned by Martial, Epig. lib. iv. 72. xlii. ■. Dryden probably means Tonson. A Gallicism for the toilet, at which the ladies of Dryden's time, in imitation of their neighbours of France, were wont to receive visits, and hear recitations and readings. routed armies, in Homer or in Virgil; but ne Hercules contra duos in the drama. I forbear to instance in many things, which the stage cannot or ought not to represent; for I have said already more than I intended on this subject, and should fear it might be turned against me, that I plead for the pre-eminence of epic poetry, because I have taken some pains in translating Virgil, if this were the first time that I had de livered my opinion in this dispute. But I have more than once already maintained the rights of my two masters against their rivals of the scene,* even while I wrote tragedies myself, and had no thoughts of this present undertaking. I submit my opinion to your judgment, who are better qualified than any man I know, to decide this controversy. You come, my lord, instructed in the cause, and needed not that I should open it. Your "Essay of Poetry," which was published without a name, and of which I was not honoured with the confidence, I read over and over with much delight, and as much instruction, and, without flattering you, or making myself more moral than I am not without some envy. I was loth to be informed how an epic poem should be written, or how a tragedy should be contrived and managed, in better verse, and with more judgment, than I could teach others. A native of Parnassus, and bred up in the studies of its fundamental, laws, may receive new light from his contemporaries; but it is a grudging kind of praise which he gives his benefactors. He is more obliged, than he is willing to acknowledge; there is a tincture of malice in his commendations; for where I own I am taught, I confess my want of knowledge. A judge upon the bench may, out of good nature, or at least interest, encourage the pleadings of a puny counsellor; but he does not willingly commend his brother sergeant at the bar, especially when he controls his law, and exposes that ignorance which is made sacred by his place. I gave the unknown author his due commendation, I must confess; but who can answer for me and for the rest of the poets who heard me read the poem, Dryden, in the "Essay on Dramatic Poesy," against the French dramatists. maintains the cause of Shakspeare and Jonson It appeared first in 1682, and drew the public attention by much sound criticism, expressed in pointed language; although the verse is so untunable and rugged, as to sound very disagreeably to modern ears. Dryden is mentioned with only a qualified degree of respect, and that paid solely to his satirical powers: The laureat here may justly claim our praise, The last couplet alludes to the "Hind and Panther whether we should not have been better pleased to have seen our own names at the bottom of the title-page? Perhaps we commended it the more, that we might seem to be above the censure. We are naturally displeased with an unknown critic, as the ladies are with a lampooner, because we are bitten in the dark, and know not where to fasten our revenge. But great excellencies will work their way through all sorts of opposition. I applauded rather out of decency, than affection; and was ambitious, as some yet can witness, to be acquainted with a man, with whom I had the honour to converse, and that almost daily, for so many years together. Hea ven knows, if I have heartily forgiven you this deceit. You extorted a praise, which I should willingly have given, had I known you. Nothing had been more easy, than to commend a patron of a long standing. The world would join with me, if the encomiums were just; and, if unjust, would excuse a grateful flatterer. But to come anonymous upon me, and force me to commend you against my interest, was not alto gether so fair, give me leave to say, as it was politic; for, by concealing your quality, you might clearly understand how your work succeeded, and that the general approbation was given to your merit, not your titles. Thus, like Apelles, you stood unseen behind your own Venus, and received the praises of the passing multitude; the work was cominended, not the author; and I doubt not, this was one of the most pleasing adventures of your life.* I have detained your lordship longer than I intended in this dispute of preference betwixt the epic poem and the drama, and yet have not formally answered any of the arguments which are brought by Aristotle on the other side, and set in the fairest light by Dacier. But I suppose, without looking on the book, I may have touched on some of the objections; for, in this address to your lordship, I design not a treatise of heroic poetry, but write in a loose epistolary way, somewhat tending to that subject, after the example of Horace, in his First Epistle of the Second Book to Augustus Caesar, and in that to the Pisos, which we call his "Art of Poetry;" in both of which he observes no method that I can trace, whatever Scaliger the father, or Heinsius, may have seen, or rather think they had seen. I have taken up, laid down, and resumed, as often as I pleased, the same subject; Our author mentions elsewhere, "The Essay of Poetry, which I publicly valued before I knew the author of it." Although his lordship's experiment proved thus successful, 1 may be permitted to hint, that most noble authors may find it rather hazard. ous. and this loose proceeding I shall use through all this prefatory dedication. Yet all this while I have been sailing with some side-wind or other toward the point proposed in the beginning,-the greatness and excellency of a heroic poem, with some of the difficulties which attend that work. The comparison, therefore, which I made betwixt the epopee and the tragedy, was not altogether a digression; for it is concluded on all hands, that they are both the maste pieces of human wit. In the mean time, I may be bold to draw this corollary from what has been already said, that the file of heroic poets is very short; all are not such who have assumed that lofty title in ancient or modern ages, or have been so esteemed by their partial and ignorant admirers. There have been but one great Ilias, and one Eneis, in so many ages. The next, but the next with a long interval betwixt, was the Jerusalem;* I mean not so much in distance of time, as in excellency. After these three are entered, some lord-chamberlain should be appointed, some critic of authority should be set before the door, to keep out a crowd of little poets, who press for admission, and are not of quality. Mævius would be deafening your lordship's ears with his Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile heliummere fustian, as Horace would tell you, from behind, without pressing forward, and more smoke than fire. Pulci, Boiardo, and Arios'o,† would cry out, "Make room for the Italian poets the descendants of Virgil in a right line :" father Le Moine, with his Saint Louis; and Scuderi with his Alaric, for a godly king and a Gothic conqueror; and Chapelain would take it ill that his Maid should be refused a place with Helen and • Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered" seems to have been the first heroic poem attempted upon a classical model, after the revival of literature. Pulci wrote the " Moragante Maggiore," Bolardo the "Orlando Innamorato," and Ariosto the wellknown continuation of that poem, called the "Orlando Furioso." The first two poems, like the "Amadigi," and a number of others in the same taste, are rather to be considered as an improvement upon the old metrical romances, than as attempts at epic poetry. At the same time, these au thors do not always expect their readers to receive with gravity the marvels which they narrate; but introduce at every turn some ludicrous image, to show how little they are themselves serious. Although Ariosto is immeasurably distinguished by brilliancy of imagination, and beauty of expression, from the rest of those romancers, yet even his delightful work may be more properly termed a romance of chivalry than an epic poem; a distinction which the Tuscan bard can hardly regret, since it has afforded, throughout Europe, more general delight than all the epics in the world, if we except those of Homer and Virgil. Lavinia. Spensert has a better plea for his "Fairy Queen," had his action been finished, or had been one; and Milton, if the Devil had not been his hero, instead of Adam; if the giant had not foiled the knight, and driven him out of his strong hold, to wander through the world with his lady errant ; and if there had not been more machining persons than human in his pocm. After these, the rest of our English poets shall not be mentioned. I have that honour for them which I ought to have; but, if they are worthies, they are not to be ranked amongst the three whom I have named, and who are established in their reputation. Before I quitted the comparison betwixt epic poetry and tragedy, I should have acquainted my judge with one advantage of the former over the latter, which I now casually remember, out of the preface of Ségrais before his translation of the Eneïs, or out of Bossu, no matter which: "The style of the heroic poem is, and ought to be, more lofty than that of the drama," The critic is certainly in the right, for the reason already urged; the work of tragedy is on the passions, and in a dialogue; both of them abhor strong metaphors, in which the epopee delights. A poet cannot speak too plainly on the stage: for volat irrevocabile verbum; the sense is lost, if it be not taken flying. But what we read alone we have leisure to digest; there an author may beautify his sense by the boldness of his expression, which if we understand not fully at the first, we may dwell upon it, till we find the secret force and excellence. That which cures the manners by alterative physic, as I said before, must proceed by insensible degrees; but that which purges the passions, must do its business all at once, or wholly fail of its effect, at least in the present operation, and without repeated do ses. We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure. Thus, my lord, you "La Pucelle D'Orleans." It will hardly, I hope, be expected, that an editor of Dryden should be deeply read in the French epopec, which of all styles of poetry is the most uniformly stiff and freezing. That Spenser's twelve champions, each of whom was to achieve a distinct and separate adventure, could ever have been so brought together, as to entitle the "Fairy Queen" to be called a regular epic, may be justly doubted. I confess I think it probable, that the difficulty of concluding his work was one great cause of its being left unfinished. Dryden's objection to the "Paradise Lost," is founded on the unhappy termination, which is contrary to the rules of the epopee. Even so it has been disputed, whether a tragedy, which ends happily, is properly and regularly entitled to the nanie. Yet the story is more completely winded up in the "Par adise Lost," than in the "Iliad," where Troy is left standing, after all the battles which are fought about it. Our reverence for the ancients, in this and many other instances, has been driven to superstitious bigotry. pay the fine of my forgetfulness; and yet the merits of both causes are where they were, and undecided, till you declare whether it be more for the benefit of mankind to have their manners in general corrected, or their pride and hardheartedness removed. I must now come closer to my present business, and not think of making more invasive wars abroad, when, like Hannibal, I am called back to the defence of my own country. Virgil is attacked by many enemies; he has a whole confederacy against him; and I must endeavour to defend him as well as I am able. But their principal objections being against his moral, the duration or length of time taken up in the action of the poem, and what they have to urge against the manners of his hero; I shall omit the rest as mere cavils of grammarians; at the worst, but casual slips of a great man's pen, or inconsiderable faults of an admirable poem, which the author had not leisure to review before his death. Macrobius has answered what the ancients could urge against him; and some things I have lately read in Tanneguy le Fèvre, Valois, and another whom I name not, which are scarce worth answering. They begin with the moral of his poem, which I have elsewhere confessed, and still must own, not to be so noble as that of Homer.* But let both be fairly stated; and, without contradicting my first opinion, I can show, that Virgil's was as useful to the Romans of his age, as Homer's was to the Grecians of his, in what time soever he may be supposed to have lived and flourished. Homer's moral was to urge the necessity of union, and of a good understanding betwixt confederate states and princes engaged in a war with a mighty monarch; as also of discipline in an army, and obedience in the several chiefs to the supreme commander of the joint forces. To inculcate this, he sets forth the ruinous effects of discord in the camp of those allies, occasioned by the quarrel betwixt In the following comparison, our author as sumes, that the "Iliad" was actually written with a view to its moral tendency. But considering the matter fairly, and without prejudice, there is a much reason for supposing, that Shakspeare had a great public purpose to accomplish in every one of his plays, which we know were only written to fill the Bull or the Fortune theatres, as the songs of Homer were recited, minstrel-like, for the supply of his daily wants. But both these gifted men had an intuitive knowledge of human nature, which cannot be justly described, without an evident though undesigned moral pressing itself on the hearers. Virgil's poem, however, had certainly a political, if not a moral purpose; for, while it gratified the nobles of the court of Augustus, by deducing their descent from the followers of Eneas, it tamed their republican spirit, by describing the monarchy of the emperor, not as a usurpation, but an hereditary, though interrupted succession, from the wandering Prince of Troy. |