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"But, malice and partiality set apart, let any man who understands English read diligently the works of Shakespeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake that he will find in every page either some solecism of speech or some notorious flaw in sense; and yet these men are reverenced when we are not forgiven. That their wit is great, and many times their expressions noble, envy itself cannot deny. But the times were ignorant in which they lived. Poetry was then, if not in its infancy among us, at least not arrived to its vigour and maturity. Witness the lameness of their plots, many of which, especially those which they writ firstfor even that age refined itself in some measure-were made up of some ridiculous, incoherent story. I suppose I need not name Pericles Prince of Tyre, and the historical plays of Shakespeare, besides many of the rest, as the Winter's Tale, Love's Labour Lost, Measure for Measure, which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your concernment. But these absurdities which those poets committed may more properly be called the age's fault than theirs. For, besides the want of education and learning, which was their particular unhappiness, they wanted the benefit of converse. Their audiences knew no better, and therefore were satisfied with what they brought. Those who call theirs the golden age of poetry have only this reason for it, that they were then content

cially against Shakespeare and Fletcher, I even Jonson's language is not unfrequently two of the most harmonious and musical harsh and inaccurate, the conclusion being, writers in the language. Those who know that if a writer so careful and learned is only the just and discriminating estimate found continually tripping, errors of all of Shakespeare given by Dryden in his kinds must be expected in such ignorant Essay on Dramatic Poetry, will hardly be and indifferent authors as Shakespeare and prepared for the disparaging terms in which Fletcher. Dryden, indeed, formally draws he speaks of him when defending himself this inference, and on the strength of it exand his brother dramatists from the attacks cuses himself from specifying any of the of contemporary criticism. On the point of errors and solecisms to be found, as he tells language, with which we are concerned, he us, in every page of Shakespeare's works. delivers himself as follows:After specifying some of Jonson's alleged mistakes, "what correctness, after this," he asks, " can be expected from Shakespeare or from Fletcher, who wanted that learning and care which Jonson had? I will therefore spare my own trouble of inquiring into their faults, who, had they lived now, had doubtless written more correctly. I sup pose it will be enough for me to affirm, as I think I safely may, that these and the like errors, which I taxed in the most correct of the last age, are such into which we do not ordinarily fall." The trouble, however, of specifying some of Shakespeare's errors was by no means so superfluous, as the examples from Jonson, on which he rests his whole charge against the Elizabethan Instead of dramatists, are all blunders. convicting Jonson of error, they simply convict his critic of ignorance. Seven instances of alleged crror are given, but in each case Jonson is right and Dryden Wrong. With regard to words, Dryden absurdly censures the use of ire as an archaism, an antiquated word; and the use of port in the sense of gate, as a novelty and "affected error," opposed to the English idiom, and introduced by Jonson in the spirit of mere pedantry. The fact is that ire, in place of being at all obsolete or antiquated, was freely used by Dryden's contemporaries, and even by himself, and that port, in the sense of gate, so far from being introduced by Jonson, is constantly used by Shakespeare and the Elizabethan writers, and was a good English word for a century at least before Jonson was born. Of grammatical errors he specifies the use of be in the plural for are, the double comparative, and the use of one in the plural ones, all of which, it need hardly be said, are amply supported by authoritative use up to Dryden's day, and the last continuously down to our own time. The remaining instance, illustrating, according to Dryden, errors both of etymology and syntax, is as follows:

with acorns."

Dryden very prudently makes no direct attempt to prove the charge of being rude, obsolete, and obscure, which he brings so freely against Shakespeare's language. But he makes an indirect attempt to establish his position, which is worth notice, as showing how incompetent he really was to discuss the question. It was the fashion amongst the playwrights and critics of the Restoration to place Ben Jonson above all his contemporaries as the great master of correct and laboured comedy. He is always spoken of as learned, careful, and judicious, and the scholarly elaboration of his dramatic art is contrasted with Shakespeare's careless fertility of nature. Dryden attempts to establish his sweeping charge against the Though heaven should speak with all his wrath Elizabethan dramatists, by showing that

at once,

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humorous satire, with the witty exposure | reign, yielding to the dominant critical of fashionable follies, and the epigrammatic tendency of their day, were fastidious in analysis of character and manners, with their choice of words, weeding their vocablively but superficial discussions on ques- ulary not only of all obsolete and provin tions of literary taste and judgment. In a cial, but of all obsolescent, unusual, and word, it would be, to a great extent, the inharmonious terms and compounds. Any literature of light didactic satire, of critical words not directly sanctioned by current. and colloquial essays both in prose and use, no matter how vernacular and expressive they might be, were at once rejected.

verse.

This so-called improvement of the language had begun in Dryden's day, and he himself took an active part in forwarding the work, as well as in vindicating against cavillers its reality and importance. Whilst he protested vigorously, as we have seen, against the needless introduction of foreign terms, he was almost equally severe against the retention of the more archaic and obsolescent element of his native tongue. In the Epilogue, one of his most extravagant heroic plays, he thus pronounces judgment on the dramatists of the Elizabethan age:

They who have best succeeded on the stage,
Have still conformed their genius to their age.
Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show,
When men were dull, and conversation low.
And as their comedy, their love was mean,
Except by chance in some one laboured scene,
Which must atone for an ill-written play,
They rose, but at their height could seldom
stay.

Fame then was cheap, and the first comer
sped,

And they have kept it since, by being dead.

This limitation in the range of subjects and appeal would necessarily affect the language as well as the literature. As literature always employs the language of those it addresses, when restricted to the town, it naturally adopted an urban vocabulary, the dialect of society, and of a highly artificial and conventional society. No doubt this dialect had many special virtues, and was admirably adapted for effective social criticism. It was perfectly intelligible, clear, and transparent as crystal, with an easy flow, epigrammatic sparkle, and antithetical emphasis that excited the reader's attention, and kept up his interest by mere force of style, even when there was nothing in the thought to stimulate the intellect. But notwithstanding these virtues, the fashionable dialect was wanting in copiousness and variety, in imaginative range and reflective depth, as well as in tender and profound emotional expressiveness. Here again in the language we have a feature which, if not directly due to French influence, approximates the English writing of the time to the French type. As the literature of Queen Anne's time may be fairly said to have the virtues and vices of the best French literature, so the language has the excellences and defects of the highly wrought French tongue. While clear, spirited, and polished, it was at the same time marked by the comparative poverty of its poetical and reflective vocabulary. To what an extent this is true, even at the best period of Revolution literature, may be seen by comparing the Vocabulary of Addison and Pope with the Vocabulary of Shakespeare and Bacon. With all the irresistible charm of Addison's style, his luminous simplicity and grace, his purity, ease, and elegance of diction, it is impossible not to feel that his power of expression, however perfect within its range, is extremely limited both as to depth and extent. The great writers of the Elizabethan age, roused by commanding national impulses, and appealing to an awakened and excited people, used the entire national speech with the utmost freedom and confidence, counting none of its elements common or unclean. But the courtly poets and essayists of Queen Anne's

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If love and honour now are higher raised, 'Tis not the poet, but the age is praised. Wit's now arrived to a more high degree, Our native language more refined and free, Our ladies and our men now speak more wit In conversation than those poets writ." And in an elaborate prose defence of the Epilogue he deliberately maintains that the language of the Restoration dramatists, including of course his own, is superior in grace, refinement, and expressiveness, to that of even the best dramatists of the preceding age, such as Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Fletcher. This superiority mainly consisted, he tells us, in rejecting such old words and phrases as were ill-sounding and improper, and admitting others more proper, more sounding, and more significant. He claims it as a special merit for the writers of his own age, that they had not merely rejected words antiquated by custom, and without any fault of theirs, as the refinement in that case would be accidental only, but whatever in the poetical vocabulary of the previous age they deemed ill-sounding and inappropriate. Curiously enough too, he brings the charge of employing a harsh, semi-barbarous, and obsolete dialect spe

cially against Shakespeare and Fletcher, two of the most harmonious and musical writers in the language. Those who know only the just and discriminating estimate of Shakespeare given by Dryden in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, will hardly be prepared for the disparaging terms in which he speaks of him when defending himself and his brother dramatists from the attacks of contemporary criticism. On the point of language, with which we are concerned, he delivers himself as follows:

"But, malice and partiality set apart, let any man who understands English read diligently the works of Shakespeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake that he will find in every page either some solecism of speech or some notorious flaw in sense; and yet these men are reverenced when we are not forgiven. That their wit is great, and many times their expressions noble, envy itself cannot deny. But the times were ignorant in which they lived. Poetry was then, if not in its infancy among us, at least not arrived to its vigour and maturity. Witness the lameness of their plots, many of which, especially those which they writ firstfor even that age refined itself in some measure-were made up of some ridiculous, incoherent story. I suppose I need not name Pericles Prince of Tyre, and the historical plays of Shakespeare, besides many of the rest, as the Winter's Tale, Love's Labour Lost, Measure for Measure, which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your conBut these absurdities which those poets committed may more properly be called the age's fault than theirs. For, besides the want of education and learning, which was their particular unhappiness, they wanted the benefit of converse. Their audiences knew no better, and therefore were satisfied with what they brought. Those who call theirs the golden age of poetry have only this reason for it, that they were then content

cernment.

with acorns."

even Jonson's language is not unfrequently
harsh and inaccurate, the conclusion being,
that if a writer so careful and learned is
found continually tripping, errors of all
kinds must be expected in such ignorant
and indifferent authors as Shakespeare and
Fletcher. Dryden, indeed, formally draws
this inference, and on the strength of it ex-
cuses himself from specifying any of the
errors and solecisms to be found, as he tells
us, in every page of Shakespeare's works.
After specifying some of Jonson's alleged
mistakes, "what correctness, after this," he
asks, "can be expected from Shakespeare
or from Fletcher, who wanted that learning
and care which Jonson had? I will there-
fore spare my own trouble of inquiring into
their faults, who, had they lived now, had
doubtless written more correctly. I sup
pose it will be enough for me to affirm, as I
think I safely may, that these and the like
errors, which I taxed in the most correct
of the last age, are such into which we do
not ordinarily fall." The trouble, however,
of specifying some of Shakespeare's errors
was by no means so superfluous, as the
examples from Jonson, on which he rests
his whole charge against the Elizabethan
Instead of
dramatists, are all blunders.
convicting Jonson of error, they simply
convict his critic of ignorance. Seven in-
stances of alleged crror are given, but in
each case Jonson is right and Dryden
wrong. With regard to words, Dryden
absurdly censures the use of ire as an
archaism, an antiquated word; and the use
of port in the sense of gate, as a novelty
and "affected error," opposed to the Eng-
lish idiom, and introduced by Jonson in the
spirit of mere pedantry. The fact is that
ire, in place of being at all obsolete or an-
tiquated, was freely used by Dryden's con-
temporaries, and even by himself, and that
port, in the sense of gate, so far from being
introduced by Jonson, is constantly used
by Shakespeare and the Elizabethan wri-
ters, and was a good English word for a
century at least before Jonson was born.
Of grammatical errors he specifies the use
of be in the plural for are, the double com-
parative, and the use of one in the plural
ones, all of which, it need hardly be said,
are amply supported by authoritative use
up to Dryden's day, and the last continu-
ously down to our own time. The remain-
ing instance, illustrating, according to Dry-
den, errors both of etymology and syntax,
is as follows:-

Dryden very prudently makes no direct attempt to prove the charge of being rude, obsolete, and obscure, which he brings so freely against Shakespeare's language. But he makes an indirect attempt to establish his position, which is worth notice, as showing how incompetent he really was to discuss the question. It was the fashion amongst the playwrights and critics of the Restoration to place Ben Jonson above all his contemporaries as the great master of correct and laboured comedy. He is always spoken of as learned, careful, and judicious, and the scholarly elaboration of his dramatic art is contrasted with Shakespeare's careless fertility of nature. Dryden attempts to establish his sweeping charge against the Though heaven should speak with all his wrath Elizabethan dramatists, by showing that

at once,

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born he use

e com

plural e said,

ve use

ontine

emain

o Dry

syntax,

men,

wrath

That with his breath the hinges of the world
Did crack, we should stand upright and un-
feared?

had been permanently impoverished by this process of so-called refinement, and yielding almost unconsciously to the con

French academic influence, Dryden was anxious that the English language should be subjected to the same process and share the same fate.

His is ill syntax with heaven, and by un-tagion of French classical theories and
feared he means unafraid, words of a quite
contrary signification." With regard to his,
it is strange that Dryden should have been
unaware that it was the regular possessive
of the neuter pronoun, its being a compara-
tively modern formation, not generally used
by good writers until after the Restoration.
But it is clear that he was ignorant of this
fact, which must have been in his own day
a tolerably obtrusive one, as he raises the
same objection against a previous passage,
stigmatizing his-his ire-applied to a thun-
der-cloud, as a "false construction." It is
almost equally strange that, having studied
parts of Chaucer, and read with some care
many of Shakespeare's plays, he should not
have known that the English verb fear, like
the Anglo-Saxon verb from which it is de-
rived, was constantly used in the transitive
sense of to frighten or terrify, and that un-
feared in the sense of unafraid is therefore
a perfectly legitimate compound.

Addison sympathized even more fully with French tastes and French classical theories of criticism. He was naturally, too, more refined and fastidious than Dryden, and his diction accordingly is more limited and select. He has far less acquaintance, moreover, with the great Elizabethan writers who had displayed in such noble forms the full resources of the language. From the evidence of his writings it seems indeed very doubtful whether he had ever read Shakespeare at all, or had any knowledge of his writings beyond a theatre-going acquaintance with one or two of his best-known plays. Mr. De Quincey broadly asserts that no reference to Shakespeare is to be found in Addison's writings.

claim a discovery which we made twenty years "In particular," he says, "we shall here proago. We, like others, from seeing frequent references to Shakespeare in the Spectator, had acquiesced in the common belief that, although Addison was no doubt profoundly unlearned in Shakespeare's language, and thoroughly unable to do him justice, yet that of course he had a vague popular knowledge of the mighty poet's cardinal dramas. Accident only led us into a discovery of our mistake. Twice or thrice we had observed, that if Shakespeare were quoted, that paper turned out not to be Addison's; and at length by express examination we ascertained the curious fact, that Addison has never in one instance quoted or made any reference to Shakespeare.'

The truth is, Dryden could not but per-
ceive that there was a great difference be-
tween the poetic diction of his own day and
that of the Elizabethan writers, and without
having any definite or critical knowledge of
the subject, he hastily concluded that the
change was altogether for the better. This
would be rendered all the more plausible
from the fact that there was a marked im-
provement in some kinds of poetry, such
as didactic satire and translation, in which
he himself excelled. While even in his
hands the drama had fallen so low, there is
a vigour, a concentration and expressiveness
about Dryden's poetical satires and trans-
lations that such works had not previously
possessed. With the sure instinct of a
masculine intellect and robust literary na-
ture, he had seized the most expressive ele-
ments of current English, and turned them
to admirable account in these works, and,
with a pardonable self-love, he tried to
maintain that the improvement extended
to all departments of poetry. He knew
that the dramatic vocabulary of his own
day was greatly restricted, that it had lost
the copiousness, variety, and luxuriance of
the Elizabethan drama, and he persisted in
regarding the restriction as an improvement.
Under the stimulus of foreign influences and
foreign example, he had moreover vague
notions of refining the language by subject-
ing it to the formal revision of a central
authority or academy, and at one time ac-
tually proposed a plan for carrying the
plan for carrying the
notion into effect. The French language

This statement is however altogether inaccurate, and the alleged discovery no discovery at all, Addison having quoted and criticised Shakespeare in the Spectator, as well as referred to him in some of his other writings. In his paper on "Stage Devices for Exciting Pity," he quotes a long extract from the ghost scene in Hamlet, and speaks of the appearance of the ghost as "a mas terpiece of its kind, wrought up with all the circumstances that can create either attention or horror." And in a previous paper on English tragedy, as well as in his criticism of Milton, he repeats the commonplace Restoration reproach against Shakespeare, that his thoughts are often obscured "by the sounding phrases, hard metaphors, and forced expressions in which they are cloathed." But Addison's writings contain no evidence of his having possessed any but the most superficial knowledge of Shake

speare the kind of knowledge naturally derived from seeing on the stage two or three of his more popular tragedies, curtailed, adapted, and improved," by such dealers in turgid sentiment and tawdry ornamentation as Tate and Lee. It is a noteworthy fact that many of the most accomplished and popular writers of the time, such as Addison and Shaftesbury, author of the Characteristics, hardly ever refer to Shakespeare except to point out his defects, or openly sneer at his "rude, unpolished style, and antiquated phrase and wit." The truth is, all the dominant literary influences of the time were classical; either directly classical, flowing from the study of Greek and Roman writers, or indirectly classical, filtered through contemporary French literature. And these influences, while favourable to critical nicety, as well as to a certain finish and completeness in the imitative and secondary forms of literature, were unfavourable not only to the development of original genius, but to its appreciation in forms so unlike the approved types of classical excellence as the passionate dramas and romantic epics of the Elizabethan age. Addison represents these influences to the full, working under the most favourable conditions, and his choice vocabulary, his limited selection of words, must be regarded as an indirect criticism of the license of the older writers. His direct references to language indicate the same verbal fastidiousness in the direction both of the old and the new. In his celebrated criticism of Paradise Lost, for example, he censures Milton for employing words and phrases too mean, familiar, and poor for poetic use. Of this alleged defect the following is the chief instance, the italics being Addison's own :—

"Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars, White, black, and grey, with all their

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only in its secondary sense, in its more trivial and ludicrous associations,-the sense in which he himself uses it in the Spectator, as applying to mere fashionable vanities, to empty and worthless display. But in its primary meaning as an English word, as well as in its authoritative use for a century before Milton wrote, it had a deeper, more serious, and special signification. While it always carried with it the notion of parade and display, in its early use the parade and display were always made for the special purpose of craft and deception. It thus involved the idea of hollowness and imposture, and it was specially applied to the various expedients, sleights, and devices,the vestments, genuflections, and ritualistio machinery of religious imposture. This central notion of fabrication and imposture is still retained in the verb to trump up, as when we say of some plausible but baseless narrative palmed off for purposes of deception, "it is a trumped-up story." Like the French word from which it is derived, and its German cognates, the leading idea of the term is that of deception by means of hollow, worthless display, either to the senses or the mind. Thus, in Hackluyt's voyages, the writer, describing a Mahometan prophet or impostor, says, "He carried in his hand 'a flagge or streamer set on a short spear painted,' and at his back 'a mat, bottels, and other trumpery.' Again, in a popular theological work published dur ing Milton's youth, we have, "The proudest Pharisee that ever shoued to the Lord all the pedlar's pack of the trumpery of his own justitiarie workes, we have him in the tem ple as busy as a bee praying, or prating at the least." And Bishop Hall, referring ex pressly to the Romish ceremonial, exclaims, "What a world of fopperies these of crosses, of candles, of holy water, and salt trum-ries." A good example of its early use in and censings! Away with these trumpethe sense of craft or treachery occurs in the preface to Raleigh's History of the World. After commemorating the various unlawful means, the schemes of policy and violence, of fraud and force, by which ambitious English princes had seized the crown, and dwelling in detail on the stratagems and treacheries of Richard III., the diabolical cunning of his policy, and his ruthless murders, the author begins his summing up with the sentence, "Now as we have told the successe of the trumperies and cruelties of our own kings and our great personages, so we find that God is every where the true God." And again in the sixth chapter, referring to the corruptions of the Biblical story of creation to be found amongst Pagan traditions, he

Here the words in italics are objected to as mean and familiar. But the real question for criticism is not whether they are familiar, but whether they are appropriate and expressive; and this is soon answered. Nothing, surely, could be more appropriate than for the poet to follow the universal custom in designating the different orders of friars by the different colours of their dress. In no other way could he at once so briefly and vividly bring the motley groups before the reader's mind. The main force of Addison's objection to the passage is however most likely to be found in the word trumpery, which he knew probably

are,

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