painted, as Dryden confesses, after Artaban,' a redresser of wrongs, a battalion-smiter, a destroyer of kingdoms? We find nothing but overcharged sentiments, sudden devotedness, exaggerated generosities, high-sounding bathos of a clumsy chivalry; at bottom the characters are clods and barbarians, who have tried to deck them selves in French honour and fashionable politeness. And such, in fact, was the English court: it imitated that of Louis XIV. as a sign-painter imitates an artist. It had neither taste nor refinement, and wished to appear as if it possessed them. Panders and licentious women, ruffianly or butchering courtiers, who went to see Harrison drawn, or to mutilate Coventry, maids of honour who have awkward accidents at a ball, or sell to the planters the convicts presented to them, a palace full of baying dogs and bawling gamesters, a king who would bandy obscenities in public with his half-naked mistresses, such was this illustrious society; from French modes they took but dress, from French noble sentiments but high-sounding words. 1 The first image I had of him was from the Achilles of Homer, the next from Tasso's Rinaldo, and the third from the Artaban of Monsieur Calpranède."-Preface to Almanzor. "The Moors have heaven, and me, to assist their cause" (i. 1). "I'll whistle thy tame fortune after me" (3. 1). . He falls in love, and speaks thus ""Tis he; I feel him now in every part; Like a new lord he vaunts about my heart, While poor fierce I, that was, am dispossess'd" (3. 1). 3 See vol. ii. 341. • Compare the song of the Zambra dance in the first part of Alman· zor and Almahide, 3. 1. IV. The second point worthy of imitation in classical tragedy is the style. Dryden, in fact, purifies his own, and renders it more clear, by introducing close reasoning and precise words. He has oratorical discussions like Corneille, well-delivered retorts, symmetrical, like carefully parried arguments. He has maxims vigorously enclosed in the compass of a single line, distinctions, developments, and the whole art of special pleading. He has happy antitheses, ornamental epithets, finely-wrought comparisons, and all the artifices of the literary mind. What is most striking is, that he abandons that kind of verse specially appropriated to the English drama which is without rhyme, and the mixture of prose and verse common to the old authors, for a rhymed tragedy like the French, fancying that he is thus inventing a new species, which he calls heroic play. But in this transformation the good perished, the bad remains. For rhyme differs in different races. To an Englishman it resembles a song, and transports him at once to an ideal and fairy world. To a Frenchman it is only a conventionalism or an expediency, and transports him at once to an ante-chamber or a drawing-room; to him it is an ornamental dress and nothing more; if it mars prose, it ennobles it; it imposes respect, not enthusiasm, and changes a vulgar into a high-bred style. Moreover, in French aristocratic verse everything is connected; pedantry, logical machinery of every kind, is excluded from it; there is nothing more disagreeable to well-bred and refined persons than the scholastic rust. Images are rare, but always well kept up; bold poesy, real fantasy, have no place in it; their brilliancy and divergencies would derange the politeness and regular flow of the social world. The right word, the prominence of free expressions, are not to be met with in it; general terms, always rather threadbare, suit best the caution and niceties of select society. Dryden sins heavily against all these rules. His rhymes, to an Englishman's ear, scatter at once the whole illusion of the stage; they see that the characters who speak thus are but squeaking puppets; he himself admits that his heroic tragedy is only fit to represent on the stage chivalric poems like those of Ariosto and Spenser... Poetic dash gives the finishing stroke to all likelihood. Would we recognise the dramatic accent in this epic comparison? "As some fair tulip, by a storm oppress'd Shrinks up, and folds its silken arms to rest; And, bending to the blast, all pale and dead, Hears, from within, the wind sing round its head, So, shrouded up, your beauty disappears: Unveil, my love, and lay aside your fears, The storm, that caused your fright, is pass'd and done." 1 What a singular triumphal song are these concetti of Cortez as he lands: "On what new happy climate are we thrown, So long kept secret, and so lately known? As if our old world modestly withdrew, And here in private had brought forth a new." 2 Think how these patches of colour would contrast with the sober design of French dissertation. Here lovers vie with each other in metaphors; there a wooer, in order to magnify the beauties of his mistress, says that 1 The first part of Almanzor and Almahide, iv. 5. 2, bloody hearts lie panting in her hand." In every page arsh or vulgar words spoil the regularity of a noble yle. Ponderous logic is broadly displayed in the eeches of princesses. "Two ifs," says Lyndaraxa, scarce make one possibility."1 Dryden sets his college p on the heads of these poor women. Neither he or his characters are well brought up; they have taken or the French but the outer garb of the bar and the hools they have left behind symmetrical eloquence, easured diction, elegance and delicacy. A while bere, the licentious coarseness of the Restoration pierced e mask of the fine sentiments with which it was vered now the rude English imagination breaks the ratorical mould in which it tried to enclose itself. Let us look at the other side of the picture. Dryden ould keep the foundation of the old English. drama, d retains the abundance of events, the variety of at, the unforeseen accidents, and the physical reprentation of bloody or violent action. He kills as many eople as Shakspeare. Unfortunately, all poets are not stiffed in killing. When they take their spectators aong murders and sudden accidents, they ought to have hundred hidden preparations. Fancy a sort of rapture d romantic folly, a most daring style, eccentric and etical, songs, pictures, reveries spoken aloud, frank orn of all verisimilitude, a mixture of tenderness, ilosophy, and mockery, all the retiring charms of varied elings all the whims of nimble fancy; the truth of ents matters little. No one who ever saw Cymbeline The first part of Almanzor and Almahide, iv. 2. 1. This same marana says also to Abdalla (4. 2), "Poor women's thoughts are all tempore These logical ladies can be very coarse; for example, this me dammel says in act 2. 1, to the same lover, who entreats her to kelin "happy," ," "If I make you so, you shall pay my price." or As you Like it looked at these plays with the eyes of a politician or a historian; no one took these milita processions, these accessions of princes, seriously; te spectators were present at dissolving views. They not demand that things should proceed after the la of nature; on the contrary, they willingly did require that they should proceed against the laws of natu The irrationality is the charm. That new world mu be all imagination; if it was only so by halves, no o would care to rise to it. This is why we do not rise Dryden's. A queen dethroned, then suddenly set again; a tyrant who finds his lost son, is deceive adopts a girl in his place; a young prince led punishment, who snatches the sword of a guard, a recovers his crown: such are the romances which co stitute the Maiden Queen and the Marriage à la Mode We can imagine what a display classical dissertation make in this medley; solid reason beats down imagin tion, stroke after stroke, to the ground. We cannot te if the matter be a true portrait or a fancy painting; y remain suspended between truth and fancy; we shou like either to get up to heaven or down to earth, ad we jump down as quick as possible from the clumsy scaffolding where the poet would perch us. On the other hand, when Shakspeare wishes to in press a doctrine, not raise a dream, he attunes us to beforehand, but after another fashion. We natural remain in doubt before a cruel action: we divine that the red irons which are about to put out the eyes of little Arthur are painted sticks, and that the six rasca who besiege Rome, are supernumeraries h shilling a night. To conquer this mistrust employ the most natural style, circumstantial |