Imatges de pàgina
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" And a rare mess it is, far excelling any West. "minster white-broth. It is a kind of gibblet " porridge, made of the gibblets of a couple of "young geese, stodged full of meteors, orbs, Spheres, "track, bideous draughts, dark characters, white "forms, and radiant lights, designed not only to "please appetite, and indulge luxury; but it is "also physical, being an approved medicine to "purge choler: for it is propounded by Morena,

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as a receipt to cure their fathers of their cholerick "humours: and, were it written in characters as " barbarous as the words, might very well pass for "a doctor's bill. To conclude, it is porridge, 'tis "a receipt, 'tis a pig with a pudding in the belly, "'tis I know not what; for, certainly, never "any one that pretended to write sense had the " impudence before to put such stuff as this into "the mouths of those that were to speak it before "an audience, whom he did not take to be all "fools; and after that to print it too, and expose "it to the examination of the world. But let us " fee what we can make of this stuff:

For when we're dead, and our free'd fouls enlarg'd"Here he tells us what it is to be dead; it is to " have our freed fouls fet free. Now if to have a "foul set free, is to be dead; then to have a freed "Joul fet free, is to have a dead man die.

Then gentle, as a happy lover's figh

"They two like one figh, and that one figh, like "two wandering meteors,

- Shall fly through the air

"That is, they shall mount above like falling " ftars,

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"stars, or else they shall skip like two jacks with " lanthorns, or Will with a wisp, and Madge with " a candle."

And in their airy walk fteal into their cruel fathers breasts, like fubtle guests. So " that their fathers' " breasts must be in an airy walk, an airy walk of a "flier. And there they will read their fouls, and track "the spheres of their paffions. That is, these walk"ing fliers, Jack with a lanthorn, &c. will put on "his spectacles, and fall a reading fouls, and put on " his pumps and fall a tracking of spheres: so that " he will read and run, walk and fly, at the fame "time! Oh! Nimble Jack! Then he will fee, how "revenge here, how ambition there The birds "will hop about. And then view the dark cha"racters of fieges, ruins, murders, blood, and wars, " in their orbs: Track the characters to their forms! "Oh! rare sport for Jack! Never was place fo " full of game as these breasts! You cannot ftir, " but flush a sphere, start a character, or unkennel an orb!"

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Settle's is faid to have been the first play embellished with sculptures; those ornaments seem to have given poor Dryden great disturbance. He tries, however, to eafe his pain, by venting his malice in a parody.

"The poet has not only been so imprudent to "expose all this stuff, but so arrogant to defend "it with an epiftle; like a saucy booth-keeper, " that, when he had put a cheat upon the people, "would wrangle and fight with any that would "not like it, or would offer to discover it; for "which arrogance our poet receives this cor"rection; and, to jerk him a little the sharper, I " will not transpose his verse, but by the help of " his own words transnonsense sense, that, by my "stuff, people may judge the better what his is :

"Great Boy, thy tragedy and sculptures done, "From press and plates, in fleets do homeward run: "And in ridiculous and humble pride, "Their course in ballad-fingers' baskets guide, "Whose greafy twigs do all new beauties take, "From the gay shows thy dainty sculptures make, "Thy lines a mess of rhyming nonsense yield, "A fenfeless tale, with flattering fuftian fill'd. "No grain of sense does in one line appear, "Thy words big bulks of boisterous bombast bear. "With noise they move, and from players' mouths

" rebound,

"When their tongues dance to thy words' empty found. "By thee inspir'd the rumbling verses roll, "As if that rhyme and bombast lent a foul; "And with that foul they seem taught duty too; "To huffing words does humble nonsense bow, "As if it would thy worthlefs worth enhance, "To th' lowest rank of fops thy praise advance, "To whom, by instinct, all thy ftuff is dear; "Their loud claps echo to the theatre. "From breaths of fools thy commendation spreads, "Fame fings thy praise with mouths of loggerheads; "With noife and laughing each thy fuftian greets, "'Tis clapt by choirs of empty-headed cits, "Who have their tribute fent, and homage given, "As men in whispers fend loud noise to Heaven.

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"Thus I have daubed him with his own puddle; " and now we are come from aboard his dancing, masking, rebounding, breathing fleet; and, as " if we had landed at Gotham, we meet nothing " but fools and nonsense."

Such was the criticism to which the genius of Dryden could be reduced, between rage and terrour; rage with little provocation, and terrour with little danger. To see the highest minds thus levelled with the meanest, may produce fome folace to the consciousness of weakness, and fome mortification to the pride of wisdom. Put let it be remembered, that minds are not levelled in their powers but when they are first levelled in their defires. Dryden and Settle had both placed their happiness in the claps of multitudes.

An Evening's Love, or the Mock Aftrologer, a comedy (1671), is dedicated to the illustrious duke of Newcastle, whom he courts by adding to his praifes those of his lady, not only as a lover but a partner of his studies. It is unpleasing to think how many names, once celebrated, are fince forgotten. Of Newcastle's works nothing is now known but his Treatise on Horsemanship.

The Preface feems very elaborately written, and contains many just remarks on the Fathers of the English drama. Shakespeare's plots, he says, are in the hundred novels of Cinthio; those of Beaumont and Fletcher in Spanish Stories; Jonfon only made them for himself. His criticisms upon tragedy, comedy, and farce, are judicious and profound. He endeavours to defend the immorality of fome of his comedies by the example of former writers; which is only to say, that he was not the first nor perhaps the greatest offender. Against those that accused him of plagiarism he alleges a favourable expreffion of the king: "He only defired, that they "who accuse me of thefts would steal him plays "like mine;" and then relates how much labour he spends in fitting for the English stage what he borrows from others.

Tyrannick Love, or the Virgin Martyr (1672), was another tragedy in rhyme, confpicuous for many many passages of strength and elegance, and many of empty noise and ridiculous turbulence. The rants of Maximin have been always the sport of criticism: and were at length, if his own confeffion may be trusted, the shame of the writer.

Of this play he has taken care to let the reader know, that it was contrived and written in seven weeks. Want of time was often his excuse, or perhaps shortness of time was his private boaft in the form of an apology.

It was written before the Conquest of Granada, but published after it. The design is to recommend piety. "I confidered that pleasure " was not the only end of poesy, and that even the " instructions of morality were not fo wholly the "business of a poet, as that the precepts and ex"amples of piety were to be omitted; for to leave " that employment altogether to the clergy, were " to forget that religion was first taught in verse, "which the laziness or dulness of fucceeding " priesthood turned afterwards into profe." Thus foolishly could Dryden write, rather than not shew his malice to the parfons.

The two parts of the Conquest of Granada (1672), are written with a seeming determination to glut the publick with dramatick wonders, to exhibit in its highest elevation a theatrical meteor of incredible love and impoffible valour, and to leave no room for a wilder flight to the extravagance of pofterity. All the rays of romantick heat, whether amorous or warlike, glow in Almanzor by a kind of concentration. He is above all laws; he is exempt from all restraints; he ranges the world at will, and governs wherever he appears. He ights without enquiring the cause, and loves in

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