and in the rejection of much that was extraneous to the movement of the action. In the description of Cleopatra sailing down the Cydnus, Dryden gives us little more than a selection from Shakspeare, but that selection is made with admirable judgment. Something of the exuberant fancy, of the gorgeous and lavish magnificence of the elder poet is lost, but nothing is borrowed that is not of sterling worth.

On the whole, the conduct of the plot is better arranged in Dryden; the unities more strictly preserved, the interest more concentrated. Those parts that do not advance the action are omitted, some characters are more fully developed, but that of Antony, Scott considers to be weakened, and that of Octavia rendered less amiable. Dryden's tragedy does honour to his poetical powers, yet in the original play, every page is filled with some touches of invention, some poetical conceptions, some master strokes of wisdom or of wit, that leave all comparison far behind, and prove the inexhaustible and unapproachable excellence of Shakspeare's genius. I cannot help remarking that the character of Cleopatra would be one of the most difficult in all Shakspeare as a trial to the talents of an actress; such is the variety of passion, the change of feeling, the scornful, the festive, the ironical, the impetuous; in the gayety of its humour and in the depth of its pathos, it would require a flexibility, as well as force of talent, such as perhaps were seldom united.

The subject of this play is one so brilliant and captivating, as to have called forth the emulation of other and considerable poets; as Sir Walter Scott says that he never met with the dramas on this subject by May and by Daniel, I shall be excused in saying, that Daniel's is dedicated, in some elegant stanzas, to the Countess of Pembroke. It is written in the quatrain, a species of verse sufficient of itself to destroy the spirit of the drama, but Daniel's genius was not dramatic; the poetical language is excellent, the moral reflections and sentiments engaging; the choral songs are composed in the spirit of the old tragedies, but the scenes of fiction bear more resemblance to Seneca than Shakspeare.

passions, and narration usurps too much on the place of action; notwithstanding these defects, the tragedy is the work of a poet and a scholar. The versification is masculine and good, the language elevated and poetical, and the action uniform. I observe from some marks of imitation that Milton had read this play.

The fate and failure of Limberham is curious. It expired on the third night, (says the author,) from having expressed too much of the vices it decries.' Langbaine explains this as meaning that it was condemned for exposing the keeping part of the town; not that the wit was too loose, but that the satire was too personal, and that the condemnation of Limberham was the vengeance of the faction ridiculed. Malone thinks he has somewhere read, that Dryden had Shaftesbury† in view in the character of Limberham; others, I believe, have pointed out Lauderdale. The play was much altered, and that which was offensive on the stage was omitted in print; it is still, however, supposed to be extant in its original state, for Malone once saw a copy which Bolingbroke had found among the sweepings of Pope's study, (what gold dust was there!) in which a pen had been drawn across several exceptionable passages, that do not appear in the printed play.

The contract between Dryden and the King's Company now closed; the cause of disagreement is not known, and his three following dramas were exhibited at the theatre of their opponents, in Dorset Gardens.

Edipus was written in conjunction with N. Lee, and published in 1679. The outline of

The stage for introducing Limberham, the Duke's Theatre, in Dorset Gardens, was judiciously chosen, as it was a satire upon a court vice, it was deemed peculiarly calculated for that playhouse. The concourse of citizens thither is alluded to in the prologue to Marriage a-la-Mode; yet it was ill received and withdrawn. Printed in 1698.

Scott says that the character of Limberham has been supposed to represent Lauderdale, whose age and uncouth figure rendered ridiculous his ungainly affectation of fashionable vices. Langbaine considers this as the best of Dryden's comedies; he traces a few of the incidents to the novels of Cinthio Giraldi, and some obscure French authors. Scott has observed, that this play has preserved some traces of the genuine manners of the age, as regards the promiscuous intercourse that took place between women of character and ladies of looser virtue. Such were the manners of the age of Charles II. Nell Gwyn lived in familiar intercourse with the Dutchess of Norfolk,and was it not by one bishop that the Dutchess of Portsmouth was introduced to the chamber of the king, and to another, that the

is composed of accidents, adventures, and surprises, and is wanting in distinctness of character and forcible representation of manners. Cleopatra is lowered and degraded by duplicity, the misanthropy of Antony is coarse and beyond nature; but little attempt is made to move the

mands-Do not let Nell starve? In a letter to Mrs. Thomas, Dryden has warned her against falling into the license Mrs. A. Behn allowed herself; and says, I confess I am the last man who ought in justice to arraign her, who have been myself too much a libertine in most of my poems, which I am well contented I had time either to purge, or to see them fairly burnt.'

Dryden's play was traced after the Edipus of Sophocles: but he has inserted the Love Plot of Adrastus and Eurydice, and he has deviated from the conclusion of the Athenian drama, in the death of Edipus. Creon (as Scott observes) is in his ambition and deformity a poor copy of Richard the Third, without his abilities -but the discovery of the guilt of Edipus, which in Sophocles is at once proclaimed by Tiresias, in the modern play is judiciously and skilfully deferred. The interest progres sively increases. The language becomes more full of passion and affection, the dark allusions of the oracle grow more distinct, till the incestnous veil is slowly moved up, that discovers the wretched monarch's guilt, and the awful and avenging Nemesis appears. The first and third acts were wholly written by Dryden, and the superiority of his manner is clearly seen. Though he revised the whole, yet he was unable to prevent the extravagant sallies of Lee's blowing and puffing style,'* from occasionally appearing. In Edipus walking in his sleep, as in the incantation, Scott remarks how attentively Dryden was now imitating the style of Shakspeare.

Notwithstanding that the genius of the greatest poets has united to construct and adorn a tale of deep interest, with all the advantage that a well adjusted plot, powerful language, and elegant imagery could give, the history itself is so revolting and disagreeable, as to preclude its success on a modern stage, or rather to prevent its representation. To Athenian ears it came with other language. To them it was a terrible and afflicting illustration of the doc trines of fatalism. It was the ancient tragedy arrayed in all its terrific sublimity; it spoke of the relentless power of destiny, of man struggling in vain and helpless against the decrees of fate-of the awful and inscrutable designs of heaven. It was repulsive to no refined feelings, it attacked no moral prejudices, it met with no shuddering sensibilities that shrank from such a fiction with disgust. In fearful mysterious language it pointed to one predestined to the complicated crimes of parricide and incest; sacred and safe by the very enormity of his guilt from the justice of man, and devoted to the deities of darkness. I must express my astonishment

• See Dryden's preface to Troilus.

Jacob in his lives of the dramatic poets, p. 83, says, 'Edipus's relish of an embrace from Jocasta, after he had fled from his crown, and pulled out his eyes, is judged an impropriety. When this play was revived about thirty years since, the audience were unable to support it to the end, the boxes being all emptied before the third act was concluded, This play was represented early in the season, 1678-9, printed in 1679.

that any modern writer of dramatic experience could select such a subject as this with the hope of investing it with a natural interest, or that he should have dragged from the recess of history, the obsolete doctrines of an exploded fatalism. Could the page of humanity afford nothing more instructive than this? could the imagination find nothing to adorn but the most offensive relic of Pagan belief?* Could not the sphere of observation be enlarged to a wider conception of nature, and a brighter delineation of life. Is there not scope for endless creations in the fresh combinations of human character, in the gradual development of man's moral powers; the progressive advance of feelings, thoughts, and actions; in the perpetual conflict of interests, in the vicissitudes of fortune, in what new forms of society, and the changing institutions, manners, and habits of every country produce. Dryden, however, copied the models of French tragedy, and followed the example of the great Corneille. How differently did He look for subjects of sympathy, who collected in Hamlet the broken wrecks and fragments of a noble intellect disturbed, who opened the recesses of a heart filled with vague anxieties, and wild perplexities of wo; who marked, as in Timon and Macbeth, the passions which nature pours into the general heart of man; and then brought them forth distinct with all the traces of individual character; with the peculiar combinations, the minute lines and shadowings which prove the truth of the ideal portrait; and which display that select observation, that deep discernment, that fine analysis, and that philosophical power which is at once the test and triumph of genius.

Dryden published his alteration of the Troilus and Cressida of Shakspeare, in the same year (1679)† under the title of Truth never found too Late,' an Essay on the grounds of Criticism in Tragedy was prefixed to this. Shakspeare probably took the outline of his play from the poem of Chaucer. Scott observes, that while in Dryden the arrangement of the plot is more artificially modelled, and the unity of the fable is better preserved; his other improvements show to little advantage beside the venerable structure to which they are attached: and he considers that Dryden deviated no less from historic

See an impartial and instructive criticism on the Edipus of Sophocles and Corneille in Portefeuille de Voltaire, ii. p. 1-59. 12mo. See also Scott's observations justly and elegantly written, Dryden's works, vi. p. 117–123.

The translation of Appian, published in 1679, by J. D. and called Dryden's Appian, was probably by Jonathan Dryden, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and author of some occasional verses. Scott's Life, p. 31.

truth in making Cressida innocent, than if he had represented Helen chaste, or Hector a coward. It would have been more natural to have brought about the catastrophe on the plan of Shakspeare and Chaucer, than by the forced mistake in which Dryden's Lovers are involved, and the stale expedient of Cressida's killing herself to evince her innocence. In his endeavours to simplify the plot, he has retrenched the whole scene between Ulysses and Achilles in the third acts, full of the purest and most admirable precepts, expressed in the most poetical and dignified language. It has been observed that the delicacy of Chaucer's tale has suffered even in the hands of Shakspeare: but in those of Dryden it has undergone a deeper deterioration; what is coarse in Shakspeare has been dilated into ribaldry; and the character of Pandarus in particular is heightened in very offensive colouring. So far, says the editor, as the play is to be considered as an alteration of Shakspeare, I fear it must be allowed that our author has suppressed some of the finest poetry, and exaggerated some of his worst faults.* To these observations, I shall add that we cannot but be struck with the total change which Dryden's sentiments must have undergone, when one compares this play with Aurengzebe or Alman

zor.

The mixture of farce and tragedy, the buffoonery of Thersites, the gibes and jests of Pandarus, the playful artifices of Cressida, the coarse animal courage of Ajax, the distinctness and variety of character, the flexible manners, the natural passions and scenes drawn after life, the sparkling and salient wit, all are in strong contrast with the taste on which his earlier plays are inodelled: when the Trojan warrior would have worn a flowing peruke under his helmet, and Cressida on the battlements of Troy, would have called, like Queen Mary, for her palatine and hood-but Shakspeare was before him, and he could not greatly err.

The enemies of Dryden who followed closely on the rear of his fame, and attacked him with lampoons when they found a part that was vulnerable, said that his pension being withheld (as it was by the poverty of the exchequer) gave rise to the Tragi-Comedy of the Spanish Friar.† It was acted with success in February, 1681, and produced much profit to the company. Nokes, the Liston of the day, (if Liston could

Langbaine is most unusual in his candour, when he says, 'the last scene in the third act is a masterpiece, and whether it be copied from Shakspeare, or Fletcher, or Euripides, or all of them, I think it justly deserves commendation.'

Dr. Warton says, ' Dryden was ordered by his confessor to write the Hind and Panther, as an expiation for having written the Spanish Friar. Dryden's Poems, vol. iv. p. 1.

ever have had a prototype) was admired in the part of Gomez, and Leigh in that of the Friar.

This play is one of the happiest and best of Dryden's numerous dramatic efforts. Johnson has remarked on its excellence, in the coincidence of the tragic and comic plot : and Scott observes, that the felicity of the plot does not consist in the ingenuity of its original conception, but in the minutely artificial strokes by which the reader is perpetually reminded of the dependence of the one part of the play on the other. These are so frequent, and appear so natural, that the comic plot, instead of diverting our attention from the tragic business, recalls it to our mind by a constant and unaffected allusion. In the comic part, though the intrigue is licentious, the language is not coarse or disgusting, the dialogue is lively, the character of Dominic* diverting, and full of the humour of the Old Comedy. I do not think the tragic part free from objection, the murder of the dethroned monarch by the queen, and her subsequent attempt to turn the odium of the crime on Bertram, because her affections were changed to another object, take all sympathy or attraction from her character, while the discovery that Elvira is the sister of Lorenzo, comes with a shock to our feelings, when we consider by how slight a chance they were prevented from an incestuous crime, and how long they persevered in a guilty intrigue. Scott sums up his judgment on the play: Upon the whole, as the comic part of this play is our author's masterpiece in comedy,' the tragic plot may be ranked with his very best efforts of that kind, whether in Don Sebastian or All for Love.' After the revolution it was the first play ordered by Queen Mary,† and honoured by her presence.

The two companies, the King's and the Duke's servants, had nearly ruined themselves by an expensive competition for many years, and by the inconstancy of the public. The audiences, it appears, fell off, for the playhouses were abhorred by the Puritans, and avoided by all persons who desired the character of seriousness and decency. They now therefore agreed to

The whimsical caricature of a Roman Catholic priest, in the person of Father Dominici, was received with rapture by the prejudiced spectators, yet the satire was still more severe in the first edition; and afterwards considerably softened. It was, as Dryden called it, a Protestant play, and as Jer. Collier says, was rare Protestant diversion. It was the only play prohibited by James II. after his accession.

↑ See a very curious letter on this subject from the Earl of Nottingham, published by Dalrymple from a copy given to him by Bishop Percy, republished in the third volume of Malone, and in Scott's ed. vol. vi. p. 372.

cease hostilities, and were formed into one in 1682. When the coalition took place, Dryden furnished them with a Prologue and Epilogue, which were spoken at the opening of the theatre in Drury Lane, November 16th, 1682. He joined with Lee in the Tragedy of the Duke of Guise; Dryden wrote the first scene, the fourth act, the first half of the fifth, and he furnished the epilogue, which is not preserved in his works. In the latter part of the reign of Charles, the violence of political factions, and particularly the struggle between the protestant interest and the supporters of the Catholic religion, had displayed itself even upon the stage. On the side of the Whigs, Settle wrote his tragedy of Pope Joan, and Shadwell his Lancashire Witches, both levelled against the Papists. To destroy or weaken the influence which these writers might possess, the court opposed to them Otway, Lee, and Dryden; not only the plays themselves, but the prologues and epilogues formed most convenient channels through which any political opinions, personal reflections, and party invectives might be delivered with effect. At this time, Lee called on Dryden to return the assistance which the former had afforded him in his tragedy of Edipus. In the history of the Duke of Guise, Dryden had found a subject which he considered acceptable to the court, after the restoration, but what was applicable in 1665, drew more closely to a parallel with the events that took place in England in 1681. The power and influence of Shaftesbury, the contest between the court and Whigs for the election of the sheriffs, the assembly of the parliament at Oxford, the situation if not the character of the Duke of Monmouth, his return to England against the king's authority, above all, the famous bill of exclusion moved in 1660, against the succession of the Duke of York as a Papist, all found a striking historical resemblance to the events which took place in France connected with the intrigues of the Duke of Guise, and the proceedings of the league against the king of Navarre.

Dryden contributed the scenes which he had formerly written, and Lee added the rest from the Massacre of Paris,' a play then lying by him in manuscript. There were, however, circumstances connected with the plot not altogether agreeable to the feelings of the court. If the parallel were to hold between the Dukes of Monmouth and Guise, the fate of the latter must occasion alarms, or awaken affection in the parental breast of Charles. The representation was forbidden; the play lay in the hands of the Lord Chamberlain for more than half the year. At length, the tenderness and affec

tion of the king broke down under the factious and undutiful conduct of his son; an open rupture was at hand; orders were given for Monmouth's arrest at Stafford, and consequently there could exist no motives of delicacy any longer to delay the representation.

This play is not distinguished for any high strain of poetic feeling, for the loftier flights of genius, or for any elaborate display of dramatic skill. Much of the descriptions and sentiments is taken closely from Davila, and the strong picturesque language of the historian is without difficulty raised into elegant and harmonious verse. In the character of Marmoutiere, an allusionto the Dutchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth is probably intended. The story of Malecorn is said to be taken from Rosset's Hist. Tragiques, and one or two striking passages from Pulci. Sir Walter Scott thinks that the last scene between the fiend and the necromancer is horribly fine; but I do not feel certain that the parting speech of Malecorn would be considered natural; surely in his situation an agony of terror would overwhelm all reflection and stifle all argument. This part of the play failed in the representation; indeed the whole encountered a stormy, if not an unfavourable reception. Its poetry was but the vehicle for political sentiments; but as the court party increased in strength, its success became more assured.

Dryden's attachment to the Duke of York led him to write a long political prologue to Otway's Venice Preserved, (which was spoken April 21, 1682,) and another in honour of the Dutchess, in May of the same year. Shadwell severely attacked him for the former; of the latter, Malone says he never saw a copy, but the original half sheet in Mr. Bindley's possession. Though Dryden's genius was fertile, his industry vigourous, and though practice had supplied him with the necessary expedients by which he might assist his exhausted powers, still the drudgery of his contract with the theatre was severely felt by him. The profit which he derived from each play was by no means large, while the bread which he so laboriously earned was rendered bitter by the envy and malignity of party rivals and poetical foes. He was now in the full maturity of his powers: the assiduous study of our great original poets, and of the laws and province of poetry, as he surveyed them in their

• If Southernc's blographer can be trusted, Dryden never made by a single play more than one hundred pounds; so that with all his fertility he could not, by his theatrical labours, make more than two hundred a year. Southerne reluctantly owned to Dryden, that he had cleared in his last play near 700. which appeared astonishing to Dryden. Life of Southerne.