Caliban. Cf. Dryden's Preface to Troilus and Cressida (ed. W. P. Ker., i., p. 219) and the Spectator, Nos. 279 and 419. Johnson criticised the remark in his notes on the Tempest (ed. 1765, i., p. 21). Note. Ld. Falkland, Lucius Cary (1610-1643), second Viscount Falkland; Ld. C. J. Vaughan, Sir John Vaughan (1603-1674), Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; John Selden (1584-1654), the jurist. Among the particular beauties, etc. This passage, to the end of the quotation from Dryden's Prologue, is omitted by Pope. 16. Dorastus and Faunia, the alternative title of Robert Greene's Pandosto, or the Triumph of Time, 1588. 17. Pope omits tyrannical, cruel, and (line 36). 18. Plutarch. Rowe's statement that Shakespeare "copied" his Roman characters from Plutarch is as it stands-inconsistent with the previous argument as to his want of learning. His use of North's translation was not established till the days of Johnson and Farmer. André Dacier (1651-1722) was best known in England by his Essay on Satire, which was included in his edition of Horace (1681, etc.), and by his edition of the Poetics of Aristotle (1692). The former was used by Dryden in his Discourse concerning Satire, and appeared in English in 1692 and 1695; the latter was translated in 1705. In 1692 he brought out a prose translation, "with remarks," of the Oedipus and Electra of Sophocles. Rowe's reference is to Dacier's preface to the latter play, pp. 253, 254. Cf. his Poetics, notes to ch. xv., and the Spectator, No. 44. 19. But howsoever, etc. Hamlet, i. 5. 84. 20. Betterton's contemporaries unite in praise of his performance of Hamlet. Downes has an interesting note in his Roscius Anglicanus showing how, in the acting of this part, Betterton benefited by Shakespeare's coaching: "Sir William Davenant (having seen Mr. Taylor, of the Black Fryars Company, act it; who being instructed by the author, Mr. Shakespear) taught Mr. Betterton in every particle of it, gained him esteem and reputation superlative to all other plays" (1789, p. 29). But cf. the Rise and Progress of the English Theatre, appended to Colley Cibber's Apology, 1750, p. 516. The epilogue for Betterton's 'benefit' in 1709 was written by Rowe. Betterton died in 1710. Since I had at first resolv'd . . . said of him made good. This second criticism of Rymer is also omitted by Pope. 21. Ten in the hundred, etc. Reed, Steevens, and Malone have proved conclusively, if somewhat laboriously, that these wretched verses are not by Shakespeare. See also Halliwell-Phillips's Outlines, i., p. 326. It may be noted that ten per cent. was the regular rate of interest at this time. 21. as engrav'd in the plate. Stratford monument faces this He had three daughters. A poor full-page engraving of the statement in Rowe's edition. Rowe is in error. Shakespeare had two daughters, and a son named Hamnet. daughter. 22. Pope omits tho' as I . . . friendship and venture to (lines 10-12). Caesar did never wrong, etc. Cf. Julius Caesar, iii. 1. 47, 48, when the lines read : Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause Will he be satisfied. 23. Gerard Langbaine in his Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691) ascribes to Shakespeare about forty-six plays, all which except three are bound in one volume in Fol., printed London, 1685' (p. 454). The three plays not printed in the fourth folio are the Birth of Merlin, or the Child has lost his Father, a tragi-comedy, said by Langbaine to be by Shakespeare and Rowley; John King of England his troublesome Reign; and the Death of King John at Swinstead Abbey. Langbaine thinks that the last two "were first writ by our Author, and afterwards revised and reduced into one Play by him that in the Folio being far the better." He mentions also the Arraignment of Paris, but does not ascribe it to Shakespeare, as he has not seen it. a late collection of poems,-Poems on Affairs of State, from the year 1620 to the year 1707, vol. iv. Natura sublimis, etc. Horace, Epistles, ii. 1. 165. The concluding paragraph is omitted by Pope. 66 JOHN DENNIS 24. Shakespear... Tragick Stage. Contrast Rymer's Short View, p. 156: Shakespear's genius lay for Comedy and Humour. In Tragedy he appears quite out of his element." statement, p. 40. Cf. Dennis's later 25. the very Original of our English Tragical Harmony. Cf. Dryden, Epistle Dedicatory of the Rival Ladies, ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 6, and Bysshe, Art of English Poetry, 1702, p. 36. See Johnson's criticism of this passage, Preface, p. 140. Such verse we make, etc. Dennis makes these two lines illustrate themselves. 26. Jack-Pudding. See the Spectator, No. 47. The term was very common at this time for a merry wag." It had also the more special sense of one attending on a mountebank," as in Etherege's Comical Revenge, iii. 4. 66 Coriolanus. Contrast Dennis's opinion of Coriolanus in his letter to Steele of 26th March, 1719: "Mr. Dryden has more than once declared to me that there was something in this very tragedy of Coriolanus, as it was writ by Shakespear, that is truly great and truly Roman; and I more than once answered him that it had always been my own opinion." 29. Poetical Justice. Dennis defended the doctrine of poetical justice in the first of the two additional letters published with the letters on Shakespeare. Addison had examined this "ridiculous doctrine in modern criticism" in the Spectator, No. 40 (April 16, 1711). Cf. Pope's account of Dennis's "deplorable frenzy " in the Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris (Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, x. 459). 30. Natura fieret. Horace, Ars poetica, 408. a circular poet, i.e. a cyclic poet. This is the only example of this sense of circular in the New English Dictionary. 32. Hector speaking of Aristotle,-Troilus and Cressida, ii. 2. 166; Milo, id. ii. 3. 258; Alexander, Coriolanus v. 4. 23. Plutarch. Though Dennis is right in his conjecture that Shakespeare used a translation, the absence of any allusion to North's Plutarch would show that he did not know of it. He is in error about Livy. Philemon Holland's translation had appeared in 1600. 33. Offenduntur enim, etc. Ars poetica, 248. 34. Caesar. Cf. the criticism of Julius Caesar in Sewell's preface to the seventh volume of Pope's Shakespeare, 1725. 36. Haec igitur, etc. Cicero, Pro M. Marcello, ix. 38. Julius Caesar. Dennis alludes to the version of Julius Caesar by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, published in 1722. In the altered form a chorus is introduced between the acts, and the "play begins the day before Caesar's death, and ends within an hour after it." Buckinghamshire wrote also the Tragedy of Marcus Brutus. 39. Dryden, Preface to the Translation of Ovid's Epistles (1680) ad fin.: "That of Enone to Paris is in Mr. Cowley's way of imitation only. I was desired to say that the author, who is of the fair sex, understood not Latin. But if she does not, I am afraid she has given us occasion to be ashamed who do" (Ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 243). The author was Mrs. Behn. Hudibras, i. 1, 661. But Hudibras has it slightly differently,Though out of languages in which,' etc. 39. a Version of two Epistles of Ovid. The poems in the seventh volume of Rowe's edition of Shakespeare include Thomas Heywood's Amorous Epistle of Paris to Helen and Helen to Paris. They were attributed to Shakespeare, till Farmer proved their authorship (p 203). Cf. Gildon, Essay on the Stage, 1710, p. vi. 40. Scriptor, etc. Ars poetica, 120. 41. The Menechmi. above, note on p. 9. Dennis's "vehement suspicion" is justified. See Ben Johnson, "small Latin and less Greek" (Verses to the Memory of Shakespeare). Milton, L'Allegro, 133: "Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child." The same misquotation occurs in Sewell's preface, 1725. Dryden, Essay of Dramatic Poesy: "Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation" (ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 80). 42. Colchus, etc. Ars poetica, 118. Siquid tamen, etc. Id. 386. The form Maeci was restored about this time by Bentley. 43. Companies of Players. See Mr. Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare, P. 34. we are told by Ben Johnson. See P. 22. But Heminge and Condell tell us so themselves in the preface to the Folio: "His mind and hand went together and what he thought he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarce received from him a blot in his papers." Vos, O. Ars poetica, 291. Poets lose half the Praise, etc. These lines are not by the Earl of Roscommon, but by Edmund Waller. They occur in Waller's prefatory verses to Roscommon's translation of Horace's Ars poetica. says Dennis's criticism of Jonson is apparently inspired by Rymer's remarks on Catiline (Short View, pp. 159-163). "In short,' Rymer, "it is strange that Ben, who understood the turn of Comedy so well, and had found the success, should thus grope in the dark and jumble things together without head or tail, without rule or proportion, without any reason or design." 44. Vir bonus, etc. Horace, Ars poetica, 445. 45. ad Populum Phalerae. Persius, iii. 30. Milton. See Milton's prefatory note to Samson Agonistes. 46. Veneration for Shakespear. Cf. Dennis's letter to Steele, 26th March, 1719: "Ever since I was capable of reading Shakespear, I have always had, and have always expressed, that veneration for him which is justly his due; of which I believe no one can doubt who has read the Essay which I published some years ago upon his Genius and Writings." Italian Ballad. Cf. Dennis's Essay on the Operas after the Italian Manner, 1706. ALEXANDER POPE : 48. His Characters. The same idea had been expressed by Gildon in his Essay on the Stage, 1710, p. li. "He has not only distinguish'd his principal persons, but there is scarce a messenger comes in but is visibly different from all the rest of the persons in the play. So that you need not to mention the name of the person that speaks, when you read the play, the manners of the persons will sufficiently inform you who it is speaks." Cf. also Addison's criticism of Homer, Spectator, No. 273: "There is scarce a speech or action in the Iliad, which the reader may not ascribe to the person that speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of it." 50. To judge of Shakespear by Aristotle's rules. This comparison had appeared in Farquhar's Discourse upon Comedy: "The rules of English Comedy don't lie in the compass of Aristotle, or his followers, but in the Pit, Box, and Galleries. And to examine into the humour of an English audience, let us see by what means our own English poets have succeeded in this point. To determine a suit at law we don't look into the archives of Greece or Rome, but inspect the reports of our own lawyers, and the acts and statutes of our Parliaments; and by the same rule we have nothing to do with the models of Menander or Plautus, but must consult Shakespear, Johnson, Fletcher, and others, who by methods much different from the Ancients have supported the English Stage, and made themselves famous to posterity." Cf. also Rowe, p. 15: "it would be hard to judge him by a law he knew nothing of." -Is it unnecessary to point out that there are no "rules" in Aristotle ? The term "Aristotle's rules" was commonly used to denote the "rules of the classical drama," which, though based on the Poetics, were formulated by Italian and French critics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 51. The Dates of his plays. Pope here controverts Rowe's statement, P. 4. blotted a line. See note, p. 43. Though Pope here controverts the traditional opinion, he found it to his purpose to accept it in the Epistle to Augustus, 11. 279-281: And fluent Shakespear scarce effac'd a line. |