overthrow. It had formerly been said, that the easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant, but that the labour of rhyme bounds and circumscribes an over-fruitful fancy; the sense1 there being commonly confined to the couplet, and the words so 5 ordered that the rhyme naturally follows them, not they the rhyme. To this you answered, that it was no argument to the question in hand; for the dispute was not which way a man may write best, but which is most proper for the subject on which he writes.

First, give me leave, Sir, to remember you, that the argument against which you raised this objection, was only secondary: it was built on this hypothesis,

ΙΟ

-that to write in verse was proper for serious plays. Which supposition being granted, (as it was briefly 15 made out in that discourse, by shewing how verse might be made natural,) it asserted, that this way of writing was an help to the poet's judgment, by putting bounds to a wild overflowing fancy. I think, therefore, it will not be hard for me to make good 20 what it was to prove on that supposition 2. But you add, that were this let pass, yet he who wants judgment in the liberty of his fancy, may as well shew the defect of it when he is confined to verse; for he who has judgment will avoid errors, and he who has 25 it not, will commit them in all kinds of writing.

This argument, as you have taken it from a most acute person, so I confess it carries much weight in it: but by using the word judgment here indefinitely, you seem to have put a fallacy upon us. I grant, he 30 who has judgment, that is, so profound, so strong, 2 A om. on that supposition.

1 so A; scene, B and C.

H

5

3

2

or rather1 so infallible a judgment, that he needs no helps to keep it always poised and upright, will commit no faults either in rhyme or out of it. And on the other extreme, he who has a judgment so weak and crazed that no helps can correct or amend it, shall write scurvily out of rhyme, and worse in it. But the first of these judgments is no where to be found, and the latter is not fit to write at all. To speak therefore of judgment as it is in the best poets; 10 they who have the greatest proportion of it, want other helps than from it, within. As for example, you would be loth to say, that he who is2 endued with a sound judgment has no need of history, geography, or moral philosophy, to write correctly. 15 Judgment is indeed the master-workman in a play; but he requires many subordinate hands, many tools to his assistance. And verse I affirm to be one of these; 'tis a rule and line by which he keeps his building compact and even, which otherwise lawless 20 imagination would raise either irregularly or loosely; at least, if the poet commits errors with this help, he would make greater and more without it:-'tis, in short, a slow and painful, but the surest kind of working. Ovid, whom you accuse for luxuriancy in verse, had perhaps been farther guilty of it, had he writ in prose. And for your instance of Ben Johnson, who, you say, writ exactly without the help of rhyme; you are to remember, 'tis only an aid to a luxuriant fancy, which his was not: as he did not want imagination, so none ever said he had much to spare. Neither was verse then re

25

30

1 A om. or rather.

2 was,

A.

3 3 had, A.

fined so much, to be an help to that age, as it is to ours. Thus then the second thoughts being usually the best, as receiving the maturest digestion from judgment, and the last and most mature product of those thoughts being artful and laboured verse, it 5 may well be inferred, that verse is a great help to a luxuriant fancy; and this is what that argument which you opposed was to evince.'

Neander was pursuing this discourse so eagerly, that Eugenius had called to him twice or thrice, ere 10 he took notice that the barge stood still, and that they were at the foot of Somerset-stairs, where they had appointed it to land. The company were all sorry to separate so soon, though a great part of the evening was already spent ; and stood a-while looking back on 15 the water, upon which the moon-beams played1, and made it appear like floating quicksilver: at last they went up through a crowd of French people, who were merrily dancing in the open air, and nothing concerned for the noise of guns which had alarmed the 20 town that afternoon. Walking thence together to the Piazze, they parted there; Eugenius and Lisideius to some pleasant appointment they had made, and Crites and Neander to their several lodgings.

1 which the moon beams played upon, A.

A DEFENCE 1

OF AN ESSAY

OF DRAMATIC POESY*.

THE former edition of The Indian Emperor being full of faults, which had escaped the printer, I have been willing to overlook this second with more care; and though I could not allow myself so much time as 5 was necessary, yet, by that little I have done, the press is freed from some gross errors which it had to answer

1 The text of the 'Defence' is reprinted from the original edition of 1668 (the only one published in Dryden's life-time), a copy of which is in the British Museum; it is prefixed as a sort of Introduction to the second edition of Dryden's Indian Emperor.

* Our author married, probably about the year 1664, Lady Elizabeth Howard, sister of Sir Robert Howard knt., and daughter of Thomas, the first Earl of Berkshire [ancestor of the present Earl of Suffolk]. In 1660 he had addressed some complimentary verses to Sir Robert, which were prefixed to his poems, published in 8vo. in that year. In 1666 they appear to have been on good terms; Dryden having then addressed to him an encomiastick Epistle in prose, which is dated from Charleton, in Wiltshire (the seat of the Earl of Berkshire), and was prefixed to his Annus Mirabilis, published in 8vo. in 1667, by Sir Robert Howard, who revised the sheets at the press for the author, who was then in the country; and in the Epistle he describes him as one whom he knew not to be of the number of those, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant. In the Essay on Dramatick Poesy, as we have already seen, he speaks of Sir Robert Howard with great respect. That gentleman, how

for before. As for the more material faults of writing, which are properly mine, though I see many of them, I want leisure to amend them. 'Tis enough for those who make one poem the business of their lives, to leave that correct: yet, excepting Virgil, I never met with any which was so in any language.

5

But while I was thus employed about this impression, there came to my hands a new printed play, called, The Great Favourite, or The Duke of Lerma; the author of which, a noble and most ingenious 10 person, has done me the favour to make some observations and animadversions upon my Dramatique Essay. I must confess he might have better consulted his reputation, than by matching himself with so weak an adversary. But if his honour be diminished in the 15 choice of his antagonist, it is sufficiently recompensed in the election of his cause: which being the weaker, in all appearance, as combating the received opinions of the best ancient and modern authors, will add to his glory, if he overcome, and to the opinion of his 20

ever, having in 1668 published [in the preface to his tragedy, The Duke of Lerma] reflections on the Essay, our author retorted in the following observations, which are found prefixed to the second edition of The Indian Emperor, published in the same year. In many copies, however, of that edition, they are wanting; nor were they reprinted in any other edition of that play which appeared in the life-time of the author: so that it should seem he was induced by good nature, or the interposition of friends, to suppress this witty and severe replication. One of the lampoons of the time gives a more invidious turn to this suppression, and insinuates that he was compelled to retract. They lived afterwards probably in good correspondence together; at least, it appears from an original letter of our author now before me, that towards the close of his life they were on friendly terms. (Malone.)