different educations, humours, and callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity; their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming of them, and them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some are virtuous; some are unlearned, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learned. Even the ribaldry of the lower characters is different the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook, are several men, and distinguished from each other, as much as the mincing Lady Prioress, and the broad-speaking, gape-toothed Wife of Bath, But enough of this: there is such a variety of game springing up before me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow. It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.' We have our forefathers and greatgrandames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of Monks, and Friars, and Canons, and Lady Abbesses, and Nuns; for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered. Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Shakspere was the man who, of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily. When he describes anything, you more than see it you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation. He was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets, As the tail cypress towers above the shrubs,' a • Dryden here quotes the well-known line of Virgil, Eclogue 1.— Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi. The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eton say, that there was no subject of which any poet ever writ, but he would pro duce it much better done in Shakspere; and however others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled them to him in their esteem. And in the last king's court, when Ben's reputation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakspere far above him. As for Jonson, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages), I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and language, and humour also in some measure, we had before him; but something of art was wanting to the drama till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such a height. Humour was his proper sphere; and in that he delighted most to represent mechanic people. He was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them; there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times whom he has not translated in 'Sejanus' and 'Catiline.' But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represented Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language, 'twas that he weaved it too closely and laboriously, in his comedies especially perhaps, too, he did a little too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as In the degenerate ages after the Restoration. Charles I. • Two of Jonson's most famous tragedies; they are crammed with transla tions from the Latin. much Latin as he found them; wherein, though he learnedly followed their language, he did not enough comply with the idiom of ours. If I would compare him with Shakspere, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakspere the greater wit. Shakspere was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets: Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love Shakspere. London after the Fire. Methinks already from this chymic flame, Already labouring with a mighty fate, She shakes the rubbish from her mounting brow Which Heaven will to the death of Time allow. More great than human now, and more august, Before, she like some shepherdess did show, Now, like a maiden queen she will behold, From her high turrets, hourly suitors come; The silver Thames, her own domestic flood, Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew. Perhaps the noblest in our language, though the stanzas are Lot equal. Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss: Cease thy celestial song a little space; Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, Hear, then, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse, But such as thine own voice did practise here, And candidate of heaven. If by traduction came thy mind, A soul so charming from a stock so good; Was form'd at first with myriads more, Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before. Niece of Tom' Killigrew, one of the wit of the court of Charles II. Her father, Dr. Killigrew, was Master of the Savoy. Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find Than was the beauteous frame she left behind. Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind. . . O gracious God! how far have we On Milton. Three poets, in three distant ages born, The Plan of Redemption. Dar'st thou, poor worm, offend Infinity? Thy easy God instructs thee to rebel: But if there be a power too just and strong, Had not Eternal Wisdom found the way, And with celestial wealth supply'd thy store: His justice makes the fine, his mercy quits the score. Th' offended suffering in th' offender's name: And all his righteousness devolv'd on thee. Religio Lasci |