Part 11

It was pre-eminently clear that the forthcoming literature would be Royalist and anti-Puritan. With the exception of Milton, there was not one man of known literary power whose heart still beat as it did when Cromwell sat on the throne, and whose muse magnanimously disdained the change that had befallen the nation. Puritanism, as a whole, was driven back into the concealed vitals of the community, to sustain itself meanwhile as a sectarian theology lurking in chapels and conventicles, and only to re-appear after a lapse of years as an ingredient in the philosophy of Locke and his contemporaries. The literary men who stepped forward to lead the literature of the Restoration were royalists and courtiers: some of them honest cavaliers, rejoicing at being let loose from the restraints of the Commonwealth; others timeservers, making up for delay by the fulsome excess of their zeal for the new state of things. It was part of this change that there should be an affectation, even where there was not the reality, of lax morals. According to the sarcasm of the time, it was necessary now for those who would escape the risk of being thought Puritans to contract a habit of swearing and pretend to be great rakes. And this increase, both in the practice and in the profession of profligacy, at once connected itself with that institution of English society which, from the very fact that it had been suppressed by the Puritans, now became doubly attractive and popular. The same revolution which restored royalty in England re-opened the play-houses; and in them, as the established organs of popular sentiment, all the anti-Puritanic tendencies of the time hastened to find vent. The custom of having female actors on the stage for female parts, instead of boys as heretofore, was now permanently introduced, and brought many scandals along with it. Whether, as some surmise, the very suppression of the theatres during the reign of Puritanism contributed to their unusual corruptness when they were again allowed by law--by damming up, as it were, a quantity of pruriency which had afterwards to be let loose in a mass--it is not easy to say; it is certain, however, that never in this country did impurity run so openly at riot in literary guise as it did in the Drama of the Restoration. To use a phrenological figure, it seemed as if the national cranium of England had suddenly been contracted in every other direction so as to permit an inordinate increase of that particular region which is situated above the nape of the neck. This enormous preponderance of the back of the head in literature was most conspicuously exhibited in Comedy. Every comedy that was produced represented life as a meagre action of persons and interests on a slight proscenium of streets and bits of green field, behind which lay the real business, transacted in stews. To set against this, it is true, there was a so-called Tragic Drama. The tragedy that was now in favour, however, was no longer the old English tragedy of rich and complex materials, but the French tragedy of heroic declamation. Familiarized by their stay in France with the tragic style of Corneille and other dramatists of the court of Louis XIV., the Royalists brought back the taste with them into England; and the poets who catered for them hastened to abandon the Shakespearian tragedy, with its large range of time and action and its blank verse, and to put on the stage tragedies of sustained and decorous declamation in the heroic or rhymed couplet, conceived, as much as possible, after the model of Corneille. Natural to the French, this classic or regular style accorded ill with English faculties and habits; and Corneille himself would have been horrified at the slovenly and laborious attempts of the English in imitation of his masterpieces. The effect of French influence at this time, however, on English literary taste, did not consist merely in the introduction of the heroic or rhymed drama. The same influence extended, and in some respects beneficially, to all departments of English literature. It helped, for example, to correct that peculiar style of so-called "wit" which, originating with the dregs of the Elizabethan age, had during a whole generation infected English prose and poetry, but more especially the latter. The characteristic of the "metaphysical school of poetry," as it is called, which took its rise in a literary vice perceptible even in the great works of the Elizabethan age, and of which Donne and Cowley were the most celebrated representatives, consisted in the identification of mere intellectual subtlety with poetic genius. To spin out a fantastic conceit, to pursue a thread of quaint thought as long as it could be held between the fingers of the metre without snapping, and, in doing so, to wind it about as many oddities of the real world as possible, and introduce as many verbal quibbles as possible, was the aim of the "metaphysical poets." Some of them, like Donne and Cowley, were men of independent merit; but the style of poetry itself, as all modern readers confess by the alacrity with which they avoid reprinted specimens of it, was as unprofitable an investment of human ingenuity as ever was attempted. At the period of the Restoration, and partly in consequence of French influence, this kind of wit was falling into disrepute. There were still practitioners of it; but, on the whole, a more direct, clear, and light manner of writing was coming into fashion. Discourse became less stiff and pedantic; or, as Dryden himself has expressed it, "the fire of English wit, which was before stifled under a constrained melancholy way of breeding, began to display its force by mixing the solidity of our nation with the air and gaiety of our neighbours." And the change in discourse passed without difficulty into literature, calling into being a nimbler style of wit, a more direct, rapid, and decisive manner of thought and expression, than had beseemed authorship before. In particular, and apart from the tendency to greater directness and concision of thought, there was an increased attention to correctness of expression. The younger literary men began to object to what they called the involved and incorrect syntax of the writers of the previous age, and to pretend to greater neatness and accuracy in the construction of their sentences. It was at this time, for example, that the rule of not ending a sentence with a preposition or other little word began to be attended to. Whether the notion of correctness, implied in this, and other such rules, was a true notion, and whether the writers of the Restoration excelled their Elizabethan predecessors in this quality of correctness, admits of being doubted. Certain it is, however, that a change in the mechanism of writing--this change being on the whole towards increased neatness--did become apparent about this time. The change was visible in prose, but far more in verse. For, to conclude this enumeration of the literary signs or tendencies of the age of the Restoration, it was a firm belief of the writers of the period that then for the first time was the art of correct English versification exemplified and appreciated. It was, we say, a firm belief of the time, and indeed it has been a common-place of criticism ever since, that Edmund Waller was the first poet who wrote smooth and accurate verse, that in this he was followed by Sir John Denham, and that these two men were reformers of English metre. "Well-placing of words, for the sweetness of pronunciation, was not known till Mr. Waller introduced it," is a deliberate statement of Dryden himself, meant to apply especially to verse. Here, again, we have to separate a matter of fact from a matter of doctrine. To aver, with such specimens of older English verse before us as the works of Chaucer and Spenser, and the minor poems of Milton, that it was Waller or any other petty writer of the Restoration that first taught us sweetness, or smoothness, or even correctness of verse, is so ridiculous that the currency of such a notion can only be accounted for by the servility with which small critics go on repeating whatever any one big critic has said. That Waller and Denham, however, did set the example of something new in the manner of English versification,--which "something" Dryden, Pope, and other poets who afterwards adopted it, regarded as an improvement,--needs not be doubted. For us it is sufficient in the meantime to recognise the change as an attempt after greater neatness of mechanical structure, leaving open the question whether it was a change for the better.

It was natural that the tendencies of English literature thus enumerated should be represented in the poet-laureate for the time being. Who was the fit man to be appointed laureate at the Restoration? Milton was out of the question, having none of the requisites. Butler, the man of greatest natural power of a different order, and possessing certainly as much of the anti-Puritan sentiment as Charles and his courtiers could have desired in their laureate, was not yet sufficiently known, and was, besides, neither a dramatist nor a fine gentleman. Cowley, whom public opinion would have pointed out as best entitled to the honour, was somehow not in much favour at court, and was spending the remainder of his days on a little property near Chertsey. Waller and Denham were wealthy men, with whom literature was but an amusement. On the whole, Sir William Davenant was felt to be the proper man for the office. He was an approved royalist; he had, in fact, been laureate to Charles I. after Ben Jonson's death in 1637; and he had suffered much in the cause of the king. He was, moreover, a literary man by profession. He had been an actor and a theatre-manager before the Commonwealth; he had been the first to start a theatre after the relaxed rule of Cromwell made it possible; and he was one of the first to attempt heroic or rhymed tragedies after the French model. He was also, far more than Cowley, a wit of the new school; and, as a versifier, he practised, with no small reputation, the neat, lucid style introduced by Denham and Waller. He was the author of an epic called _Gondibert_, written in rhymed stanzas of four lines each, which Hobbes praised as showing "more shape of art, health of morality, and vigour and beauty of expression," than any poem he had ever read. We defy anyone to read the poem now; but there have been worse things written; and it has the merit of being a careful and rather serious composition by a man who had industry, education, and taste, without genius. There was but one awkwardness in having such a man for laureate: he had no nose. This awkwardness, however, had existed at the time of his first appointment in the preceding reign. At least, Suckling adverts to it in the _Session of the Poets_, where he makes the wits of that time contend for the bays--

"Will Davenant, ashamed of a foolish mischance, That he had got lately, travelling in France, Modestly hoped the handsomeness of 's muse Might any deformity about him excuse.

"And surely the company would have been content, If they could have found any precedent; But in all their records, either in verse or prose, There was not one laureate without a nose."

If the more decorous court of Charles I., however, overlooked this deficiency, it was not for that of Charles II. to take objection to it. After all, Davenant, notwithstanding his misfortune, seems to have been not the worst gentleman about Charles's court, either in morals or manners. Milton is said to have known and liked him.

Davenant's laureateship extended over the first eight years of the Restoration, or from 1660 to 1668. Much was done in those eight years both by himself and others. Heroic plays and comedies were produced in sufficient abundance to supply the two chief theatres then open in London--one of them that of the Duke's company, under Davenant's management; the other, that of the King's company, under the management of an actor named Killigrew. The number of writers for the stage was very great, including not only those whose names have been mentioned, but others new to fame. The literature of the stage formed by far the largest proportion of what was written, or even of what was published. Literary efforts of other kinds, however, were not wanting. Of satires, and small poems in the witty or amatory style, there was no end. The publication by Butler of the first part of his _Hudibras_ in 1663, and of the second in 1664, drew public attention, for the first time, to a man, already past his fiftieth year, who had more true wit in him than all the aristocratic poets put together. The poem was received by the king and the courtiers with shouts of laughter; quotations from it were in everybody's mouth; but, notwithstanding large promises, nothing substantial was done for the author. Meanwhile Milton, blind and gouty, and living in his house near Bunhill Fields, where his visitors were hardly of the kind that admired Butler's poem, was calmly proceeding with his _Paradise Lost_. The poem was finished and published in 1667, leaving Milton free for other work. Cowley, who would have welcomed such a poem, and whose praise Milton would have valued more than that of any other contemporary, died in the year of its publication. Davenant may have read it before his death in the following year; but perhaps the only poet of the time who hailed its appearance with enthusiasm adequate to the occasion was Milton's personal friend Marvell. Gradually, however, copies of the poem found their way about town, and drew public attention once more to Cromwell's old secretary.

The laureateship remained vacant two years after Davenant's death; and then it was conferred--on whom? There can be little doubt that, of those eligible to it, Butler had, in some respects, the best title. The author of _Hudibras_, however, seems to have been one of those ill-conditioned men whom patronage never comes near, and who are left, by a kind of necessity, to the bitter enjoyment of their own humours. There does not seem to have been even a question of appointing him; and the office, the income of which would have been a competence to him, was conferred on a man twenty years his junior, and whose circumstances required it less--John Dryden. The appointment, which was made in August, 1670, conferred on Dryden not only the laureateship, but also the office of "historiographer royal," which chanced to be vacant at the same time. The income accruing from the two offices thus conjoined was 200_l._ a-year, which was about as valuable then as 600_l._ a-year would be now; and it was expressly stated in the deed of appointment that these emoluments were conferred on Dryden "in consideration of his many acceptable services done to his majesty, and from an observation of his learning and eminent abilities, and his great skill and elegant style both in verse and prose." At the time of the Restoration, or even for a year or two after it, such language could, by no stretch of courtesy, have been applied to Dryden. At that time, as we have seen, though already past his thirtieth year, he was certainly about the least distinguished person in the little band of wits that were looking forward to the good time coming. He was a stout, fresh-complexioned man, in grey drugget, who had written some robust stanzas on Cromwell's death, and a short poem, also robust, but rather wooden, on Charles's return. That was about all that was then known about him. What had he done, in the interval, to raise him so high, and to make it natural for the Court to prefer him to what was in fact the titular supremacy of English literature, over the heads of others who might be supposed to have claims, and especially over poor battered old Butler? A glance at Dryden's life during Davenant's laureateship, or between 1660 and 1670, will answer this question.

Dryden's connexion with the politics of the Protectorate had not been such as to make his immediate and cordial attachment to the cause of restored Royalty either very strange or very unhandsome. Not committed either by strong personal convictions, or by acts, to the Puritan side, he hastened to show that, whatever the older Northamptonshire Drydens and their relatives might think of the matter, he, for one, was willing to be a loyal subject of Charles, both in church and in state. This main point being settled, he had only farther to consider into what particular walk of industry, now that official employment under government was cut off, he should carry his loyalty and his powers. The choice was not difficult. There was but one career open for him, or suitable to his tastes and qualifications--that of general authorship. We say "general authorship;" for it is important to remark that Dryden was by no means nice in his choice of work. He was ready for anything of a literary kind to which he was, or could make himself, competent. He had probably a preference for verse; but he had no disinclination to prose, if that article was in demand in the market. He had a store of acquirements, academic and other, that fitted him for an intelligent apprehension of whatever was going on in any of the London circles of that day--the circle of the scholars, that of the amateurs of natural science, or that of the mere wits and men of letters. He was, in fact, a man of general intellectual strength, which he was willing to let out in any kind of tolerably honest intellectual service that might be in fashion. This being the case, he set the right way to work to make himself known in quarters where such service was going on. He had about 40_l._ a-year of inherited fortune; which means something more than 120_l._ a-year with us. With this income to supply his immediate wants, he went to live with Herringman, a bookseller and publisher in the New Exchange. What was the precise nature of his agreement with Herringman cannot be ascertained. His literary enemies used afterwards to say that he was Herringman's hack and wrote prefaces for him. However this may be, there were higher conveniences in being connected with Herringman. He was one of the best known of the London publishers of the day, was a personal friend of Davenant, and had almost all the wits of the day as his customers and occasional visitors. Through him, in all probability, Dryden first became acquainted with some of these men, including Davenant himself, Cowley, and a third person of considerable note at that time as an aristocratic dabbler in literature--Sir Robert Howard, son of the Earl of Berkshire. That the impression he made on these men, and on others in or out of the Herringman circle, was no mean one, is proved by the fact that in 1663 we find him a member of the Royal Society, the foundation of which by royal charter had taken place in the previous year. The number of members was then one hundred and fifteen, including such scientific celebrities of the time as Boyle, Wallis, Wilkins, Christopher Wren, Dr. Isaac Barrow, Evelyn, and Hooke, besides such titled amateurs of experimental science as the Duke of Buckingham, the Marquis of Dorchester, the Earls of Devonshire, Crawford, and Northampton, and Lords Brouncker, Cavendish, and Berkeley. Among the more purely literary members were Waller, Denham, Cowley, and Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. The admission of Dryden into such company is a proof that already he was socially a man of mark. As we have Dryden's own confession that he was somewhat dull and sluggish in conversation, and the testimony of others that he was the very reverse of a bustling or pushing man, and rather avoided society than sought it, we must suppose that he had been found out in spite of himself. We can fancy him at Herringman's, or elsewhere, sitting as one of a group with Davenant, Howard, and others, taking snuff and listening, rather than speaking, and yet, when he did speak, doing so with such judgment as to make his chair one of the most important in the room, and impress all with the conviction that he was a solid fellow. He seems also to have taken an interest in the scientific gossip of the day about magnetism, the circulation of the blood, and the prospects of the Baconian system of philosophy; and this may have helped to bring him into contact with men like Boyle, Wren, and Wallis. At all events, if the Society elected him on trust, he soon justified their choice by taking his place among the best known members of what was then the most important class of literary men--the writers for the stage. His first drama, a lumbering prose-comedy entitled _The Wild Gallant_, was produced at Killigrew's Theatre in February, 1662-3; and, though its success was very indifferent, he was not discouraged from a second venture in a tragi-comedy, entitled _The Rival Ladies_, written partly in blank verse, partly in heroic rhyme, and produced at the same theatre. This attempt was more successful; and in 1664 there was produced, as the joint composition of Dryden and Sir Robert Howard, an attempt in the style of the regular heroic or rhymed tragedy, called _The Indian Queen_. The date of this effort of literary co-partnership between Dryden and his aristocratic friend coincides with the formation of a more intimate connexion between them, by Dryden's marriage with Sir Robert's sister, Lady Elizabeth Howard. The marriage (the result, it would seem, of a visit of the poet, in the company of Sir Robert, to the Earl of Berkshire's seat in Wilts) took place in November, 1663; so that, when _The Indian Queen_ was written, the two authors were already brothers-in-law. The marriage of a man in the poet's circumstances with an earl's daughter was neither altogether strange nor altogether such as to preclude remark. The earl was poor, and able to afford his daughter but a small settlement; and Dryden was a man of sufficiently good family, his grandfather having been a baronet, and some of his living relations having landed property in Northamptonshire. The property remaining for the support of Dryden's brothers and sisters, however, after the subduction of his own share, had been too scanty to keep them all in their original station; and some of them had fallen a little lower in the world. One sister, in particular, had married a tobacconist in London--a connexion not likely to be agreeable to the Earl of Berkshire and his sons, if they took the trouble to become cognisant of it. Dryden himself probably moved conveniently enough between the one relationship and the other. If his aristocratic brother-in-law, Sir Robert, could write plays with him, his other brother-in-law, the tobacconist of Newgate-street, may have administered to his comfort in other ways. It is known that the poet, in his later life at least, was peculiarly fastidious in the article of snuff, abhorring all ordinary snuffs, and satisfied only with a mixture which he prepared himself; and it is not unlikely that the foundation of this fastidiousness may have been laid in the facilities afforded him originally in his brother-in-law's shop. The tobacconist's wife, of course, would be pleased now and then to have a visit from her brother John; but whether Lady Elizabeth ever went to see her is rather doubtful. According to all accounts, Dryden's experience of this lady was not such as to improve his ideas of the matrimonial state, or to give encouragement to future poets to marry earls' daughters.