ACT V.--SCENE I.

_Enter_ CREON, ALCANDER, _and_ PYRACMON.

_Creon._ Thebes is at length my own; and all my wishes, Which sure were great as royalty e'er formed, Fortune and my auspicious stars have crowned. O diadem, thou centre of ambition, Where all its different lines are reconciled, As if thou wert the burning glass of glory!

_Pyr._ Might I be counsellor, I would intreat you To cool a little, sir; find out Eurydice; And, with the resolution of a man Marked out for greatness, give the fatal choice Of death or marriage.

_Alc._ Survey cursed OEdipus, As one who, though unfortunate, beloved, Thought innocent, and therefore much lamented By all the Thebans: you must mark him dead, Since nothing but his death, not banishment, Can give assurance to your doubtful reign.

_Cre._ Well have you done, to snatch me from the storm Of racking transport, where the little streams Of love, revenge, and all the under passions, As waters are by sucking whirlpools drawn, Were quite devoured in the vast gulph of empire. Therefore, Pyracmon, as you boldly urged, Eurydice shall die, or be my bride. Alcander, summon to their master's aid My menial servants, and all those whom change Of state, and hope of the new monarch's favour, Can win to take our part: Away.--What now? [_Exit_ ALCANDER.

_Enter_ HÆMON.

When Hæmon weeps, without the help of ghosts I may foretel there is a fatal cause.

_Hæm._ Is't possible you should be ignorant Of what has happened to the desperate king?

_Cre._ I know no more but that he was conducted Into his closet, where I saw him fling His trembling body on the royal bed; All left him there, at his desire, alone; But sure no ill, unless he died with grief, Could happen, for you bore his sword away.

_Hæm._ I did; and, having locked the door, I stood; And through a chink I found, not only heard, But saw him, when he thought no eye beheld him. At first, deep sighs heaved from his woful heart Murmurs, and groans that shook the outward rooms. And art thou still alive, O wretch! he cried; Then groaned again, as if his sorrowful soul Had cracked the strings of life, and burst away.

_Cre._ I weep to hear; how then should I have grieved, Had I beheld this wondrous heap of sorrow! But, to the fatal period.

_Hæm._ Thrice he struck, With all his force, his hollow groaning breast, And thus, with outcries, to himself complained:-- But thou canst weep then, and thou think'st 'tis well, These bubbles of the shallowest emptiest sorrow, Which children vent for toys, and women rain For any trifle their fond hearts are set on; Yet these thou think'st are ample satisfaction For bloodiest murder, and for burning lust: No, parricide! if thou must weep, weep blood; Weep eyes, instead of tears:--O, by the gods! 'Tis greatly thought, he cried, and fits my woes. Which said, he smiled revengefully, and leapt Upon the floor; thence gazing at the skies, His eye-balls fiery red, and glowing vengeance,-- Gods I accuse you not, though I no more Will view your heaven, till, with more durable glasses, The mighty soul's immortal perspectives, I find your dazzling beings: Take, he cried, Take, eyes, your last, your fatal farewel-view. Then with a groan, that seemed the call of death, With horrid force lifting his impious hands, He snatched, he tore, from forth their bloody orbs, The balls of sight, and dashed them on the ground.

_Cre._ A master-piece of horror; new and dreadful!

_Hæm._ I ran to succour him; but, oh! too late; For he had plucked the remnant strings away. What then remains, but that I find Tiresias, Who, with his wisdom, may allay those furies, That haunt his gloomy soul? [_Exit._

_Cre._ Heaven will reward Thy care, most honest, faithful,--foolish Hæmon! But see, Alcander enters, well attended.

_Enter_ ALCANDER, _attended._

I see thou hast been diligent.

_Alc._ Nothing these, For number, to the crowds that soon will follow; Be resolute, And call your utmost fury to revenge.

_Cre._ Ha! thou hast given The alarm to cruelty; and never may These eyes be closed, till they behold Adrastus Stretched at the feet of false Eurydice. But see, they are here! retire a while, and mark.

_Enter_ ADRASTUS, _and_ EURYDICE, _attended._

_Adr._ Alas, Eurydice, what fond rash man, What inconsiderate and ambitious fool, That shall hereafter read the fate of OEdipus, Will dare, with his frail hand, to grasp a sceptre?

_Eur._ 'Tis true, a crown seems dreadful, and I wish That you and I, more lowly placed, might pass Our softer hours in humble cells away: Not but I love you to that infinite height, I could (O wondrous proof of fiercest love!) Be greatly wretched in a court with you.

_Adr._ Take then this most loved innocence away; Fly from tumultuous Thebes, from blood and murder, Fly from the author of all villainies, Rapes, death, and treason, from that fury Creon: Vouchsafe that I, o'er-joyed, may bear you hence, And at your feet present the crown of Argos. [CREON _and attendants come up to him._

_Cre._ I have o'er-heard thy black design, Adrastus, And therefore, as a traitor to this state, Death ought to be thy lot: Let it suffice That Thebes surveys thee as a prince; abuse not Her proffered mercy, but retire betimes, Lest she repent, and hasten on thy doom.

_Adr._ Think not, most abject, most abhorred of men, Adrastus will vouchsafe to answer thee;-- Thebans to you I justify my love: I have addrest my prayer to this fair princess; But, if I ever meant a violence, Or thought to ravish, as that traitor did, What humblest adorations could not win, Brand me, you gods, blot me with foul dishonour, And let men curse me by the name of Creon!

_Eur._ Hear me, O Thebans, if you dread the wrath Of her whom fate ordained to be your queen; Hear me, and dare not, as you prize your lives, To take the part of that rebellious traitor. By the decree of royal OEdipus, By queen Jocasta's order, by what's more, My own dear vows of everlasting love, I here resign, to prince Adrastus' arms, All that the world can make me mistress of.

_Cre._ O perjured woman! Draw all; and when I give the word, fall on.-- Traitor, resign the princess, or this moment Expect, with all those most unfortunate wretches, Upon this spot straight to be hewn in pieces.

_Adr._ No, villain, no; With twice those odds of men, I doubt not in this cause to vanquish thee.-- Captain remember to your care I give My love; ten thousand, thousand times more clear, Than life or liberty.

_Cre._ Fall on, Alcander.-- Pyracmon you and I must wheel about For nobler game, the princess.

_Adr._ Ah, traitor, dost thou shun me? Follow, follow, My brave companions! see, the cowards fly! [_Exeunt fighting:_ CREON'S _Party beaten off by_ ADRASTUS.

_Enter_ OEDIPUS.

_OEdip._ O, 'tis too little this; thy loss of sight, What has it done? I shall be gazed at now The more; be pointed at, There goes the monster! Nor have I hid my horrors from myself; For, though corporeal light be lost for ever, The bright reflecting soul, through glaring optics, Presents in larger size her black ideas, Doubling the bloody prospect of my crimes; Holds fancy down, and makes her act again, With wife and mother:--Tortures, hell and furies! Ha! now the baleful offspring's brought to light! In horrid form, they rank themselves before me;-- What shall I call this medley of creation? Here one, with all the obedience of a son, Borrowing Jocasta's look, kneels at my feet, And calls me father; there, a sturdy boy, Resembling Laius just as when I killed him, Bears up, and with his cold hand grasping mine, Cries out, how fares my brother OEdipus? What, sons and brothers! Sisters and daughters too! Fly all, begone, fly from my whirling brain! Hence, incest, murder! hence, you ghastly figures! O Gods! Gods, answer; is there any mean? Let me go mad, or die.

_Enter_ JOCASTA.

_Joc._ Where, where is this most wretched of mankind, This stately image of imperial sorrow, Whose story told, whose very name but mentioned, Would cool the rage of fevers, and unlock The hand of lust from the pale virgin's hair, And throw the ravisher before her feet?

_OEdip._ By all my fears, I think Jocasta's voice!-- Hence fly; begone! O thou far worse than worst Of damning charmers! O abhorred, loathed creature! Fly, by the gods, or by the fiends, I charge thee, Far as the East, West, North, or South of heaven, But think not thou shalt ever enter there; The golden gates are barred with adamant, 'Gainst thee, and me; and the celestial guards, Still as we rise, will dash our spirits down.

_Joc._ O wretched pair! O greatly wretched we! Two worlds of woe!

_OEdip._ Art thou not gone then? ha! How darest thou stand the fury of the gods? Or comest thou in the grave to reap new pleasures?

_Joc._ Talk on, till thou mak'st mad my rolling brain; Groan still more death; and may those dismal sources Still bubble on, and pour forth blood and tears. Methinks, at such a meeting, heaven stands still; The sea, nor ebbs, nor flows; this mole-hill earth Is heaved no more; the busy emmets cease: Yet hear me on--

_OEdip._ Speak, then, and blast my soul.

_Joc._ O, my loved lord, though I resolve a ruin, To match my crimes; by all my miseries, 'Tis horror, worse than thousand thousand deaths, To send me hence without a kind farewell.

_OEdip._ Gods, how she shakes me!--stay thee, O Jocasta! Speak something ere thou goest for ever from me!

_Joc._ 'Tis woman's weakness, that I would be pitied; Pardon me then, O greatest, though most wretched. Of all thy kind! My soul is on the brink, And sees the boiling furnace just beneath: Do not thou push me off, and I will go, With such a willingness, as if that heaven With all its glory glowed for my reception.

_OEdip._ O, in my heart I feel the pangs of nature; It works with kindness o'er: give, give me way! I feel a melting here, a tenderness, Too mighty for the anger of the gods! Direct me to thy knees: yet, oh forbear, Lest the dead embers should revive. Stand off, and at just distance Let me groan my horrors!--here On the earth, here blow my utmost gale; Here sob my sorrows, till I burst with sighing; Here gasp and languish out my wounded soul.

_Joc._ In spite of all those crimes the cruel gods Can charge me with, I know my innocence; Know yours. 'Tis fate alone that makes us wretched, For you are still my husband.

_OEdip._ Swear I am, And I'll believe thee; steal into thy arms, Renew endearments, think them no pollutions, But chaste as spirits' joys. Gently I'll come, Thus weeping blind, like dewy night, upon thee, And fold thee softly in my arms to slumber. [_The Ghost of_ LAIUS _ascends by degrees, pointing at_ JOCASTA.

_Joc._ Begone, my lord! Alas, what are we doing? Fly from my arms! Whirlwinds, seas, continents, And worlds, divide us! O, thrice happy thou, Who hast no use of eyes; for here's a sight Would turn the melting face of mercy's self To a wild fury.

_OEdip._ Ha! what seest thou there?

_Joc._ The spirit of my husband! O, the gods! How wan he looks!

_OEdip._ Thou ravest; thy husband's here.

_Joc._ There, there he mounts In circling fire among the blushing clouds! And see, he waves Jocasta from the world!

_Ghost._ Jocasta, OEdipus. [_Vanish with thunder._

_OEdip._ What wouldst thou have? Thou knowest I cannot come to thee, detained In darkness here, and kept from means of death. I've heard a spirit's force is wonderful; At whose approach, when starting from his dungeon, The earth does shake, and the old ocean groans, Rocks are removed, and towers are thundered down; And walls of brass, and gates of adamant Are passable as air, and fleet like winds.

_Joc._ Was that a raven's croak, or my son's voice? No matter which; I'll to the grave and hide me. Earth open, or I'll tear thy bowels up. Hark! he goes on, and blabs the deed of incest.

_OEdip._ Strike then, imperial ghost; dash all at once This house of clay into a thousand pieces; That my poor lingering soul may take her flight To your immortal dwellings.

_Joc._ Haste thee, then, Or I shall be before thee. See,--thou canst not see! Then I will tell thee that my wings are on. I'll mount, I'll fly, and with a port divine Glide all along the gaudy milky soil, To find my Laius out; ask every god In his bright palace, if he knows my Laius, My murdered Laius!

_OEdip._ Ha! how's this, Jocasta? Nay, if thy brain be sick, then thou art happy. _Joc._ Ha! will you not? shall I not find him out? Will you not show him? are my tears despised? Why, then I'll thunder, yes, I will be mad, And fright you with my cries. Yes, cruel gods, Though vultures, eagles, dragons tear my heart, I'll snatch celestial flames, fire all your dwellings, Melt down your golden roofs, and make your doors Of crystal fly from off their diamond hinges; Drive you all out from your ambrosial hives, To swarm like bees about the field of heaven. This will I do, unless you show me Laius, My dear, my murdered lord. O Laius! Laius! Laius! [_Exit_ JOCASTA.

_OEdip._ Excellent grief! why, this is as it should be! No mourning can be suitable to crimes Like ours, but what death makes, or madness forms. I could have wished, methought, for sight again, To mark the gallantry of her distraction; Her blazing eyes darting the wandering stars, To have seen her mouth the heavens, and mate the gods, While with her thundering voice she menaced high, And every accent twanged with smarting sorrow; But what's all this to thee? thou, coward, yet Art living, canst not, wilt not find the road To the great palace of magnificent Death; Though thousand ways lead to his thousand doors, Which, day and night, are still unbarred for all. [_Clashing of Swords. Drums and Trumpets without._ Hark! 'tis the noise of clashing swords! the sound Comes near;--O, that a battle would come o'er me! If I but grasp a sword, or wrest a dagger, I'll make a ruin with the first that falls.

_Enter_ HÆMON, _with Guards._

_Hæm._ Seize him, and bear him to the western tower.-- Pardon me, sacred sir; I am informed That Creon has designs upon your life: Forgive me, then, if, to preserve you from him, I order your confinement.

_OEdip._ Slaves, unhand me!-- I think thou hast a sword;--'twas the wrong side. Yet, cruel Hæmon, think not I will live; He, that could tear his eyes out, sure can find Some desperate way to stifle this cursed breath: Or if I starve!--but that's a lingering fate; Or if I leave my brains upon the wall!-- The airy soul can easily o'er-shoot Those bounds, with which thou striv'st to pale her in. Yes, I will perish in despite of thee; And, by the rage that stirs me, if I meet thee In the other world, I'll curse thee for this usage. [_Exit._

_Hæm._ Tiresias, after him, and with your counsel, Advise him humbly: charm, if possible, These feuds within; while I without extinguish, Or perish in the attempt, the furious Creon; That brand which sets our city in a flame.

_Tir._ Heaven prosper your intent, and give a period To all our plagues. What old Tiresias can, Shall straight be done.--Lead, Manto, to the tower. [_Exeunt_ TIRESIAS _and_ MANTO.

_Hæm._ Follow me all, and help to part this fray, [_Trumpets again._ Or fall together in the bloody broil. [_Exeunt._

_Enter_ CREON _with_ EURYDICE; PYRACMON, _and his party, giving Ground to_ ADRASTUS.

_Cre._ Hold, hold your arms, Adrastus, prince of Argos! Hear, and behold; Eurydice is my prisoner.

_Adr._ What would'st thou, hell-hound?

_Cre._ See this brandished dagger; Forego the advantage which thy arms have won. Or, by the blood which trembles through the heart Of her, whom more than life I know thou lovest, I'll bury to the haft, in her fair breast, This instrument of my revenge.

_Adr._ Stay thee, damned wretch; hold, stop thy bloody hand!

_Cre._ Give order, then, that on this instant, now, This moment, all thy soldiers straight disband.

_Adr._ Away, my friends, since fate has so allotted; Begone, and leave me to the villain's mercy.

_Eur._ Ah, my Adrastus! call them, call them back! Stand there; come back! O, cruel barbarous men! Could you then leave your lord, your prince, your king, After so bravely having fought his cause, To perish by the hand of this base villain? Why rather rush you not at once together All to his ruin? drag him through the streets, Hang his contagious quarters on the gates; Nor let my death affright you.

_Cre._ Die first thyself, then.

_Adr._ O, I charge thee hold!-- Hence from my presence, all; he's not my friend That disobeys.--See, art thou now appeased? [_Exeunt Attendants._ Or is there aught else yet remains to do, That can atone thee? slake thy thirst of blood With mine; but save, O save that innocent wretch!

_Cre._ Forego thy sword, and yield thyself my prisoner.

_Eur._ Yet, while there's any dawn of hope to save Thy precious life, my dear Adrastus, Whate'er thou dost, deliver not thy sword; With that thou may'st get off, tho' odds oppose thee. For me, O fear not; no, he dares not touch me; His horrid love will spare me. Keep thy sword; Lest I be ravished after thou art slain.

_Adr._ Instruct me, gods, what shall Adrastus do?

_Cre._ Do what thou wilt, when she is dead; my soldiers With numbers will o'erpower thee. Is't thy wish Eurydice should fall before thee?

_Adr._ Traitor, no; Better that thou, and I, and all mankind, Should be no more.

_Cre._ Then cast thy sword away, And yield thee to my mercy, or I strike.

_Adr._ Hold thy raised arm; give me a moment's pause. My father, when he blest me, gave me this: My son, said he, let this be thy last refuge; If thou forego'st it, misery attends thee.-- Yet love now charms it from me; which in all The hazards of my life I never lost. 'Tis thine, my faithful sword; my only trust; Though my heart tells me that the gift is fatal. [_Gives it._

_Cre._ Fatal! yes, foolish love-sick prince, it shall: Thy arrogance, thy scorn, my wound's remembrance. Turn all at once the fatal point upon thee.-- Pyracmon to the palace; dispatch The king; hang Hæmon up, for he is loyal, And will oppose me.--Come, sir, are you ready?

_Adr._ Yes, villain, for whatever thou canst dare.

_Eur._ Hold, Creon, or through me, through me you wound.

_Adr._ Off, madam, or we perish both; behold I'm not unarmed, my poniard's in my hand; Therefore, away.

_Eur._ I'll guard your life with mine.

_Cre._ Die both, then; there is now no time for dallying. [_Kills_ EURYDICE.

_Eur._ Ah, prince, farewell! farewell, my dear Adrastus! [_Dies._

_Adr._ Unheard-of monster! eldest-born of hell! Down, to thy primitive flame. [_Stabs_ CREON.

_Cre._ Help, soldiers, help; Revenge me.

_Adr._ More; yet more; a thousand wounds! I'll stamp thee still, thus, to the gaping furies. [ADRASTUS _falls, killed by the soldiers._

_Enter_ HÆMON, _Guards, with_ ALCANDER _and_ PYRACMON _bound; the Assassins are driven off._

O Hæmon, I am slain; nor need I name The inhuman author of all villainies; There he lies gasping.

_Cre._ If I must plunge in flames, Burn first my arm; base instrument, unfit To act the dictates of my daring mind; Burn, burn for ever, O weak substitute Of that, the god, ambition. [_Dies._

_Adr._ She's gone;--O deadly marksman, in the heart! Yet in the pangs of death she grasps my hand; Her lips too tremble, as if she would speak Her last farewell.--O, OEdipus, thy fall Is great; and nobly now thou goest attended! They talk of heroes, and celestial beauties, And wondrous pleasures in the other world; Let me but find her there, I ask no more. [_Dies._

_Enter a Captain to_ HÆMON; _with_ TERESIAS _and_ MANTO.

_Cap._ O, sir, the queen Jocasta, swift and wild, As a robbed tygress bounding o'er the woods, Has acted murders that amaze mankind; In twisted gold I saw her daughters hang On the bed-royal, and her little sons Stabbed through the breasts upon the bloody pillows.

_Hæm._ Relentless heavens! is then the fate of Laius Never to be atoned? How sacred ought Kings' lives be held, when but the death of one Demands an empire's blood for expiation! But see! the furious mad Jocasta's here.

_Scene draws, and discovers_ JOCASTA _held by her women and stabbed in many places of her Bosom, her Hair dishevelled, her Children slain upon the Bed._

Was ever yet a sight of so much horror And pity brought to view!

_Joc._ Ah, cruel women! Will you not let me take my last farewell Of those dear babes? O let me run, and seal My melting soul upon their bubbling wounds! I'll print upon their coral mouths such kisses, As shall recal their wandering spirits home. Let me go, let me go, or I will tear you piece-meal. Help, Hæmon, help; Help, OEdipus; help, Gods; Jocasta dies.

_Enter_ OEDIPUS _above._

_OEdip._ I've found a window, and I thank the gods 'Tis quite unbarred; sure, by the distant noise, The height will fit my fatal purpose well.

_Joc._ What hoa, my OEdipus! see where he stands! His groping ghost is lodged upon a tower, Nor can it find the road. Mount, mount, my soul; I'll wrap thy shivering spirit in lambent flames; and so we'll sail.-- But see! we're landed on the happy coast; And all the golden strands are covered o'er With glorious gods, that come to try our cause. Jove, Jove, whose majesty now sinks me down, He, who himself burns in unlawful fires, Shall judge, and shall acquit us. O, 'tis done; 'Tis fixt by fate, upon record divine; And OEdipus shall now be ever mine. [_Dies._

_OEdip._ Speak, Hæmon; what has fate been doing there? What dreadful deed has mad Jocasta done?

_Hæm._ The queen herself, and all your wretched offspring, Are by her fury slain.

_OEdip._ By all my woes, She has outdone me in revenge and murder, And I should envy her the sad applause: But oh, my children! oh, what have they done? This was not like the mercy of the heavens, To set her madness on such cruelty: This stirs me more than all my sufferings, And with my last breath I must call you tyrants.

_Hæm._ What mean you, sir?

_OEdip._ Jocasta! lo, I come. O Laius, Labdacus, and all you spirits Of the Cadmean race, prepare to meet me, All weeping ranged along the gloomy shore; Extend your arms to embrace me, for I come. May all the gods, too, from their battlements, Behold and wonder at a mortal's daring; And, when I knock the goal of dreadful death, Shout and applaud me with a clap of thunder. Once more, thus winged by horrid fate, I come, Swift as a falling meteor; lo, I fly, And thus go downwards to the darker sky. [_Thunder. He flings himself from the Window: The Thebans gather about his Body._

_Hæm._ O prophet, OEdipus is now no more! O cursed effect of the most deep despair!

_Tir._ Cease your complaints, and bear his body hence; The dreadful sight will daunt the drooping Thebans, Whom heaven decrees to raise with peace and glory. Yet, by these terrible examples warned, The sacred Fury thus alarms the world:-- Let none, though ne'er so virtuous, great, and high, Be judged entirely blest before they die. [_Exeunt._

Footnotes: 1. Imitated from the commencement of the plague in the first book of the _Iliad_.

2. The story of the Sphinx is generally known: She was a monster, who delighted in putting a riddle to the Thebans, and slaying each poor dull Boeotian, who could not interpret it. OEdipus guessed the enigma, on which the monster destroyed herself for shame. Thus he attained the throne of Thebes, and the bed of Jocasta.

3. To _dare a lark_, is to fly a hawk, or present some other object of fear, to engage the bird's attention, and prevent it from taking wing, while the fowler draws his net:

Farewell, nobility; let his grace go forward, And dare us with his cap, like larks. _Henry VIII._ Act III. Scene II.

4. The carelessness of OEdipus about the fate of his predecessor is very unnatural; but to such expedients dramatists are often reduced, to communicate to their audience what must have been known to the persons of the drama.

5. _Start_ is here, and in p. 136, used for _started_, being borrowed from _sterte_, the old perfect of the verb.

6. It is a common idea, that falling stars, as they are called, are converted into a sort of jelly. "Among the rest, I had often the opportunity to see the seeming shooting of the stars from place to place, and sometimes they appeared as if falling to the ground, where I once or twice found a white jelly-like matter among the grass, which I imagined to be distilled from them; and hence foolishly conjectured, that the stars themselves must certainly consist of a like substance."

7. Serpens, serpentem vorans, fit draco. Peccata, peccatis superaddita, monstra fiunt. _Hieroglyphica animalium, per Archibaldum Simsonum Dalkethensis Ecclesiæ pastorem, p. 95._

8. The idea of this sacred grove seems to be taken from that of Colonus near Athens, dedicated to the Eumenides, which gives name to Sophocles's second tragedy. Seneca describes the scene of the incantation in the following lines:

_Est procul ab urbe lucus illicibus niger Dircæa circa vallis irriguæ loca. Cupressus altis exerens silvis caput Virente semper alligat trunco nemus; Curvosque tendit quercus et putres situ Annosa ramos: hujus abrupit latus Edax vetustas: illa jam fessa cadens Radice, fulta pendet aliena trabe. Amara baccas laurus; et tiliæ leves Et Paphia myrtus; et per immensum mare Motura remos alnus; et Phoebo obvia Enode Zephyris pinus opponens latus. Medio stat ingens arbor, atque umbra gravi Silvas minores urget; et magno ambitu Diffusa ramos, una defendit nemus. Tristis sub illa, lucis et Phoebi inscius Restagnat humor, frigore æterno rigens. Limosa pigrum circuit fontem palus. Actus Tertius. Scena prima._

This diffuse account of the different kinds of forest trees, which composed the enchanted grove, is very inartificially put into the mouth of Creon, who, notwithstanding the horrible message which he has to deliver to OEdipus from the ghost, finds time to solace the king with this long description of a place, which he doubtless knew as well as Creon himself. Dryden, on the contrary, has, with great address, rendered the description necessary, by the violence committed within the sacred precinct, and turned it, not upon minute and rhetorical detail, but upon the general awful properties of this consecrated ground. Lucan's fine description of the Massyllian forest, and that of the enchanted grove in Tasso, have been both consulted by our author.]

9. The quarrel betwixt OEdipus and the prophet, who announces his guilt, is imitated from a similar scene in the OEdipus Tyrannus.

10. Borrowed from Shakespeare;

And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change. _Richard II._

EPILOGUE.

What Sophocles could undertake alone, Our poets found a work for more than one; And therefore two lay tugging at the piece, With all their force, to draw the ponderous mass from Greece; A weight that bent even Seneca's strong muse, And which Corneille's shoulders did refuse. So hard it is the Athenian harp to string! So much two consuls yield to one just king. Terror and pity this whole poem sway; The mightiest machines that can mount a play. How heavy will those vulgar souls be found, Whom two such engines cannot move from ground! When Greece and Rome have smiled upon this birth, You can but damn for one poor spot of earth; And when your children find your judgment such, They'll scorn their sires, and wish themselves born Dutch; Each haughty poet will infer with ease, How much his wit must under-write to please. As some strong churl would, brandishing, advance The monumental sword that conquered France; So you, by judging this, your judgment teach, Thus far you like, that is, thus far you reach. Since then the vote of full two thousand years Has crowned this plot, and all the dead are theirs, Think it a debt you pay, not alms you give, And, in your own defence, let this play live. Think them not vain, when Sophocles is shown, To praise his worth they humbly doubt their own. Yet as weak states each other's power assure, Weak poets by conjunction are secure. Their treat is what your palates relish most, Charm! song! and show! a murder and a ghost! We know not what you can desire or hope, To please you more, but burning of a Pope.[1]

Footnote: 1. The burning a Pope in effigy, was a ceremony performed upon the anniversary of queen Elizabeth's coronation. When parties ran high betwixt the courtiers and opposition, in the latter part of Charles the II. reign, these anti-papal solemnities were conducted by the latter, with great state and expence, and employed as engines to excite the popular resentment against the duke of York, and his religion. The following curious description of one of these tumultuary processions, in 1679, was extracted by Ralph, from a very scarce pamphlet; it is the ceremony referred to in the epilogue; and it shall be given at length, as the subject is frequently alluded to by Dryden.

"On the said 17th of November, 1679, the bells, generally, about the town, began to ring at three o'clock in the morning. At the approach of the evening, (all things being in readiness) the solemn procession began, setting forth from Moregate, and so passed, first to Aldgate, and thence through Leadenhall-street, by the Royal Exchange, through Cheapside, and so to Temple-bar in the ensuing order, viz.

"1. Came six whifflers, to clear the way, in pioneer caps, and red waistcoats.

"2. A bellman ringing, and with a loud (but doleful) voice, crying out all the way, remember Justice Godfrey.

"3. A dead body, representing justice Godfrey, in a decent black habit, carried before a jesuit, in black, on horse-back, in like manner as he was carried by the assassins to Primrose Hill.

"4. Next after Sir Edmonbury, so mounted, came a priest in a surplice, with a cope embroidered with dead bones, skeletons, skulls, and the like, giving pardons very plentifully to all those who should murder protestants; and proclaiming it meritorious.

"5. Then a priest in black alone, with a great silver cross.

"6. Four carmelites, in white and black habits.

"7. Four grey-friars, in the proper habits of their order.

"8. Six jesuits, with bloody daggers.

"9. A concert of wind music.

"10. Four bishops, in purple, and lawn sleeves, with a golden crosier on their breast, and crosier-staves in their hands.

"11. Four other bishops, in _Pontificalibus_, with surplices, and rich embroidered copes, and golden mitres on their heads.

"12. Six cardinals, in scarlet robes and caps.

"13. The Pope's doctor, _i.e._ Wakeman,[a] with jesuits-powder in one hand, and an urinal in the other.

"14. Two priests in surplices, with two golden crosses.

"Lastly, The Pope, in a lofty, glorious pageant, representing a chair of state, covered with scarlet, richly embroidered and fringed, and bedecked with golden balls and crosses: At his feet a cushion of state, and two boys in surplices with white silk banners, and bloody crucifixes and daggers with an incense pot before them, censing his holiness, who was arrayed in a splendid scarlet gown, lined through with ermin, and richly daubed with gold and silver lace; on his head a triple crown of gold, and a glorious collar of gold and precious stones, St Peter's keys, a number of beads, agnus deis, and other catholic trumpery. At his back, his holiness's privy counsellor, the degraded Seraphim, (_anglice_ the devil,) frequently caressing, hugging, and whispering him, and oft times instructing him aloud to destroy his majesty, to forge a protestant plot, and to fire the city again, to which purpose he held an infernal torch in his hand.

"The whole procession was attended with 150 flambeaux and lights, by order; but so many more came in volunteers, as made up some thousands.

"Never were the balconies, windows, and houses more numerously lined, or the streets closer throng'd with multitudes of people, all expressing their abhorrence of Popery, with continual shouts and exclamations; so that 'tis modestly computed, that, in the whole progress, there could not be fewer than two hundred thousand spectators.

"Thus with a slow, and solemn state, they proceeded to Temple Bar; where with innumerable swarms, the houses seemed to be converted into heaps of men, and women, and children, for whose diversion there were provided great variety of excellent fireworks.

"Temple Bar being, since its rebuilding, adorned with four stately statues, viz. those of Queen Elizabeth and King James, on the inward, or eastern side, fronting the city; and those of King Charles the I. of blessed memory, and our present gracious sovereign, (whom God, in mercy to these nations, long preserve!) on the outside, facing towards Westminster; and the statue of Queen Elizabeth in regard to the day, having on a crown of gilded laurel, and in her hand a golden shield, with this motto inscribed: _The Protestant Religion, and Magna Charta_, and flambeaux placed before it. The Pope being brought up near thereunto, the following song, alluding to the posture of those statues, was sung in parts, between one representing the English Cardinal (_Howard_)[b] and others acting the people:

CARDINAL NORFOLK.

From York to London town we come, To talk of Popish ire, To reconcile you all to Rome, And prevent Smithfield fire.

PLEBEIANS.

Cease, cease, thou Norfolk Cardinal, See yonder stands Queen Bess; Who sav'd our souls from Popish thrall: O Queen Bess, Queen Bess, Queen Bess!

Your Popish plot, and Smithfield threat, We do not fear at all; For lo! beneath Queen Bess's feet, You fall, you fall, you fall.

"'Tis true, our King's on t'other side, A looking tow'rds Whitehall: But could we bring him round about; He'd counterplot you all.

"Then down with James, and set up Charles, On good Queen Bess's side; That all true Commons, Lords, and Earls, May wish him a fruitfull bride."

Now God preserve great Charles our King, And eke all honest men; And traitors all to justice bring: Amen, Amen, Amen.

"Then having entertained the thronging spectators for some time, with the ingenious fireworks, a vast bonfire being prepared, just over against the inner temple gate, his holiness, after some compliments and reluctancies, was decently toppled from all his grandeur, into the impartial flames; the crafty devil leaving his infallibilityship in the lurch, and laughing as heartily at his deserved ignominious end, as subtle jesuits do at the ruin of bigotted Lay Catholics, whom themselves have drawn in; or, as credulous Coleman's abettors did, when, with pretences of a reprieve at last gasp, they had made him vomit up his soul with a lye, and sealed his dangerous chops with a halter. This justice was attended with a prodigious shout, that might be heard far beyond Somerset-house; and 'twas believed the echo, by continued reverberations, before it ceased, reached _Scotland_, (the Duke was then there;) France, and even Rome, itself, damping them all with a dreadfull astonishment."

From a very rare broadside, in the collection made by Narcissus Luttrell.

Footnotes: a. Sir George Wakeman was physician to the queen, and a catholic. He was tried for the memorable Popish plot and acquitted, the credit of the witnesses being now blasted, by the dying declarations of those who suffered.

b. Philip, the 3d son of Henry Earl of Arundel, and brother to the Duke of Norfolk, created a Cardinal in 1675. He was a second cousin of Lady Elizabeth Howard, afterwards the wife of our poet.

* * * * *

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA:

OR,

TRUTH FOUND TOO LATE.

A

TRAGEDY.

_Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus, Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus._ HOR.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

The story of Troilus and Cressida was one of the more modern fables, engrafted, during the dark ages, on "the tale of Troy divine." Chaucer, who made it the subject of a long and somewhat dull poem, professes to have derived his facts from an author of the middle ages, called Lollius, to whom he often refers, and who he states to have written in Latin. Tyrwhitt disputes the existence of this personage, and supposes Chaucer's original to have been the _Philostrato dell' amorose fatiche de Troilo,_ a work of Boccacio. But Chaucer was never reluctant in acknowledging obligations to his contemporaries, when such really existed; and Mr Tyrwhitt's opinion seems to be successfully combated by Mr Godwin, in his "Life of Chaucer." The subject, whencesoever derived, was deemed by Shakespeare worthy of the stage; and his tragedy, of Troilus and Cressida, contains so many scenes of distinguished excellence, that it could have been wished our author had mentioned it with more veneration. In truth, even the partiality of an editor must admit, that on this occasion, the modern improvements of Dryden shew to very little advantage beside the venerable structure to which they have been attached. The arrangement of the plot is, indeed, more artificially modelled; but the preceding age, during which the infidelity of Cressida was proverbially current, could as little have endured a catastrophe turning upon the discovery of her innocence, as one which should have exhibited Helen chaste, or Hector a coward. In Dryden's time, the prejudice against this unfortunate female was probably forgotten, as her history had become less popular. There appears, however, something too nice and fastidious in the critical rule, which exacts that the hero and heroine of the drama shall be models of virtuous perfection. In the most interesting of the ancient plays we find this limitation neglected, with great success; and it would have been more natural to have brought about the catastrophe on the plan of Shakespeare 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. For the superior order, and regard to the unity of place, with which Dryden has new-modelled the scenes and entries, he must be allowed the full praise which he claims in the preface.

In the dialogue, considered as distinct from the plot, Dryden appears not to have availed himself fully of the treasures of his predecessor. He has pitilessly retrenched the whole scene, in the 3d act, between Ulysses and Achilles, full of the purest and most admirable moral precept, expressed in the most poetical and dignified language[1]. Probably this omission arose from Dryden's desire to simplify the plot, by leaving out the intrigues of the Grecian chiefs, and limiting the interest to the amours of Troilus and Cressida. But he could not be insensible to the merit of this scene, though he has supplied it by one far inferior, in which Ulysses is introduced, using gross flattery to the buffoon Thersites. In the latter part of the play, Dryden has successfully exerted his own inventive powers. The quarrelling scene between Hector and Troilus is very impressive, and no bad imitation of that betwixt Brutus and Cassius, with which Dryden seems to have been so much charmed, and which he has repeatedly striven to emulate. The parting of Hector and Andromache contains some affecting passages, some of which may be traced back to Homer; although the pathos, upon the whole, is far inferior to that of the noted scene in the Iliad, and destitute of the noble simplicity of the Grecian bard.

Mr Godwin has justly remarked, that the delicacy of Chaucer's ancient tale has suffered even in the hands of Shakespeare; but in those of Dryden it has undergone a far deeper deterioration. Whatever is coarse and naked in Shakespeare, has been dilated into ribaldry by the poet laureat of Charles the second; and the character of Pandarus, in particular, is so grossly heightened, as to disgrace even the obliging class to whom that unfortunate procurer has bequeathed his name. So far as this play is to be considered as an alteration of Shakespeare, I fear it must be allowed, that our author has suppressed some of his finest poetry, and exaggerated some of his worst faults.

Troilus and Cressida was published in 1679.

Footnote: 1. I need only recall to the reader's remembrance the following beautiful passage, inculcating the unabating energy necessary to maintain, in the race of life, the ground which has been already gained.

_Ulys._ Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes: These scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: Perséverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue: If you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost.-- Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er run and trampled on: Then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours: For time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; And with his arms out stretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles, And Farewel goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,-- That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds, Though they are made and moulded of things past; And give to dust, that is a little gilt, More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. The present eye praises the present object: Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax; Since things in motion sooner catch the eye, Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee, And still it might, and yet it may again, If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive, And case thy reputation in thy tent; Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves, And drave great Mars to faction.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

ROBERT,

EARL OF SUNDERLAND[1],

PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY-COUNCIL, &C.

MY LORD,

Since I cannot promise you much of poetry in my play, it is but reasonable that I should secure you from any part of it in my dedication. And indeed I cannot better distinguish the exactness of your taste from that of other men, than by the plainness and sincerity of my address. I must keep my hyperboles in reserve for men of other understandings. An hungry appetite after praise, and a strong digestion of it, will bear the grossness of that diet; but one of so critical a judgment as your lordship, who can set the bounds of just and proper in every subject, would give me small encouragement for so bold an undertaking. I more than suspect, my lord, that you would not do common justice to yourself; and, therefore, were I to give that character of you, which I think you truly merit, I would make my appeal from your lordship to the reader, and would justify myself from flattery by the public voice, whatever protestation you might enter to the contrary. But I find I am to take other measures with your lordship; I am to stand upon my guard with you, and to approach you as warily as Horace did Augustus:

_Cui malè si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus._

An ill-timed, or an extravagant commendation, would not pass upon you; but you would keep off such a dedicator at arms-end, and send him back with his encomiums to this lord, or that lady, who stood in need of such trifling merchandise. You see, my lord, what an awe you have upon me, when I dare not offer you that incense which would be acceptable to other patrons; but am forced to curb myself from ascribing to you those honours, which even an enemy could not deny you. Yet I must confess, I never practised that virtue of moderation (which is properly your character) with so much reluctancy as now: for it hinders me from being true to my own knowledge, in not witnessing your worth, and deprives me of the only means which I had left, to shew the world that true honour and uninterested respect which I have always paid you. I would say somewhat, if it were possible which might distinguish that veneration I have for you, from the flatteries of those who adore your fortune. But the eminence of your condition, in this particular, is my unhappiness; for it renders whatever I would say suspected. Professions of service, submissions, and attendance, are the practice of all men to the great; and commonly they, who have the least sincerity, perform them best; as they, who are least engaged in love, have their tongues the freest to counterfeit a passion. For my own part, I never could shake off the rustic bashfulness which hangs upon my nature; but, valuing myself at as little as I am worth, have been afraid to render even the common duties of respect to those who are in power. The ceremonious visits, which are generally paid on such occasions, are not my talent. They may be real even in courtiers, but they appear with such a face of interest, that a modest man would think himself in danger of having his sincerity mistaken for his design. My congratulations keep their distance, and pass no farther than my heart. There it is that I have all the joy imaginable, when I see true worth rewarded, and virtue uppermost in the world.

If, therefore, there were one to whom I had the honour to be known; and to know him so perfectly, that I could say, without flattery, he had all the depth of understanding that was requisite in an able statesman, and all that honesty which commonly is wanting; that he was brave without vanity, and knowing without positiveness; that he was loyal to his prince, and a lover of his country; that his principles were full of moderation, and all his counsels such as tended to heal, and not to widen, the breaches of the nation: that in all his conversation there appeared a native candour, and a desire of doing good in all his actions: if such an one, whom I have described, were at the helm; if he had risen by his merits, and were chosen out in the necessity and pressures of affairs, to remedy our confusions by the seasonableness of his advice, and to put a stop to our ruin, when we were just rolling downward to the precipice; I should then congratulate the age in which I live, for the common safety; I should not despair of the republic, though Hannibal were at the gates; I should send up my vows for the success of such an action, as Virgil did, on the like occasion, for his patron, when he was raising up his country from the desolations of a civil war:

_Hunc saltem everso juvenem succurrere seclo Ne, superi, prohibete._

I know not whither I am running, in this extacy which is now upon me: I am almost ready to re-assume the ancient rights of poetry; to point out, and prophecy the man, who was born for no less an undertaking, and whom posterity shall bless for its accomplishment. Methinks, I am already taking fire from such a character, and making room for him, under a borrowed name, amongst the heroes of an epic poem. Neither could mine, or some more happy genius, want encouragement under such a patron:

_Pollio amat nostram, quamvis sit rustica, musam._

But these are considerations afar off, my lord: the former part of the prophecy must be first accomplished; the quiet of the nation must be secured; and a mutual trust, betwixt prince and people, be renewed; and then this great and good man will have leisure for the ornaments of peace; and make our language as much indebted to his care, as the French is to the memory of their famous Richelieu[2]. You know, my lord, how low he laid the foundations of so great a work; that he began it with a grammar and a dictionary; without which all those remarks and observations, which have since been made, had been performed to as little purpose, as it would be to consider the furniture of the rooms, before the contrivance of the house. Propriety must first be stated, ere any measures of elegance can be taken. Neither is one Vaugelas sufficient for such a work[3]. It was the employment of the whole academy for many years; for the perfect knowledge of a tongue was never attained by any single person. The court, the college, and the town, must be joined in it. And as our English is a composition of the dead and living tongues, there is required a perfect knowledge, not only of the Greek and Latin, but of the old German, the French, and the Italian; and, to help all these, a conversation with those authors of our own, who have written with the fewest faults in prose and verse. But how barbarously we yet write and speak, your lordship knows, and I am sufficiently sensible in my own English. For I am often put to a stand, in considering whether what I write be the idiom of the tongue, or false grammar, and nonsense couched beneath that specious name of Anglicism; and have no other way to clear my doubts, but by translating my English into Latin, and thereby trying what sense the words will bear in a more stable language. I am desirous, if it were possible, that we might all write with the same certainty of words, and purity of phrase, to which the Italians first arrived, and after them the French; at least that we might advance so far, as our tongue is capable of such a standard. It would mortify an Englishman to consider, that from the time of Boccace and of Petrarch, the Italian has varied very little; and that the English of Chaucer, their contemporary, is not to be understood without the help of an old dictionary. But their Goth and Vandal had the fortune to be grafted on a Roman stock; ours has the disadvantage to be founded on the Dutch[4]. We are full of monosyllables, and those clogged with consonants, and our pronunciation is effeminate; all which are enemies to a sounding language. It is true, that to supply our poverty, we have trafficked with our neighbour nations; by which means we abound as much in words, as Amsterdam does in religions; but to order them, and make them useful after their admission, is the difficulty. A greater progress has been made in this, since his majesty's return, than, perhaps, since the conquest to his time. But the better part of the work remains unfinished; and that which has been done already, since it has only been in the practice of some few writers, must be digested into rules and method, before it can be profitable to the general. Will your lordship give me leave to speak out at last? and to acquaint the world, that from your encouragement and patronage, we may one day expect to speak and write a language, worthy of the English wit, and which foreigners may not disdain to learn? Your birth, your education, your natural endowments, the former employments which you have had abroad, and that which, to the joy of good men you now exercise at home, seem all to conspire to this design: the genius of the nation seems to call you out as it were by name, to polish and adorn your native language, and to take from it the reproach of its barbarity. It is upon this encouragement that I have adventured on the following critique, which I humbly present you, together with the play; in which, though I have not had the leisure, nor indeed the encouragement, to proceed to the principal subject of it, which is the words and thoughts that are suitable to tragedy; yet the whole discourse has a tendency that way, and is preliminary to it. In what I have already done, I doubt not but I have contradicted some of my former opinions, in my loose essays of the like nature; but of this, I dare affirm, that it is the fruit of my riper age and experience, and that self-love, or envy have no part in it. The application to English authors is my own, and therein, perhaps, I may have erred unknowingly; but the foundation of the rules is reason, and the authority of those living critics who have had the honour to be known to you abroad, as well as of the ancients, who are not less of your acquaintance. Whatsoever it be, I submit it to your lordship's judgment, from which I never will appeal, unless it be to your good nature, and your candour. If you can allow an hour of leisure to the perusal of it, I shall be fortunate that I could so long entertain you; if not, I shall at least have the satisfaction to know, that your time was more usefully employed upon the public. I am,

MY LORD,

Your Lordship's most Obedient, Humble Servant, JOHN DRYDEN.

Footnotes: 1. This was the famous Earl of Sunderland, who, being a Tory under the reign of Charles, a Papist in that of his successor, and a Whig in that of William, was a favourite minister of all these monarchs. He was a man of eminent abilities; and our author shews a high opinion of his taste, by abstaining from the gross flattery, which was then the fashionable stile of dedication.

2. Alluding to the institution of an academy for fixing the language, often proposed about this period.

3. Author of a treatise on the French language.

4. Dutch is here used generally for the High Dutch or German.

THE

PREFACE.

The poet Æschylus was held in the same veneration by the Athenians of after-ages, as Shakespeare is by us; and Longinus has judged, in favour of him, that he had a noble boldness of expression, and that his imaginations were lofty and heroic; but, on the other side, Quintilian affirms, that he was daring to extravagance. It is certain, that he affected pompous words, and that his sense was obscured by figures; notwithstanding these imperfections, the value of his writings after his decease was such, that his countrymen ordained an equal reward to those poets, who could alter his plays to be acted on the theatre, with those whose productions were wholly new, and of their own. The case is not the same in England; though the difficulties of altering are greater, and our reverence for Shakespeare much more just, than that of the Grecians for Æschylus. In the age of that poet, the Greek tongue was arrived to its full perfection; they had then amongst them an exact standard of writing and of speaking: the English language is not capable of such a certainty; and we are at present so far from it, that we are wanting in the very foundation of it, a perfect grammar. Yet it must be allowed to the present age, that the tongue in general is so much refined since Shakespeare's time, that many of his words, and more of his phrases, are scarce intelligible. And of those which we understand, some are ungrammatical, others coarse; and his whole style is so pestered with figurative expressions, that it is as affected as it is obscure. It is true, that in his latter plays he had worn off somewhat of the rust; but the tragedy, which I have undertaken to correct, was in all probability one of his first endeavours on the stage.

The original story was written by one Lollius a Lombard, in Latin verse, and translated by Chaucer into English; intended, I suppose, a satire on the inconstancy of women: I find nothing of it among the ancients; not so much as the name Cressida once mentioned. Shakespeare, (as I hinted) in the apprenticeship of his writing, modelled it into that play, which is now called by the name of "Troilus and Cressida," but so lamely is it left to us, that it is not divided into acts; which fault I ascribe to the actors who printed it after Shakespeare's death; and that too so carelessly, that a more uncorrected copy I never saw. For the play itself, the author seems to have begun it with some fire; the characters of Pandarus and Thersites, are promising enough; but as if he grew weary of his task, after an entrance or two, he lets them fall: and the latter part of the tragedy is nothing but a confusion of drums and trumpets, excursions and alarms. The chief persons, who give name to the tragedy, are left alive; Cressida is false, and is not punished. Yet, after all, because the play was Shakespeare's, and that there appeared in some places of it the admirable genius of the author, I undertook to remove that heap of rubbish under which many excellent thoughts lay wholly buried. Accordingly, I new modelled the plot, threw out many unnecessary persons, improved those characters which were begun and left unfinished, as Hector, Troilus, Pandarus, and Thersites, and added that of Andromache. After this, I made, with no small trouble, an order and connection of all the scenes; removing them from the places where they were inartificially set; and, though it was impossible to keep them all unbroken, because the scene must be sometimes in the city and sometimes in the camp, yet I have so ordered them, that there is a coherence of them with one another, and a dependence on the main design; no leaping from Troy to the Grecian tents, and thence back again, in the same act, but a due proportion of time allowed for every motion. I need not say that I have refined his language, which before was obsolete; but I am willing to acknowledge, that as I have often drawn his English nearer to our times, so I have sometimes conformed my own to his; and consequently, the language is not altogether so pure as it is significant. The scenes of Pandarus and Cressida, of Troilus and Pandarus, of Andromache with Hector and the Trojans, in the second act, are wholly new; together with that of Nestor and Ulysses with Thersites, and that of Thersites with Ajax and Achilles. I will not weary my reader with the scenes which are added of Pandarus and the lovers, in the third, and those of Thersites, which are wholly altered; but I cannot omit the last scene in it, which is almost half the act, betwixt Troilus and Hector. The occasion of raising it was hinted to me by Mr Betterton; the contrivance and working of it was my own. They who think to do me an injury, by saying, that it is an imitation of the scene betwixt Brutus and Cassius, do me an honour, by supposing I could imitate the incomparable Shakespeare; but let me add, that if Shakespeare's scene, or that faulty copy of it in "Amintor and Melantius," had never been, yet Euripides had furnished me with an excellent example in his "Iphigenia," between Agamemnon and Menelaus; and from thence, indeed, the last turn of it is borrowed. The occasion which Shakespeare, Euripides, and Fletcher, have all taken, is the same,--grounded upon friendship; and the quarrel of two virtuous men, raised by natural degrees to the extremity of passion, is conducted in all three, to the declination of the same passion, and concludes with a warm renewing of their friendship. But the particular ground-work which Shakespeare has taken, is incomparably the best; because he has not only chosen two of the greatest heroes of their age, but has likewise interested the liberty of Rome, and their own honours, who were the redeemers of it, in this debate. And if he has made Brutus, who was naturally a patient man, to fly into excess at first, let it be remembered in his defence, that, just before, he has received the news of Portia's death; whom the poet, on purpose neglecting a little chronology, supposes to have died before Brutus, only to give him an occasion of being more easily exasperated. Add to this, that the injury he had received from Cassius, had long been brooding in his mind; and that a melancholy man, upon consideration of an affront, especially from a friend, would be more eager in his passion, than he who had given it, though naturally more choleric. Euripides, whom I have followed, has raised the quarrel betwixt two brothers, who were friends. The foundation of the scene was this: The Grecians were wind-bound at the port of Aulis, and the oracle had said, that they could not sail, unless Agamemnon delivered up his daughter to be sacrificed: he refuses; his brother Menelaus urges the public safety; the father defends himself by arguments of natural affection, and hereupon they quarrel. Agamemnon is at last convinced, and promises to deliver up Iphigenia, but so passionately laments his loss, that Menelaus is grieved to have been the occasion of it, and, by a return of kindness, offers to intercede for him with the Grecians, that his daughter might not be sacrificed. But my friend Mr Rymer has so largely, and with so much judgment, described this scene, in comparing it with that of Melantius and Amintor, that it is superfluous to say more of it; I only named the heads of it, that any reasonable man might judge it was from thence I modelled my scene betwixt Troilus and Hector. I will conclude my reflections on it, with a passage of Longinus, concerning Plato's imitation of Homer: "We ought not to regard a good imitation as a theft, but as a beautiful idea of him who undertakes to imitate, by forming himself on the invention and the work of another man; for he enters into the lists like a new wrestler, to dispute the prize with the former champion. This sort of emulation, says Hesiod, is honourable, [Greek: Agathê d' eris esti Brotoisin]--when we combat for victory with a hero, and are not without glory even in our overthrow. Those great men, whom we propose to ourselves as patterns of our imitation, serve us as a torch, which is lifted up before us, to enlighten our passage, and often elevate our thoughts as high as the conception we have of our author's genius."

I have been so tedious in three acts, that I shall contract myself in the two last. The beginning scenes of the fourth act are either added or changed wholly by me; the middle of it is Shakespeare altered, and mingled with my own; three or four of the last scenes are altogether new. And the whole fifth act, both the plot and the writing, are my own additions.

But having written so much for imitation of what is excellent, in that part of the preface which related only to myself, methinks it would neither be unprofitable nor unpleasant to inquire how far we ought to imitate our own poets, Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their tragedies; and this will occasion another inquiry, how those two writers differ between themselves: but since neither of these questions can be solved, unless some measures be first taken, by which we may be enabled to judge truly of their writings, I shall endeavour, as briefly as I can, to discover the grounds and reason of all criticism, applying them in this place only to Tragedy. Aristotle with his interpreters, and Horace, and Longinus, are the authors to whom I owe my lights; and what part soever of my own plays, or of this, which no mending could make regular, shall fall under the condemnation of such judges, it would be impudence in me to defend. I think it no shame to retract my errors, and am well pleased to suffer in the cause, if the art may be improved at my expence: I therefore proceed to

THE GROUNDS OF CRITICISM IN TRAGEDY.

Tragedy is thus defined by Aristotle (omitting what I thought unnecessary in his definition). It is an imitation of one entire, great, and probable action; not told, but represented; which, by moving in us fear and pity, is conducive to the purging of those two passions in our minds. More largely thus: Tragedy describes or paints an action, which action must have all the properties above named. First, it must be one or single; that is, it must not be a history of one man's life, suppose of Alexander the Great, or Julius Cæsar, but one single action of theirs. This condemns all Shakespeare's historical plays, which are rather chronicles represented, than tragedies; and all double action of plays. As, to avoid a satire upon others, I will make bold with my own "Marriage A-la-mode," where there are manifestly two actions, not depending on one another; but in "OEdipus" there cannot properly be said to be two actions, because the love of Adrastus and Eurydice has a necessary dependence on the principal design into which it is woven. The natural reason of this rule is plain; for two different independent actions distract the attention and concernment of the audience, and consequently destroy the intention of the poet; if his business be to move terror and pity, and one of his actions he comical, the other tragical, the former will divert the people, and utterly make void his greater purpose. Therefore, as in perspective, so in tragedy, there must be a point of sight in which all the lines terminate; otherwise the eye wanders, and the work is false. This was the practice of the Grecian stage. But Terence made an innovation in the Roman: all his plays have double actions; for it was his custom to translate two Greek comedies, and to weave them into one of his, yet so, that both their actions were comical, and one was principal, the other but secondary or subservient. And this has obtained on the English stage, to give us the pleasure of variety.

As the action ought to be one, it ought, as such, to have order in it; that is, to have a natural beginning, a middle, and an end. A natural beginning, says Aristotle, is that which could not necessarily have been placed after another thing; and so of the rest. This consideration will arraign all plays after the new model of Spanish plots, where accident is heaped upon accident, and that which is first might as reasonably be last; an inconvenience not to be remedied, but by making one accident naturally produce another, otherwise it is a farce and not a play. Of this nature is the "Slighted Maid;" where there is no scene in the first act, which might not by as good reason be in the fifth. And if the action ought to be one, the tragedy ought likewise to conclude with the action of it. Thus in "Mustapha," the play should naturally have ended with the death of Zanger, and not have given us the grace-cup after dinner, of Solyman's divorce from Roxolana.

The following properties of the action are so easy, that they need not my explaining. It ought to be great, and to consist of great persons, to distinguish it from comedy, where the action is trivial, and the persons of inferior rank. The last quality of the action is, that it ought to be probable, as well as admirable and great. It is not necessary that there should be historical truth in it; but always necessary that there should be a likeness of truth, something that is more than barely possible; _probable_ being that which succeeds, or happens, oftener than it misses. To invent therefore a probability and to make it wonderful, is the most difficult undertaking in the art of poetry; for that, which is not wonderful, is not great; and that, which is not probable, will not delight a reasonable audience. This action, thus described, must be represented and not told, to distinguish dramatic poetry from epic: but I hasten to the end or scope of tragedy, which is, to rectify or purge our passions, fear and pity.

To instruct delightfully is the general end of all poetry. Philosophy instructs, but it performs its work by precept; which is not delightful, or not so delightful as example. To purge the passions by example, is therefore the particular instruction which belongs to tragedy. Rapin, a judicious critic, has observed from Aristotle, that pride and want of commiseration are the most predominant vices in mankind; therefore, to cure us of these two, the inventors of tragedy have chosen to work upon two other passions, which are, fear and pity. We are wrought to fear, by their setting before our eyes some terrible example of misfortune, which happened to persons of the highest quality; for such an action demonstrates to us, that no condition is privileged from the turns of fortune; this must of necessity cause terror in us, and consequently abate our pride. But when we see that the most virtuous, as well as the greatest, are not exempt from such misfortunes, that consideration moves pity in us, and insensibly works us to be helpful to, and tender over, the distressed; which is the noblest and most godlike of moral virtues, Here it is observable, that it is absolutely necessary to make a man virtuous, if we desire he should be pitied: we lament not, but detest, a wicked man; we are glad when we behold his crimes are punished, and that poetical justice is done upon him. Euripides was censured by the critics of his time, for making his chief characters too wicked; for example, Phædra, though she loved her son-in-law with reluctancy, and that it was a curse upon her family for offending Venus, yet was thought too ill a pattern for the stage. Shall we therefore banish all characters of villainy? I confess I am not of that opinion; but it is necessary that the hero of the play be not a villain; that is, the characters, which should move our pity, ought to have virtuous inclinations, and degrees of moral goodness in them. As for a perfect character of virtue, it never was in nature, and therefore there can be no imitation of it; but there are allays of frailty to be allowed for the chief persons, yet so that the good which is in them shall outweigh the bad, and consequently leave room for punishment on the one side, and pity on the other.

After all, if any one will ask me, whether a tragedy cannot be made upon any other grounds than those of exciting pity and terror in us;--Bossu, the best of modern critics, answers thus in general: That all excellent arts, and particularly that of poetry, have been invented and brought to perfection by men of a transcendent genius; and that, therefore, they, who practise afterwards the same arts, are obliged to tread in their footsteps, and to search in their writings the foundation of them; for it is not just that new rules should destroy the authority of the old. But Rapin writes more particularly thus, that no passions in a story are so proper to move our concernment, as fear and pity; and that it is from our concernment we receive our pleasure, is undoubted. When the soul becomes agitated with fear for one character, or hope for another; then it is that we are pleased in tragedy, by the interest which we take in their adventures.

Here, therefore, the general answer may be given to the first question, how far we ought to imitate Shakespeare and Fletcher in their plots; namely, that we ought to follow them so far only, as they have copied the excellencies of those who invented and brought to perfection dramatic poetry; those things only excepted, which religion, custom of countries, idioms of languages, &c. have altered in the superstructures, but not in the foundation of the design.

How defective Shakespeare and Fletcher have been in all their plots, Mr Rymer has discovered in his criticisms. Neither can we, who follow them, be excused from the same, or greater errors; which are the more unpardonable in us, because we want their beauties to countervail our faults. The best of their designs, the most approaching to antiquity, and the most conducing to move pity, is the "King and no King;" which, if the farce of Bessus were thrown away, is of that inferior sort of tragedies, which end with a prosperous event. It is probably derived from the story of OEdipus, with the character of Alexander the Great, in his extravagances, given to Arbaces. The taking of this play, amongst many others, I cannot wholly ascribe to the excellency of the action; for I find it moving when it is read. It is true, the faults of the plot are so evidently proved, that they can no longer be denied. The beauties of it must therefore lie either in the lively touches of the passion; or we must conclude, as I think we may, that even in imperfect plots there are less degrees of nature, by which some faint emotions of pity and terror are raised in us; as a less engine will raise a less proportion of weight, though not so much as one of Archimedes's making; for nothing can move our nature, but by some natural reason, which works upon passions. And, since we acknowledge the effect, there must be something in the cause.

The difference between Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their plottings, seems to be this; that Shakespeare generally moves more terror, and Fletcher more compassion: for the first had a more masculine, a bolder, and more fiery genius; the second, a more soft and womanish. In the mechanic beauties of the plot, which are the observation of the three unities, time, place, and action, they are both deficient; but Shakespeare most. Ben Jonson reformed those errors in his comedies, yet one of Shakespeare's was regular before him; which is, "The Merry Wives of Windsor." For what remains concerning the design, you are to be referred to our English critic. That method which he has prescribed to raise it, from mistake, or ignorance of the crime, is certainly the best, though it is not the only; for amongst all the tragedies of Sophocles, there is but one, OEdipus, which is wholly built after that model.

After the plot, which is the foundation of the play, the next thing to which we ought to apply our judgment, is the manners; for now the poet comes to work above ground. The ground-work, indeed, is that which is most necessary, as that upon which depends the firmness of the whole fabric; yet it strikes not the eye so much, as the beauties or imperfections of the manners, the thoughts, and the expressions.

The first rule which Bossu prescribes to the writer of an heroic poem, and which holds too by the same reason in all dramatic poetry, is to make the moral of the work; that is, to lay down to yourself what that precept of morality shall be, which you would insinuate into the people; as, namely, Homer's (which I have copied in my "Conquest of Granada,") was, that union preserves a commonwealth and discord destroys it. Sophocles, in his OEdipus, that no man is to be accounted happy before his death. It is the moral that directs the whole action of the play to one centre; and that action or fable is the example built upon the moral, which confirms the truth of it to our experience. When the fable is designed, then, and not before, the persons are to be introduced, with their manners, characters, and passions.

The manners, in a poem, are understood to be those inclinations, whether natural or acquired, which move and carry us to actions, good, bad, or indifferent, in a play; or which incline the persons to such or such actions. I have anticipated part of this discourse already, in declaring that a poet ought not to make the manners perfectly good in his best persons; but neither are they to be more wicked in any of his characters, than necessity requires. To produce a villain, without other reason than a natural inclination to villainy, is, in poetry, to produce an effect without a cause; and to make him more a villain than he has just reason to be, is to make an effect which is stronger than the cause.

The manners arise from many causes; and are either distinguished by complexion, as choleric and phlegmatic, or by the differences of age or sex, of climates, or quality of the persons, or their present condition. They are likewise to be gathered from the several virtues, vices, or passions, and many other common-places, which a poet must be supposed to have learned from natural philosophy, ethics, and history; of all which, whosoever is ignorant, does not deserve the name of poet.

But as the manners are useful in this art, they may be all comprised under these general heads: First, they must be apparent; that is, in every character of the play, some inclinations of the person must appear; and these are shown in the actions and discourse. Secondly, the manners must be suitable, or agreeing to the persons; that is, to the age, sex, dignity, and the other general heads of manners: thus, when a poet has given the dignity of a king to one of his persons, in all his actions and speeches, that person must discover majesty, magnanimity, and jealousy of power, because these are suitable to the general manners of a king[1]. The third property of manners is resemblance; and this is founded upon the particular characters of men, as we have them delivered to us by relation or history; that is, when a poet has the known character of this or that man before him, he is bound to represent him such, at least not contrary to that which fame has reported him to have been. Thus, it is not a poet's choice to make Ulysses choleric, or Achilles patient, because Homer has described them quite otherwise. Yet this is a rock, on which ignorant writers daily split; and the absurdity is as monstrous, as if a painter should draw a coward running from a battle, and tell us it was the picture of Alexander the Great.

The last property of manners is, that they be constant and equal, that is, maintained the same through the whole design: thus, when Virgil had once given the name of _pious_ to Æneas, he was bound to show him such, in all his words and actions through the whole poem. All these properties Horace has hinted to a judicious observer.--1. _Notandi sunt tibi mores;_ 2. _Aut famam sequere,_ 3. _aut sibi concenientia finge;_ 4. _Sercetur ad imum, qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet._

From the manners, the characters of persons are derived; for, indeed, the characters are no other than the inclinations, as they appear in the several persons of the poem; a character being thus defined,--that which distinguishes one man from another. Not to repeat the same things over again, which have been said of the manners, I will only add what is necessary here. A character, or that which distinguishes one man from all others, cannot be supposed to consist of one particular virtue, or vice, or passion only; but it is a composition of qualities which are not contrary to one another in the same person. Thus, the same man may be liberal and valiant, but not liberal and covetous; so in a comical character, or humour, (which is an inclination to this or that particular folly) Falstaff is a liar, and a coward, a glutton, and a buffoon, because all these qualities may agree in the same man; yet it is still to be observed, that one virtue, vice, and passion, ought to be shown in every man, as predominant over all the rest; as covetousness in Crassus, love of his country in Brutus; and the same in characters which are feigned.

The chief character or hero in a tragedy, as I have already shown, ought in prudence to be such a man, who has so much more of virtue in him than of vice, that he may be left amiable to the audience, which otherwise cannot have any concernment for his sufferings; and it is on this one character, that the pity and terror must be principally, if not wholly, founded: a rule which is extremely necessary, and which none of the critics, that I know, have fully enough discovered to us. For terror and compassion work but weakly when they are divided into many persons. If Creon had been the chief character in "OEdipus," there had neither been terror nor compassion moved; but only detestation of the man, and joy for his punishment; if Adrastus and Eurydice had been made more appearing characters, then the pity had been divided, and lessened on the part of OEdipus. But making OEdipus the best and bravest person, and even Jocasta but an underpart to him, his virtues, and the punishment of his fatal crime, drew both the pity, and the terror to himself.

By what has been said of the manners, it will be easy for a reasonable man to judge, whether the characters be truly or falsely drawn in a tragedy; for if there be no manners appearing in the characters, no concernment for the persons can be raised; no pity or horror can be moved, but by vice or virtue; therefore, without them, no person can have any business in the play. If the inclinations be obscure, it is a sign the poet is in the dark, and knows not what manner of man he presents to you; and consequently you can have no idea, or very imperfect, of that man; nor can judge what resolutions he ought to take; or what words or actions are proper for him. Most comedies, made up of accidents or adventures, are liable to fall into this error; and tragedies with many turns are subject to it; for the manners can never be evident, where the surprises of fortune take up all the business of the stage; and where the poet is more in pain, to tell you what happened to such a man, than what he was. It is one of the excellencies of Shakespeare, that the manners of his persons are generally apparent; and you see their bent and inclinations. Fletcher comes far short of him in this, as indeed he does almost in every thing. There are but glimmerings of manners in most of his comedies, which run upon adventures; and in his tragedies, Rollo, Otto, the King and no King, Melantius, and many others of his best, are but pictures shown you in the twilight; you know not whether they resemble vice or virtue, and they are either good, bad, or indifferent, as the present scene requires it. But of all poets, this commendation is to be given to Ben Jonson, that the manners even of the most inconsiderable persons in his plays, are every where apparent.

By considering the second quality of manners, which is, that they be suitable to the age, quality, country, dignity, &c. of the character, we may likewise judge whether a poet has followed nature. In this kind, Sophocles and Euripides have more excelled among the Greeks than Æschylus; and Terence more than Plautus, among the Romans. Thus, Sophocles gives to OEdipus the true qualities of a king, in both those plays which bear his name; but in the latter, which is the "OEdipus Coloneus," he lets fall on purpose his tragic style; his hero speaks not in the arbitrary tone; but remembers, in the softness of his complaints, that he is an unfortunate blind old man; that he is banished from his country, and persecuted by his next relations. The present French poets are generally accused, that wheresoever they lay the scene, or in whatsoever age, the manners of their heroes are wholly French. Racine's Bajazet is bred at Constantinople; but his civilities are conveyed to him, by some secret passage, from Versailles into the seraglio. But our Shakespeare, having ascribed to Henry the Fourth the character of a king and of a father, gives him the perfect manners of each relation, when either he transacts with his son or with his subjects. Fletcher, on the other side, gives neither to Arbaces, nor to his king, in "The Maid's Tragedy," the qualities which are suitable to a monarch; though he may be excused a little in the latter, for the king there is not uppermost in the character; it is the lover of Evadne, who is king only in a second consideration; and though he be unjust, and has other faults which shall be nameless, yet he is not the hero of the play. It is true, we find him a lawful prince, (though I never heard of any king that was in Rhodes) and therefore Mr Rymer's criticism stands good,--that he should not be shown in so vicious a character. Sophocles has been more judicious in his "Antigona;" for, though he represents in Creon a bloody prince, yet he makes him not a lawful king, but an usurper, and Antigona herself is the heroine of the tragedy: but when Philaster wounds Arethusa and the boy; and Perigot his mistress, in the "Faithful Shepherdess," both these are contrary to the character of manhood. Nor is Valentinian managed much better; for, though Fletcher has taken his picture truly, and shown him as he was, an effeminate, voluptuous man, yet he has forgotten that he was an emperor, and has given him none of those royal marks, which ought to appear in a lawful successor of the throne. If it be enquired, what Fletcher should have done on this occasion; ought he not to have represented Valentinian as he was;--Bossu shall answer this question for me, by an instance of the like nature: Mauritius, the Greek emperor, was a prince far surpassing Valentinian, for he was endued with many kingly virtues; he was religious, merciful, and valiant, but withal he was noted of extreme covetousness, a vice which is contrary to the character of a hero, or a prince: therefore, says the critic, that emperor was no fit person to be represented in a tragedy, unless his good qualities were only to be shown, and his covetousness (which sullied them all) were slurred over by the artifice of the poet. To return once more to Shakespeare; no man ever drew so many characters, or generally distinguished them better from one another, excepting only Jonson. I will instance but in one, to show the copiousness of his invention; it is that of Caliban, or the monster, in "The Tempest." He seems there to have created a person which was not in nature, a boldness which, at first sight, would appear intolerable; for he makes him a species of himself, begotten by an incubus on a witch; but this, as I have elsewhere proved, is not wholly beyond the bounds of credibility, at least the vulgar still believe it. We have the separated notions of a spirit, and of a witch; (and spirits, according to Plato, are vested with a subtle body; according to some of his followers, have different sexes;) therefore, as from the distinct apprehensions of a horse, and of a man, imagination has formed a centaur; so, from those of an incubus and a sorceress, Shakespeare has produced his monster. Whether or no his generation can be defended, I leave to philosophy; but of this I am certain, that the poet has most judiciously furnished him with a person, a language, and a character, which will suit him, both by father's and mother's side: he has all the discontents, and malice of a witch, and of a devil, besides a convenient proportion of the deadly sins; gluttony, sloth, and lust, are manifest; the dejectedness of a slave is likewise given him, and the ignorance of one bred up in a desert island. His person is monstrous, and he is the product of unnatural lust; and his language is as hobgoblin as his person; in all things he is distinguished from other mortals. The characters of Fletcher are poor and narrow, in comparison of Shakspeare's; I remember not one which is not borrowed from him; unless you will except that strange mixture of a man in the "King and no King;" so that in this part Shakespeare is generally worth our imitation; and to imitate Fletcher is but to copy after him who was a copyer.

Under this general head of manners, the passions are naturally included, as belonging to the characters. I speak not of pity and of terror, which are to be moved in the audience by the plot; but of anger, hatred, love, ambition, jealousy, revenge, &c. as they are shown in this or that person of the play. To describe these naturally, and to move them artfully, is one of the greatest commendations which can be given to a poet: to write pathetically, says Longinus, cannot proceed but from a lofty genius. A poet must be born with this quality: yet, unless he help himself by an acquired knowledge of the passions, what they are in their own nature, and by what springs they are to be moved, he will be subject either to raise them where they ought not to be raised, or not to raise them by the just degrees of nature, or to amplify them beyond the natural bounds, or not to observe the crisis and turns of them, in their cooling and decay; all which errors proceed from want of judgment in the poet, and from being unskilled in the principles of moral philosophy. Nothing is more frequent in a fanciful writer, than to foil himself by not managing his strength; therefore, as, in a wrestler, there is first required some measure of force, a well-knit body and active limbs, without which all instruction would be vain; yet, these being granted, if he want the skill which is necessary to a wrestler, he shall make but small advantage of his natural robustuousness: so, in a poet, his inborn vehemence and force of spirit will only run him out of breath the sooner, if it be not supported by the help of art. The roar of passion, indeed, may please an audience, three parts of which are ignorant enough to think all is moving which is noisy, and it may stretch the lungs of an ambitious actor, who will die upon the spot for a thundering clap; but it will move no other passion than indignation and contempt from judicious men. Longinus, whom I have hitherto followed, continues thus:--If the passions be artfully employed, the discourse becomes vehement and lofty: if otherwise, there is nothing more ridiculous than a great passion out of season: and to this purpose he animadverts severely upon Æschylus, who writ nothing in cold blood, but was always in a rapture, and in fury with his audience: the inspiration was still upon him, he was ever tearing it upon the tripos; or (to run off as madly as he does, from one similitude to another) he was always at high-flood of passion, even in the dead ebb, and lowest water-mark of the scene. He who would raise the passion of a judicious audience, says a learned critic, must be sure to take his hearers along with him; if they be in a calm, 'tis in vain for him to be in a huff: he must move them by degrees, and kindle with them; otherwise he will be in danger of setting his own heap of stubble on fire, and of burning out by himself, without warming the company that stand about him. They who would justify the madness of poetry from the authority of Aristotle, have mistaken the text, and consequently the interpretation: I imagine it to be false read, where he says of poetry, that it is [Greek: Euphuous ê manikou], that it had always somewhat in it either of a genius, or of a madman. 'Tis more probable that the original ran thus, that poetry was [Greek: Euphuous ou manikou], That it belongs to a witty man, but not to a madman. Thus then the passions, as they are considered simply and in themselves, suffer violence when they are perpetually maintained at the same height; for what melody can be made on that instrument, all whose strings are screwed up at first to their utmost stretch, and to the same sound? But this is not the worst: for the characters likewise bear a part in the general calamity, if you consider the passions as embodied in them; for it follows of necessity, that no man can be distinguished from another by his discourse, when every man is ranting, swaggering, and exclaiming with the same excess: as if it were the only business of all the characters to contend with each other for the prize at Billingsgate; or that the scene of the tragedy lay in Bethlem. Suppose the poet should intend this man to be choleric, and that man to be patient; yet when they are confounded in the writing, you cannot distinguish them from one another: for the man who was called patient and tame, is only so before he speaks; but let his clack be set a-going, and he shall tongue it as impetuously and as loudly, as the arrantest hero in the play. By this means, the characters are only distinct in name; but, in reality, all the men and women in the play are the same person. No man should pretend to write, who cannot temper his fancy with his judgment: nothing is more dangerous to a raw horseman, than a hot-mouthed jade without a curb.

It is necessary therefore for a poet, who would concern an audience by describing of a passion, first to prepare it, and not to rush upon it all at once. Ovid has judiciously shown the difference of these two ways, in the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses: Ajax, from the very beginning, breaks out into his exclamations, and is swearing by his Maker,--_Agimus, proh Jupiter, inquit._ Ulysses, on the contrary, prepares his audience with all the submissiveness he can practise, and all the calmness of a reasonable man; he found his judges in a tranquillity of spirit, and therefore set out leisurely and softly with them, till he had warmed them by degrees; and then he began to mend his pace, and to draw them along with his own impetuousness: yet so managing his breath, that it might not fail him at his need, and reserving his utmost proofs of ability even to the last. The success, you see, was answerable; for the crowd only applauded the speech of Ajax;--

_Vulgique secutum ultima murmur erat:--_

But the judges awarded the prize, for which they contended, to Ulysses;

_Mota manus procerum est; et quid facundia posset Tum patuit, fortisque viri tulit arma disertus._

The next necessary rule is, to put nothing into the discourse, which may hinder your moving of the passions. Too many accidents, as I have said, incumber the poet, as much as the arms of Saul did David; for the variety of passions, which they produce, are ever crossing and justling each other out of the way. He, who treats of joy and grief together, is in a fair way of causing neither of those effects. There is yet another obstacle to be removed, which is,--pointed wit, and sentences affected out of season; these are nothing of kin to the violence of passion: no man is at leisure to make sentences and similes, when his soul is in an agony. I the rather name this fault, that it may serve to mind me of my former errors; neither will I spare myself, but give an example of this kind from my "Indian Emperor." Montezuma, pursued by his enemies, and seeking sanctuary, stands parleying without the fort, and describing his danger to Cydaria, in a simile of six lines;

As on the sands the frighted traveller Sees the high seas come rolling from afar, &c.

My Indian potentate was well skilled in the sea for an inland prince, and well improved since the first act, when he sent his son to discover it. The image had not been amiss from another man, at another time: _Sed nunc non erat his locus:_ he destroyed the concernment which the audience might otherwise have had for him; for they could not think the danger near, when he had the leisure to invent a simile.

If Shakespeare be allowed, as I think he must, to have made his characters distinct, it will easily be inferred, that he understood the nature of the passions: because it has been proved already, that confused passions make distinguishable characters: yet I cannot deny that he has his failings; but they are not so much in the passions themselves, as in his manner of expression: he often obscures his meaning by his words, and sometimes makes it unintelligible. I will not say of so great a poet, that he distinguished not the blown puffy stile, from true sublimity; but I may venture to maintain, that the fury of his fancy often transported him beyond the bounds of judgment, either in coining of new words and phrases, or racking words which were in use, into the violence of a catachresis. It is not that I would explode the use of metaphors from passion, for Longinus thinks them necessary to raise it: but to use them at every word, to say nothing without a metaphor, a simile, an image, or description; is, I doubt, to smell a little too strongly of the buskin. I must be forced to give an example of expressing passion figuratively; but that I may do it with respect to Shakespeare, it shall not be taken from any thing of his: it is an exclamation against Fortune, quoted in his Hamlet, but written by some other poet:

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! all you gods, In general synod, take away her power; Break all the spokes and felleys from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heav'n, As low as to the fiends.

And immediately after, speaking of Hecuba, when Priam was killed before her eyes:

But who, ah woe! had seen the mobled queen Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flame With bisson rheum; a clout about that head, Where late the diadem stood; and, for a rob About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins, A blanket in th' alarm of fear caught up. Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd 'Gainst fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd; But if the gods themselves did see her then, When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs, The instant burst of clamour that she made (Unless things mortal move them not at all) Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, And passion in the gods.

What a pudder is here kept in raising the expression of trifling thoughts! would not a man have thought that the poet had been bound prentice to a wheel-wright, for his first rant? and had followed a rag-man, for the clout and blanket, in the second? Fortune is painted on a wheel, and therefore the writer, in a rage, will have poetical justice done upon every member of that engine: after this execution, he bowls the nave down-hill, from heaven, to the fiends: (an unreasonable long mark, a man would think;) 'tis well there are no solid orbs to stop it in the way, or no element of fire to consume it: but when it came to the earth, it must be monstrous heavy, to break ground as low as the center. His making milch the burning eyes of heaven, was a pretty tolerable flight too: and I think no man ever drew milk out of eyes before him: yet, to make the wonder greater, these eyes were burning. Such a sight indeed were enough to have raised passion in the gods; but to excuse the effects of it, he tells you, perhaps they did not see it. Wise men would be glad to find a little sense couched under all these pompous words; for bombast is commonly the delight of that audience, which loves poetry, but understands it not: and as commonly has been the practice of those writers, who, not being able to infuse a natural passion into the mind, have made it their business to ply the ears, and to stun their judges by the noise. But Shakespeare does not often thus; for the passions in his scene between Brutus and Cassius are extremely natural, the thoughts are such as arise from the matter, the expression of them not viciously figurative. I cannot leave this subject, before I do justice to that divine poet, by giving you one of his passionate descriptions: 'tis of Richard the Second when he was deposed, and led in triumph through the streets of London by Henry of Bolingbroke: the painting of it is so lively, and the words so moving that I have scarce read any thing comparable to it, in any other language. Suppose you have seen already the fortunate usurper passing through the crowd, and followed by the shouts and acclamations of the people; and now behold King Richard entering upon the scene: consider the wretchedness of his condition, and his carriage in it; and refrain from pity, if you can:

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard: no man cry'd, God save him: No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home, But dust was thrown upon his sacred head, Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off, His face still combating with tears and smiles, (The badges of his grief and patience) That had not God (for some strong purpose) steel'd The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, And barbarism itself have pitied him.

To speak justly of this whole matter: it is neither height of thought that is discommended, nor pathetic vehemence, nor any nobleness of expression in its proper place; but it is a false measure of all these, something which is like them, and is not them: it is the Bristol-stone, which appears like a diamond; it is an extravagant thought, instead of a sublime one; it is roaring madness, instead of vehemence; and a sound of words, instead of sense. If Shakespeare were stripped of all the bombasts in his passions, and dressed in the most vulgar words, we should find the beauties of his thoughts remaining; if his embroideries were burnt down, there would still be silver at the bottom of the melting-pot: but I fear (at least let me fear it for myself) that we, who ape his sounding words, have nothing of his thought, but are all outside; there is not so much as a dwarf within our giant's clothes. Therefore, let not Shakespeare suffer for our sakes; it is our fault, who succeed him in an age which is more refined, if we imitate him so ill, that we copy his failings only, and make a virtue of that in our writings, which in his was an imperfection.

For what remains, the excellency of that poet was, as I have said, in the more manly passions; Fletcher's in the softer: Shakespeare writ better betwixt man and man; Fletcher, betwixt man and woman: consequently, the one described friendship better; the other love: yet Shakespeare taught Fletcher to write love: and Juliet and Desdemona are originals. It is true, the scholar had the softer soul; but the master had the kinder. Friendship is both a virtue and a passion essentially; love is a passion only in its nature, and is not a virtue but by accident: good nature makes friendship; but effeminacy love. Shakespeare had an universal mind, which comprehended all characters and passions; Fletcher a more confined and limited: for though he treated love in perfection, yet honour, ambition, revenge, and generally all the stronger, passions, he either touched not, or not masterly. To conclude all, he was a limb of Shakespeare.

I had intended to have proceeded to the last property of manners, which is, that they must be constant, and the characters maintained the same from the beginning to the end; and from thence to have proceeded to the thoughts and expressions suitable to a tragedy: but I will first see how this will relish with the age. It is, I confess, but cursorily written; yet the judgment, which is given here, is generally founded upon experience: but because many men are shocked at the name of rules, as if they were a kind of magisterial prescription upon poets, I will conclude with the words of Rapin, in his Reflections on Aristotle's Work of Poetry: "If the rules be well considered, we shall find them to be made only to reduce nature into method, to trace her step by step, and not to suffer the least mark of her to escape us: it is only by these, that probability in fiction is maintained, which is the soul of poetry. They are founded upon good sense, and sound reason, rather than on authority; for though Aristotle and Horace are produced, yet no man must argue, that what they write is true, because they writ it; but 'tis evident, by the ridiculous mistakes and gross absurdities, which have been made by those poets who have taken their fancy only for their guide, that if this fancy be not regulated, it is a mere caprice, and utterly incapable to produce a reasonable and judicious poem."

Footnote: 1. The _dictum_ of Rymer, concerning the royal prerogative in poetry, is thus expressed: "We are to presume the highest virtues, where we find the highest of rewards; and though it is not necessary that all heroes should be kings, yet, undoubtedly, all crowned heads, by poetical right, are heroes. This character is a flower; a prerogative so certain, so inseparably annexed to the crown, as by no parliament of poets ever to be invaded." _The Tragedies of the last Age considered,_ p. 61. Dryden has elsewhere given his assent to this maxim, that a king, in poetry, as in our constitution, can do no wrong. The only apology for introducing a tyrant upon the stage, was to make him at the same time an usurper.

PROLOGUE

SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON, REPRESENTING THE GHOST OF SHAKESPEARE.

See, my loved Britons, see your Shakespeare rise, An awful ghost confessed to human eyes! Unnamed, methinks, distinguished I had been From other shades, by this eternal green, About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive, And with a touch, their withered bays revive. Untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age, I found not, but created first the stage. And, if I drained no Greek or Latin store, 'Twas, that my own abundance gave me more. On foreign trade I needed not rely, Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply. In this my rough-drawn play, you shall behold Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold, That he who meant to alter, found 'em such, He shook, and thought it sacrilege to touch. Now, where are the successors to my name? What bring they to fill out a poet's fame? Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age; Scarce living to be christened on the stage! For humour farce, for love they rhyme dispense, That tolls the knell for their departed sense. Dulness might thrive in any trade but this: 'Twould recommend to some fat benefice. Dulness, that in a playhouse meets disgrace, Might meet with reverence, in its proper place. The fulsome clench, that nauseates the town, Would from a judge or alderman go down, Such virtue is there in a robe and gown! And that insipid stuff which here you hate, Might somewhere else be called a grave debate; Dulness is decent in the church and state. But I forget that still 'tis understood, Bad plays are best decried by showing good. Sit silent then, that my pleased soul may see A judging audience once, and worthy me; My faithful scene from true records shall tell, How Trojan valour did the Greek excell; Your great forefathers shall their fame regain, And Homer's angry ghost repine in vain[1].

Footnote: 1. The conceit, which our ancestors had adopted, of their descent from Brutus, a fugitive Trojan, induced their poets to load the Grecian chiefs with every accusation of cowardice and treachery, and to extol the character of the Trojans in the same proportion. Hector is always represented as having been treacherously slain.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

HECTOR, } _Sons of_ PRIAM. TROILUS, } PRIAM, _King of Troy._ ÆNEAS, _a Trojan Warrior._ PANDARUS, _Uncle to_ CRESSIDA. CALCHAS, _a Trojan Priest, and Father to_ CRESSIDA, _a fugitive to the Grecian camp._ AGAMEMNON, } ULYSSES, } ACHILLES, } AJAX, } _Grecian Warriors, engaged in the_ NESTOR, } _siege of Troy._ DIOMEDES, } PATROCLUS, } MENELAUS, } THERSITES, _a slanderous Buffoon._

CRESSIDA, _Daughter to_ CALCHAS. ANDROMACHE, _Wife to_ HECTOR.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA