Part 16 (1/2)
10. SAMUEL BUTLER (+1612-1680+), the wittiest of English poets, was born at Strensham, in Worcesters.h.i.+re, in the year 1612, four years after the birth of Milton, and four years before the death of Shakespeare. He was educated at the grammar-school of Worcester, and afterwards at Cambridge-- but only for a short time. At the Restoration he was made secretary to the Earl of Carbery, who was then President of the Princ.i.p.ality of Wales, and steward of Ludlow Castle. The first part of his long poem called +Hudibras+ appeared in 1662; the second part in 1663; the third in 1678. Two years after, Butler died in the greatest poverty in London. He was buried in St Paul's, Covent Garden; but a monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey. Upon this fact Wesley wrote the following epigram:--
”While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, No generous patron would a dinner give; See him, when starved to death, and turned to dust, Presented with a monumental bust.
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,-- He asked for bread, and he received a stone.”
11. The +Hudibras+ is a burlesque poem,-- a long lampoon, a laboured caricature,-- in mockery of the weaker side of the great Puritan party.
It is an imaginary account of the adventures of a Puritan knight and his squire in the Civil Wars. It is choke-full of all kinds of learning, of the most pungent remarks-- a very h.o.a.rd of sentences and saws, ”of vigorous locutions and picturesque phrases, of strong, sound sense, and robust English.” It has been more quoted from than almost any book in our language. Charles II. was never tired of reading it and quoting from it--
”He never ate, nor drank, nor slept, But Hudibras still near him kept”--
says Butler himself.
The following are some of his best known lines:--
”And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn From black to red began to turn.”
”For loyalty is still the same, Whether it win or lose the game: True as the dial to the sun, Altho' it be not s.h.i.+n'd upon.”
”He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.”
12. JOHN DRYDEN (+1631-1700+), the greatest of our poets in the second rank, was born at Aldwincle, in Northamptons.h.i.+re, in the year 1631. He was descended from Puritan ancestors on both sides of his house. He was educated at Westminster School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge.
London became his settled abode in the year 1657. At the Restoration, in 1660, he became an ardent Royalist; and, in the year 1663, he married the daughter of a Royalist n.o.bleman, the Earl of Berks.h.i.+re. It was not a happy marriage; the lady, on the one hand, had a violent temper, and, on the other, did not care a straw for the literary pursuits of her husband. In 1666 he wrote his first long poem, the +Annus Mirabilis+ (”The Wonderful Year”), in which he paints the war with Holland, and the Fire of London; and from this date his life is ”one long literary labour.” In 1670, he received the double appointment of Historiographer-Royal and Poet-Laureate. Up to the year 1681, his work lay chiefly in writing plays for the theatre; and these plays were written in rhymed verse, in imitation of the French plays; for, from the date of the Restoration, French influence was paramount both in literature and in fas.h.i.+on. But in this year he published the first part of +Absalom and Achitophel+-- one of the most powerful satires in the language. In the year 1683 he was appointed Collector of Customs in the port of London-- a post which Chaucer had held before him. (It is worthy of note that Dryden ”translated” the Tales of Chaucer into modern English.) At the accession of James II., in 1685, Dryden became a Roman Catholic; most certainly neither for gain nor out of grat.i.tude, but from conviction. In 1687, appeared his poem of +The Hind and the Panther+, in which he defends his new creed. He had, a few years before, brought out another poem called +Religio Laici+ (”A Layman's Faith”), which was a defence of the Church of England and of her position in religion. In +The Hind and the Panther+, the Hind represents the Roman Catholic Church, ”a milk-white hind, unspotted and unchanged,” the Panther the Church of England; and the two beasts reply to each other in all the arguments used by controversialists on these two sides. When the Revolution of 1688 took place, and James II. had to flee the kingdom, Dryden lost both his offices and the pension he had from the Crown.
Nothing daunted, he set to work once more. Again he wrote for the stage; but the last years of his life were spent chiefly in translation. He translated pa.s.sages from Homer, Ovid, and from some Italian writers; but his most important work was the translation of the whole of Virgil's +aeneid+. To the last he retained his fire and vigour, action and rush of verse; and some of his greatest lyric poems belong to his later years.
His ode called +Alexander's Feast+ was written at the age of sixty-six; and it was written at one sitting. At the age of sixty-nine he was meditating a translation of the whole of Homer-- both the Iliad and the Odyssey. He died at his house in London, on May-day of 1700, and was buried with great pomp and splendour in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
13. His best satire is the +Absalom and Achitophel+; his best specimen of reasoning in verse is +The Hind and the Panther+. His best ode is his +Ode to the Memory of Mrs Anne Killigrew+. Dryden's style is distinguished by its power, sweep, vigour, and ”long majestic march.” No one has handled the heroic couplet-- and it was this form of verse that he chiefly used-- with more vigour than Dryden; Pope was more correct, more sparkling, more finished, but he had not Dryden's magnificent march or sweeping impulsiveness. ”The fire and spirit of the 'Annus Mirabilis,'” says his latest critic, ”are nothing short of amazing, when the difficulties which beset the author are remembered. The glorious dash of the performance is his own.” His prose, though full of faults, is also very vigorous. It has ”something of the lightning zigzag vigour and splendour of his verse.” He always writes clear, homely, and pure English,-- full of force and point.
Many of his most pithy lines are often quoted:--
”Men are but children of a larger growth.”
”Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He that would search for pearls must dive below.”
”The greatest argument for love is love.”
”The secret pleasure of the generous act, Is the great mind's great bribe.”
The great American critic and poet, Mr Lowell, compares him to ”an ostrich, to be cla.s.sed with flying things, and capable, what with leap and flap together, of leaving the earth for a longer or a shorter s.p.a.ce, but loving the open plain, where wing and foot help each other to something that is both flight and run at once.”
14. JEREMY TAYLOR (+1613-1667+), the greatest master of ornate and musical English prose in his own day, was born at Cambridge in the year 1613-- just three years before Shakespeare died. His father was a barber. After attending the free grammar-school of Cambridge, he proceeded to the University. He took holy orders and removed to London.
When he was lecturing one day at St Paul's, Archbishop Laud was so taken by his ”youthful beauty, pleasant air,” fresh eloquence, and exuberant style, that he had him created a Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford.
When the Civil War broke out, he was taken prisoner by the Parliamentary forces; and, indeed, suffered imprisonment more than once. After the Restoration, he was presented with a bishopric in Ireland, where he died in 1667.
15. Perhaps his best works are his +Holy Living+ and +Holy Dying+. His style is rich, even to luxury, full of the most imaginative ill.u.s.trations, and often overloaded with ornament. He has been called ”the Shakespeare of English prose,” ”the Spenser of divinity,” and by other appellations. The latter t.i.tle is a very happy description; for he has the same wealth of style, phrase, and description that Spenser has, and the same boundless delight in setting forth his thoughts in a thousand different ways. The following is a specimen of his writing. He is speaking of a s.h.i.+pwreck:--