Part 36 (1/2)
We know that Dryden's several productions were so many successive expedients for his support; his plays were, therefore, often borrowed; and his poems were almost all occasional.
In an occasional performance no height of excellence can be expected from any mind, however fertile in itself, and however stored with acquisitions. He whose work is general and arbitrary has the choice of his matter, and takes that which his inclination and his studies have best qualified him to display and decorate. He is at liberty to delay his publication till he has satisfied his friends and himself, till he has reformed his first thoughts by subsequent examination, and polished away those faults which the precipitance of ardent composition is likely to leave behind it. Virgil is related to have poured out a great number of lines in the morning, and to have pa.s.sed the day in reducing them to fewer.
The occasional poet is circ.u.mscribed by the narrowness of his subject.
Whatever can happen to man has happened so often, that little remains for fancy or invention. We have been all born; we have most of us been married; and so many have died before us, that our deaths can supply but few materials for a poet. In the fate of princes the publick has an interest; and what happens to them of good or evil, the poets have always considered as business for the muse. But after so many inauguratory gratulations, nuptial hymns, and funeral dirges, he must be highly favoured by nature, or by fortune, who says any thing not said before.
Even war and conquest, however splendid, suggest no new images; the triumphal chariot of a victorious monarch can be decked only with those ornaments that have graced his predecessors.
Not only matter but time is wanting. The poem must not be delayed till the occasion is forgotten. The lucky moments of animated imagination cannot be attended; elegancies and ill.u.s.trations cannot be multiplied by gradual acc.u.mulation; the composition must be despatched, while conversation is yet busy, and admiration fresh; and haste is to be made, lest some other event should lay hold upon mankind. Occasional compositions may, however, secure to a writer the praise both of learning and facility; for they cannot be the effect of long study, and must be furnished immediately from the treasures of the mind.
The death of Cromwell was the first publick event which called forth Dryden's poetical powers. His heroick stanzas have beauties and defects; the thoughts are vigorous, and, though not always proper, show a mind replete with ideas; the numbers are smooth; and the diction, if not altogether correct, is elegant and easy.
Davenant was, perhaps, at this time, his favourite author, though Gondibert never appears to have been popular; and from Davenant he learned to please his ear with the stanza of four lines alternately rhymed.
Dryden very early formed his versification; there are in this early production no traces of Donne's or Jonson's ruggedness; but he did not so soon free his mind from the ambition of forced conceits. In his verses on the restoration, he says of the king's exile:
He, toss'd by fate, Could taste no sweets of youth's desir'd age, But found his life too true a pilgrimage.
And afterwards, to show how virtue and wisdom are increased by adversity, he makes this remark:
Well might the ancient poets then confer On night the honour'd name of counsellor: Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind, We light alone in dark afflictions find.
His praise of Monk's dexterity comprises such a cl.u.s.ter of thoughts unallied to one another, as will not elsewhere be easily found:
'Twas Monk, whom providence design'd to loose Those real bonds false freedom did impose.
The blessed saints that watch'd this turning scene Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean, To see small clues draw vastest weights along, Not in their bulk, but in their order strong.
Thus pencils can by one slight touch restore Smiles to that changed face that wept before.
With ease such fond chimeras we pursue.
As fancy frames for fancy to subdue; But, when ourselves to action we betake, It shuns the mint like gold that chymists make: How hard was then his task, at once to be What in the body natural we see!
Man's architect distinctly did ordain The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain, Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense The springs of motion from the seat of sense: 'Twas not the hasty product of a day, But the well-ripen'd fruit of wise delay.
He, like a patient angler, ere he strook, Would let them play awhile upon the hook.
Our healthful food the stomach labours thus, At first embracing what it straight doth crush.
Wise leeches will not vain receipts obtrude, While growing pains p.r.o.nounce the humours crude; Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill, Till some safe crisis authorize their skill.
He had not yet learned, indeed he never learned well, to forbear the improper use of mythology. After having rewarded the heathen deities for their care,
With Alga who the sacred altar strows?
To all the seaG.o.ds Charles an offering owes; A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain; A ram to you, ye tempests of the main.
He tells us, in the language of religion,
Pray'r storm'd the skies, and ravish'd Charles from thence, As heav'n itself is took by violence.
And afterwards mentions one of the most awful pa.s.sages of sacred history.
Other conceits there are, too curious to be quite omitted; as,
For by example most we sinn'd before, And, gla.s.s-like, clearness mix'd with frailty bore.