a free admission; but while our argument was serviceable to their interests, they could boast that the theatres were true Protestant; and came insulting to the plays, when their own triumphs were represented. But let them now assure themselves that they can make the major part of no assembly, except it be of a meeting-house. Their tide of popularity is spent ; and the natural current of obedience is, in spite of them, at last prevalent. In which, my Lord, after the merciful providence of God, the unshaken resolution, and prudent carriage of the King, and the inviolable duty, and manifest innocence of his Royal Highness, the prudent management of the ministers is also most conspicuous. I am not particular in this commendation, because I am unwilling to raise envy to your lordship, who are too just, not to desire that praise should be communicated to others, which was the common endeavour and co-operation of all. It is enough, my lord, that your own part was neither obscure in it nor unhazardous. And if ever this excellent government, so well established by the wisdom of our forefathers, and so much shaken by the folly of this age, shall recover its ancient splendour, posterity cannot be so ungrateful as to forget those who, in the worst of times, have stood undaunted by their king and country, and, for the safeguard of both, have exposed themselves to the malice of false patriots, and the madness of an headstrong rabble. But since this glorious work is yet unfinished, and though we have reason to hope well of the success, yet the event depends on the unsearchable providence of Almighty God; it is no time to raise trophies, while the victory is in dispute; but every man, by your example, to contribute what is in his power to maintain so just a cause, on which depends the future settlement and prosperity of three nations. The pilot's prayer to Neptune was not amiss in the middle of the storm: "Thou mayest do with me, O Neptune, what thou pleasest, but I will be sure to hold fast the rudder." We are to trust firmly in the Deity, but so as not to forget, that he commonly works by second causes, and admits of our endeavours with his concurrence. For our own parts we are sensible, as we ought, how little we can contribute with our weak assistance. The most we can boast of is, that we are not so inconsiderable as to want enemies, whom we have raised to ourselves on no other account than that we are not of their number; and since that is their quarrel, they shall have daily occasion to hate us more. It is not, my lord, that any man delights to see himself pasquined and affronted by their inveterate scribblers; but, on the other side, it ought to be our glory, that themselves believe not of us what they write. Reasonable men are well satisfied for whose sakes the venom of their party is shed on us; because they see, that at the same time our adversaries spare not those to whom they owe allegiance and veneration. Their despair has pushed them to break those bonds; and it is observable that the lower they are driven, the more violently they write; as Lucifer and his companions were only proud when angels, but grew malicious when devils. Let them rail, since it is the only solace of their miseries, and the only revenge which, we hope, they now can take. The greatest and the best of men are above their reach; and, for our meanness, though they assault us like footpads in the dark, their blows have done us little harm; we yet live to justify ourselves in open day, to vindicate our loyalty to the government, and to assure your lordship, with all submission and sincerity, that we are your lordship's most obedient, faithful servants, JOHN DRYDEN. (From Dedication of The Duke of Guise.) DRYDEN AND HIS CRITICS THIS, I think, my lord, is a sufficient reproach to you; and should I carry it as far as mankind would authorise me, would be little less than satire. And indeed, a provocation is almost necessary, in behalf of the world, that you might be induced sometimes to write; and in relation to a multitude of scribblers, who daily pester the world with their insufferable stuff, that they might be discouraged from writing any more. I complain not of their lampoons and libels, though I have been the public mark for many years. I am vindictive enough to have repelled force by force, if I could imagine that any of them had ever reached me; but they either shot at rovers, and therefore missed, or their powder was so weak, that I might safely stand them at the nearest distance. I answered not the Rehearsal, because I knew the author sat to himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own farce; because also I knew that my betters were more concerned than I was in that satire; and, lastly, because Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson, the main pillars of it, were two such languishing gentlemen in their conversation, that I could liken them to nothing but to their own relations, those noble characters of men of wit and pleasure about the town. The like considerations have hindered me from dealing with the lamentable companions of their prose and doggrel. I am so far from defending my poetry against them, that I will not so much as expose theirs. And for my morals, if they are not proof against their attacks, let me be thought by posterity, what those authors would be thought, if any memory of them, or of their writings, could endure so long as to another age. But these dull makers of lampoons, as harmless as they have been to me, are yet of dangerous example to the public. Some witty men may perhaps succeed to their designs, and mixing sense with malice, blast the reputation of the most innocent amongst men, and the most virtuous amongst women. Heaven be praised, our common libellers are as free from the imputation of wit as of morality; and therefore whatever mischief they have designed, they have performed but little of it. Yet these ill writers, in all justice, ought themselves to be exposed; as Persius has given us a fair example in his first satire, which is levelled particularly at them; and none is so fit to correct their faults, as he who is not only clear from any in his own writings, but is also so just, that he will never defame the good; and is armed with the power of verse, to punish and make examples of the bad. (From Dedication to Juvenal.) DRYDEN AND COLLIER I SHALL say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove, that, in many places, he has perverted my meaning VOL. III M by his glosses, and interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were not guilty; besides, that he is too much given to horseplay in his raillery, and comes to battle like a dictator from the plough. I will not say "the zeal of God's house has eaten him up"; but I am sure it has devoured some part of his good manners and civility. It might also be doubted, whether it was altogether zeal which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding; perhaps, it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays: a divine might have employed his pains to better purpose, than in the nastiness of Plautus and Aristophanes, whose examples, as they excuse not me, so it might be possibly supposed, that he read them not without some pleasure. They, who have written commentaries on those poets, or on Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have explained some vices, which, without their interpretation, had been unknown in modern times. Neither has he judged impartially betwixt the former age and us. There is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher's, called The Custom of the Country, then in all ours together. Yet this has been often acted on the stage, in my remembrance. Are the times so much more reformed now, than they were five-and-twenty years ago? If they are, I congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow poets, though I abandon my own defence: they have some of them answered for themselves; and neither they nor I can think Mr. Collier so formidable an enemy, that we should shun him. He has lost ground. at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too far, like the Prince of Condé, at the battle of Senneph, from immoral plays, to no plays, ab abusu ad usum, non valet consequentia. But, being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge. As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels, that they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them. Blackmore and Milbourne are only distinguished from the crowd, by being remembered to their infamy: "Demetri, teque, Tigelli, Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.” (From Preface to the Fables.) CHAUCER He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners and humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation, in his age. Not a single character has escaped him. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished from each other; and not only in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies and persons. Baptista Porta could not have described their natures better, than by the marks which the poet gives them. The matter and manner of their tales, and of their telling, are so suited to their different education, humours, and callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity; their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearned, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learned. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different; the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook, are several men, and distinguished from each other as much as the mincing Lady Prioress, and the broadspeaking, gap-toothed wife of Bath. But enough of this; there is such a variety of game springing up before me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not what to follow. It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our forefathers and great grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of monks, and friars, and canons, and ladyabbesses, and nuns; for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered. May I have leave to do myself the justice (since my enemies will do me none, and are so far from granting me to be a good poet, that they will not allow me so much as to be a Christian, or a moral man), may I have leave, I say, to inform my reader, that I have confined my choice to such tales of Chaucer as savour nothing of immodesty. If I had desired more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the Sumner, and, above all, the wife of Bath, in the prologue to her tale, would have procured |