rate of poems. A similar lack of adaptability is noticed in his renderings of the Fables from Chaucer and Boccaccio; but their flowing ease of expression, the frequent recurrence of beautiful lines and striking images, and their freedom from the author's fault of occasional coarseness, make them most welcome illustrations of his poetical power.

Dryden's prose writings are numerous, and must have weight in determining our estimate of his ability and influence. They are in the forms of essays, prefaces, or dedications prefixed to his various works. He was the first enlightened critic who wrote in the English language; but in criticism as in poetry he was a development. Macaulay acutely remarks, that no man influenced his age so much as Dryden, because no man was so much influenced by his age. An Essay on Dramatic Poetry was the earliest statement of his critical system. Its general spirit is that of servile conformity to popular opinion; but its reasoning, albeit from false premises, is cogent. The style of his prose writing was admirable; his English was lively, vigorous, idiomatic, equally removed from mannerism and from carelessness.

Interesting discussions of Dryden's life and works may be found in Johnson's Lives of the Poets, Macaulay's Essays, Wilson's Essays (Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. LVII.), Reed's British Poets, Vol. I., Hazlitt's Works, Vol. IV., Part II., Sec. IV., Hallam's Literature of Europe, Vol. IV., North American Review, July, 1868, Taine's English Literature.

WE

CHAPTER XVI.

THE CORRUPT DRAMA.

HEN Dryden wrote for the stage, he degraded his talents, as we have seen, to the service of an immoral public. That same corrupt society debauched a company of brilliant men, younger than Dryden, who devoted themselves exclusively to dramatic composition. In aim and in manner they are so unlike the great playwrights of the preceding century that they are often spoken of as the authors of "The New Drama." The aim of Shakespeare and his comrades had been to portray nature and natural passion. Recognizing the fact that nature is infinitely complex, they had introduced comic scenes and characters into their tragedies, as they admitted elevated feeling and language into their comedies. In the new drama that followed the Restoration, an exaggerated, bombastic tragedy, on the one hand, was counterbalanced, on the other, by the comedy of artificial life. Material was drawn, not from nature, but from society. Declamation and pompous tirades displaced the old dialogue—a dialogue so varied, so natural, touching every key of human feeling. Wit usurped the province of humor; and the comic dramatists delineated, not character, but manners. They were apt in reflecting the spirit of their age; but they had no deep philosophic insight into human nature. Their works are a splendid revelation of the powers of the English language; yet few among them are capable of awakening a thrill of genuine sympathetic feeling. They do not deal with the springs of human passion and action; moreover there is an ingrained profligacy about them; and so, while they lack the one quality that would make them attractive, they display the spirit that makes them repulsive to the modern taste.

The works of Dryden may be regarded as the link connecting the older drama with the new.

William Wycherley (1640-1715) was the first of the comic dramatists who reproduced to the fullest extent the peculiar influences of his day. He received his education in the household of a French noble, and returned to England to become a brilliant figure in the society of London. His first comedy, Love in a Wood, was acted when he was thirty-two years old. The Gentleman Dancing-Master, The Country Wife, and The Plain Dealer followed at irregular intervals, the last one appearing in 1677; and these four plays are the only results of his dramatic work. He soon after lost the favor of the Court through an unfortunate marriage, and the remainder of his life was melancholy and ignoble. At the age of sixty-five he made a vain attempt to regain public admiration by means of a collection of poetical miscellanies; but being stained with all the immorality of his youthful productions, and redeemed by none of their intellectual brilliancy, the book fell dead upon the market.

The small number of Wycherley's dramatic works, as well as the style of their composition, indicates that he was neither very original in conception, nor capable of producing anything, save by patient labor and careful revision. The leading ideas of his two best comedies are derived from Molière. But Wycherley, infected with the corruption of his age, modified the data of the great French dramatist, and so changed what was pure as to outrage moral sensibility. Setting aside this ingrained fault, Wycherley's plots and characters reveal much ingenuity and humorous power. His plays are admirably adapted for representation. Frequent sudden transitions of the intrigue fascinate the attention without fatiguing it, and give rise to striking “situations," which are always treated with masterly comic effect. The dialogue is easy, vivacious, amusing, and its touches of witty satire are frequent. The Country Wife is generally pronounced to be the best of his comedies.

In the esteem of his contemporaries William Congreve (1669 *-1729) stood pre-eminent among the comic dramatists. He had the tastes of the man of fashion, with the talents of the man of letters; and his education at Trinity College, Dublin, gave hin

* The inscription on his monument says that he was born in 1672.

scholarship far superior to that of his rivals. Going to London to study law, his graces soon made him a favorite in fashionable circles. Between 1692 and 1700 he devoted the intervals of social dissipation to dramatic writing, and produced five plays,— The Old Bachelor (1693), The Double Dealer (1694), Love for Love (1695), The Mourning Bride (1697), and The Way of the World (1700). They were all received with favor by the public and by the critics. The brilliancy of the young author's talents won for him rich patronage. After the beginning of the eighteenth century he published only a volume of trifling miscellanies; but his reputation and prosperity continued to the end of his life. Successive ministers of the government vied with each other in granting him lucrative sinecures. He accumulated a large fortune, and commanded the society of wealth and of intellect. Dryden named him his successor in poetical supremacy, and Pope, in dedicating a translation of Homer, passed by powerful and illustrious patrons to recognize Congreve as the patriarch of letters. When he died, in 1729, he was honored with almost a national funeral.

Congreve's scenes are one incessant flash and sparkle of the finest repartee; and his wit, like all wit of the highest order, is invariably allied with shrewd sense and acute observation. He stands alone in his power of divesting this intellectual sword-play of every shade of formality. The conversations of his characters are accurate imitations of the conversation of fashionable life. This combination of exquisite naturalness and intellectual vivacity gives his style a charm attained by no other writer. His unvarying brilliancy involves certain corresponding faults. He falls into the error of making his fools and coxcombs as witty as their betters. His characters are without exception artificial-modeled on the plan of the men and women of society. Not one of his scenes is relieved by a breath of nature; indeed we have little intimation that he knew aught of either nature or simplicity. Love for Love is Congreve's masterpiece. Its characters are strikingly varied, and they relieve each other with unrelaxing spirit. Its intrigue, too, is effectively managed, and is better than that of any of his other .comedies. His one tragedy, The Mourning Bride, written in solemn and pompous strain, though rapturously applauded when first given to the public, has now no power of pleasing. Its scenes of distress cannot touch the heart; its lofty tirades cannot stir the

passions. What enchantment it has for the modern reader is found in the power and melody of its descriptive passages.

Another popular author of this school was Sir John Vanbrugh (Văn broo) (1666-1726), a famous architect. His dramatic talent is exhibited in five comedies,-The Relapse, The Provoked Wife, sop, The Confederacy, and The Provoked Husband. The first was acted in 1697; the last was left incomplete at the author's death. His fund of invention enables him to surpass either Wycherley or Congreve in developing a character or an incident to its full capacity for comic effect. His personages have an incurable habit of getting into difficulties, and inexhaustible ingenuity in getting out. All are sketched from life-swaggering fops, booby squires, pert chambermaids, and intriguing dames-and sketched with such vivacity as would make amends for any fault, save that of pervading coarseness and obscenity. The reader finds himself in bad company; for all the men are rascals, and none of the women are as good as they should be.

The comic drama of this generation found its last expression in the works of George Farquhar (1678-1708). He was an Irishman, who was dismissed from Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of eighteen, on account of some boyish irregularities. He then pursued the calling of an actor; but having accidentally inflicted a dangerous wound upon a comrade on the stage, he quitted his profession and entered the army. He soon entered the lists as a dramatist, and wrote his comedies in rapid succession. His literary career was crowded into ten years,—from 1698, when his first play was acted, until 1708, the date of his early death. His principal plays are, Love and a Bottle, The Constant Couple, The Inconstant, The Twin Rivals, The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux's Stratagem. His heroes are in sympathy with himself,-happy, hot-blooded, rattling fellows, whose madcap pranks are prompted by the rashness of youth. They are much given to deceptions and wanton tricks, but betray none of the vicious coarseness of Wycherley's villains, nor any of the refined rascality of Vanbrugh's sharpers. The Beaux's Stratagem was the last of his comedies, and is also considered the best. It is an entertaining and ingenious portrayal of the adventures of two gentlemen who went into the country