A Man must be deeply converfant in the Platonic Philofophy to deal with them: and therefore I may reasonably expect that no Poet of our Age will prefume to handle those Machines, for fear of difcovering his own Ignorance; or if he fhould, he might perhaps be ungrateful enough, not to own me for his Benefactor. After I have confess'd thus much of our modern Heroic Poetry, I cannot but conclude with Mr. Rym that our English Comedy is far beyond any thing of the Ancients. And notwithstanding our Irregularities, fo is our Tragedy. Shakespear had a Genius for it; and we know, in fpite of Mr. R, that Genius alone is a greater Virtue (if I may fo call it) than all other Qualifications put together. You fee what Succefs this learn ed Critic has found in the World, after his blafpheming Shakespear. Almost all the Faults which he has difcover'd are truly there; yet who will read Mr. Rym, or not read Shakespear? For my own Part, I reverence Mr. Rym's Learning, but I deteft his Ill-nature and his Arrogance. I indeed, and fuch as I, have Reason to be afraid of him, but Shakespear has not. There is another Part of Poetry in which the English stand almost upon an equal Foot with the Ancients; and 'tis that which we call Pindaric; introduced but not perfected by our famous Mr. Cowley and of this Sir, you are certainly one of the greatest Masters: you have the Sublimity of Senfe as well as Sound, and know how far the Boldness of a Poet may lawfully extend. I could with you would cultivate this kind of Ode, and reduce it either to the fame Measure which Pindar us'd, or give new Measures of your own. For, as it is, it looks like a vaft. Tract of Land G. 4 newly newly discover'd: the Soil is wonderfully fruitful, but unmanur'd, overstock'd with Inhabitants, but almoft all Savages, without Laws, Arts, Arms, or Policy. I remember poor Nat. Lee, who was then upon the Verge of Madness, yet made a fober and a witty Answer to a bad Poet, who told him, It was an eafy thing to write like a Mad-man. No, faid he, 'tis very difficult to write like a Mad-man; but 'tis a very eafy matter to write like a Fool. Otway and he are fafe by Death from all Attacks, but we poor Poets Militant (to ufe Mr. Cowley's Expreffion) are at the Mercy of wretched Scriblers; and when they cannot faften upon our Verfes, they fall upon our Morals, our Principles of State and Religion. For my Principles of Religion I will not justify them to you; I know yours are far different. For the fame Reafon, I fhall fay nothing of my Principles of State: I believe you in yours follow the Dictates of your Reason, as I in mine do thofe of my Confcience. If I thought myself in an Error, I would retract it; I am fure that I fuffer for them; and Milton makes even the Devil fay, that no Creature is in love with Pain. For my Morals betwixt Man and Man, I am not to be my own Judge; I appeal to the World if I have deceiv'd or defrauded any Man and for my private Converfation, they who fee me every Day can be the best Witneffes, whether or no it be blameless and inoffenfive. Hitherto I have no Reason to complain that Men of either Party fhun my Company. I have never been an inpudent Beggar at the Doors of Noblemen: My Vifits have indeed been too rare to be un acceptable, and but juft enough to teftify my Gratitude for their Bounty; which I have frequent ly ly receiv'd, but always unafk'd, as themselves will witnefs. I have written more than I needed to you on this Subject: for I dare fay, you juftify me to yourself. As for that which I first intended for the principal Subject of this Letter, which is my Friend's Paffion, and his Defign of Marriage, on better Confideration I have chang'd my Mind for having had the Honour to fee my dear Friend Wycherley's Letter to him on that Occafion, I find nothing to be added or amended. But as well as I love Mr. Wycherley, I confefs. I love myfelf fo well, that I will not fhew how much I am inferior to him in Wit and Judgment, by undertaking any thing after him: There is Mofes and the Prophets in his Council. Jupiter and Juno, as the Poets tell us, made Tirefias their Umpire, in a certain merry Difpute which fell out in Heaven betwixt them: Tirefias, you know, had been of both Sexes,and therefore was a proper Judge; our Friend Mr. Wycherley is full as competent an Arbitrator: he has been a Batchelor, and marry'd Man, and is now a Widower. Virgil says of Ceneus, Nunc Vir, nunc Foemina Geneus, Rurfus & in veterem fato revoluta figuram. Yet, I fuppofe, he will not give any large Commendations to his middle State; nor, as the Sailor faid, will be fond, after a Shipwreck, to put to Sea again. If my Friend will adventure after this, I can but with him a good Wind, as being his: and, My Dear Mr. Dennis, your most affectionate and most faithful Servant, JOHN DRYDEN. LETTER LXXXIII. Lady C to her Coufin W, after fhe bad received from him a Copy of Verfes on her Beauty. Coufin, Received yours with the Verfes inclos'd, and here return you my hearty Thanks for the Face, the Shape, the Mien, which you have fo generously beftow'd upon me. From looking upon your Verfes, I went to my Glafs: but, Jefu! the Difference! Tho' I bought it to flatter me, yet compar'd to you, found it a Plain-Dealer: it fhew'd me immediately, that I have been a great deal more beholden to you, than I have been to Nature; for fhe only form'd me not Frightful, but you have made me Divine.. But as you been a great deal kinder than Nature has been to me, I think my self oblig'd, in Requital, to be a good deal more liberal than Heaven has been to you, and to allow you as large a Stock of Wit as you have given me of Beauty: fince fo honeft a Gentleman as yourfelf has ftretch'd his Confcience to commend my Perfon, I am bound in Gratitude to do Violence to my Reason to extol your Verses. When I left the Town, I defir'd you to furnish me with the News of the Place, and the first thing I have receiv'd from you is a Copy of Verfes on my Beauty; by which you dextroufly infer, that the moft extraordinary Piece of News you can send me, is to tell me that I am handsome. By which ingenious Inference, you had infallibly brought the Scandal of a Wit upon you, if your Verfes had not ftood up in your Juftification. But tell me truly, Coufin, could you think that I fhould fhould prove fo eafy a Creature as to believe all that you have faid of me? How could you find in your Heart to make fuch a Fool of me, and fuch a Cheat on yourself, to intoxicate me with Flattery, and draw me in to truck my little Stock of Wit and Judgment for a meer Imagination of Beauty; when the real Thing too falls so infinitely fhort of what you would make me exchange for the very Fancy of it? For Coufin, there is this confiderable Difference between the Merit of Wit and Beauty; that Men are never violently influenc'd by Beauty, unless it has weaken'd their Reason; and never feel half the Force: of Wit, unless their Judgments are found. The principal Time in which those of your Sex admire Beauty in ours, is between Seventeen and Thirty; that is, after they are paft their Innoeence, and before they are come to their Judgment. And now, Coufin, have not you been commending a pretty Quality in me; to admire which, as I have juft fhewn you, fuppofes not only a corrupted Will, but a raw Understanding: Befides, how frail, how tranfitory is it! Nature deprives us of it at Thirty, if Diseases fpare it till then by which conftant Proceeding, fhe feems to imply, that the gives it us as a Geugaw to please us in the Childhood of our Reasons; and takes it from us, as a Thing below us, when we come to Years of Difcretion. Thus, Coufin, have you been commending a Quality in me,, which has nothing of true Merit in it, and of which I have no greater a Share, than to keep me from being scandalous. So that all I could have got by your Kindness, if I had parted with my Judgment, in order to reap the Benefit of it, bad been nothing but wretched Conceit, and ri diculous |