United States or Taiwan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, in the Strand. 4 vols. 8vo. The Poetical Works of John Dryden. His "Character of a Happy Warrior" , one of his noblest poems, has a dash of Dryden in it, still more his "Epistle to Sir George Beaumont ." He studied Dryden's versification before writing his "Lamia." On the Origin and Progress of Satire. See Johnson's counter-opinion in his life of Dryden.
Indeed all extrinsic songs in dialogue, however serious the theme, were considered 'Jigs'. A striking example would be the Song of the Spirits in Dryden's Tyrannic Love, Act iv. In Post-Restoration days a ballad sung in the streets by two persons was frequently called a Jig, presumably because it was a 'song in dialogue'. Numerous examples are to be found amongst the Roxburgh Ballads.
But the riot of emancipation could not last long, for the more tolerant society is of private vice, the more exacting will it be of public decorum, that excellent thing, so often the plausible substitute for things more excellent. By 1678 the public mind had so far recovered its tone that Dryden's comedy of "Limberham" was barely tolerated for three nights.
Fundamental, creative criticism like Sainte-Beuve's, Matthew Arnold's, Walter Pater's, like Dryden's, Brunetiere's, De Gourmont's, or Croce's will presumably come. The conditions, both of publication and of audience, are ripe for it now in the United States. But there is a good deal of spade work in the study of literature to be done first, and still more education of the reading American mind.
Nor is it the least important or the least attractive of Dryden's qualities, as a critic, that both the positive and the negative elements of the prevailing tendency both the determination to understand and the wish to bring all things under rule should make themselves felt so strongly and, on the whole, so harmoniously in his Essays.
These works were followed by his fine setting of Dryden's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," and Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso;" but it cannot be said that his pecuniary affairs were materially improved by their production.
That the Laureate was heavy-gaited in composition, taking five years to finish one comedy, that he was, on the other hand, too swift, trusting Nature rather than elaborate Art, that he was dull and unimaginative, that he was keen and remarkably sharp-witted, that he affected a profundity of learning of which he gave no evidences, that his plays were only less numerous than Dryden's, are other particulars we gather from conflicting witnesses of the period.
"When up the armed mountains of Dunbar He marched, and through deep Severn, ending war." "Thee, many ages hence, in martial verse Shall the English soldier, ere he charge, rehearse." On the whole, one is glad that Dryden's panegyric on the Protector was so poor. It was purely official verse-making. Had there been any feeling in it, there had been baseness in his address to Charles.
Edward Howard, one of Dryden's aristocratic brothers-in-law. Edward Howard is memorable for a couplet constantly quoted from his epic poem of The British Princes: A vest as admired Vortiger had on, Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won. Poor Howard has received the laughter of generations for representing Vortiger's grandsire as thus having stripped one who was bare already.
AQUILIUS. The first piece Catullus offers is his dedication it is to an author to whom I owe a grudge, and perhaps we all of us do. He has caused us some tears, and more visible marks, and I confess something like an aversion to his concise style. It is to Cornelius Nepos. How much more like a modern dedication, than one of Dryden's day, both as to length and matter. GRATIAN. Probatum est.
Word Of The Day